Which Wolf

A little plug for XL Zone 2022 charity game day coming up on Saturday, September 17th. One of the games we have going is an Alpha Strike table run by Austin Ramsay. You can get more info at www.extra-life.org/participant/palladion and follow along on Twitter or Facebook for event updates.

Continuing with Wolf’s Dragoons are the leaders of the famed mercenary group all the way up to 3073 during the Jihad.

Miniatures Painted by Les Mandeville

Jaime Wolf is the enigmatic leader of the Dragoons. He is depicted in several novels and game supplements–looking a lot like Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October in some of them. He was an easy–if somewhat predictable–choice for Wolf’s Dragoons imagery. His Archer is one of the more recognizable in the lore and I have made comments about it in a previous post.

The more important thing I wanted in this piece was to depict Maeve Wolf, Jaime’s clone. She has no illustrations I can find and the only real description is that she bears a strong resemblance to Jaime. So what does that actually look like…?

Wolf by A.E. Coggon

I have worked with Alexandra Coggon before on a couple of projects and she is always accommodating and great to work with. My main question to her was whether she had experience with ‘Mechs. As you can see, she knocked those out of the park. The preview sketches Alex provided were simply amazing. You will see more of her work in future KB Presents projects.

The Thunderbolt is just an awesome–oops, wording–Heavy ‘Mech. The 5S model of 3025 has 13 tons of armor, a decent LRM, Large Laser, triple Medium Lasers, and a few other small fry weapons. The problem, as usual, is the heat sinks. I prefer the 5SE version associated with the Eridani Light Horse, removes the small weapons, adds jumpers and heat sinks. It looks great as well: big, blocky, and mean. My only concern is the cockpit placement. Neurohelmets are supposed to take the MechWarrior’s sense of balance to help the ‘Mech, but how would your sense of balance be if your head was not centered on your body and neck?

Until next time MechWarriors!

More Dragoons to Come

Wow, I was not expecting such an outstanding response to the image of Wilhelmina. I know that the community can be pretty split on opinion about the Wolf’s Dragoons–love, hate, or dismissive–but I like their place in the lore, and obviously their camo scheme, to have my ‘Mechs painted in (some of) their colors. Several people in the community reached out and said the image prompted them to have their own illustrations done.

Jaime Wolf’s Archer

I feel like BattleTech has so much room for fan-based creations. A lot of people create and paint their own mercenary units, and the game history is specifically built to accept those creations as part of the overall story. People like seeing things added to canon. The game of BattleTech could easily be played without this additive element, but I feel it is a more immersive environment to call these units your own.

That long-winded paragraph done, what is next? The positive comments have prompted me add a few more illustrations to my list of ideas. No peeking yet, but I promise to share the results with the community as appropriate.

I have never found the Archer to be a compelling ‘Mech, Robotech nostalgia aside. In 3025 terms, it has too much firepower for too few heat sinks. You cannot even fire both LRMs without pushing the heat scale! However, it is very well armored at 13 tons and can defend it self close range with multiple Medium Lasers (again too much heat). The Dragoons have the 2W version which replaces armor and lasers with SRMs. The lostech version has pulse lasers to really dissuade someone trying to close underneath LRM range. I will probably need to play the Standard version a few more times before making a judgment call, but if was good enough for Morgan Kell and Jaime Wolf… then you need to be the best MechWarrior in the galaxy to use it!

Until next time MechWarriors!