1/60 Scale Battletech- Catapult

I’m back with a vengeance, and have another great build to share with y’all. Scott Murphy of Scott’s Messy Desk blog had one last Catapult in his inventory, which I was happy to purchase for a great price. This is a full resin kit with 20 pieces, and is simply a joy to put together. Although the model was shipped accidentally missing the upper leg pieces, Scott rectified the situation very quickly, and I appreciate both his quick shipping (even having to deal with customs between US and Canada) and his exceptional skill at casting these kits. A couple of the pieces were pre-primed before he sent them, but that’s not a problem for construction.

Now this Catapult is done in the style seen in Mechwarrior 4, marking it as a 3062 (Fedcom Civil War era) CPLT-C1 with 4 Medium Lasers and 2 LRM-15 launchers. I really love the Catapult design as a whole, and the MW4 variant is my favorite of all, with the slimmed-down frame, utilitarian aesthetics, and rugged construction.

Of course, I had to add my own personal touch to the miniature. After brainstorming a bit, I ended up settling on stowage. Stowage, in case anyone doesn’t know, is the baggage and ammunition and spare gear that is often strapped to fighting vehicles on the move. It was a common practice to stow fuel canisters, mess equipment, kit bags and the like on tanks and armored cars when military forces were on the move during World War 2. I took a similar idea for my Catapult. Although ‘mechs are different than tanks in a variety of ways, with moving limbs and standing much higher than the infantry they accompany, I decided it was nonetheless plausible for a disparate mercenary company or a long-range patrol force to use the heavy lifting power of their ‘mechs to carry extra gear. For it to make sense, I kept all of the baggage strapped to the ankle/foot armor plates, down where infantry can unload them once the convoy stops moving.

In addition to stowage on the legs, I rigged up a set of spare fuel/coolant tanks directly behind the

cockpit assembly, with a chain and winch system for loading and unloading. I think it gives the machine a very heavy duty appearance, perfect for a Catapult that needs to stick by supply lines anyway.

Lastly, I drilled out some holes behind the cockpit glass and inserted a pair of metal wires to work as radio antennas. I also added a pair of exhaust vents (all of these are old 40k bits, btw) to the upper hips, either as jump jets or heat sinks, whichever works better I suppose.

So who’s the mean machine going to fight for? Well…I did mention a disparate mercenary company. I was thinking Hansen’s Roughriders. I’m a big fan of this particular unit, and since they’re mercenaries, they fight for just about any cause imaginable, as long as the money is right- ideal for 28mm Battletech gaming, where at a tournament you could find your force facing any house or merc unit or clan imaginable. I’ll be starting on the painting job soon enough, i’ll need to order some new decals from Fighting Piranha Graphics so I can detail it.