Lego Set 25 — Locust

Like the Hatchetman from last week, the Locust was among the very first Lego-based BattleTech models I ever made. Because this happened before the Harebrained Schemes turn-based strategy game came around, and I wasn’t very familiar with MechWarrior Online, I based myself on the older art for the unit. This is part of what was once called the “Unseen” artwork for the units within BattleTech.

When what would be called BattleTech first appeared, it was called Battle Droids. It had some original art and the game system that essentially was what we know today as Classic BattleTech. However, the name irked the owners of Star Wars, and they sue for the right to use the word “Droid.” Unable to withstand a legal fight against George Lucas, FASA had to scramble to change their game enough to avoid that fate.

Thus, artwork was sourced from several Japanese anime shows and some changes enacted on the game and the lore to avoid future legal troubles. Thusly, BattleTech came to be. However, this wasn’t the end of the legal troubles.

You see, one of the shows sourced was Macross, distributed in the USA by Harmony Gold under the name of RoboTech. This reality led this other company to sue FASA for the right to the artwork, which started a legal battle that dragged for decades. Under this situation, the older anime-based designs were abandoned. Such famous ‘Mechs fell under this umbrella, like the Marauder, the Warhammer, the Archer, the Shadow Hawk, the Wolverine, the Phoenix Hawk, the Stinger, the Wasp, and also the Locust. They were now nicknamed the “unseen” by the fans, as they existed within the setting but had no useable artwork.

However, the designs associated with that artwork were already famous and dear among the community, so new art was eventually commissioned, but the lackluster quality of it never resonated with the players. The game and the setting would move along, eventually being acquired by Catalyst Game Labs. Under the new management, the issue with the old anime-based artwork was (hopefully) put to rest, and new new art was created to resurrect the older feel of these units. Hopefully, this is where things will remain for the foreseeable future.

This whole story has a lot of twists and turns and is arguably uncomfortable to go through, but you can read about it around the Internet. What I wrote here is but a very badly resumed version of it.

Why talk about it in this post, though? Well, like many fans, I first came into contact with the setting through the older fiction, which used the anime designs. The Locust was sourced from a show called Crusher Joe (which is amazing). I’d say the newer design is much better, but that first version stuck with me. Furthermore, this ‘Mech featured heavily in the novel Decision at Thunder Rift, by William H. Keith Jr, one of the first novels ever written for the setting. So, when I started making these models, I simply had to take inspiration from that source.

The model you see here is build using the colors of the famous Gray Death Legion, the mercenaries featured in the aforementioned novel. It uses 28 easy-to-find parts and it is relatively simple to build. It does stand well on its own, albeit it can easily fit on a 4x4 base.