Warship Build 12 — Black Lion II Battlecruiser
Sometimes inspiration comes at the most unexpected times. This week I was thinking about posting something else. However, I had a sudden idea about how to make this ship happen, and couldn’t stop until I did so.
In lore, the Black Lion is a powerful battlecruiser developed after prior designs failed to meet expectations. Even centuries after entering service, such vessels are still powerful engines of war. However, because of the chaos of the Succession Wars, all surviving models are now in Clan service.
One thing the more knowing of you will notice is that the vessel here is not necessarily the original Black Lion as presented in the original lore. Instead, it represents the Clanner update. The design itself takes more from the Delranes Fighting Ships fan-made TRO I have mentioned before.
The same goes for the name. In lore, there is only one type of Black Lion, updated for the Clans. However, the Clanner update is vastly different from the original model — something that happens a lot in the official TROs.
However, the creator of the Delranes TRO, Steve Cross, once said that he prefers to see the better Clanner designs as the actual ones, especially given that the original artwork of many BattleTech ships is… poor. I do prefer this approach, especially given that the “updates” are vastly different from the original designs, making them wholly different ships if that was the case.
But the original design wasn’t completely ignored in Cross’ writeups. He envisioned two generations of Black Lion ships. The Block I would be an older ship, one of the failures that permeated the fleets of the Terra Hegemony as it grew in influence. This version uses art based on the original — and I hope to make a model of it eventually.
The Block I would be later superseded by the Black Lion Block II, the model you see here, which would resolve all the issues from its predecessor. This would also be the ship the Clans took for themselves, hence the different designs.
I do like this idea. It is elegant and makes the different visual cues make sense.
The idea for this model came because I am updating my real-life Lego models, and I wanted to have two big ships for the Clan fleet — the Aegis was already planned, but I wanted a different one. Then, the idea for this one popped into my mind and I ran with it.
It takes 75 parts, give or take, and is present in Clan Diamond Shark colors.
Hope you like it. Let me know your ideas.
