...territory that the Draconis Combine guards jealously, but their culture as well. Great works of theory have been written on the need for and effect of their unifying "pseudo-Edo" sort of milieu, but the practical upshot of it is that foreign influence of any kind is nanban nonsense and need not apply. The ISF spend significant time rooting it out.

Now, to layer over this seal and prevent young servants of the Dragon from straying after such foreign thoughts, the coup was once hit upon in the 3010s to sap the contraband trade (there's always a trade in anything made illegal) by creating official contraband. A shadow system of manufacturers began drip-feeding the market media, goods and novelties that were just foreign enough to pull in the average buyer but would have been recognized outside the Combine as clearly phony. While still just 'subversive' enough to provide the rush of getting one's hands on forbidden stuff, they were being vetted by the Five Pillars to ensure no actual rebellious sentiments were spread.

This was going swimmingly, but even so, there were a few sharp types who recognized this stuff- and the more common this "contraband" became, the more they could charge for their genuine smuggled stuff. The extra layer was thus conceived around the 3030s to create another, even more secret like of official contraband- skirting the very edge of the O5P's limits of acceptable media production -and put it out on the market to soak up those too clever for the first layer.

Shiro, Avatar, Akuma, Grand Dragon, and Inferno. The Inferno is a new design, only available in metal so far from IWM. It does, however, speak to me in a nice kind of way.

Venom, Hitotsume-Kozo, Phoenix Hawk IIC, and Panther. The Hito is also only available from IWM, and it makes me wonder why they didn't go for it to round out the trio of Shiro/Hito/Roku.

Shadow Hawk IIC, Rokurokubi, Chimera, Griffin IIC. Speaking of the Roku, look at that little ankle biter. Played against one at the shop, and launched a Charger C at it for a 10 hex charge. 80 damage to that 35 ton mech and it didn't even break armor. Jesus christ.

Some glamour shots of the samurai trio. I am *especially* proud of those swords.

Wanted minis for lancer, ended up agonising about colour schemes for battletech (before settling on "unspecified Draconis Combine" and "Sea Wolf Tiburon Khanate"). First time really trying to properly use speed paints and whilst it wasn't the cleanest this time, holy shit did it help everything be *finished* whilst I was still enjoying painting that specific mini.

With a lot of questions that were probably a little exasperating at times, I've managed to learn to play now too. Though Cat did interrupt play.

It gets pretty long-winded in the shooting but that's kinda more fun than expected. Ofc I also learned that fast guys are really hard to hit and I should try using the bigger guys if anything was actually going to get a shot off and hit.