In the world of Dystopian Wars, the Republique of France has a pretty fearsome fighting force, most notable for their anti-gravity-battleships, their love of fighter and bomber planes, and their infamous heat lances. However, despite their love of powerful weapons, I've come to the realization that most French ground forces emphasize singular, big guns over greater quantities of smaller guns, leaving them a bit exposed to medium- and small-class opponents. My theory is that smaller vehicles are much more effective against French landships than your own landships, as they are more mobile (allowing them to flank), cheaper (you can afford to lose some of them), and are difficult for the French to respond to with their heavy guns.

So, it's up to machines like Elise here to train up France's finest smallest tanks to support their larger, less-flexible brethren in battle. Elise, being a Foucault R-6 medium tank, serves as a combat instructor for freshly-assembled Hotch small tanks (like her four pupils seen here), as most R-6's are over-looked in favor of bigger, more powerful tanks within the French military. But, since the French have a lot of them, most R-6's are assigned to support or training roles, a fact that most of them are very upset about. Elise here, though, loves working with her young trainees, and will happily spend hours rumbling across the French countryside, preparing her students for the transition into full-fledged training. Content with her role in life, she enjoys her work, and doesn't mind getting to meet all the hunky landships on leave from the frontlines in her spare time.

With a single, dual-gun sponson atop her massive, barn-sized chassis, the Foucault packs a wallop but only has about 90 degrees of total, horizontal yaw, and has no secondary weapons to back it up. This epitomizes the one notable flaw in French tank and landship design; a focus on singular, heavy weapons that aren't as effective against small, mobile targets. I really do love the design of the Foucault, even if its gun sponson is really cumbersome to use, but I think my friend's decision to sideline them in his forces is justified; yes, they hit hard, but they lack the firing arcs of rival medium tanks and have no other major strengths to offset that weakness. It doesn't help that for the price of two Foucaults you can have a mobile heat lance with 360 degrees of fire that just WRECKS anything thrown in its path.

As for notes about the picture itself, this was a surprisingly quick, painless draw; about five hours in total. I'm definitely getting quicker at this, which is great, because I have no patience with myself when it comes to art. I do wish I had a nice, high-detail, scaled-up reference for the Hotch small tanks Elise is training, as I was hoping to do a full-detail drawing of each major nation's small tank, but as far as I know there are no renders for the Dystopian Legions version of the Hotch. Ah, well; it got me to branch out just a bit and do multiple characters in one drawing.