Starport scum 2 - meet Splutinsen

Hello and welcome back, 

Time for another (not so) exciting instalment of Spaceport Scum. 

This here is Splutinsen, a clandestine contact for information and you know spy stuff. No one actually knows what he looks like as he is always wearing a space suit with a tinted visor leading to speculation that he might actually be an alien. This is reenforced by his odd look and shape.

All attempts to capture him has proven futile and he has never been cornered. Strangely he just seems to appear usually startling his contact.

Splutinsen is actually an polymorphic alien usually in the form of a green blob in his natural state (assuming of course a polymorphic alien blob has a sex). He can mimic any shape or fit through any hole at will. He is never armed because he can become any weapon at need. Splutinsen was in a heated space battle and his ship was hit sending out of control. The ship spun into a white hole and ended up in another Galaxy. It is possible that it may even be a different universe.

Lost and unable to return home Splutinsen discovered GELF space and eventually humanity. He keeps this shape as both human and GELF seem to like it. Splutinsen wanders the worlds taking spy information jobs (as humans have a need for a weird thing called money) looking for another worm hole in the hope he can return home. 

Splutinsen is a star link figure that came with on of their starships. I gave it a couple of washes and a quick touch up before mounting him on a base. I will use him as a contact in my 5 parsecs games. 

Thanks for looking. Stay safe out there.

Meet the HZD machines

Hello and welcome back. 

It’s tIme to see the rest of the Finished Horizon Zero Dawn board game machines by Steam Forged Games. These figures are fairly quick to paint but have really shallow details making them a bit of a challenge. We have already met the Watcher machines in the link below.

watcher machines here

The grazer is a smaller herd machine from the Horizon Zero Dawn universe. It grazes keeping grass & plant life down using two rotary blades on each antler. This action also turns & aerates soil to allow new seeds to take hold. Meanwhile the machine “digests” and processes some material to produce a highly flammable fluid which is stored in the canisters at the rear of the machine. 

The fluid is harvested somehow and used as a resource by the automated machine factories known as cauldrons. Tribal machine hunters want this fluid for starting fires, making bombs or traps.

Grazers are often seen in herds with watchers and the occasional saw tooth acting as a guardian. Hunters have problems with the rotary blades. 

Next up the Striders, one of my favourite machines from the game. The Strider is a herd machine and resemble horses. They give similar kick attacks as horses if provoked. The machines grazes keeping grass life down while  “digesting” and processing the grass to produce a highly flammable fluid which is stored in the canister at the rear of the machine. 

Like other resource gathering machines the fluid is harvested and used as a resource by the automated machine factories known as cauldrons. Tribal machine hunters want this fluid for starting fires, making bombs or traps. Certain hunters have the ability to over ride the programming of Striders and can use them as riding machines. 

The Scrappers are pack machines designed to recycle damaged or “dead” machines using grinders at their jaws. The scrappers are highly territorial and aggressive towards humans. Scrappers are equipped with a radar to detect movement and have a energy weapon in the mouth assembly making a pack quite a hazard if encountered.

Shell walkers are a crab like machine with a cargo pod on the back. They move resources generated by the machines to the cauldrons (automated machine factories).

Shell walkers are equipped with a powerful power claw, energy shield and a ballistic energy weapon. The shell walkers also charge and leap into combat. Like all machines in HZD the Shell Walkers are aggressive to humans and will attack on site. 

The Saw Tooth is a newer machine to the Horizon Zero Dawn world intended purely to hunt humans. It is a large armoured machine that prowls around the machine herds to protect them from human hunters. 

Equipped with fangs and claws the Saw Tooth makes similar attacks to a large cat. Despite its size the Saw Tooth is a agile combat machine.

While I come up with ideas to use the machines in my own game worlds I did run into this in the Zone Raider rule book (another hard Sci Fi post apocalyptic setting that really appeals to me).

“LIFEFORMS

Humans, Morlock and Intelligent Robot are not the only forms of life that frequent the numerous Megastrata. Variants of ancient timeless flora fill lush bio-domes, while part-flesh, part-machine beasts roam specialized sectors once dedicated to their creation and containment.

These creatures are at best a source of food, lubricants and other resources. At worst, they are predators to be carefully respected, such as great Technobeasts that stalk ancient overgrown biodomes. Well-established Survivor cultures may even cultivate their own plants, animals and mech-hybrids for their own uses.”

I am wondering if the HZD machines would serve as Technobeasts in the forgotten bio domes of the Zone Raider Matrioshka world (well not quite a world!) setting. 

I have read that there will be other machines from HZD released by Steam Forged Games in the future. So there is a chance there will be more machine posts. 

Thanks for looking, stay safe out there.

Harvester Immuncytes

Hello and welcome back,

I have always been drawn to the background and setting of the Zone Raiders game. For those that don’t know it is a hard Sci Fi post apocalyptic setting on a Matrioshka world (think immense artificial world/Uber super computer built around a Dyson sphere).

One of the perils of the setting is the  Immunocytes - machines created by the post humans to deal with sentient life in the Matrioshka. 

The main Immunocytes are the Harvesters which sound like the usual skelebots.

From the ZR rule book:

“Harvesters are the most commonly encountered Immunocyte. Usually humanoid in configuration, they act as sentries or roving hunters. Each one has a high-powered projectile weapon as well as inhumanly strong bladed thrusts to tear apart unfortunate lifeforms.

Harvesters are a common boogeyman in most cultures, distinguished by their wailing electronic screech upon spotting a fresh target. Wary Zone Raiders can sense their presence by the uneasy tingling of ionized radiation their bodies output when in hunter-killer mode.”

I found these cheap Necrons on eBay, assembled and painted. Saved me a job. As most of the Immunocytes are eons old I chose to age these Necrons. This was done by mixing bestial brown with dark brown wash. After a few applications I painted the eyes and sorted the bases. As the tunnels of  Matrioshka are ancient they are covered with dust and dirt so I chose this over a metal plate base.

Base wise I chose a typical Post Apocalyptic style as I also plan to use these on Mattblackgod’s world as another wasteland hazard. I like the thought of a bunch of salvagers wandering into a field of immobile killer skelebots hoping they don’t suddenly activate. 

Now I have to figure out machines for the Reaper Immunocytes.

Thanks for looking, take care out there.

Orc Boss

Hello and welcome back, 

Now it is time for a visit to my mythical world of Mytharth. 

I got this figure free with a order. I have a bunch of these old Grenadier Orcs from aeons ago, some of the first figures I ever bought. So it was nice to get the Boss for free. 

I guess a Orc warband is in the future of Mytharth. 

Thanks for looking. Take care out there. 

Sci Fi Dropship.

Hello and welcome back, we are off to the edge of human space. 

Every crew of Spacers need a drop ship to move stuff around the worlds they visit. It is always handy to have some fire support from time to time too. Ex dropships aren’t always easy or cheap to come by. 

This drop ship is a Hornet from the mantic game’s Warpath line. My aim was to build something that looks like it was found abandoned on a battlefield. Possibly lightly damaged or suffering from a some failure. Or maybe the crew had dismounted to be massacred. 

My idea is that this thing is used as a taxi and I wanted it to have a battered long suffering look. I added a couple of half spherical beads either side of the cockpit. The drop ship has been modified with a extensive sensor suite probably found on a crashed military search vehicle. A well informed crew makes better decisions. Who knows what other modifications are hidden under the hull panels? 

The more civilised worlds take affront at privately owned armed gunships whizzing about so the weapons can be easily removed by the crew before setting off. Not that they ever go to the more civilised worlds very often.

I have modelled the Hornet with the undercarriage down as this will be scenery in games more than a vehicle. Apart from maybe those “Get to the Choppa” escape scenarios (admit it, you read that in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice).

Thanks for looking, stay safe out there.