Rusters!!

Hello and Welcome back, 

Rusters, meet the Rusters...Great, now I have the theme tune to the Flintstones going around my head just with the word Rusters in it. 

The Rusters are a faction of the Skrim game by @billmakingstuff. The best way to describe them is as a tribal faction with cultist overtones (they worship a giant robot wreck in the Rusty Peaks). According to Bill's lore they arrived on a cruise ship that crashed on Tapu aka "the Gutterlands" centuries ago. The tribals claim the rust covered lands are sacred. They cover themselves in home made rusty junk armour and bear home made or salvaged weapons. The Rusters and Colonials are often in conflict over territory. 

Like Bill's Rusters the bulk of my Rusters were made from Warlord black powder Woodland Indians. The armour is made from scraps of plastic card, bits of cut up plastic toy bullets, bits of vinyl beads, beads and other assorted bits. This force of Rusters took over a month to put together and paint. Cutting up scraps and adding them took quite some time. Pouches and skulls came from the bits box just to some extra detail. 

Some Rusters wear helmets that resemble the robot head they worship. According to Bill these are made from hollowed out artillery shells. Mine utilises the toy bullet tips as they are the ideal size and shape. 

The Ruster on the right had a helmet made from a plastic tubing cap with holes drilled in it. 

The weapons were cobbled together from the muskets and various bits from the bits box. Some scopes were made from bits. Axes were made from plastic card attached to the Woodland Indian clubs. 

This Ruster on the right has a old missle attached to a lance for those precision explosions, assuming the warhead isn't a dud. I hope he doesn't mind getting caught in the blast.

An old Grenadier Barbarian leader (from Forlone Hope) was selected to make a leader (right). I wanted a figure a bit bulkier to stand out from the rest of the Rusters. The hand left hand was in right position to add a firearm, in this case a GW Necromunda Orlock autogun. Like the others, he had a lot of armor added from scraps of plastic. Although I am not sure about the logic of using a large land mine as a peice of armor. I hope its a dud. A cloak made from some weird animal skin, was made from Greenstuff putty and added to make the figure stand out futher. 

I wanted a female figure, so I picked up a Amazon from Forlone Hope (left). Once the hair and head had been removed the conversion work was easy. The hardest part was building armor around the breast area. I didnt want to go down the Maddona cones route. 

The paint was mainly rust tones with some dry brushing and the odd detail picked out. I plumbed for light blue skintones to make the Ruster flesh pop against the rust. In Skrim they are aliens but in Post Apocalyptic games they could be mutants. 

The Rusters will be a useful Post Apocalyptic faction. I can see them being a third faction in the war between the Skrap Knights and Rustlords. Or maybe to use them as foot soldiers in either faction's Warbands. 

Thanks for looking, 

Take care out there.