Gallery: Robots, entire force

Warning: Those of you who've read my campaign setting are about to wonder what the heck I'm doing.

Let me explain. The campaign setting describes the world on which my little sci-fi campaign will play out. The major factors that shape the terrain and the main forces existent on Nusakan. But the campaign will take place in one or two specific locales set in that larger world. In those specific places, the broad stroke descriptions of the Xenos, Aridexion Solutions, mining concerns and colonists get much, much more specific. Individuals and their followers step out from the more generic masses, each with their own story.

And some new players, local to the sites of the story, show up.

I'm starting with one of those because...well, because they're the first figures I finished painting for the campaign.

Artificial Intelligences are common on Nusakan, and in the universe around it. They range for household aids and appliances to military grade independent smart tanks, to disparate communications networks. One of those, not too long ago, went a little bit crazy.

An inventory control system at a local company specializing in supply and recycling took it into its head to protect its inventory. Aggressively. And to acquire more. It's built an army of semi-sentient servitors from spare parts and it's extensive supply of hardware, fuel cells, tools and weaponry. Recently, these bots have stepped up their aggression, breaking out of the yards and into the surrounding neighborhood.

From a modeling point of view, this started as an experiment. The local gaming group was playing Alien Squad Leader in 15mm, and among the various army lists there was a robotic list. I wanted to build one, but wanted to stay away from Terminator and Trade Federation style figures, and away from generic robots all in the same configuration and pose. Some of the gentlemen in this club have very nice robotic armies made from things like the Risk 2210 pieces, but I wanted something different. I've been a huge Star Wars fan since the original release of the movie. I realized, after I'd built and started painting the army, that what I really wanted was an army of droids. Not Phantom Menace droids. Jawa fodder droids. Could I do it?

I started going through my bits box, sorting likely pieces into "motive systems," "chassis," "heads/sensors," and "weapons." Anything remotely useful would do. I also cut apart a large number of spare MechWarrior clix figures, cannibalizing them in various ways. I did a lot of dry-fitting, trying pieces out together, trimming and filing, and finally started gluing. To these kitbashed robots, I added a few commercial robot figures that fit the style of my inventions well.

The result was a collection of about forty robots, each unique. I did some web searches for industrial robot paint schemes, and chose six I liked best. They were brightly colored, and many features a lot of white. Right about now I realized the droid connection had been there all along.

I divided the collection of robots into clusters, each of six or seven droids, and painted each cluster in one of the paint schemes. I wanted many similar paint schemes that, when all mixed together on the table, looked like part of a distinct army. But I wanted them sorted into clusters, each painted in the same colors, so that I could potentially fight one cluster against another (think Junkyard Wars meets Necromunda).

The results are featured in the next few posts. I'll take better quality pictures once I have time to set up a proper photo getup. These are iPhone snaps. I'll also put together a step-by-step painting tutorial for these figures, and a discussion of how I based them. This basing scheme will be used for all of the figures in my Nusakan collection.

Shots, and discussion, of each cluster will follow. For now, here's the whole lot together. Enjoy!