Plamo: The Ork Space Hulk Scratchbuild

When it comes to the Ork fleet, the eventual end point for a player is usually the Space Hulk. Its most unique vessel Orks have, and one of the largest in the setting overall. Its also a scratch building project through and through. Space Hulks are a demonstration of the Hyperspace is a Scary Place trope, being distorted amalgamations of derelict spacecraft, each a chaotic assemblage of garbage and the damned. They tend to be filled with Genestealers and absurdly valuable salvage, so having one appear in orbit is very bad news as treasure hunters and other dickheads go aboard and comeback infested. Also, there can be Daemons, Necrons or indeed any amount of eldritch weirdness. The orkish response is however to board, spend a satisfying few weeks gleefully evicting what lurks there, and turning it into a colossal warship. Then a Waaaggghhh! happens, which is a different flavour of very bad news for the first planet they come across. 

 

The model was built and painted in much the same way as my Roks, just on a larger scale. You may well recognise various parts from earlier projects, mainly the big bag of spaceships, that 3D printed cruiser, and off-brand lego. It was preceded by a much smaller prototype, where I experimented with DIY filler as an alternative to polystyrene or modelling putty. I was heavily inspired by the various scratchbuilding videos I've been watching on youtube lately, specifically, this one, which had me doing Roks in the first place. This filler proved to be easy to work, and good for stone effects, but it's too squishy to make a whole model from. As a result, it ended up being a surface element and, well, a filler, on a polystyrene body. Aside from that, the only real hurdle was its base, Hulks being far too bulky for the GW standard, causing me to permanently install a plastic tube for stability. This isn't ideal from a gameplay perspective, but I'd rather it balance without worry. Mind you, it's a bit of a bodge. 

 

Speaking of gameplay, a Space Hulk is the rare Ork vessel considered intimidating by both players and the fluff. Its roughly the same weight class as the Planet Killer or a Blackstone Fortress, and will quite happily trade fire with them due to its extremely bullet-spongy nature. A Hulk can take on a fleet by itself, and if that fleet didn't bring the right tools for the job, it's gonna have a tough time. On the other hand? A Space Hulk has the same basic weaknesses as a Rok, ie very limited mobility which hampers its guns and vulnerability to weapon batteries. This means a foe can "kite" around it and wear it down. 

 

Overall, things turned out nicely, but I didn't quite capture what I was aiming for. It's clearly recognisable as a Space Hulk, but it's maybe too Rok-like. It may also have benefited from more recognisably BFG bits. That said, people seem to have really liked this one.

Up next? Well, I have a Gorbag's Revenge I never painted, but once that is done, there's nowt for me to do but actually play...

The Mecha Hack: Civilian Applications

Occasionally, the Mecha genre gives us giant robots doing something other than violence. Sometimes it's just around the edges of the lore; such things being spin-offs of spacesuits, or construction vehicles. More rarely, that's kinda the point of things. The archetypal example is Patlabor, a episodic comedy anime OVA, turned TV series, turned serious film series, turned live action. This sees a fairly grounded take on the Mecha concept, with "Labors" arising from big construction projects, and prompting law enforcement to acquire some. I really wish there was more convenient youtube clips of it, and that I'd seen more. I've just kept missing it, somehow. Nevertheless, here are a few ideas for how to include civilian-oriented giant robots in your Mecha Hack game.

A Sample Cop Class

The class below assumes that your idea of a Police Officer is someone closer to the "British Bobbie" ideal, than the overly-militarised American Dirty Harry trope. I.e. someone trained to bring offenders in alive, de-escalate a situation, and only carry firearms in matters of extreme seriousness. If you wanted a more “shooty-bang-bang” take on law enforcement, you can just use the regular classes and call it the SWAT team. Of course, this is not to suggest British coppers are any less prone to racism, corruption, and outright villainy than anyone else. Especially given recent events. But what I'm aiming for here is the film Hot Fuzz and The Ankh Morpork City Watch. Use, or cynically subvert, as you see fit.

Patrol Officer Chassis

Hit Die d8 Damage Die d8 Reactor Die d6

Starting HP

1d8 + 4

Weapons and Armour

All handheld weapons, shields, & armour

Levelling Up

Roll your hit die to gain new hit points. Roll to see if attributes increase, rolling twice for Mobility and System. At levels 3, 6, & 9, gain a new module.

Starting Equipment

Revolver (Light Ranged Weapon), Stun Baton (Light Melee Weapon), Shield (2AP), Patrol Armour (3AP), Comlink, assorted Police tools, paperwork, and paraphernalia.

Design Features & Weapons

Protect & Serve: see Kinetic Absorbers, page 17.

You're under arrest: You may choose to have a successful melee attack inflict only "disabling damage". This works just like normal damage, except that if this removes the last HP a foe has, that foe is incapacitated rather than destroyed.

A Sample Labor Mecha Class

The rulebook gives a fair few examples of these as foes, but not as player characters. Logically, such things should be based around improvised attacks and feats of strength. Ranged attacks would be problematic, possibly based around modules and Reactor die, as these are explicitly not meant for combat. The class below draws most directly on the famous Power Loader from the Aliens franchise, something I wish to see again at some point. Other example includes the aforementioned Patlabor, and Gundam's Worker Zaku.

Teamster Chassis

Hit Die d8 Damage Die d8 Reactor Die d6

Starting HP

1d8 + 4

Weapons and Armour

All handheld melee weapons & light armour.

Levelling Up

Roll your hit die to gain new hit points. Roll to see if attributes increase, rolling twice for Power and System. At levels 3, 6, & 9, gain a new module.

Starting Equipment

Industrial Claws (Light Melee Weapon) Tough Hull (3AP), Comlink, assorted builders paraphernalia, I.e cup of tea, Yorkie Bar, tabloid newspaper etc.

Design Features

Grapple & Lift: As a Use action, test Power to hold a close foe in place. It may not move away from you until you fail a Power, Mobility, or System test.

Lift & Throw: Following your melee attack, you may test Power to throw an enemy you just defeated at another close target for 1d8 damage. Roll your Reactor Die.

 

 

Alternatively, you may wish to represent such a machine being slowly upgraded to combat grade. In this case a player could have the option to gain a new weapon, shield, or armour proficiency at each level up or third level.

A Sample Sports Class

Would people use giant robots in sport? I have no idea of how sport works. I know they already use armoured roombas for deathmatches, but would you see stuff like races? Would there be mecha jogging around the Nürburgring? Would there be sub-cultures of highly customised vehicles with their own gangs? Would Top Gear even have to change its name? The following assumes that civilian mecha exist, which can be tuned for speed, and possibly for the bass.

Boy Racer Chassis

Hit Die d6 Damage Die d6 Reactor Die d6

Starting HP

1d6 + 3

Weapons and Armour

All single handed melee weapons, shields.

Levelling Up

Roll your hit die to gain new hit points. Roll to see if attributes increase, rolling twice for Mobility & Presence. At levels 3, 6, & 9, gain a new module.

Starting Equipment

Knuckleduster (Light Melee Weapon), Shield (2AP),  Comlink, Deafening Sound System, Furry Dice, etc.

Design Features 

Speed Freak: you can take 2 move actions in a single Moment without having to roll your Reactor Die for repeating an action.

Watch this!: Once per moment, you may roll your Reactor die to limit the damage you just suffered, in daring manoeuvre. If your Reactor die degrades, you suffer the damage as normal, otherwise it is reduced to 1. Abilities of friendly mecha do not affect this roll, I. E the Auxiliary class Core Overrride ability.

Wrapping things up

Well, there we go. I may do more stuff on Patlabor if I get to around to watching more of it. If you end up using these rules, please drop me a comment.

Not-Lego: The MyBuild Engineer T2 5014

You know, these are extremely fun ways to spend an afternoon. I need to be careful, this is habit forming.

However, there were a couple of minor irritations here. For one, the product renders make it look like the robot is in high visibility neon, when it's more of a JCB yellow. Good thing I like those colours. The other was an inexplicable white speckling on a black piece. Never seen that before. None of this is significant, but still a downer.

As this is the 3rd I've built, I suppose I should ask the obvious question, is this getting a bit samey? Truthfully, a bit. All of these largely boil down to a layering of thin/smooth pieces to armour the limbs, with its body being designed to hold an omitted mini-figure. The differences between them do tend to be a matter of visuals and price bracket. Fortunately, the Engineer T2 does have the visuals. Its undeniably a plant vehicle, with squat proportions, safety lights, and no head. It even comes with a barrier and traffic cones, which is adorable. It's variant of the Mecha Frame meanwhile has an odd quirk. It ends up with some curious offset knees that end up very limited in the full build. That is however fixable, and I see this working well for amphibious designs or aggressively armoured ones.

All-in-all? Another fun distraction, but I think I might have to get more ambitious next time

 

 

Plamo: Scratchbuilt Ork Rok (Battlefleet Gothic)

While I left them out of the original article, Roks do fit well into the Ork army/fleet metaphor. These are akin to Mek Gunz, an inexpensive glass cannon but with some fairly major quirks. With the Mek Gunz, these quirks arise from being a crew-served artillery piece. As built by a lunatic. Roks meanwhile are crude asteroid space stations with engines on them. As built by a lunatic. Another factor is the scratch built aspect, as much like the Hammer Class, no official model ever existed, with players encouraged to raid their bitz box and dress a lump of polystyrene. While this does not actually make a Rok free, it does make them something an experienced modeller can throw together without much trouble. As I am an experienced modeller, and I had some time off, I took a swing at it, as opposed to trying to do a Space Hulk.

TBH, getting the stone effect was something I had to experiment with, and I feel I should talk about it so you can avoid my mistake. For my first prototype I didn't use Stirland Mud technical paint and it ended up looking too smooth. Fortunately, polystyrene tends to be plentiful once you've found it, so you can take a few dry runs. I painted the rocky bitz with Stirland Mud, followed by a drybursh of Zandri Dust, washed with Seraphim Sepia, and then lighter drybrushes of Ushabti bone and Wraithbone. That said it came out very well, and I've started work on more. And as this already reads like a like a how-to, here's a how-to.

 

A rough guide to Rok Building

You will need

Polystyrene, in lumps about the size of an egg. Hobby/craft shops can help.

PVA glue *WARNING* regular glue and spraypaint contain solvents melt the polystyrene producing TOXIC FUMES. Don't be a moron.

A suitable flying base.

A bits box, featuring plastic tubing, sheet plastic and Orky parts.

Suitable toy spaceships and scale battleships.

Stuff you didn't use in your last BFG project.

Textured paint I. E Stirland Mud.

Your preferred colours for stone and metalwork.

Steps

1) Prepare weapons and other gubbins separately. If superglue or spraypaint is needed, do it now and far, far, FAR away from the polystyrene to avoid producing the aforementioned toxic fumes.

2) Rough up your polystyrene, before securing your bits with PVA glue. You may wish to cut indentations to help things set in place.

3) Leave things to dry for at least a hour.

4) Roks usually end up unbalanced, so take a moment to find it's centre of gravity. Then insert the base there so everything will stay standing up.

5) Paint the rocky bits with textured paint as a base coat.

6) Once this dries it should have a sandy appearance, and you can now paint the rest. Aim for a contrast between the asteroid bits and the other stuff.

Where next? Well, I suppose the Space Hulk...