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.

Meet the Watchers

Hello and welcome back, 

Meet the watchers. 

The first few figures from the Horizon Zero Dawn set have been painted. I thought I would start with the first machines you encounter in the computer game, the watchers.

These are light recon machines that now act sentries for the herds. When encountering humans they will alert the other machines in the herd before launching an attack.

The HZD watchers painted up quickly. My only grumble is that the detail around the lens is a little weak. It needs building up. If I had the time I would be tempted to cut a slice of plastic tube to make a lens. Or maybe put some green stuff and try to sculpt a lens. I hope the head detail on the other machines aren’t as bad,

Watchers & other machines built by different factories (known as cauldrons) have different coloured patches unique to that cauldron. 

My plans for these figures are to use them in a Sci Fi setting as the machines of a terraforming system to be encountered on a lost world. Back on Mattblackgod’s world I am thinking of a large island where tribals and machines live. Either adventures take place on the island or maybe a expedition of Guardians or Black City people investigating the island. 

I guess I now need to crack on with the other Horizon Zero Dawn machines. 

Thanks for looking. Stay safe out there.

Horizon Zero Dawn the board game.

For those of you who aren’t into computer games Horizon Zero Dawn is a role playing computer game set in a far future post apocalyptic world. It is a world of tribal humans, hostile machines and overgrown ancient ruins. 

I must admit that I got really into the computer game trying to uncover mysteries of the characters back history, what happened to the ancients, where did the machines come from while discovering the world and trying to survive. 

++ Spoiler Alert. Do not read the next section if you intend to play the computer game++

In the future a total extinction event is on the cards, everything organic dead. Some bright spark designed a self replicating robotic combat machine that runs by converting biological matter into resources and fuel. These military robots ran amok and started destroying everything organic. Humanity launched an all out war against the robots. Total global extinction was months away.  Horizon Zero Dawn was branded as a weapon to destroy the machine. In reality it was a way to continue life after the robots ran to a stop. It was a terraforming plan which the machines are a part of. The machines cleaned up the pollution and dead robots recycling them. Trees, plants and small animals where introduced. Once the world was ready humans were introduced. The plan was for them to be educated to their pre apocalyptic levels so they could continue fixing the world. But the education system was destroyed. So humanity remained at a uneducated primate level.

 ++end of spoiler++ 

I liked the premise of a post apocalyptic world populated by tribals and robots. But finding suitable machines would always be difficult in any scale. Then I discovered a advert for a upcoming model of one of the machines. 

Apparently there is a Horizon Zero Dawn board game by Steamforged games. How did I miss that one? I must be losing my grip on the wastelands. After checking online the figures are 32mm base to head. Lots of games workshop fans were complaining that the figures are too small compared with modern GW figures. As my collection has figures from 25mm through to 32mm heroic the size doesn’t bother me too much. So I found a copy and hit the buy button. 

The boxed game features hunters from the four main tribes and involves hunting machines for parts, supplies, scrap and shards (bits of machine casing used as currency). 

There are a few game boards, lot of card decks for each hunter and level and lots of tokens many of which relate to symbols in the computer game. Your hunters can level up during their machine hunts. However I am not really interested in the board game rules (which I still need to go through at a deeper level) but the figures. So let’s take a look. 

The hunters from the (L to R) Oseram, Carja, Nora and Banuk tribes. They are slightly smaller than classic GW and Grenadier figures but not too noticeably. The bases are a sliver lower so a shim might make them look larger.

The Watchers. These are recon machines, they usually look for resources for the machines. Now they roam around the herds looking for trouble (humans). They signal warnings to other machines and will attack. They use a leap attacks and tail attacks. There is a red eye version which carries a energy weapon in the head. These have extra head armour. I may modify one into a red eye.

Grazer these machines form herds. They will choose to flee but will attack when forced to. The rotors on the horns perform a dangerous attack. Grazers also perform kick attacks.

Striders are another herd machine. They will attack if you get too close. Striders perform powerful kick attacks in a similar manner to a horse. If you sneak up on them and have the right bit of salvaged tech they can be overridden and used as a riding machine. 

Scrappers are designed to recycle damaged machines. They operate and hunt in packs. In addition they actively hunt and attack humans in their territories. 

Sawtooth are a new class of machine to appear, the combat class. They patrol around the herds to protect them from human hunters. A single sawtooth can easily decimate and entire hunting party. 

Shell Walkers are strange cargo hauling machines. They transport the produced materials to the hidden automated machine factories (Cauldrons). They are equipped with a energy weapon, power claw and a energy shield. 

For these machines the painting should be fairly easy. Black under sides with dark grey highlights. Upper areas light grey or white. Then it will be the details like lens, cutters and chemical vessels. 

For building up the tribes I think a mix of the various Frostgrave barbarians and tribals would work. Some of the older Grenadier Future wars tribals should work too.  I suppose I need to figure out what ruleset to use with this models too.

Thanks for looking.