Another Behemoth Immunocyte for Zone Raiders

 Hello and Welcome Back.

Now we return back to the artificial world of Matrioshka, in the post singularity setting of the Zone Raiders game. 

There are a many types of Immuncyte threats to the denizens of the Matrioshka world of Zone Raiders. The larger ones are known as behemoths. 

 

 This example of a Behemoth has been created in the form of a giant spider. No one knows who created it. Was it one of the post humans or was it created by the Matrioshka after the singularity event?  Armed with deadly powered mandibles, bladed legs and a heavy plasma cannon this ancient machine heeds the call of the other Immuncytes and joins the hunt to destroy all sentient life in the Matrioshka.

 

This model is a 40K Necron Spyder I got for Christmas a couple of years ago.  Necrons fit the descriptions of Immuncytes in the Zone Raiders fluff quite nicely. As many Immunocyte in the Matrioshka are aeons old I went for a rusty paint job.

 

I seem to have quite a force of Immucytes for Zone Raiders, maybe I should get a game in some time. Although I need more industrial looking space station terrain. I will also need to figure out just what to use as the dreaded Meta Demon....

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Reaper Immunocytes

Hello and Welcome back,

Its been a while, a bit of hobbying has been going on in the background but its taking time to get things finished. For a while I have been looking for suitable figures for Reaper Immunocytes for the Matrioshka setting in the Zone Raiders game. I finally settled on these figures.

They are multipart 3D prints found on Etsy. I found this figures very fiddly to assemble. To make things worse the figures are incredibly fragile. They have lost many arms already, I suppose it is expected to see ancient killer robots with some damage. These are huge figures, take a look at one next to a 28mm figure.

In addition to causing trouble for Zone Raid crews in the Matrioshka, I am planning on these killer robots to turn up as a hazard in a bunker for the poor folks surviving on Mattblackgod’s World.

Thanks for looking

Take care out there. 

Behemoth Immunocyte for Zone Raiders.

Hello and Welcome Back.

Now we return to the world of Matrioshka, the post singularity setting of the Zone Raiders game. 

There are a few types of Immunocyte threats in the Matrioshka world of Zone Raiders. Some of the larger ones are known as behemoths. 

This is an example of a Behemoth. Armed with a autocannon, heavy plasma cannon and power axe. It hunts down all sentient life in the Matrioshka.

This model started as a DND Titan magical robot. The hammer arm was replaced with a weapon from a Robogear model. A cream tube cap made a new muzzel. The autocannon was built from a couple of bits of tubing and the muntion feed from the orignal Robogear model. Some power cables were made from greenstuff to finish off. 

As many Immunocyte in the Matrioshka are aeons old I went for a rusty paint job. I did attempt some object source lighting on the model but I don't think it worked too well. 

Thanks for reading and take care out there.

Hobby Progress

Hello and Welcome back, 

It’s getting close to the end of what feels like the longest month of the year. It feels like an age since New Year. Things have been moving slowly on the hobby front but I have been trying to fit a little hobby time most days. I thought a little progress report would be in order.

One of my plans for the upcoming year is to create a pirate faction for my Wild Galaxy setting known as the Bloody 40, inspired by a story I found in a local history book. As a faction they will operate in two ways with a pirate crew with a vessel (the Bloody Vengeance) and a second group that operate as a high jackers operating within the ships they target. This lot is assembled will be the crew of the Bloody Vengeance. They might even be handy as a crew for Stargrave too. 

These figures are a mix of Northstar Rogue Stars and Antediluvian miniatures figures. I got them assembled, cleaned and primed ready for me to throw the paint about. 

I got a DnD fantasy magic robot Titan from a friend for Christmas. It needed to be shootier. So I clipped off an arm with a battle hammer which is easy with these rubber figures and grafted an old Robogear cannon. It wasn’t doing it for me so I moved the magazine and added a barrel to make a autocannon. The main weapon was reworked into some form of energy cannon using a cap off a tube of ointment. Cables or hoses made from greenstuff have been added. It’s basecoated ready for washes and detail.

The plan for this is to be some sort of dormant war machine in the ruins or to be a Behemoth class Immucyte for the Zone Raiders setting. 

I started this Gilgamesh figure by Ramshackle Games last year so I have been finishing him off. He doesn’t need much more. I plan on him being a derelict post apocalyptic cyborg or to be the head of my post apocalyptic cyborg clan. 

These two bikers by Ramshackle games are also in mid paint. I love all the cargo on the Lancer rider. It reminds me of going on camping trips or holidays on my motorbike (Lance not included!). 

Hopefully I will have some finished stuff to show in a couple of weeks. 

Thanks for looking

Take Care out there. 

Happy New Year 2023

Happy New Year, may 2023 be a great year for you and your families. 

22 was a real rollercoaster of a year for us with great high points and quite a few very low points which includes the loss of my Dad and two aunties. There seems to have been a lot of arguing with officialdom about stupid changes the local council want to inflict on our street. Don’t get me started on the global shit show and the state of the U.K. 

Normally I would do a look back at the year hobby wise but this Christmas season has been uncommonly busy at a personal level and I haven’t had the time to do one.

I was going to draft out a 2023 hobby plan, but looking back at previous years I see that I stray off course early on in the year and end up doing something else. No plan survives past its first draft intact as they say. 

A quick overview of what I hope to achieve in 2023 is:

Continued expansion of my Mattblackgod’s World and Last City setting (there are plenty of new factions and terrain in the paint queue).

Further expansion of my Wild Galaxy setting. As above there are plenty of new faction ideas waiting for paint. I have some painted minis from Evilbay which I hope to get based and into the wild Galaxy.

I am slowly working on bits and background fluff for my Zone Raiders/Matrioshka setting. I am thinking I will need some rusty high tech terrain. There is some plans forming in my mind. One advantage is that it would happily fit my post apocalyptic setting. 

I have several sets of Fogou’s beautiful resin terrain to get painted which will fit various game settings. 

Stoneage project: A new project for me. A shaman and his/her tribe trying to save their world from a great evil. 

The siren call of 15mm keeps attracting me too. 15mm has great storage advantages of 28mm. My problem is getting rid of or selling my old 28mm models. I seem to get attached to them and always regret selling old figures and models on. 

Get some games in. It’s the centre point of this hobby after all and to be honest I haven’t had a game in a long while. None in 2022. I think I only got one game in during 2021. There are plenty of rulesets I want to try including a few with solo rules.

Thanks for reading. 

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay lucky out there.

Zone Raiders - life in Megastrata 170622B on the post singularity Matrioshka

Hello and welcome back. 

I am getting my background fluff together for my Zone Raiders setting. Zone Raiders is a small skirmish game by Tony Xano that is set in a Matrioshka sphere in the post singularity. It is a high tech post apocalyptic setting on what is essentially a unimaginably sized space station. 

The Matrioshka sphere is a thinking machine powered by a Dyson sphere built around a sun (possibly our sun the background doesn’t specify!). It is constructed with many spheres built over each other, each split into uncountable continent sized Megastrata. 

The post humans built Matrioshia to develop a fully automated thinking machine that would enable them to join together as one consciousness in the Singularity. This took a long time and the post humans used humans as workers, companions and possibly pets. During the time taken to develop, construct and perfect the brain, the post humans entertained themselves by creating genetic constructs, sentient robots, machine animals and many new technologies. When the brain was complete the post humans vanished into the singularity leaving their creations and humans to survive in the Matrioshka alone.

Megastrata 170622B - is over 12,000Km x 12,000Km in size. The floor of the Megastrata is littered with all manner of dead machines, ancient 4d printers, pipes, ducts, vents, tanks, vats, cables, towers, domes, biodomes, toxic lakes, radiation pockets, ruins, rust deserts and more. What townships or city’s that exist in the Megastrata are hundreds of kilometres apart. The city zones are the only true safe spaces from the dangers of Matrioshka. Although the city zones have the other dangers usually associated with civilisation. Beneath the floor of the Megastrata there are many hundreds of levels filled with tunnels, pipes, ducts and travel tubes. Legends speak of old domes and storage bunkers deep below the ground of Megastrata 170622B. 

The Megastrata ceiling is some 10Km above the floor. Massive inverted towers hang like stalactites from the ceiling filled with artefacts of the ancients (the post humans) and possibly supplies. These towers are incredibly difficult to get at. Old disused mono rails hang from the ceiling. There are hundreds of levels above the ceiling reaching the upper edge of the Megastrata. No one knows what exactly is hidden in the levels above Megastrata 170622B. All of the outer bulkheads of the Megastrata are hyperdense and impenetrable although that doesn’t stop attempts to break into the neighbouring Megastrata.  

In addition to the many environmental hazards in the dark zones of Megastrata 170622B there are wild tribes of Morlocks, prowling Immunocytes looking to attack for anything sentient , sentry nodes, out of control ancient industrial machines, wild electrical discharges, unmapped Immunocyte nodes, nano-swarm leaks, strange plants, toxic fungi, strange creatures and technobeasts. 

There will be future posts with more detail of Megastrata 170622B. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

Stay safe out there.

Wasteland Wondering November 22

Hello and welcome back to another Wasteland Wondering. Pull up a crate to the fire and sit yourself down.

It’s now that time of year when my hobby time gets put on the back burner as we get ready for the Christmas season. It’s a busy time in our house. I may get to slap some paint on a figure or two. Hopefully I might get a little kit bashing done. Who knows I might even find time to run a couple of games especially while the football World Cup is on. 

While the lack of hobby time is frustrating for me during the dark season, it does give me more time to let my imagination to run riot and work on background fluff. As well as my imaginings for Mattblackgod’s world there will be some for my Wild Galaxy setting and he fluff for my Zone Raiders setting on the post singularity world of Matrioshka. 

Zone Raiders is a game by Tony Xao. The setting is one I keep returning to as it is rich and suits my figure collection. The faction lists would help anyone with 40K, Necromunda, Deadzone, Firefight or Infinity figures in their collection. One thing is definite, I will need a lot more rusty industrial terrain for the dark zones of Matrioshka. 

So while my hobby posts will be limited there will be a few fluff posts. There may be the annual review post too. Hopefully there might be a post Christmas loot post as well, assuming I am on the fat man’s good list that is.

Stay warm and take care out there. 

Thanks for reading. 

The Asterians

Hello and welcome back.

A couple of months back I picked up the Insurgent Earth rules by Patrick Todoroff. A quick overview of the rule background is that the Earth is attacked by alien invaders and quickly over run. In the game you play a small resistance cell. It is a solo or cooperative game. 

While I have more than enough figures to cover a team of resistance fighters I found that I didn’t have enough for the aliens. For the grunts and solider levels of aliens I chose to use the Necron Skelebots that I have for Zone Raiders Immuncites. For my flavour of Alien Invaders I decided upon robots controlled by a evil alien intelligence who is too smart to actually get involved in the dirty work of combat. 

Meet the Asterians 

But I needed more figures. I needed some figures for the alien elite, lieutenants and boss. Looking about I settled on Mantic Asterian Cyphers as alien elites, Black Talon Prime as a alien Lieutenant and a alien Marionette as the final boss. This also gives me the option of adding to the Cyphers ranks if I feel like it. 

The Cyphers

The figures are painted with Army Painter speed paints. I am not too sold on the scheme I chose for the Cyphers.

The Marionette (L) as the final Boss and the Black Talon Prime (R) as a Lieutenant. 

As I like to get the most from my collection the Asterians will also serve as a Nth Generation gang (think sentient robots with a common construction template) for Zone Raiders. 

Thanks for the looking, take care 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.