Cataloguing non-biological life in 15mm

Following up on a previous post, Dropship Horizon's technologists have been busy cataloguing non-biological life in the known universe. Researchers have identified several manufacturers of the drones, cyborgs, droids, etc. including:

• Astro Miniatures’ Sybots
• Battlestations’ Bot Marines 
• Blue Moon Manufacturing Robot Legion Skirmishers and Legionaires 
• Critical Mass Games merc Drone Walkers and Blockheads  and Praesentia RAL infantry 
• Ground Zero Games’ Remotes, Drones and Bots 
• 15mm.co.uk Automata, Cyborgs and Polymorphs, Robots, Droids and Laserburn robots and droids 
• Irregular Miniatures Battle Droid 
• Khurasan Miniatures Mekanoid Meleebots and Riflebots  as well as the Server Robot in the DPLS Crew
• Kremlin Miniatures Cyberian Death Commandos, Zomborgs and Cyber-ninjas 
• Traveller Miniatures security bots and support droids (in the support Support Staff pack) 
• The Scene battle robots and heavy battle robots 

As previously mentioned, there is a shortage of generic androids in the style of Star Wars or I Robot - get sculpting guys!

Edit - there is an interesting discussion over on the TMP 15mm message board on the subject of robots, bots and borgs in 15mm.

Bring on the Drones

The BBC reported that President Obama has sanctioned the use of armed drones in Libya.

Drones have been used controversially recently in Mexico too. The future is here.

How long before you are sitting in your couch at home doing your National Guard or Reserve duty, and flying Recon, surveillance and combat missions across the world? Is this when all that 'training' on the XBox and PS3 pay off? As technology improves, you can even be doing your day job, be on the train to work, sitting in McDonalds and through your iphone/Android be enforcing the rule of demoncracy and law, maybe even in your own city. Neighbourhood Watch takes on a whole new meaning.

In our lifetime, will we watch a NewsVid to hear that the President has sanctioned the use of androids, like 'GI Joes' in the recent Bruce Willis vehicle SURROGATES, on the streets of La Paz, LA, or Bristol?

 In 15mm, should we be looking at more drones in our tabletop forces? Even replacing men with drones and robotics?  I'm sure there will be a time where we, that's the humanity 'we' use realistic flesh and blood looking androids for hearts and minds purposes.

Personally, I prefer to think of humanity amongst the stars rather than humandroid. A future without man is deprssing though maybe inevitable, but both will live and work side by side on the dirtball colonies and there will be wars and uprisings in both camps.

Who knows, because of the distances involved we may seed the stars with humandroids, to terraform and build new worlds (where have you heard that before), to make it safe for man. But what if the humandroids don't want to give up what they have cretaed or even, what if their defence routines simply see humans as an alien invader?

Cheers

Mark

In The Pipe........ Revolutionary Firepower

.

Way back when, in my early days of playing 15mm Sci Fi with classic Traveller: Book 4 Mercenary, 1977-80,  I conceived the idea of an orbital-dropped, 'spider-legged', A.I. battlefied MRLS artillery drone battery to support my ground troops. 30 years later, following some discussion, the combined talents of Jon at Khurasan and John Bear Ross, have brought my vision to life and gone a step further to realise a family of Near Future and Sci Fi combat drones.

I can exclusively reveal the "Automata of the Revolution" series war robots developed by Nova Respublik to give the infantry mobile heavy firepower. They are all given heroic revolutionary names, but the soldiers think of them as beloved girlfriends or doting mothers because of their helpfulness on the battlefield. Fondly called the "darling little robots," each type is given an unofficial nickname by the grunts by which they are more commonly known.

The Marka is an MLRS variant and can fire 20 high explosive rockets by direct or indirect fire. The original idea grew from a book I received one Christmas which had a dramatic photo of a T66 'Honeycomb' 4.5" rocket launcher being used by US Marines in Korea.

 

The Olyusha ("darling little Olga") variant has eight heavy anti-material missile tubes to take on enemy tanks and walkers. This is Jon's baby. Inspired by the Pentomic era M50 Ontos, with a little input from yours truly.

The Zhenia ("darling little Evgenia") is an ammo carrier robot capable of  resupplying any of the other Darling Little series. The front of the Zhenia is designed to feed ammo directly into the rear of the shooter bots.

The Svetlana robot mounts two 25mm autocannons for direct fire support.

The "Little Darling" series are approximately 28mm tall, and they will be ideal as either heavy infantry support robots in 15mm/20mm scale or sentry robots in 28mm scale. They are scheduled to be available in late winter or early spring.

Cheers

Mark

.

IN THE PIPE... New 15mm Endoskeleton Droids from The Scene

.

Mike over at The Scene has shared with me photos of his new Endoskeleton Droids that will be available on the webstore from Sunday, 30th May.

 The Scene 15mm Sci Fi

 Large Endoskeleton Droids, 5 per pack, 24mm tall

The Scene 15mm Sci Fi 

Endoskeleton Droids, 10 per pack

The Scene 15mm Sci Fi 

Endoskeleton Droids Size Comparison

Some great new miniatures. Looking forward to adding them all to my Sci Fi armies and post apocalypse forces!

WWW.THESCENEUK.COM

Cheers

Mark

.

Reign of Steel: 15mm Combat Droids from The Scene

.
Picked up a copy of GURPS: Reign of Steel yesterday for a few pounds in PLAN 9 Aberdeen's original comic and game store.

It proved to be a great read on the train home. Whilst there was a nod to a certain Terminator and Skynet the background was interesting and plausible enough not to simply be a hackneyed copy of the Terminator movies and seemed to be easily transportable to a hundred other worlds.

So, just as I'm thinking about robo armies to populate my post apocalypse wasteland, inspired by Reign of Steel - Mike at The Scene sends me a flurry of emails showing his latest WIP Skeletal Droids:

15mm human sized

Around 20mm tall

There will be 5 poses with three weapons options for each type of Droid (gatling guns,
laser guns and flame throwers).

The first packs should be available in 4 weeks.

Cheers
Mark
.