Bot War – Mercenaries

The smallest and weakest of the non-symbiote Merc, Ordinance has a pretty meagre Statline and no special rules, at least he has a Ram Attack special ability and 3 ranged attack, but that’s it. I’d most likely take Humvee over Ordinance in most lists, but I needed to get him painted up anyway.

There’s a lot of detail on such a small model, especially on the chest and legs which have lots of recessed areas. I worked in some P3 Thamar Black and Greatcoat Grey to help with the colour separation.

Only 2 more bots to go

Stormbreak is up next, and i was originally thinking that it was another one of the classic Snake Corp bots (called Stryke), however it transpires that this is a new sculpt based upon the original art for a COILS air support bot named Messenger, however this has been a very fun bot to paint.

There were lots of flat surfaces which made the glazing a bit easier to get gradients on, working from the dark P3 Thornwood Green to the more vibrant P3 Bog Moss.  I have used the same workup throughout all of the mercs and i have made some subtle changes throughout, sometimes working up through all colours one over the other, sometimes blocking in the colours in different parts and blending them together.  On this bot i painted almost the whole model in the darkest thornwood brown, then used traitor green  over 80% of that area, then bog moss glazed over the top, making sure i took my brush off the model at the point i wanted to leave the most pigment (like the top edge of an armour plate). After i went back in with a sickly skin edge highlight i did go back in with another thin glaze of bog moss to try and blend in some of the edges and only leave those at the highest point. I have noticed some bots where i may have covered too much of the edge highlight, so will need to go back in and fix that in these last 9 days of the challenge.

for now, heres a shot of Stormbreak, and the 2 Snake Corp mercs from the last few days.

Accompanying Slyder is Slyther, another former bot from the now defunct Snake Corp organisation.

Some more digging in the Bot War Facebook group has provided additional background about how the Snake Corp bots found their way into the Mercenaries soldiers of Fortune faction, this is a bullet point summary by Anthony Mallett, who is the owner of Traders Galaxy and the creator of Bot War, of the short story “Instruments of Destruction” by Steve Remington who is a prolific story writer for the Bot War universe…..

– COILS labs took over Snake Corp although they were the same company in a way. At least COILS owned Snake Corp.

– COILS and Snake corp shared most of the same board members. Dr Mindtwist being head of coils and Venom being head of Snake Corp. but now Venom is chairman over all.

– The Snake Corp bots were destroyed when Dr Mindtwist bot-napped the Deceiver Digger (one of the Builders that combines to form Destroyer) and copied parts of his code in the attempt to power Conspiracy (COILS titanic scale Bot). But Destroyer attacked (minus an arm) and utterly crushed the COILS lab.

– Dr Mindtwist escaped in Stryke (AKA Stormbreak) but Slyther and Slyder were destroyed, or so Mindtwist thought.

– Turns out that Slyther and Slyder were just very seriously damaged.

– But thinking they were destroyed Mindtwist downloaded their copied codes and “updated” them. The COILs bots are more aligned with the corporate principles of coils and have less “free will”.

– But Slyther and Slyder scratched out an existence, their codes hanging on until they found other mercs who repaired them fully

– These mercs then led them both to Blackwheel who is building a mercenary bot empire of his own in the heart of the democracy.

So with this background in mind, Slyther has rightfully donned the Mercs green fatigues and ready to seek revenge on all who cross their path.

Today I get to paint of the oldest bots in my backlog, Slyder.

Slyder was one of the original Snake Corps bots and as the Bot War rages on so does the time line. For a while Slyder was thought to have been destroyed. But there are snippets of lore that exist in the Facebook group for Bot War which tells the tale of how Slyder became a Mercenary…..

“Slyder steadied himself. How long had he been in that storm drain?

Snake Corp was gone and his chassis was obsolete. It was obvious that he had been thought destroyed. By now Dr Mindtwist must has accessed his back up code.  

It could even be that two of him now exist. This would be a dangerous predicament. Especially if he came within close proximity of the doppleganger. He needed to think, to plan. Moving into his alt mode, an obsolete version one ABT, Slyder speed off down the dirt road not really knowing where he was going, only that he wasn’t going south. …….”

This was also then expanded into

“After the attack of Destroyer on the COILS facility, both Slyther and Slyder were thought destroyed. So Dr Mindtwist essentially cloned and modified their code from the back up to make Darkstate and Deepstate.  

However Slyther and Slyder still existed. This created a strange situation where slyther and slyder were no longer connected to COILS and potentially have awakened suppressed memory banks.

Buried in the lore of COILS is the event where human mercenaries were sent through a dimensional gate into the abyss. These mercenaries never returned.  

However from the abyss the code for all COILS bots were found. The speculation is that maybe the COILS bots are not Deceivers at all. Instead being the consciousness of disembodied COILS mercs.”

It’s these snippet of background that I love about Bot War. Whilst the game is not on the same scale as say Warhammer 40000, Infinity, or Battletech, with tomes filled with source and narrative, Bot War has plot progression and underlying stories that are always being dropped by Anthony, the creator of Bot War.

With Slyder and Slyther now being part of the Mercenaries faction I thought it right to paint Slyder up in the same P3 green triad that the rest of the main force is in. Slyther will also get the same treatment to really help distinguish themselves from the COILS faction. I haven’t quite decided about Stormbreak yet, who was a blue Snake Corp jet originally, but I suspect I will go with green as well.

For now though I will leave you with my Mercenaries Slyder

Pushing on through the Merc Bots after Oleeta and the symbiotes, I chose to focus on the big brute Heavy Barrage. With his lower half tank treads, and a turret on his back this guy is tough. In-game he rolls 3 shield dice with a re-roll for one against ranged attacks, has a pretty hard hitting 3 attack dice which when couple with his Artillery Support special ability can rain down some big blasts. He’s also a great battery as he can potentially generate 5 energy cubes per turn which is great for maintaining those super abilities.

Painting wise I realised this bot shares the same torso as Blackwheel and the Valiant Supercharge, I thought it looked familiar. This is how most of the Mercenaries are, formed from parts of previously sculpted bots and released as promos. Its been fun trying to work out the original models that these Mercs are based on.

Painting wise though I used the same workup as the rest, and have left the tracks just blocked on for now as I will tackle them all on one go later in the project.

Oleeta was going to be the original leader of the Mercenaries faction, a Valiant Sell Sword who is a beast in combat, she was first available as a Promo model, but has since become a mainstream release and has also had a collectors edition version as well.

Oleeta has a very unique aesthetic in the Mercenaries faction, she has lots of curves and is mostly formed of single layers of armour plates instead of the big bulky armour that is prevalent amongst the rest.

With these design cues I decided to paint her slightly differently to the other bits, instead opting for a black Templar contrast basecoat, this over the white lateral prime helped to instantly create some contrast and the bluey/green tint in the black Templar colour worked as a nice starter point for the rear of the model. Next up I used Vallejo Model Colour Dark Sea Blue mixed with a P3 Menoth White Highlight workup to paint in the volumes of her body instead of going for specific shapes.

This was a 3hr speed paint, it’s only tabletop standard like the rest but I’m really happy with the result. I managed to use the P3 beaten purple spot colour in the centre of her chest and in her eyes, and her shield features the same greys I have been using for my other bots.

Overall its a great result that I’d love to apply to the collectors edition model I also have some day.

C4, Bombot, & Methane got painted up today.  These 3 bots along with Arsenal are the Mercenaries Symbiote bits, meaning they have a special ability where they can be transported inside a Host, the Hosts for the Mercenaries being Redoubt and Demolition.

There is a tactical advantage to keeping a symbiote within a host, most notably when you get near to close attack the symbiote can pop out and due its proximity with an enemy engaged in combat you can boosted attack dice which makes it a lot easier to do sufficient damage in close attack as its not really the Mercs’ strong point.

Bit of a rush job today, trying to do too many things, but still managed to get some time at the paint table even if it’s right at the end of the day.

Painted up Humvee…. And he’s definitely on the list to go back and tidy up in the next 2 weeks.

Can’t believe I’m at the halfway mark already, there’s a huge stack on minis in front of me that I need to plough through, all the while knowing I still have to go back and finish all of the others I have done so far. It’s going to be close

Humvee is a Valiant, but is also a Sell Sword, which means he can be taken in any force excluding Deceivers and Infesters, so is perfect for joining the Mercs and lending his fists to boost their close attack options.

I decided to paint him up with the same scheme as the others to show that he is part of this Mercenary faction instead of the normal red. I have got a 2nd copy of this bot on my WIP shelf that is currently being painted red, so I was happy to have this one a bit different.

I’m hoping once I go back and refine the highlights and hit him with some matte varnish then I’ll be happier with the overall feel of the model.