Orcid Assault Troops

Today's post looks at an upcoming item for 15mm science fiction, another favourite product with me and my customers.

I'm having the heavy power armoured elites on the Pelagic Dominate sculpted now in 15mm scale, the Orcid Assault Warriors. That's just a working title, because, like the Karks are sharkmen, the Orcids are Orca (Killer Whale) men. But "Orcid" sounds too much like a flower, so I think the name will change in the end.

They can either act as heavy assistance to the line troops (especially the Myzontid Rangers, who are raiders and often do not act with vehicle support), but more often fight on their own as strike troops who are teleported into action, destroy their target, and are then teleported out.

As these evolved from Killer Whales they will be large, so they will top out at around 24mm tall even though they are 15mm scale. That makes them around nine or ten feet (3 meters) tall. I didn't want to go too much bigger than that because then they don't look like they belong on the 15mm table at all.

They wear power armour, which has a heavy missile launcher build right into the back of the suit, the Barnacle Missile System, with two pods each holding two missiles. I asked the sculptor to make the details on the suit a little on the soft side, as these are aquatic troopers so I didn't want the power armour to have too hard and machined a look to it. It has to fit the theme of an aquatic making war in an alien environment.

For the arms of their power suits they will have a variety of weapons options, and each assault trooper will come with all the varieties. They will be power harpoons (the main weapon), a power claw, or gatling guns. There will probably be multiple types of power harpoon for some variation. These will plug into spots on the ends of the arms.

The heads are separate as well and two will be provided -- mouth open or mouth closed. Three body poses will be available, probably sold in sets of three and then there will be gobs of hand choices in the pack.

Again the dilemma of humaniod aliens rears its ugly head -- literally! If they are in complete power armour what to do about face covering? Cover the head and their identity as whales disappears, unless you make a face mask that exactly mimics the shape of the whale head, and I don't really like that personally -- humans don't wear face masks that exactly copy their faces so I don't know why aliens would either.

I went with the bubble helmet, and have just the indication of where the bubble fits onto the rest of the suit so that the creature's face can be fully seen. I imagine them having a helmet of an advanced-tech clear armour, and the helmet half filled with water so they can be submerged but also can breathe air -- they are mammals after all.

There are various clear items separately available that some gamers may want to use to put their own helmets on them if they want, and some really talented modelers may actually want to partly fill this with a clear resin to show water sloshing around in the helmet as an Orca warrior may prefer. I would probably just leave it off altogether when I paint some up -- but who knows when I will ever have time for hobbying again!!!

I am also considering asking the sculptor to make a separate helmet piece but am going back and forth on that.

One body, one head, and the power harpoons are already done. The sculptor is making the rest of the stuff now. So I anticipate that the Orca Heavy Assault Troopers -- hey did I just come up with their final name? -- will be available sometime in the early spring. Ever the optimist, heh.