The buzz saw and claw were inspired by a Stargrunt scenario on Hyperbear's website (here http://www.hyperbear.com/sg2/sg2-scenarios-ork.html ). The scenario was created as an attempt to show the generic nature of the Stargrunt 2 rules and to give 40K players something else to do with their figures. I've never played 40K and don't intend to start now, but I'm always looking out for Stargrunt 2 scenarios, and this one sounds interesting.
The scenario requires something called an Onslaught Dreadnaught. I have googled it and don't much care for the look of it. The Stagrunt 2 stats gice it 2 heavy bolters and 2 claws. Luckily those very nice chaps at Critical Mass Games have an ARC fleet mech that looks wonderful, called a Hydra. They also have a MEcha Workshop ( http://www.criticalmassgames.com/default.asp?category=mecha ) wherein you can buy all manner of extra bits for your mechs, or presumably build your own from scratch. Importantly, they had a pair of claws. They also had a buzz saw that was too cool to pass over, so I strayed from the brief a little...
Of course, I don't want to always play with a mech that is ridiculously underarmed (in both senses of the word; it needs more firepower than demolitions gear, and it does kind of have a T-Rex look to it), so the weapons that come with the standard Hydra mech were also painted up and everything got magnets to make them easily intercangeable. At this point, I must give a huge thank you to Craig at CMG, who spotted that I hadn't realised that extra weapons require extra shoulders to mount them onto the mech, and threw a couple in for me along with the superb flamer arm that I showed off last time. That's te kind of customer service that gets repeat custom! ;)
Having never bought the figures, I'm obviously not going to be playing the scenario with Orks and Space Marines, so I needed to think of something similar. I just happened to have all these new Kra'Vak figures lying aound waiting to be painted, and a couple of their vehicles come with a smaller old sculpt KV that fit the hatch on top of the mech very nicely. Problem solved.
I'm still not sure who to pit against them. My options are NAC from GZG, them being the natural enemies of the KV, but I also fancy using the Global Defence Forces from SLAP Miniatures. Their Space Knights would also be a natural substitution for Space Marines. We'll see. I'll paint the KV first so I have plenty of time to decide.
