When you need just a little more firepower

So like some many others, you have a (slight?) case of gamers ADD, and are distracted by the newest, shiniest armies and models.  You have picked up the Nameless faction for Deadzone and have painted so many tentacles that you can see purple wormy appendages in your sleep.  But there is something missing.

Across the table you see a strider - and you have nothing to deal with the armor.  If only you had your own vehicle with multiple hard points and weapon options.

This is where the Nameless Bathomite comes in.



An interesting note on the packaging.  This is packaged for Warpath (and thus Firefight), with just a sticker on it saying it is compatible with Deadzone, rather than being in a Deadzone labeled package.  We all knew that an army list for Warpath and Firefight is coming - this labeling seems to indicate it may be sooner than later.  Or it could be nothing. . .

Regardless, what is in the box?  A bag of pieces and a 60 mm round base.  No instructions, but assembly is fairly straightforward.


So the biggest piece is the body.  I'm not sure what this is supposed to be based on - maybe more of a lobster than a crab (though it has a shrimp like tail).



In the center of the back is a round hard point mount for the three weapon options.  This is an excellent sculpt, but this is a bit jarring having a perfect circle in what is otherwise a nicely organic creature.  More on that later.


The two front claws have a lot of detail on them (I particularly like the barnacles).



The legs threw me off at first - I wasn't sure how they attached to the body since they don't have a normal joint (instead of an elbow it is more of a T).



There isn't a separate head, though there is a mouth full of tentacles.  And two of the weapon options.



Finally the third weapon, and the tail.




Assembly is again straightforward for the larger pieces.  They use flat square connectors, but for most of the pieces there is only one way it fits completely.  Dryfit each piece to make sure you have it before gluing it on.

The large claws each have a matching flat spot on the body


The mouth also has a more natural fit one way than the other, with more of the tentacles on top.


Same with the tail.  The curve matches the underside of the belly


The legs are the slightly tricky part.  There are two different sprues (marked I and II), however there is nothing indicating which goes on which side.  After a bit of fitting, it seemed to me that sprue I went on the starboard side, while II fit the port.  (Hey, they are sea(food) based models, so nautical terms apply (that, and it is easier to say port than the left side when upright and facing forward (port is left and starboard is right (I remember that because port and left are both the shorter words))).

What I didn't much care for though, is that the legs from each sprue don't seem to be 'coordinated' - for both sets the middle one seems to be sticking out.  I have several of these (as I am going to use them as Naiad Wyrmriders for my Trident Realms of R'yleh Kings of War army), so I'm going to play with how these legs fit a bit more on the other models.



Once assembled, the model seems to stand more on its tail and claws than the legs, with the head/face pointing down.  This seemed wrong when I thought of this as a monster (or a mount), but when you look at it as a weapon platform, the position helps to correctly position the weapon mount (and thus the weapon) for firing.  Kind of like the plasma bugs in Starship Troopers that don't actually look where they are shooting.


There are three weapon options.  The first is the Crystal Launcher ( it looks like a mortar ).

As I mentioned before, I don't care for the weapon mount.  None of the weapons fit it well, though this one fits it the best, as it has a bit of a base.  There is a pin at the bottom of each weapon, but it is much smaller than the hole (and a bit longer than the hole is deep).  I think that if you want to be able to swap out the weapons, you will HAVE to magnetize them, though this should be fairly easy.  It is a shames that they didn't make the pin fit tight to the hole so you didn't HAVE to magnetize it.

I mentioned this weapon has a bit of a base, and covers the entire mount.



Unfortunately, the other two do NOT have this base, so the mount is visible underneath the weapon.  Both the Psionic Disruptor and the Crystal Cannon have this problem.  There needs to be a weapon base that covers this entire mount for each weapon.

Crystal Cannon
The Psionic Disruptor has some nice detail on it (the bits of coral growing on the end are a nice detail)




You may ask why I don't actually magnetize the weapons (and show them).  Well that is because right now I don't have one for Deadzone - only for my Wyrmriders.  I've looked at the other nameless models, and right now I am planning to use the assassin as the rider (with their left arm down it looks a bit like they are holding on).

A little of hot water and some blu-tac helps to show how I plan to do it.


These actually fit fairly well on 50mm bases.  I had originally planned only having 4 for the horde in my list, but now that I see the actual models, I just may have to go with a full six to fill the base and be properly intimidating.


This may challenge my non-existent sculpting skills to make a saddle that properly hides the weapon mount and holds the rider - but we'll see once I get all of them together and can spend an afternoon working on them.

Because it is all fun and games . . .

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