Dance, Puppets! Deadzone Marionette kit review and kitbashing

Mantic Games' Asterian Marionette box has gradually become one of my favorite gaming kits to come out in the last few years.  Not so much because of their usefulness in the Deadzone or Warpath games they were made for, but because the figures are so very useful for other purposes.  Whether you want droids for Star Wars, minions for an evil mastermind supervillain, ancient robots guarding a post-Apocalyptic ruin, or alien autosoldiers, they have something to offer.

 

The box is intended to build ten "Marionettes" (which are some kind of remote-operated humanoid combat robot) and a pair of grav-mobile hovering support drones.  Parts are included to let you build two special weapon Marionettes, two leaders, and any of three different types of drones.  I've pretty much ignored the intended build since word one.  

 

 

These are the "stock" Marionette trooper models.

 

Five different bodies, with separate shoulder pads, arms, and heads. 

 

They're fairly simple to assemble, and require minimum cleanup.

 

Each box comes with two identical frames, with (oddly) the body/leg pieces in separate little baggies.

 

This is a kitbash of one of the drones, with spare arms from a Marionette added, a left-hand gun added (which requires a clip job and some patience) and the "wings" inverted.

 

Quite fond of adding arms to these drones, as you'll see.

 

They're pretty much entirely made of spares from the sprue, depending on which drone you choose to build (think the base body here is the communications variant).

 

And another kitbash, this one with a sniper rifle arm pair attached and the same inverted wings.

 

All of the Marionette special weapons figs use the same left arm, with the left hand molded on to the weapon itself.

 

Floating sniper drones strike me as a terrifying prospect.

 

This squad uses the "command upgrade" parts from several boxes of Marionettes, giving them distinct heads and backpacks.

 

The "command gun arm" has a short bayonet attached as well, and the left arm in that pair has slightly different detailing than the trooper version.

 

There are those backpacks, which could probably be painted up as grav flight packs if desired.

 

Here's a unit of modified floating drones, all with added arms and modified flight stands cribbed from Warlord games figs.

 

The armored gunners make up the bulk of the squad.

 

While we also have two "high mobility" frames with a blaster carbine and a sniper rifle.

 

You could build these out of a box and half worth of parts in a pinch, although it would limit your build options on the Marionettes a bit if you did so.

 

This is one of the few "stock" drones I've built, with the added "floaty bits" widget stuck on below the chassis and the teeny-tiny secondary guns in the lower sockets.

 

 

I prefer using the arms to the guns, obviously.

 

Comparison shot with a stock gun drone and a Marionette.

 

As you can see, the drones are pretty chunky.

 

This is a full squad in game terms, complete with support drone and command and heavy weapon variants.

 

The commo drone chassis is different from the gun drone, and IMO makes a nice spaceship hull.

 

A more elaborate kitbash on a gun drone chassis, with tentacles and sockets from the bits box added.

 

I really like these variants, they remind me of the descriptions of Gamma World and Barrier Peaks robots from the old days of TSR.

 

More commo drone kitbashes.

 

This pair had the shoulder pad/socket fittings from a command Marionette added. 

 

 

I've been hoarding the "floaty bit" pieces from the drone chassis for use as these little guys, which also have guns cribbed from the gun drones and low-level Brigade Models' flight posts added.

 

 

This is four boxes worth of parts here.

 

I intended them for use as 6mm grav tanks with a zippy anime feel to them.

 

They remind me a bit of Bonaparte from Dominion Tank Police, if he got an mobility upgrade.

 

They also scale jump well, and could be slightly bigger than man-sized 15mm drones or small 28mm scale remotes for a Shadowrun rigger to operate.

 

Stargrunt 15mm Alien Light Mecha Lance (or are they 28mm Combat Robots?) plus some Crusties/Prawns

Another showcase of some of Ground Zero Games' excellent Crusty alien range.  To start with, here's a lance of their light mecha.

 

These are great models, although they do require a bit of mold line cleanup before painting and can be a little fiddly to assemble.

 

Worth mentioning that they come with a plethora of extra arms, so you have quite a few weapon options including unarmed empty fist arms.

 

This leaves you with some spares, which are useful bits box items for later builds and kitbashing, especially since they're well-sized for use as 28mm scale cyber prostheses or robot limbs.

 

There are also two different leg pairings, and you could probably swap between pairs for even more stance variety by adding rocks or wreckage to the base to stand on.

 

The bodies can also be positioned looking level, up, or down (as the two-gun build in this set is).

 

They're also uncommonly good scale jumpers and make perfectly acceptable wardroids in 28mm scale gaming, as well as being intimidatingly big in 15mm.

 

John also makes a wide variety of Crusty infantry figs, including gun teams, command figs, civilians, heavy weapon carriers, and alien critters large and small.  I showcased the armored infantry in an earlier post http://brokenstarsburningships.blogspot.com/2018/02/stargrunt-15mm-armored-alien-infantry.html but here's a sample of the "naked" versions.

 

 

And here's a few of the bug critters and a couple of handler/civilian figs.  The bigger horsebugs are designed as cavalry mounts and are sold with riders, but I'm using them here as alien livestock.  Have to get around to doing some cowboy Prawns eventually.

 

You May Experience A Burning Sensation: Reaper Fire Giants, Elementals & Other Red-Hot Scorchers

Showcasing a mix of fiery figures painted over the last few years.  Why now?  Because I'm sick and tired of winter.  Just END, already!

 

Huge and medium Fire Elementals

 

 

Another huge Fire Elemental

 

Custom built Thoqqua, for fans of obscure D&D monsters

 

Flame Cultists and summoned Elemental

 

Fire Mage and Goblin Minions

 

Fire Giant Warrior

 

Fire Giant Bodyguard

 

Fire Giant Princess and custom built scenery

Group shot of another set of them with a Mordheim soldier for scale

Stargrunt 15mm Armored Alien Infantry (or are they Battledroids?)

Just a quick showcase of my latest stab at painting Ground Zero Games' Crusty aliens in armored environmental suits.  I've painted these several times over the years, and I think this is my favorite color scheme to date.  The models are single piece casting with an optional separate backpack with odd "mantis claw" arms on them and what might be jump jets or just extra air tanks.  In this case I've left off the packs since I wanted the model to look a bit less busy.

 

There are three different sculpts of the basic trooper with energy rifle, sold in packs of six models.

 

As well as a special weapons pack with three each of two different weapons.

 

The backs of the models are fully detailed, which you can't see when the backpacks are glued on.  With them left off they're a bit less alien looking but still pretty clearly non-human.

 

Personally, I think they'd also make pretty good alien combat robot types, and would probably fit in a Star Wars game comfortably as a battledroid of some kind.  So, pretty versatile, maybe more so than the "naked" Crusty models are.

Dreadful Things: Mashaaf

Latest model off the workbench, Reaper's Mashaaf from their first Bones Kickstarter.

A VERY large model, seen here re-based onto a 120mm base with some added alien eggs from Troll Forged Games/

 

The figure is Bones plastic, and really exemplifies the main beef many people have with Bones.

 

Mashaaf is only about $30 retail, much cheaper than it would be in metal or resin, which is nice.  Comparably sized GW plastics would run at least twice that, maybe more - and the model is a boxed set rather than a blister, which probably added a good $5 to the cost.

 

But the little side claws (which are part of the main body casting) and the two bigger claw arms (which are separate) are not well served by being made of Bones.

 

They're disturbingly flexible, much like the weapons on many smaller Bones figs.  Admittedly they're almost impossible to damage, but it still feels very wrong.

 

Reaper could have (and I would argue should have) cast the flexible bits either in metal or the harder plastics they've been using on some Bones scenery and terrain pieces.  A multi-media kit might have driven the cost up another $5 or even $10, but even at $40 this thing would be a bargain - and making less fancy custom packaging could have pulled the cost back down.

 

I've seen several people replace the claws with hard plastic Tyranid parts, which indicates I'm not the only one who disliked the bendy Bones plastic.

 

Still, it's inexpensive enough that I can't say it's an outright bad buy.  Just feels like a waste of an opportunity to make a good kit even better by going with a multi-media design.  Very typical of Bones-era Reaper decisions, where they regularly sacrifice some quality to keep costs down.

 

Mashaaf was a first-wave Bones release though, so maybe now that Reaper's had more experience with the stuff maybe we'll see them do multi-media at some point down the road.  The material is best for the big chunky parts of any model, not good at all for finer detailing like hair and faces.

 

It does loom menacingly over your average 28mm trooper, doesn't it?