#mobile frame zero

M1E5 Abrams by skroberto, on Flickr

M1E5 Abrams - Tank Mode by skroberto, on Flickr

M1E5 Abrams - Tank Mode by skroberto, on Flickr

M1E5 Abrams - Walker Mode by skroberto, on Flickr

Bantarr are a proud warrior race from the savannah world Banaak, who joined the Alliance despite their homeworld being distant from the main borders. They build sturdy, tough ships, and plenty of them. They will occasionally eat the corpses of enemy officers as a victory rite.

Bantarr Ships, which make up the majority of military assests available to the Denesk Alliance by numbers, are classified as follows:

Guj’mak-Class Corvette

Idjdo-Class Destroyer

Azdor-Class Frigate

---The BLUE\MOON fleet--- This started as a concept of a company designing a utility craft that could be reasonable used throughout the colonies and serve as the core to every ship in a given fleet with enough time and effort. Specifically, the ship is designed from the keel up to be a trojan horse just in need of arms and barding.

I'm so excited for this game and the mech designs I just had to build one of my own.

So, I watched all of Evangelion and was like “wow, mechs vs monsters is so sick like for real”

So my next Lego project is going to be mechs vs monsters in a micro city, thus continuing my trend of projects that stretch my collection instead of building on it.

While Brikwars shenanigans continue I have been building the mechs.

Here they are, a handsome little collection.

I wanted to write this post to expand on the lore of each machine but also to give credit to the excellent mech and frame builders I copied from. I think I have a real talent for castles and landscapes but machines and space builds still don’t feel right, so I’m thankful for others who have paved the way.

From left to right:

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W-024 “Ancient Ode” is one of the original War Class mechs before the expansion of their battlefield roles, and is now one of the last to operate. It owes its longevity to numerous upgrades given its stellar combat record across conflicts and operators. It keeps its original colors, an homage to the Army it used to serve.

This one is based on principles from Josh's Super Chub Marines, though I've multiplied the legs and made some significant changes to the arms and shoulders. This mech was originally going to be a melee focused machine, but the super chub legs have some balance problems when posing, and I was frustrated by the lack of articulation in the ankles.

The solution came to me in a dream (Armored Core VI). I doubled the legs for a quadrupedal design, inspired by the success I had using them against Sea Spider. Now it stays upright effortlessly and I could also use more sand green (one of the best Lego colors). In general, the four legs allow for beefier body parts and the back-mounted rocket launcher.

“W-class” refers to a time when mechs were first used for warfare instead of construction or manufacturing. Today, Ancient Ode would be referred to a BL-Class (Battleline), but owing to its service record the original classification sticks. Ancient Ode is the Ma Deuce of battle mechs. I enhanced the build with stickers from the Avatar sets, though I was disappointed when the sand green on the stickers clashes with the brick color.

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A-094 "Distant Oath" was one of the first artillery class mechs produced, as such the it was outfitted with a now-obsolete shoulder-mounted heavy cannon. While heavy cannon mounted in this manner such as the LM-15 Ultra Sonic have gone out of fashion in favor of much larger cannon or shorter range missile pods (a precursor of which is mounted on the right shoulder), it has been impractical to repurpose A-class mechs like Distant Oath.

Distant Oath is heavily based on the MF0 frame Uhlan Marine by skroberto on Flickr. I had to figure out most of it from his photos and other resources on the MF0 Facebook page. It's a great frame, but I made some internal changes to make it suitable for physical construction. Unfortunately, it is the least stable mech in the collection because the “knee” joint is a round tile using opposite anti-studs to hold the legs together.

Given the stability problems and its size I decided it would be an artillery piece. I added some stickers from a Mindstorms set, and the “A” in “A-class” was derived from the stickers. The cannon has one that says “Ultra Sonic” so that’s the name of the cannon. Distant Oath was almost a shade of blue, but I was using Orange while I designed it and decided I loved it too much to change.

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S-62-2 “Wild Eyes” is a strike/support class mech designed for air superiority missions. These machines are among the newest frames produced, with boosted legs for softer landings and a lighter exoskeleton to let the booster engines really shine. They are useful for sustained flight and boosting directly into engagements.

This is a combination of concepts from -SuspendedAnimation-'s Rigel II and Andromeda MFO frames that use their X-11 core.

Wild Eyes is a strike/support class because I’ve decided that machines that are smaller and more mobile can have so many different roles that it would be impractical to classify them all different. The color chosen for the only soft blue that includes the chest piece and the shoulder bricks. Wild Eyes is a little lanky after I modified the arms to be more posable and it looked very “flight” to me so I gave them a real set of boost engines designed to fly around and harass.

I used more mindstorms stickers since they are transparent, but I was able to find some for the fund that say “Danger, Jet Blast” in a Marvel jet I could cut apart to fit.

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S-973 No Survivors is a strike/support class mech designed for sustained ground operations. It's outfitted with stronger than standard armor and a booster engine for mobility to offset the additional weight. Additionally, it's equipped with a utility launcher for tactical munitions or a short range pile driver. Often, this style of S-class mechs carries a melee weapon, and No Survivors wields an RES (Rapid Energy Sword).

This one is a modified version of -SuspendedAnimation-'s Comanche core. I changed the shoulder and elbow assembly because I don't like how fragile modified tiles and taps are, something I also did for Wild Eyes and Ancient Ode. The rifle is their design as well.

Once again, the mech’s numerical designation is derived from the stickers. This one uses several unmodified from a Marvel jet. Like Distant Oath, No Survivors has last resort munitions in the chest. The RES isn’t a static blade like a lot of other mech settings, as that would be impractical when trying to fight in between buildings. It operates a little bit like a lightsaber, activating when necessary, and the energy isn’t all that stable. It explodes out from the handle and is closer to a giant lighter than a true sword.

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I’m excited to get the city built for the mechs to romp around in. I have a few buildings mocked up already, but I don’t have space for more until I can block out the roadways. I love how AC6 cities are laid out and will be taking lots of inspiration from there. I also want to do some retractable structures like Tokyo-3.