Miniature Monday - Two Mech-Rats for the Price of One
In this week's Miniature Monday, we're finishing the reveals we started last week with the Mech-Rat Injurius Games fans know affectionately (or unaffectionately, depending on what side of the table you're on) as Big Fister. This week, we're showing off the other two Ratz, both of whom are made from the same Mech-Rat body. As we mentioned previously, which mech-rat was originally which is a little spotty, but in Injurius Games, we know this terrible duo as Buzz and Broiler. They used the same body sculpt, crafted to intimidate with spikes and sculpted skulls and flames, and both carry a Rat Wrench as their secondary weapon. It's their main weapon that sets them apart.
Buzz is, perhaps unsurprisingly, armed with a Buzz Saw. However, this is no ordinary carpentry tool. Besides its obvious use in melee combat, the blade of this saw can be fired at enemies, where it continues to spin and ricochet around the target area for multiple rounds. Watch out though, as the flying blade doesn't discriminate between friend and foe, and on a malfunction it can fire too soon and shred Buzz and anyone standing too close.
Broiler, on the other hand, carried a plasma-based flamethrower called a Plasma Broiler. Like the Triple Threat Flamer carried by Klaw, it's a terror weapon that can fill entire areas with flaming death. Unlike Klaw's weapon, the Plasma Broiler doesn't simply run out of ammo when it malfunctions. Instead, the temperamental weapon can do anything from simply shutting down to losing containment and launching its user like a rocket around the battlefield, burning himself and anyone in his path. Rats may not always be effective, but they're never boring!
When originally packaged, Buzz and Broiler sometimes came with different heads, depending on how many of each the Red Shirt Games team had access to. Now that they're being printed, you'll be able to choose between this one with the iron jaw, or the same one that came with Big Fister. Similarly, you can use the thin metal tail he came with, or an unarmoured rat tail. You can also leave it off and fill the hole with putty, if you prefer.
Just like with Big Fister, you can see where some work is needed before these models are ready for release. Buzz got the worst of it, as the fine spikes on his buzz saw didn't survive the molding process, and are so thin and fragile they don't hold up well to handling. The blade is not quite paper thin, but it's close, and will need to be thickened to hold up to printing and use on the tabletop. Broiler's weapon fared a lot better, but the heads of both models came with thick metal flash that's destroyed the detail where their neck joint was. Like with Big Fister, we'll need to clean up these areas and replace them with a proper ball joint. Once these minis are ready to be released, we'll have made sure the heads, tails, and arms are all interchangeable between the two bodies, so you can have more flexibility when assembling your models.
There won't be a Miniature Monday next week, as it's a holiday in Canada, but we'll be back the week after with our final scanned Goth Rat part, and maybe some news about our next project.