BoB: Triffids

Ok, well I bought these ages and ages ago for Back Of Beyond, but finally got them assembled and Painted for Xmashammer 2012 as they fitted well with the Lustrian background.

Triffids in BoB ?:

The 1981 TV series and some editions of the book have Masen speculating that the triffids were the creation of the real-life Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko. According to Masen’s narration, the triffids first came to the attention of the Western world when a man named Umberto Christoforo Palanguez presented the Arctic & European Fish Oil Company with a mysterious vegetable oil originating from Russia.

So they must have had some root (ha ha) stock to have developed them for the oil, so these Triffids might be their precursors, hidden away in sparsely populated reaches of Central Asia, or maybe they are precursors developed by the Reds as bio terror weapon (cue spooky music). So I forced myself to watch the BBC TV series from the 1980’s [1] that I watched as a kid to see what they were like.

The actual miniatures were from HLBSCo (The Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Co) and are no longer available. 😦

Yes, you’ve guessed it, the stinger is separate and fitted into a small notch in the “flower” at the top

So they had to be taken to Rich’s Pinning Service (c), to be pinned and also have some greenstuff added to support the weight of the sting. Luckily I’d put them on metal washers for the base, which helps “weigh” them down as otherwise they’d be falling over as they are quite top heavy.

I then painted them to match the TV series ones:

The sting itself is a bit more purple than appears in the photos.

Here’s the rules I hastily wrote up for Xmashammer 2012:

M = 2
Ws = 0
BS = 5
S = 5
T = 4*
W = 2
A = 1
I = 2
Ld = n/a / 10 immune to psychology

Triffids cause Fear.
Poisoned attacks on a to hit roll of 5-6.
A Triffid counts as a Skirmisher (-1 to hit)
They cause a single Stomp attack, S2.
They may make a single missile attack in the shooting phase with a range of 4″. This ignores any armour unless the model has a helmet on (WISYWIG).
In combat, they make a single missile attack. They may not choose targets, they must attack the model directly in front of them with the greatest base to base contact.

* Halve all mundane missile weapons’ strength, except those caused by warmachines

In the game they were a nuisance but delayed at least one of Gav’s Arrer boy units for a round or two.

[1] Not the abomination of the remake from a few years ago !