Robot Workshop

[Ronin]

Okay, another new workshop, but this is my last one for a while, I promise!

Part of the reason I'm starting this up is that we're gonna be wrapping up a reevaluation on Mad Thinker shortly. For a long time, his general bustedness dictated what was and wasn't doable for an Android design, so reining him in is gonna open up a lot of design space! But the trade-off is that he'll be a bit less of an Android hub.

Some people have been disappointed about it being harder to put a robot army together, so I thought it would be worth firing up a workshop here to kick off some brainstorming - mainly with the goal of generating some new Android synergies to keep robo-dudes hitting the table, but designs for robot characters that aren't introducing any synergy are also welcome.

I've got a Monica Chang design here that probably qualifies, and I think japes has a DC inventor or two up his sleeve that'll fit here (which he may or may not want to share).

Here are the current Androids and Android Interactions, for reference.

[japes]

We have at least on On Deck figure that likes having Androids around and the other two I could see are T.O. Morrow and Professor Ivo. I have a few write-ups hanging around that I could go through and post out here to see if anyone wants to grab onto any of it.

[Tornado]

[Tornado]

Originally Posted by Tornado

NAME = (HAMMERSTEIN)
SECRET IDENTITY =

SPECIES = (ANDROID)
UNIQUENESS = (UNIQUE HERO)
CLASS = (SOLDIER)
PERSONALITY = (PATRIOTIC)

SIZE/HEIGHT = MEDIUM 5

LIFE = 6

MOVE = 5
RANGE = 5
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 5

POINTS = 250?


A.B.C. WARRIORS
You may only use this power if every remaining figure you control is an Unique Android Hero. When Hammerstein is destroyed or after taking a turn with Hammerstein, you may remove any unrevealed order markers from the cards of any figures you control and place them on the cards of any figures you control.

COMBAT HAMMER
When Hammerstein attacks an adjacent figure with a normal attack, add one automatic skull to the result. If Hammerstein wounds an an adjacent figure with a normal attack, roll an unblockable attack die against the defending figure.

BATTLE HARDENED
If there is at least 1 Wound Marker on this card, the most wounds Hammerstein can receive from an attack is one.


BIO:

Spoiler Alert!

Hammerstein is described as a Mark III war droid and was commissioned in the early 21st Century to fight in the Volgan Wars. Hammerstein's right hand is a hammer that is used in hand to hand combat while on the back of his left he has a missile launcher. There are tank tracks on his feet to aid mobility. Hammerstein also has two sockets in his waist to attach auxiliary arms but he finds these embarrassing.

The Volgan War

Years after the Volgan occupation of Western Europe, the United States began a counter-invasion to, officially, liberate the area; unofficially, Earth's oil reserves were running low and they wanted to seize the Volgan's oil reserves. To do this they created expendable robot soldiers - ABC Warriors - designed to wage war across any terrain in any kind of combat, atomic, bacterial or chemical. The first of their number were called Hammersteins. Developed by Howard Quartz's Ro-Busters corporation, they first saw use at Fishguard in 2009, leading the Allied liberation of the United Kingdom.

The first two models were failures. The Mk I robot was an effective killer but could not distinguish between targets on their own, killing civilians as well as Volgan soldiers. When controlled remotely by human soldiers in 2009, the Volgans were able to seize control and redirect them against American forces, driving them back across Wales and causing the American public to protest the use of war-robots. Thousands of Hammersteins were destroyed for fear of Volgan reprogramming. The later Mk II was given an artificial intelligence, with different stories giving different reasons why they failed. In the original Ro-Busters story, that meant Mk II platoons surrendered to the Volgans instead of fighting; in the later ABC Warriors, the MK II's were said to be given "genuine moral values" and had become pacifists, and were killed for trying to convert human soldiers; and in Savage, the MK II's ethical values included the price of collateral damage and they surrendered rather than damage the property values of Virginia Water (a deliberate set-up by the US so the British insurgency groups would be culled).

The Mk III Hammerstein was given artificial values and emotions such as patriotism, believing the enemy is always evil, and that war is necessary to protect national interests - just enough to stop him slaughtering civilians but not question why he was fighting. Initially, his master program could not accept the secondary programs because of their logical contradictions. His programmer and a 'robopsychologist' tried to get them in sync by forcing him to feel emotions; the first genuine he felt was jealousy that they were a couple, and he murdered them without understanding why.

The first Mk III Hammerstein would be the template for those that followed. He was field-tested by having him serve with a human regiment; he faced and overcame robophobia from his comrades and came to be a trusted soldier under Sergeant "Country" Farmer's command. The human generals were pleased by this and began to withdraw human soldiers & mass-produce robot ones.

Hammerstein was promoted to sergeant and began to lead the new war robots; as a result he was one of the few whose movements weren't remotely controlled by human generals. Despite his programming, he showed a paternal interest in the other Hammerstein units under his command and at one point disobeyed orders to save them from Volgan Stalins. He also became disillusioned due to the constant horrors of war and robots being used as cannon fodder by the humans. He once removed the pain barrier - which allowed humans to remotely experience a Warrior's actions but not its pain - from a dying comrade to put him out of its misery; this killed the officer in the process, but nothing was ever proved.

The Mars Mission

He was the first ABC Warrior recruited by the mysterious Colonel Lash to work as Martian peacekeepers near the end of the war, and gathered the other recruits. His distrust of humans increased when he was ordered to recruit the Volgan butcher Blackblood and when he discovered that his fellow ABC Warriors were being slaughtered by the humans following victory. Nevertheless, Hammerstein and Colonel Lash took the newly formed team to Mars to tame the devil planet and finally bring peace to its red plains.

Following their success, the Warriors returned to Earth and separated.

Nemesis the Warlock

As the centuries passed, Hammerstein realised war was all he knew, and decided to re-join the army. With a number of other ABC War robots, he was brought into service by Torquemada's Terminator armies during the invasion of the Gothic Empire. After being caught showing mercy to alien civilians, he and two comrades Mad Ronn and Hitaki - were reprogrammed and sent on a suicide mission. The mission was thwarted by Nemesis the Warlock, who reformed the ABC Warriors to help save the Gothic Empire from invasion and later to train the Goths in combat. They re-joined Nemesis as he ventured into the Time Wastes of Termight to find his son, Thoth. With Mad Ronn lost, their numbers were bolstered by Hammerstein's former Ro-Busters comrade Mek-Quake. The team ventured to the end of the world, and lost a second member when Hitaki was killed during the first encounter with the Monad. Adding Ro-Jaws to the team, The Warlock dispatched The Warriors into the Time Wastes alone to repair the damage done by Thoth, and stop the destruction of the planet.

The Black Hole and Khaos

During the mission, Hammerstein met and became close to a human female, Terri, who believed herself to be a robot. She had mistaken him for Craig, the father of her baby, and became equally infatuated with the ageing warrior; without the proper modifications, however, Hammerstein had no way to return her affections. The two became fiercely protective of each other, and made plans to find some remote planet and settle down. With Terri's untimely death during the final confrontation with the Monad, Hammerstein realized he was doomed to be an eternal soldier, only finding pleasure in war and destruction.

He temporarily relinquished command to Deadlock, which saw the Warriors drawn into his quest to bring Khaos to the galaxy. For most of this mission, Hammerstein was bewildered and disgusted by the task and the lunatic excesses of his comrades. The most reluctant of all The Warriors to embrace Khaos, he finally realized that he did not have to obey orders any longer and renounced Deadlock's leadership.

The Warriors went their own ways. Hammerstein agreed to let Blackblood (now an arms dealer) give him a service, only to find himself welded to a workbench, used for testing new weaponry and deliberately tortured for five years. With the help of Deadlock, Hammerstein escaped and pulled the Warriors together again to stop the Terran ship Hellbringer. During this, it was shown he was loyal to Khaos and had some understanding of it, more so than some of his comrades like Joe.

In the battle against Hellbringer a demon overloaded his neural net with all the repressed guilt from his long career, almost killing him before he took out his fury on the demon. He also discovered the other Warriors had all known he was being tortured but had deliberately not come to save him, as "Nobody likes a nice guy!" - Morrigun even informed him that his innate goodness was against the order of things and this was why bad things happened to him.

Return To Mars

He led the team back to Mars afterwards, initially to tackle a group of zombies calling themselves the Jung Cannibals. They were caught in the Medusa War where Medusa, the planetary consciousness, tried to wipe out her human settlers. Hammerstein struck a deal with the spirit and kidnapped human Mars President D.W. Cobb, though he didn't know Deadlock planned to turn Cobb into a Martian as an act of appeasement.

Cobb's 'transformation' sparked a civil war, with the Confederacy of Martian Industries on one side and the Union of Martian Free States on the other. Hammerstein led the ABC Warriors in attempting to force a peace, leading to the Confederacy hiring a seven-strong robot mercenary gang called the Shadow Warriors to assassinate them. The battle saw Hammerstein infected with parasitical brain-eating robot snakes, forced to be killed or let them kill his comrades, and though he escaped the situation he was left severely wounded. He managed to kill the Warrior responsible, Doc Maniacus, with his own snakes.

Currently, Hammerstein is leading the ABC Warriors to rescue Zippo, a robot comrade from the Volgan War.

[Ronin]

Awesome. Mini ideas?

[Tornado]

That is the bad part. There were metal minis but apparently they are no longer in production.

[Ronin]

That is a bummer. He's got a very specific look, too (and I imagine the other ABC Warriors are similarly stylized).

[Tornado]

Yeah, Soundwarp helped with a few suggestions for mods. Blackheart looks possible, as well as Deadlock. I was holding out for the metal minis and now that it seems like a possibility, they are no longer available.

I think this may have something to do with Rebellion acquiring 2000AD rights, not sure.
Hopefully they come back. Johnny Alpha (Strontium Dog) has new figures, so I am hopeful. I believe that is Mongoose.

[Ronin]

Definitely keep us updated if there are any developments on the minis for them - if they get a new run of minis, I might snatch em up before they have a chance to go out of production again.

On A.B.C. Warriors, the power, did you want him to be able to jettison his OMs and put them on a different card when he gets destroyed? That would require some wording tweaks.

[Tornado]

Honestly I do not know what I was going for there. I guess I was just trying for a non-bonding, non-attack-boosting power.
He leads a group of seven robots generally. He is the pure essence of soldier/leader type.
Very much Captain America or Duke from GI Joe in robot form.

[Ronin]

The OM stuff is cool, but it would probably be stronger if there were some Android sidekicks or something.

The OM rearrangement definitely has kind of a 'super tactician' vibe to it.

[MrNobody]

I got this guy in a random set of Clix. Never heard of him before, but he's a giant screw-off robot so I'm into it.


Other robots I'd want to work on;
-The Metal Men
-Chemo (Is he a robot?)
-Death's Head
-More Ultrons (Other models, AoU, Phalanx Leader, etc)
-Viv Vision
-Victor Mancha
-Machine Man (regular or Nextwave)
-Super-Adaptoid