Ghar Battlesuit

Last week I received my box set for Beyond the Gates of Antares, The Xilos Horizon. The first thing I did was put together a few of the Ghar battle suits! These are nice models and cunningly arrange on sprues so the mold channel points are almost all hidden by construction, leaving very little in the way of cleaning required.

This my first one and I am very happy with the results. In the Antares universe, the Ghar are twisted, spiteful and pitiless creatures driven by an unquenchable hatred of all panhumans. They view other kinds of human as vermin that it is their job to eradicate (EXTERMINATE!). They care nothing for art or music or other things that may define a culture and they live only for war.

The studio versions of these models are well painted, but the clean color scheme didn't suit them fluff IMHO. I wanted these battle suits to reflect the character described above and opted for dark metal in the main. The orange markings are the minimum decoration required for squad identification and the white stripe on the head of this model denotes the squad leader. I presume in this hi-tech universe there are equally hi-tech combat displays that relay the same information to the pilots, but I wanted a more mundane solution for the table top.

My initial plan is to build three full squads of five - red, orange, and yellow. Depending on the size of the game or the scenario, I may field them in units of less than five, but I normally collect full units for any game whether it is a Napoleonic French battalion or, well, a unit of stomping giant robots!