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Crawlers, Landships & Landtrains; Oh My! A Sci-Fi PA discussion.
Topic Started: Nov 9 2008, 09:36 PM (1,006 Views)
mattblackgod
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Big boss warlord dude!
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Back in the day of 40K Rogue Trader and the first Star Wars movie - when I was young :'( and most of you were even younger we saw Crawlers. Massive slow moving vehicles.

Since then I have found various Land Trains - mainly Russian and Alsakan for crossing the vast open spaces (although I have heard that the Aussies have them too) - think of trains without the tracks. The PA novel "Out of the mouth of the Dragon" in the '80s had one B-) .

In VSF there is Landships - basically a warship on land (probaly better for a PA setting as they are often steam driven). B-) I guess there is nothing stopping there being a goods transporter landship too.

Ever since then I have had a hankering to build one for my PA games. Since my world is in a Sci-Fi setting so I have no real problems fitting one in (ooh-err!). I guess such a monster would be good for those playing Fallout backgrounds. Everyone would want such a beast!

So how would one fit into a Post Apoc setting? How would such monster vehicles be use and how? Who would use them and why ? How are they driven or propelled? How would they find it? What are your thoughts and ideas?

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mattblackgod
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For my setting upon Mattblackworld I have two ideas.

The first is for a smaller crawler with a perhaps a 8 man crew. It is a cargo crawler with suitable PA enhancements to keep the pesky mutants at bay. I have no idea yet where or how they find it. I was thinking they find one abandoned and damaged in the wastelands after the war and fix it up.

The second is a much larger crawler with at least a 10 man crew. Again its a cargo hauler but the guys running it are adventurers and scavs. This one will have a internal parking bay for at least 3 vehicles. In my head a small hand full of adventurers are legging it from the local cannibal mutants when they fall into a massive sand drift. They discover a hatch and manage to open it. They find they are inside a massive crawler and its been more or less left in a ready state. All they have to is put the plasma reactors back online and off they go.

Both machines will be powered by plasma or nuke reactors. They may be tracked (I am looking at cheapo 1/24 ish kids toy tanks) or maybe wheeled. Or I might even decicde that these beasts will work on antigrav or hover technology!
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v_lazy_dragon
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Have a look for the 1/35 aliens APC kit they released a few years ago - although its wheeled, it is very wide, and just geberally huge. I kept meaning to get one for Ash Waste games - but never did. You could also convert the flat top into a fighting/storage platform (just keep clear arcs of fire around the turret!)
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v_lazy_dragon
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http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1987-ALIENS-Halcyon-APC-Armoured-Personnel-Carrier-MINT_W0QQitemZ170273592526QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item170273592526&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177 is the one... but not at that price!
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mattblackgod
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Land train pics:

landtrain
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mattblackgod
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Ouch - a old school freind of mine bought that kit for less than £10 back in the '80s. That is tooo pricey. It was a nice size with 40K Space Marines.
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mattblackgod
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I was thinking of a vessel around L=24" x W=10" x H = 6" for the smaller one. For the larger one possible L=36+" x W = 12+" x H = 12+". Think moving building! :D The speed wont be a problem as they will move not much quicker than a mini on foot.
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v_lazy_dragon
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:O that is a BIG piece of scenery my friend!
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dijit80
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I've you're using the Rogue trader rules they have them there, also the idea of using the top of one as a battlefield. I also thought of Thunderbirds, they often had huge vehicles in there, I remember one large road building machine. Then theres stuff like crawlers for the US space missions. Cargo I think would be the main use, especially in open wasteland. I also think of the Jarwa thingy in Star Wars. Maybe there could be a Guild that operates them independantly from the various factions, a bit like the Guild in Dune. Alternatively taking the Dune thing, you could have giant monsters with loads on the backs.
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shadowbeast
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mattblackgod
Nov 9 2008, 09:36 PM
(although I have heard that the Aussies have them too)
Road Train or Multi-combination as Queensland Transport call them.
In 28mm it is simply terrain. It cannot be used as a vehicle as there is no space to move it, unless you have one of those rolling highway tile sets so the tabletop can be refreshed as the train gets to the end of the table.
In tinier scales it can move, but it will be at least N scale before you can turn it. They are typically around 50m long.
It will be 15km/h slower than a semi, though after the apocalypse there will probably not be anyone to check electronic speed limiters...
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mattblackgod
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The Road Train idea would be a great PA moving nomad community. Mind you so would the crawlers. :D

I picture a massive long vehicle ala Mad Max with raiders bouncing off it! :D Or maybe as a mobile HQ for the raiders?
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Bungle
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I was thinking Mad Max pulling trailers, with Spacehunter steam vehicle mixed with steam engines.


Front wheel steer, rear wheel drive with steam pistons from an old model train kit or plastic section rods.
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mattblackgod
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The vehicles in Space Hunter are cooool! I must try and pick that movie up. :D

For some Landship/crawler ideas take a peek at this VSF page. Okay its not PA - but batter them up and ad a mix of materials/textures in places and they will do nicely!

VSF landships
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Ross
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Nice link, how do you guys find this stuff!?!?!?!?
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mattblackgod
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I had that link as I have been thinking of doing some VSF stuff for a while. :D
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Ross
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Yeah, but it still amazes me the links people have in their favorites.
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mattblackgod
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Years of wandering the interweb wastelands looking for goodness! :D :D
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Ross
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Ah, that's my problem, all I get is porn :D
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mattblackgod
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*coughs* I have never *cough* looked at *cough* porn *cough*. :D ;)








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Ross
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Ah, Laura's still lurking then? :D
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