Tuesday 3 July 2012

ThreeA ~ Zaku Exclusive Inspiration Model by Gundam x Ashley Wood.


"I am the hammer, I am the right hand of the Supreme Mother, the instrument of Her will, the gauntlet about Her fist, the tip of Her spear, the edge of Her sword."

A (mis) interpretation :

Category type : Cyborg.
Unit Type: Unknown.
Model Type: Unknown.
Designation : Garmr.
Alias : The Death's Head / Der Totenkopf.
Manufacturer: Unknown.
Affiliation: The N.O.M. Legion - Totenwache Spezialgruppe.
Rank : High Captain and Marshal of the Host.
Armour Type : Nanocrystalline Adamastos Hyper Alloy.
Armour Thickness : 200mm.
Height : 8 feet.
Weight: 3500kg.
Power plant : Matter/Anti-matter energy reactor core.
Armaments : “Fenrir’s Jaw” - Power weapon x 1; Hel’s Sturm - X07 heavy machine gun x 1; Svalinn - power  shoulder armour x 2; Sturm jet booster x 2; Rüstung des Glaubens  - Power armour; Refractor, Reductor, Rosarius - Energy fields.
Abilities : Psionic manipulation; cybernetic enhanced transhuman physiology; military strategist and tactician; leadership skill, invulnerability, strong will, immortality, expert hand to hand and weapon combat.


Named after the Nordic guardian of the gates of underworld by the Supreme N.O.M. Commander Herself, Garmr is one of the mightiest N.O.M. champions, possessing formidable psychic abilities with absolute tactical and combat mastery. Garmr is a cyborg of ancient origin. He is sometimes refer to as Der Totenkopf or The Death's Head. Within it's adamastos skull, contains a bio mechanical, genetically engineered organic brain created through techno-arcane knowledge long lost and forgotten in the mist of time. It is incapable of any forms of contamination and degeneration. Garmr's origin is shrouded in mystery, known only to the Supreme Mother. He is found embedded deep within one of the mines on the Principality of Ceres asteroid mining colony, designated as Z45. After Operation Lawnmower was carried out by the 1st Jovian Expeditionary Fleet to crush the Zeon Uprising, Garmr is absconded by the N.O.M. Legion and brought back to their fortress monastery. Through psychometry, the Supreme Mother believes Garmr descends from a separate lineage of an ancient human race, a being from an age long forgotten, whereby the human race had reached the zenith of civilisation advancements and achievements. The Supreme Mother believes that there were once a million of them standing as the primary vanguard of humankind throughout the entire western galaxy but their demise followed due to cataclysmic events said to be of their own doing. Garmr was said to be holding a rank equivalent to a captain of a company during those period. Believed to be originally flesh and bones, Garmr underwent the transformation into its current form after undergoing an intense genetic re-engineering via by now lost arcane technology of those times.
Garmr holds an un-question, unwavering loyalty to the Supreme N.O.M. Commander and upholds the Threefold Path vigorously. Garmr is one of the Twelve Retinues of the Supreme Mother, keeping vigil outside the Gate of Gnipahellir. He also holds the rank as the High Captain of the highly feared  Totenwatche Spezialgruppe or Deathwatch. The elite deployment group/task force is not organized like a regular N.O.M. elite task force. The Deathwatchers are instead divided into "Fighting Teams" which are formed in an ad hoc manner and only during the greatest peril threatening the N.O.M. The individual squads and specialists will fight side by side out of familiarity and comradeship, and are selected from across any chapters and elite groups, regardless of their ranks, rather than any imposed organization. The Deathwatchers respond to the call of battle where they benefit the standard N.O.M. Chapters by supporting them with their immense skills and experiences which can turn the tide in any desperate battle. Garmr does not believe that a warrior is forged in battle but rather that battle tempers their fighting spirit to do greater acts in the future. He is also known for his indomitable will power and incredibly resilient fighting spirit. Like all well trained, experienced master strategist and tactician, Garmr could read, change and adapt to the ever changing ebb and flow of a combat throughout the course of a battle, more than often turning a seemingly dire situation into victory. As a champion of the N.O.M. Legion, Gamr would always be located and “deep strike” in that part of the battlefield where the fighting is the thickest and where the greatest peril resides.
Garmr possesses several ancient devices and armaments. The Sturm jet boosters enabled him to transverse and manoeuvre in any form of environments with unprecedented ease and speed. The jet boosters are powered by the central core power plant within Garmr, enabling it to achieve maximum velocity near the speed of light. 
Garmr's entire body is cladded in a form of power armour. The armour is forged from nanocrystalline adamastos hyper alloy and there are currently no known energy based nor projectile weaponries which could penetrate his armour. It also vaunted for its legendary durability. The Supreme Mother has observed that each stage of the armour’s construction incorporates layer upon layer of ancient electromagnetic algorithms and ferromantic incantations. It is an incredibly well crafted lattice of psychoconductive filaments and amulets, anointed and inscribed with prayers and wards, ritually consecrated and psychically charged. The armour works in tandem with Garmr’s own formidable psychic powers, protecting him and those around from the effects of the Ruinous Powers and psykers. The entire amour is capable of self generating various form of energy shields - the "Refractor Field" deflects projectile based weaponries and munitions while the "Reductor Field" disperses as well as deflects energy based weaponries. Thirdly, the "Rosarius Field" protects Garmr from even the most powerful raw warp energy attack by daemonic entities from the Immaterium. Both the pauldron and spaulder, known as Svalinn, house additional shield generators. The armour's ritual blessings and psychic resonance also serve to confound the perception of any enemy. The psychically charged nature of the armour also allows its mere presence to induce intense terror and pain in any form of enemies as long as they posses sentiency. This arcane lore is etched into Garmr’s very structure at a molecular level. Thus armour is occasionally also referred to as the Armour of Faith or Rüstung des Glaubens. Members of N.O.M. would said that it should be instead referred to as the Unobtanium armour, since its composition does not exist and un-obtainable in current times.
Garmr is perpetually powered by a form of matter-antimatter reactor core which contained a mini-wormhole, which in turn continuously fuels Garmr with immensely powerful energy via a form of hyperspatial, space-time continuum webways weave directly into a black hole locates at the centre of the galaxy. To be capable of possessing such an immense form of power and yet without being torn apart could mean that Garmr is possibly one of the most powerful being in existence. Garmr possesses both powerful psychic abilities and skills. He could hack into any warbots programme effortlessly and takes control of it like a Nom de Plume individually or several at once. He once taken control of an entire battleship while simultaneously machine-wipe a division of warbots. Through the same principle as applies by the N.O.M., Garmr could manipulate its target perception and reality, rendering himself invisible to the eyes, multi-scanners and sensors of its enemies or even blend into the surrounding environment. He could also unleash devastating, deadly telekinetic detonation which would destroys and tears apart all matters at molecular level as well as rending the very fabric of reality apart.
Garmr's primary weapon of choice in any battles is an ancient, unknown origin, a relic equally as old as Garmr, the Fenrir’s Jaw. It is a huge, nigh indestructible black, master crafted battle axe. The power weapon is believed to contain the very essence of the ancient Nordic monstrous wolf of myth. The weapon strikes most fear into the heart of the N.O.M. enemies and opponents alike, an instrument of death forged from the same composition as Garmr himself. The battle axe head is a full three spans across, and when activates, the blade of the axe become sheath in a field of black, crackling energy which disrupts solid matter up to the molecular level, allowing the weapon to easily cleave apart any physical object, causing molecular bonds to disintegrate in any foe unfortunate enough to be struck by it. Gamr could psychic guide and control the Fenrir’s Jaw, enabling it to hurl the battle axe at targets and then returns back to his grip. Countless warbots, vehicles and humans have been cleaved apart by Fenrir’s Jaw with just a single blow from top to bottom. Only Garmr is be able to "tame" the Fenrir's Jaw. Any other beings, be it a warbot or a human, whom attempt to take it or even a mere touch, would be short circuited or driven insane by its intense and furious "essence". When facing a psychic based enemy, such as demonic warp entities of the Ruinous Powers, Fenrir’s Jaw also houses a psi-matrix which is attuned to the unique psyche of Garmr, enabling the power of the battle axe itself to directly corresponds to the psychic talent of the wielder, making it a truly devastating weapon against the foul creatures, either annihilate them entirely or loosening their grip on the material realm and banish them back into the Immaterium.
Garmr is also armed with a massive twin-linked assault rifle known as the X07, or the Hel’s Sturm. A recoil less, electromagnetic propelling based weapon, Hel’s Sturm could rain down ultra sonic speed, self-propelling armour penetrating rounds to shred its targets to pieces. The Hel’s Sturm utilises two primary form of ammunitions - the 30mm "Penetrator" round and the 20mm "Psycannon" round. The Penetrator rounds explode with devastating effect upon impact on all forms of enemies. The core of the ammunition then accelerates deep into the target, which contains a form of detonator, which explodes and propels shards of super hardened metals throughout within the target effectively shredding the target from inside out. This is very effective against heavily armoured target. The 20mm Psycannon round is a form of psychic-bound ammunition which releases immense telekinetic energies that explode with enormous psychic energies upon impact. It has been said that this particular specialised ammunition is used primarily against entities of the Ruinous Powers from the Immaterium and other forms of supernatural beings. Garmr could use its psychic ability to independently or simultaneously guide each shot to seek out potential targets, bypassing any obstacles, regardless of their positions or nature - warbots, daemons or humans - by detecting their sentiency or electrical spectrum signature emission. This is used to annihilate mass infantry or clusters of enemies.
During the N.O.M. assault on the Rothchild City on Luna, 20th July 1944, Garmr, leading the Deathwatch, singularly annihilated six Shadow Guard Divisions and breached Rothchild's Camo Defence Line. Amongst one of Garmr greatest endeavour was the utter defeat of daemonic entities pouring out from a warp overlay manifested from a space drive engine of a grand cruiser captured by the MOD faction when they tried to modify it with faster than light capability to a disastrous consequences which annihilated all the techno space pirates. Picking up the foul warp stench of the Ruinous Powers, the Deathwatch is forced to confront a daemonic entities invasion of which they are outnumbered several thousands to one. The Ruinous Powers daemons are led by a Greater Daemon of the Horned One. Garmr and his troops' will of iron and incorruptible faith resulted in a victory although the battle decimated two third of Deathwatchers. Garmr personally engages the Greater Daemon in a vicious battle of which he tears the foul, monstrous beast into pieces with the Fenrir’s Jaw and his bare hands. He also pursued the remainder of the Lesser Daemons into the warp overlay, slaughtering all and left none standing despite the perils of the warp energies. The grand cruiser then was set on self destruction, sealing off the warp overlay perpetually.
The Supreme Mother once said, that whenever Garmr takes to the field of battle, it is an echo of the power from those ancient days long gone.  

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Just arrived in post (luckily no trip to the custom this time, heh), this is the Ashley Wood re-imagination of the popular mobile suit Zaku II in collaboration with Bandai from the culturally significant, immensely popular Japanese anime epic series, Mobile Suit Gundam from the Universal Century timeline and background. It was made available immediately at WonderFest exhibition. But based feedbacks and information gathered from forums, this "inspirational" model of Zaku is not generally well received by hardcore fans, primarily focus their complains about the dual eyes instead of the iconic mono eye of a Zaku. Its sale at Bambaland was also extended beyond the standard 24 hours, most likely because of its price and sale period clash with the 2012 3AA membership. Teasers were released to promote it at several toys exhibitions to raise its awareness. Personally I think the "critics" are missing the exact point of this model - it is an re-imagination, not a exact reproduction of the iconic Zeon "grunt" mobile suit. Logically, if I were to want an exact replica of a 1/60 scale Zaku II, I would have simply gotten meself a Perfect Grade self assemble model from Bandai instead. I remembered when the first teaser was released, which is the painting Ash done on the cover of the box and I was getting really excited. When the prototype was shown, I found that the fists were kinda too big. The prototype colour weathering was abit too extreme. Luckily, the final release is just right, with the colouration and weathering quite close to the NOM Commanders Snow Blind Version and Fantome de Plume. Those who complains about this figure are nit-picking in my honest opinion. More importantly for me, this release is just right, as I re-imagine the Zaku as one of the N.O.M, and it has all the hallmarks, vinyl goodness signature of Ash and 3A written all over it. With the vacuum cleaner hoses like pipings all over, hint of Prussian style design, and though it is 1/60 scale, I re-imagine it to fit into the world of 3A various stories and product line releases. It has a strong, close design of a N.O.M. It also seriously reminds me of the Space Jockey from Alien (or the Engineers as they called it now since Prometheus has been released) and a bit of Space Marines from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K universe and somehow, Death's Head, the robot bounty hunter from the pages of Marvel UK, originated in The Transformer series.  It is about 16 inches tall, but bulkier than a Caesar or Armstrong, thus giving an impression it is quite a large figure, just like Mongrol, not to mention a certain level of brutal impression it gives off. It also comes with an impressive heat hawk, another iconic weaponry from Gundam, as well as a Rick Dom type like massive hyper bazooka in the form of a heavy machine gun I guess. The only complain which I have is still, like all vinyl models, is that most ball joints and finger joints will eventually get loose and floppy over time, which is a pain in the arse if you were wanna pose or grip the weaponries. Nevertheless, I am overall happy with it and glad to have one.  Again, majority of the ideas above are taken from the world of WH40K, like Lexicanum, Games Workshop and Forge World sites.

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