"...and the time will come when Replicant Intelligence Productions will send forth their creatures to destroy man, and populate the earth with machines." - from The Artificial Intelligence Conspiracy by Jeremiah Sytone The ensuing R.I.P. wars and the resistance: the Anti-Replicant League are described in depth in Thomas Todd's articles. I just wanted an excuse to paint up a load of replicants! The EM4 skeletal robots are a great range of miniatures, they're highly stereotyped, they have a small but great selection of over-the-top weaponry and they just look menacing. Oh, and they're also really easy and fun to paint. So when I got my hands on two of the models I only wanted more! I aimed for twelve models, four of each weapon variant. To add some more variety to the models (five variants in total, but with only three different sets of legs) I swapped around a few legs.These were easy to separate at the middle from most models. I pinned the new torso and leg combinations together and filled up the gaps with Vallejo Plastic Putty. I glued sand to the bases and undercoated them black. I wanted the full steel skeleton look without making them look boring. The solution was to give the metal a bluish tone. I basecoated them fully with Tamiya Metallic Blue, then drybrushed them by adding silver to the mix. The final drybrush was pure Vallejo Mithril Silver. The only non-metallic parts of the skeletons were the red eyes and the white number on the left knee.

To contrast with the metallic skeleton I painted the weapons black and drybrushed them grey. Then I detailed the weapons with some small coloured dots and white markings. When the models were done they got a gloss varnish, and I touched up the base and weapons with matt varnish. The robots can be used as Hard-shell Military 5000 Close Assault Replicants or Dragoon Class Heavy Support Replicants (the rules for replicant types are given in Robin Dear's "Replicants in Combat Zone") You can choose to arm them with with assault rifles, autocannons, assault cannons or machine guns (the rules for assault cannons are given in Robin Dear's "New Equipment and Skills for Combat Zone"). Since Replicants are ridiculously expensive to field (especially in the numbers I painted up) it would be a nice alternative to use them as an overkill force that the opponent (an ARL squad for example) has to sneak around. Deploy the replicants first, then deploy an ARL squad. If anyone makes it alive off the opposite table edge they are victorious. Since Dragoons only have 5 actions and most have heavy weapons they might actually stand a chance of reaching the opposite table edge. Or they will die just like everyone else...