Hammer time! (*hammer not included)

ABC War Robots. Atomic. Bacterial. Chemical. Mass-produced, automated troops, designed to withstand the most hostile warfare environments. I may have said this before, but it's definitely worth saying again: everyone needs one of these in their life. So here's mine, Hammerstein, leader of the ABC Warriors, and now my stand-in model for any dangerous, humanoid robot in any science fiction miniatures game you care to mention.

I decided I wanted a model of this implacable metal soldier after completing my squad of Adeptus Arbites Enforcers inspired by the Judges from the 2012 Karl Urban Dredd movie. 

As a continuing homage, I thought it would be cool to revisit the earlier 1995 Stallone movie, Judge Dredd, and try to build one of the Judges' main foes.

This guy

Seen here deploying signature 'red steel' 'looks to kill.'

However I soon stopped short when I realised I had no idea whatsoever how to go about doing this. No idea whatsoever until I saw something rather excellent on Twitter. Enter Martin Carcosa and his ancient cybernetica combat unit, based on the same high-cheekboned, killer robot.

So thanks are due to Martin Carcosa, not just for this wonderful inspiration, and for working out which parts from other kits looked awesome, but also for being kind enough to let me copy it, and even actively encouraging me to do so.

However there was one downside. I liked what Martin had done so much, it became kind of pointless to simply try to make an exact copy. He had already created what I considered the definitive WH40K version of the Judge Dredd movie robot, so what was the point in me doing the same?

Instead I figured I'd do what I did with my Judges' bikes and go back to the original comics and take some additional inspiration from there. So a quick flick through several hundred pages of collected stories and I'd found the following images:

A panel from the original ABC Warriors strip in the late 1970s, with art by Mike McMahon

The above image showed I could have Hammerstein's iconic ROVER badge on the back of his waist, instead of the front where it's usually found. In my design for the model I wanted V-shaped pistons below his stomach region, rather than a wide, flat space for text.

Hammerstein in classic 80s story The Black Hole, with art by Simon Bisley

In the Bisley picture above we are seeing the character's rank markings on his arm, with a single arch-like sweeping shoulder pad to frame them. This felt like a good look for my version.

Hammerstein in Khronicles of Khaos, with art by Kev Walker

As the comics went on, Hammerstein took more and more knocks, with his armour starting to look heavily pockmarked and battle-scarred. I suspect images like the one above (circa 1992) had quite an influence on the movie version, which hit the cinemas just a few years later.

A page from The Volgon War, with art by Clint Langley

Skip forward another decade or so, and the square-jawed war droid appears to have rebuilt and repaired himself and given his bodywork a new coat of paint. I figured using that blue-grey colour for my model would be a very obvious way to differentiate it from Martin's and would give an instant clue that mine wasn't wholly based on the robot from the film. Although I am still partial to a bit of rust and weathering, so my version isn't exactly what you'd call factory fresh.

So in the end it made sense to base my model around the same head and arms that Martin used, emphasizing Hammerstein's flat-top, crew-cut, and giving up the hammer in favour of those over-sized hands, whilst at the same time keeping all the exposed cabling and pistons from the movie version. But then mix in some of the comic book cues seen above. 

For anyone interested in the construction side of kit-bashing and scratch-building, you can see the, er, 'nude' version of my model below.

And finally, if, like me, you find this monstrous metal infantryman strangely fascinating, and want to know more about the character's appearances in various media, you might be interested in this earlier post detailing some of his history.