Drantakhs painted this past week

I like a bit of variety in my Sci-Fi skirmish games. One of my smaller forces is my Drantakh mercenary force. Regiment Games makes Drantakhs. Unfortunately the company is on temporary hiatus until April, I hope just temporarily. I started off with 8 of the heavier armored figures when they were first released and picked up additional figures this past year. Including the half figure vehicle crew, I have a total of 20 Drantakhs. You might notice that on the Regiment Games site they say Drantak. That was a name change. I still prefer the original name with the silent "h".

I painted up the 12 newer figures this past week on Thursday night and again last night. I wasn't sure how to use the upper body crewmen until I was placing the figures for the group shot. I went through some vehicles I had laying around and found the Tau craft I'd been using as a Mobile Infantry UAV for Starship Troopers.

My Drantakh background is simple. They are a lower tech race from a galactic backwater arid planet with sulphur deserts and acid rain. They trade minerals and labor for technology from other more advanced races. The Drantakhs also export themselves as mercenaries armed with this more advanced equipment. Some of their more recent homeworld manufactured weapons are made with or coated with an unknown Osmium alloy. This dark blue metallic alloy is very durable and helps protect the most important Drantakh equipment in the very harsh conditions of their home planet. Vehicles, robots, and drones in use by the Drantakhs are most often purchased from alien races or captured in battle.

Here is my Drantakh force:


The Tau fast attack craft on the left just has the crew models placed inside for the picture. I still need to do some work on this.

Here is a closer picture of the ground troops emerging from a world portal, aka stargate. (click for larger pic)















My Drantakh mercenary force consists of the following:
Platoon Leader, shown in the back of the formation in the Stargate.

Assistant Platoon Leader, shown standing next to a Drone Operator.

The Drone Operator, holding a control module. I'll be adding some Tau drones or other drones in the future.

A Platoon Scout/Sniper, shown in the foreground.

Two Squads of Drantakhs. The Squad on the left has a heavy laser trooper. The rest of the squad is armed with automatic slug rifles and a squad leader with a prized higher tech Particle Pistol. The slug rifles use ammmunition tipped with very heavy alloys. This gives them a hard punch but they are not very accurate weapons. The Particle Pistol functions similar to a disruptor and is useful on a variety of soft and hard targets. The squad on the right includes a laser guided missile launcher and an extra ammo carrier armed with a laser designator. The small missiles launched from the launcher can be set to follow the laser from the second crewman. This is beneficial by allowing the heavy weapon trooper to stay out of direct view of the enemy and launch his warhead into the laser path where it will be directed to the target. The laser designator trooper can often be concealed in this mode of fire if the enemy does not have countermeasures for detecting the laser signature.