UCM Armour
The Colonial Armoured Corps are the mailed fist of the UCM. Attached to the mighty Legions on a semi-permanent basis, each operates hundreds of armoured vehicles, most notably the UCM’s devastatingly efficient tanks.
Colonial tanks are ultra-low profile, often with a single crewman prone inside the layered composite chassis. Rubber-like mono-treads with weave-wire cores provide durable mobility over any terrain. Hyper-velocity railguns are the most common armament, often mounted on an articulated armature made possible by zero recoil, allowing the hull to sit behind cover while the main gun rises to
annihilate targets.
The Sabre-type main battle tank is the backbone of the Corps. This mainstay comes in many variants including the laser-armed Tachi, the anti-air Rapier, and the Greave command tank. At nearly twice that tonnage is the Gladius and its variants including the Maul, Scimitar, and Flail.
The heaviest of all current UCM tanks is the mighty Broadsword, armed with a colossal railgun. Variants include the Machete and it’s dreaded therma-lance, the Cutlas and its demolition cannon, and the Claymore with its long cannon. All may bring down the heaviest foes.
UCM Support
The Colonial Armoured Corps operate many combat support vehicles. Most common is the Bear APC, a solid, reliable workhorse to mechanise 15 Legionnaires. A variant, the Panda, also tows a trailer equipped with an ECM jammer. This chassis is also used for the Kodiak, a mobile command centre with an uplink dish to call in orbital strikes. This chassis is also the basis for the Grizzly A and B artillery platforms. A new variant, the Cuprum, is a small, mobile drone launcher with an internal rack for dozens of folded Microsprite kamikaze drones.
Operating in the spearhead role is the Katana light tank and its variants. A lightened version of the ubiquitous Sabre, this offers superior speed through thinner armour. A variant, the Fireblade, mounts a huge flamethrower for cleansing infested buildings, and the new Wakizashi mounts potent, if
short-ranged, tesla coils.
Operating alongside the UCM’s ground forces is the Fleet Air Arm. Part of the UCMF, its fighters and bombers are the Fleet’s most visible presence on the battlefields of the 27th century. The sleek, nimble Archangel Interceptor is a crucial asset, including a fighter-bomber variant and a newly available missile upgrade.
UCM Buggies & Artillery
The Colonial Armoured Corps operate many fast, wheeled vehicles in essential combat roles. The Wolverine scout buggy is a fast, nimble forward observer and flanking unit while packing missiles, an anti-air minigun, mortar, or flamethrower.
A heavier evolution of the Wolverine is the Polecat, although it uses its cannons, miniguns, or laser for pure offense. Using a similar chassis, the Ferret and Badger are 5-man
transports designed for surface-based infiltration where aircraft would alert an enemy.
The largest buggy operated by the UCM is the missile-armed Wolf and its variants, including the Jackal and its organ gun, the Dingo, and the Fox with its AWACS dish. Of these, the Fox also serves as a forward command vehicle.
The Corps also deploy an array of static artillery pieces. The standard howitzer platform is used by the cannon-armed Longbow, the tank-destroyer Crossbow, and the Pilum, armed with a single, devastating missile. A newer, wider platform now supports the Scorpio and Ballista with organ guns in two calibres, and the Scutum with its UM-004 Jammer and AWACS package.
Bioficer Armour
Bioficer main battle skimmers are sinister killers. Although slower than those of the Scourge and Shaltari, they are as heavily armoured as UCM tanks, more stable, and pack superior firepower.
The Tusk is their equivalent to a Colonial Sabre, if faster, larger, and tougher. Among its formidable weapon options are the Twin Barb Destructor, laser Scythes, and the dreaded Bisection Organ. The Tangent uses this chassis in the support role, mounting a Winnow Web or Barb Spitter for anti-air lethality, or a Quake Howitzer for indirect fire support. A command variant, the Calculi, mounts a control hood to direct bio-drones.
The Thorn is lighter, less durable, but twice as fast as the Tusk. These perform the hunter-killer role with evident glee, offering a Decon Stave, Lightmaw, or Ghost Circuit for slaughtering unfortunate prey. A scout variant, the Tenor, mounts a Gravitic Slingshot for several support tasks.
The largest Bioficer skimmer yet encountered is the Terror. Its top turret is identical to the Tusk’s, with the same weapon options, but here they are merely secondary. A primary armament is mounted on a second, larger turret, packing either a Twin Therma-Cannon or Hyperscythe. A command variant, the Cortex, is often the chariot of choice for an especially fiendish Intelligence.
Bioficer Support
The Bioficers employ a variety of outlandish, often nightmarish, war machines. Piloted by their malevolent AI Intelligences, these creations have already tormented sentient life in this galaxy.
A large skimmer-type platform forms the basis for the dreaded Grievance Genitor Ark. Filling a similar role to the APCs of other races, the Grievance uses stored molecules to spawn a bewildering array of nightmarish bio-drones in mere seconds, and it can imbibe more as battle unfolds to maintain production. This chassis is also used for the Tremor, a fixed-arc, mobile heavy weapon platform able to mount a Decon Beamer, Gravitic Drill, or Super Lightmaw.
One of the Bioficer’s largest battlefield assets is the semi-static Gauntlet Genitor Circle. Once dropship-deployed, it’s hovering form unfolds and begins to spawn hordes of the enemy’s most formidable bio-constructs, including tank-sized Hands, airborne Drakes, and the towering Beta.
Darting over all these monstrosities are dagger-like Fury Interceptors, lethal and much larger than Colonial equivalents, excelling in air-air killing and ground attack.
Bioficer Dropships
Bioficer dropships are their essential bridge between orbit and the battlefield, especially in tactical operations where speed and manoeuvrability are critical. Carrying only constructs crewed by malevolent AI Intelligences, their design forgoes any need to coddle weak flesh. Armoured units are suspended vertically beneath a unified rack and released near the ground to self-right and unleash death.
The workhorse is the Device, larger and tougher than other race’s medium dropships, with greater capacity. It can, for example, carry eight light skimmers, four battle skimmers, or two heavy skimmers, all of which are tougher than Colonial equivalents. It also mounts racks of collection cylinders for housing harvested
molecules before transference to genitor units for fresh spawnings. The Data is essentially half the craft that the Device is, but faster. Their lightest dropship, the Digit, cannot collect molecules but offers increased thrust.
The Device and Data airframes also form the basis for Bioficer gunships: the Silence and the Surge. Both offer pairs of Decon Cannons, Scythes, Heavy Lightmaws, or Ghost Orbits for devastating firepower. The Silence also maintains some dropship capacity, making it a lethally flexible asset.
Bioficer Hands
A Hand is a tank-sized, headless, four-limbed monstrosity of pure bone, muscle, and sinew, simpler and less resource-intensive to spawn than bio-constructs with more mechanical elements. Each limb has multiple, rudimentary eyes, and moves with disturbing, unnatural purpose, remotely guided by its control node. Hands are infamous for absorbing horrendous injury as they clamber, quickly, towards their prey. Once there, they grip, crush, and tear armoured vehicles to pieces as if they were paper. Effective and shockingly basic in their approach, they epitomise the callous decomposability of flesh to the Bioficers.
Bioficer Gun Hands
Using the basic platform of a Hand, these are spawned when the Bioficers need additional heavy fire support. They require considerably more resource to spawn, given the percentage of mechanical elements involved. A rotating turret and gun mount is permanently melded into its flesh, supporting a battle tank grade main gun. Although just as combat effective as true vehicle versions, even these elements are designed to be temporary and absorbed post-battle, incorporating just enough solidity and service life to lay waste to the enemy before burning out.
Bioficer Drakes
Drakes are among the largest airborne bio-horrors yet encountered. With huge, leathery wings, these nightmares strafe the battlefield with a selection of ranged weapons melded into their tails. Also, and more deadly, they can dive and plunge their scythe-like limbs into unsuspecting armoured targets or spear aircraft from the sky. Drakes are remotely controlled, but a more deadly, sentient evolution exists: the Gamma. This mounts a complex control harness, incorporating a mid-level, fiendish battlefield intelligence. This lends the Gamma conscious ‘life’, increased combat effectiveness, awareness, and the ability to puppeteer more basic generated assets.
Bioficer Beta
The Beta is a towering, dreaded monstrosity of spawned pseudo-flesh, muscle, and bone. It is the largest horror the Bioficers can spawn on the battlefield. Its many long limbs and razor-edged appendages can rend a super heavy tank to tatters in seconds, and it can vomit acid to reduce infantry to steaming puddles. Also, a Beta can take a
phenomenal amount of punishment. It must be pummelled into shattered pulp before it stops fighting. Enhancing and directing this nightmare is an onboard, high-level intelligence, lending the thing a malevolent consciousness. They take evident pleasure in inflicting huge devastation while directing hordes of lesser bio-constructs.
Bioficer Spitters
Spitters are walking, spider-like, bloated parcels of volatile chemicals. They aren’t hard to kill, but that matters little to the Bioficers. Part of their ‘head’ is a thin proboscis lined with peristaltic muscle. Once in position, the whole monstrosity spasms, belching a spray of reacting compounds through windows or directly into victims. The concoction corrodes, produces gasses, which chemically react, turning the air into a smouldering furnace. This
eats away at the heaviest infantry armour, weakening it for other horrors to rend apart or ultimately penetrating, then liquefying the flesh inside.
UCM Hazard Suits
Hazard Suits were developed for working in extreme conditions. The UCMF were early adopters, using them for EVA starship maintenance and hull breach repair. They also excel as frontier pickets where hostile fauna might threaten work crews. Militarising them was the next logical step. Removing civilian systems and welding tools freed up space for the capacitors needed for extreme weaponry. Far too heavy for any un-augmented human to lift, the UM-10 Compact Railgun provides direct fire support to infantry faced with incoming armour. These lumbering man-tanks are superb at synchronised, ranged destruction far from enemy assault troops.
UCM Dropships
Dropships are the lynchpin of any Colonial spearhead assault. They provide vital mobility and are the bridge between high atmosphere and the battlefield. Nimbler and more survivable than lumbering bulk landers, dropships are essential for tactical operations in hostile territory.
The Army Air and Space Corps fly most UCM dropships. The backbone is the Condor medium dropship, a cost-efficient, flexible transport for most Colonial armour. Slightly smaller, but often more heavily armed, is the Vulture, coming in troopship and dropship variants for Infantry, combat buggy, and artillery platform delivery.
The smallest is the Raven, carrying similar cargos to the Vulture and an especial favourite of Colonial special forces for its speed and agility. A new variant, the Crow, allows fast deployment of a single main battle tank and mounts powerful missiles to clear forward drop zones.
All three airframes also form the basis of the UCM’s dreaded gunships. The Falcon A is the smallest and most common, but its harmonised gatlings can shred a main battle tank in a blink. Its B variant instead carries missiles for flexible air-air or air-ground lethality. Larger is the Harrier, offering cannons, missiles, or scanner units for a scouting role. The largest is the mighty Eagle, famed for its pair of UM-200 heavy railguns and twin hardpoints for cannons or missiles.
