Rebel's URSA Armor Suits, Now With More Sniper

I saw over on the Rebel Minis blog a new release posted about the new sniper variant of the URSA battle suits that Mike sells.

Here's the link to the sniper mech in the store.  It's a very neat piece of cooperative art, and does a great job of integrating Rebel Mike's product lines.

I did the cannon.  More on that farther down the post, past the gorgeous eye candy.

The URSAs were originally designed for Jason Moore, of Micropanzer fame.  They found their way to Rebel, and are now for sale on Rebel's 15mm Mechs, Walkers, And Robots page (amongst other offerings such as HAMRs and CATs).


While originally intended as 28mm Neo-Soviet power armors, they quickly found fame as 15mm heavy suits, comparable in size to the Vipers and HAMRs, in Rebel's portfolio.

As a matter of fact, here they are, courtesy of Jeff Racel, in a comparison shot with a pair of Vipers and a Comanche MRAP.  Racel's desert camo always kicks ass.

 

 

Here are the URSA platoon, URSA missile variant, and URSA Tesla variant.
Also, the amazing Dwartist's comp shots, this time with Khurasan infantry.
To see some of David's other work with Micropanzer figs, click here.

And here are some of Jason's paintjobs, this time with Rebel's 15mm Titan Marine infantry and APC.  As you can see, they are a great fit for 15mm, and are able to pull Double Duty admirably.

As to the cannon.  Those of you who are long-time Rebel customers may have a sense of familiarity about it.

The cannon originally started life as a main gun for the Saber VTOL gunship, the first build I ever did for Rebel.

The design was inspired by the M1128 Mobile Gun System developed for the Stryker chassis.

I took the concept of an external main gun, and attached a revolver-like feed system to the rear of the assembly.
 

 Hanging a tank cannon (or a pair of tank cannons) on a VTOL seems like a bit of overkill, you say?
Well, I can be silly that way, sometimes.  ;)

Back to the cannon.  I liked the overall look.  So much, so, that...

...I used the barrel for the main gun of the next build (and the first ground vehicle sculpt) I did for Rebel, the stalwart and ubiquitous Earth Force APC.  The feed and breach mechanisms were enclosed in the turret's body, and so I was able to use the barrel nicely.

The Earth Force Wolverine variant of the EF APC had a double-cannon arrangement with an open turret, with large muzzle brakes attached.  The cannons' actions were exposed, and thus received some armor plating.

 A few years passed, and after the HAMR suits became popular, we added weapons packs for them.  I revisited the muzzle brake concept from the Wolverine's guns, chopped down a Saber cannon to keeps its revolver feed system, smoothed and refined a few angular points, and adapted the new mash-up to work with a HAMR ball-and-socket shoulder arrangement.

I eventually dubbed the Saber's cannon the 100mm Longhammer, and its ground-based, shortened variant the 100mm Jackhammer series of weapons.  Not the most inspired of names, I know, but sometimes less is more.

So, there's a little insight to the evolution of a cornerstone weapon in Rebel's sci-fi arsenal.  I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane into the world of sci-fi modularity.

Best,
JBR