Vardu Plans

The following is a quote lifted from copy text Matt Beauchamp of Hydra Miniatures' blog. It was posted two years ago...

Xenophobic and defensive in nature, the humanoid plant race of the Vardu rarely travel far from their native rainforests. The Vardu are not one species of plant-being, rather they are a variety of different species linked by collective intelligence of their surroundings. Silent yet ferocious when provoked, the Vardu use dried organic weapons from the forest - large seedpods on rigid stems become clubs, enormous dried leaves become blades. The humanoid Vardu warriors tower over most enemies on the battlefield. Their gnarled bodies are a mass of tendrils formed into strong sinews. A thick wooden hide usually protects their central bodies and their limbs and body often sprout incredible sharp thorns. Their blossom-like "heads" contain all of their sensory and sexual organs and are often opened dramatically in battle to enhance their awareness, aid in comunication, and frighten invaders. the Vardu reproduce by budding, and small sproutlings emerge from the leaf-like structures that project from their backs. These sproutlings finally drop to the ground and gain mobility, easily swarming invaders. The exotic Vardu elders are rather exotic and are easily identified by an abundance of brilliantly colored, feather-like petals sprouting from their heads and backs. Covered in sharp spines and rough barky armor, the Vardu blood thorns are the most dangerous close combat warriors of the forest. Breeds of smaller, muscular, carnivorous quadrupeds known as maw hunters serve as the "hunting dogs" of the Vardu. their strong limbs allow them to overrun their enemies and their gaping maws can make short work of their prey. Ambling quietly along the forest floor, the sporers are bloated multi-limbed fungi with massively oversized heads. A distinctive whoosh sound can be heard as the plant-thing launches a powdery cloud of spoors, choking all non-plant creatures in the vicinity. These floating clouds of spoors are also used to cloud enemies vision, thus allowing the Vardu warriors to advance undetected.

So far, only the Vardu sprouts have been released. I own twenty, for use on Venus in both 15mm and 25mm scale, although they are technically supposed to be 25mm miniatures. I love the scale-neutrality of the sprout figures, which stand between 20 and 24mm tall. As Matt himself says, "They'd be perfect for pulp/VSF games..."

Why do I bother to post about this? I am hoping to drive more business Matt's way so that he'll produce more figures. You should definitely check out his Retro Raygun stuff too, for retro-looking robots that make for great VSF automatons (see them elsewhere on this blog!).

And for the record, I have no financial interest of any sort in Hydra Miniatures, nor have I ever met Matt personally. Just a very happy customer who is looking forward to more products from a talented sculptor.