Behold the Landmaster!

Back in 1997, Fox released a movie by the name of Damnation Alley. It's subject was a cross-country run by a small band of survivors through the 'safest' 100 mile wide 'alley' in a post-apocalyptic world.

While that was a very promising setup (one of the best IMO), it was a rather bad movie. The special effects couldn't handle recreating the mutant threats that would have given it real kick, and the writing was sub-par as well. Sigh.

It's most remembered for two things. The first was being almost forgotten in the year that saw Star Wars come to the screen.

The other and more important was the Landmaster. For a generation that loved special vehicles like Bond's car or the Batmobile, the Landmaster was pure wishfulfillment. An armored all terrain RV with the teeth and electronics able to take the worst the post-apocalypitc world could throw at it.

And it was a real vehicle too. Well, the weapons were just props bolted on, but the core was real enough.

I've kept it in my imagination down the years along with the Enterprise and some other icons of sc-fi. It was a natural for it to appear in my Morrow Project campaign. And the designers of the original Morrow Project thought so as well, as it was the basis for the MARS One vehicle.

The MARS One however was too expanded- double the size with enough weapons to make an desert painted Abrams turn green with envy. It was just too much.

So I went back to the original and like the original put two in the hands of my players. They just reached them in play, although digging them out of the bunker will prove to be hard and dangerous work...

Given that the original was from 1977 and mine would be made in 2012, it needed some updates although far less than I at first expected.

First up was the standard Project almost magical Fusion power system and the electrical engine that comes with it.

It's already impressive 1 cm thick armor would be improved by concepts from a project that I read about- the use of magnetic fields to greatly enhance vehicle armor. The idea was to provide the same protection found on the M1A2 battle tank to an armor car like the LAV 25. That sounded perfect for my new model Landmaster.

The original had six machineguns mounted at different points. These were cheap Hollywood props as the forward ones clearly are glued on barrels without room for the actual gun. I decided to go with pulse lasers (again taking something from both current projects and the original MP game itself). I decided a low rate of fire would explain why the side mounts (and front for that matter) were in pairs. Powered by the fusion reactor, their independance from ammo will be useful in the game and they could look like they were bolted on as the 'gun' wouldn't have to be of conventional shape.

The twin rocket pods on the back were clearly 2.75" seven shot pods in common military use even today. Mostly an air-to-ground weapon, what were they doing on the Landmaster?

I thought that maybe if one replaced the warhead with a HEDP one (i.e. able to double duty for anti-vehicle and anti-personal) and added laser guidance- one might have something...

... look no further than the real world Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) and the M247 warhead of the Hydra 70.

The forward firing mortars at first seemed odd with the APKWS system installed. But if they were basically just an auto-loading 60mm mortar using cheap (and small) ammo- they could be used for targets not requiring the expense of the APKWS. So I kept them for this use.

Toss in the Boomerang shooter detection system, which I expanded to detect the location of any incoming fire, and I was just about done. Except for the sensors and a few other odds and ends that made up the vehicle.

So here's my HERO System 5th Edition Morrow Project Landmaster write-up. It's my first draft, but is very close to final. Note that it is built to my own house rules and standards.