Smoke from the crash site could be seen from a mile away as the two SUVs swerved through Damascus’s early afternoon traffic. While the drivers concentrate on the road, the team’s technician begins downloading briefing packets to the team, sending directly to their heads-up displays in their glasses and handheld tactical units to store them. In the back of each vehicle, operators begin pulling special equipment from storage – launch tubes for loitering munitions, extra medical equipment and handheld tools to remove delicate pieces from the crashed satellite.
The SUVs pull up in a ruined set of buildings to disembark Team 35S as, with a dull thump, the first of a pair of Loitering Munitions is propelled into the sky, setting up an overwatch with the ability to go kinetic if required. While the drivers stay with the vehicles, the rest of the team advances through the urban decay, using the eye above to watch their progress towards the crash site.
Welcome to a new year of Gunslinger! We’re kicking off this month with a brand new release in our new format, bringing you six uniquely posed Ultramodern figures all ready for your tabletop. This month’s release is the Raptor Diagnostics Field Operations Team, a small elite unit with some near-future tech to let them even the odds.
We’re going to cover the lore of the team first, then get into the specifics of what you’ll receive if you back the Patreon in the next few days, so you too can get your own team of high-tech operators onto the battlefield.
But first up, who is Raptor Diagnostics? Where does this group fit into the world of Gunslinger 2030 and what is the unit we’ve produced in model form for your tabletop?
Company Background
Raptor Diagnostics are a high-end contracting company based out of Western Europe with offices in Zurich, London and Cape Town. They function as an additional insurance policy for various Government and Corporate assets worldwide, designed to augment existing capabilities with rapid reaction and additional offensive options. Raptor hires from both the military and the intelligence sectors, aiming to hire professional operators used to working in small groups and handling sensitive situations.
Raptor’s key advantages in the increasingly busy marketplace are its high technology base and contacts worldwide. Due to legal agreements, Raptor can base its operators worldwide on standby and in many countries operate additional assets such as aerial reconnaissance and fire support platforms, giving an eye in the sky and a finger of god. In less friendly nations or when operating covertly, Raptor teams make use of various alternatives such as local supporting forces or carrying their equipment with them.
These additional assets integrate with the small teams on the ground through the use of Augmented Reality systems built into the eyewear of each operator, allowing them to quickly visualise the information gathered and project it into their eyeline. This pipeline acts as a force multiplier, allowing relatively small units to quickly understand the battlefield and act accordingly, spotting enemy threats before they contact and allowing them to outflank and outfight them.
Unit Background
Field Operations Teams are the backbone of the rapid response Raptor promises to its investors and clients. These semi-covert teams are deployed to safehouses in known hotspots and stand waiting for the order to deploy. Rolling to the target in covert civilian SUVs containing all the gear they may need (including additional medical equipment, specialised breaching and tactical gear and loitering munitions), a team can quickly and easily configure for whatever situation they may encounter, deploying the right level of force while minimising its operational signature to other groups in the Area of Operations.
By their nature, Field Operations Teams are lightweight, taking advantage of their semi-covert nature and advanced battlefield awareness to perform their missions at speed rather than risk being slowed down by carrying heavier support weapons. If a team comes under fire and requires heavier support, either on-station UAVs or smaller loitering munitions carried by the team themselves can be launched rapidly, delivering explosive firepower from above.
For higher-risk situations, or those that do not need the plausible deniability a FOT can provide, Raptor also has access to Advanced Tactical Teams which can provide further firepower.
Team 35S
One of Raptor Diagnostic’s clients has reported a fatal issue with one of its private satellites watching the Syria-Jordan-Iraq region. This issue has caused it to enter an unwanted re-entry of the satellite, crashing down in the slums on the outskirts of Damascus.
On the client’s request, Raptor Diagnostics has dispatched Team 35S to attempt to recover the satellite’s databanks before other forces (such as the local military or Kojoti advisers in the region) can secure the satellite and steal corporate secrets. This particular team, under the command of Dieter Kurnz, is among Raptor’s most veteran assets, with deployments as a group to Mexico and Eastern Europe.
For this deployment, they are running tricked-out SIG Sauer MCX carbines, taking advantage of the .300 Blackout round for optimum performance from a short suppressed barrel. Although fire support is mostly provided via loitering munitions, a marksman armed with a modified rifle and a rifleman with a D.60 magazine allows for a limited amount of direct fire if the situation demands it.
That’s the lore side covered, let’s talk about the actual figures. This set includes six operators wearing jeans and softshell jackets, with a few fighters wearing kneepads based on personal preference (versions without the kneepads are also included if you prefer the entirely non-tactical look). We wanted these guys to approach the grey man look, the visual of the cool, calm and collected operator doing covert things in an urban environment. Operating from a vehicle also meant we only gave them the bare essentials of tactical equipment on display – a lightweight chest rig. This means that in the event of a team needing to go to ground, it wouldn’t take much to ditch the overt gear and attempt to blend in. Well, blend in as much as a small group of guys all wearing jeans and softshells can.
Something to note is that all the head options include the same set of high-end eyewear. The augmented reality eyewear is a key part of this small but elite team. They were heavily inspired by the Cross Com system of the Ghost Recon games (hence the single blue lens of each set of glasses) and seemed ideal to show their connection to other assets in the area.
The team is equipped with various lengths of the suppressed SIG MCX carbine, all equipped with various close-range optics, lights and laser units. Two specialists in the team have their own more modified variants of the basic rifle. The marksman is armed with a SIC MCX with a longer ranger build, a variable optic allowing for conventional precision fire. For an additional weight of fire, the team has an automatic rifleman equipped with a Magpul D.60 drum mag – although not as powerful as a true belt-fed or with quite the same rate of fire, the higher amount of ammo on tap should still provide useful when breaking contact while still allowing ammo to be shared among the team. In addition to the visible weapons, we consider all the figures to be armed with sidearms, just hidden under their softshells to allow for lower-profile operations if required.
The final bit of high tech we really wanted for these guys was to bring loitering munitions to the tabletop. As something that has become a key part of the modern battlefield, it made sense that by 2030 these devices would be more readily available for teams such as Raptor. We went with a smaller Switchable as inspiration, and three figures in the set have the launch tube. In addition, we can assume the team would have more launchers in their transports, utilising them during the final approach both as reconnaissance devices and to deliver warheads on foreheads if needed.
This month’s Hydra pack includes 7 head options, letting you decide if you want your figures with watch caps or baseball caps or if the team is wearing a headset for communications. If you want a more generic force, we have included an additional head with a mask over their face, ideal if you want to bulk out your force with a few more additional figures.
If you want to get these figures yourself, they are available now at https://www.patreon.com/flytrapfactory Patrons at the “Gunslinger 2030 Tier” or higher will get 6 unique poses in total (as well as 3 additional bodies without the kneepads and 7 separate heads).
The items are delivered both supported and unsupported to help you get printing. To assist with basing, the figures have a peg in their foot to provide support either by drilling through the base or sanding the peg down to make a large contact area without requiring too much additional material.
If you don’t have access to a 3D printer, no worries! As mentioned above, we have a partnership with Desk-Ops.de – Desk-Ops is our exclusive Print on Demand provider for the EU (although shipping worldwide). In December, this month’s release will be joining the other sets currently available via POD on his website, letting you get your hands on these figures with the only issue being having to wait for the mail.
With Gunslinger V2 we are aiming for a faster turn around to releasing these figures to the general public. If you miss them this month, they will be up on the Flytrap Digital My Mini Factory next month.
This month’s post was a little delayed but I hope you all enjoy it – Raptor has been a fun team to develop, with a slightly different feel to either of the groups we’ve done before. We’re also going to be taking another turn next month when we cover the urban warfare specialists from Kojoti. Expect a whole lot of Close Quarters Firepower.