Bot War Painting Challenge 2021 - Atlanticans Rising

For me understanding the background of a faction really helps to garner inspiration and work out how to approach a painting project.

This is a little introduction to the Atlantican faction, the original antagonists in the Bot War, there’s a huge amount of background being produced for the game’s alternative universe that can be found on the Trader’s Galaxy website including short stories and a comic series, as well as regular content drops on the Facebook group:

“Atlantica is a secret city submerged deep in the Atlantic Ocean. It is not a human city but a city of Mer people. Atlantica is essentially a feudal society ruled by a royal class. At the top of this system is King Gills. King Gills is a technological genius having an understanding of technology bordering on the supernatural. Only two things rival King Gills’ intelligence – his ambition and insatiable lust for power.

Far beneath the ocean, King Gills’ and his mermen legions laboured to bring forth warmachines and armies with which to conqueror the surface or the earth. However combined Valiant and Democracy forces forced him back to the depths. Unable to match the versatility and brute force in close quarters of the allied forces King Gills’ bided his time. Then a meteor fell from space and landed right in the Atlantic. This meteor was a ship containing a sentient being much more technologically advanced than King Gills’ could even have imagined. It was like nothing on planet earth and King Gills’ moved quickly to study this creature and learn all he could. It wasn’t long before the Kings’ intellect fully understood all there was to know about this new technology. He rebuilt the sentient being, a bot called Omen, who in turned pledged service to the Kings’ conquest as repayment for his new life and body. The King then created from scratch a lieutenant, to support his warriors in battle. He named this new bot Stingray. In addition, by studying Omen, the King was able to create a new deadly weapon called the magnetic disruption gun.

Now with bots by his side and new technologically advanced weaponry King Gills is ready to challenge the surface once again……”

There is a longer piece of background narrative on the website which delves into the factions motivations and intent.