These are actually props for my DH game but probably more useful for big-pockets rogue trader groups that want something to strip mine and defoliate a planet with. I dont rightly know how much they would contribute to a profit factor by being deployed, but it would be more than just having armies of peons running around with axes, rope, buckets, picks and shovels doing the same thing. There are some places in the galaxy (Death and Dead Worlds) where same said peons cant really function inexpensively without irreplacable losses... and that's where you need a big machine that takes no crap from the environment!
It all started when the PC's where subjugating their little world, ridding it of dirty mutants and ran across large amounts of really valuable, old growth forests, problem was the forest is full of lots of cranky beastmen that like their forest. The idea came to us that if there was something like a Hephaestus Ore Seeker, there would probably be something similar which has a huge f**king chainsaw on it and some big claws on it for ridding entire continents of the dreaded plants that plague them. Sure, they could orbitally bombard the same said forest, but thats just expensive on macro-cannon shells and bad for the planets atmosphere, whereas this would turn the forest in hard cash!
Synford Clearcutter
These massive all terrain vehicles are manufactured in Synford II in the Calixis sector and actually have a number of components in them shared with the legendary Baneblade super-heavy tanks. Fuelled by a high output thermic reactor and driven relentlessly onward by 6 massive caterpillar tracks they are unstoppable engines of deforestation that can operate continuously with 2 shifts of crew for up to 2 months before needing a supplies and external maintenance.
Second to its sheer size, is the distinctive 25m wide dozer blade on the front with two, 50cm thick diamantine tipped, contra-rotating power saw blades that chew through everything that gets in their path and the two huge articulated claws that relentlessly pick up and hurl felled trees into a cavernous maw like a feeding crayfish. From there the logs are stripped of branches and sent through an internal sawmill that rips them down into boards while the off-cut limbs are turned into woodchips. Alternatively if the flora isn't suitable for timber, it will simply reduce to mulch everything in its path.
On a good day with a competent crew, a Synford Clearcutter can tear through and process twice its own weight of forest making it the ideal machine for clearing land, forestry practice or just making space on a deathworld free of flora and any fauna too stupid to get out of the way. Operating and working on a Clearcutter is an extremely hazardous occupation which on average kills two servitors or crew a month from either the fiendish collection of high speed machinery, saw blades, conveying belts and heavy lifting involved in the internal operations. Making up for it somewhat is the comparatively comfortable, well furbished living conditions which are fully sealed, air conditioned and externally protected against all but the heaviest battle cannons. They carry some defence guns considering they can be operating on worlds where their presence isn't always welcome by the local populace, natives, beastmen or even just apex predatory fauna and fauna, some loggers have been known to replace the multi-lasers with something more considerable depending on just where they are. Often they will have up to 30 armed troops onboard for further protection, vehicle operations, extra crew and timber scouting duties.
Due to the size of the machine it has to be taken apart into modular sections to even fit on four Halo Barge trips and then 3 weeks to be assembled on the ground.
Weight 2500T Length 90m Width 25m Height 30m Ground Clearance 3.2m
Type: Ground Vehicle Size: Massive
Crew: Captain, Foreman, 6 Enginseers, 20 Crew, 40 Servitors Passengers: 30
Armour: Front: 55 Side: 40 Rear: 40 Structural Integrity: 80 Structure Points: 8
Tactical Speed: 1m Cruising Speed: 10km/h Handling Modifier -15
Access Points: Sides, Rear, Vehicle and Shuttle Bays Availability: Extremely Rare
Traits
All Terrain: No handling penalty for difficult terrain
Lumbering The vehicle may not turn more than 45deg in a single turn
Super-Heavy: Cause Fear (1) in enemy infantry and vehicles smaller than themselves.
They cannot be stopped by difficult terrain but will instead be slowed by one half
When it receives a critical hit, the result is Halved down to a minimum of Jarring Blow
Structure Points On a 8-11+ Critical Hit, the vehicle loses 1 Structure point, once it looses all its Structure Points it is either destroyed or explodes
Whenever the vehicle takes 1 or more Structure points of damage the crew takes a Jarring Blow
Armaments:
Forward Chain Blades Damage 5D10+40 Pen 10 Power, Tearing (Drive Ground Vehicle To-Hit)
2 Articulated Claws Damage 3D10+20 Pen 10 Unwieldy, (Can reach up to 15m and lift up to 80 tonnes- Drive Ground Vehicle To-Hit)
Processing Hopper Instant Death Its a sawmill and then some
Turrets (6) Multi-Laser Range 250m ROF -/-/10 DAM 3D10+3E PEN 3 Magazine Infinite (Forward, Rear, 2 x Sides)
Accessories:
2000 ton Cargo capacity of cut timber and woodchips
10 x Huge searchlights
Vehicle bay which can store four Atlas Recovery Tanks (or Leman Russ sized vehicles)
Enclosed landing bay which can carry a Halo Barge or two large shuttles
Long Range Auger and Vox communication bridge (+10 Trade- Forester)
Synford Sand Miner
Like its larger cousin, the Clearcutter, it is a mobile extraction and processing unit for extracting the vast amounts of minerals held in sand which are in endless demand in forge worlds. Namely titanium, ferrous oxides, zirconium, diamondtine, bauxites, silicates that contribute to material processing, metal treatments and dozens of other applications, so while the average prospector has little use for a planet full of sand dunes, a prospector with a sand miner sees nothing but endless wealth to strip out.
Compared to the clearcutter and ore seeker, the sand miner is a relatively uncomplicated vehicle that sucks up sand like a huge vacuum cleaner and processes the minerals inside with a series of gravity wheels, then expels the waste out the back in a huge plume of dust and grit. From there the minerals pass onto the furnaces which refine it down, the process of extraction and refinement is quite lengthy and the vehicle is capable of operating in hard vacuum on otherwise dead worlds for up to 6 months. So for many private corporations, operations and rogue traders it is one way of making a profit out of something otherwise completely useless for anything else, this does make the machine a somewhat premium item in high demand.
As a result of the valuable contents, the rig itself being big ticket item, long deployments in hazardous environments, they come with considerable defences, room for troops and onboard supplies (including gravity plates for low-G worlds) in a sealed chassis driven by four specially designed, massive caterpillar tracks, each over 10m wide. Like the Clearcutter it takes at least 4 Halo Barges (or trips) to deploy it on a surface and 3 weeks to be assembled on the ground.
Weight 1800T Length 60m Width 35m Height 20m Ground Clearance 4m
Type: Ground Vehicle Size: Massive
Crew: Captain, Foreman, 2 Enginseers, 10 Crew, 10 Servitors Passengers: 20
Armour: All: 40 Structural Integrity: 60 Structure Points: 5
Tactical Speed: 2m Cruising Speed: 20km/h Handling Modifier -10
Access Points: Sides, Rear, Vehicle and Shuttle Bays Availability: Extremely Rare
Traits
All Terrain: No handling penalty for difficult terrain
Lumbering The vehicle may not turn more than 45deg in a single turn
Super-Heavy: Cause Fear (1) in enemy infantry and vehicles smaller than themselves.
They cannot be stopped by difficult terrain but will instead be slowed by one half
When it receives a critical hit, the result is Halved down to a minimum of Jarring Blow
Structure Points On a 8-11+ Critical Hit, the vehicle loses 1 Structure point, once it looses all its Structure Points it is either destroyed or explodes
Whenever the vehicle takes 1 or more Structure points of damage the crew takes a Jarring Blow
Armaments:
360deg Turret Quad Auto-Cannon Range: 600m ROF S/8/20 DAM 4D10+5 PEN: 4 Magazine: 600 (Dorsal)
Turrets (4) Multi-Laser Range 250m ROF -/-/10 DAM 3D10+3E PEN 3 Magazine Infinite (Forward, Rear, Sides)
Accessories:
1000 ton Cargo capacity of refined minerals and metals
6 x Huge searchlights
Vehicle bay which can store four Atlas Recovery Tanks (or Leman Russ sized vehicles)
Enclosed landing bay which can carry a Halo Barge or two large shuttles
Long Range Auger and Vox communication bridge (+10 Trade- Prospector)
Synford Tunnel Boring Machine
These monster vehicles are typically used for civil engineering, making vast tunnels into a planets surface, fusing the sides into glassy smoothness with plasma torches as it goes, the subsequent tunnel is then used for subterranean highways, railways and aqueducts. In a few rare occasions they have actually been used for mining particularly rich ore deposits at depths which cant be reached by any other means. It should be noted, the TBM itself is just the 'sharp' end of the process and doesn't include the veritable army of support vehicles and personnel disposing of the thousands of tons of spoilage that follow up behind its progress!
The machine advances using 100 small walker feet to move along much like a very slow millipede and tears through rock with its massive cutting head studded with hundreds of individual power-heads, the spoilage then channelled through the machine to be ejected out the rear on a 300m long conveyer belt. Once started the machine requires little more than maintenance and direction and doesn't stop until the job is done, like most machines of this size it takes up to 10 flights of Halo barges to move one down to the surface and a full 6 weeks to put it together once its down there. Depending on just 'where' the machine ends up, usually only the valuable parts of it are brought back up to the surface and the chassis left to rust where it finishes, onboard is a fully enclosed environment designed to withstand immense pressure, poisonous gasses, vibration and heat generated by the machine for up to 400 days with only brief stops for rudimentary, external maintenance.
Despite the nightmarish conditions which the vehicle operates in, it is quite a safe and comparatively comfortable occupation, the high powered auger system is capable of seeing though 1000m of solid rock, giving the machine plenty of visibility in front of it and there are numerous rearward facing laser-mapping systems to help navigate its progress. Poorly maintained TBM's are a deathtrap roughly the effect of a small, tactical atomic weapon, which encourages tardiness in the crew to look after them.
Aside from a holocaust of plasma ejectors along its sides and a 3 story house sized cutting head of power-knives the vehicle has no defence systems.
Weight 4000T Length 120m Width 20m Height 20m Ground Clearance 0.5m
Type: Ground Vehicle Size: Massive
Crew: Captain, Foreman, 2 Enginseers, 10 Crew, 10 Servitors Passengers: 10
Armour: All: 40 Structural Integrity: 60 Structure Points: 5
Tactical Speed: 0.1m (that's it!) Handling Modifier -10
Access Points: Rear, Vehicle Bays Availability: Extremely Rare
Traits
All Terrain: No handling penalty for difficult terrain
Lumbering The vehicle may not turn more than 2deg in a single turn
Super-Heavy: Cause Fear (1) in enemy infantry and vehicles smaller than themselves.
They cannot be stopped by difficult terrain but will instead be slowed by one half
When it receives a critical hit, the result is Halved down to a minimum of Jarring Blow
Structure Points On a 8-11+ Critical Hit, the vehicle loses 1 Structure point, once it looses all its Structure Points it is either destroyed or explodes
Whenever the vehicle takes 1 or more Structure points of damage the crew takes a Jarring Blow
Armaments:
Cutting Head If you're run over it, you're dead
Plasma Ejectors Anything without heavy thermal resistant, sealed armour- each round they remain within 10m of the machine when it is operational will get cooked for 2D10+10E damage with a Pen of 5
Accessories:
2 x Huge searchlights (Rear)
Vehicle bay which can store two Hades Breaching Drills
Ground penetrating Auger array and low frequency Vox communication bridge (+10 Trade- Prospector)