Horrible move, IMO. Leave the ML big, but the PzFaust/Blitzen/Flammenspeer can all be small. Well, not rifle bullet small, but launched grenade small. There's a small propelling charge in there somewhere and a relatively large warhead, but still only something pushing a 10m blast radius. I mean, the JSA still have small Blitzen and Flammenspeer, and DaiNippon is using PanO heavy weapons!
I see them like the micromissiles of cp2020 (or Robocop - the ones ED-209 had) - especially for the "hyperpower". Not like a ww2 tube launched antique, leave that style for the also-rans.
I'm sure Bostria said it was a targeting device which in part accounts for high Pan O BS when discussing Major Lunah at some point, but I can't work out when that would have been.
Maybe they had other plans for it at conception but I think this is the fastest and smoothest way for it to make sense. Training gets you so far, then you just need a bit of tech to give you a +1 on top of that. That or that's where the low WIP comes from. Some people just can't leave home without their portable hard-drive full of movies, music and porn...
You have no idea how true that is... We'd load all sorts of stuff for a deployment. One guy brought 4x 250gb hard drives that he could swap out. Almost all porn, and he'd actually curated the entire collection, not just found and downloaded to watch later. Kinda frightening, actually.
As long as that's a magazine that he's repeatedly swapping out while on patrol and not... anything else.
Actually, the OP picture of the Magister knight, you can see the Panzfaust label points to the weapon which is above the shoulder thingy. So whatever it is suppose to be, its not the Panzfaust.
The shoulder mount of the Magister Knight wasn't the only 'part' of the Panzerfaust. The shoulderpad enveloping thing was the other part. Additionally, the Kamau actually seems to have a raised bit over her armor in that same place as the Panzerfaust was on the Magister Knight. For posterity's sake: She is the ONLY Kamau with that piece in the Varuna box too.
The two different components of that shoulder device look identical to the Aquila. I like the look a lot. The Combi still looks a bit awkward to me, but a simple repose of the arms should fix that easily enough. @kanluwen you touched upon this last week I think, but I like that their suits are all fully enclosed. No hair hanging out, no exposed skin, etc. Definitely looks very uniform and professional, as well as being a believable BTS6. The cool rebreather hoses and back apparatus help reinforce that.
Which begs the question, still, as to what the hell it is. It's not present on other MSV models in PanO that I've seen. It's only on these two. I think he's a model that will be great for Kamau 'displays'. Imagine that render submerged up to the rifle, looking like he's coming up behind someone standing sentry near the shoreline. Shame that they had to fuck up the Bolt female sculpts so much.
Oh, very good idea! That's kinda tempting. Especially as the local Hobbytown USA is now keeping Vallejo basing gels in stock (including the clear and Pacific/Atlantic/Mediterranean colors). Would mean basing the Cutter about knee-deep in surf, though.