Plagued by the sneaky Ninja-Bots of the Fukujin Empire spying on their evil activities with the Suzumushi, the Bakemono Legion developed the Kumo assassination spider. The eight legged design is surprisingly quiet as it moves, and it’s proven very effective at stalking incoming Suzumushi before they have a chance to uncover anything important. Twin sensor pods mounted to the forward belly alert the Ninja-bot pilot of anything suspicious, and twin blasters are useful for defense in a pinch, but the most powerful system is the…ah, but I get ahead of myself.
Okay, I had to cheat a bit to pull this one off. There are a dozen light-grey stud-pins attaching the leg base to the cockpit, and another sixteen built into the abdomen. Additionally, I don’t currently have four of the interior pieces in black or red, so they’re going to remain yellow for a while, but at least they’re not immediately visible.
Triple articulated legs not only allow a wide variety of poses, but they also allow it to fold up a lot more compactly prior to being deployed.
And this is the big weapon. Shortly after starting the Sam-Bot series, I’d decided to make a spider MOC in the series. When I actually got started, the cockpit fell together pretty quickly, but then I got stuck on the abdomen. It just doesn’t look spidery without it, and I knew it couldn’t be all covered in pokey corners. A discontinued 3×3 faceted corner slope proved to be a blessing in disguise. I originally planned on just using the top and bottom corner pieces to make a conventional egg-shaped construct, but it didn’t really do much for me. Yes, it would fill out the spider shape, but what logical reason could they have for attaching such a big target-like object with such a tiny little connection at the base? Then I got a really cool idea. It required getting eight of the top corner pieces, which wasn’t as easy as I’d originally expected (most of the time they’ve shown up in black on Bricklink is in single-piece quantities).
And here’s the idea. If the abdomen is hollow, and the back end of it can iris open, you can pack it full of a dozen missiles that can be used to eliminate their enemies! The downsides to it are that it needs a 2×2 round tile to hold it closed, and I wasn’t able to come up with any color patterns that I liked (which is why it’s solid black), but they’re small prices to pay for such a surprising little feature. It’s hinged at the base, originally just so it could be tipped up at a spidery-looking angle, but a side benefit is that it can be adjusted down to a negative 45 degree angle, for shooting down off a cliff.
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