HK-36
The Iron Lord Protector (Neutral Good)
Image: Taken from DeviantArt, a piece called "Armored Ice Bear" by YourStock, a picture of a puppet promoting movie The Golden Compass (link here)
Intent: To provide armor for the war beasts Nocur in order to use them as sort of light-vehicle equivalent mounts for infantry.
Development Thread: If required
Manufacturer: Abregado-Rae Guild of Hammers
Model: Nocur Battle Barding
Affiliation: Barony of Abregado-Rae, partially Omega Protectorate (see Production)
Modularity: Each suit of barding can be stylized with custom emblems or color-schemes, and come with removable mask attachments to the beast's helmet portion.
Production: Minor production (Enough to supply the Iron Company and Militia of Abregado-Rae, any additional production would require a development thread with backing from another manufacturing company, i.e. Omega Corps buying off the design to manufacture the weapon for Protectorate forces)
Material: Durasteel, Bronzium for aesthetic purposes, glasteel used in visors.
Description: The Nocur of the Abregado's forests are truly might, dangerous, and a bit creepy beasts, especially when they do that thing when they turn their head all the way around to look behind themselves, or upside-down. So what HK decided to do with the few they were able to domesticate? Well put them on the field of battle and unleash them against his enemies of course. However, the resistance to lightsabers and blasters the beasts developed due to the oils that cover their feathers was not enough to field the beasts on their own, it provided additional protection against glancing blows or a couple of blaster shots, but the oils burned out upon contact, dispersing their barrier. The droid's answer to that was armor for the beasts, a battle barding that would provide additional protection.
Thankfully, the beasts were large and strong, they were able to wear heavier personal armor along with an armored and armed rider, and still move about enough to be a very lethal threat on the battlefield. The armor was fashioned by the Gados from standardized armor plates used in most modern standard heavy personal armor suits. The plates were thickened in order to provide additional protection for the war beasts, their large size would mean they would be easy targets, and their ferocity would mean that enemy would most likely want to take them down as soon as possible. The armor can be comparable to that of light vehicles, such as light recon walkers or real-life armored humvees.
The strongest plates of the armor are located on the beast's stomach and torso, humps and backs, forearms and shoulders, and top of their heads and cheeks, and they are strong enough to withstand most common personal blaster models, except heavy repeaters, dedicated anti-armor weaponry, and lightsabers.
The armor also contains metal covers for the Nocur claws, increasing their armor penetration when utilizing their paws as a spiked club, as well as slashing damage when simply swiping at their target with the large claws. The eyes and ears of the Nocur are also covered by the cowl of the barding armor, however, instead of simple metal flaps that covered their eyes, this time they utilize glasteel visors programmed to maintain the amount of light that passes through the visors and keep it from reaching critical levels. As such, it combats the photo-sensitivity Nocur have developed, keeping them from going mad due to flashes of blaster bolts or lightsaber, as well it somewhat minimizes the effects of flashbangs on the beast, however these defenses can be shut down with ionic or electro-magnetic strike. Similar systems are used in the flaps that cover the Nocur ears, muffling the noises when they reach dangerous decibel levels.
Now, for the armor's shortcoming, it is much weaker at the joints, especially at neck, armpits, and sides. This is because thinner overlapping plate segments were used in order to allow for the beast to move and look around, especially since the Nocur's eyes are immovable, instead they have to rely on swiveling their heads about to look at different points in their surroundings. As such, the thinner plates are susceptible to personal blaster rifles and pistols, however, it takes few shots to go through the multiple smaller plates that cover these weaker areas.
The armor also contains a couple miniaturized fan rigs in order to cool down the Nocur who are wearing the suit. This is done to combat the beasts' susceptibility to over-heating, especially when their armor is peppered with blaster fire, and somewhat minimizing effects of other heat-based weaponry on them, such as flamethrowers which would start to heat up and cook their armor. These additional systems could be potentially shut down during combat due to damage or with an ionic or electromagnetic strike, disabling these systems would make use of heat-based weaponry indirectly on the Nocur, i.e. using it to cook them inside their armor, much more effective, as well as it would affect the beasts during longer battles, as they would begin to exhaust in the suits due to over-heating.
The Nocur barding armor comes with a cowl to which a mask attachment could be installed and complete the helmet. Whether or not to use these attachments is the biggest dilemma when it comes to utilizing the Nocur in the field of battle. On one hand the attachment would counter-act any use of chemical weaponry against the beasts, such as gas grenades, on the other hand it stops the Nocur from utilizing the beasts' most dangerous weapon, their powerful beaks. Most riders choose to enter the battle with the beasts wearing the sealed masks and take them off later on after primary insertion, however that requires for the rider to dismount first.
Speaking of mounting the Nocur, the armor has special foot-pads and saddle for a rider to use when sitting on top of the beasts, as well as a hardpoint on top of their humps. To this hardpoint a light or heavy repeater can be attached in order to use the beasts as mobile weapon-support platforms, indeed light-vehicles, this was especially meant to work with the OPRC-1 in mind, the rotary blaster weighing 11.3 kilograms was enough for the beasts to carry, and provided enough fire rate and power for reliable support of the infantry.
All in all, this is a beastly armor for beastly creatures, however, only about a hundred of these suits are put to use as domesticating a Nocur in order to use it in battle is highly dangerous, the numbers of these creatures put to use was always low in the grand scheme of things, during a battle between 2 to 5 of these creatures are usually fielded.
Classification: Multipurpose
Weight: 35 kg (Based on the weight of medieval war barding for horses, which was described as weighing between 18 to 32 kg)
Quality: Armor class 9, class 6 on neck, armpits, joints, and sides.
Other Feature(s): Hardpoint on their back for mountable light or heavy repeaters such as the OPRC-1
