HotM:Unit Visual Previews

Intro

These were originally images I shared on discord in February of 2024. There are a number of things which have changed since these shots were taken:

• A few of the full-color units have been demoted to silhouette units.
• The colorization on some of the units have been improved, like the Convictor mech, Keanu, etc.
• Some additional units have been added in several categories.
• The "bulk android" forms for a bunch of player units have been added since then, and this also involved recoloring the mains a bit.

It's also worth noting that these images don't include vehicles at all; it's just humans, androids, and mechs.

General Style Note: Shadow Vs Color

There are units that are full-color in various spots, but they are key units of various sorts.

In other words, when you see a full-color one with extra details, it's time to pay attention as they are a big deal.

Mechs

These are the main mechs, to scale but out of context:

Animals

These are all of the animals, though more will be added:

Each animal form has a colored type, and a golden type. The regular colored one is a big deal; otherwise you would not even be seeing them at all. Hence why none of the animals are shadow-style.

The glowing golden kind are uplifted ones.

Minor Units / Shadow Forms

These are all the shadow forms. There's about 980ish of those, although a few more have been added since these were last taken:

Closer Zooms Of Random Shadow Forms

What's really important is that they help give a sense of place, and they also really give a conveyed emotion with their stance. You get the emotion of the posture, and no other important info from looking at them. Well -- you do also get certain things about their class and demeanor.

Key Units

Only maybe 2-3 of these got demoted to shadow-style visuals. In general, not many of these show up in the early game, since by definition these sorts of units are heavy hitters that come later on.

Player Androids

All of these can be inserted into the game via cheat codes already. But if they are not gained through normal gameplay, then that signals that their balance is not final.

What I think of from the various player androids:

• Peacekeeper - kind of a varguly HR Geiger alien sheen, crossed with some vague feelings from the aliens in Arrival. This is just where my mind goes, this is a stretch.
• Synthetic Fem - makes me think of Rogue from the first X-men movie, although also crossed with Gwen Stacey from the new Spiderverse movies and comies.
• Synthetic Male - kind of the masculine version of Gwen Stacey a bit, but also it makes me think of Dune a bit, prior to the most recent movies.
• Carver - the visuals above are not fully obvious, but it makes me think of Wolverine in a number of ways.
• Predator - obviously the most Terminator-like robot.
• Keanu - in general it is themed around Neo and John Wick in various ways, but it also reminds me of a samurai who has been disarmed. The bulk version is also very much Batman.
• Nickelbot - reminds me of the droids that were cannon-fodder in the Star Wars prequels.
• Sledge - it's baymax, from Big Hero Six! I mean, not really at all, but that's what I associate.
• Exator - it's totally Deadpool.
• Harbinger - Scarecrow from the Batman Arkham games more than the movies.
• Technician - it's not very appealing to me, but basically people's idea of what a future tech robot should be like. It reminds me of older Apple products that are out of date. Like the iMac period.
• CombatUnit - it's so very Murderbot to me, even though Murderbot is a human/bot hybrid and very different.
• Liquid Metal - it's obviously mechanically inspired by the T-1000 and T-X, but visually it's something else. I don't have strong associations with this one, but it makes me think of an Owl that is also a bodybuilder somehow.
• Mindrunner - these are inspired by lots of kinds of Netrunners, and the pose I chose for its aggressive stance is specifically based around one of the iconic shots of the Agents from the Matrix. These are your Agents... except really different.
• Raven - I don't have any super strong visual inspirations for her, either, unfortunately. Kind of like the liquid metal, she evokes a few things, but nothing overly strong.
• PMC Impostor - these are the general "dudes in armor" from sci fi overall. I gave them a wimpy-looking gun on purpose, because having it look small in their hands was a bit hilarious to me.