Stargrave – The Talons of Solubris

I used the same paints as my other Solubrians but with some Green Cammo Contrast lines on the face. Because when I think commando I think Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando. (The pictures don’t show off the Cammo strips so well.)

The crew has gotten quite big. Gathering all the aspirational and contingency options for my force in one shot is more than my photo booth can take.

I have already started on my second crew to face off against my Talons of Solubris in another project.

I might try and create a shuttle craft as this seems to be all the rage in the Stargrave Facebook group, but otherwise this project is concluded.

If and when I get a game going I will probably use my new project to do a battle report.

Thanks for all the likes and The Golden Button a few months ago.

Painted in the same style as my Solubrian runner the mini was primed grey and hit mostly with Wyldwood Contrast paint, with Deathguard Green, Vallejo light grey and turquoise Contrast paint for the obligatory tartan / plaid.

The slouch hat and the same Gates of Antares type body as my other runner helps unifying the runners and tie her to the rest of the crew

The head is from the NorthStar Soldiers 2 box and the hat is from the Perry ACW sprue I picked up. The knife is from a NorthStar cultist sprue I believe.

I have probably built these minis when there’s a lesser chance of ever using them, but the kitbashing went to the full use of my little Les Grognards sprue and gives a nice conclusion to the project. I have one more runner that seemed like a good option and I was able to double check my WYSIWYG compliance and added a hand weapon to my Commando. The knife requirement on this trooper is at the end of his carbine.

I went with an Ultramarine blue Contrast Paint undercoat on the trousers with a heavy highlight of Macragge Blue. The rest is the same colours as my other models in the series.

A Gates of Antares body with a Wargames Atlantic Les Grognards head, arms and gun. (Knife and container from unknown source from the bits box)

The paint job is very similar to the Commando paint scheme with the Deathguard Green primer doing a lot of the work. I am happy with the freehand screaming eagle symbol.

The gun is mostly Runelord Brass with Stormhost silver highlights and a Retributor Armour and Runelord mix on the coils over the barrel.

The pose seems to take away some of the heft of the gun, but sci-fi solutions queue up to explain away this. “The gun is a sci-fi light alloy”, “The coils over the barrel have anti-grav tech to reduce recoil and for ease of carrying.” etc.

I am going to make a second warband that will be able to play off against my Talons of Solubris. They will be lead by some well meaning Jedi-esque Mystic characters that put the greater good above all things. Trouble is, they decide what the greater good is via their opinion and the ethos of their religion. Which means that the Talons are criminals to their way of thinking, vengeful terrorists prolonging a lost war over the uninhabitable planet of Solubris. Who sold them this narrative? The Daktari of course.

The Daktari have faired better out of the Last War, but only by becoming vassals of the Pirates. Their own home planet of Daktar is being harvested of its resources to fuel the Pirate fleets, but the Daktari were ultimately successful in beating the Solubrians and still have a place to call home. The universe is in an apocalyptic state, so like everyone else the Daktari have next to no commerce that isn’t Pirate controlled and many of the young Daktari fighters have left home to ply their trade as mercenaries throughout the local galaxies. This is where a section of 5 Daktari (two runners, two recruits and a guy with a carbine) have joined the crew of The Chagrin with Captain Qui-Gon Jim and First Mate Kobi-Juan Aloogobi.

These will all figure in their own project as a fresh crew. This guy was just crying out to be painted and I want you to see the enemy of the Solubrians. They wear a mixture of garish coloured garments and black and brown fighting overalls and basic armour.

This guy is made from a NorthStar Cultist body and left knife hand, a Stargrave Crew right pistol arm and a carbine support left arm and a NorthStar Gnoll head. The head is meant to be placed on a sculpted neck, so I glued a piece of whittled sprue on to the neck section of the cultist body and then glued the head into that. Because the Cultists are designed for a fantasy setting, the leading foot on this mini was attached to it’s puddle tab base my a plastic textured tuft. To keep the same basing style I replaced the tuft with a bit of sprue. I figured it would look like a piece of broken ship. To give the illusion of the damage happening recently I threw down some ash type flock and some bits of Warlord Games pin markers sprue that is a lovely translucent red.

The purple arms paint is Emperor’s Children Pink with a wash of Druki Violet. The cuffs are Trollslayer Orange. The trousers are Warpstone Glow green with Deathguard Green stripes with an Athonian Camoshade wash. The whole mini was primed in Sceptre Black from the new TT Combat primer spray range and a zenith from above with Army Painter Leather Brown. I really like the pattern of the waistcoat on this mini. The whole overalls got a drybrush of Steel Legion Drab and an Agrax Earthshade wash.  The waistcoat got a coat of Darkoath Flesh Contrast Paint. The socks are Flesh tearer Red Contrast Paint with Mephiston highlights.

The face was the reason for the brown zenith to be honest. Knowing that I would need to bring the face up to a Zandri Dust and Morghast Bone colour for the patterning on the face I didn’t want to start that progression from black. The Zandri Dust was applied on the teeth, hair ruff, nose, ear tips and eyebrows and dotted on for the markings pattern. The whole face and neck got a Casandora Yellow wash, then the high areas got a highlight of Morghast Bone, as did the teeth. The tongue is a Bugman’s Glow flesh colour.

I have built this 2nd recruit, another runner, a grenadier or gunner and a Trooper. All using the Les Grognards Adrian helmeted heads. After those 4 there would definitely be enough for a campaign and plenty of options.

The head and body are from the NorthStar Stargrave Crew set. The blade hand is the bayonet from a Les Grognards carbine. The pistol hand is from my Gates of Antares Freeborn sprue.

This guy was a real joy to paint and the blade hand was just a Sci-Fi way of making him more wysiwyg. I think I run the risk of having a selection of dark age and WW2 blades as the “knife” in various soldier types and that will eventually look out of place. I also wanted to use as much of this cut up carbine after using the trigger and the right arm already for my first recruit.

This metal mini was part of the Nickstarter. I see that duel wielding guns seems to have no effect in-game, so decided that I want this alien to at least represent a specialist class of crewman.

I saw the Let’s Play at the start of Stargrave Week and saw how useful the Rapid Fire class of weapon could be.

The only crewman using those weapons appears to be a Gunner. The trouble is that the rapid fire rule is meant to represent lazer Gatling gun or multi mini rocket style weapons, but I love the idea of a gunslinger from an alien race that have amazing reactions, amazing eyesight and super human trigger finger speed to represent the multi targeting and firing of this class of specialist.

The other factors were needing the mini to have heavy armour and plus rapid fire weapons are meant to have a 24 inch range, which seems a bit off when pistols have far less.

I tried to give heavy armour a nod by attaching two plates of armour at his shoulders and wanted to attach a sight to one of the pistols. After finding a scope I was happy with (From a Lost Patrol scout pistol from a spare bits sprue) I realized it would ruin the aesthetic of the mini if added to either gun. I settled on adding it to his belt instead.

The heavy armour is the heavily cut down upper arm and forearm of a Gate of Antares C3 right arm, that I already hacked a weapon off of to make my Commando.

I am also going to make a human runner to wear my last remaining slouch hat. I imagine Runners and Recruits to be the only replacements I need regularly but I can still use my Skitarii to fill gaps too.

I had imagined building a random Skitarii and just adding a “deck” tablet thing from the Crew Sprue to fit at it’s waist.

When I looked at the build instructions for the sniper from the same GW Kill Team set I saw a Skitarii radio fella and felt this would work nicely as my Codebreaker. I can imagine him chatting away, whispering sweet binary nothings in the data ear of a digital loot token and getting it to open its secrets to him.

Skitarii Sniper from the GW Kill Team box set. No kitbash this time. The base is from Rubicon and has a fun texture, designed to help with people wanting to pin their minis to the base. I just used a piece of textured plastic like the other bases under his right foot, a piece of dried paint from the lid of a citadel pot under his left foot and the gun rest in a hole on the base.

I forgot the screaming eagle decal this time but will probably add one to the coat.

The clothing is all the same colours as with the rest of the crew. The metal is all Runestone Silver dry brush hit with a wash of Cryptek Armourshade Gloss and highlighted with Retributor Gold.

The purple on the hosing is all Shyish Purple Contrast Paint with a drybrush of Emperor’s Children Pink. The pipes were mostly just Emperor’s Children Pink.

Decided to use the last Solubrian head on my Pathfinder. I know there’s a danger I may confuse him with my First Mate, both having carbines from the NorthStar Stargrave Crew Sprue, but I did my best to mitigate this. They both have Les Grognards bodies, but this guy is covered in grenades and the base has some nice yellow floor markings.

I realised that when I was assembling ideas on kitbashes for my crew I had oversubscribed on the alien heads. The Les Grognard Adrian helmet and facemask seemed a nice solution to my alien heads blunder.

Commandos have heavy armour and grenades, so I stuck with my Gates of Antares C3 sprue for the armour. There are two grenade arms on my Les Grognards sprue so I used one for this build and one for my Pathfinder (Pathfinders are also prescribed to have grenades, but not heavy armour.)

The C3 rifle looked great, was easily cut from a hand, but obviously looked different to my other carbines. I accepted this change because cutting at the NorthStar carbines to fit felt like a lot of work and unlikely to end in a nice result. With the right hand busy throwing a grenade I had to work out how to have the carbine on show. One of my few remaining Grognard left arms was a rifle support arm. I snipped off the C3 hand and used the stock and grip of a WW2 Japanese LMG to drag the look slightly more in keeping with the other carbines. The gun rested neatly in the Grognard support arm across the model’s chest. I also visited the Japanese Warlord Games sprue for a light mortar round pouch to suggest some grenade storage.

The metal Hacker that came with the Nickstarter was a nice addition to the team. With no time spent on the build it was fun to spend some time of the base.

As you see from my base building post in this project it was just plastic texture glued to the base and sprayed black. I must have been a bit slapdash and this base had a gap and one side raised more than the other. I picked a spare piece of sprue and a piece of wire and poked them under one edge, squirted in some PVA, clamped with some clothes pegs to try to make the gaping less pronounced and left overnight.

The purple of the hair was achieved with Shyish Purple Contrast and Emperor’s Children Pink highlights.

This was an interesting kitbash.

Stargrave Crew box body and human head. Perry Miniatures Kepi slouch hat.

Used Les Grognards arms again. The right arm is meant to be holding a carbine but I cut it short as he’s only meant to have a pistol. I whittled away the stock of the carbine as best I could. To finish the pistol off I gave it the barrel section of a Japanese LMG. It’s still a bit long, but I think it looks OK.

The bayonet and the left hand holding it are from a Japanese Warlord Games sprue again.

The paint scheme and colours have remained the same as previous models in this project. I chose to paint his waistcoat in Brown Violet. The bayonet has a super heated element that allows it to slice easier. Just achieved by running a thick layer of Nihilakh Oxide over a layer of Runefang Steel along the edge.

I used a 101st Airborne badge decal again and this time I used a reference code that appears in the corner of the transfer sheet. Just added at the hips of his waistcoat. No reason just because Sci-Fi.

The build is mentioned below but it was  built on a North Star Stargrave Crew box body, head, spanner, holstered pistol with Wargames Atlantic Les Grodnards sword arm and rifle support arm. The chain sword was cut off and replaced with an Oathmark Heavy Dwarf Sword.

Then I used the same sprue stretching technique that made the runner’s knife below to make a nice thin Lazer piece to fit in the jaws of the spanner.

I like the idea of him focusing the spanner on a lock and popping it and making off with the contents.

The spread of paint hadn’t changed from the Captain’s basic scheme. I wasn’t sure whether to make this model human behind the mask or not, but went with another Solubrian. The Recruit and hacker will definitely look human. Looking forward to getting the rest of this project done.

Probably put too much effort into this free to purchase runner.

Started with a Gates of Antares Freeborn body and arms with Stargrave Crew alien head. The arms are meant to combine with a two handed rifle of some description. The runner class is meant to have no armour and a pistol and knife. I reached for an old Warlord Games Japanese army plastic sprue and used a grenade right hand and a painting left hand. I found what should probably be a communication device from a Epirian Handlers from a Maelstrom Games sprue I got free at Salute years ago. To me, laid flat on the pointing fist hand, looked like a Sci-Fi pistol to me. The grenade hand was meant to look like the hilt of a knife, but as I looked through sprues I wasn’t finding anything I really liked. So I turned to: a Gerry Can…

Gerry Can Show You How To Reuse Miniature Sprues

I had a red clear sprue that held Warlord Games pin markers that seemed perfect to give me a Lazer Stiletto (baby light saber) that would fill the sci-fi knife brief nicely.

The paint job was about playing down the armour, going away from the main Les Grognards uniform of the Captain and throwing down my obligatory dose of tartan. The alien head was always going to tie the body back into the rest of the warband so I didn’t need to make her grey and yellow to match the Captain.

I used Snakebite Leather Contrast Paint for the majority of the model, but left the right leg as the bare Halfords grey primer to give me some OSL effects. I built up this space with some Averland Sunset, Citadel Yellow wash, some Reikland Fleshshade wash, then a touch of watery Mephiston Red and Blood for the Blood God mix. I think it came out OK. The rest of the “armour” got a Steal Legion Drab highlight.

I used Black Templar Contrast for the webbing. The tartan started out with a Brown Violet base and a Athonian Camoshade wash. Then had Deathguard Green lines with parallel Mephiston Red lines either side. Then Orcflesh Green Contrast horizontal lines were added but these finished very glossy, so I hit it all with an Agrax Earthshade wash that kinda washed out a lot of my fairly subtle work. I built some of the lines back up with the original Deathguard and Mephiston. I really like the end look, but sadly the photos haven’t really captured what you get to see with the mini in hand.

The basing was kinda necessary after realising that the pose pitched the mini too far forward. I wanted it to look like a head long runner, but I glued the head too straight forward and it looked odd. I cut some neatly cut coffee stirrer pieces and spray painted the silver to be the steps. I didn’t just want them to be a straight staircase, so to add a Sci-Fi element I added a clear red support column from the pin markers sprue again, that I imagine can raise and maybe produce more stairs or something.

The addition of a Warlord Games Bolt Action British Weapons Sprue PIAT ammunition case and a Skitarii Plasma backpack make this guy look very different. It does look a bit excessive, but I wanted to advertise the fact that he has an Energy Shield Stargrave Power that takes three hits of damage once activated.

I really liked the Stargrave Crew NorthStar carbine arms. I wondered whether to make shoulder pads to make him more in keeping with his brother, but as these guys are meant to be in light armour I guess what he has on display should be enough.

On his left hip Mihaan has a “deck” from the Northstar Crew sprue. It kinda looked like an 80’s tape deck to me so I put a red button on it, just incase he wants to hit play and record to make himself a mixtape or something. The screen came out OK with a Templar Black Contrast first layer, with some spots of yellow paint to try and imitate fine text, followed by and Orc flesh Green Contrast over that.

Mihaan also has a spanner on his canteen to indicate his Repair Robots Stargrave Power.

I added a Warlord Games 101st US airborne transfer to the shoulder pad and shoulder of the brothers. I think it ties in with the “Talons” background and I don’t see it as an immersion issue.