Stargrave – The Talons of Solubris

I made some powers cards with the free download from the Osprey Publishing website.

I printed off the quick reference guide and the solo rules and I laminated a crew sheet and started to look through the book.

I decided on the background of my crew and then set out to create my Captain and First Mate.

I decided that thematically both the Capt and 1st Mate should choose the “Veteran” character trope. Even though game wise I am sure you should mix up the classes and utilise all the fun abilities I thought I would stick to my narrative for now and didn’t want any jedi like powers initially in this crew. The only nod to this side of Sci-Fi is that. Some Solubrians have a natural healing skill. A type of telepathy that, by shear force of will and suggestive powers, that the target hearing the faint foreign clicking heals themselves and their own body reacts at a heightened regenerative rate.

Captain Vars has:

Command – Extra player in line of sight is able to activate in his phase.

Coordinated Fire – +1 shoot awarded to a crewman for the rest of the game.

Target Designation: Target mini has -2 Fight when defending a shoot attack.

Heal: 5 points of health restored on a target in 6″ range.

Regenerate: Vars recovers 3 points of lost health.

For his brother with one fewer power as First Mate I thought I would use up more of the remaining Veteran core powers and have him command the robots I am thinking of having in my list.

First Mate Vars has:

Energy Shield: 3 points of damage from shooting taken by the shield. Remains on until depleted.

Remote Firing: A target robot fires a +3 shoot attack over and above their activation.

Power Spike: Next shot gets a +3 damage mod.

Repair Robot: 5 points of health restored on a target in 6″ range

The backstory got my ideas flowing and the rules and the Crew NorthStar box arriving gave me chance to throw my first kitbashes together.

The Background

Captain Maughan Vars hates the technologically advanced evil Daktari Empire and their mercenary Pirate allies that eventually destroyed his homeworld Alpha-Solubris.
That said, after years of guerilla fighting he has realised that men don’t fight for causes any more. They fight for money and survival. The only way to get comfort in the sea of grief for his endangered race and his derelict planet is to snipe at Daktari power and Pirate dominance under the guise of contracted works for the last remaining pockets of civilization in the chaos.
That ship they scavenged last month happened to be a Daktari vessel. That outpost they raided for supplies last week happened to belong to a Daktari protectorate. This space station they are stealing from today is a known Pirate slave trading port. The war continues one contract and one heist at a time. The crew share the spoils, as Captain Vars gets his revenge one shrouded triumph after the next.
Oh and there’s his brother the first mate, but more on him once some paint goes down. ?

The captain has a pistol and pointing arm and body from the Les Grognards Wargames Atlantic range. I got a three body sprue from this set just for filling in the big annual wargames survey a couple of years ago. The head is from the NorthStar Stargrave crew box. The kepi slouch hat is from a Perry’s ACW sprue.

The First Mate is made from a Les Grognards body and the head and arms are from the Stargrave Crew NorthStar box.

There are also some additional items around the waist that are meant to denote the breathing filter, codebreaking “decks” that the First Mate has and the physical lock “picks” that the captain has.