Zebraoutrider digs a Stargrave (Spring Clean Challenge 2022 – Part 2… and Beyond!)
Recommendations: 250
About the Project
From the community that keeps giving… inspiration has arrived in the form of Joseph A. McCullough’s Stargrave. I’ve loads of sci-fi miniatures so as a second quick Spring Clean (2022) I’m creating a playable crew for Stargrave based on the rules and also clearing some of my pile of shame! Eventually I’ll turn this into a narrative blog of their adventures…
Related Game: Stargrave
Related Company: Diehard Miniatures
Related Genre: Science Fiction
Related Contest: Spring Clean Hobby Challenge (Old)
This Project is Active
Hunters assembled… Destination set…
Launch imminent…
The Mark…
Heading to Outpost 37…
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The eight fugitives emerged from the crates in the cargo hold of the Delta Flyer 88. It looked like Ford and Tarlone Moon had kept up their bargain. Next port of call Outpost 37…
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Soolyn Viers winked at Gina Bee and looked around at her new mixed bunch of companions. This could be something great here… it’s just like having a good ol’ spring clean to dust of the detritus of life and to start a new…
The great escape…
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Soolyn Viers realised that the only way off this hell hole of a torture chamber in space was to commandeer a supply transport. She hoped that her seductive skills would help as she approached the pilot and his co-pilot in the hanger bay…
And then there were eight desperadoes…
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It turned out that the yellow beast had a twin and it was his brother that Borux sought out using his expert sense of smell. Soolyn couldn’t distinguish anything other than they smell of a bad case of flatulence, but Borux indicated that his brother was not dead, merely rehydrating in the sewage bath… In any case Mox’s two cell-mate companions Flits McGruder and Cycoll Monk had declined a dip in the wet, brown tank, favouring instead to remove the weapons from the cell guards that had not faired well on their encounter with S’Pang-Dax and K’Tra-Mai…
The First Mate casts a spell…
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Gina Bee stretched her arms and proceeded to wretch, narrowly avoiding Soolyn Viers’ well defined chest. “I hate cryogenic freezing… but I’m glad to see you!” Their embrace was short lived as K’Tra-Mai pointed at the sealed door leading to a dark void and an increasingly loud banging…
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The door slid open and immediately motion detectors illuminated the inner sanctum. Strapped to an operating table was a very angry looking hulk who had managed to break free his left foot restraint and was pounding on the bench muttering “mox… mox… mox…”
Something slithers this way…
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The sentry lock on the first cryogenic cubicle read Homo Sapiens splice Heterodon platirhinos 02234591 and on the second cubicle Homo Sapiens splice Opheodrys vernalis 07659953. Both sentry screens flashed “Venomous and extremely dangerous.” I bet they are… thought Soolyn as she placed the orderly’s eyeball on the iris scanner.
Let’s go exploring…
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Merging from the non-descript background of the corridor, Soolyn Viers slipped into the changing room behind the orderly and with the speed of a spitting cobra, her prey had been stripped of her clothes and bundled in to a locker. The jumpsuit was perhaps a couple of sizes too small and although her now over-exaggerated and slinky body may prove a distraction to anyone she next encountered, it was a risk she had to take…
Picking a crew…
When I say I’ve got a lot of Diehard miniatures, I mean I’VE REALLY GOT A LOT OF DIEHARD MINIATURES! Picking a crew was not easy as I thought and actually I could probably build at least three balanced crews if I thought about it. So, to follow the theme of Soolyn Viers being a biomorph, I selected the most alien-looking ‘heroes’…
Captain Soolyn Viers
According to the Stargrave rules, you should select your Captain first and select a background characteristic to provide some context for your leader.
I came up with the name Soolyn Viers actually for a Star Wars inspired Hero Forge character in the May 4th Be With You competition on BoW/OTT, and I liked the name so that’s who my crew’s leader will be called.
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SUBJECT:
Soolyn Viers is a Biomorph – a human who is not quite human anymore due to genetic manipulation. She was ‘grown’ like a lab rat on Science Base 12-92-X using the DNA from Homo Sapiens subject F843766G and spliced with DNA from Furcifer Pardalis subject T971255K.
The genetic manipulation appeared to work in that the combined organic construct FT894713726565GK or affectionately known as ‘Soolyn’ by the technicians was grown to maturity through the “Prow-Elliot-Williams-Luong” cryogenic accelerated masturation process (PEWLCAMP), which creates a viable life form of an equivalent Human age of 21 within a rapid three month period, and ‘on birth’ Soolyn was able to demonstrate the chameleon-like qualities expected alongside the sentient, intellectual standard of a human.
What Soolyn lacked was experience of the world beyond the laboratory and with the natural curiosity of Homo Sapiens and the hunger pains of the Furcifer Pardalis, Soolyn used her unique skills to elude the laboratory staff, as she exploited a timeout in the inspection routine and went exploring around the facility…
Inspirational Artwork…
The internal artwork from the Stargrave Core Rulebook will give me added inspiration. Artwork is credited to Helge C. Balzer, Michele Giorgi, Sam Lamont and Paolo Puggioni.
In the beginning…
Heading towards the end of May comes the next KS from Diehard Miniatures. This will be sci-fi based, but I live in shame having box loads of unpainted Diehard Miniatures and will feel a tad guilty adding to this pile without reducing it first!
I was fascinated, intrigued and curious about all the positive promotions of Stargrave on BoW/OTT as a sci-fi equivalent to Frostgrave – a game I’d read about but not engaged with as I was preferring to remain loyal to the Mordheim environment.
I have become a tad disillusioned with GW’s Kill Team, on part by the price and redundancy of early additions that play on my FOMO, only for them to truly end up collecting dust on the shelf! Stargrave appears to provide me with that agnostic set up which will continue to ween me off GW and give meaning and value to the miniatures I’ve acquired over time from non-GW sources and encourage me to actually play with the finished models once painted.
So, I’ve acquired the core rule book from Osprey Games and have immersed myself into Stargrave and to create a fitting crew in the time left for the 2022 Spring Clean Challenge.