Stargrave bestiary 1

One of the attractive features of Stargrave is the possibility of creatures wandering into the area and attacking your crew. There is a list of many possible alien beasts to encounter. Here are my solutions to filling some of these roles, within a Rogue Trader-esque setting.

Ruffians

Pistol-armed low lives, these are Chaos Cult scum.

Ryankan

I'm really happy with these resin 3D prints. Ryankan are a sort of pterodactyl-bat creature. They're a bit of Star Wars mynock, a bit of Necromundan ripper jack. These are manta cave bats, a free 3D design from Mia Kay. The original sculpts have their tails on the bases, but mine have paperclip flight stands.

Primitives

Stone Age peoples who have no ranged weapons; Hobbit goblintown denizens.

Bounty Hunter

I am kroot.

Gaunch

Chameleonic scavengers, these are Ur-Ghuls from Blackstone Fortress. I'd like to pick up a few more.

Warp Hound

Basically a dimension hound, these are hounds of Tindalos from Mansions of Madness. I would like to find something a little more warp-y.

Sewer Dragon

Old faithful, the ambull.

I think I'm reasonably close to the mark with these and I've got many more bestiary spots to fill!

Necromunda: Goliaths

Last year I was on a fantasy roll; this year the science fiction bug has bitten. I was quite looking forward to Stargrave, but have become distracted by the very nice new third edition of Five Parsecs from Home. Which is the roundabout way I got inspired to finally slapping paint on these Goliaths.

I picked up a few cheap preassembled gangs when Necromunda got re-released a few years ago. I didn’t really love them- I’m not a huge fan of the sculpted bases, and getting them second-hand meant I wasn’t as invested as if I had built them myself. And the weapon choices aren’t the ones I would have made. So I put off painting them, which is a shame as they are lovely sculpts.

The skin is just one pass of Contrast Guilliman Flesh, then white for teeth. That’s it! I used Vallejo spray white as undercoat.

I tried a new basing technique, but I haven't quite got the effect I was going for.

I don’t even know what some of these weapons are… but I really love the ridiculous oversized revolvers.

Here's a bonus; an old photo of my 1995 plastic Goliaths. I can't remember what happened to them.

Goliaths are a pretty one-note faction, but they make great antagonists. I haven't come up with a gang name yet; suggestions welcomed.

Skull-o-meter™: 18

Nemesis: The Intruders

Here are my speed-painted Intruders for Nemesis. I undercoated them with Army Painter Gunmetal spray, then sloshed on GW Contrast Akhelian Green. I gave them a light metallic drybrush, and picked out the fleshy bits. I did add some UHU drool, but wasn't feeling it and decided not to add any blood effects.

I don't quite grok the implied lifecycle, but here are the gribblies:

Larvae

Creeper

Adult

Adult

Adult

Adult

Breeder

Queen

The Intruders are ridiculously large

Nemesis: The Crew

Nemesis passed me by when it came out on Kickstarter in 2018. But I was drawn to the theme of Alien-style survival horror, and have picked the boardgame up subsequently. I have now painted the crew, but I haven’t grown to love them. The sculpts are a little busy and unclear. They take Contrast paint reasonably well but I found it hard to give each figure a focus. Each character has a distinctive colour in the game which I have tried to capture in their paint scheme. I don’t usually go for black base rims, but here I felt I had to (and I need to do a second coat, but I wanted to post pictures...)

The Scientist

The Soldier

The Engineer

The Scout

The Pilot

The Captain

The Crew

I played this virtually during lockdown last year- I died from a chestburster thing, and then the whole ship imploded killing everyone else. Good times!

Next time: the Intruders!

Genestealer Cult Magus

I didn't realise it was the month of Junestealer; so here's my contribution before the month is up. I do like this female magus; she's quite tall even before her boots and towers over her adoring throng. I'd like to see a conversion with a pregnant belly- creepy!

Now that I have taken these photos all I can see is that massive yellow smudge on her skirt...

Aliens: Finding Newt battle report

I decided to jump straight into learning how to play Aliens: Another glorious day in the Corps by starting with the full campaign. Ripley, Gorman, Vasquez, Hudson, Hicks and Frost land on LV-426. They have to search the compound for Newt, the sole surviving colonist, and escape.

The Marines disembark from the dropship and advance to the compound.

Hudson runs a bypass to open the door...

A lone alien is easily gunned down.

The Marines advance deep into the compound.

Frost finds Newt.

Ripley tries to calm her down by waving a pulse rifle at her.

... but then aliens drop from the ceiling and kill Ripley.

Simultaneously, aliens pour from everywhere and destroy the Marine squad.

So, I was making reasonable progress (somewhat burdened by Ripley suffering a 'Blinding Rage' ongoing event) when I drew a very nasty card that erupted aliens in my face. I have decided to scrap this campaign and restart... Next time I'll get better, less cinematic lighting!

The board and figures are lovely. The gameplay is a little fiddly compared to the simplicity of Space Hulk, but leans into the movie details. Replaying this, I would make better use of the motion tracking tools that allow you to preempt upcoming dangerous swarm events. I wouldn't tool up with as much body armour or helmets either.

I got some friends together later and we played a 'Bug Hunt' mission, a non-canonical gun crawl. We barely advanced 20 metres into the atmosphere processor before we got absolutely swarmed, but were able to make a fighting withdrawal to a choke point where we mercilessly exterminated the hive.

Somehow, we survived this.

Aliens- Colonial Marines

I really flamed out on painting these. Ripley et al. were painted in March, but the thought of painting two types of camouflage and trying to interpret all the kit they’re wearing, without great reference material, was quite intimidating. Plus, the Analogue Challenge does tend to leave me a little drained for a few weeks afterwards. There are, nevertheless, only ten marines- so I knuckled down and got them done. They do look like a coherent unit now.

Colonial Marines

Gorman’s big Stars and Stripes on his left shoulder was painted with a pink and blue rectangle. The pink replicates the effect quite well. I first came across this trick from someone doing 15mm US paratroopers.

Lt Gorman

I think Gunny Apone has a stogie in his mouth.

GySgt Apone

Hicks has his shotgun- for close encounters.

Cpl Hicks

I painted some blips on Hudson’s motion tracker.

PFC Hudson

I opted out of painting the graffiti on the various characters’ armour. I did put spots on Vasquez’ bandanna though.

PFC Vasquez

PFC Drake

Cpl Dietrich

PFC Crowe

I always thought they were shouting, "Where's Bowski?"

PFC Wierzbowski

PFC Frost

The figures have names sculpted on the bases- which is good, because I’m not going to pretend I can tell the difference between a lot of the redshirts!

There are two Sentry Guns.

UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns

And some crates and terminals.

That's this project completed!