A few years back, there were a brilliant post on the oldhammer forum regarding a spin off called Star Bastards. An event game they'd run at BOYL. The premise is pretty simple but a welcome return to the more anarchistic roots of 40k: you are a group of hoodlums, ne'er-do-wells and outright bastards dressed in looted armour, high on whatever space drugs you could find and out for a good time. You score points by fighting, fornicating, looting and vandalism in the local town. I loved the idea of this forgotten legion of space marines simply left to rot on some old frontier. No supplies, rations thinning and gear breaking down, they turn to barbarism to survive, becoming nomadic bands wearing only fragments of their old armours and weaponry.
While the odds of me actually attending BOYL are pretty low, I of course had to make these lost and worn space marines, and luckily I had a few future savages, a barbarian and a heap of space marine bits lying about. Even from a young age the striking bright yellow of imperial fists have always hooked, me so I had to go with a yellow base for the armour. Looking back at my finished bastards the only major thing I'd redo is maybe adding more fur to them, but that is pretty easily accomplished.
And while I may not play much 40k, I did make a homebrew of them for Mutants and Deathray Guns, since there is a interesting niche between the well equipped regular pure strain humans and the cannibal tribes, a niche that could fit some of these technological locusts. Here is the rules for anyone who'd like a go with them in game.
STAR BASTARDS
Remnants of a high tech warrior corps now marooned with broken supply lines and no rescue in sight. They are turning to supply raiding and jury-rigging their equipment to survive.
They have a Quality of 3, a Combat score of 2 and an upkeep of 1 food per game. They also have the traits Pure Human DNA and Field Strip, detailed below. They may have a Leader and Champion, each member gets 1 roll on the normal equipment table (Mdrg pg 12), they also each get 1 skill roll on the below table.
Star Bastard Skills
1. Overcharger
2. Piecemeal Armourer
3. Slippery
4. Savage or Difficult Target
5. Opportunistic
6. Powered Knuckleduster
Pure Human DNA
The model rolls at +2 when figuring out artifacts.
Field Strip
Being used to hit and run raids, this model gets a free action to pick up an item after putting another model out of action. Furthermore if putting an Artificial model out of action, you may instead loot an Energy Cell from them making the Artificial model count as underfed for this game.
Allies
Star Bastards forces usually include Neo Ancients as there isn’t enough equipment to go around for everyone. Tamed mutant animals aren't uncommon either. However they will never ally with anybody using Power Cells for upkeep.
Power Armour
If you run an all Star Bastard warband, they will between them have had enough spare parts to have kept a single of their powered armours running. You have one Powered Armour to begin with (Mdrg pg 65)
New Trait: Overcharger
Through a crank lever, car battery or other techno-nerdery this character is able to spike the charges in high-tech weapons. The character may begin play with an overcharged weapon. If the character carries more than weapon, all of them may be overcharged.
Overcharging a weapon costs 1 action and makes the weapon strike at +1 for the next use. A weapon can only hold 1 overcharge at a time.
Should a misfire be rolled, the weapon will immediately explode, hitting the user with a Combat 3 (heat) attack, and then count as broken. A gunsmith may not prevent an overcharge misfire, but may still repair the weapon as normal between games.
New Trait: Piecemeal Armourer
This model may between games destroy two items in your warbands stash to give another humanoid member of your warband either Block or Heavy Armour.
While the odds of me actually attending BOYL are pretty low, I of course had to make these lost and worn space marines, and luckily I had a few future savages, a barbarian and a heap of space marine bits lying about. Even from a young age the striking bright yellow of imperial fists have always hooked, me so I had to go with a yellow base for the armour. Looking back at my finished bastards the only major thing I'd redo is maybe adding more fur to them, but that is pretty easily accomplished.
And while I may not play much 40k, I did make a homebrew of them for Mutants and Deathray Guns, since there is a interesting niche between the well equipped regular pure strain humans and the cannibal tribes, a niche that could fit some of these technological locusts. Here is the rules for anyone who'd like a go with them in game.
STAR BASTARDS
Remnants of a high tech warrior corps now marooned with broken supply lines and no rescue in sight. They are turning to supply raiding and jury-rigging their equipment to survive.
They have a Quality of 3, a Combat score of 2 and an upkeep of 1 food per game. They also have the traits Pure Human DNA and Field Strip, detailed below. They may have a Leader and Champion, each member gets 1 roll on the normal equipment table (Mdrg pg 12), they also each get 1 skill roll on the below table.
Star Bastard Skills
1. Overcharger
2. Piecemeal Armourer
3. Slippery
4. Savage or Difficult Target
5. Opportunistic
6. Powered Knuckleduster
Pure Human DNA
The model rolls at +2 when figuring out artifacts.
Field Strip
Being used to hit and run raids, this model gets a free action to pick up an item after putting another model out of action. Furthermore if putting an Artificial model out of action, you may instead loot an Energy Cell from them making the Artificial model count as underfed for this game.
Allies
Star Bastards forces usually include Neo Ancients as there isn’t enough equipment to go around for everyone. Tamed mutant animals aren't uncommon either. However they will never ally with anybody using Power Cells for upkeep.
Power Armour
If you run an all Star Bastard warband, they will between them have had enough spare parts to have kept a single of their powered armours running. You have one Powered Armour to begin with (Mdrg pg 65)
New Trait: Overcharger
Through a crank lever, car battery or other techno-nerdery this character is able to spike the charges in high-tech weapons. The character may begin play with an overcharged weapon. If the character carries more than weapon, all of them may be overcharged.
Overcharging a weapon costs 1 action and makes the weapon strike at +1 for the next use. A weapon can only hold 1 overcharge at a time.
Should a misfire be rolled, the weapon will immediately explode, hitting the user with a Combat 3 (heat) attack, and then count as broken. A gunsmith may not prevent an overcharge misfire, but may still repair the weapon as normal between games.
New Trait: Piecemeal Armourer
This model may between games destroy two items in your warbands stash to give another humanoid member of your warband either Block or Heavy Armour.
These are some brilliant conversions, Sir. Great use of the EM-4 figures!
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