Stargrave – The Last Prospector

Daughter Ryla is a character that seems to be potentially on your side, but takes some convincing. She is a resistance fighting against the Pa faction in the game. The artwork on the book cover is meant to represent her, but the model that NorthStar are selling has her more like a commando with a beret. So I went my own road with my kitbash. The pose leans heavily on the studio sculpt. I added extra armour because she has heavy armour stats and seems a real bad ass. Her stats say that she’s very strong. The artwork gave her potentially a pale blue complected with ginger hair but that could just be object source lighting and just suggestion. I went for green skin because… Why not? …. And because if people see her as orc like that comes with some attitude and atmosphere that suits her. Plus the Mornfang Brown and Steel Legion Drab give her the marshal resistance look she needs.

I have had some odd looking pieces of polystyrene in my terrain bits box for a while. They’re not the bobble heavy white polystyrene, but they’re not dense foam pieces either. This video has inspired me to give these potential walls a coating of a PVA / flour / salt mix to harden it up and easy to prime etc.

My version is different in many ways but the concept and materials are similar. I think I will make more of these and that are more broken and grungy like the video.

I like the supporting ideas I have toyed with to keep the fences up. Barrels on one side and a kink in the sprue on the other side (for the taller fence  piece.) Two halves of a 25mm base set in place with glue and a dab of ready made filler was a fun idea on the other fence section.

The barrels are from a Tamiya 1/35 scale set that I rescued from a shed clearance. The box and instructions destroyed by rain damage, but the kits were still on sprues and sealed. For Sci-Fi scales can often be flexible and compared to the 40k barrells they don’t look too outrageous.

I missed the boat a bit on this Starlink sale. Got my Lance and starter box bits online and delivered cheaply. Went to my local toy store and The Works and the cupboards we’re almost bare. They had more starter boxes, which I didn’t fancy and the guns that I have made into sporty hover bikes. They also had a couple of pilots, but I was most taken with this one and the potential to actually use her in one of my a crews. Though she’s also rock and roll enough to field as a baddy in a solo bounty mission too. For £1 I am really happy to add her to my list of Stargrave options.

On the Weekender 7th of May, Warren mentioned Starlink the computer game with it’s integrated models. He shared  that they were selling off the spacecraft model ships for dirt cheap because the game was dying the death.

I ordered the starter box and a “Lance” ship and they sent two Lances instead.

Knowing that I had a “free” ship and that they were identical I felt emboldened to try a fresh paint job on one of them. I put the wings upsidedown and they still looked like fun Sci-Fi wings. I put some filler in the exposed screws on the wings now they were on upsidedown and primed it Halfords red. Then I wrapped it in string and painted it black. Will post pics soon.

The plinth was made from stacked Starlink mini bases and the statue is one of the Lance pilots I have. The banners are just printed out Google images when searching for “Space Pirate symbols”.

Started to look at the bounty hunting solo rules that Osprey released for free when Stargrave came out. I already have a project for Quarantine 37 on OnTableTop where I am working through some solo play games, but the bounty hunting solo play rules sound fun.

This version of solo does require some bad guys to fight against and I always loved the look of the Chaos Cultist cheap set. Seemed like as good of a time as any to paint some up. The exact loadout and classes of troops required each game seems odd and quite expansive so I will just make a few and enjoy. If the crew models I put together don’t fit the rules I will just have to proxy around and make some tweaks in as balanced a way as I can.

The brown on the clothes is Snakebite Leather Contrast over a zenith of Halfords Grey primer and black primer.

The jacket tied over his shoulder and tied at his hip is a nice mix of off whites. Zandri Dust base, with Morghast Bone highlight and Wraithbone top highlight. Then weathered with Sepia wash and and Nulin Oil and a tidy up with Zandri Dust in areas too dark with wash.

The face was given a base of Contrast Green Camo. And heavy highlight of Deathguard Green. The Jokaero Orange boots and gloves helps unite the whole group of minis. Even with jackets and no jacket minis together I think they feel like they’re in a works gear uniform rather than a military force uniform. I think they look individual enough to suggest they are subcontractor prospectors hoping to make it rich but getting their tools and supplies from a central source together.

I imagine the environment they are prospecting in to be cold and arid. The Russian head just looked like someone strapped up against the cold, but I didn’t want him to be green or white like some of the others. Macragge Blue seemed like a good choice.

The long necks on these two just came to me as I looked through my sprues for something other than human. The Wargames Factory Warlord Games dark age Saxon sprue has these interesting looking heads. The hair cut sparked a potential clone idea, but as I was about to cut down the neck to make it look more natural on the Russian body, I figured that the long neck would make them look even more alien and fitted them at the original length from the sprue.

The grass was from a really disappointing tuft set that I got. (Jarvis scenics. See image below and you be the judge) The tuft online looked like a multi green gorgeous summer tuft in the pics. And when it arrived I get a single tone green tuft. On a colour chart it would be “plastic soldier green”. So now I chop the tufts into small pieces and paint them different colours. Safe in the knowledge that if it all goes wrong… It was what it was and the experiment went well… or it went in the bin.

I used an Army Painter urban grey flock and added a big flint stone on each base.

I enjoyed the building of the minis. The latest Warlord Games sprue sale helped me with the Winter Russian sprue that sets the base for these kitbashes. I looked through my sprues for tools, but decided that I wanted some pieces to look a touch more Sci-Fi.

I cut up a Bolt Action British weapons sprue Bren Gun to become a drill of some kind. Also had a Lee Enfield rifle that had been broken, so used it to give me an interesting handle for an axe and a separate spike.

I hope that the game doesn’t have any specifics about them being pan sifters mainly, because some of my guys look more like miners.