Five Parsecs from Home Crew #1 - Jokaero

A few weeks ago my good friend cheetor mentioned the Modiphius Five Parsecs from Home rules as something we ought to explore for future gaming sessions. The game requires a 6-strong starship crew for narrative solo or co-op skirmish gaming. The crew is mainly humans but with the option to sprinkle in some robots and aliens. Over the next few days my response was pretty much as follows:

1. Grab some miscellaneous miniatures and start playing around with what looked like a fun crew.
2. Buy the Five Parsecs from Home book and do some detailed planning of a crew.
3. Realise I could easily add another 4 models to use the Parsecs crew as a Stargrave crew.
4. Start modelling and painting the 10-strong Parsecs+ crew.
5. Get excited about other linked sub-groups and opportunities to paint other models in my collection.

My initial assemblage of miniatures for Five Parsecs (note, not all of these models made the cut!)

Gort Pack Beast

Every nomadic merchant needs some kind of large pack beast to carry all of his goods. I've been wanting to add one to my collection for a while, but hadn't hit on the right model. Luckily the trading pages over at the Lead Adventure forum provided, and I was able to pick up a lovely chunky beast.

T'Sulian Tribesfolk - Shaman and Warrior

I'm now actively working on a full group of my T'Sulian warriors with a view to the idea that they might work nicely as a Stargrave crew. With that in mind, I need more fighters, some specialists and a few characters.

The T'Sulian family group warily investigates an abandoned Imperial outpost.

T'Sulian Tribesfolk - a Xenos Mother and Child

I was really pleased with my pair of T'Sulian xenos warriors that I made last year, and I knew from the outset that I was likely to make some more.

It just so happened that the theme of the current painting challenge over at the Oldhammer Facebook group is #justthetwoofus (paint a pair of models which share a connection or theme), and a germ of an idea formed. I decided I would make a pair of non-combatant tribesfolk who may eventually inhabit a future nomadic campsite that I may or may not end up making (depending on how big the tribe gets!).

"That's him mum, he said my head looks like a sand crab's bum!"

Xenos at the Desert Fringes - T'Sulian Warriors

Sometimes you see an idea that's so cool, you just have to copy it! Since GW's Blackstone Fortress game was released, I've seen half a dozen or so really great figures with spindle drone heads as heads or masks. I knew it was something I wanted to try myself, and decided the best way to use them would be on some robe-clad desert-dwelling xenos race in the Tusken raider tradition.

I've converted and painted a pair of aliens based on this template, and I like them so much I intend to make more!

T'Sulian tribesfolk keep watch over key trading routes.

Centauroid Alien - Uuti the Gomo Heavy

I fancied a little change of pace from fantasy skirmish figures, so had a root around in my boxes and pulled out the first completely different figure I fancied.

The figure in question is Uuti the Gomo heavy - a lovely centauroid sloth-like alien figure from Gydran Miniatures. I picked the figure up on a whim a few months back, and she fits perfectly into my Super Hairy Alien Mercenary Squad (what now appears to be an actual thing!).

The Not Quite As Large But Hairier Alien

 A few weeks ago miniatures sculpting legend Bob Olley was selling some converted figures on eBay. At the time I didn't get round to bidding, but instantly regretted it. Carmine over at Indelible Inc. did bid however, and after completing a squad of 5 alien mercenaries based on WOTC Star Wars Yuzzem, had one spare. 

Check out Carmine's cool squad.

Carmine very generously offered it up for grabs in the Great Yuzzem Giveaway, and I ended up being the lucky recipient as I promised to include the model in my Super Hairy Alien Mercenary Squad.

The Unexpectedly Large Alien

Completely out of the blue, an ebay auction caught my eye last week. It was for a set of three 'People Eaters' - digital sculpts being sold by a 3D print seller. The models were cute in a Monsters Inc. type way, and I thought they might be fun little creatures, described as they were as an average of 20mm tall.

Except they weren't 20mm tall...they were 55mm-60mm tall! My tiny cute aliens were now big hulking brues (but still cute). I've since discovered that the three digital sculpts were by Ill Gotten Games from their Urzan Liberty Corps Kickstarter - it turns out that the 20mm scale refers to tiny teddy bear commandos, not the big alien beasties!

I decided to paint up my favourite of the three, a three-eyed, mono-horned furry beast with fairy wings. I got rid of the wings, roughly covered the unsightly cut marks and painted it up in around 45minutes.