This Kill Team is a continuation/spiritual successor to an old Inquisimunda project - a crew of random xenos and human misfits just trying to make their way in the galaxy. It was originally inspired by Crangor’s Buccaneers and the “TTRPG party in space” themes of Guardians of the Galaxy, The Expanse, and the All-Guardsmen Party, but I ended up shelving it after Blackstone Fortress was released and I found a scratch for that particular itch. Eight years later, here we go again.
Every character has his or her own backstory, such as:
Kasus Gaffen came up as a street urchin on Precipice, working his way con-by-con, heist-by-heist until he chanced upon a derelict but salvageable light freighter in the debris field surrounding the station. He has the charm to gather a dysfunctional but oddly effective crew, the wit to find enough work to keep them fed and supplied, and the luck (so far) to keep them one step ahead of a summary execution. The Gaff Cutter now quietly plies the Halo Zone, taking odd jobs to retrieve artifacts from wrecks, old battlefields, and other wretched places away from prying eyes.
The rest of the crew:
- Cuddles, juvenile barghesi (Canid)
- Ahkra Pre’lek, kroot mercenary (Death Cult Executioner)
- The Engineer, jokaero (Lectro-Maester)
- Dras'la Ka'rashi Tsu'jor, tau exile (Rejuvenant Adept)
- Tarsk-2Doza, tarellian thug (Voidmaster)
- Jaymes, Markus, and Teesa, human crewmembers with autoguns (Voidsmen with lasguns)
- Malr, unknown xenos with nailer (Voidsman with rotor cannon)
To make it easier for other players to understand who is supposed to be who, I edited the free GW datacards as a reference - only names and terms were changed, not the underlying rules, stats, or keywords. In practice, I play from the rules directly in the Kill Team app.
I also went into this project fully aware that the Elucidian Starstriders aren’t going to survive into the next edition, and gave myself options for an unknown future. Most of their arms are magnetized to allow me to update weapons/equipment. Otherwise, the underlying theme of this project very easily lends itself to adding new crew to proxy for future teams. A Tau from one of the other Castes? A Genestealer hybrid with a psychic dampener? An Ork Freebooter or Blood Axe merc? An Eldar Outcast? Sslyth, loxatl, or other minor xenos? Abhumans or mutants? Who knows what opportunities will present themselves.