The Elucidian Starstriders

 

Following on from my previous post about my wondering of eBay and where that can lead, I thought I'd share another of my wondering thoughts. 

As I've mentioned several times, right now, Kill Team is my main focus and while I do t get to play all that much, I really like the game and the options it give you. One of those options is the opportunity to use various characters and teams from several other GW boxed games, namely Blackstone Fortress and Kill Team: Rogue Trader. For every day casual play, I really don't need any of these games or the models. However, I quite like some of fluff behind them and the opportunity to mold it to my own ends, basically, I like the thought of kit bashing my own versions to fit my own theme. 

As a collector of Imperial factions, it's only the Elucidian Starstriders (from Rogue Trader) that have caught my attention. I like the idea of the team, having lots of special characters that I can kit bash up to my own tastes, obviously keeping them as close to the original idea as I can so that it's obvious what they are. However, there are some down sides to the team. The biggest on is that it's a 100 point team with no options to add more models or to change wargear. While I don't think that is a big issue for what I want them for, I would like to add in some different models, namely the ability to add in more voidsmen. I would also have like the option to change some of the voidsmens weapon, maybe switch out laspistols for chainswords or lasguns for shotguns, something that would add some extra dimensions to the team. I understand why they haven't, seeing as they are set pieces from a game, which come with a set wargear list. As  things stand though, there are no options and so I will look to build them as they are. 

Talking of building, I have a few ideas. I have numerous Catachan models floating around and a few Cadian ones as well, although these are all push fit, easy build types and not easy to customise. For the voidsmen this might be alright but a better idea would be using the Scion bodies I have, although I think I've only got 4 of them and there are effectively 5 voidsmen, including Voidsmaster Nitsch. I think I have enough bits that I could bash together a pretty reasonable looking force, using mostly Catachan parts to give a much more ferrel and lower tech look bit still be coherent. My only issue would be the dog, Aximillion. I don't have anything I could use now and I wouldn't want to use a dog anyway, I'd want something different, maybe feline or more beastial, maybe giant rat or even spider, something more suited to the back water scheme. I also have a number of AdMech bits spare, which might be useful for making some of the characters or even adding some tech to the voidsmen. Either way there are some possibilities for bashing this lot together. The real question at the moment is whether I want to or not.

One thought that I did have was to add in some other models from the Blackstone Fortress range. Although on closer inspection the choice is actually fairly limited, as only Pious Vorne, Rein and Raus and Gotfret De Montbard. There is also X-101 and UR-025 but these are both AdMech units and cannot be taken with other forces. The former can all be taken with guard units and Vorne and Montbard can also be taken with Sisters. The rest of the Blackstone Fortress models appear to all be commanders and so not much use to me.  Unfortunately, the Elucidian Starstriders themselves are neither Guard or Sisters but there own faction and so can not be paired with any additional characters. This sort of put another spanner in the works and makes it even less likely that I'll bother to build the Starstriders although I may think about building Vorne and Montbard for my guard team or Inquisition team for some combat support.

Building these two should be quite easy. Vorne can easily be built with a separate flamer and chainsword or it should be fairly easy to combine the two to form a weapon more similar to the original. I'll probably form the body out of Catachan parts to reflect the 7+ armour save! Montbard will be formed from Scion bits for the armoured look and probably borrow a sword and shield from some marines. I'll probably build these guys, mostly because I can and not because I would actually use them. 

While I was wondering this post and how to build the units here, White Dwarf 454 was released, containing rules for Sister of Silence in kill team, so I thought I'd tack them on to the bottom of here! Now, SoS ( as opposed to SoB) only have 3 units, those armed with bolters, flamers and swords and so I would not need to form a full 20 man kill team to have an effective roster. By my calculations, a basic usable team, with leader and 3 specialists, would also need 5 bolter armed Sisters and the most expensive would only need 3 swords instead of bolters. I have decided that, should I do a team I would have a Prosecutor Superior as leader, a sniper Prosecutor, a Demo Witchseeker, a Zealot Vigilator Superior and Combat Vigilater plus 3 Prosecutors, 2 Witchseekers and 2 Vigilators, for a team of 12 and enough options to cover most situations. This should work out quite well as my Sisters of Battle team should be about 16 strong, which should mean that I have enough with 3 boxes of Sisters to make the two kill teams. 

I figure that I can build the Sisters of Silence team with Sisters of Battle, painted up golden and possible with some extras of eBay, like heads. It's not like I've got enough teams to paint and play with, so I don't know if I will get around to doing a Sister of Silence team but I will keep some Sisters of Battle spare in case I do. 

Up next and probably filling up most of the next few months will be 9th, not just looking at the rules but also my thoughts and feelings on the game, my armies and where I think I'll be going from here!