Star Breach – A new project: Part I

Having played around for the last year trying to complete units for various forces in an effort to build them up and have some semblance of a force for different game systems I thought it was about time that I gave Star Breach a proper good look before creating a faction for the game itself.

By that I mean, rather than take advantage of one of the many sci fi factions I already have for other games systems, think up a concept and then find some miniatures I want to represent the faction I have created from the creative part of my brain.

Where to start? Well, the army lists of course. I definitely want this faction to be alien. I’m thinking bipedal, humanoid but with enough about them to seem alien. I want guns and some suggestion of agility, perhaps the ability to create some combat orientated troops. Some element of tech about them too.

Having looked through the lists I quickly decide that I should be able to take advantage of the L’Orani Empire and if I build the models right, I can even make them so they can be used as Corrupted L’Orani too if I wanted to so that I have some variation in how they play and some future build potential too.

Now, one of the beautiful things about Star Breach is that if you like, you can just play the armies as laid out in the book / pdf. Some appear to be very much homages to mainstream sci fi factions out there. I don’t really need to go into that other than to say that is absolutely fine. It works. It’s brilliant.

However, I wanted to underline how the army lists have names only because without them they can be seen as difficult to differentiate. And for some folks pick up and play is just the ticket. The real beauty is that if you strip back the names what you have is brilliant scaffolding – the ultimate sandbox for you to create your own universe.

As it happens, that is something I had done in the past. A setting that threw in together a ton of influences from pop culture and real world to be the backdrop of factions I had wanted to create for a while with models I really liked the look of and wanted to collect but had no system they would fit into.

So far for this setting I have built a decent sized force of Nova Fed – a sci fi soviet force that represent a union of planets that had been classified as industrial planets where processing, heavy manufacturing and material mining meant that the way of life was dirty, dusty and in comparison lacking in the wealth, luxury and resources of so called “Class A” planets. Angry with the inequality the worker unions militarised…

The Unified Planets are the main opponents to the Nova Fed, they represent Class A planets and others who have aligned with them. They protect their status, wealth and resources and want to wrestle back control of the colonies that are ‘rebelling’.

Then there is a faction of what I have called Resistance Fighters. Generally peoples of planets who have not aligned with either of the main factions, instead trying to form smaller factions or to retain independence altogether. Usually much more poorly equipped and armed and often with little to no uniforms to speak of as such. They’ll fight anyone who is looking to seize control of their colony / planet.

And whilst all of this chaos goes on, alien factions seize the moment and look to expand upon their own empires.

That is where the two L’Orani lists come into play. This will be the first alien faction I have created for this setting really. I wanted something humanoid to represent an intelligent sentient species that perhaps allies with some humans from time to time but ultimately had been staying at arms length to watch what was happening with the expansion of human controlled space. Seeing that humans are self destructive, perhaps they see the opportunity to take control of some mineral rich planets and take them away from the childish, squabbling humans.

So having chosen the lists and the lore and theme for the faction, the next step was to identify miniatures to represent them and build a list! For that, you’ll need to read Part II!