Outer Claim
The Outer Claim is not a single empire or culture. It is a resurgence: lost bloodlines, forgotten worlds, and shattered civilizations drifting inward from the galactic fringe. These clades were abandoned generations ago, cut off when the Hegemony drew its borders and left the outer dark behind. Some degenerated into tribal warbands. Others adapted. Others changed in ways that have no clean name.
Now they return. The Hegemony calls them raiders, pirates, terror cells. The Claimants call themselves the rightful inheritors of a galaxy that owes them a debt written in abandonment and blood. Their warbands are a collision of species, tech levels, and ideologies. Some come to conquer. Others come to warn. None come in peace.
And somewhere behind them, in the silence between the outer stars, something stirs. Something that may be driving them inward. Whether they flee it or serve it, none will say, but some whisper a name the Hegemony has tried to bury: the Heliophage.
Claimant Warband
Old debts in new blood.
Claimant squads are ragged, improvised, and brutally effective. They fight dirty: ambushing from asteroid cover, hijacking orbital infrastructure, using semi-sapient machines as living shields. What they lack in polish they make up for in unpredictability and rage.
Each warband is different - a mix of ancient relics, mutated biology, and stolen gear, bound by necessity, oath, or vengeance. Their cohesion is fluid. But when they move, they move as one.
Claimant Warband is a flexible, numbers-driven squad for players who want to build around escalating aggression. Your units are cheap and customizable across melee and ranged roles. The Vengeful specialty rewards you for taking losses - rerolling attack dice for every squadmate taken out, up to three. The longer the fight goes, the harder you hit. Take 'Em Down and Call of the Ancestors give you burst moments that can swing a turn. Play scrappy, absorb punishment, and make them pay for every casualty.
Despoilers
Pain is strength.
Despoilers are ritual desecrators. They don't fight for land or legacy, they fight to shatter, to spite, to leave marks so deep they outlast the battle by generations.
Each squad is a riot of brutal craftsmanship: rusted cleavers strung with trophies, void-hardened muscle, armor painted in blood rites and hallucinogenic dyes. They scream prayers as they charge. They mock as they maim. Some wear the bones of those who tried to pacify their kind centuries ago.
To be marked by the Despoilers is not just to lose. It is to be ruined.
Despoilers are a melee-dominant aggression squad for players who want to get in close and stay there. Pain Is Strength is the engine: reroll attack dice equal to your lost HIT, and regain HIT each time you take out an enemy in melee. The squad rewards commitment: the more damage you absorb, the more dangerous you become. Charge closes distance fast, Execute finishes wounded targets cleanly, and the Gorebeast provides cheap, fast melee pressure. Hit hard, hit first, and don't stop.