A scan of the miniatures I made up for my test players before they were cut out and folded up. One of the features Star Captains will have when it hits print will be basic templates for making inexpensive paper miniatures for both characters and ships, giving players a quick and easy way to have attractive miniatures in a game focused on tactical grid combat.

This time, the miniature I made up was for a boss fight for my beta-players instead of a PC or NPC party member. I actually drew this up and scanned this something like three weeks ago, but the game kept being delayed due to Oklacon and several bouts of unfortunate circumstances. Which meant having to hold off on posting this unless I ruined the surprise.

The miniature is of a "Guardian-Class Frigate" (aka: the "Jackknife Frigate"), which was designed to run anti-missile/anti-drone/anti-fighter defense for larger fleet craft with its pylon of small cannon turrets (and since the party fleet is currently piloting fighters and drone-commander ships, it proved to be a challenging fight)

The pilot of this frigate was Msax Blackhide, a Crocolid second lieutenant of the Black Comet Buccaneers (one of the major pirate factions in that star-system), running with a single fighter-bomber escort. While the party didn't quite manage to finish him off, they -did- force Msax to warp-out (minus one fighter-bomber escort) without sustaining any casualties themselves. I had a lot of fun running that combat (admittedly, it was the first time in the test-campaign I was actively trying to kill the PCs w/o holding back), and my players seemed to enjoy it, too.

Will the party encounter the infamous pirate captain again?

I took the time to make a custom miniature for his ship, so you bet your ass they will.

Star Captains: ASTRA-TG is ™  windpaw blah blah