The Imperium is a big place.  Lex Imperialis is the theoretical, but perhaps not the practical.  Even in the important systems, on the key planets, there are many places to hide or avoid the gaze of the Inquisition or Adeptus Arbites.  At the edges of the Imperium, where the reach of the Adeptus Terra barely stretches, many worlds are adrift from the Imperium altogether, the loyal worlds compromising on key tenets of Imperial rule, or ignoring them altogether.   Thus it is that despite ten thousand years of homo sapiens chauvinism there are still dozens of thriving strains of abhuman.  How’s a bloke to earn a living in a universe that says his horns are wrong?  The answer, as throughout history, is piracy….

This pack of homo sapiens variatus makes a living as best it can.  Perhaps they’d prefer the term ‘mercenary’ or perhaps ‘buccaneer’.    They are led by Seo Jong, a huge, cunning, and violent giant of a (beast)man – the model is of course one of the recent Space Riders collection.  (As a brief aside, I’d never taken part in a kickstarter before, and so I only dipped my toes in and foolishly just bought the minotaurs).  Jong’s second in command, Soyuz Charlie, rocks a power glove for smashing skulls.  The others have an array of weapons, including a plasma gun, shootas, and their pride and joy, a conversion beamer.  The two dimmest, most inbred beastmen have only axes and primitive shields.  They can’t be trusted with precious modern technology.

Jong’s gang move from world to world at the edges of the Ultima Segmentum, doing security, taking on paid missions wherever someone needs some muscle, or perhaps doing a bit of raiding here and there.  As long as there are no Space Marines or Inquisition involved, of course!