THRACKScavver
Clades
Roaming crews of scavengers, traders and mechanics who survive by recovering whatever Nova Eden leaves behind and keeping it working.
How the Clades survive
The Scavver Clades are a loose network of crews, caravans and travelling settlements spread across Nova Eden. They share information, trade salvage and recognise many of the same unwritten rules, but there is no central authority telling them where to go or what to do.
Most Clades survive by recovering whatever the old world left behind. Armour is repaired with plates from three different sources, weapons are rebuilt around whatever parts still work, and machinery is kept running long after its original designers would have written it off. If something finally gives up, there is usually another use for the pieces.
Reputation matters almost as much as salvage. Clades rely on markets, safe stopping points and other crews willing to trade with them, so somebody who cheats the wrong people can quickly find that spare parts and friendly camps have become much harder to come by.
Most fights are about something practical: fuel, machinery, supplies, access to a promising ruin or ownership of a particularly good haul. Once the shooting stops, the Scavvers take what they came for, repair what survived and move on.
"To outsiders they are thieves, vultures, and opportunists. To themselves they are survivors."
How the Scavver Clades play
The Clades are built around making useful things out of unreliable equipment. Before each battle, the Scavver's Stash gives the warband a selection of temporary weapons, while Tinker's Touch and Jury-Rig help keep equipment useful after it should have failed or run out.
That makes them flexible, but not always predictable. Some games the Stash gives you exactly the tools you need. Other times you have to work out what to do with three weapons nobody in the crew is particularly qualified to use.
The faction works best when you stay flexible. Use whatever the Stash gives you, keep important equipment working and make the opponent deal with a crew that always seems to have one more tool left in the box.
The Scavver's Stash
Roll before every battleRoll the Stash to see what the crew found this time.Clade Rules
All Stash weapons carry the Crude trait and are removed from the warband when the battle ends. Fighters using a weapon they are not proficient with suffer −1 to hit with it, and the Stash does not check who it's handing things to. The full weapon tables are in the Full Faction Rules.
Once per round, when a friendly model fails an Interact action, you may reroll the test.
Percussive maintenance is a proud Clade tradition.
Choose one spent, broken or One-Shot weapon or equipment item used by a model in this warband. It may be used one additional time this battle.
Nothing is ever truly empty if you shake it hard enough.
Who keeps the Clade moving
A Clade needs more than fighters. Bosses keep the crew together, Scrap Jacks provide dependable muscle, Gutter Rats get into places sensible people avoid, and Gearheads keep the machinery working.
Four units are currently available during the Open Alpha, with more of the crew still to be revealed.
Clade Boss
Clade Bosses earn their position by keeping people alive, finding good hauls and knowing when a deal is about to turn into a fight. They lead from close to the action and are tough enough to stay there when things go wrong.
Boss Swagger improves the Nerve Tests of nearby fighters, making the Boss particularly useful near the centre of the crew.
Boss Swagger: friendly models within 5" gain +1 to Nerve Tests. Confidence is contagious.
Scrap Jack
Scrap Jacks make up the dependable core of most Clades. Their equipment rarely matches, but they are tough enough to hold ground and capable enough to handle whatever job the Boss points them towards.
Scrap Armour occasionally proves that bolting another piece of metal to your chest was a perfectly sensible idea after all.
Scrap Armour: on a 6, the junk bolted to their chest genuinely stops a bullet.
Gutter Rat
Gutter Rats are young, quick and very good at getting somewhere before anyone else notices. They are useful for objectives, scouting routes and collecting anything that looks valuable enough to carry.
Their speed and Rat's Reflexes help them stay mobile, although trusting one alone with the haul remains a separate question.
Rat’s Reflexes: once per round, sidesteps 1" as the shot comes in.
Gearhead
Gearheads are the mechanics who keep Clade equipment working long after it should have been abandoned. They carry tools into battle because waiting until afterwards to repair something is often far too late.
Field Fixer gives them a chance to repair broken weapons during the fight, which can be particularly valuable when the Stash has handed the crew something worth keeping operational.
Field Fixer: repairs a broken or spent weapon mid-battle on a 3+. Percussive maintenance, sanctified.
More hands are joining the haul
More Scavver units will be revealed as the Open Alpha continues.
The Longhaul Crew
Roll the Stash before you deploy, then decide who stands where. The haul writes the plan, not the other way round.
Keep the Gearhead within 2" of the Scrap Jacks. Crude weapons break constantly and every repair is a gun back in the fight.
Spend Jury-Rig on a spent One-Shot or a launcher, never on a broken knife.
| Unit | Role | Thracks |
|---|---|---|
| Clade Boss | Combat Leader | 44 |
| Scrap Jack | Core Fighter | 24 |
| Scrap Jack | Core Fighter | 24 |
| Scrap Jack | Core Fighter | 24 |
| Scrap Jack | Core Fighter | 24 |
| Gutter Rat | Core Scout | 14 |
| Gutter Rat | Core Scout | 14 |
| Gearhead | Specialist Support | 20 |
| Total | 188 ₮ |
Mustered: 1 Leader, 6 Core, 1 Specialist. 188 of 200 Thracks spent, 12 left for gear.
Why these fighters
Boss Swagger is +1 to Nerve Tests within 5", and Fastest Gun strips the Snap Fire penalty off your best pistol.
The broadest proficiency list in the faction, which means the Stash can hand them almost anything without the −1 to hit.
Fourteen Thracks, M6, ignores rough terrain and gets +1 on jumps. Objective runners and nothing else.
Field Fixer repairs a broken or spent weapon on a 3+. In a faction where everything carries Crude, that is a whole extra gun.
Opening three rounds
- Round 01
The Gutter Rats run for the objectives immediately. The Scrap Jacks carrying the best of the Stash move up into cover with clear firing lanes.
- Round 02
Scrap Jacks form a firing line. The Boss uses Snap Fire freely, since Fastest Gun removes the penalty.
- Round 03
The Gearhead repairs the first Crude weapon that breaks. Spend Jury-Rig on the best gun in the haul for one more shot.
All Stash weapons carry Crude, and leave the warband when the battle ends.
Watch out: A fighter using a weapon class it lacks proficiency for takes −1 to hit, and the Stash does not check who it is handing things to.
Nothing is ever truly useless
The Clades work best when you treat every fighter and piece of equipment as something that can still solve a problem. The Stash gives you extra options before the battle, while the Gearhead and Jury-Rig can keep important equipment useful once the fighting starts.
Do not build your plan around getting a particular weapon from the Stash. Take the result you get and look for where it can be useful instead.
The Clades have plenty of fighters, flexible equipment and several ways to keep broken or spent gear useful. The Stash can also give the warband options that the opponent could not plan for before the battle.
A lot of Clade equipment is unreliable, and the Stash does not always give you what you wanted. Individual fighters are rarely exceptional, so the warband can struggle if it becomes scattered or loses its support pieces.
Treat the Stash as a bonus rather than the centre of your plan. Build around the fighters you know you have, then work out where the extra weapons can help once you see what the crew dragged home.
Building a Scavver Clades warband
Scavver models should look as though their equipment has been collected over years rather than issued at the same time. Armour can come from several different sources, weapons can have mismatched parts, and repairs should remain visible instead of being neatly hidden away.
Kitbashing suits the faction particularly well. Taped grips, replacement barrels, welded plates, exposed wiring and industrial tools can all make a fighter look like somebody has repeatedly modified their gear to keep it useful.
The crew also needs to carry its life with it. Backpacks, bedrolls, rope, tools, fuel cans and bundles of salvage help sell the idea that these fighters spend much of their time travelling between settlements and potential hauls.
Colour schemes can vary considerably across a Clade. One repeated detail is usually enough to make the crew look connected: a shared marking, hazard stripe, painted glyph or colour that appears somewhere on every fighter.
What to hunt for
Almost anything can find a home in a Scavver warband. Post-apocalyptic survivors make obvious starting points, but military, civilian, industrial and even vehicle kits can all provide useful pieces.
Mix equipment freely. A rifle with the wrong stock, an armour plate cut from machinery or a tool converted into a weapon all fit the faction. If a part looks slightly wrong, that may be a good reason to use it.
Backpacks, bedrolls, jerry cans, coils of rope and tools are especially useful. Scavvers should look prepared to carry everything they own and anything they find.
"If you can't use it, we can. If you can use it, we'll take it anyway."
Get the Full Faction Rules Includes rules and fighter profiles for all six factions.New to Thrackdown? Play your first game with the free Scavver Clades Quickstart Warband. Play Your First Game →