Shaltari
Do you like the idea of being an enigmatic duplicitous hobbit with a sense of inherent superiority?* Do you like the idea of manipulating lesser races into fighting each other for your amusement? Do you wish your body was covered in little hedgehog spikes? Then boy, do we have the Drop-verse faction for you! Below is our faction introduction and guide for Dropfleet's Shaltari, including our ship guides (coming soon), in the links below.
*Credit to Drasnighta for this excellent line.
Light Ships Mediums Ships Heavy & Colossal Ships Admirals
Welcome to Shaltari, a secretive and tribal alien race with highly advanced technology well beyond human and Scourge capabilities. They have shields, weapons of immense power, teleportation technology, and the ability to jump between systems without the use of the jump nodes every other race depends upon. A tribe of Shaltari were the ones that first established humanity on the Cradle Worlds, which turned out to be an attempt to use humanity as a meat shield against another faction of Shaltari. While there are some things that unite the Shaltari, unending rivalries between the Shaltari tribes is a main feature of their society. They view this as a strength of their society, as they feel it drives innovation. Those rivalries often break out into open war, though the battles are usually kept small scale. Their purpose is more to satisfy honor and preserve Shaltari strength. After all, there is no greater opponent than themselves, so periodic skirmishes hone the Shaltari’s martial strength. Shaltari themselves are functionally immortal, having invented consciousness transfer ages ago. When a Shaltari nears the end of their natural life (about 300 years), their minds are transferred to artificially grown bodies to start all over. Death by old age simply does not happen in Shaltari society. There are Shaltari that are millenia old. However, the Shaltari birth rate is very slow, so their population remains relatively small in number. The race has an odd dichotomy where they have a pathological fear of the “final death” on one hand, while also venerating martial achievement above all else on the other.
Never has cultural and technological superiority come in such an adorable little package
Since that initial break down in human-Shaltari relations, the pesky little space hedgehogs weren’t seen all that much. After the Scourge invasion, the UCM had no contact with the Shaltari at all until the Reconquest. That’s when the Shaltari re-entered the picture. They would intervene in battles seemingly at random, undermining UCM projections and drastically altering campaigns. In the single communication between the Scourge and the UCM government, the Scourge offered a ceasefire and alliance to deal with the Shaltari. The Scourge claimed the Shaltari had led the Scourge to humanity in the first place, and were prolonging the war to maximize casualties on both sides. When the UCM rejected the Scourge’s offer, the Scourge launched invasions against colony worlds, seemingly confirming the Shaltari had indeed been leading the Scourge to humanity, and were doing so again.
On the table, Shaltari are a high tech faction. Their units tend to be expensive and have very powerful weapons. They can take a punch, and are especially good at dealing with high penetrative weapons, but don’t particularly want to stay in a protracted fight. They have some of the most unique mechanics in the game. While Shaltari have the normal kinetic and energy saves, they have the option to use shields. Shields are immune to things that reduce saves, such as penetrative or burnthrough, but give the Shaltari group a spike. Shaltari ships also have absolutely horrifying weapons, with the widest access to core damage weapons (meaning they bypass energy and kinetic saves). They have the largest scan values in the game, rivaled only by Bioficer ships.
Shaltari drop assets are also a bit unique. Their Dropships don't put down troops themselves. Instead, they use their teleportation technology to deploy their troops directly from their motherships to the surface via void gates. This allows Motherships to hang back much further than conventional troopships. You can even chain multiple void gates together to increase the Mothership’s standoff range, as well as concentrate their forces where they're needed most. The catch is they generally struggle to put down large numbers of troops due to the expense of their ships.
SEE! FLYING SAUCERS ARE REAL!
I hope you enjoyed our introduction to the treacherous little space hedgehogs. If you have questions, feel free to jump into the Blissfully Ignorant Gaming Discord at https://discord.gg/77EQzSF. We’ll do our best to answer your questions there. Thanks for stopping by!