I am starting a new campaign with some friends. I want to play a melee fighter that does not use light sabers or the Force (our GM has already outlawed that because we're supposed to playing the "scum and villainy" aspects of the SW mythos). What would a good build be for that? Are Trandoshans good for melee or are they only suited better for Brawl? I want to use a vibro axe or sword to get up close and murder things with weapons and not hand to hand. I know Wookies are another good melee species but is there one out there better suited for melee vs brawl?

Appreciate any advice!

Marauder, with a focus on Brawn and Willpower; look at Bodyguard, Assassin, and Gadgeteer for advancement. Trandoshan and Wookiee are both good choices. Vibro-axe is a great weapon.

Pure melee is Marauder, but I like the Enforcer as a secondary. Really fun and flavourful to cause Fear before they even engage with you, and to use Coercion as a social skill.

Appreciate the help guys. So it is like I figured, if you want a melee character you really are limited to Trandoshan and Wookie. I didn't know if one of the newer races in one of the supplements had some kind +1 to Melee or something like that.

Here's the obligatory call for you to play whatever species interests you, choosing for narrative reasons rather than mechanical ones. Unless the species starts with a 1 in Brawn, you should be able to make a good melee-focused character by bumping Brawn up to 3 or 4 and going from there.

Now the other side of the coin: For the pure min-max choice, go Droid and put all starting points into Brawn.

6 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

Here's the obligatory call for you to play whatever species interests you, choosing for narrative reasons rather than mechanical ones. Unless the species starts with a 1 in Brawn, you should be able to make a good melee-focused character by bumping Brawn up to 3 or 4 and going from there.

Now the other side of the coin: For the pure min-max choice, go Droid and put all starting points into Brawn.

Of course, play what you want is the golden rule along with just have fun

I love Trandoshans, our previous time playing I had a Trandoshan bounty hunter but he was built for pew pew. I just didn't know if there were other options besides the Trandoshan/Wookie choice. I realize that this isn't the most melee friendly ruleset but who knows? I thought they might have given some random newly added race better melee skills by default because their cultural heritage was vibrosword dueling or something along those lines.

I'll never complain about playing a Trandoshan though!

Even though you are playing a Scum and Villainy game, are you still allowed to use AoR? If so, the infiltrator would make a good secondary spec.

Whiphid are a great choice, Kyuzo, Mandalorian, Besalisk and Zabrak too

As far as Specialisations your best starting with anything in Soldier, Bounty Hunter or Hired Gun. My preference would be Bounty Hunter as the Signature Ability Unmatched Devastation is absolutely insane, take either Assassin or Gadgeteer.

I'll second the Kyuzo, for an alternative species pick. The new Force Adherent universal spec has some good melee talents.

The problem with anything Force related is my Gm has banned it. There's to be no Force anything, including AoR material. He wants to be a bounty hunting team trying for one big score, that's the goal of the campaign. We need a beat stick using non Force related melee material. I think my best bet is rolling again with a Trandoshan.

There are many options besides Wookiees and Trandoshans. Any species that you can get to at least Brawn 4 will work really well. I made a pretty cool Weequay Hired Gun/Marauder build specializing in handmade melee weapons. With his starting Cunning 3 and 1 rank in Survival, he spent his downtime making exotic weapons inspired by the Iroquois gunstock club, various Fijian war clubs, or the Aztec macuahuitl. He also refused to use blasters because it wasn’t sporting, opting for throwing knives instead. If he had ever picked up a carbine, he would have used it as an improvised club. The point is almost any species will work, so just pick whatever you think will be fun.

47 minutes ago, Bulwyf said:

The problem with anything Force related is my Gm has banned it. There's to be no Force anything, including AoR material. He wants to be a bounty hunting team trying for one big score, that's the goal of the campaign. We need a beat stick using non Force related melee material. I think my best bet is rolling again with a Trandoshan.

Not even a Force sensitive Gand findsman? Seems pretty iconic to me.

3 hours ago, Bulwyf said:

I just didn't know if there were other options besides the Trandoshan/Wookie choice.

Anything is an option, even a Chadra-fan, as there are no racial limits. Most characters can start with a 4 in Brawn if they want to, and I think the max is 6 anyway (7 with cybernetics). If you had a Twilek (base Brawn 1) it's only 90XP to get to Brawn 4. I'd caution against going higher than that: nothing more ridiculous than a tough guy who doesn't have the Discipline to make a Fear check...

51 minutes ago, Bulwyf said:

There's to be no Force anything, including AoR material.

I get if he wants to ban Force stuff, but the only Force-related thing in AoR is the one universal spec (similar to the one in EotE). Nothing else is Force-related. If your GM is banning AoR careers in general, I'd say that's a poor decision. I run an EotE campaign, and two of the three PCs are AoR-based characters, we just don't use Duty and the PCs never heard of this "rebellion" thing. It really shouldn't matter, the careers are just capability templates, you can use them in whatever campaign you want.

Besalisks and (to a lesser extent) Xexto are fun due to the extra arms. I'll second the vote for Whiphids, and if you're using unofficial species from the Menagerie, Cathar and Togorians are great and Taung are a fantastic warrior race.

Your GM is, of course, the final arbiter of the game. I agree with @whafrog though, in that there's really no reason to exclude AoR Specializations and Careers. As previously mentioned, Infiltrator is a fantastic melee specialist. The Order 66 podcast Episode 98 - Murder-Ghost FTW has a nice bit of in-depth exploration of the Infiltrator.

I can only go with what the GM wants to run with. Someone in the group asked if were going to be able to use any of the material from AoR onwards and the Gm said no, just the core book and the expansions for core book classes.

Don't overlook Hutts as a possible race for a decent brawler/melee expert. They start with a Brawn and Willpower of 3, and a rank of Enduring and Nobody's Fool at character creation. Of course, they're low on starting XP, so you probably wont be doing more than putting Brawn up to 4, and probably Agility to 2 (they start with a 1). And their movement issues can be a problem actually closing in to melee range, but once you can save up enough cash to pick up a set of Hutt armour, with a built in repulsorlift engine, you're golden.

I just had a lot of fun playing a Nikto Pirate who was a Hired Gun: Marauder. So and I'd suggest Nikto as another solid melee species.

We have a Nikto bodyguard in our group, though not fully melee oriented, but with melee as his main combat style (vibro axe). Does his job very good, but on the other hand, even our Ewok is a nice melee combatant. I second the statement, that race really doesn't matter that much. Star Wars really doesn't need that kind of minmaxing

Gigoran from Dawn of Republic is a good option. 3 Brawn and a free rank in brawl as a back up to your melee. PLUS a cool fur coat for when its cold

Weequay are another great option, as are Klatooinians. If you're thinking Enforcer, Zabrak is another excellent choice for species.

13 hours ago, Bulwyf said:

The problem with anything Force related is my Gm has banned it. There's to be no Force anything, including AoR material.

Force Adherent is not a force-sensitive tree (does not provide a force rating, or grant one anywhere in the tree).

Interesting.

In terms of the Marauder skills, I've never played a pure melee character in this system before, what are the "must have" skills to grab? Looking at the marauder tree they all look good.

Also, is the vibro axe a good option? I know there's a slew of melee options just wondering what are some good choices.

6 minutes ago, Bulwyf said:

Interesting.

In terms of the Marauder skills, I've never played a pure melee character in this system before, what are the "must have" skills to grab? Looking at the marauder tree they all look good.

They are!

I play a herglic Marauder/charmer i fight with vam blades or a vibrosaw.

However with brawn 6 i can do what i want including two weapon fighting with dead storm troopers (improvised weapon) and hurling them at other storm troopers!