A Return to the Stars

After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got together to play more Stargrave in recent days. It was good!

It was also a bit of a challenge trying to remember how to play the game after such a long absence, as you will see.

First up, on the 13th, was the Data Vault mission, which Stuart set up using black dominoes for a nice 2001 type feel.

This mission turned out to be a bit of a disaster for Stuart's crew, for a number of key reasons:

1) I was rolling 20s all over the place and Stuart barely rolled above a 4 all game, prompting numerous excommunications of Traitor Dice to the Box of Shame™.

This happened (to me) quite a lot.

2) We decided to use the "Unwanted Attention" rule for a bit of added drama, except all the drama happened on Stuart's side of the table, and the Space Cops and Space Bounty Hunters between them massacred his crew.

3) In the intervening 23 months we had both forgotten that Stargrave crews are limited to 10 members, and I seemed to have 11...

One of those two troopers toward the bottom of the picture shouldn't be there.

You can read Stuart's summary of the mission here.

A few days later, on the 19th, we met again to play(test) my homebrew mission Starfall. In the intervening time my squad had discovered that an alien shapechanger had infiltrated the crew, and the offending extra trooper had been encouraged to "walk the airlock".

Ahem.

Now, Stuart won the game (spoiler) as he got away with the loot and most of the xp, but he may not consider it a total victory, as you will see.

With only a rough idea of where the satellite could crash-land, the two crews fanned out to cover as much of the table as possible.

On the third turn it became clear where the landing point would be, and there followed a mad scramble. Alas, I had fanned out a bit too much, and the crew on my left never really got involved. Stuart's crew got to the satellite first, and managed to unlock the precious data, so I decided to hold back and blast away while they were exposed.

New -- and expensive! -- recruit Arnold the Power Armoured Bastard (Retired) got involved and managed to get away with the data, before two of my robots pounced and gang-stomped him into the dirt.

"Get to da (space) choppah!"

Stuart had better luck this game -- only one d20 was banished! -- and I'd used most of my 20s last time, although I'm not sure he'd agree, as I did manage to take out all of his crew aside from one lonely drone, but crucially, the drone had the data. My crew was too far away to catch or shoot the drone and my only hope was a lone wandering monster that saw the shiny thing and loped after it, but couldn't quite catch the mechanoid, so it zoomed off into the distance with the loot... and victory!

The scenario went quite well and we both liked how the pace and tone changed between the before-crash and after-crash phases. I had some worries about a couple of minor details of the mechanics, but Stuart assured me they weren't issues, so I've made no changes, beyond beefing up the xp award for "catching" the satellite. If you have a go at Starfall, please let me know how you get on!

(You can read Stuart's summary here.)

We've both caught the Stargrave bug again and as long as real life doesn't intrude too much we are keen to play more in the new year. I've also had another idea for a custom mission...

Mission: Starfall

Here's a scenario for Stargrave. Fresh out of my brain and untested. I'll see if I can get Stuart to play it with me.

I may return to this with conversion notes for other systems. Frostgrave should be easy enough.

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STARFALL

Intel says the cog-sat is going to crash out of orbit somewhere in this rough location. The people that ran the sat network are long gone, but the data in the pod should still be worth something, if we can get to it first. That's why we're going to be there when it lands.

SET-UP

Place terrain as normal. Note the centre of the play area and then depending on the size of the play area, mark the following points in a diagonal line from one corner to the other:

2' x 2' - Mark two points each 8" away from the centre. Including the central point, number the points 1 to 3 from one corner to the other.
3' x 3' - Mark two points each 8" away from the centre, then two further points each 16" away from the centre (ie 8" away from the previous points). Including the central point, number the points 1 to 5 from one corner to the other.
4' x 4' (or larger) - Mark two points each 10" away from the centre, then two further points each 20" away from the centre (ie 10" away from the previous points). Including the central point, number the points 1 to 5 from one corner to the other.

The numbers don't have to be visible on the table as long as they are noted somewhere, but the points should be marked. Some sort of radar or sensor "ping" token would be appropriate and cool.

No loot tokens are used for this scenario.

Crews should deploy in the corners opposite those used for the diagonal line. If more than two crews are involved, then there should be a deployment point halfway along each table edge.

Setup example for a 3'x3' or larger play area. The shaded areas marked A are for deployment in a two player game, while the areas marked B are suggested deployment points for games if you have lots of friends.

SPECIAL RULES

On an Initiative roll of 01-04, generate a random encounter as normal. Use the centre of the table as the Target Point, until the satellite falls, in which case use its landing point.

At the end of turn three's intiative phase -- and every turn from then on -- the Primary player should roll 1d20 to see if the satellite falls this turn, and if so where:

2' x 2' play area:
01-05	The satellite does not crash this turn.
06-10	The satellite crashes at point 1.
11-15	The satellite crashes at point 2.
16-20	The satellite crashes at point 3.

3' x 3' or 4' x 4' (or larger) play areas:
01-05	The satellite does not crash this turn.
06-08	The satellite crashes at point 1.
09-11	The satellite crashes at point 2.
12-14	The satellite crashes at point 3.
15-17	The satellite crashes at point 4.
18-20	The satellite crashes at point 5.

(I prefer a 1d4 or 1d6 here with the satellite not showing up on a 4 or 6 but Stargrave is a d20-only system. I can't imagine any player of Stargrave doesn't have access to other dice, so I leave it up to your conscience.)

Crash!
The satellite crashes at the end of the turn. Place a suitable satellite data pod type model at the landing point. The force of the crash causes a +4 Shooting attack on any models within a 3" radius, and creates a crater of the same size, which counts as rough ground for the rest of the game. If you have a nice 6" crater terrain piece, now is the time to use it!

Structures within the crater are probably destroyed, although you may decide that durable buildings like bunkers or vaults remain intact, in which case the crater is on the roof or something. Whatever works for you.

The satellite data pod is sealed and must be unlocked just like a physical loot token before the data can be downloaded. Yes, this means it requires two actions to access the data pod.

Option - Data Security: When the data pod is unlocked, the pod's automated security activates and a Sentrabot armed with a shotgun spawns adjacent to the pod. It follows and targets any models carrying the data, or in contact with the pod if the data has not yet been accessed. If no models qualify, it acts as normal except it will never move further than 3" from the pod.

LOOT AND XP

The data in the satellite is valuable and is worth three rolls on the data-loot table to the crew that secures it.

Experience is earned as normal, with the following additions:
+10xp for the crew that destroys the Sentrabot.
+10xp for the crew that unlocks the satellite.
+10xp for the crew that downloads the data.
+25xp for "catching" the satellite (ie, being on the landing point when it crashes, and surviving the impact; just being in the radius isn't enough, it has to be a bullseye!).

If you try this mission then please let me know how it goes. You can read my thoughs on playing it here, and Stuart's summary here.

Secrets of the Monolith

Oh dear.

I’ve been remiss in getting this up on the blog. We played back in January and it’s only because Stuart has written about the game that I remembered at all!

Cast your minds back to January 2023...



When pondering what our next Stargrave mission should be, Stuart mentioned that he had a Necron Monolith and that it would make for a good centrepiece for the Salvage Crew scenario. Salvage Crew is fine but it feels a bit underdeveloped and a waste of a model as impressive as the Monolith, so I went away and came up with something a bit punchier that used the original scenario as a kernel.

I dropped the crashed ship’s piddly blaster and replaced it with an unending stream of Necron warriors, themselves a simple adaptation of the Stargrave Sentrabot. I was a bit concerned that this would be too deadly a change, and in play the robots did prove to be quite dangerous, but overall the balance seemed about right.

Although the wandering Ryakan from the original mission did make an appearance in our playtest I didn’t implement wandering monsters, which would probably have made everything too unwieldy, with players spending more time maintaining the NPCs than their own crews!

I also beefed up the central treasure to offer an incentive to investigate the Monolith. I chose the Alien Artefact loot table to tie in with the theme of ancient alien secrets, and because the possible entries are different and more interesting than the standard loot, waving a further carrot in front of the loot-hungry crews.

It all worked quite well and I’ve used the notes we made to polish the scenario; you can get it here. Please have a go and let me know how you get on!

(Turn) Limit Break

Stuart and I played another game of Stargrave Notromunda this week at the Dice Saloon; our rival crews entered an abandoned high-tech factory -- loot rolls after the skirmish indicated that the place only produced pistols, much to our disappointment -- and things got very ugly indeed!

Stuart's crew escaped with two bits of loot -- pistols, obviously -- while Fateweaver Duu'ey and his inscrutable space elves only managed to get one crate... of pistols. On the other hand, the aliens only took two casualties while Stuart's band of pirates and mutants lost seven (!) members. Duu'ey himself was reduced to only two hit points and was lucky to survive, not least because the factory's half-functional security robot was stomping around nearby, making an I-have-a-machine-gun-ho-ho-ho nuisance of itself.

We are both very much enjoying Stargrave Notromunda but we have yet to complete a full game, always with at least two turns to go when a member of the Dice Saloon team politely suggests we stop so they can close up and go home. I'm not sure what's taking us so long as it's a simple enough game, and crews are limited to about ten models, but we are only managing about three or four turns in three hours and we haven't achieved either of the game end conditions -- all loot recovered, or only one crew left on the table -- so far. I don't remember us having this problem in Mordheim Frostgrave.

I assume we're doing something wrong, because the game's author Joseph A. McCullough hasn't included any way of resolving a "time out" situation, which suggests it never occurred during playtesting.

Here's one potential resolution. I'll put it to Stuart next time we play:

If a game runs out of time, then a crew scores any loot that was extracted, as normal, plus any loot that is held or controlled by a crew member that is not in combat. Any loot that is "loose" or contested by a rival within 1", or is held by a crew member in combat, is lost. Any loot that has not been unlocked is also lost.

This is more or less what we decided after the game anyway, but I feel better having it written down. Er, typed out.

Is anyone else out there playing Stargrave Notromunda? Have you had the same problem? How have you solved it?

Star Gravin' Across the Universe

Those readers with long memories will remember that, before the Plague Years, Stuart and I attempted a a Mordheim Frostgrave campaign. Since then, Mordheim Frostgrave has spawned a second edition, as well as a science fiction spinoff that I would love to call Notromunda because it keeps the joke going, but is in fact entitled Stargrave. Stuart and I decided to give the latter a try.

I don't have nearly as many painted scifi miniatures as I do fantasy models, but Stuart and I are in theory building up forces to fight a series of battles running through each edition of Warhammer 40,000 so I do have some Eldar ready to go, and so it was that the followers of Fateweaver Duu'ey ventured out into wild space to teach the Mon'keigh a lesson!

We have played a couple of games so far; you can read Stuart's summary of the first battle here. Notrumunda is an interesting change from Mordheim Frostgrave; although a great deal of the text is lifted from the second edition of the fantasy game -- to the extent that I do have some reservations over whether there were better ways to package and sell the two -- there are some key differences in play. Notrumunda captains are less powerful and flashy than Mordheim Frostgrave wizards, and almost everyone gets a ranged weapon in the dark future in which there is only war (probably) so the balance of play is quite different. There are two different types of treasure in space, and while one is easier to steal transport both need to be unlocked before they can be claimed, which also forces some interesting decision-making.

All of which meant that my usual Mordheim Frostgrave tactic of sitting back and shooting Stuart's people wouldn't work this time. I needed to be more clever, which can be a bit of a struggle for me.

I think it's fair to say that we have come out of the two games so far at a roughly equal footing. The skirmishes have been brutal, with lots of casualties, more so than I remember from Mordheim Frostgrave, but this adds to the fun. In the first battle, one of my robots made a daring building to building leap, then kicked Stuart's first mate off a high edge, but alas not to his death.

The second battle saw my robots destroying Stuart's crew for most of the skirmish, until his space rat -- one of the cheapest, weakest troop types in the game -- somehow developed a raging bloodlust and chewed through my space elves like they were space cheese.

Meanwhile, I have discovered the joy -- although I'm not sure Stuart would call it that -- of grenade launchers.

We have been playing at our local Dice Saloon, which has an excellent terrain library, as you can see from the photographs. Stuart has been providing the miniatures for the random encounters, which means that we've sort of accidentally created an ongoing side narrative with a pair of familiar-looking bounty hunters shadowing both crews for some mysterious reason...

Notrumunda has been great fun so far and I'm keen to play some more as soon as Stuart's schedule aligns with mine. More soon, I hope!