What is it?:
Stargrave is a 25mm/30mm scale skirmish game using science fiction miniatures and setting by the creator of FrostGrave and Ghost Archipelago.
The game takes place after the Last War, galactic conflict that seems to have collapsed all of civilization, leaving pirate fleets as the only real authority left. These fleets are keen to keep everyone else ground down so they can loot and pillage as much as they desire. How much sense this makes is up to you. The forces players bring to the game are smaller crews of freebooters and independents looking to find interesting, or at least valuable, things back from places most others don’t go. However, they have to worry about the beasts of the various planets they visit and attracting the attention of the pirates.
The system:
Like all of the games based on FrostGrave, you will build a leader, second in command, and a crew of varying power. Unlike the original FG, this game has much customization. When you pick your captain, you pick a background from a list, with things like Mystic, Veteran, Biomorph, and the like. From there, you get to pick some powers from the listed ones, and then a few more from the complete list, but they’re not as easy to use. These powers have a “casting” difficulty and might cost you health to use, depending on how powerful they are. Your First mate can choose the same background, or another of your choice, so you can mix and match, finding the best combination that works for you. Afre powers, these two get to select gear, using only slots to limit your choices. No money or the like, just X slots for gear, with some gear taking up multiple slots. Once your have the CO (Commanding Officer/Captain) and XO (Executive Officer/First Officer) figured out, it’s time to get your crew. There’s two different types of crew: Basic and Specialist. You get some Credits to spend on both, and can take up to four Specialists, like in Ghost Archipelago. However, there’s a lot of choices for you in the Basic section, like Medics, that will cost you but you aren’t capped by the Specialist limit, making them easier to get and replace. One other thing to note is that you can replace up to four of your crew with robots, which are something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, they can be upgraded with certain Powers, and have some advantages when it comes to combat, but can also be taken over by another player if they have the right Powers. Something to think about.
The rest of the system is almost exactly like what you’ve seen in the other games created by the same guy, you’ve got d20 rolls for everything, the same stat lines, some Powers that are very useful and some that aren’t, and a lot of random tables. A few changes that we see to familiar tables is that when your CO and XO are messed up and make the rolls, they don’t automatically die if you roll the same results twice (except losing your eyes), as well as not being as crippling, but they’re still not great. They’ve made the usually optional rules for being wounded a requirement, and added in some new status effects and conditions you’re going to need to manage. Poisoned, Shaken, and Wounded are going to need tokens. They’ve also included templates for things like grenades and flamethrowers. But, if you’ve played the other games, you’re going to pick it up really quickly.
The last thing is the random monster tables. Instead of the pages and pages of random monsters that you need to proxy or buy, the list is much, much smaller, but still contains some rather unique entries. The major change now is that you’re going to be dealing with random pirates and ruffians. This might be easy for you to do, if you’ve got a large enough 40k or minis collection but might also be harder to match exactly. If you don’t have a ton of Imperial Guard minis laying around (like I do), just pick up some IMEF or Nova Corps guys from Reaper’s Bones line (there’s also Cyber Reavers, too) and slap them down. You can also use them to make crews, too. Personally, I’m planning to finally paint up the two IMEF squads I got way back in the first Kickstarter to use for example crews and bring along some Nova guys to use as pirates.
I have to say that this version of the system is bay far my favorite. While FrostGrave is interesting and kind of opened the door, the game requires a lot of time before you start, managing money for weapons and crew, as well as picking spells from the lists, and calculating the casting requirement for them; I’m also not a huge fan of losing health for failing a roll, it feels like punishment for bad luck. I do like the way Ghost Archipelago works a lot more, more freedom when making your crew and picking your Powers. But, those are fantasy, which isn’t my bag anymore. Having a sci-fi game that’s skirmish scale and won’t really require spending more money on minis is very appealing to me and this game is right in the sweet spot for me. Once The Plague has started to fade, I look forward to playing a campaign of this with a group of friends.
Is it worth it?:
If you already have some sci-fi minis, this is an easy “Yes.” The crews can be built using 40k stuff, random Reaper stuff, whatever you’ve got laying around. Since they use sci-fi weapons, you could probably get away with filling your ranks with even modern minis. Or using them for some wandering monsters.
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