Osprey Games and Joseph A. McCullough released another expansion for Stargrave, their hit Sci-Fi miniatures game, last year in October. Bold Endeavour is a big supplement that offers some fascinating ways for you to take your games in different directions and we here at OnTableTop are finally diving into it to see what's on offer.

Find Out More About Stargrave

To start, Bold Endeavour is also a BIG endeavour. Whilst other books in the series have added to the adventures that you can get stuck into with Stargrave, I think Bold Endeavours sets out to fill in a lot of the blanks that McCullough left in the original game. Inside, you'll find new backgrounds and powers, new soldiers, much more advanced rules for space and exploration (as well as space combat), plus a whole host of new scenarios and an expanded bestiary. As McCullough himself says in the introduction, this is one of the books he always wanted to write for Stargrave.

New Rules For Spaceships

Whilst normally I start with a general look at what's available I think one of the core elements of Bold Endeavour needs to be covered from the start. Central to the book is a large section dedicated to advanced rules for your spaceships. You'll start with a name (of course) and then you're able to dive into all of the small details that you'd expect when it comes to running a ship. You'll assign your crew to different positions and explore lots of new upgrades and tweaks that you can give to your faithful vessel.

The character building doesn't stop there as the ship can also get its quirks and more that help to bring it in line with all those famous ships that you know from Sci-Fi movies like Firefly. I love the idea of a ship that has got you from one end of the galaxy to the other but has "Sticky Controls" that only your learned pilot has been able to master. This, alongside the likes of the Ship Damage table and such means that you're going to have a ship that becomes part of your crew rather than feeling like it has been tacked on.

Bold Encounters

What then adds to the awesomeness of spaceship building and adventuring is the new section dedicated to Space Encounters. When you head out into the void, you need to roll on a couple of new Space Encounter tables that will dictate whether or not you'll face one of these events before your scenario or after the scenario. In some cases, this might happen before AND after the scenario!

From there, you've got a whole host of different events that can happen. You could find yourself subject to a pirate ambush or a ship in distress, floating through the void. Maybe you are drifting past an abandoned station and find that, once you crack it open, something terrible has been unleashed that time had forgotten!

All of the encounters bring back memories of classic Sci-Fi films and TV shows but with fun twists here and there. If you're looking for more of that Pulp feel to your Stargrave games then I think these encounters help to achieve that. Not only that, but the encounters help to build up the world a little bit more and give you interesting moments in your larger campaigns where you'll be drawn back to discussions on "Do you remember when I found x?!". It's this kind of stuff that helps make campaign games so alluring to wargamers.

Most of the time, when you dive into one of these encounters, there will be a couple of rolls that you'll need to do to work out the outcome of said encounter. For example, if you come across a comet then you'll need to make a Science Roll to see if you spot it followed by a Pilot Roll to get in close safety and extract some important trade goods that could be turned into upgrade weapons!

One of my favourites has to be Space-Time Anomaly (the start of any good Sci-Fi show). Your ship drifts towards a rip in space and time and all sorts of weird things can go wrong! You could see the end of the universe, find an ancient probe that has perhaps been lost to the ages and all sorts of different things in between. As McCullough says in Bold Endeavours, it takes Stargrave a step away from the "just trying to survive" vibe of earlier books and thrusts you into something bigger and grander with a focus on those bigger tales. It's more Star Trek than Firefly or perhaps more appropriately, a good mix of the two.

New Adventures

Another large part of Bold Endeavour is the new set of five scenarios that have been included. Four of the scenarios are regular competitive scenarios but the fifth one is a solo scenario that can still be used as part of a campaign if you so desire.

The scenarios within Bold Endeavour is that they shine a focus on the new ideas presented in the rest of the book. There is a strong focus on exploration and charting new planets that are very different from the types of environments that you've explored before. For example, the first scenario is set on a tabletop crowded with crystals and ice formations where the very terrain around you bounces your gunshots and laser blasts in different directions meaning that you can't be sure you'll hit the right target!

One of the scenarios is even wilder and McCullough has taken time to get you prepared for it as well! Elemental Sphere drops you into a zero gravity sphere where you're bouncing around all over the place. Whilst it will take a bit more time to prepare this scenario, it would be a fun one to do with your campaign group.

I won't dive into too much detail about the rest of the scenarios but they are inventive and fun. They remind me of the classic "monster/situation of the week" ideas from Star Trek where something wild happens to the crew for an hour.  I think if you reckon you've done all you could with Stargrave in previous expansions, this will give you something extra fun to come back to.

Tools Of Exploration

To aid in your new adventures, McCullough has also produced a lot more gubbins for you to get stuck into in Bold Endeavour. There is a new Bestiary as mentioned earlier that gives you all sorts of weird and wonderful alien creatures to battle against. Who wouldn't want to come up against the String-Life or a bolt of Living Lightning?

When going up against these new, zany creatures then you might need some new allies. Your background for your Captain could now perhaps be that of the Time-Walker, those who can go back and forward in time a few seconds. They are mad inventors and tinkerers as well as swindlers and renegades who could add a new flavour to your crew. There is also the Paladin, a galactic force for good and a nice way for you to throw some righteous awesomeness into the mix. They even come with special rules for being properly "Lawful Good" which is pretty awesome.

New Powers are also included in the book plus new Soldier types that help those taking on new exploratory adventures. You can call on the Apprentice, ComTech, Exosuit, Expert and the Quartermaster. All of them have helpful roles to fill on your crew, especially when it comes to those new encounters in the depths of space.

Conclusion - A Brave New World?

I would heartily recommend Bold Encounter. I know plenty of Stargrave fans will most likely have already got their hands on this but if you were ever on the fence, I think this needs to be picked up. As with all of McCullough's books, you don't need to use everything in it and even if you just use the space encounters and advanced ship rules, you'll be very happy. I can see a lot of brilliant moments coming out of just those two sections of the book.

Supplementing that, we have all the awesome extras that McCullough has crammed into ninety or so pages. As the last of the expansions (for now), I think this is certainly the best and should provide Stargrave fans with a fun new direction for their campaigns. It also helps to set the scene for many more adventures and quirky ideas should McCullough return to Stargrave and explore more of what Sci-Fi has to offer in the future.

Will you be checking out Bold Endeavour?