Solo Sci-Fi Wargaming With Modiphius’ Five Parsecs From Home
March 25, 2021 by brennon
If you're getting into the Sci-Fi mood then you might want to check out Nordic Weasel and Ivan Sorensen's Five Parsecs From Home, a new solo wargaming experience that is now available from the team at Modiphius.
Five Parsecs From Home // Modiphius
Five Parsecs From Home is available to pre-order now ahead of a May release. You will get the PDF right away with a physical release later on down the line. As a "Solo Adventure Wargame", you will assemble a "ragtag crew of galactic trailblazers", exploring the stars and getting into scrapes.
Battles play out through procedurally generated combinations of enemies, weapons, battlefield circumstances and objectives. You might even find some rivals who are looking to take you on.
Five Parsecs From Home Interior // Modiphius
As a solo wargaming experience, the joy is going to be in levelling up and continuing to expand your crew between missions. You'll be able to build on your character and the crew as a whole, telling their story and looking for new adventures to undertake.
Five Parsecs From Home works with any miniatures and you'll only need a handful of them to get started. Grab some dice, your old collection of Sci-Fi miniatures and dive right in.
Five Parsecs From Home Interior // Modiphius
This new version of the game, released by Modiphius, contains all of the original material by Nordic Weasel but comes with options for making robot characters. You'll also find an entire section dedicated to upgrading your starship with expansion modules.
There are also a bunch of new difficulty levels for you to encounter, ways to Game Master scenarios as an RPG-like campaign and also a full solo campaign for you to dive into. I do like the idea that it comes with a solo campaign right out of the gate. It means that you can snap this up and venture into the game right away.
Are you going to be giving this one a go?
"I do like the idea that it comes with a solo campaign right out of the gate..."
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I am torn on this. On one side it would give me the opportunity to re-use my 40k stuff… but I really don’t want to game TT all by myself. If I want to game alone I play on PC or console. When setting up the table for wargaming it’s like preparing for a party or a dinner: it’s simply much more fun with friends.
Oh and I don’t really see the need in another system simply for the sake of “playing alone”. There are a lot of systems providing solo and multiplayer rules… Hey, AMG…. what about those SW:L solo rules that where mentioned on stream? Can I haz them please?
I feel you, 100% percent on this. I’d love to TT alone, but also, part of the reason I TT is to not do it alone lol.
This is the first I’ve heard on this but the reviews on DriveThruRPG are positive. I’ll pick it up as another thing to try with the stuff I plan to paint up for Stargrave
Interesting. Ivan (on the Nordic Weasel blog) indicates he still “owns the IP” and Modiphius is just the publisher of this 3rd Edition retail book. The Modiphius press-release doesn’t mention anything about this being a pre-existing game line (or anything about the rest of the various Nordic Weasel titles in print,) but the store listing does reference Ivan & Nordic Weasel. Ivan indicates on the blog Modiphius has plans for expansions here, and that other games may or not also end up with them.
Seems interesting.
I’m really looking forward to this one! I played one of Ivan’s other games, Five Klicks From the Zone, which uses a similar system but in a post-apocalyptic setting. It is a great little game, and a wonderful way to get some pandemic gaming in! This one looks even better. It seems you typically take 6 figures into a battle, but there are rules for taking different numbers in this new edition. I really like that, so that you can have your own crew of figures, and can invite a friend to play as well with their own crew. You… Read more »
This sounds good to me an with a firefly twist as a rag tag group trying to make a buck or two as mercenary trader’s?
One of the reviews lists Firefly as a … potential theme. There’s no fluff so making up your own or importing some (WH40k, Necromunda, Star Wars all spring to mind) gives all the freedom
It does have potential for a great game I think.
I’ve been playing all of Ivan’s “Five x From X” games for years now (even more so during the lockdowns) and I’ve had a blast every single time. I’m a bit gutted that there wasn’t any kind of discount for those of us who have bought everything he’s released so far but I can understand it if Modiphius have taken over the reins that sort of thing would be difficult to co-ordinate. That said, I dropped one of my Modiphius gift vouchers onto it and now that I’ve gotten my hands on the PDF, I can’t wait for the book… Read more »
This looks interesting and could be a good rules set to use alongside Stargrave and rogue stars rulesets,thus tripling my use of miniatures from one to another.
As an aside has anyone played/ got both 5PfH and rogue stars, and can say how they might overlap as both sound similar from the outside.
OK, the in-depth answer to this is way too big to try and squeeze into a single comment, so I’ll try some simpler baby steps. I own and play both of these games, although technically this new ruleset is 3e 5PfH and I own 1e/2e but that shouldn’t stop me from throwing some pointers in here. The TDLDR version: 5PfH and Rangers of Shadowdeep are solo games, the others aren’t but can be. All are 28-32mm (but scalable) and miniature agnostic. Easiest to learn (in order): Star/Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Rogue Stars then 5PfH. Fastest to play (once you’re familiar… Read more »
I’m glad I revisited this post and read your comment – that’s a very helpful rundown. i have ordered 5PfH as it sounds amazing! Thank you for taking the time to set that out!
You’re most welcome and I hope you have as much fun with the new version as I had with the old ones.
Makes me hope they do the same with “Five Leagues from the Borderlands” (fantasy) and “Five Klicks from the Zone” (post-apoc.). Two great games that could become awesome ones if given the same degree of lovin’ that Five Parsecs got.