Stargrave Crews and Aliens

After the war Captain Fang Zhang recruited an all female crew of pirates. These were all women who had been displaced by the war or who had served in military units. They’d become fed up with the men running things and in their belief screwing things up.

This is the crew so far, I still need to stat these out.

Captain Fang Zheng

Fang had previously served in various positions on salvage and general cargo ships reaching the status of Captain prior to the war. When the war broke she was conscripted against her will and had her ship confiscated. This made her quite angry, so towards the end of the war she became involved with a group of misfits who were planning a heist of a corporation pay ship, carrying money intended for serving troops. She used her cut to purchase a new ship and recruit a new crew. She is still wanted for this heist and many others.

Lt, Kerala Stride is a former Naval officer who became disillusioned with the war and the military. Fang found her drinking her life away on some forgotten planet. Fang offered her a place on the crew, where she soon rose to become the second in command providing more needed military strategy when planning heists.

Sleika Marse is a former military sniper who joined the crew because she’d become bored with civilian life and couldn’t adjust. She’s is an expert shot with most weapons.

Jezzika is a former justice officer, who went rogue and more of a crook than those she arrested. She joined the crew before she was arrested for her criminal activity.

Her highness (Ariadne) was a rich women before the war, but her fortune disappeared when the planet she lived on was invaded. She became a spy and infiltrator during the war, and has since used these skills in assisting in heists and other nefarious activities. She has a fondest for gold and sparkly stones.

The war bot- this was a left over from the war that the crew salvaged and repaired. It’s used for when something needs smashing down, breaking into or just creating havoc.

I’ve managed to paint up a selection of minis, which includes two from Sedition Wars, a Robot which was a Salute mini, a smaller plastic robot which I have no idea where it came from, an Infinity mini and 3D printed Dwarf Engineer.

In a galaxy torn apart by the Last War, vast pirate fleets roam from system to system, robbing, extorting, and enslaving. Amidst this chaos, thousands of independent operators – smugglers, relic hunters, freedom fighters, and mercenaries – roam the dead stars in small ships, scratching out a living any way they can.

In Stargrave, players take on the role of one of these independent operators, choosing from a range of backgrounds each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and associated powers. Next, players must hire a crew for their ship, recruiting a lieutenant with a unique skill set and a handful of soldiers, mechanics, hackers, and other specialists. Some captains may even recruit strange alien lifeforms with abilities no humanoid could ever possess.

Once the players’ crews are assembled, they are ready to dive into a campaign. Over a series of games, their crews will have the chance to carry out a variety of missions – recovering lost technology, stealing data, freeing slaves, and fighting back against the pirate fleets. In time, as the crews gain experience, they will become more powerful and hire more talented specialists. The more they grow, however, the more likely it is that a pirate fleet will take note of their activities and come after them!

With the popularity of Frostgrave, a fantasy skirmish game, that it only seems natural for Joseph A. McCullough to turn his sights to outer space and do for Sci-Fi what Frostgrave has done for fantasy. Now I haven’t had Stargrave in grubby little hands for long, as of writing this article I’ve only managed to get a couple of simple games to learn the basic rules.

So Stargrave is a miniatures agnostic game, what I mean by that is it’s a game that isn’t tied to a line of miniatures. You can use any sci-fi miniature you want. Though Northstar are planning to release some plastic miniature kits for the game like they did for Frostgrave. Though at the time of writing this there weren’t any finalised release date for them, but it’s expected to be around the same time as the rules. They plan to release three boxes which will allow you build a set of crew members, mercs and troopers, each box will allow you to build 20 miniatures.

The game has similar mechanics to the fantasy version, so those who have played Frostgrave will have some familiarity. In Frostgrave you built your warband around a wizard and an apprentice, in Stargrave you build your crew around a captain and his/her XO (2^nd in command). You then fill your crew with specialists such as soldiers, mechanics and hackers. Just like Frostgrave, Crews will compete against each other for the spoils.

This game works best in a campaign mode, as you can improve your crew as you play through the campaign. Your crew will gain experience and resources which will allow you to improve equipment or recruit better crew members. There are also other elements that your crew could come up against besides rival crews, such as bounty hunters, troopers, pirates and strange vicious creatures.

The layout has been well designed to the extent that it makes reading and understanding the rules very easy, it’s what I’d call a user-friendly rulebook. There are several scenarios included in the book. These could be used as part of your first campaign or just as simple pick-up games whilst you’re learning the rules.

I did find the rules very flexible, in that you can quite easily play the game on board tiles, or the more traditional war game route with a table of cool terrain. One of the first games I played was on a Loke Battlemat book with some pre-painted Star Wars miniatures.

My plan for Stargrave is to utilse some of the sci-fi miniatures I already have that haven’t seen the light of day for a while, paint up a few Eldar I have and break out some of the miniatures from Sedition Wars. I can see a lot of potential for this game, just like I did when Frostgrave was launched. This may be the game that sparks my interest in Sci-Fi again, another Osprey game Reality’s Edge did whet my appetite for space gaming, but I think this will really give a good hard kick. I like Reality’s Edge but because it’s a cyberpunk setting you are limited in your miniature choices, as they really should fit into a Cyberpunk world. Where as Stargrave will allow me to go wild and use anything space related that I like the look of.

Will this game appeal to everyone, no probably not? There will be some who’ll think this is just a Frostgrave re-skin and won’t like that, though there are enough differences between the two that it’s not quite a re-skin. For others they won’t like the fact there is very little background fluff, especially those who love that fact about 40k. It’s not a perfect set of rules, but I did find it a lot of fun to play, and I like the idea of being able to use any miniatures, which also opens it for kitbashing, not just your crew but terrain and vehicles as well. There will be plenty of folk out there that will be put off by the fact there isn’t a line of miniatures tied to the game. What I can say is if you like kitbashing, grabbing minis from a variety of ranges, making up your own fluff or using a sci-fi setting from a book, film or TV show then this is perfect for you.

I’ll will write about my progress on building up a crew in the next post. Overall, I like the game based on my initial reading and quick playthroughs.

I received a PDF copy of the rules for Stargrave to review in Irregular Magazine. Once I started reading the rule book I knew this was going to be another game/project I’ll be starting this year before I even got to the end of the book.

Now I have in my collection of unpainted a number of metal and resin miniatures destined for Sci-Fi gaming, but I hadn’t found a rule set i was happy with so they have remained unpainted for a few years.

I also have the Sedition Wars game, which after buying I felt the rules were diabolical, but the minis are quite nice. This has meant I have a collection of troopers and nasty looking aliens for potential games.

I also have some of the card terrain for Infinity which I was planning to use for Kill Team. I realized I could make use of the terrain for Stargrave. So now I have some minis and terrain which will allow me to get going quite easily and cheaply very quickly, well as quick as I can paint the minis I have.