I've been painting these for a couple weeks, but I finished up my crew of ne'er do wells for stargrave at the weekend, then took them out for a jaunt at chez spevna. First some pics, then my thoughts on Stargrave...
the crew (pardon the rubbishy picture)
Spev's dudes, looking for trouble
some fearless troopers
a scavvy other-gang-member (these guys started on the table, and more came later in the game)
name that sculptor! (this is easy, actually)
The minis (well, mine, anyway) are all from Sedition Wars, by the way, and I'm reet happy to finally have a chance to use them. There's about a gajillion more, too, so I've got any future upgrades to the crew well looked after. Plus as many nano-plague zombies as I might need in a hundred lifetimes (and since the upcoming addon is called Quarantine, I suspect I may well need em.) The sculpts are great. The casts are abysmal, and the paint job is one I'm actually fairly pleased with, given the speed it was done at. I love my magnigoggle thingies, I really do. Total game-changer.
Gameplay-wise, my thoughts on Stargrave are:
the good:
It's basically frostgrave. Simple to pick up, minimal dice rolling, nice IGYG activation, with tweaks to allow for Captains and XOs. The rules for extra mobs turning up are good and straightforward. Guns dont feel overpowered. In fact, nothing does, except...
the bad:
grenades are freaking lethal. As per usual with me, you should apply the caveat that Spev and I may have played it wrong, but it quickly became clear that lobbing/launching grenades was far and away the most effective method of killing off the opposition. Not every model gets grenades, but enough do to render those that dont somewhat irrelevant. That said, I read online that smoke grenades are the way to do it. Spev and I didnt use them, but apparently you can fill a board with smoke on turn one, and then that's pretty much it for ranged combat from there on in.
mortality rates are ridonculous. Both of our gangs were wiped out to a man, and it didnt feel like dice rolls were being especially swingy. The trouble was (aside from the effectiveness of grenades) that I didnt realise (looking at mission rules) that I could just walk my dudes off the table. I thought the game ended when the loot was all off or everything was dead, so even after I wiped out Spev's crew, my guys spent a few turns trying (and failing) to get the treasure. Which brings us to...
the...interesting? (and possibly not obvious)
treasure is not how it is in frostgrave. in Frostgrave any old geezer can waltz up to a treasure and pick it up. Not so in Stargrave. You have to roll 14+ on a D20 to open it first. Doesnt seem much, but even trying takes up your activation for the turn, and 14 is high enough that most of the time you'll fail. And then you get shot to bits. At the end of the game I'd managed to get 2 loot counters, Spev got 1, and the other 2 remained stubbornly locked. That was after 9 turns of all 20 crew members (minus casualties, granted) basically just trying to open the damn things. Oh, and if you do try to get the loot, the game can run looooooong (see 9 turns...)
It felt a bit off, having ostensibly "won" the game and wiped out my opponent's crew to then be rolling casualty rolls for my whole crew, and my captain (not the XO) only leveled up 1 level. Unlike in frostgrave where the apprentice tracks the wizard's level automatically, in Stargrave you have to allocate any experience points to either your cap or your XO. I didnt even get that much money from the loot (about enough to replace the dude who died, and a fancy alien weapon that requires a skill to use that none of my guys have or are likely to get in the next 5-10 games.)
That said, the "meh" points I describe above are easily fixable by tweaking expectations. To wit:
Hire locksmiths and codebreakers. I forget the technical terms, but theyre the guys who get +6 on their loot-opening rolls. Now I know they're important. Don't leave home without em.
Don't worry about getting all the loot. If you get 1 or 2 and reckon you have a shot at leaving the board, do it.
If you do get fancy alien tech, just sell it. It's highly inefficient, but that's life. (The item I got was 800 to buy, saleable for 300 or so. But I cant use it, so, off tae the market wi ye, i guess?)
So yeah. Stargrave is a game I want to play again, and next time I'll bring the keys to the loot and be a bit more mercenary about getting in and out in one piece. I was too focussed on a "gamey" win, rather than a "we're poor looters trying to nick stuff and get out before the law turn up".
Overall, thumbs up, but make sure your expectations line up with how the game actually plays, to avoid disappointment.
ps - oh, and that chonky suit of armour my captain is wearing in that first picture broke. You have to pay 50 creds upkeep on it per game, or use the "armorer" skill on it. My cap failed her armorer roll, so had to fight in her dress uniform (which is the mini to the left of the battlesuit looking thing in the pic.) In my defence, I did paint that unarmoured mini in anticipation of just such a development, but still. Chonky armour wouldve been nice *sighs wistfully*
