Stragrave Campaign Game 5 - The Overgrown Factory

The Space Cadets + played the fifth game of our Stargrave series on Saturday. We put all six players on a single 4 x 4 table this go 'round. It's the first time we've tried it with everyone in a single game and it was a hoot. The scenario we played was "The Overgrown Factory." With six crews, the scenario special rules and some teleporter rules I cooked up, we ignored the wandering monster / attracting attention rules and played an even 10 turns. 

The table from the Oddfellows Local 151 starting edge. 

David, Ziggy, Mike, Mark and Wayne.

I didn't take my team long at all to be right on top of a couple of loot markers. One physical for Scoop the runner and Sweet Mama Stringbean and Katie Kaboom reached a data loot in no time. I let Katie Kaboom unlock the data since she's the Codenreaker and good at that sort of thing.

I had Sweet Mama Stringbean test out the teleporter rules. My die rule was a seven, allowing David (the player to my left) to place her at any destination teleporter marker. He of course put her in the one-door warehouse. Mike sent a guy through a teleporter as well and that guy also ended up in the same room as Stringbean!

Wayne places a "goalie" in my deployment zone, trying to prevent me from scoring the data loot. Katie Kaboom gave the Burner a blast from her shotgun. I had already managed to extract Scoop and his physical loot token. 

Wayne's Burner attracts a lot of attention from my group who were really looking for something to do. The Stun and Wound marker on the flamethrower guy kind of says it all.

Stringbean's adventure continues! She snagged the physical loot token and in order to exit the table from my start zone, needs to get lucky teleporting back. Bloop. No luck. On top of a tower with Ziggy's sniper lining up a shot! GAH! She took a solid hit but was OK. Mike of course had a dadgum robot saucer trooper up there too. 

So whaddaya do? Jump back through the teleporter! Miracle of miracles, I rolled a 1 and Stringbean appeared right back where I needed her! Now that's a hell of an adventure for one game of Stargrave. Meanwhile, Beverly Kills, my medic, managed to get herself killed while brawling with some of David's schlubs. Roy Christmas, my First Mate, took care of those bums to avenge her (left, fight the unpainted gray horde).

Oddfellows Assemble! The crew escort Stringbean off the battlefield.

For me, Ziggy and David it had been a terrific game. I scored two physical and one data loot, had a couple KO's, only lost one character and picked up some good loot items. Mike, Mark and Wayne didn't fare so well, but that's how dice games work. Mike's dice in particular were atrocious and he got completely mauled by Zig's crew. 

Regardless of individual success, we all had an enjoyable time - hey it's gaming, right? Game six is still up in the air; we didn't schedule a weekend initially and Mike's got a baby due towards the end of May so we may just kick it down the road a ways. We'll see. Have a great week and good gaming!

An Update!

It's been a few weeks since the last update. I've been playing games and painting but not documenting much. Ziggy, Wayne and I played a fine game of Check Your 6 Jet Age a few weeks back. Ziggy and I flew Argentine Skyhawks and Mirages against some RN Harriers. The Harriers gave us what for, but we did manage to put a couple bombs on our target troop transport ship and damages a couple of Harriers. It's a fun war to game for sure. Quite unusual and interesting equipment.

We also got in our March Stargrave games on March 18th. Mike, Mark and I got to play on the Fire Moon set up since we'd not gotten to play that scenario yet.

It was a brutal affair for me and Mark. I took five casualties and Mark took three or four. Mike only had one. Good loot, however, changed it from misery into passable success. 

Ziggy, Wayne and David played on a different layout for the "Botched Deal" scenario. Wayne snagged four of the seven loot counters while Ziggy and David brutalized each other.

I've also been working on a proper boat for Blood and Plunder!

The work-in-progress shot...

And the finished product. It's a new kit that was recently released after the completion of a kickstarter. Not shabby for $40. The 28mm-scale plastic model kit went together easily and painted up quickly with Army Painter speed paints. The hull is about 12 inches long tip to tail. I made the sails out of 3mm craft foam and the rigging is run-of-the-mill black thread. It was a fun project and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the table this weekend.

Be well!

Stargrave Session #3

 Our whole group of Stargrave players got together yesterday for our February game. Since there were six of us and Stargrave can get really slow with a lot of players, I set up two 3 x 3 tables; players were randomly assigned to one table or the other. The two scenarios that were set up were Skymine and Salvage Crew. Ziggy, Wayne and Mike ended up on the Skymine table  Being engrossed in the game I was playing, I only got one picture of that setup. 

From what I understand, Zig had a really good game and Mike did well. Wayne stunk it up, quite a reverse from last time when he completely dominated.

David, Mark and I were on the Salvage Crew table, gathering loot that had been scattered in a swamp from a downed spaceship. The spaceship provided a focal point for the encounter.

That's David's heavily-revamped crew off to the left. He suffered a lot of casualties in the previous game and essentially blew it up and started over. Mark's Monkey crew is in the upper right corner; this was his first game. My group is at the bottom. I replaced a freebie Recruit with a 100 Credit Pathfinder during the break. I gave the +1 Shoot Carbine I had picked up to the Pathfinder. 

Things got really weird for David early. Wandering monsters showed up on turns 1 and 2, both in the same place, posing a real threat to David's crew right out of the gates. 

David's sniper worked on grabbing a Data Loot from the island in the stream while my Runner, Scoop, snagged a Physical Loot from under the Monkey's noses. My newly-hired Pathfinder Rufus McCoy was shot to ribbons by the Monkeys on the hill. 100 credits. Three turns. Kind of what I expected to be honest.

Scoop starts the slow Physical Loot slog back to the corner, through difficult terrain. LEMME HEAR IT FOR 1/4 SPEED! Of course a Ryakan chooses that moment to arrive in my safe corner, blocking my exit. X AE A-12 intercedes to protect the Runner. The Ryakan chomps down on the HERObot to the tune of 10 damage. Judas Priest! What utter bullshit.

By turn 5 things were just running out the drain quickly. David had been cut off from much of the battlefield by a combination of trees, smoke and a Wall of Force Mark's Captain had thrown up to slow the monsters down. The Green snakey monster had spit acid at David's First Mate earlier and caused a tremendous amount of damage which seemed to leave an impression on David. Of course the Hydra simply burrowed under the Force Wall. The defense laser on the space ship pounded both mine and Mark's crews foolish enough to approach. My Codebreaker Katie Kaboom (the pink one in the middle) was knocked out for the third game in a row! Medic Beverly Kills picked up a Physical Loot and was hoofing it towards the corner.Mark took the opportunity to use Lift to movie some of his monkey troops to intercept the getaway. I was not pleased. At the far side of the map you can see that two more monsters have arrived - another Ryakan moving towards David's crew and a big gray boar ready to block Mark's monkeys from escaping with Data Loot. 

By turn 7 I was in full retreat, trying to get away with loot and few casualties.

The boar and hyrda stalk data-carrying-monkey prey. One monkey has already been poisoned by the hydra.

As David said, "I roasted the lobster," as he makes the best out of a bad situation, snagging XP and credits anywhere he can. That thing was a "Porigota" which carry a 30 credit bounty.

Run Monkey, Run!

Fun game, that. Lots of action and craziness. The mix of special powers that Mark and David had going on made for a lot of unpredictability. I only ended up with one injury on Katie Kaboom who will start the next game at 1/2 Health. My First Mate gained a level and I located 275 credits worth of loot. Not a bad haul. I need to make a decision about keeping Scoop, the Runner. On one hand, he's free and fast, ideal for putting into risky spots. On the other hand, another Pathfinder gives be someone equally fast who's much better equipped. At 100 credits though, I'd be hesitant to put him into risky situations which currently don't faze a zero-credit Runner. Decisions...

Looking forward to the next encounter in March!

Stargrave Twofer

 There have been two campaign games of Stargrave in the last week or so. The first was a two-player game with me and David. David missed the first game so it was an opportunity for him to learn the game without many distractions. I set up a 24" x 24" table for the scenario called "The Botched Deal."

My deployment corner. The same crew members from the previous mission.

A birds-eye of the battlefield. Good old fashioned tight quarters urban fighting.

 

The Oddfellows spread out and got their hands on three of the five loot markers. The Ruffians who were present on the table as part of the scenario were no trouble for David or myself. 

During the battle, both David and I each took four casualties. It was pretty brutal. All of my casualties made full recoveries. David wasn't as fortunate, having a Gunner go KIA. His other three recovered without trouble. I did manage to pick up a Shotgun with +1 damage and a Carbine with +1 Shoot. I also picked up a fat 15 credits. I leveled up both my Captain and First Officer.

A week later, last Saturday, we played the other game. I just set the game up and GMed while Ziggy, Wayne and David all played their second game. The scenario I set up was "Fire Moon," a particularly challenging one with lava streams and tough wandering monsters.

The 36" x 36" battlefield. The "Cross of hot death" is part of the scenario description and just a big old pain for players to deal with. It's automatic damage and impossible to ignore.

As the GM, I was rooting for the critters who turned out to be rather dangerous!

A good chunk of Wayne's group.

Some of Ziggy's crew and lots of smoke.

Three cheers for the lava snakes!

David sends a schlub into to hot stuff to try to unlock the physical loot in the center. She did not successfully unlock it.

Ziggy and David spar over a data loot counter atop that storage cylinder. Ziggy's sent a drone up to grab it.

The casualty count this game was insane, a total of 13 taken out. Wayne scored TEN of those knockouts! A good time was had by all and all the participants got a nice haul of loot at the end of the day. We're all  looking forward to the next encounter - now that we're getting more proficient with the rules it's becoming more about playing and tactical gaming rather than mechanical struggles. 

A Few More Minis

 Happy New Year everyone. My New Year's was nice a relaxed. Good football, no drama. 

I did pick up a few fun minis for the Stargrave collection. They're Alternative Armies and Bombshell miniatures.

A Cyborg who'll make a nice weird group leader, a couple awesome guard dogs and some others who can take on almost any role. Really, they were just cool models to add to the collection. 

Scratch Building and some Painting... and Something Else

 I hope everyone had a fine Christmas and that Santa was good to you. I my sisters and their families were in town and we had a great time. Before everyone arrived though, I was able to finish up the terrain pieces I had been working on and I also put my final touches on some minis I was working on. 

First up, those minis.

A recent delve in the garage turned up some old GW minis, two Necromunda models from around 2000 and an Empire Champion from I don't know when. He's plastic and thus isn't terribly old. The Sniper is a much more recent Reaper Bones model. I figured the Necromunda guys would be fine for Stargrave and the Knight would be a useful addition to the Kings of War Vanguard stuff I have. I really enjoyed the trial game I played and have been wanting to take it for another spin.

The terrain pieces turned out nicely. Some spray paint and drybrushing and bam, job's done.

I really should make four more of these to ensure I get good table coverage. I'll get cracking on it this week I'm sure.

Of course those hills are going to have a little competition in the garage. My next guitar project is now to the point where it's going to start taking time and energy. I picked up an Epiphone Les Paul Jr body on eBay a couple months ago. I had a good bit of hardware already and got the rest in my Christmas stocking. I decided that the guitar, instead of being painted, should be stickered. I got at least a hundred stickers yesterday to add to the collection I'd already begun. Yesterday afternoon I spent about three hours doing this:

The stickering was a lot of fun. Next step with that will be applying a heavy dose of clear coat over those stickers. 8-10 layers should be OK. After that's done, it's on to the electronics! 

Be well, and if I don't post again this week, Happy New Year!

Scratch Building

 In the interest of keeping the Stargrave campaign chugging along, I've found that some of the scenarios have some implied terrain requirements. The "Fire Moon" scenario looks like a good candidate for our next outing so I've begun work on making some suitable bits. 

This is of course the implied mental image we'd all have with such a setting. Very iconic, very dangerous and not just a little bit awesome.

The scenario requires an "X" of lava floes corner-to-corner on the tabletop. I'll accomplish that cheaply and easily with long strips of orange fabric. I'm not going to go gangbusters on lava-like rivers that will very rarely see the tabletop. Being Stargrave, there needs to be a lot to hide behind. To that end I got cracking on some foam rocky outcrops and "plateau" hills last evening with the hot wire foam-cutter. 

And after maybe 90 minutes and some probable brain-damage from the fumes, voila! Four bits that should work nicely. The larger bits have caves cut into them because that's fun. I glued sand to upper surfaces to give them a bit of texture

I tested some scraps with spray primer I had and the insulation foam didn't immediately disintegrate, to might delight. This morning I hit the two smaller pieces with a coat of primer - we'll see the results when I get home and I'll blast the two larger pieces at that time. 

  Because I was in a productive mode last evening, I also knocked out some homemade "Magmites," the aliens present in the Lava Moon scenario. A few red pipe cleaners glued to some old cardboard counters/markers, a dark gray spray coat and pale orange drybrushing and bam, job's done. 

Since they live in magma, I figured eyes and antennae would be useless. They're wormy and monstrous and will certainly get the job done!

More pics as things progress. Merry Christmas if I don't post again very soon!