But space is a big place and, my god, it is full of recognisable archetypes from TV, film and books! So it seems natural to ask… how would your favourite spaceship crews from other fiction fare? Stargrave Mercenaries from North Star Military Figures The Rules Inspiration doesn’t have to come from sci-fi, and when someone suggested this idea to me it absolutely had to be included. The nine members of the fellowship from The Lord of the Rings…. but in space!

Think Facehuggers from Aliens!!! The difference is these do not lay eggs that hatch out of your belly. Instead, if they latch on you, they control you.They’re all brilliantly evocative roleplaying touchstones, but Stargrave rarely, if ever, gives time to leverage them. True RPGs have the benefit of providing non-combat situations, plunking you in the boots of your character to really exploreand experience the imagined world around you. But even miniature wargames with less direct RPG mechanisms, like Warhammer 40k, are more successful in imbuing each battle with a sense of place, person, and persona through their bespoke miniatures.

What you choose for your Captain dictates some of their attributes and the skills that they may choose. Your First Mate also gets one of these classes. That said, the classes do not have to be the same. This way you can have a Rogue team up with a Veteran (that could be Han Solo and Chewbacca). Perhaps you want to pair a Tekker with a Robotics Expert or Cyborg. You can do that too. That plot hook along with their infiltration and combat powers immediately put me in mind of Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell. But who in Section 9 would support her and make up the rest of the crew? The answer, of course, is eight Fuchikoma spider-bots (plus Batou). These dog-like creatures can travel in space, blink through the folds of time and space and even land themselves inside of space vessels if they so wish. They just want to kill. If they see anyone firing a gun, it will focus on them. Coming as a surprise to no one, Stargrave is simply Frostgrave in space, swapping arcane wizards and frozen ruins for crews of struggling galactic adventurers, and running on a similar miniatures-agnostic rules system (although a line of officially-licensedminisis coming from North Star). Human sized scavengers of an alien race. Their skin gives them chameleon like abilities to blend into the environment.

Well, here are pictures of the frames so you can figure out if they are something you like. A good close look at the Stargrave Crew plastic miniatures frame.

I think the WGA ancients stuff like the Persians will be similarly too slightly built but don't have any to hand What I like to do with my friends for Frostgrave is that we each bring over so many “creatures” for the game. We then combine the collection and essentially make our own encounter list from those figures. I anticipate doing the same for Stargrave. Now, as a last step, I just need to organize their dedication transportation. No, not a ship - they've already got a Tardis. I mean a dedicated figure case! have nearly finished a big project with Modiphius that will hopefully be announced soon. I have also been working on something much smaller, which I intended to self-publish, that looks at the game from a completely different angle… Another entry also in the Random Encounters table. As the name suggests. A Bounty Hunter. Typically armed with a Carbine, Hand Weapon and Heavy Armour.Stargrave is off to an absolutely amazing start, but I hear you asking, “What sort of miniatures and creatures do I need for a game of Stargrave?” These monkey like creatures are half the size of a human. They like to eat the energy from batteries that crew members carry and happen to have three eyes. Biggest of all, the positioning of loot has been reworked to prevent players handing themselves an easy win through shrewd – and cheap – placement tactics. Players take turns positioning loot tokens after terrain setup, but may only place tokens in their opponent’s half of the table. Stargrave, with its focus on skirmishes and miniatures-agnostic rule system, can’t match its (admittedly ambitious) lore. A chunky leveling system aside, much of the world-building that so enticed me when reading the core rulebook, failed to make an impression on the tabletop.