A few weeks ago, Vera, Finnegan, Amanda and I embarked on a new campaign using Stargrave. We are starting the Hope Eternal campaign for that system. The campaign is meant to be played either as a solo game or a coop game involving two players with "half crews". With a few little tweaks we've put together a crew with a captain and two mates (Finnegan, Vera and Amanda, respectively) and I'm running the hostiles as Game Master.
In Stargrave players run crews of independent starship trying to make their way in a part of the galaxy still reeling from the cataclysm of the Last War. The war was fought between the last two great interstellar empires and ultimately brought ruin to the most of the galaxy and saw both factions utterly destroyed. In the power vacuum great fleets of pirate raiders formed and raid and and reave and pillage and loot and extort all across known space.
The book suggests playing Solo with a regular crew or Co-op with two half crews made up of a First Mate (with seven level-ups) and each player getting 200Cr to buy up to four crew, two of which could be specialists... Because we had THREE players, I suggested each player gets a Mate and five level-ups and 150Cr to spend on two or three crew, one of which may be a specialist...
Here's what everyone came up with...
Finnegan is playing the "Captain" Harlec Wynn - the dashing fellow with the sword and great coat. With him are Greyn Ight, the Burner, Ordo the Inquisitive, a Hacker, and SPAY-50-RC, a robot recruit (it may LOOK like an old Eldar in mesh armour... but Finnegan decided it was a humanoid robot... and not a very good one at that...!)
Amanda's Part of the crew. She is playing First Mate Zöe - the dashing creature with the blue skin and great coat. Accompanying her is Patricia in the power armour and Dolly, who started out as a Runner but has been upgraded to medic since...
I forgot to get a crew pic with Vera's Crew... But she is playing Second Mate Ruby Monday- a cyborg, along with a Sniper named Luci, and a Robot Sentry named π-Well.
I'll create a Campaign Page at some point..
Hopefully the players will give me some background on their characters soon... or I might just have to make them up.
The Scenario
Scenario One: The Access Codes
In this scenario, the crew has been hired by an anonymous patron through an intermediary to do a data smash-and-grab on remote planet run by a small crime syndicate with connections to the Pirate Fleets.
The central building needs to be entered, the computer station located and the data retrieved and then uploaded to the client and then they need to make their escape!
There were rules in the game about approaching the building and at what point the alarm would be raised and reinforcements showing up... I added some rules about how all the CIVILIANS on the table would react to violence happening in their immediate vicinity (usually it meant they'd run away and hide in cover... but there was a slim chance they might attack someone they thought was perpetrating the violence.. and there was one gang of thugs - not related to the regular thugs working for the syndicate that controlled this planet - that had a much higher chance of joining in an violence taking place in their immediate vicinity!
The Game
All set up and ready to go!
The Crew spread out so as not to attract attention, move towards their objectives and mark any armed individuals who might work for the syndicate.
Captain Harlec walks right on up to the central building. SPAY-50-RC and Greyn the Burner are nearby, as are First Mate Zöe and Dolly the Runner.
One of the Syndicate Thugs notes Captain Harlec and Ordo the Hacker moving towards the building but pays no mind. It is a public building. The Syndicate is the closest thing to a "government" the planet has... the kid probably just thought it was a merchant going to pay his "taxes" or apply for some kind of "permit"...
A carpet dealer tries really hard to sell the first mate some of his wares!
Patricia and π-Well approach the central square from a side street.
Second Mate Ruby Monday, along with the Sniper, Luci, take up a position to keep watch over the goings on.
SPAY-50-RC and Greyn the Burner hold at a corner where they can keep an eye on all approaching.
A gang of thugs makes their rounds...
The Captain tries to talk his way in, explaining he's come with a delivery (while Ordo the Hacker just starts trying to hack the door lock...). The Captain is unsuccessful, but the Hacker isn't... but this raises the alarm.
The Syndicate Thug turns to move towards the building, but Zöe takes shots at him and makes him duck for cover! Civilians everywhere scatter!
Luci the sniper takes a shot at and seriously injures the thug keeping watch on top of the adjacent building. Second Mate, Ruby Monday, decides she'd be more useful at street level and heads down the stairs.
She rushes across the street and sliced the Syndicate Thug's gun in half with her monofilament sword and the young thug started wailing and quickly skated away on his hoverboard!
Civilians ducking for cover. The Syndicate Thug can't decide where to shoot when there are so many shots coming at him from all directions!
SPAY-50-RC and Greyn the Burner start taking fire from a Syndicate Thug down the street who has taken cover behind some crates.
Ruby Monday also exchanges fire with a Syndicate Thug in the street. The small child nearby fled! The thug was eventually wounded and crawled off into the building to hide until all the shooting stopped!
Syndicate Agents occupying the building get into a bit of a scuffle with Captain Harlec.
More Syndicate Agents arrive and Ordo the Hacker is injured in the fight!
The Syndicate Thug in the square is seriously injured in the hail of fire coming his way!
The Burner moves to roast the Syndicate Thug firing on him... but something isn't working!?
The Burner starts taking fire from another Thug on a rooftop!
More Syndicate Thugs arrive!
Captain Harlec feeling a little overwhelmed in this melee!
First Mate Zöe joins her captain, trying to force their way into the building.
Patricia and π-Well cautiously move into the square, exchanging fire with assorted Syndicate Thugs!
The gangers leader has to take a dump and uses the public privy... his "droogs" stand watch outside...
A Syndicate Thug arrives on scene and starts firing down the street at Ruby. One of the Gangers decides to intervene and charged the Syndicate Thug!
The Thug guns down the Ganger at point blank range. Being showered with their Gang-mates brains caused the other two droogies to flee... but the Gang Leader leaps out of the public privy and lays a beating on the Syndicate Thug!!
More thugs show up... one of the shoppers at the market has had enough and engages the Thug, trying to throw a towel over her head!? The ganger turned and shot her dead (which increased the likelihood that civilians would intervene...)
Ordo and Dolly decide to try and make their way upstairs...
One of the Syndicate Agents in the building opened a window and started shooting at ... SPAY-50-RC, entering the compound rushed the Agent at the window and shot him in the face!
The Captain and First Mate finally overcome the other two Syndicate Agents. They were quickly gagged and bound and left in a heap in the corner of the room.
Dolly tries to unlock the room upstairs... and opens it on her first try! (Seriously, needed and 20... and rolled exactly that!)
The Burner realizes his main fuel line is broken and he is spilling flammable liquid everywhere and decides it's time to scarper!
Patricia takes a position by the entry to the compound and prevent any of the Syndicate reinforcements from entering...
Ruby joins Patricia, just before the compound is rushed by thugs.
A half dozen or so Thugs converge on the central compound!
Patricia and Ruby take down the first few.
Ruby is injured and has to retreat within the compound...
One of the agents in the upstairs of the main compound opened the window to fire on the crew in the courtyard below. Luci put a bullet through his neck and showering the room and his fellow agent with blood. While momentarily stunned, SPAY-50-RC to try and apprehend her.
She is not that willing to give up the fight and all three crew have to wrestle her to the ground, before duct-taping her to the wall to keep her from causing any more trouble!
Patricia continues to exchange fire with the Thugs outside the compound.
π-Well is assaulted by a Syndicate Thug and knocked down. When the thug rushes on, the robot slinked away in the confusion.
Patricia's power armour is pretty tough and deflects a lot of the incoming shots... but not ALL of them... enough lucky shots seriously damages the internal systems and she has to bug out before she's taken down.
Ruby is also seriously injured, however - a stray shot goes right through her left eye!? Harlec tells her to just go, and get back to the ship. Ruby flees over the back wall of the compound!
Syndicate Thugs get brave and storm into the compound through the smoke left by Ruby to cover her tracks. Captain Harlec followed her, when no one was looking!
Syndicate Thugs flood into the compound. Dolly tries to hold them off while Ordo downloads the data they came for!
Thugs rush up to the rooftop where Luci has been causing havoc...
(seriously, I did not take a lot of notes or pictures... but every single activation she had, she deleted a thug within view...)
She was overwhelmed and had to leap over the edge and scarper down an alley to the RV-point.
Having successfully acquired the data and uploaded to the clients cloud server, Dolly makes a run for it, as does Ordo!
Dolly already quite injured, gingerly lowered herself down onto the roof of a market stall, followed by SPAY-50-RK...
But a syndicate thug, lying in ambush, shot her down as she fled!
SPAY-50-RK also went down in a hail of bullets (he would later be recovered from a trash heap outside of town and was reassembled and brought back online)... So Ordo decided NOT to follow them that way!
and instead jumped down on top of the public privy, and then to the ground and made a run for it!
One of the Pirate Troopers newly arrived took a long shot at Ordo and took him down... luckily he was able to crawl away into cover and hide... Later he snuck away under cover of darkness and made it back to the ship.
So... the crew succeeded in the mission - having hacked the computer, acquired the data they were looking for and successfully uploading it to the clients remote server... but none of them made it off the table...
Checking for injuries later... NONE OF THEM ACTUALLY DIED!!! WHEW!!
There were a few injuries. at least one is missing the next game recovering (or maybe starts with half health...?). Ruby lost an eye, which has lasting effects (replacement cyborg eyes are hard to come by nowadays, I guess...)
Dolly had rolled a serious injury... and since she was a "free" Runner, ruleswise, there was no sense in keeping her on the crew... but everyone kind of loved Dolly, so they spent some of their earnings and "hired" a medic and said it was Dolly and they'd spent the cash on getting her better medical treatment and training her up as the crews medic!
I picked up Stargrave AGES ago... probably when it first came out in 2021...!? I've picked up a number of the expansion books along the way. The one that looked most interesting was Hope Eternal which contained an entire campaign of ten linked scenarios meant to be played Solo or Co-op against an analog AI-driven enemy. I've thought of running it like a kind of role-playing-game-lite sort of campaign with me being a sort of Game Master running the enemy and keeping the game running along a number of times.... but kind of just never got around to it...
This is absolutely my favourite mode of play... something between a role-playing game and a miniature skirmish game. That's cooperatively played and run by a Game Master - who is isn't so much an opponent as he is an administrator that moves the hostile forces around and adjudicates any fiddly bits...? Something with a designed scenario, rather than you bring 1000 points and I bring 1000 points and play some generic boring battle. Something with narrative and consequences outside of the tabletop action! I need to run more games like this... I actually HAVE ideas for several campaigns that could be run like this using a number of different game systems; 40K, AoS, Force on Force/Savage Worlds, Bolt Action, etc...
Amanda and I were supposed to be playing board games with Vera, Nick and Charlie on Sunday, but then Nick and Charlie had to back out... and I'd been thinking of this again lately so I brought it up as a suggestion for Sunday and everyone said YES!! So I did some re-reading of the rules and campaign in a panic Saturday evening and recruited Finnegan to join the expedition.
We initially only really committed to playing the first scenario, to see how it went... if it seemed fun, it was decided we'd play it as an occasional campaign thing whenever Vera's in town...
I thought we might play Scenario Two this weekend, as Vera is in town... but she's playing in the Warhammer 40,000 Teams Tournament going on this week! So perhaps we'll get a game in sometime in October!
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