Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Osprey is gearing up for their next skirmish game release in October: Rogue Stars



Based on the cover style, I'm thinking this will be more In Her Majesty's Name or Of Gods And Mortals than Frostgrave - a lighter, simpler rules set, but also a bit more open in terms of fine tuning your soldiers.

They've also teamed with Northstar again for miniatures for the game.

From their FB page:

Rogue Stars: Skirmish Wargaming in a Science Fiction Underworld.
Rogue Stars is a character-based science fiction skirmish wargame, where players command crews of bounty hunters, space pirates, merchants, prospectors, smugglers, mercenary outfits, planetary police and other such shady factions from the fringes of galactic civilisation. Crews can vary in size, typically from four to six, and the character and crew creation systems allow for practically any concept to be built. Detailed environmental rules that include options for flora, fauna, gravity, dangerous terrain and atmosphere, and scenario design rules that ensure that missions are varied and demand adaptation and cunning on the parts of the combatants, make practically any encounter possible. Run contraband tech to rebel fighters on an ocean world while hunted by an alien kill-team or hunt down a research vessel and fight zero-gravity boarding actions in the cold depths of space - whatever you can imagine, you can do.

That looks pretty cool! I'm always a big fan of skirmish games- they allow me to indulge my gamer ADD better, as I lost my interest in painting 35 nearly identical models for an army about half a decade ago. It's so much more fun to paint and game with unique individuals.

I've been watching this game for a while now. I was hoping it would be a 6-12 mini per person game rather than 4-6, but I'm still very much looking for it. I'm hoping it will be somewhere between In the Emperor's name and Necromunda.

Some more info directly from Phil Smith, Osprey Games Manager.

Rogue Stars is a new system from Andrea - it has elements in common with SoBH, but with significant changes. For starters, it's a d20 system, target number-based, combat is more detailed (22 melee weapons, 31 ranged weapons, 5 grenades), there are rules for environmental conditions (including high and low gravity)... and more, but it's a long road to October 2016, so I should save some things for later.

Creating a squad is fun. Characters are built individually, with all kinds of traits, skills and equipment, and alien races can be built on the fly by combining traits in different ways. The squad as a whole is then given a theme (Pirates, Bounty Hunters etc.) that determines some of the traits and equipment to which it has access, and a tactical discipline (20 in the rules, from Sharpshooters to Gestalt) that gives it an edge when sticking to familiar tactics.

And, yes, Psionic powers and a Force Sword can be combined in the obvious manner.

I'm a huge fan of Andrea's games. Specifically his Song of Blades series and it's derivatives which I've enjoyed many dozens of times over the past 6 years. I'm intrigued to see what he can do with a D20 system.

I've got more than enough figs ready for the game. Tons of spacefarers, random troopers and such and that's even before dipping into my Necromunda gangs, Squats, etc and my unpainted lead pile. Would be a great excuse to paint up my Deadzone Rebs too. However there are some interesting figs being done for the game by Northstar who have done figs for many of the other Osprey games.

A Mark Copplestone sculpt. Very appropriate that he's doing some figs for the game.


A recently released teaser.


and some other pics.

Well, damn. I never even realized it was from the same author as SoBH. Now I am really eager to see it, especially as it's a D20-based game. That's something I don't have in my collection, surprisingly.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
...especially as it's a D20-based game. That's something I don't have in my collection, surprisingly.

Me either. Not a huge surprise though as I'm not a role-player.

Sounds like a great system from running an Inquisitor game as well. Any word on a campaign system in the book?

Never heard of this but I'm very interested now!

 Eilif wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
...especially as it's a D20-based game. That's something I don't have in my collection, surprisingly.

Me either. Not a huge surprise though as I'm not a role-player.

OTOH, Infinity uses d20s, and it has a sizable audience.

Davout wrote:
Sounds like a great system from running an Inquisitor game as well. Any word on a campaign system in the book?

I've not heard anything about a campaign system. If it's like most of the other games by Andrea, he will include one. However, it might not be super detailed. The standard campaign system for SBH was functional but rudimentary. It wasn't until he wrote a campaign supplement that campaigns longer than 6-8 games became ideal. Even with the campaign supplement, the limitation on SBH campaigns was that you were working with D6 based quality/activation. Once you got to 14-15 games almost everyone's surviving characters were at the best "quality" level and the activation mechanic -one of the main features of the game- becomes pretty rote and un-exciting. Of course 14 games is a pretty long campaign. Long enough for most folks to be ready to move to something else for a while or start over with a new warband.

A d20 system has the potential to have alot more room to advance so maybe longer campaign tracks will be possible. Of course, please realize that I have no insider info and I'm just spitting into the wind here.

There has been some pretty good info released so far and yes there will be some kind of "campaign system"...but it looks like it's won't suffer from "overpowered by the third game" syndrome.

the facebook fan page is here
https://www.facebook.com/groups/500415916823025/

and the official FB page is here
https://www.facebook.com/ospreysroguestars/

tpryan01 wrote:
There has been some pretty good info released so far and yes there will be some kind of "campaign system"...but it looks like it's won't suffer from "overpowered by the third game" syndrome.

the facebook fan page is here
https://www.facebook.com/groups/500415916823025/

and the official FB page is here
https://www.facebook.com/ospreysroguestars/

That's good news. Could you link to that info? I'd love to read more about the campaigns system.

" you get 200 XP to build between 4 and 6 characters, you cannot spend less than 30 or more than 70 on a beginning character. You gain more XP by winning games"

I have to admit, when I first heard about this, I was underwhelmed as I figured it would be another SOBH re-skin. However, it sounds like they maybe trying to break a bit of new ground here, so I am pleasantly optimistic.

Since I buy (and review) just about everything from Osprey, I look forward to comparing it to the other Andrea books.

Like the others I look forward to your review.

I love the Osprey games. contained and everything you need is available and easy to get. Old school is about as old school as you can get, without cardboard chits.

 Grot 6 wrote:
I love the Osprey games. contained and everything you need is available and easy to get. Old school is about as old school as you can get, without cardboard chits.

Also, without the "typed pages stapled together" production values. Osprey games really make old-school rules shiny and appealing.

I am really looking forward to this. I saw that there are some rules preview in a wargames illustrated no.347. Did someone got a copy and is willing to share some info with us.
Judging by Easy E reviews seems this could be a very nice alternative for some of us who would like to play some sci fi skirmish action in 40k universe, or 30k rogue traders, or Inquisitor or rival bounty hunters on Imperium borders or....

I just bought the digital edition and only had time for a quick flip through...what I'm wondering is: do base sizes matter? Reason I ask is I'm thinking Infinity models would be great for this and I'd like to be able to use some of their larger infantry or even mech units (TAGs).

Orangecoke wrote:
I just bought the digital edition and only had time for a quick flip through...what I'm wondering is: do base sizes matter? Reason I ask is I'm thinking Infinity models would be great for this and I'd like to be able to use some of their larger infantry or even mech units (TAGs).

I don't have my rulebook yet, but i've not yet seen a ruleset by Andrea that necessitates certain base sizes. If it's like his other rulesets than end-to-end stick movement will give larger basses a slightly longer move advantage, but will be balanced by the fact that in close combat there will be more base edge area for opponents to move into contact with increasing the likelyhood and severithy of being ganged-up on.

His rulesets generally are aimed at folks being able to use whatever minis they have regardless of basing conventions and infinity would be a great option.