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If anything, there are actually more changes (both in general and for sci-fi specific reasons) than I would have expected.
It was always mostly going to be reskin, and presumably mainly aimed at a new audience rather than provide something novel for people who already play Frostgrave. Even so, it seems interesting enough as a variant for people who've played a lot of Frostgrave before and want something slightly different but nicely familiar. And a good excuse to dust off whatever small groups of random sci-fi models and weird alien monsters you happen to have lying around, just as Frostgrave did for creating warbands and having creatures for random encounters!

Like has been said, the ability to have a captain/first mate of different backgrounds is a nice departure for Frostgrave players that offers a twist and some depth in terms of gameplay AND for the purposes of dreaming up characters and roleplaying. I'm excited. Master/apprentice evil mystics going around the galaxy looking for powerful artifacts and generally doing nefarious deeds is what I'm currently leaning towards, but there's so much potential there

Billicus wrote:
Like has been said, the ability to have a captain/first mate of different backgrounds is a nice departure for Frostgrave players that offers a twist and some depth in terms of gameplay AND for the purposes of dreaming up characters and roleplaying.

Right. In the same way that Frostgrave 2nd edition (and Stargrave) owes it's warband structure to Ghost Archipelego, I think Stargrave also borrows more from Ghost Archipelego than it does from Frostgrave when it comes to the Captain and First mate, since I guess they function a bit more like the Heritor and Warden than they do the Wizard and Apprentice. This is not a bad thing and I guess for anyone who didn't play GA, it might feel like a bigger change. One thing that wasn't changed that I am a little surprised by is ranged combat. Given the prevalence of guns in a sci-fi setting I'm surprised that Stargrave doesn't take the Infinity approach of giving a model the choice of dodging (Shoot vs Fight) or firing back (Shoot vs Shoot with an extra penalty).. especially since it would make ranged combat handle a lot like melee combat. A house rule I will have to try out once my copy arrives, I think!

Man i wanted to be excited for it, but the mechanics just don't seem there at all. The charm of frostgrave that gave it depth was the wizard abilities. For a sci-fi game it appears to be to essentially just be a d20 roll off game with modifiers.

There's still abilities, between the two characters you can have as many different ones as you had spells in FG. Are they interesting abilities? We don't know yet. I did enjoy the spells with their rival schools and careful spread of hard counters more interesting than Ghost Archipelago's "supers".

Yeah, way too soon to write it off on the basis of the powers. Hell, judging by the names, a good few of those powers sound like they may work just like Frostgrave spells anyway.

I too felt that Frostgrave was considerably more balanced and fun than Ghost Archipelago. Let's hope this *is* mostly Frostgrave in Spaaaaace.

Another review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OCPeqk1Jc

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I too felt that Frostgrave was considerably more balanced and fun than Ghost Archipelago. Let's hope this *is* mostly Frostgrave in Spaaaaace.

Frostgrave first or second edition?

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Another review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OCPeqk1Jc

Thanks for that link, quite watchable and it really did get me excited. It made me realize how Star Grave dovetails nicely with my ongoing spaceport project.

I even have lil' ole shuttles for the crews!

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Another review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14OCPeqk1Jc

Thanks for that link, quite watchable and it really did get me excited. It made me realize how Star Grave dovetails nicely with my ongoing spaceport project.

I even have lil' ole shuttles for the crews!

Nice! If you don't mind me asking, what are you using? With the exception of the 28mm USHI kit from Clear Horizon (which, after shipping and taxes is too expensive for my tastes) I've never found a practically sized shuttle model that I like.

 Siygess wrote:


Nice! If you don't mind me asking, what are you using? With the exception of the 28mm USHI kit from Clear Horizon (which, after shipping and taxes is too expensive for my tastes) I've never found a practically sized shuttle model that I like.

How much time have you got?

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1020/638981.page

I'm sort of in the US so I don't know how well some of the advice will work in the UK. Your very best bet is the recently reissued Star Trek Runabout, very modular kit, styrene, combines nicely with GW and other bits. Valkyrie hulls can also make for some nice boxy shuttles/Arvus lighters.

The Toys thread is also full of ideas.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/690/689888.page

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

Frostgrave first or second edition?

Ah I've not played 2nd ed. 1st with Ulterior Motives is pretty close to being the sweet spot for me for family-friendly fantasy skirmish games though.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

Frostgrave first or second edition?

Ah I've not played 2nd ed. 1st with Ulterior Motives is pretty close to being the sweet spot for me for family-friendly fantasy skirmish games though.

I don't suppose enough changed between 1st and 2nd ed to change your opinion by the way, but since it added a few small things from Ghost Archipelago (like having free basic warband members, ensuring you're never without crew after a bad game), I just wondered which version it was.
Only ever played Frostgrave 1st ed too by the way, so not even sure how GA or 2nd ed compare in practice! Have both books, but only because I got GA for free, while I haven't had time to play 2nd yet for pandemic reasons. Maybe I should finally try out the solo rules later this year...

Yeah the free basic warband members seemed like a sensible fix.

GA offered more options overall and for me that killed both the balance and the strategy, compared to FG. You can make a game with so many options balanced, but it's much tougher.

GA shows the problem of freely mixing and matching all abilities, you end up seeing a small subset of optimal powers repeating across all warbands. Luckily we at least made the effort to all choose different Wardens, and the completely different ability set between Heritors and Wardens is a big improvement over Wizards and Apprentices.

With Stargrave allowing both, it will be interesting to see if crews end up doubling up on a few busted powers or going for the flexibility of having two different power sets.

Well time to dig that cheap copy of sedition wars out of the loft, can even use the cyborg things as random monsters in games.

Stargrave.

I've a bit of a proposition for you all.

Stargrave is officially released on the 29th of April. We are running a Nickstarter for the book and figures to run through April, and to start shipping from the 29th. All good.

But we 'could' start shipping the books alone on the 19th. The figures won't be ready, and we can't split orders between 'books going now, figures later'. What we could do is give those who want the book ASAP the option of buying the book on it's own and shipping on the 19th. Those people can still join in the Nickstarter for the figures, and get all the benefits, they will just have to pay postage for the book and then postage for the figures.

What do you think?

so there's the date

Nice. I'd be tempted to get the rulebook early but in practise, I haven't finished painting all my Frostgrave stuff yet, an extra 2 weeks isn't going to make any difference at all

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

Stargrave.

I've a bit of a proposition for you all.

Stargrave is officially released on the 29th of April. We are running a Nickstarter for the book and figures to run through April, and to start shipping from the 29th. All good.

But we 'could' start shipping the books alone on the 19th. The figures won't be ready, and we can't split orders between 'books going now, figures later'. What we could do is give those who want the book ASAP the option of buying the book on it's own and shipping on the 19th. Those people can still join in the Nickstarter for the figures, and get all the benefits, they will just have to pay postage for the book and then postage for the figures.

What do you think?

so there's the date

Amazon has April 27 FWIW.

I find the encouragement to include the Tech soldier equipment/skills interesting. Whether it is a 20 point standard or 75 specialist, they will be key slots in your warbands. What this does is create more interesting tactical situations where you may feel more urgency attached to tracking down and killing a 20 point hacker over a 100 point sniper. Of course decks and picks will be available for your leadership to equipped, but then all your eggs are going to be in that basket.

 Tokhuah wrote:
I find the encouragement to include the Tech soldier equipment/skills interesting. Whether it is a 20 point standard or 75 specialist, they will be key slots in your warbands. What this does is create more interesting tactical situations where you may feel more urgency attached to tracking down and killing a 20 point hacker over a 100 point sniper. Of course decks and picks will be available for your leadership to equipped, but then all your eggs are going to be in that basket.

Agreed. A much more interesting tactical situation gamewise.

As for the Captain and First Mate combos, one can only speculate, but at least for me I'm thinking about what sorts of crews to assemble from a story standpoint. Say a Cyborg & Tech to represent Replicants as in Blade Runner. I've a not-Malcolm and not-Zoe for the not-a-total ripoff of Firefly. A Robot specialized Captain with a crew of Cylon centurions. Recently bought a Tech-Priest Inquisitor, so she could be captain for a Tech focused crew, and I'd probably want a Rogue First Mate (if they can't take the lost tech by force, the First Mate will find a way to steal it or con it out of the mark).

Frostgrave Cultists and Gnolls with their upgrade kits.

 Siygess wrote:

Nice! If you don't mind me asking, what are you using? With the exception of the 28mm USHI kit from Clear Horizon (which, after shipping and taxes is too expensive for my tastes) I've never found a practically sized shuttle model that I like.

Daemonscape in the UK has several resin flyers, from a dinky wee 5cm flying car for a fiver up to a foot-long dropship for £40 (itself about a tenth the price of FW equivalents, although nowhere near as detailed).

My favourite is the CASEVAC shuttle - £9 for a 12cm futuristic-looking VTOL thing. That's about the size of an APC. It's a sweet little 2-part kit that will need some sanding, and I also kitbashed some landing gear for it.

Antenociti's Workshop has some beautiful flyers. They start around £30 for the City Hopper model, but the really big dropships are sold as STL files (there are plans to bring them back in resin, I believe).

Mantic do a couple of cheap, sturdy plastic models in their Warpath range. The GCPS Hornet is more of a plane, but is only 20cm long, a great size tabletop. The Enforcer Accuser is 30cm long, but has a more scifi look. Both highly recommended.

There's tons of cheap plastic toys around, their problem is that they're BIG. I'm currently repainting an Age of Ultron Quinjet, which cost £10 on eBay. It's 25cm long but 40cm wide (although you could glue the wingtips on vertically, or not at all). On a 3x3ft table, that's about 1/9 of your space gone.

The older Quinjet from the first Avengers film is getting rarer and more expensive, but that's 2ft long. The Nerf-firing Rogue One U-wing is sized well for 28mm figures, and can be found for £20, but again is 2ft long. These things just dominate smaller tables (unless you make it 4ftx3ft anfld have the ship along one edge)

Imperial terrain have a few shuttle models that might do. You can also get them in STLs.

What scale do these come out at?
Compared to something like Studio miniatures or Hasslefree minis if anyone knows.

I’ve got like a sci fi bulldog fella from HF with a rifle that would be a cool race to add In to a group for Stargrave..

Danny76 wrote:
What scale do these come out at?
Compared to something like Studio miniatures or Hasslefree minis if anyone knows.

I’ve got like a sci fi bulldog fella from HF with a rifle that would be a cool race to add In to a group for Stargrave..

I have the bulldog too! He's going to be short compared to humans anyway.

The Frostgrave soldiers are a bit chunkier than Hasslefree, but otherwise fine height-wise. You can actually make good "tech raiders" by using Frostgrave bodies with Skitarii arms and heads.

Clearly I've not seen the Stargrave plastics yet, but it would be a missed opportunity if they didn't allow the sets to mix with the Frostgrave plastics.

The Rogue Stars sculpts that North Star makes also fit in well with whatever passes for "28mm heroic" these days (bigger and chunkier than historical plastics, smaller than modern GW)

Early buy and Nickstarter announced!

The Nickstarter pre-order program for the Stargrave figures and the book will begin on the 5th of April. It will end on the 22nd of April, and we hope to be able to send all the figures and the book out by the official release date of the 29th of April. ...

... if you want the book as early as possible, order the Stargrave (Express) deal now, and we'll send the book on the 19th of April, 10 days before the release date.
The Express offer is not part of the Nickstarter, but you can still order just the figures through the Nickstarter and get all the benefits. The only disadvantage is you'll be paying postage twice.

http://downloads.northstarfigures.com/newsletter/newsletter235.htm

 Momotaro wrote:

Danny76 wrote:
What scale do these come out at?
Compared to something like Studio miniatures or Hasslefree minis if anyone knows.

I’ve got like a sci fi bulldog fella from HF with a rifle that would be a cool race to add In to a group for Stargrave..

I have the bulldog too! He's going to be short compared to humans anyway.

The Frostgrave soldiers are a bit chunkier than Hasslefree, but otherwise fine height-wise. You can actually make good "tech raiders" by using Frostgrave bodies with Skitarii arms and heads.

Clearly I've not seen the Stargrave plastics yet, but it would be a missed opportunity if they didn't allow the sets to mix with the Frostgrave plastics.

The Rogue Stars sculpts that North Star makes also fit in well with whatever passes for "28mm heroic" these days (bigger and chunkier than historical plastics, smaller than modern GW)

Yeah that’s what I thought that he’ll be good as long as he looks the right size scale wise (and yeah he’s more dwarf height or whatever).
But I’ve found a lot of minis I have seem to be around 4/5 different scales now in the 28mm game.
There’s sort of 28 and 32, and both have normal heads and then heroic scale larger etc.

For both fantasy and sci fi, I’ve got Black Scorpion, Hasslefree, Westfalia, Studio Miniatures, Westwind and Reaper Bones and all won’t work together I’m sure. I’d love to at least get like an even grouping of each, or easily know what ranges fit together for when I buy things (or not if no good etc).

Not including Hero Forge, Mantic and GW which all seem bigger but similar to each other. And is Titan Forge more GW size. Haven’t got any yet, but it looks it.

Cool. Thanks for the link. Preorder ahoy.