Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Topic started by: Battle Brush Sigur on May 30, 2025, 12:58:48 AM
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Heyhey, took me a week, but here's my review (with accompanying battle report) of Rogue Stars, the sci-fi skirmish game by Andea Sfiligoi that's as close to a role-playing game as a skirmish game can get!
https://tabletopstories.net/language/en/2025/05/rogue-stars-review-and-battle-report/ (https://tabletopstories.net/language/en/2025/05/rogue-stars-review-and-battle-report/)
(https://tabletopstories.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/9781472810779.jpg)
The article features a lot of words; I hope it's halfway comprehensible and I get the points I want to make across. It also features rock stars, silly references to things, cyber-dogs, snipers from the bushes and much more! As usual, the article is available in German and in English, so you can even use it to learn a new language or point out differences in the different language versions! It's fun! ;)
(https://www.tabletopwelt.de/uploads/monthly_2025_05/IMG_9520.JPG.45103dd0c4ea1441a1d88371f2d055b8.JPG)
Hope you like the article!
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Nicely done; is this a light version of Necromunda?
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Nicely done; is this a light version of Necromunda?
Cheers! I think it's more like a slightly lighter version of Inquisitor. Fewer figures, body hit locations, stuff like that. It kinda feels like playing the big action scene in your sci-fi role-play or sci-fi tv show. :)
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Cheers! I think it's more like a slightly lighter version of Inquisitor. Fewer figures, body hit locations, stuff like that. It kinda feels like playing the big action scene in your sci-fi role-play or sci-fi tv show. :)
Oh, that’s even cooler, I think. Inquisitor was a game that was brilliant in rules, and failed because of the massive minis. Definitely will be grabbing this rules set then!
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I've had the game for about 8 years now - it suffered a little, I think, with Stargrave coming out not too long afterwards. But it is a very nice game with a lot of options to it.
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@HerbertTarkel: Yeah, it certainly was an ambitious thing, probably very much a labour of love thing too. I got the rulebook, but never played it. Nowadays with all these imperial agents and such available it's probably easier than ever to play Inquisitor in 28mm (or whatever size GW figures are now, but back in the day Inq28 was a thing IIRC :P )
@Rick: Probably, yeah. I assume that Stargrave plays somewhat like Frostgrave (or Rangers of Shadowdeep)? If so, it's a bit simpler and also more predictable than Rogue Stars, right?
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Stargrave plays more like Frostgrave than Rangers, but yes, essentially the same, although I probably wouldn't quite use the word 'predictable' about them!. Stargrave is more accessible and slightly easier to use as a pickup game - Rogue Stars needs about half the figures but does need a bit more work to set up and work through the rules. Interestingly, both games use d20's but Stargrave is a simpler game so probably appealed more to the 'beer & pretzels' gamers! lol
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I've flipped through my copy of Rogue Stars many times in the years since it came out, and I'm always left with the impression that there's a game somewhere in that block of marble, if you just carve it out.
I've been much, much happier with Stargrave and Five Parsecs from Home, in comparison. Personal tastes, but I also feel that Rogue Stars suffers from being a bunch of great ideas, but no guidance on how to actually use them.
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I was very excited when Rogue Stars was released - I was already an admirer of Song of Blades and Heroes by the same author and my kid enjoyed playing SoBH too. We played one game of Rogue Stars and at the end my kid said something like, “that took SO long! It took us an hour and a half to play a two minute movie scene.”
The problem for us was that where SoBH used a fairly elegant set of core rules and resolves actions with a couple of rolls and lets your imagination fill in the details, Rogue Stars uses a long procedure with a bunch of rolls to tell you what happens. It’s a very “crunchy” game but it takes a lot of involvement. I also didn’t love the shift to D20s. The spread of numbers is wider than with D6es, but in practice I feel that it just added fiddliness and slowed the game down.
That’s also an issue for me regarding what Hobgoblin and others call “time to table”. Rogue Stars needs a lot of time to define characteristics of each figure (armour in each location, etc), and there are no generic pre-made characters available. Contrast with SoBH, where a figure has a couple (literally two) characteristics and a few special abilities and it’s ready for the game. And the core book has dozens of pre-made profiles… Maybe I’m just lazy (it wouldn’t be the first time someone said that) but that level of pre-game effort didn’t grab me. I started thinking of Rogue Stars as “Homework- the Miniatures Game”.
I would go with Flying Lead, the modern period version of SoBH, and re-skin it for sci-fi, rather than use Rogue Stars.
One caveat - I do like the mission generator in Rogue Stars. I occasionally use it for other games to give me ideas for scenarios. As others have said, there are some interesting ideas.
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That was an excellent rules introduction and explanation. I enjoyed the battle report, too. I think that after reading your blog post I have a good feel for the game. If my Space Weirdos experiment doesn't work out, maybe I will try this one...
Mike Demana
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@Rick: Thanks for the info! I very much agree with Stargrave probably being much more easy for pick-up games. With Frost-/Stargrave (and likewise Rangers of Shadowdeep, which uses a similar system in terms of character levelling IIRC) I have a very basic and admittedly weird problem that's much more of a 'me-problem' I assume than one of the system: If I remember correctly, just one character levels up in these games, the henchmen, are disposable tools. Which never sat right with me.
@Psychopomp: Yeah, I can see that. I have yet to try Parsecs; I hear good things about it. Rogue Stars certainly is ambitious, and the lack of guidance might be down to that very strict 64-page-corset. Having 2 fewer page-filling illustrations and maybe some examples instead may have helped with it.
@Pattus Magnus: Your kid's summary is pretty apt there. Just as you say, to me SoBH (me preferring the Advanced version, which bascially is the same, just with reactions added and slightly more complex magic rules) may be one of THE most elegant wargames rules in existance. It's so fast, it's so interactive, it's breezy. To me Rogue Stars seems like a take on the whole concept which turns it into a pen&paper RPG. The vast amount of options might be due to this, the ambition to provide a way to model a TON of things and the genre/setting, which usually has all the basic combat stuff, the magic (psychics) AND a ton of different weapons, armour and equipment on top of that. Always been a tough thing to handle for say Shadowrun as opposed to say Dungeons&Dragons. :) Flying Lead is perfectly fine of course; it was among my first rules reviews ever in 2011/12. I think that there is a place for Rogue Stars, with people who like to put in the work and put the characters together and all, and certainly I think it can shine with campaign play. Granted, I'm not a big writer of army lists either, but for 'heroic' sci-fi gaming I think I'd probably veer towards Rogue Stars right now rather than Flying Lead. That I'd use for larger figure counts. For fantasy skirmishing (A)SoBH of course still would be my weapon of choice.
@mikedemana: Thanks very much; it certainly is wordy, but I prefer to do that over not giving an insight into how the rules work (approximately) or where they place their focus. I heard good things about Space Weirdos too; have Modiphius bought that as well by now? I vaguely remember reading that, but might be wrong.
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Of course it also does depend on where you game - I do some wargaming at home and some at clubs - I tend to go for simpler rule sets at the wargaming clubs where having a fun time and wrapping it up before closing time (whilst getting the beers in) is paramount, but prefer a bit more crunch at home where I might have the time to prepare and sort out a more involved game.
Cheers!
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have Modiphius bought that as well by now? I vaguely remember reading that, but might be wrong.
Not to my knowledge...but I am not always up on the news. Hard enough to keep up with the threads on Lead Adventure Forum! :D
Mike Demana
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I also have done a review of this game. <Shocked pikachu face>
My main take-aways were:
1. Great mission generation system and good for many a sci-fi skirmish game
2. Interesting initiative system to keep activations interesting
3. Too much tracking of stuff and mods
4. Hard to make a team with a lot of If This/Then That special rules.
However, that was a long time ago. If you are interested in my take Sigur it is here:
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2017/02/review-rogue-stars-osprey-wargame-series.html
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We tried it once or twice as well. I liked the ideas behind it and the interesting stress mechanic, but overall it was a bit too clunky so away it went again.
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Boy, that's one I haven't thought about in ages. Nice to see it getting some blog space and discussion again.
Quite liked it when it was new but the lack of ongoing support and competition with Stargrave definitely did it no favors, and when the locals drifted off to shiny new things I just sort of shelved it and didn't look back. Shame, because in most ways it's a much better fit for my tastes than Stargrave. Only scifi skirmish rules I can think of that compare when it comes to design-your-own crews and characters would be Four Color Figures' Void Pirates and Blasters and Bulkheads, or the aforementioned Inquisitor (which, obviously, plays fine in 28mm too - never understood the wonky embggened figs being a sticking point).
I did a modest series of Rogue Stars blog posts myself back in 2018-ish, which should all be here if I tagged everything correctly:
https://brokenstarsburningships.blogspot.com/search/label/Rogue%20Stars (https://brokenstarsburningships.blogspot.com/search/label/Rogue%20Stars)
Mostly just sample crews using random figs I had on hand. IIRC the psionic alien team got "illegalized" by errata to Gestalt, but frankly I didn't think much of that change anyway and who's ever going to play an official tourney of Rogue Stars at this point?
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I played it several times when it came out.
My takes on it were:-
Good initiative ideas e.g. shoot, run forward, get into some cover & recover.
Too many rules for designing teams, & when I took the time & effort to do that for other players,
no one could remember all the traits. :o
In short, a great game if each player raises ONLY ONE team, & uses it a LOT.
Then games would get quicker & traits would be remembered.
I however, want to raise LOTS of teams & keep changing which I play with, so...
gave away my copy of Rogue Stars & use Galactic Heroes a LOT. :D
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Rogue Trooper?
I got what you meant but that's a slip-up and a half! lol
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Rogue Trooper?
I got what you meant but that's a slip-up and a half! lol/quote]
Ooops! Now corrected. :)