Stargrave announcement.

[Commander Roj]

Joe's blog has a new post about Stargrave - very interesting that there will be a unique game mechanic that didn't appear in Frostgrave / Ghost Archipelago:

http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com/2021/01/stargrave-preparing-pirates.html

I don't know if the pic in the post is official artwork (seems likely) but if it is, and the pirates in the pic are any indication of what the Northstar figures will look like, then I'm very excited as I really love the near-future look:



I can't wait for Nick to show some figure previews...(hint-not-so-subtle-hint)...

“No capes darling...Remember Thunderhead? Strato Girl?”

[Mr. White]

I think I like the idea of the local empire/law-enforcement showing up rather than pirates. I guess I thought maybe the players' gangs where the pirates/smugglers? Maybe I don't fully understand the fluff yet.

[Jagannath]

I think I understood it as the Pirates have become de-facto the 'law' (i.e the big boys) and the players are lower level smuggler/raiders, working around the margins. Assuming in the spirit of Frostgrave they Pirates could very easily be switched for law type models

[mellis1644]

Yeah interesting about the pirate thing... Seems like a weirdly specific concept. I would have thought making it just 'the powers that be' would have been easier but that makes for a generic setting.

Lets be honest most space opera backgrounds have multiple of these powers - depending upon the location. So I assume it could be he Empire/Terran Federation/40k planet based Enforcers in that setting, as well as local criminal warlord etc. At heart it is easy for us to change that from Pirates to whatever works for the background we want.

It seems a lot of us modified Frostgrave's setting anyway to allow elves/dwarves etc. models so I don't see this as a major issue. 

[Historiker]

I have to admit that I also did not think of "pirates" when thinking about the function they do have to the game but apart from the right of any artist / author to design his universe / product as he likes, I also think that exchanging pirates for "the Empire", "The Imperium", "The Alliance", "The Arbites", "The Judges" you name it will be easy to do and nothing to keep oneself from enjoying the ruleset.

I am instead waiting for more info about the hardware side (miniatures) and crunchy software (rules, items etc) of the product though before I decide whether this is something for me 

[Hupp n at em]

They seem to be Pirates only in the sense that they're not settled down i.e. fleet based, and they're lawless looters.  They're supposed to be ex-military and so I think rather than our traditional concept of space pirates or pirates, they're probably closer to mercenaries or warlords ala 20's China or Somalia/Afghanistan/failed state, just mobile.

[MikeRC97]

They seem to be Pirates only in the sense that they're not settled down i.e. fleet based, and they're lawless looters.  They're supposed to be ex-military and so I think rather than our traditional concept of space pirates or pirates, they're probably closer to mercenaries or warlords ala 20's China or Somalia/Afghanistan/failed state, just mobile.

They board your space freighter and tell you “I’m the captain now.”

[mellis1644]

It will be interesting if there is a 'noise' mechanism to increase the likelihood of intervention.

i.e. Use Lazers/bolters and heavy weapons use makes it more likely they will appear sooner. Keep it a knife fight/low engergy tools etc and it make take longer for the powers to respond. This would models monitoring of the location for interesting activity/having people report it so they get a reward. 

It would be easy to have an excuse why they don't just 'transport' the combatants out (if that exists) - say that the transporter tech get messed up/fail with movement and weapons fire. Meaning the power that be have to send enforcement to sort out issues.

I can see some interesting scenario's from this.

[joe5mc]

As others have mentioned 'the pirates' or the 'pirate fleets' are just the most powerful groups in galaxy that has lost any kind of central authority. They basically roam around making sure no one else is messing with their turf.  That said, they are very loosely defined, and it would be extremely easy to replace them with a Galactic Empire or whatever.

[Tokhuah]

That is good to know.  I am considering a massive Necron army as the background models representing the controlling entity.  It might be fun to still play them as if they were porgrammed to act like pirates rather than cyborgs without personality.

[Skrapwelder]

Seems very reminiscent of H. Beam Piper's Space Vikings. Looking forward to it.

[MikeRC97]

First pic of figures from one of three (!) plastic sets on Joe's blog:



These are the "crew" figures which probably explains why the look less like future military and more like a sci-fi version of the Ghost Archipelago crewmen.

[Earther]

Oh, yes! 

[Daeothar]

Awesome 

The guy in blue/grey with the rifle has a definite Rogue Trader Imperial Army look to him! 

[Juan]

Hmmm... not very interesting, in my opinion.