My first Stargrave game (using repurposed RT figures)

[Desert Scribe]

We recently had our first face-to-face minis game in a long time, and we played Stargrave on a six by four table.


I dusted off my old Warhammer 40K figures from the late '80s for my crew; most of them with their original paint jobs.


My minis did not look out of place (scale-wise) next to some of the official Stargrave figures from Northstar.


Anyway, you can see some more photos here on my blog post.

[Seal]

Awesome!! Looks great!

[Storm Wolf]

Nice going all of you, what did you think of the rules?

Glen

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Looking good.  RT-era sculpts should be about right next to the Frostgrave plastics.  The modern GW stuff has suffered 35 years of scale creep and looks pretty silly unless you're looking for guys in power armor or aliens.

One silver lining to bounty hunters, at least they only take out one model before calling it a day.  Way better than having a pirate shock trooper show up.

[Storm Wolf]

Looking good.  RT-era sculpts should be about right next to the Frostgrave plastics.  The modern GW stuff has suffered 35 years of scale creep and looks pretty silly unless you're looking for guys in power armor or aliens.

One silver lining to bounty hunters, at least they only take out one model before calling it a day.  Way better than having a pirate shock trooper show up.

Couldn't agree more, however, I have found that the new Necro Orlocks are pretty close in size to the Stargrave plastics and old copplestone etc. From 3 feet no real difference, at least to me

Glen

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Couldn't agree more, however, I have found that the new Necro Orlocks are pretty close in size to the Stargrave plastics and old copplestone etc. From 3 feet no real difference, at least to me

Glen

I should probably have excluded Necromunda.  For reasons I don't understand the current plastics for them seem to be sticking to something very close to actual 28mm scale, maybe even a little under that.  I think the some of the new Orlocks may even be a bit smaller than the original ones. 

Good range to tap for Stargrave too.  I've done a couple of solo games using my pool of van Saar gangers, who mostly have a nice "generic scifi" look to them.

[Desert Scribe]

Nice going all of you, what did you think of the rules?

Thanks, Glen. We're all longtime Frostgrave players, so we were fine with the rules. However, we did find the grenade launcher somewhat overpowered, as it can shoot over buildings with just the -1 modifier.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Thanks, Glen. We're all longtime Frostgrave players, so we were fine with the rules. However, we did find the grenade launcher somewhat overpowered, as it can shoot over buildings with just the -1 modifier.

There's been a lot of discussion about toning down grenade launchers since the game came out, with an absolute slew of ideas for mods.  I'm not sold on them really needing enormous nerfs (if you stay spread out they lose a lot of effect, but of course that isn't always viable and it's kind of directly opposite to what you usually want to do in Frostgrave, etc) but my preferred idea for dialing them down is:

When a model that isn't currently stunned is caught within any AoE shooting attack (grenades, flamethrowers, the psionic fire power, etc) it may opt to voluntarily "dive for cover" and become stunned, receiving the +2 Fight bonus to avoid the shot.  The figure is laid down in place immediately and recovers from its self-imposed stun as normal.

If you find that still doesn't suit you, you could increase the "target stunned" bonus against template weapons (or maybe just grenades) to +3 or even +4 Fight, but that might be too extreme.  Grenades are supposed to be dangerous, after all.  They trade the range and potential damage bonus of the rapid fire weapon and the massive area of effect and huge effective damage of the flamethrower for a modest AoE and indirect fire.  And of course there's also the scatters to worry about, because friendly fire isn't.

[Storm Wolf]

I also found hand-lobbed grenades to be one of the best weapons, let alone using a launcher. But if you think about it they are.

Hand grenades are still in use after what 200 years, must be good, otherwise they wouldn`t still be?

Instead of nerfing the grenade double the captain and 1st mates control radius to 6"  this would mean more spread out troops and a more realistic modern/sci-fi command and control.

Glen

[Desert Scribe]

Those are all good suggestions. I've only played the one game, but my idea is that if you're shooting (EDIT: with a grenade launcher) over an obstacle taller than the figure, then (in order to simulate the arc of the projectile) the target must be at least as far past the obstacle as the shooter is in front the obstacle.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Those are all good suggestions. I've only played the one game, but my idea is that if you're shooting (EDIT: with a grenade launcher) over an obstacle taller than the figure, then (in order to simulate the arc of the projectile) the target must be at least as far past the obstacle as the shooter is in front the obstacle.

I've seen dozens of ideas for modeling blind spots behind terrain, realistic arcs of fire, and similar issues and they all fall flat for me on the basis of "grenade launcher" being a really generic term that's being used a shorthand.  Look at the descriptions of what McCullough thinks a knife or hand weapon can be before you take things too literally.     

This is a scifi setting, or perhaps science fantasy (given the near-jedi/sith elements) and your "grenade launcher" might be a lot of things.  It might be a Viet Nam style M79 blooper, sure.  But it might be a smartbomb launcher whose munitions are self-guiding in flight, a hive bioweapon that chucks explosive short-lived pseudo-insects who detonate in a miasma of acidic fog at the end of their flight, or a weapon that teleports its warheads to a map coordinate.  And that's just a few possibilities.  It might not even be a launcher at all, just a bandolier or pack full of fancier, bulkier, deployable microdrones that can deploy on command. 

Mechanically it shoots a target point within 16" without needing line of sight and affects an area of the table.  Reading beyond that seems needlessly limiting. 
Treating these things like a real-world weapon is way too limiting in a game that encourages using any fig you want and using your imagination. 

[Desert Scribe]

I've seen dozens of ideas for modeling blind spots behind terrain, realistic arcs of fire, and similar issues and they all fall flat for me on the basis of "grenade launcher" being a really generic term that's being used a shorthand.  Look at the descriptions of what McCullough thinks a knife or hand weapon can be before you take things too literally.     

This is a scifi setting, or perhaps science fantasy (given the near-jedi/sith elements) and your "grenade launcher" might be a lot of things.  It might be a Viet Nam style M79 blooper, sure.  But it might be a smartbomb launcher whose munitions are self-guiding in flight, a hive bioweapon that chucks explosive short-lived pseudo-insects who detonate in a miasma of acidic fog at the end of their flight, or a weapon that teleports its warheads to a map coordinate.  And that's just a few possibilities.  It might not even be a launcher at all, just a bandolier or pack full of fancier, bulkier, deployable microdrones that can deploy on command. 

Mechanically it shoots a target point within 16" without needing line of sight and affects an area of the table.  Reading beyond that seems needlessly limiting. 
Treating these things like a real-world weapon is way too limiting in a game that encourages using any fig you want and using your imagination.

These are all very good points. It looks like I just need to adjust my headcanon and remember the MST3K mantra.

[gregmita]

There are a few other GW ranges where that's true. For example, the original plastic genestealer cultist neophytes, or the chaos cultists from older plastic starter sets like Dark Vengeance (but not Blackstone Fortress and other newer sets).

Couldn't agree more, however, I have found that the new Necro Orlocks are pretty close in size to the Stargrave plastics and old copplestone etc. From 3 feet no real difference, at least to me

Glen

[Chief Lackey Rich]

These are all very good points. It looks like I just need to adjust my headcanon and remember the MST3K mantra.

If you want just a touch more realism, one idea I've seen is to cut a length of string to match the range (6" or 16") and lay that out over terrain to show something closer to the real distance to your target point for indirect fire.  Even smart munitions and explosive biotech death beetles probably need to account for longer distances travelled (although I suppose it still shafts any hypothetical teleporter guns  ) and the string technique has the advantage of being really easy to execute during play.  Doesn't really account for height advantage but it's close enough for a game where the movement-to-shooting-range ratio is already not very realistic.  Like you said, MST3K rules apply to games as well as films.

The string thing comes from old historical rules, or at least that's where I first saw it.