Stargrave: the further adventures of Captain Dread

Our second game of Stargrave saw the crews descending on another luckless planet in search of loot. This time the scenario featured ruffians, who were guarding their loot and keen not to share it with anybody. There was also the prospect that more ruffians would be summoned if shooting started, which inevitably it would. To complicate things even further, the crews were also being zealously hunted by the Strontium Dogs, who were not going to give up so easily.

Captain Dread went with a three group spread as he entered the sleeping village. Going in at first light seemed to make sense. Backed up by his Genestealer Hybrids and a giant mutant hold rat, he felt ready for anything. He had also recruited a new medic to help with any wounds that might occur in the course of doing business. The hybrids took the left, with Dread going in the centre with the medic, and the hacker taking the right. First mate Yang followed the hybrids.

One ruffian was quickly surprised, with Dread finishing him off with his shotgun tout suite. He fetched out some physical loot while the rest of the village came to life as gunfire erupted and the Eldar corsairs descended from the opposite side of the settlement. Again, the Eldar grenade launchers were creating something of a nuisance!

Three hybrids tore off on the left to try to recover some data and physical loot but were quickly embroiled in a firefight with the Eldar first mate and his lads. This situation was further complicated by the arrival of not one, but two bounty hunters. Two hybrids went down, and despite the support of Yang, things were simply getting too hot out on the right.

The Eldar captain (L) leads his crew into the fray!

Note: in this game I discovered that you can actually exit with loot from ANY table edge, not just your baseline, which is not how I think we played it in the original Frostgrave games back in 2018-19.

Dread was sneaking off with some loot, but the Eldar were playing merry havoc with the situation on the right. One brave ruffian was holding off all comers trying to reach the physical loot he was guarding. The Eldar eventually killed him.

At about this point the hold rat unexpectedly got in among the Eldar robots and started doing some more serious damage to them. This was further complicated by the arrival of a second bounty hunter on the scene, and then a ruffian who appeared through a door behind the Eldar.

The moment when the rat decided to take a hand in things...

A firefight was also developing on the right, where my hacker, backed up by the medic, was facing off against one Eldar who was keeping them from retrieving a second piece of loot. An abandoned tractor was playing an important role in keeping Dread's crew from getting mowed down. You can't beat a spot of hard cover. 

Another ruffian appeared on the scene at this point, and almost fouled things up for me, but luckily the medic was, uncharacteristically, able to put him down and then execute him on the tarmac before he could get up again.

This side of the battle was helped by Dread who has the Command and Heal powers, which can be used at a distance. He was able to coordinate things from the baseline, while cowering behind a wall.

"I've got a lovely combine harvester, and I'll give you the key!"

It has been a while since we played this game, so my memory is a little rusty on the details. To my knowledge I retrieved two pieces of data, including a piece of 'advanced' military tech, namely a pistol belt. Woah! Hold the front page people. A pistol belt...the galaxy will soon be mine! I'm glad a I lost one of my hybrids for a pistol belt. Jeez.

Takeaways from this game? It's good to know you can leave the field by any edge. The medic can come in handy helping wounded and stunned crewmen. The giant rat, although not actually that good on paper, can really create some havoc.

Enter Johnny Alpha, stage right....

This is actually a nice little scenario, and I liked the mechanics used to deploy further ruffian reinforcements onto the table. We used old early 1990s Warhammer Imperial Guard for these, and it was good to see them getting an outing. Back on their respect starships, the crews heard a rumour about an abandoned factory, potentially full of advanced miltech. Who can resist that, eh?