Stargrave: How to get crushed by the game's AI

I could blame it on very poor dice rolling, but I could also blame it on a very hostile environment for my poor crew, which got absolutely whupped at Stragrave last week. This was probably my biggest whupping since I started playing Frostgrave to be honest. I only managed to avert complete annihilation by taking my surviving crew off the board, leaving my opponent to face the music.

We played the Data Vault mission from the core rules, as I hit on the idea of using blank dominoes as the 25 data vaults you need to play it. There was also a chance to use my new(ish) space station battle mat. The dice, however, turned against me, rapidly.

The data vault at the start of the game - ready to be plundered, but security is on the way!

First off, neither my captain nor his first mate were seemingly able to activate any of their powers, for at least four turns. My rolling was appalling. My primary codebreaker, Bekkin, spent almost the entire game battling the opposing Eldar mate for control of one piece of data at the centre of the vault, moving it around, but neither of them ultimately being able to get it to somewhere where an ally could download it.

My captain, Gaspar Dread, then got hit on a critical and spent the rest of the mission badly wounded, until he was finally finished off. My mate, who I cleverly deployed into a tower with a good view of the vault, should have been able to wreak havoc with his control robot power, as the Eldar were using at least three robots, but sadly never got it work without using an enormous amount of strain near the end of the game.

Meanwhile, the Eldar crew were rolling 20s like it was going out of fashion.

Above: The Eldar mate spent most of the game tinkering with the LAN.

The worst bit though was that it was the environment that was inflicting more losses on me than the Eldar. We used the unwanted attention rules, which worked really well, although too well for me. We had our own table to generate encounters, which were a mix between bounty hunters and local security (Judges with pirate trooper stats). Sadly all the unwanted attention came from my end of the field, wreaking havoc on my crew, and eventually forcing them off the mission entirely.

I should also add that I lost my medic to one of the data vaults, which electrocuted her.

Above: Captain Gaspar Dread got hosed early on with a critical hit. Too adventurous by far!

I ended the mission with 140 xp and no cash to show for it, arguably my worst showing in Stargrave to date. I lost one of my hold rats, a sentry and a chiseler - ALL killed outright, and my medic Carla Zane and another Genestealer hybrid were both badly wounded (50% health on the next mission).

I think I will likely find another hold rat in the bilges of the ship, and hire someone a bit more interesting to replace Karshak. I may require more heavy artillery.

BREAKING NEWS: It turns out the Eldar had an additional crewmember too many, so I'm being awarded a bonus data loot counter as compensation. Next time I'm counting!