Christmas Stargrave: How to catch a satellite

We played some more Stargrave during the festive period. This time we used a homebrew scenario called Starfall which you can read here. 

The mission for the crews was to get into position to loot a satellite which was in a fast degrading orbit around a jungle planet. I was reminded of the intense media speculation surrounding the re-entry of Skylab back in July 1979, which sadly I'm old enough to recall distinctly watching on TV as a child.

I added another hold rat to my crew because I felt these fast movers would interfere with any schemes my Eldar corsair opponents had (I was sadly deluded in this respect). I also hired Arnold, a power-armoured heavy whom I thought might be able to assist by drawing more fire (very successfully, it turned out). You have to pay an additional 50cr premium for power armour per mission, so he is not a cheap choice.

Above: A view of the abandoned launch station where we knew the satellite would crash - just not precisely where. New jungle terrain acquired from veteran wargamer John Sutherland plus some new sci fi ruins painstakingly put together. Watch tower scratch built by my son during the pandemic, who now ironically plays with real satellites!

This is actually quite a fun mission, and I'd encourage you to play it if you are a Stargrave addict. We ended up trying to guess where the satellite would crash. Once it became obvious, I tried to get my drone under it to earn extra XP as outlined in the mission. The drone proved too fragile to do much more than that, however. A delicate drone at the impact point of a satellite crashing out of was very unlikely to survive.

Above: The satellite has crashed, creating a crater. Both crews are closing in - you can see my hold rats trying to molest the Eldar on the left, with limited success. Blue disk is smoke from a grenade. Two of my crew are sneaking in from the right under cover of the smoke. Eldar captain is bottom left, cowering in the undergrowth.

With the satellite down, it became a battle to see who could get to it first. Once again, I took losses from long range grenade attacks from the Eldar. I was able, however, to deploy smoke grenades which are pretty handy when you have crew trying to sneak up to a crater without getting shot. Arnold managed to retrieve the data from the satellite's core, before he was wounded and unable to carry on.

Above: Crash site seen from the perspective of my crew, first mate Yang on the left, and Captain Dread (with force shield up) in the centre. Arnold - in the red power armour - has gone in to try to retrieve the data. You have to imagine high volumes of Eldar fire crossing the clearing.

I found my efforts to hack the Eldar robots again met with mixed success, but this time I finally managed to get one of them to change sides at a crucial moment. I was quickly running out of crew however. With a ferox also now on the battlefield in my rear (as ever), it was time to get the data away, using my drone to return it to my ship. The rest of my crew, however, was already down and out, either dead, wounded or concussed. Captain Dread ended up with a broken jaw. A costly victory.

Above: Towards the end of the game - Arnold moved the data (green counter) to the edge of the blast shield before he was cut down by the Eldar. Two robots were sent in to retrieve it - you can see them in orange at the top of the picture. One of them was successfully hacked by Yang. 

It was a very close fought mission this time, unlike the previous slaughter. The scenario was excellent. We will be hopefully playing some further Stargrave missions this year as the opportunity presents itself. I will be working on one of my own too. Stay tuned for further galactic skirmish action!