Stargrave: The Enemy Within

This year we have resolved to try to play a tabletop miniatures game of some kind every month. Painfully aware that it was the last week of February, we finally managed to get our first game away. This was Stargrave, one of our go to games and one we still continue to enjoy immensely. Kelvin is writing original scenarios for the game, so we chose one of his missions, The Enemy Within.

We played at the Dice Saloon in Brighton again. I had all my crew from our last mission, which was quite some time ago. Enemy Within starts off as a normal mission for the crew, but there is a risk that one - or more - of your crew is actually an alien shape changer.

Kelvin provides a number of options for players in his scenario. We decided in advance there would be an unlimited number of shape changers on each side, and that we would choose those crew replaced in the course of the game, rather than secretly decide in advance (or randomly). I think this made things more dramatic in the end.

This time around my mate and my captain got separated from the rest of the crew fairly early on (I forgot my captain was hampered by a broken jaw, so could only command two soldiers, not three). I put two of my genestealer hybrid runners up on the gantry as I felt this would give them a commanding position. Plus, one of the physical objectives was on top of a large storage tank, which I was hoping they could get to.

Two hybrids scoot along the gantry, gunslinger Tarko Three Arms is crouching underneath. You can see a tank with a physical objective in the background.

This was not to be, however, as the Eldar started lobbing grenades at the exposed hybrids, taking one out. The other climbed down off the gantry to try to get to the central loot counter, but was also hit and removed from the game before he could escape with it.

The Eldar captured a physical loot token early on, but their captain decided to stick around rather than escape with the loot, giving it to one of his minions instead. This proved to be an error, as he was subsequently hit and taken out by my eagle-eyed gunman Tarko Three Arms, who earned his crust on this mission. My medic, Carla Zane, successfully retrieved and escaped with some data loot.

View of the battlefield at the start of the game shows the towers and gantry, plus the odd alien mushroom trees.

The Eldar managed to get two grenadiers up on a tower overlooking the battlefield. This is a favourite tactic of Kelvin's allowing him to rain grenades down on my crew relentlessly all game long. Luckily for me, a wandering monster check resulted in a ferrox turning up on his side of the table (these rolls usually work against me), which proceeded to stalk and kill one of his grenadiers. The other grenadier managed to kill it in a melee.

Above: Ferrox climbs up on the tower to nibble on some Eldar...

In the centre my captain ran for the physical loot in the middle of the table. This exposed him to some heavy enemy fire and sadly the hybrids on the gantry were too busy gunning for the Eldar captain to give Captain Dread the covering fire he needed. He managed to unlock the crate before he was taken out too. I tried to retrieve it with my chiseller, but he was killed outright trying to get to it.

The Eldar mate with some of his robots creeps through the abandoned factory area.

On the other side of the battlefield, my crew was engaged in a shoot out with the Eldar first mate. This went on for most of the game, with neither side able to retrieve the data loot. My mate had managed to hack into one of the Eldar robots briefly before the Eldar mate cooked it with his flamethrower to avoid it turning against him. It was a contest the Eldar finally won by hosing down two of my crew, again with the flamethrower. This could become a problem for me in future missions. These are extremely dangerous weapons in Stargrave.

The other crew member, Angel, then turned out to be a shape changer and tried to hunt down my first mate, Kolioth Yang.

Kelvin kindly positioned one of the physical objective markers on top of a tank, making it tougher to reach.

Yang had decided to climb up onto the gantry himself, then jump across to the tower where some more physical loot (trade goods) was located. He spent quite some time fumbling around with it before he unlocked it and pushed it over the edge, climbing down the side of the tower to retrieve it. He then scurried away, dodging shots from the shape changer. Readers will be glad to know that the real Angel was subsequently found unharmed, tied up in the toilets of a bar of ill repute.

The shape changer that was Angel goes off in pursuit of Kolioth Yang, although it was too late - the mate had escaped to his ship.

The Eldar struggled to retrieve the central loot token I'd lost THREE crew trying to retrieve. As one of them picked it up, it turned out that he too was a shape changer! He decided to make a break for it with the loot, per the scenario rules, but the Eldar crew shot everything they had at him and eventually brought him down. This ended the game, but the Eldar failed to retrieve the loot, leading to a score draw(ish). Kelvin edged it on XP awards.

This was a fun game and it remains one of our favourites to play. I also enjoyed the scenario immensely and think it could be readily adapted for Frostgrave. While we thought we might reach the end of the game with no shape changers appearing, suddenly two revealed themselves, and we would have had a third, but I'd run out of soldiers. I hope we can return to our campaign again in the near future. We are also looking seriously at playing some Rangers of Shadowdeep by the same author.