Stargrave has its own lore and setting which is succinctly expanded on in notes and sidebars during character creation, but the look of the ravaged galaxy is largely down to how players choose to interpret it. Personally, it gives me a vibe of Firefly in the midst of a second Bronze Age Collapse, or the very early days of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. The universe is a big place, and how it looks is up to you.
Coming in April is a line of official Stargrave miniatures from North Star Military Figures, but like Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadow Deep, or Oathmark, players are free to use whatever miniatures they'd like in order to assemble their crew. The official miniatures look - at least to me - like spaceport ground crew from Star Wars, which serves as an interesting springboard to what you might otherwise like to use. For now, let's take a quick look at assembling a crew for Stargrave: What you'll need, some notes on character creation, and where you might find alternative miniatures if you'd like to get started painting ahead of release!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
Every crew in Stargrave starts at 10 miniatures. In-game you may have an ability which temporarily grants you an additional crew member - ordinarily a drone or similar - but all crews will start with 10 figures, and will always have at least 10 miniatures available at the start of a game. They consist of:
- Captain: The Captain is the leader of your crew. The most powerful figure in the crew, they represent you on the tabletop. They can choose from one of eight Backgrounds (more on that shortly) and have a selection of Powers to customize them.
- First Mate: The First Mate is next in line for promotion if some terrible fate should befall your Captain... They also choose a Background and a number of Powers, though they aren't quite as powerful or versatile as your Captain. They don't need to choose the same Background as your Captain, either, giving you access to a wider variety of Powers in your crew.
- Soldiers: The grunts, the mercs, the poor bloody infantry... Soldiers is a catch-all term for the dogsbodies that make up the bulk of your crew. Soldiers have no Powers, although each chooses a Class when hired which comes with a set of equipment and stat adjustments, making them distinct from one another. There are also a number of Specialist Soldiers, with either upgraded equipment or extremely rare and potent weaponry, and up to four of your crew can be Specialists (if you can afford them!). Finally, when hiring a Soldier you can choose to make them a Robot! Robots have a number of advantages in that they aren't susceptible to poisons or mind control, but there are disadvantages as well. Half your soldiers can be Robots. There are two Soldier classes - the Recruit and the Runner - which have no hire cost, meaning that if you need to cover losses or someone in Combat Armour doesn't show up to the battle (more on that shortly), you'll always have a full crew of ten available.
Rather than copy out the rulebook word for word - it's a thoroughly lovely hardback which belongs on your shelf, after all - here's a short list of the eight Backgrounds which your Captain and First Mate can choose from to give you some insight into how they might look on the table:
- Biomorph: Genetically engineered and enhanced, can look almost monstrous depending on their enhancements. Brutal in close combat, extremely hard to kill.
- Cyborg: Mechanically engineered and enhanced-... wait a second. Access to Powers which make them excellent ranged combatants, able to interfere with enemy Robots.
- Mystic: Cultists, monks, knights and weirder - barely-understood powers and technology that let them heal, deal damage or seize control of other warriors.
- Robotics Expert: Does what it says on the tin! Quick-footed and averagely tough, but capable of creating additional Robot crew, guiding them from afar and buffing allied Robots.
- Rogue: ...does what it says on the tin! The classic archetype with a space-themed flavour. Concealed firearms, bribery and other tricks; just what you'd expect from the name.
- Psionicist: Mind bullets! Psionicists are similar to Mystics, though with more battlefield control abilities. Character notes suggest they're ordinarily bald.
- Tekker: The mechanics of the ravaged galaxy. Tough and able to perform similar feats to the Psionicist, though more focused on breaking or creating technological barriers.
- Veteran: The soldiers of the Last War. Veterans are dangerous fighters whose Powers focus on aiding and enhancing the team around them, coordinating and commanding allies.
Remember that your Captain and First Mate needn't share an identical Background. One suggestion that springs to mind is getting miniatures for Han Solo and Chewbacca; a Rogue Captain and his Biomorph First Mate, anyone?
GEAR: WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT
The weapons list in Stargrave is surprisingly short. Ranged weaponry consists of Pistols, Carbines, Shotguns, Rapid Fires (gatling guns, multi-lasers, etc), Grenade Launchers and Flamethrowers. Close combat weapons are Knife and Hand Weapon... and that's it. This might seem a little light on detail at first glance, but in practice it's surprisingly elegant. At a glance you can tell what a Soldier is armed with, and it keeps the focus on maneuvering your miniatures for advantage on the battlefield rather than an endless ream of paper with weapon modifications.
Weapons can be upgraded with enhanced or 'alien technology' versions during campaign play, but these simply replace the version of the weapon your miniature is already carrying. If you need to upgrade a weapon on a miniature that's been in your crew for a dozen games, all you need to do is paint a couple of super stripes on it or make it a bit shinier - there's no hard and fast rules for what upgraded weaponry should look like, and you'll never need to take a hacksaw to your lovingly painted miniatures to give them some shiny new toy!
Armour is likewise a short list: Light, Heavy and Combat Armour. Combat Armour is a fully-enclosed powered suit which comes with a pistol and hand weapon built in, along with a filter mask which makes the wearer immune to gas and similar effects. Combat Armour requires an upkeep paid at the start of each battle otherwise it can't be fielded, meaning you'll temporarily need a Recruit or Runner Soldier to take its place in your crew. Captains and First Mates can be given Combat Armour at character creation, and Armoured Troopers are a Specialist Soldier choice - the most expensive to hire into your crew! Be wary of kitting out too many figures in Combat Armour.
Other classes like the Hacker and Chiseler (or Specialist versions, Codebreaker and Casecracker) will ordinarily want some tools of the trade on their miniatures. Computer decks or other high-tech gear will work for the former, while lockpicks or something similar can work on the latter classes - though you may choose to forego representing such tiny tools on a miniature! Likewise, Medics carry a Medic Kit which makes for an easy conversion to mark them out, and a Sniper might want a fancy-looking upgrade to their Carbine so it looks the part. Finally, when recruited to the crew, anyone which has a Carbine may instead swap it for a Shotgun at no cost. These have half the range of a Carbine, but do +1 Damage if they get the chance. A worthy consideration!
CHOOSING MINIATURES:
Now comes the fun part. Picking miniatures! As mentioned earlier, there are an official line on their way in April, but in the mean time there's nothing to stop you from picking up a couple you like the look of or even painting a whole crew with some miniatures you have to hand already. There's literally no right answer to this, but for my money, here's a few suggestions to get you started:
- Necromunda Gangs: With ten miniatures in a box, a bunch of customization choices and plenty of close combat choices with pistols and knives represented, these are actually a pretty much perfect starting point if you've got a specific look you'd like to achieve with a crew in a kind of uniform. My choice would be the Orlock Gang, owing to their slightly less formal appearance, but the tools and bits of gear they have hanging from their belts does make them look like they're always ready to hammer some part of a starship back into place. The Goliath and Cawdor Gangs might look a little too specific to Necromunda, but that's entirely up to you. The Van Saar or Enforcer teams could also work well as pirate forces for the Unwanted Attention table (and more on that later, too!). On a similar note...
- Genestealer Cultists: These guys have a slightly more alien appearance about them, but Stargrave makes fairly regular mention of alien species in the ravaged galaxy, as well as there being suitable heads in the Stargrave line of miniatures. The one downside to the Neophyte Hybrids box is that you might find you're short on pistols and knives, if memory serves, but for bodies and general equipment it's an excellent source of awesome-looking miniatures with a weird, dangerous appearance.
- Anvil Industry: With an absolutely enormous range of modular parts for just about any miniature project you can imagine, Anvil Industry would be my first choice for something 'outside the box' when it comes to sourcing parts for a project like Stargrave. The 'Boilersuit Renegades' line would be where I'd start looking for starship crew bodies, but there's nothing to say you can't mix and match as you like, and with the inclusion of the STL file packs available as part of their Digital Forge, if you have a 3D printer you can get assembling straight away! Because I'm cheeky, that link to Anvil is my affiliate link; if you click that and make any purchases through their site, I'll get a wee commission off the top. That being said, I carry on pimping their gear because I love what they do! Speaking of miniatures I love, there's also...
- Bad Squiddo Games: With a tagline of 'believable female miniatures,' Bad Squiddo has a line called Ghosts of Gaia which - though marketed as post-apocalyptic warriors - would work famously as a crew for Stargrave. I should know; I bought almost all of them with just that in mind! Their weird, ramshackle aesthetic works really well for a crew keeping their gear together with spit and wishes, and there's no worry about how many pistols or such you'll need as you can just grab the figures you're recruiting into your crew, after all.
- Copplestone Castings: Interestingly enough, a handful of the Rogue Stars line of sci-fi adventurers from Copplestone Castings are actually featured in photos in the Stargrave rulebook. They fall under the North Star line as well, so though they aren't technically for Stargrave, you might still consider them as 'official' if you're a purist. They're also wonderfully characterful miniatures! As well as Copplestone Castings, there's another source from the North Star family you ought to check out...
- Artizan Designs: Seriously, visit Artizan Designs and check out the Victorian Science Fiction section of their online store. You won't regret it. If your vision of the ravaged galaxy features adventurers in pith helmets and starpunk ray guns, you're in for a treat.
- 15mm Miniatures: Not a single supplier, but something to consider. Why not play games with smaller figures? The ranges and rules will all work perfectly well if you're using figures from Ground Zero Games or Ral Partha; you'll need to do a little Google-fu if you're keen to dive deep into this side of sci-fi wargaming, but if you'd like to try your hand at playing Stargrave with a smaller footprint (that also needs less storage space!) then consider trying 15mm miniatures!
UNWANTED ATTENTION:
Finally, there exists at the back of the book a table named Unwanted Attention. As games between two players go on and the turn counter starts to tick ever higher, the chances of attracting the eye of the pirates in your area start to rise dramatically... Unwanted Attention is handled by a simple decision matrix where wandering creatures, ruffians or even pirate troopers are handled as a 'third player' keen to ruin your carefully laid strategies! I'll spare you the complete table, since it is included as an optional rule which players should agree to before a game, but it couldn't hurt to consider painting up, say...
- 1-3 Ruffians: Scruffy troublemakers with pistols looking to make a quick credit off the fallen.
- 2-3 Pirate Troopers: Carbine-toting foot soldiers of the pirate fleets, dressed appropriately to how you imagine. Consider that even the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars has a whole range of uniforms!
- 2 Pirate Shock Troopers: If you're unlucky - or just tarry too long in one skirmish - the fearsome Shock Troopers might make an appearance. Pirates carrying Carbines and wearing full Combat Armour! The very best of the absolute worst come to ruin your day...
Hopefully all this goes some way to answering a few questions about Stargrave and what you'll need to consider if you're getting started, or want to get in ahead of the curve before the book is released! Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to shake up a bottle of resin and warm up the 3D printer...
