Sunday, September 7, 2025

Stargrave The Lost Prospector - Mine Mayhem

Today,4 of us played the Mine Mayhem scenario of the Lost Prospector.

 


Atop the platform, there were 2 tunnel entrances per side. Stairs/Ladders were located in each corner. As an adjustment I stated that the plaform was 4" high, so that those leaping/falling would indeed take damage. As I didn't have a tracked Excavator, we used this wheeled one. One of the adjustments was using a D8 +2" for movment & direction (determined by the point of the d8.

 


As well, if the Excavator struck one of the side platforms, it would cave in one of the tunnels on that side. As well, it would automatically turn 180 degrees & move the D8+2" next turn

 


Another adjustment was..what do the miners do? We decided that they would move to unlock loot & then attempt to get away with it. Also their main goal was to escape & they would fight back against anyone shooting at them.

 


Dan's gang.

 


Craig's gang.

 


Chen's gang.

 


Another thing I changed, was that any item struck by the Excavator is destroyed & removed from the table.

 


I also made rules for Walls of Force. Should the Excavator slam into one, it would stop & the rules for it stopping would apply, but it would weaken the shield by 5 points. Thus the first time it was struck, it would only need a 15+ to destroy, 2 Hits > 10+, 3 Hits > 5+. We only had 2 Walls of Force, which were never impacted by the Excavator.

 


Both Dan's & my Captains clambered atop the Excavator. The following turn, Dan took out my Captain. He was then struck by numerous hits by my gang & got knocked off.

 


The Excavator continued to wreak havoc on my crew,


first hitting my Sniper...

  


I eventually managed to get one of my Engineers on the Excavator & unlocked the loot token. My MG armed trooper for slammed, but survived.

 


With that, the gangs drifted away up the tunnels & back to their ships. Now we prepare for our final scenario of the campaign. Thanks for those who came out.


Friday, September 5, 2025

Nam 68 at EWG

 Tuesday night saw 4 of us play Nam 68, hosted by George.

 


I played the VC force. Bruce, Chen & Rudy ran the US fire teams, while George ran the game for us. He had determined the forces prior from the drawing of cards.

 


The US forces were doing a sweep of a village, looking for VC weapon caches. the red dice were the deployment distance for my VC troops. The Green dice were where the first fire-team of the US forces started.

 


I had 2 infiltrator's who replaced civilians which were wandering about the village when I activated them. The US player as an advanced action can 'challenge' a civilian to see if they are VC infiltrators. Below the advance US Fire-team searches a cache. The US player gains VP's for searching caches, of which there were 4 on the table.

 


One of my infiltrators popped up & threw his single grenade, which scattered off into the jungle. In the following turn, he was able to suppress one of the US troops. An interesting mechanic is that the active player rolls a d6 for basic actions, which are either move or suppress fire. They then recieve a chit with either a number 'advanced actions' or something special which remains hidden. The non-active player also is shown a chit like above which will provide 'hazards' they can play to counter the actions of the active player. Things like make them do a resolve test when they want to sprint, or an ammo-check after firing.

 


The US fire team was able to kill my infiltrator, but was then hit by 3 successful shots by a 3 man team of VC hidden in the jungle. The counters show the results of that fire, while the suppressed may wasn't affected.

 


I think we had the spirit of Scott attending, as the amount of 1's rolled was nuts. The remainder of the US forces are now on the table & pressing through the village. Another action the US can do as a Hazard is to get the villagers moving towards their edge of the table which will score them VP's.

 


My 2nd Infiltrator popped up & threw a very successful grenade. The grenades do both blast & shrapnel damage. One member of the US fireteam was killed & 2 others lightly wounded. The US player had played a hidden chit, that forced the VC to withdraw the following turn, which ended the battle.

 


Thanks George for bringing out the game & running it.

Monday, September 1, 2025

Weekend Workbench - Mine Mayhem Prep

Taking advantage of the long weekend, which has had Wildfire Smoke filling the air the past 2 days of it, provided me a great opportunity to get my terrain & stuff built for The Last Prospector Scenario 6 done.

 


The scenario, Mine Mayhem requires a 3" tall 3" wide raised area surrounding the centre. I had to dive into the crawlspace to dig out some old sheets & pieces of pink insulation foam. 

 


Cutting pieces which were 1.5" high meant there would be some gluing & the cutting with foam cutter to make the mine wall. I also ensured I marked the underneath with the number & adjoining numbers to make it easy to set up.

 


Once it was painted, I set it up around the edge of the gaming matt that will be used.

 


Another thing that was going to be required was an Excavator.... It happened that my wife needed some birthday cards, so we stopped in at a dollar store. While wandering I saw this item. I recalled it was meant to be quite large, so for a couple bucks figured I would take the chance. 

 


Happy with the fact the front scoop extends & raises to allow it to lie flat, it was time to prime it & paint it up to make it less 'toy' like. 

 


The wheels are a bit wobbly on it, so once they were painted, I glued them into place. 

 


So overall quite happy with how it turned out. Now to dig out the other items I will need to run this scenario next Sunday! Thanks for visiting.

 


Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Stationfall at EWG

Tuesday night had 3 of us sit down to play Stationfall. We used the initial tutorial to teach the game that has a 4th player NPC that performs actions to teach us the various actions & things you can do. There were 12 characters in the game. Each of us is given 2 facedown cards at the beginning from those 12 to determine who our secret identity is. Until your revealed, players just use their activation to move about the characters peforming various tasks...with the idea of working towards your identity's goals.

 


Wouldn't you know it, the NPC player activated the anti-matter, attempting to blow the station up sooner than it was already going too! Each section of the station has various actions you can perform in them...assuming you have the right abilities in some cases, an example being, only an officer can print a gun at the print shop.

 


However activating the anti-matter did allow for the abandon ship to kick in for the use of the escape pods. Each character has certain goals to complete to earn points at end game...of course if your dead, then its all sort of moot.

 


 We did manage to get most of the people off the station before it blew.

 

At the start it seemed like we would have lots of time to do things, but as we got closer to the end, it seemed the game became faster & faster. 

We could see how having more players would make for a chaotically wild game, perhaps next time we will get a few more. Thanks for visiting. 

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Stargrave The Lost Prospector - The Revolutionary

We had a full table today with all 5 crews returning to Penthalia Station. With word that the Prospetor had dealings with an underground organization. Without dabbling too much into the politics, we were able to arrange a meeting with a woman named Daughter Ryla.

 


Daughter Ryla awaits in the abandoned corridors.

 The abandoned area of the station....or so we thought!

 

Aroogah arrives with the first of his crew & the contact that has joined them to lead them to Daughter Ryla.

 


So far so good, keeping watch behind us, just in case.

 


Craigs crew deploys a smoke grenade to rush across the open space.

 


It's a TRAP! A Shock Trooper Security Robot arrives, knocking one of Dan's crewmen down. It seems they've been following us to find Ryla!

 


Returning fire, Dan's crew take down the Shock Trooper.

 


More security is starting to arrive. 2 Guard Robots & a Trooper Robot.

 


3 of the crews make a dash to reach Ryla, with my Contact encountering her first & getting her to follow. There was  smoke grenade dropped into the zone, followed by melee & many grenades causing grief.

 


Holding my own at the rear, a well placed grenade taking out the 2 Security Guards. The Trooper however took a couple turns to bring down with numerous members of my crew.

 


The brawls in the centre continued...Ryla was hit by shrapnel a couple of times, but was still standing.

 


Dan's Captain makes an appearance amongst my Crew. He managed a good stike upon my Captain, but didn't finish him....seems he wanted the loot token that had been dropped.

 


Kurt finally made an appearance, launching a Flame Thrower down the corridor. It destroyed the loot token in the center, as well as a couple of crewmen. Ryla got away unscathed by the flames.

 


Meanwhile, Chen had his hands full with a couple waves of Security descending upon him.

 


We finally had a break & were able to get Ryla away from the chaos on the centre

 


Dan also had some Security Bots arriving behind his crew

 


The second last turn, where Daughter Ryla is about to make her escape.

 


All in all a good game, with lots of Crew interaction. I got Daughter Ryla away at the expense of giving the loot token I had unlocked to Dan's Captain for his cooperation in not hindering the escape any further. Chen was being mauled by security bots & had 2 of his crewmen apprehended. Dan also had one of his apprehended. They will need to pay their purchase cost in credits to get them released. This leaves us 2 more games of this campaign. Until next month, thanks for visiting!