"5150 Star Army or Chain Reaction for a 1st read ?" Topic

So if I have both Chain Reaction V.3 and 5150 Star Army , which is going to be better for me to learn and play the game ?. I remember playing Chain Reaction a few years ago and enjoyed it but don't remember the rules . 5150 requires allot more time to read through . My groups aim is to play Hard Sci Fi -near Future type scenarios .
Thankyou , any assistance appreciated
cheers Tom

I'd do CR first. Don't play your specific period, just use generic weapons. Get the players use to the system then go with 5150SA.

Also remember:

5150 Star Army: Platoon/Company Level

5151 Battalion Commander: for running up to 3 companies.

Tim

Chain Reaction is like the "core system rules." Everything else takes those basic mechanics and concepts and tweaks them to a genre.

It doesn't matter. Chain Reaction is 48 pages & Star Army is 97 pages. If you follow the STOP boxes & work the examples in those boxes, you will find that you will learn the game in the same amount of time. Star Army has rules for vehicles, bugs, & more detailed encounters. But as far as the core mechanics the two are nearly identical in page count.

If I knew for sure that my group was committed to Star Army, then I would dive into Star Army. Just whichever rule set you settle on, use the STOP boxes & learning the game will be much easier.

If on the other hand, one or two members of the group don't have Star Army or are on the fence about THW, then I would do Chain Reaction first to get the group on board for using Star Army for Sci-Fi or near future gaming.

Both rule sets have STOP boxes containing examples that you should use to make learning the game faster & easier.

The QRS for CR3 is also a big help in learning the rules.

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