"No Stars in Sight. Questions and answers." Topic

Quite a few of you picked up No Stars in Sight over the holiday and quite a few have it wishlisted on wargamevault.

So I figured if you are still on the fence, I'd answer a few questions that have been emailed in the past month as well as some of the general questions that always pop up.

Scale, number of miniatures, size of table, play time etc.:
Figures are all based individually (you could play with team-bases and treat them the same and do okay).
The ranges and so forth are aimed at 15mm but people have tested with everything from 6mm to 28mm.
Table size is aimed at ranging from 2x2 to 3x3 feet.
Play time is about an hour and a half.

What type of battles can I play?
The aim is platoon level scifi battles. So 3-4 squads, a few leaders with several vehicles in support.

You can go bigger but it gets pretty hectic with more than 10 or so units per side since you need to track stress for each squad leader with markers.

You can scale down and play some very satisfying skirmishes with say, 2 fire teams each with their own leader. Good way of learning the rules too.

How does this relate to No End in Sight?
The core mechanics are intentionally the same, making the two games compatible. A few new options were added to No Stars in Sight and of course, it factors in all the scifi gadgets and aliens.
If you know how to play one, you'll pick up the other with no problems.

Points?
yes, you get a points system because I love you all a lot.
There's no "army building" rules though there will be army lists as we go along.
You can generate values for your own units or ignore the points and use TO&E's and scenarios.

Scenarios?
You get a scenario generator but no prepackaged ones.

What other games is it most like?
From what I've played, I'd say Stargrunt. A lot of people have said it reminds them of Tomorrow's War, though I haven't played that so can't compare.

Anything I should be aware of, as a gamer?
Melee based armies need dense terrain to get anywhere. It's a game about shooting (bug armies get some really cool options to make them work, including a nice, hivemind command and control mechanic)

Flat, open tables with very little terrain won't be a fun game.

Setting up 4 feet apart won't be a fun game. The game begins 30 seconds before the bullets start flying.

If any of you have other questions, go ahead :)

As always, the game is available here
link

I am so trying to resist another rule set………but it won't be long before I finally crack! Got loads of 15mm sci fi just waiting for an excuse to get painted!!

Sounds good.

You might share how you derive the points for your forces in the game, so that people could use that for building their own units, if desired.

Mako – You can already build your own. Or do you mean coming up with your own weapons and whatnot?

How the existing values were derived was from eye-balling it, then going through playtest AAR's and calculating the costs of the opposing units to see if they matched pretty decently, tweaking as needed.

Please can you add bikes, grav bikes and mounted troops?

You know, I am really bad about looking at my own mini's collection when I write, and I don't think I own a single bike or jet bike mini :-)

I'll remedy this for sure, hopefully over the weekend.
Alien world cavalry sounds pretty fun too.

I played my first game of No Stars last night, we had fun and definitely plan on playing more, but a couple things came up that were unclear:

- Reaction fire dice, are they Shock Dice or Kill Dice? The rules text never explicitly says what they are, only that the target is "hit on a 6". And the 'game play examples' at the back of the book never actually cover the situation where the target gets hit by reaction fire. The effects for Shock Dice seemed redundant since in many cases the target may already be 'Pinned' by their Rush dice result… though possibly they could get 'double pinned' and forced to fall back? Ultimately, after looking at the Quick Reference Sheet for No *End* In Sight we saw that Kill die were mentioned. It would be nice for the Reaction Fire section to explicitly say that a Kill die is rolled, and include a game play example where the rushing target gets hit and wounded/killed.

- Moving/Firing through friendly models. Is this allowed? We didn't find any explicit provision/prohibition.

- Firing across cover/obstacles. It seemed that all of the examples involved large structures/obstacles such as corners of buildings, forests, etc. What about low cover such as waist high walls and similar, would fire be prohibited across it if neither participant is next to the cover?

Forgot a couple more:
- When falling back can a model go "deeper into cover", say laterally, or must the move be strictly "away from the attacker". I had a unit whose fall back distance would let them either move sideways around the corner of a building, or would take them off the table if straight back.
- What happens if a model is forced to fall back off the edge of the table? In 5Core there is one last "morale check" to determine if they leave the battle or not, but we couldn't find any similar instructions for NSiS.

Cheers!

Glad you enjoyed it. Some answers.

Reaction fire is Kill dice only. I'll try to clarify that.

Moving and firing through friends is up to the gaming group. We allow moving but not firing across another figures base.

Firing across obstacles, if its about waist height or less, I'd allow it. Sometimes you have to get down there and get the "models eye view" and see if its a reasonable shot though.

Falling back – As long as you move away, it doesn't have to be straight away. Moving behind a building if you are the corner sounds fair.

Troops reaching the edge are dispersed and leave the battle, as it stands now. If you play on a really small table, might have them take the 5+ "panic" test as if they were pinned and an enemy came within assault range.

Awesome, thanks!