"Rogue Stars?" Topic

I see these are now being sold on Wargame Vault.

IIRC, they've been out for a while, so I'm curious to see what people think of them, and if they like them?

Haven't seen much if any news about them, since they were released.

The vogue was VERY brief, but there were about three games played and mentioned on TMP, so you can probably find the battle reports.

I bought a set. You needed up to about 20 stress markers per character or to base them on some sort of dial, and as I recall you'd have needed a set of about 12 different markers of the "held" "frozen" "slowed" variety to keep track of all that sort of thing.

All of which said, there was a science-fiction skirmish scenario generator included which may well have been worth the purchase price by itself. But the rules require a very high tolerance for bookkeeping, even by skirmish game standards.

The scenario generator is great, very Rogue Trader, the rules – not so much.

By all means get it for the generator and use another set of skirmish rules to play with, its what I do, and I suspect many others do also.

Glen

I recently bought Harwired to try out for sci-fi/cyberpunk skirmish. You might look at it on Amazon under regular books ($10) or Kindle ($6).

The skirmish rules are based on the "Song of …" series, but with some added complexity (maybe too much was added). You can limit a lot of the complexity by limiting the weapons/equipment and special characteristics until you learn the system.

If you like other rules the series, you will probably be okay with these rules.

The mission generator has a lot of options and is pretty interesting.

Dave

+1 for Hardwired, got a new team to prep and paint for it :)

Hmmm, the markers do sound rather problematical. Not really a fan of those, especially for larger games where you want more than a handful of figures per side.

The scenario generator sounds interesting though.

Any hints on how that works?

Thresher, how much copyrighted material would you like me to summarize? But basically you've got environments, settings, missions and complications and if memory serves about 20 of each. The theory is that each one works with all the others, so you have on paper thousands of possibilities. Chuck out certain environments as insane, and certain combinations of mission, setting and environment as making no sense, and you can still get somewhere in the high three figures. You could play a game a week for a decade or more and never repeat scenarios.

Daveshoe, I'm not sure how much of the complexity was added, but when I read that Rogue Stars was based on the "Song of…" engine, it cured me of any desire to buy a "Song of…" set of rules. It's not all that complicated in terms of mechanism, but really does require--well, there was an old saying in the Air Force that when the weight of the paperwork equaled the weight of the aircraft, you were ready for takeoff. Here, I'd say the paperwork equaled the weight of the figure--but only if you were using old lead figures and not the current mostly tin guys. I'll say what I've said before: when I do paperwork, I expect to get paid for it, because maintaining files is not recreation.

Odd, you say based on Song of but one of the defining characteristics of the Song of is no (or almost no) record keeping from turn to turn. SDS does require you to track unloaded but a puff of cotton wool gun smoke does that and actually enhances the look of the game. It does sound like someone went to far with added complexity.

Robert

Did I mention that EVERY illustration is an advertisement for SF figures sold by North Star, and that not a single illustration or caption does anything to aid in understanding rules or play? (See Dragon Rampant to watch illustrations mostly being done right.) This one just was not Osprey's finest hour.

I tell the magazines, and I tell all the makers of glossy color rules: your pictures should work with your text. I can get all the color pictures of miniature wargames I ever want free on the Internet. No need to pay for irrelevant fluff.

Thanks for the info, and replies.

I appreciate them.

North Star sells Sci-Fi figs?

Who knew?

I wouldn't compare it to "Song of…" at all. Same author but that's about it.

Not trying to slag Andrea. I was really hoping it would be Song of in Space, but it came across as the opposite of that; overly complicated, with far too many chits/tokens, a lot of book keeping that interrupted the flow of games. Clunky, tedious. It was more like a fussy RPG, a poorly organized and unclear one at that.

Hi Guys,

The thing about Rogue Stars is that it isn't a gamer's skirmish set. Instead it is a RPG-lite set of rules. If you are not interested in if your character has a wounded left arm, then these may be a bit too fiddly for you.

Which is fine. But you can't critisise the rules for being what they are designed to do, instead of critisising them for not being what you _wanted_ them to be.

As for paperwork, you only have 4 to 6 figures. Each gets a small card with their Stats which you place on a spare corner of your table (you play on a 90cmx90cm board). You use a white, yellow and red dice to track stress, pins and wounds. I've never had to use more than one dice per colour for these. You don't need "12 different types of markers".

It has a dedicated following, but I suspect you won't find them on TMP.

Cheers,
JohnG

To be fair, it is billed even now as a 'character-based skirmish game', not a RPG-lite. (a designation it acquired *after* release.)

Given the 'Song of..' series and that marketing description, it's not unreasonable to expect a more streamlined, combat-oriented set of rules. I remember a lot of folks on a couple forums were very excited for just that. (Even here on TMP, IIRC)

Courses for horses and I'm glad it has a dedicated following but even as an "RPG-lite," I can think of three other RPGs that have more efficient combat rules.

We have the minis and the print rules in stock.

link

Platypus, I'm glad when any wargamer finds rules he likes, but the rules specify (under "Equipment Needed" markers for "Entangled, Hidden, Reloading and Mind-Controlled" and as I recall from reading it, the list was not complete. Denatus is also right: the blurb is "Skirmish Wargaming in a Science Fiction Underworld." If it had said "RPG" lite or otherwise, I wouldn't have even considered buying it--something I feel sure Osprey and Sfiligoi kept in mind. I can most certainly criticize a set of rules for not being what they were sold as.