"Starguard: sentimental favorite or classic?" Topic

I heard people singing its praises over the weekend. Is this one of those games people still play for sentimental reasons or like Ogre or The Sword And The Flame is it a great system that will live eternally?

It's still in print, though there are conflicting opinions about whether the Seventh Edition is better than the first, though it has a lot more material. The minis are still produced, the creator is still active (awesome!). The game has been around for fifty years.

And yet somehow I never bought it or played it.

But what's it like? Is it worth picking up at this point? Or do the more recent rules do what it does better?

I like the Universe and some of the figs. It's interesting to read the fluff. However, the rules are very dated. You can google Starguard and find an article about a guy who dove in with the rules and bought Dreenoi (my favorite) bug faction.

YMMV.

Thanks.

John

Last October I bought the 50th anniversary of the 1st edition set because of nostalgia. After reading through them, I don't know if I'd want to play them. Back in the day, there was one of the guys who ran this a lot, so the game flowed very smoothly. Like John said, a dated set of rules. I've thought about buying some of the figures for nostalgia's sake, but I've always got other stuff to do.

Never played the rules but have plenty of Dreenoi ! :)

I have played Starguard since 2nd edition (which is my favorite edition choice even today). The mechanics are easy but it is a more loosely ruled game in contrast to today's games. I have played 7th edition. It's setup easier with the firing charts so you don't have to compare penetration vs. armor, like in older versions. I play Starguard mostly in tandem with the Starwar 2250. In any case, the entire game can be summed up like this: Determine who goes first, mover takes 2 actions with each figure per turn. The actions are move, fire, mount, dismount, fall prone, get up from prone, draw close combat weapon, sheath close combat weapon, load weapon, and act as forward observer.

Depending on which version you play, when you fire and hit you compare your weapon penetration against targets armor. Dice are rolled and a figure may or may not be removed from the game. The editions that I own (1, 2, 3, 6, 7) all have charts of weapons versus different armors and distance fired. If you, like me, prefer the method in Warbots and Death Machines (WB&DM) then the weapons have different penetrations at different ranges and you subtract armor values against those penetrations and roll percentage dice to determine if you took out the figure.

Editions 1-3 use a D12 (or a creative rolling of 2D6), while editions 6-7 use a D10.

I am not sure if you will find any opponents, but that doesn't concern me because I always play solo.

Thanks, this was helpful.