Heyhey, today I’d like to take a closer look at another set of rules from Osprey’s blue book series, written by a very familiar name: Rogue Stars.

 

Rogue Stars was published in 2016. A time when it felt like two of these rule books were released every month, but this one, with Andrea Sfiligoi’s name to it, felt a bit different. Even then, I’d been a fan of his work on Song of Blades and Heroes and its 200 variants for a few years. Rogue Stars takes that system, turns a few screws, replaces others, and turns it into a more granular, very scenario- and narrative-driven sci-fi skirmish game with 4-5 figures per side.

I got the rules pretty swiftly after the release and never played them until now. Thanks to Kaerith, who is a big fan of the rules, with loads of games under his belt. He came over for a game, had the QRS with him, sample warbands; excellent.

 

The Book

The usual fare: 64 page format, full colour, could have done with a few more pages, but the need is not as glaring as with other rules sets from the series. Lovely photos of figures and a bunch of very cartoony illustrations (most of them full-page. Interesting.). The main thing these photos and images show is how this game focuses on a universe of variety in creatures and settings.

It’s a big universe.

 

What do I need to play?

Typically a 3’x3′ sized gaming table, lots of terrain to block Line of Sight (and preferrably a very wide array of different kinds of terrain, but we’ll get to that later). Three 20-sided dice (D20), some tokens or small dice to track stress, pin markers or wounds on characters. Quick Reference Sheets are advisable, because there’s a fair bit of tables and modifiers. A squad roster, detailling your characters’ traits and equipment.

 

The Rules

The rules are laid out on 18 pages (not counting the surprisingly numerous full-page illustrations of aliens). That’s pretty impressive, but the guy has experience writing rules after all. At its core, activation works just like in Song of Blades and Heroes, or rather like in Sellswords and Spellslingers. A player chooses to activate one of their characters. The player chooses to roll either 1, 2 or 3 20-sided dice (D20), the character may carry out one action for each 8 or more the dice show. Each results lower than 8 will give their opponent an opportunity to roll for a re-action with one of their own characters.

However, other than in Advanced song of Blades and Heroes, a player may store these attempts for reactions for later use during their opponent’s turn OR to force a turn-over for their opponent by rolling a special check. Since we’re dealing with about 8 figures in the game in total, this game allows for more granularity. And for other things, like characters being allowed to activate as many times per turn as you please, but any action they carry out will burden them with a Stress Point. Stress points make further activations harder and make it easier for your opponent to Seize The Initiative and end your turn. This leads to an extremely dynamic game, full of decision-making for both players. Very smart.

 

Stats and Checks

The author does away with character stats. No Quality, no Combat, all there is is Target Numbers, modified by character Traits (including armour, equipment, weapons, etc.) and the conditions (cover, visibility, wounds/pin markers, …).

So shooting, which is a common occurance in this game, usually works as such: Shooter rolls a D20 against a target number (TN) of 10, then modifiers are applied, based on the shooter’s ability, special circumstances such as the shooter attempting to hit a specific body part, cover, visibility, pin markers on the shooter, and so on. The higher the result is in favour of the shooter, the more options they have to choose which body part on the target was hit. The following damage roll indicates the severity of the wound on the respective body part and possible consequences, from a tear in a vac suit to grazed leg (-1″ movement next time the character moves) or the character being taken out. Again, there is a lot of detail in there.

 

Scenarios

A big part of the book is dedicated to the extremely clever way the scenarios are put together: You roll three D20 and consult three tables in the rule book. The first roll gives you a Mission, the second a Location and the third adds a Complication. All three categories are extremely varied and give you up to 8,000 different scenarios if my maths didn’t betray me.

Missions are typically designed to have one side being the attacker, the other being the defender; usually one side has to achieve something, the others have to stop them from doing so. Missions range from one side having showed up to do as much property damage as possible, to take a specific member of the opposing squad hostage, one of the squads having to get to a spaceship in time, hack into a computer system, and so on. Locations include pretty standard locales such as space ports, a farmstead or a mining station, but also exotic settings such as a crystal forest (which will play heck with stay shots from beam weapons), an insectiod hive, or the game taking place on a space ship, including the possibility of the whole ship tipping to a side or a hull breach.

Complications come in the shape of low ammo, a big EMP pulse messing with equipment or a Space Demon randomly showing up, just to name a few.

 

Creating your Squad

And this isn’t even the most intricate part of these rules. Carrying on with the theme of “it’s a vast universe with all sorts in it”, there’s the rules for putting together your squad. To guide people a little, they are to pick a theme first. These will roughly outline the Traits your characters will be able to acquire, their starting equipment and weapons. 10 different themes, including Cyborgs, Miners, Space Cops or Pirates.

Based on the lists of traits and equipment allowed for by the chosen theme, players are free to design 4-6 characters for their squad for a sat amount of points, the only other limiting factors are a minimum and maximum points to spend on a single character. There are 48 traits to choose from, add to this psychic powers, equipment, weapons and weapon upgrades. You can do a whole lot of stuff with that.

It’s one of those “go through your figures collection, grab a few figures and apply rules to use them in the game” situations. Or of course you can just depict scenes/episodes from your favourite Sci-fi stories or tv shows.

Last but not least, there is the obligatory page of rules for campaign play, including upgrades, new traits and – very important – cybernatic limb replacements. With a very granular skirmish game like this, this makes a whole lot of sense though. For campaign play, also feel free to string missions together as they make sense rather than rolling up new ones each time.

Way in the back of the book, there’s a list of very inventive sample squads, showing the variety of fun concepts which can be put on the table if creativity is applied, as well as a list of sample characters, again, just to showcase what can be done with these rules. Fun fact: the points costs of the sample squads don’t quite add up; they’re usually lower than the 200 points allowed.

 

Battle Report

So last Thursday Kaerith dropped by with his figures, quick reference sheets and all sorts of useful tokens for Rogue Stars. I at least managed to set up a table.

The Scenario

Dr. Clayton Forest couldn’t believe his luck. He won the lottery for a Meet and Greet with Viven Roo at a photo shoot near an abandoned and appropriately grunge-y looking abandoned bunker outside Septulla City. Right on the same weekend he will speak at the conference in Septulla City’s financial district! Dr. Forest was a man of science, but this could only be fate. He cranked up Roo’s latest hit single ‘Concrete X’ and proceeded working on his presentation.

So the Mission we rolled was “Bodyguard Work”, the location got us on “Outdoors, Low Gravity Planet” and the complication was “Surrounded by Hostiles”. Apparently that bunker isn’t quite abandoned or houses something very important to an unseen group of people who lurk the surroundinbg undergrowth. They got their hands on some projectile weapons and will stop at nothing to throw out anybody who dares to enter the area of the area.

I got to play the rock star’s entourage who had to protect the ‘VIP’, Kearith played the mercenaries who were out to get him (because he’s about to unveil a breakthrough in Giant Death Laser technology).

 

The Game

According to the mission, I got to set up anywhere on the table while the attackers had to enter from one of the table edges.

Dr.Forest is hidden in one of the chemical toilets; the figure’s just placed next to it as a token.

The game starts with Axe Lady and Sniper Boi effortlessly jumping onto one of the old freight containers.

As Axe lady scans the area for their prey, Sniper Boi hides behind some overgrowth. Nobody in sight right now, but any opponent wanting to take a shot a him would spot him first.

 

Meanwhile, the cybernetically enhanced Doggo rushes towards Viven and Nina, using an old bunker vent as cover.

Scary. Viven jumps out from behind their cover and starts unloading both her machine pistols, sending hails of bullets toward the canine calamity.

After two salvos and due to incredible luck Doggo actually is taken out. With even more desastrous consequences for the attackers: Guardsman, who hasn’t even moved an inch away from the table edge loses his nerves and runs off!

Shortly thereafter, Sniper Boi is hit by a shot from a sniper off-table (part of the unseen third party, the complication of the whole affair), and is knocked off the red shipping container.

Meanwhile Nina has hopped onto the bunker’s roof to bring her laser cannon to bear on Axe Lady, but doesn’t get a chance to do so. With swift leaps – made possible by the low gravity on this planet – the axe-wielding assailant comes at her, but luckily doesn’t manage to hit her. Just as  Viven comes to her aid, another one of those snipers out of nowhere takes Nina’s left arm clean off! The heavy laser cannon falls to the ground, quickly followed by Nina herself. She is Out of Action. Luckily, the rest of the team stay put, but gain some Pinned tokens.

Now Viven and Axe Lady are about to duke it out atop the bunker. Fortunately Viven manages not to get hit by the monofilament axe as she draws her vibro blade. Just as the playing field seems to be evened out, a carefully aimed shot from Sniper Boi’s plasma rifle takes Viven out! He had spent a bunch of activations to get his bearings, snuck up the bunker and took a shot at Viven.

Still, the rest of the team members, Seket and Thorgann – who had done not a single thing so far – stay put. Both sides are down to two members now, as yet another shot from an unseen sniper strikes Thorgann, but he is only sligthly grazed. Phew. Seket is also shot at out of nowhere, but he’s a marketing person and thus a natural target. Luckily he manages to dodge any bullets.

 

Dead set on hunting down the rest of the crew to leave no witnesses, Sniper Boi steps to the edge of the bunker; both of Viven’s team press themselves to the bunker walls to remain unseen.

 

Meanwhile Axe Lady finally found where Dr.Forest was hiding all the time. It’s locked form the inside.

Axe Lady hammers at the door, demanding for the doctor to come out. “O-occupied!” is the stammering, but defiant reply. Axe Lady commences to hack the portapotty to bits to get to the doctor inside, undeterred by those name- and faceless snipers taking pot shots at everyone on the table.

 

Sniper Boi, with all his marksman gubbins on his plasma rifle which allows him to fire into close combat without any danger of hitting a friendly, takes aim at the man in the loo…

 

All of a sudden, a comforting voice in his head makes Sniper Boi reconsider…

 

Seket, the psionic marketing goon, had spotted Sniper Boi from below, and has used his dark, mind-controlling powers on Sniper Boi. Who then managed to pull off a very lucky shot, hitting his boss in the head. She doesn’t fall unconscious yet, but falls to the ground and is severely stressed. Instantly, she injects herself with all sorts of stimulants (performs a successful First Aid check), as Dr.Forest cautiously opens the door, steps over Axe Lady, and legs it. Same with Seket. The mind control lasts until the psionic is hurt, enagaged in close combat or has other things happen to him, so he’s running for safety.

 

Since none of the mercenaries is in real fighting shape any more though, we called it a night. Since the VIP was neither wounded (by insane luck) nor killed, Viven Roo’s entourage gains a hefty amount of XP points to spend on stuff (probably replacement limbs and medical care after they worked out if Nina and Viven were still alive).

 

Verdict

Very cinematic game, that. With a few very lucky and very unlucky dice rolls. However, things can always go back and forth in this game, it seems.

Kaelith said that if this was a campaign game, one next step would be for Sniper Boi to become Viven Roo’s entourage’s hostage and that the Axe Lady’s group would want to try to free him. Or the unseen snipers decide to take a more direct approach and both squads (after a short recuperation phase) have to get to their vehicles each, in two separate games. First, Viven Roo’s squad has to manage to “Make it to the Ship Alive” (Mission) with Dr.Forest in tow, attacked by angry inhabitants of the jungle (played by the other player), then they switch roles and Axe Lady’s squad has to make it back to some chopper picking them up while the Viven Roo crew player plays the jungle inhabitants. Or of course they seek shelter in the bunker and we’re off to subterran adventures.

Again, i’m impressed how much stuff Mr.Sfiligoi managed to squeeze into these rules. Usually I’m not a fan of rules sets with simple basic rules onto which special and extra rules and characteristics are heaped to add ‘depth’. Given how Rogue Stars operates with character traits pretty much exclusively might be scary at first, but there’s a fine difference to legions of other sci-fi skirmish games: Rogue Stars has extremely strong basic rules which carry all the modifier stuff well. Taking the basic activation system of Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes and enriching it by the introduction of Stress points gives every player involved opportunities to do stuff at pretty much any point of the game, no matter whose turn it is. This gives a very fluent back and forth via reactions and  Stealing the Initiative. One of the most ingenious psychological tricks (wether it’s intended or not) is that having the initiative stolen isn’t as frustrating as you’d think though, because it means that all your characters get rid of the accumulated stress points and it’s your opponent’s turn to accumulate stress while you sit back, knowing that withing the next few minutes there’ll be plenty of opportunity again for you to strike.

Things people might not like as much about this game: Using D20 means the game can be a bit ‘swingy’. It is in no way predictable, which is a good thing in my book, but I know that many people do not appreciate that as much. While we haven’t come across it in our game, I’m sure that certain traits will be more advantageous than others in certain mission/location/complication constellations. In campaign play this is mitigated by the fact that groups will accumulate an arsenal of equipment over time from which they may choose to bring what makes sense for their next mission. Having only 4-6 figures on the table per side means that tokens are unavoidable. If you can’t stand tokens on your table, this game isn’t necessarily for you. Up to four different things have to be tracked (wounds, pins, stress, plus special conditions such as prone, hidden, etc.) for each figure during a game.

I have to say that I like these rules. They are just a bit too crunchy for a very quick game, but are quick enough to easily get a game or maybe two done within an evening. And for campaign gaming I can see them work extremely well. The rules have quite a ‘toolbox’ character, in that you can built pretty much anything in your figure collection, which is always a plus. It lends itself really well for space adventures in all sorts of settings. Grab your favourite figures, grab your favourite terrain, throw it all on the table, grab your favourite opponent and have a campaign of a pre-set number of games. Feels like Rogue Stars is the kind of rules under which each game gives a memorable story.

 

Rogue Stars is available pretty much anywhere (advantage of the Osprey books); in the UK Osprey run a -30% off sale on their website right now, so the paperback version is available for GBP 9.09 (normally GBP 12.99), ebook version is a bit cheaper. As for a German retailer, Miniaturicum.de currently sells paperback copies for EUR 12,75. Osprey rulebooks are also often available second hand for little money. Errata, Squad Rosters and Quick Reference Sheets (all not very printer-friendly unfortunately) can be found here.

Many thanks to Kaerith who ran this introduction game for me; otherwise it’s quite likely I’d never played these rules!

I hope that you enjoyed this review of Rogue Stars,  found it interesting, enjoyed the pictures and so on. If you have any questions, comments or indeed painting/modelling commission inquiries, feel free to let me know via the comments section, the Battle Brush Studios Facebook page, instagram  , Bluesky ( @battlebrushstudios.bsky.social ) or via e-mail.