Publisher Osprey has just announced the next expansion for sci-fi skirmish wargame Stargrave - Acceptable Losses will add "military vehicles, heavy weapons", and other rules for fielding specialist military companies. That promises to be a cool addition for existing fans of the game - and it may also be the perfect tool for oldhammer gamers to recapture the vibes of Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader without the headaches of that often arcane ruleset.
Stargrave is pretty well established, but for the benefit of any Warhammer 40k players unfamiliar with it, I'll explain it briefly. It's a skirmish wargame that puts you in charge of a crew of space-farers, with interchangeable henchmen and a unique, customized captain and first mate. The core rules are light, but this makes room for a borderline RPG level of customization options. The game focuses very heavily on narrative scenarios and campaign systems, often with NPC baddies the players have to work around during fights. And it's miniature agnostic, so if you've got any Warhammer 40k factions, you can probably play the game.
If you're familiar with the original version of Warhammer 40k, you'll understand why I think Stargrave has a lot in common with it. That was a narrative game too, and there was a crazy mismatch between the degree of detail in the rules and the army scale battles it encouraged you to play. Stargrave has always been a fun, and far easier, set of rules to play games using Rogue Trader models - Ash Barker from Guerilla Miniatures has a whole video series doing just that. But the base rules can't accommodate the bigger units from Rogue Trader like squat trikes and predator tanks.
The Acceptable Losses expansion for Stargrave looks set to change that. It puts you in charge of a mercenary company and "presents rules for military vehicles, heavy weapons, varied types of combat armor, and specialist military tactics such as airdrop deployment, artillery strikes, and laying minefields". And as is usually the case with Stargrave expansions, there'll be "a host of new solo and cooperative scenarios". The book is set to release on November 17 in the US and November 19 in the UK.
And there's another big McCullough release coming in August - Oathmark second edition. This is McCullough's rank and flank fantasy wargame a la Warhammer The Old World, which differentiates itself with an army building system that allows you to customize the species and units in your army list. The new edition will feature "new and expanded rules, unit types, and a whole host of other revisions from years of player feedback".
Are you a big fan of Stargrave, Oathmark, or any other McCullough games? Do you have a preferred system for playing games with retro model collections? I'd love to hear about it in the Wargamer Discord community. And for a regular roundup of all our best stories, make sure you're subscribed to Wargamer's weekly newsletter.