Stargrave

I am really looking forward to the release of Stargrave at the end of April.

Stargrave is the sci-fi skirmish followup to the successful fantasy skirmish game Frostgrave, and has been getting a good amount of buzz the last few months. People have also been asking for a sci-fi Frostgrave for years now.

The creator, Joe McCullough has had a really impressive run the last few years, releasing Frostgrave, a steady stream of Frostgrave supplements, as well as rangers of Shadowdeep, and Oathmark. Every game has been miniatures agnostic, fairly accessible, and generally kept the number of miniatures needed low (Oathmark not so much).

I have a WH40K Tau battleforce box which I assembled around 2006 but never painted more than a handful of. I'm planning to build a Stargrave crew out of this box, a nice mix of fire warriors, drones, maybe a few kroot, and a stealth suit or two. I've been exclusively painting fantasy miniatures the last few years, so it was nice to dig them out and get a few more painted. But after doing about five models I decided to pause until I buy a panel-liner like the ones Tamiya paints. Given my low painting skill I really don't see a way to get crisp panel lines other than trying the oil liner over acrylic base.

So I switched my labors to a boxed warband of beastmen (I think rebel miniatures?), and a couple resin boats I had lying around. The tall one I have designated a leader is an early Reaper bones model. I wasn't thrilled with the crispness of the sculpts, especially facial detail. But they will function fine for RPG miniatures.

Joe released about 20 pages of the warband building section of Stargrave this week which is worth a look.