Stargrave’s third supplement pits your crew against the merciless pirate fleets that have been roaming the ruined galaxy since the end of the Last War, pillaging and enslaving communities. In ‘Hope Eternal’, two of the largest and most dangerous fleets are meeting for a parley near the ruins of an ancient research station that once conducted experiments into supernova-level events. Your crew’s mission (should you choose to accept it) is to find this station, slip past the pirates, infiltrate the facility and trigger one of these supernova-level events in order to strike a blow against tyranny.
What Has Been Added
This solo and co-operative expansion has the full rules for playing by yourself or teaming up with a friend. You can either share one crew between the two of you (with one player being the captain and the other the first mate) or both create a separate, half-sized crew.
There is an exciting, intricate campaign of ten narratively-connected scenarios, divided into three parts.
· Part One - you are hired by a mysterious group to recover data from an outpost, which leads you to rescue some prisoners and escape while being pursued by pirates. The prisoners inform you about the secret parley that is about to take place and the nearby space station that used to conduct dangerous experiments.
· Part Two – you need to hunt for the last operator of the space station in order to obtain the keycode to its computer, along with a rare mineral needed to convert the station into a large bomb.
· Part Three – you must infiltrate the space station and override the computer’s safety protocols. Then, after fighting your way to the nova-reactor and triggering the catastrophic event, you need to make your escape so you don’t get caught in the blast radius.
For each of the scenarios, useful information has been provided about how to set it up, which enemies are involved, and any special rules that need to be factored in. Then it tells you what to do after you have won or lost, with some added extras that could affect your later battles.
There is no traditional opponent during this expansion, instead a simple AI system controls the enemy figures on the table and the random dangers found in each scenario.
This supplement also features new rules for underwater and high radiation environments, an advanced technology table, and additions to the bestiary, including Barbarians, Combat Drones, Enhanced Mutants, and Radroaches.
*A copy of Stargrave: Hope Eternal was kindly provided for review*