Starguard is Awesome!

I was initially hoping to play a game of Combat 3000 this weekend, just something small and simple to work out the rules. Combat 3000 has eluded me however, it is extremely complicated and definitely not the sort of thing I was looking for. Do not worry though, my Mandiblax and Space Marines shall not go to waste! Once I remember where I put my Laserburn Imperial Commander Rulebook they’ll be hitting the table with gusto!

I still needed to scratch that oldschool Sci-Fi itch though and Starguard came to the rescue.

I played a simple kill ’em all type game on my Deadzone terrain using the Ralnai and Alin Ru’ forces I painted earlier this year. The Alin Ru’ are in grey and the Ralnai are in green.

Starguard is a quick and bloody game, although the rules do take a few read throughs to get your head around as they are by no means structured or formatted in a helpful way. You’ll often find the stats you need for various units scattered throughout the text rather than given in a simple unit profile. However the edition of the rules I was using was 5th, although I do own 6th, and the current version is 7th (I think), so maybe a lot of that has been tidied up by now.

The turn structure makes for a solid game and one where I was never frustrated or strange situations arose. Basically side A moves while side B takes opportunity fire, then side A shoots, then you resolve any melee combats, then side B moves while side A takes opportunity fire, side B shoots and you resolve any melees again.

As for ranged combat each weapon has a ‘Weapon Matrix’ which is an A4 sheet that mostly consists of a large table giving you the values you need to roll equal to or under on a D10 to hit a target based on that target’s size and distance from the shooter, and then giving you the value you then need to roll equal to or under to penetrate the target’s armour class again based on range. Each penetrating hit on an infantry target kills them immediately.

As already stated what that all amounts to is a quick and bloody game, for example my armoured Alin Ru’ mostly carry Klugg Heavy Cone Machine Guns, which use an elliptical template since they’re automatic weapons. At the shorter ranges they were being used since my board was only 2’x2′ they were often instantly killing any Ralnai they hit. My game probably lasted around half an hour and it was fought till there were only Alin Ru’ standing, it never got bogged down and it always felt dynamic and interesting potentially due to the Ralnai’s up to 20″ move per turn. The Ralnai would drop in somewhere with a decent bit of cover but good line of sight on the Alin Ru’, fry a poor soul with their Gauss Rifles or Power Guns, but then almost immediately get destroyed by the return fire.

Starguard is available on Wargames Vault if you’re interested and all the miniatures are still available from Tin Soldier in the US. There’s around 17 different factions to choose from along with supporting robots, vehicles and paper starships and terrain kits.