Tuesday 6 August 2013

Budget Gaming and Star Mogul

Hi!

Well I thought I should make a crack at starting my project! Initially I spent a glorious hour or two flicking through my assorted rulebooks and have settled on some early goals to aim for but thought I would spend a little time looking at what the options are for the gamer on a budget these days!

But a few of the Collection of Doom!

With the increasing availability of free rulesets in PDF format and the ever handy bring and buy at wargame shows, not to mention trawling Ebay, its a good time to be a budgetmammerer! Yes the older rulebooks such as Rogue Trader, Warhammer 3rd edition and many of the of an era books are becoming increasingly difficult to find for a reasonable price but others can be picked up for a couple of quid including postage or just downloaded for a very minimal sum (if not for free!)

For the budget gamer, theres loads of options and its quite often worth looking around for reviews or even just taking a punt on a ruleset and making it work for you!

I do find that theres a bit of a tendency out there to choose a ruleset and stick with it but with my goldfish like attention span, I find this a bit limiting. Many of these games have very different styles of play and the sheer variety of the experience of playing them is well worth the effort of reading through them.

For example, I have spent my commute  to work reading through Star Mogul: Ruins of an Empire. Originally produced by Alpha Forge in the mid 2000's its a really nice little ruleset that is literally bursting with ideas that will make for a really great game. The second revised edition is available from Megaminis as a PDF download for free!

Star Mogul!

Now I don't need to use the setting as is but its got lots that would make for a brilliant little campaign set in the Rogue Trader universe or in the Maelstrom of Vor or any one of a dozen other settings and for the budget gamer its got an added bonus, it is a skirmish game. You don't need loads of figures, just about a dozen a side and a small vehicle to represent your salvage team and a few bits and pieces of scenery for one of the ruined alien worlds or settlements that the game is set in.

The essence of budgethammer, is to take the best bits from whatever source you want and make them work for you so instead of just having groups of enterprising salvage teams, it could quite easily be inquisitorial parties fighting over lost tech, hive gangers brawling over turf or Nexus marines checking for Kryomek infestations, VASA peacekeepers raiding a pirate den or just about anything else you could imagine!
By Your Command!

The rules themselves are very playable and offer a very different experience from 40k or even Rogue Trader. Its more about recovering salvage and managing your crew without getting too badly shot up by the opponents while causing them no end of trouble in return.

Reading the rules and background conjures up all sorts of ideas for interesting scenarios ranging from finding alien types inhabiting the ruins you are exploring to rogue robots causing problems for your team! By incorporating some of the scenario ideas from Rogue Trader or Vor theres even more fun stuff to be had!

As already mentioned the game is a skirmish set and although it has an official range, theres nothing to stop Budgethammer from coming into play by simply using whatever figures you have! For example, I am sadly short of ganger type figures but have a small Imperial type of force slowly being painted. Instead of going out and buying more figures, I am going to use my Imperials as a paramilitary team and some Syntha troops from Void as a high tech opponent!

Sergeant Wallace

Now I have settled on some basic teams of figures, theres lots of fun to be had with creating a background for them. Who are they and where do they come from? What are their motivations and driving forces? How can I incorporate them into the setting? Are they members of the Earth Central Government searching for alien tech, megacorporate minions checking out potential mining claims or ex military renegades on the run from the authorities? At present I don't have a clue but its going to be fun finding out!

I'm off for an interview tomorrow so doubt much painting will be taking place between now and the weekend but I will see if I can get anything sorted out in my spare moments!

Till then all the best and apologies to you poor folks who have to listen to my ramblings and ravings!

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