I love this game... It's easy to get the hang of, and the campaigns are fun. I rebased some old heroclix miniatures, built a team, and by the end of the first campaign I was rolling without looking at the books. If you like superhero miniatures games, and want custom heroes in a format that is easy to learn: this is a great system for you.

This is my first foray into the Goalsystem line of games and these are my initial impressions based on a thorough read-through and a 'dry-run' (just having a go with a few models myself).

The Good: -The consistent use of the same dice pool mechanics, coupled with rerolls and bonus dice for certain character types plus special abilities, equipment, cover etc. covers a great deal of granularity without being too complex -Characters are archetypes while weapons and equipment is handled in an abstracted manner and it speeds warband creation up greatly while still allowing for a wide variety of models, be it scruffy looking nerf herders, power-armored supersoldiers or bug-eyed aliens with psionic powers; Void Pirates wears its influences on its sleeves and it is pretty awesome! -A robust campaign system is included and offers the chance to see your warband grow and facilitates some light RPG-elements between battles: Do some research, fence the goods or clone your dead pal are just a few of the options. It even lets you play a sort of mini-miniatures game if a deal goes south and you have to escape a dark alley! -Vehicles get their own chapter and they are seamlessly incorporated into the game building upon the same dice pool mechanics

The Meh: -The archetypes and abstracted weapons may fall a bit flat for people looking for more variety. With really only 4 types of ranged weapons (plus some contained in special abilities plus handgrenades), in Void Pirate a M35 M-Galaxy Lasgun is no better or worse than a BlasTech Industries E-11 blaster rifle. And there are no provisions for flame throwers, grenade launchers or other heavy weaponry besides the autocannon-like Big a$$ Gun! -Centimeters... Yeah, VP uses cm instead of inches, which makes sense as it seems to be designed primarily with 10-15mm in mind and 28mm as an afterthought. It makes it a bit difficult to parse the different ranges and movement rates as a 28mm player -VP instructs you to double movement for this scale but I would really have preferred inches as usual...

The Bad: -As a 28mm player the doubling of ranges is a bit aggavating and leads to some confusion, e.g.: if the Speed Special Ability is 30cm at 15mm do I get to move 60cm in 28mm?! Is the blast radius of a grenade 8cm in 28mm?! -While the layout is pretty clear and the content for the most part is placed logically, Void Pirates suffer from quite a lot of ambiguity mainly due to its conversational prose. A term may be casually introduced but not explained until some pages later. And a few of the most important rules aren't very clearly explained either. At the same time though, this game is both quite casual and pretty obscure: it will most likely end up in the hands of seasoned gamers only and we should have little trouble tweaking everything to our own liking, a notion the author actively encourages! -Only one scenario... at 100+ pages it should have contained at least 6 IMO. Granted, the Battlefield Conditions and Special Events spice things up, but it's still rather poor. Again -the seasoned gamers this title caters to will most likely have plenty of scenarios to pilfer from other systems...

Verdict: For veterans looking for a pulpy science-fantasy skirmish game with low model count and plenty of options buttressed by simple (but not too simple!) rules and a great campaign system: highly recommended and well worth the low entry cost. For people new to wargaming I would probably skip this one for now and try an even simpler and better explained system (e.g. OPR) as the sometimes unclear rules might scare a few off. But come back and join the fun and fractious Far Millenium when you're ready!

A great option for superhero tabletop fun when you're tired of the ultra-capitalistic, power-crept "collectable plastic trash" hellscape that is HeroClix, but (depending on the powers you're using) playing SMF can devolve into a lot of "I don't think that's what the rulebook meant when it said..."

My biggest gripe is the Super-Powers section. Instead of each superpower stating its mechanics in a uniform way, each one reads just a little differently. Yes, ultimately, somewhere in the power's description is that "2D[1], 5" ranged Body damage/damage to Body/Body-damaging attack" you're looking for, but it's never laid out like any other power similar to it. Some powers have descriptions that are decidedly spartan, while others are complicated by a lot of fluff and/or rules reminders, making it hard to glean the power's actual mechanical use.

For example, Sorcery (Major) is a complicated power, involving the selection of one Major and several Minor powers into your character's "grimoire" (which should honestly be called the less flowery and more descriptive "spellbook"). You can "access" (and I assume that means "use" or perhaps "activate," but it's unclear) two of these powers each turn, following the normal rules for power activation. Up to this point, it's got clunky wording, but at least it makes reasonable sense. However, it then goes on to explain that I can't use these power before making a 2+ Recharge roll on any of these powers, then reminds me how Recharge rolls (and free actions) work, ultimately ending in an example so confusing I don't know what they were trying to say: "For example, a Sorcerer with Regen takes takes three Body damage. When his next turn begins he chooses to activate it and rolls 2D, scores 2 goals, and heals three Body, and Regen counts as being used and does not activate until it recharges."

What? Why does a Sorcerer with Regen take three Body damage? Is he taking this damage as a result of some example combat, or simply because he's taken Regen? Then, the example assumes I know how Regen works, which means I inevitably flip back a few pages and read it, but Regen is similarly confusing in its wording. The back half of the explanation of Regen's mechanics are based on a hypothetical "could" statement, and I truly can't figure out when I'm supposed to apply it.

I get that it's a slightly older rule book, but it's so frustrating when some complex powers have confusing wording, and just baffling when other similar powers are so clearly defined. Heck, just a few pages before the mess that is Sorcery, Scrapper (Major) is written as a clean, concise, bulleted list of bonuses and abilities. It doesn't make sense.

At the end of the day, these rules use a lot of examples to thematically describe rules I think need to be explained clearly and mechanically. I want to like it, but playing it always feels like I'm interpreting the rules more than using them.

I have to say, I've been reading this in chunks and I really like the mechanics of this game. Its simple and handles a lot of the superhero tropes quite well. Not really for cosmic level play, but for a good street level up to Spider-Man power level, it does a great job. I like this game and the fact that they include skirmish rules for minis and alternate ways to do things (cards for initiative) you can tell there's effort and a love of the genre on display. Anyone who notes Copra, Justice Machine and Suicide Squad (hoping the 80's version) has my full support. I want to run a game of this at some point and have a bunch of minis on the table for it.

The only real critique I have is the layout. This is the only reason I didn't give it a five rating. There are a lot of empty spaces that could have used more of the great art shown elsewhere in this book. The art is awesome. It has a real old school-mixed with a more indie feel which scratches my itch for superhero aesthetics. Jay Piscopo is awesome! So with that said, the book felt sort of unfinished and I sorely wanted more of Jay's art to fill those spaces. I even caught myself thinking that I'd like to just send some of my art in for free just to fill it. Hah! So, its a minor critique for a game I really like and hope more support is coming for it. Villain folios, settings and new powers packed with more of Mr. Piscopo's art. Also, if there was an edited version with more art, I'd buy another physical copy of this. No joke!

Anyway, great job guys! Keep 'em coming.

Made a team and played through the initial series included in the main book. It plays very well, very edge of seat once the action heats up. Also played through "Rangers of Shadow Deep" which this is based on but feels different enough that it is very enjoyable. Definitely feels more light and somewhat easier to approach and play vs RoSD. Heroclix figs work well and books and boxes work well for your terrain. Definitely recommend. Picked up all the expansion adventures in pdf and hope more are coming soon.

Farthest Star is an evolution of Four Color Studio's previously GoalSystem derived SciFi narrative miniatures games (Blasters and Bulkheads, Void Pirates.) It is fun, fast, and ideally suited to solo play - which is where I will focus my review. This is a long review so my tl;dr is: This is a five-star solo-friendly sci-fi miniatures+RPG blended game for me. I'd recommened it without hesitation if you are on the fence.

As a forever GM, I'm often looking for quick, fun solitarie games I can pick and play on my own time. Farthest Star has fit that need perfectly. If you've never played a GoalSystem game it is similar mechanically to any d6 dice pool success counting type system. What makes Farthest Star a great pickup is not just the mecahanics but the flavor and solitarire tools. Like several other modern narrative miniatures game (Five Parsecs From Home, Starport Scum, Two Hour Wargames 5150) there's enough to the game that you can paly a story-heavy miniatures session OR just go full on RPG.

Character building is a breeze - you pick an archetype, species, traits, and gear. This is not a point-buy system, it is quick and fun. There's enough options amongst these you can stat out just about any mini you have on the shelf or character you have in your head. Traits really bring in a lot of flavor and can help make your charcaters feel distinct from each other. There are plenty of combat and movement traits but those aren't the only types. Traits are present to give you Cybernetics, Psionics, or Natural abilities as well "skill based" things piloting or medicine. These options will give you your starting dice pool values to work with. In general the game is more attribute driven "Make a Fitness check" than it is skill driven (but there are rules in a "RPG Mode" section to add skills to the game if that's relevant to you.)

Gear is present here and not hand-waved as merely narrative permissions. There's armor, ranged, melee, meds, drones, and tools. They have mechanical benefits but it is not overwheleming and won't require endless page flipping to figure out what it does. You can easily fit your character sheet and your gear all on an index card for reference.

NPCs can be stated out as full characters if you need them. There's a section with a bunch of pre-built common characters to save you time. There's also a "henchmen" rule so you can group up those minions and deal with them in a streamlined manner.

Task resolution is generally testing an attribute's dice pool and looking for a number of successes ranging from 1 to 5+ depending on the difficulty.

Combat has a solo friendly card based iniative mode and characters/figures will bounce around in the turn around based on these card draws (and their traits which might influence iniative as well.) Melee and Ranged combat work as opposed dice pool rolls wil the margin of success/failure ("effect" in other games) - that is the difference between the number of successes. Many traits add flavorful combat options "bounding leaps", "fierce charging attacks", etc

You'll find the rules default to using 28mm figures but scaling down to 15mm or 10mm is possible. There's no need for particular basing either. This places Farthest Star clearly in the "grab whatever you have painted, printed, or whatever on your shelf and play" category of miniatures games. There is guiidance given for playing the game on a grid vs. measured for us RPG folks. There's not really any "theater of the mind" guidance provided but I have not encountered anything in the rules that would prevent me from playing that way. (As a solo player I can do whatever I want, including being lazy enough to not pull any minis down and just sketch out the encounter on paper and call it day.)

The campaign mode is solid: there's several scenarios which can be rethemed to your needs and a post-battle phase which brings in a bunch of story elements ("visiting the cantina", "fencing your goods", etc.) This is the stuff that makes solo play easy and engaging for someone like me.

Finally there's a quick chapters on vehicles and "RPG Mode." I've shared a bit on RPG Mode so I'll just comment on the vehicles bit - you are not going to play a richly detailed game of mechwarrior with these but they are definitely usable. It is easy to hover tank, speeder bikes, etc into the game. I've done some quick chase scenes - I've even used these to do some quick space battles. Like the characters rules themselves I think they are best suited for anywhere between 1 to 6 vehicles in play per-side.

One thing that's clear is Scott Pyle's love of cinematic comic-book action - which is a point to surface. If you were wanting a horror themed near-earth "Alien" like experience this is not your game. It is a cinematic, pulpy, action-themed game. That's not to say your characters are invincible - they can be brought down for sure but the game is going to reward and feature action. I personally love it! You can dial things towards more fantastic stories such as those in Flash Gordon or Star Wars but you can also bring it down a notch and think more Firefly or Dark Matter. The character system can enable more than just humans in space, so if you want funky aliens with cool natural talents or weird powers that's all here.

Areas of improvement: I'd like to see a clickable table of contents on the PDF and "section bookmarks" that your PDF reader can use to help you jump around the book. The campagin and solo rules could use more. Something to help setup the table encounters and to do so in a way that's randomly generated rather than a pre-built scenario. Likewise, some quick random character generation rules would be helpful for creating enemeies or sidekicks on the fly. Would I love to see a starship supplement? Sure, but I don't think it is necessary for the level of detail you would generally be playing this game at.

The general mechanic of the game is your basic 3d6 sort. "Solo" play in this game should not be considered roleplay but rather roll play. It's nothing but a slug fest on a battle map between two teams. I was hoping for something similar to Scarlet Heroes but was sadly dissapointed. If you're like me and searching for a hero ttrpg, I'd suggest looking elsewhere. If you still want to purchase it, I'd wait for it to be marked down. 14.95 is too much.

You get to play super heroes! Like the authors other games this captures the flavor of our favorite four color heroians. Great system quick to play with solid proven mechanics.

I can sum up why this is the best in fast playing super hero table-top gaming.

Any Hero, Any Power, Any Scenario.

Structured enough to provide excellent relative differences in powers, enough depth to include a full campaign system (with RPG elements and character progression if you wish to use them) and flexible enough to emulate virtually anything you've seen in a comic book.

I have been a fan of Four Color's Super's games for some time. This 2nd edition of Super Mission Force is the latest version of an already excellent game. The goal-system method of game play is perfect for fast-paced, super powered, skirmishes. You can easily fit two full games in an afternoon. If you haven't tried this game before, don't wait. It's a bargain at $10 bucks.