SUMMARY (based on one full test-game): A very nice ruleset. Arguably an ideal introduction to this scale of wargaming, and likely also a safe bet for more experienced large-scale gamers who want a faster, more streamlined experience. The game has some but not too much book-keeping (though see my caveat below). Play is fluid, tactics are important, reaction fire and suppression are important and consequential. You can play a brigade-level engagement in an hour or two.

SOME POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS:

• the game is just abstract enough to keep play fast. It focuses on your perspective as the Brigade Commander, NOT the sum of all command perspectives from the platoon level up. Because of this, you have a fairly abstract classification of units - for the most part, for example, “infantry is infantry.” Yet a clever “unit attachments” element in the rules also allows you more granularity to distinguish units with different capabilities. The attachment system is quite flexible; I used it to good effect for the sci-fi elements in our (Warhammer 40k-themed) test battle. Space Marines actually felt like Space Marines, without being overpowered...
• on that note, the game is quite playable as written, but also quite open to tweaking, hacking, and flexibility - without breaking the game.
• fluidity of play: units advance - but sometimes get halted or pushed back by fire. Tactics, reaction fire, suppression, all felt very important. This is not a game for units to slowly add up their mounting casualties while they roll inexorably across the battlefield. This is a game where tactics and planning matter, but ‘no plan will survive contact with the enemy’ - probably - and you may find yourself scrambling to stop, or to exploit, a sudden hole in the lines or enemy breakthrough...

A FEW CRITIQUES, AND A FEW TWEAKS:

• there are some occasional typos and ambiguities in the rules. These never presented a major problem. Becoming more familiar with the rules may take care of much of this ambiguity for me. Second, the author is highly active online and helpfully responsive to emails with rules questions, etc.
• the Quick Reference Sheets for the game are included but they do not provide quite enough detail, at least not for a first time playing the game. I printed off some extra content (the more detailed description of firing results) and I may create my own, more detailed QRS for future games.
• for our first game, at least, I felt that the possible unit statuses inflicted by Shock dice were one too many (rolling a 1 on a Shock die will inflict a different Status based on whether the target was in covering terrain or not). Long-term, familiarity with the game may let me exploit the nuanced added by the full option, but for now, I just treated all Shock dice “1s” the same. Not surprisingly, this did nothing to ruin my enjoyment of the game, kept things even faster, and worked fine.

IF YOU ALREADY PLAY GAMES IN 2-10MM SCALES: …then I’d suggest this if you want a more streamlined, faster way to play large battles.

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS SCALE OF GAMING: …then you should know that it isn’t a difficult level to break into. Armies generally can be acquired more cheaply than at other scales. For our test-battle, I just made up my own top-down unit stands on the computer and printed them off onto foam core bases. Worked fine. The rules offer a really nice introduction and a way to play battles with, say, 15 companies to a side.

IF YOU PLAY SCI-FI WARGAMES: …these rules are written for modern, ‘real-world’ wargaming, but they are not difficult to modify for sci-fi play (as noted above, my test-battle used a 40k setting). The attachments system offers a great way to add unit differentiation. 5Core is a set of rules that run from the skirmish up to brigade level; the 5Core Company Commander level rules have an inexpensive expansion called “5Core Company Commander in Spaaace…” which is not essential but has some ideas that can be modified and carried up to brigade level.

OVERALL: a fun fast game where tactics still matter. I look forward to playing again.

I’m very pleased with this purchase. No Stars in Sight (NSIS) offers tactical, fun squad-to-platoon level gameplay that isn’t likely to fry your brain (with some simple tweaks it could work for somewhat abstract company level engagements too). These comments are based on my experiences after buying the .pdf, skimming the rules for a few days, and playing one test game with my kids. The game was great fun, tactical, and interesting, but not brain-frying.

Much has been made of the “bank robbery shootout” scene in the movie Heist, a scene that features outnumbered gunmen using brute force, automatic fire, judicious use of cover, and coordinated movement to great effect. Honestly, compared to most of the skirmish/squad-level rulesets I’ve played before, NSIS offers gameplay that feels a bit like that movie scene! Cover is really important; reaction fire and suppression matter a lot but are handled in a very elegant, easy way by the rules; coordination between squads, or at least between members of the same squad, is really critical for making headway across the battlefield. Casualties tend to accumulate more slowly than many war gamers will be accustomed to - yet something interesting is always happening. Go back and watch that Heat shootout scene again, or others like it; note the enormous amounts of lead tossed around in between every actual casualty. In the same way, NSIS portrays sci-fi gunfights where huge amounts of fire are being tossed back and forth, but usually this leads to suppression, pinning, or delayed movement. Yet the game doesn’t feel static.

I’m currently using this with 40k sci-fi minis for our gaming. I found that the simple, minimal-fuss rules worked really well. In our test-battle, a squad of elite security troopers (Imperial Guard, but running as ‘Professionals’ in NSIS terms) were supported by two small fire-teams of Space Marines (also professionals, but we further gave them an automatic cover save in addition to their assault armor even when they weren’t in cover). They faced off against 3 squads of Trained criminals and cultists blocking their exit from a raided compound. The engagement developed into separate firefights for control of key alleyways; eventually, coordination of supporting fire between units, and some calculated risks that got key troops around corners into flanking positions, allowed the 'good guys' to pin the bad guys and then clean their clocks in short-range assaults. Random dice rolls mattered, of course, but it really felt like common-sense squad tactics, use of cover, and leveraging troop quality over multiple turns really paid off. In the end, the bad guys got pushed back into a crossfire and then outflanked, and that was it. I was really pleased with how the fight went. Professionals really felt like better troops than Trained adversaries; and our proxy marines felt quite powerful, but still just vulnerable enough that they couldn’t take enemy action too lightly. Long-term, I intend to use fairly simple rules for Space Marines, and reserve the game’s Powered Armor advanced rules for Terminators and Dreadnoughts. Just the simple core rules already feel pretty effective for my “vanilla 40k” tastes.

I do have two critiques to offer, but they are pretty minor. First, the core rules are very simple and easy to ‘get.’ But the many special rules and exceptions for more advanced unit types will probably stack up quickly in a large game or a game with quite diverse troop-types. The rules recognize this and encourage players to start small and simple, which is quite reasonable advice. I’m pleased to say that our test battle didn’t involve particularly diverse elements, but it still felt challenging and interesting. The rules summary ‘cheat sheet’ at the back of the back is quite helpful, but I also found it useful to print off my own ‘cheat-sheet’ showing each squad’s basic information (including Firepower level) and any special rules that applied to them. Second, I found the morale rules to be the most complex part of the game. Mind you, they aren’t actually terribly complex, this is just to say that I found them more complex than other parts of the game. Most of the game involves hardly any math (one of the reasons I reached for NSIS over the Squad Hammer rules, which appear to rely more on adding up to-hit bonuses). But when a squad takes enemy fire, you are supposed to count up quickly how many pins they received, how many casualties are also weighing down the squad too, and then roll under the combined total or fall back a certain distance away from the enemy fire. Not that complicated, to be sure, but you have to do this so often (when a squad takes fire) that the very small amount of math involved does translate into small-but-frequent math. As time goes on, I think I might tweak this very simply into a more streamlined way to test and apply morale/fall-back procedures, but I don’t think doing so is likely to change the feel of the game very much. At any rate, with more experience under my belt, even the morale rules as written might feel more comfortable.

All in all I highly recommend NSIS if you are looking for a sci-fi squad to platoon-level game that emphasizes real-life tactics over clunky rules. I hear one can also use the same mechanics for a slightly larger (small company) level engagement by making each “figure” a fire team or squad in a platoon. If the ruleset sounds appealing but you aren’t looking for sci-fi, then look at No End in Sight, the historical version. Finally, if you do get this ruleset, also pick up the 2015 Nordic Weasel Grab-Bag .pdf (Pay What You Want, I believe) which has a few extra special rules options and ideas (I may try using some of those rules to further test out Space Marine options). Two thumbs up!

This is a great little system and is worth a try for anyone. I purchased this in hopes of finding a simple game for all of the tons and tons of Star Wars minis I've never used and I wasn't disappointed. It turns out that it works fantastic for Star Wars and our group had a lot of fun with it. You know it's good when you have 7 veteran gamers try out something new and they all like it. (We all know how hard it is to please veteran gamers!) I knew we were onto something 5 minutes into our test run when one of the guys said "holy cow this game moves fast." This basic version doesn't have much chrome, but that's a good thing to get a feel for how the mechanics work. The author has versions of these rules that can be used for various historical periods and it looks like he added just a little bit of the chrome there but I have a hunch that you can pick and choose how much or how little of that chrome to use. Pick up this basic version and get hooked on the simple mechanics and you'll probably do like I did and pick up the others too. I'll be giving the Russo-Finnish Winter War 1939 version a shot next.

This won't be the ruleset to replace all of my other rules 100% of the time. However, this is about to become my go-to set of rules for when we don't want to spend 4 hours on a hard core game or when I want to run something without doing much prep work. This gets two thumbs up from me!

I own many of the "Hammer" products. It's a fun and easy game system to learn. And this Core version is the cleanest version to date. Even if you own some of the other Hammer products, I'd still recommned it.

If you're new to Squad Hammer: At first glance, it might seem simplistic, but there is a fair amount of subtilty. You need to soften up an enemy unit in cover, but long range shooting probably won't shift it out of a defended position -- you'll need to get up close and personal for that. in other words, the rules encourage realistic tactics without a massive amount of rules. A combination which many/most rules are not able to achieve.

I also want to make special mention of the layout and design. Nordic Weasel has in the past had fairly simple layouts for their products (which I actually appreciated since I like to print out my pdf's). However, this product sees a much slicker presentation with photos illustrating the rules and a very nice quick-reference sheet. But it won't kill you printer cartridge either.

Well worth the suggested pay-what-you-want price. Looking forward to seeing what Nordic Weasel does with the Squad Hammer system!

First, I should point out that I provided some playtest feedback and some photographs for the game, but I did buy my own copy.

With that out of the way, I really like "Renegade Scout". The problem is that it's hard to say exactly why.

I mean, it's a solid set of rules that are comprehensive and easy to understand, so that's good. It has sort of an "old-school" feel, but cleaned up and engergized with some modern sensibilities, so it feels familiar and comfortable but not burdensome or outdated. And I can't think of anything that I would want from the game that it doesn't cover. Vehicles, robots, sneaking, campaigns, character advancement, helpful and inspiring random tables, "off map support", falling, interrogation, reinforcements, and just a ton more. Maybe I'm just uptight, but that thoroughness really feels good.

Oh! And the magic/psychic powers! They're fun and semi-random, with cool names and effects. What I like in particular is that some powers are persistent, like "Float the Wind" which lets the caster hover over terrain without penalty (and without having to actually "cast" the effect), and some powers are maybe a little more powerful or desireable than others (but not too much). What I like about that is that your caster can, over several campaign games, "collect" the spells that they want, and when you finally roll up "Mind Plague" (or whatever you're hoping for), it's an exciting event. Also, the table of critical failures for powers has the possibility of warping your caster and any other figures and terrain nearby into the void, never to be seen again. It's not likely, but man, that would be something to remember!

On a less bonkers note, I also like the "sheltering" rule. It basically lets your units "hide" as they move around the board, and makes terrain important for more than just a defense bonus. Basically, your sheltering units can't be shot at if they are sheltering, unless your opponent can pass a "spotting" roll, which is based on the distance between the units. It's all very elegant and tactical, and the extra die rolls, when necessary, add to the texture of the game and aren't a burden (IMO).

So, those are some great things, but that still doesn't really explain how much I like this game. I think, in the end, it's just that when I've played, I've really felt engaged and had fun. Hooray, fun!

If you're interested, here are a couple examples of my fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eSlETsQ-fs&list=PLYUGDcghM-GWjAYDZPakeJzmQF4bfzGq9

https://redplayerone.blogspot.com/2018/11/renegade-scout-prydians-vs-maligs-at.html

Really enjoyed v1 and the new version is better - easier to follow, new additions are great ('defend' action trumps the houserule I'd made up).

I use it for smaller sclae 6mm battles - so still multibasing, but fewer units - it's trumped Horizon Wars for me. Perfect for forces like this:

Five Leagues from the Borderlands is medieval/fantasy version of Five Parsecs from Home, so please check that one for detailed review.

Just to be clear, I like Ivan’s games very much, but in the following review I will present my personal reasons why I will not continue to play this game (without modifications). I did play three different campaigns, each for 7 turns (maybe it is not too much). The basic rules for resolving tabletop combat are simple and solid, but:

1. There is a too much rerolls – armor, shield, greaves, weapons.... – not a big issue, but to keep track of all rerolls you can make and in the end there is very small impact to the game (the effect is only 6 on D6)
2. There are fighting styles to differentiate your Heroes, however I did not like how they impact (if at all) the combat. In my opinion they are not very well balanced (for me, for example, the use of a shield is much underestimated).
3. Randomness is a very BIG part of the game. In my games I was just able to gain experience for my Heroes but there was no progress in campaign due to too random rolls (maybe there should be some positive modifiers to the rolls depending on the campaign turn or other achievements). According my experience I should play maybe 30-50 turns (tabletop encounters) just to clear one problem (outlaws-border tension-dark secrets) in one village and this, in my opinion, is too much to stay focused.

Anyway, thank you Ivan, I spent nice time with getting into Five Leagues from the Borderlands.

One of my favorites. The card activation system keeps you on your toes as you won't know who's going next, or even how many actions will be available. And regular random events add even more spice. But it's not all chaos, as your leaders can bank cards to use later. The rules are easy to use and understand, and the factions are fun and interesting and expose some of the exciting flavor of the Unified Space setting. For a fun skirmish game with only a couple handfuls of figures on each side, I highly recommend UFA! :)

(N.B. I was in on some of the playtesting, but I didn't get paid or anything. Even bought my own copy of the rules. Worth it!)

Phenomenal game. I love the flexibility and toolbox feel. I can finely control the amount of complexity from game to game depending on what I'm looking for or who I'm playing with. Being a dad with young kids, I need a game that plays quickly, has a small footprint, and has a quick time-to-table. FiveCore passes all three with flying colors.

The biggest threat to my gaming is prep time. If I have to build a bunch of unit profiles before I can even get started playing, odds are, it isn’t going to happen. With Fivecore, I don't have to stat up or build my forces to get started. If I’m really pressed for time, I can just grab some minis, use the weapon that the model most resembles, make a couple rolls on the Mission and Deployment tables, and off I go.

The biggest downsides are the production quality and the rules layout, both of which fall down when compared to a similarly priced product like Gruntz. Despite the simplicity of the core system, my first few games had me jumping back and forth through the rulebook looking for clarifications. Certain rules interactions (or lack of explanation) confused me, such as Hidden and LOS, or Speculative Fire and Peeking. Without an index, it is hard to locate exactly what I needed.

If you can power through some initial confusion (any wargame of sufficient complexity will have growing pains), are willing to make some judgement calls (this is not a tournament game), and deal with the lack of an index, you will be rewarded with a unique, interesting, and incredibly flexible skirmish game.

This is the third ruleset I get from Nordic Weasel, the others being Clash of the Fringe and FiveCore, and this is the one that I will actually play. Not because the others are bad, but because it's exactly what I was looking for, and what it says it is: a refurbished version of warhammer40k rogue trader.

The author really is passionate about game design and it shows: the rules are clearly laid, written in a concise, straightforward way that while its not "fun" to read, it makes things crystal clear.

What makes it interesting to me (and probably many other fellow gamers) is that it's full of options, rules for weird situations and guidelines for scenario building that, somehow, manage to convey the "magic" of the old days but in a rule frame that feels more agile and coherent than the ones from back in the day.

All I can say is, thank you!!

Disclaimer: I backed the crowdfunding campaign and have been in contact with the author since earlier drafts of the rules.

These rules achieve exactly what they set out to do. It's a game that is compatible with original Rogue Trader content, but is still an almost completely new game. It's not just the original mechanics that have been streamlined or tweaked a bit, it's more like comparing the 1987 model and 2018 model of a car. The stat lines are basically the same (most of the names of the stats have just been changed a bit), so original RT units stats can easily be converted over. Even though it keeps the same stat line, the rules have been written such that it is much quicker and easier to use (despite being the infamous super long GW stat line). Almost every die roll has been made a simple 1d6 or 2d6 roll-under, so you no longer have to look at any charts or tables. Activation and turn order in Renegade Scout is a very nice mix between the classic GW IGOUGO turn order (with the movement phase, shooting phase, etc.) and a more modern alternating activation.

Like all NWG products Renegade Scout comes with some excellent random tables for gear, scenarios, etc. At this point my favorite thing about the rules so far is the "Wyrd Powers" list. It's just ridiculously awesome. Also, in the tradition of classic wargame rules there is a Painting and Modeling section included, which is pretty nice. As someone who learned how to paint their fist miniatures as a young teen be reading those few pages at the back of the book, it brings back good memories of first starting out in the hobby.

Renegade Scout can obviously be used with old RT/40k models, but it comes package with the "Unified Space" setting used in other Nordic Weasel titles (notably UFA). "Unified Space" is an sci-fi universe that draws from existing tropes, and is generic enough to be able to fit any model you have into, but is also pretty interesting and fun all on its own.

The layout/design of the book is a new high standard for Nordic Weasel Games in my opinion. It's simple but nice, and definitely rather printer friendly. If you are interested retro-inspired miniature gaming, but still want well designed modern game mechanics, Renegade Scout is definitely worth the 20 bucks.

Excellent. As good as Frostgrave or Walking Dead: All Out War.

The rules are simple enough to get out of your way yet flexible enough to simulate anything you might need to. Climbing, jumping down, kicking in doors, hacking computer terminals, it's all accounted for by one of two types of skill check.

The campaign is procedurally generated through a series of suggestions from random tables. A random mission might be that the heroes are hired by the [local authorities] to [investigate a location]. It's up to the player to determine who the authorities are, what the location is and how it's set up. The amount of justification/explanation is entirely up to the player. Grab a set of Story Cubes or something like the Mythic GM Emulator and it can easily take on rpg aspects. Or don't worry about it, go to a location, roll up an enemy group, fight it out, shoot first and ask no questions. As much or as little story as you desire.

While there is a great deal of rolling on tables during the campaign phase, the tables are largely there to guide your imagination. During the combat phase you won't have to roll on tables at all and you'll rarely need to consult the rules.

Characters level up both through the use of XP and the acquisition of loot.

The designer acknowledges that in a game with so many dice, there can arise situations which feel "unfair" or "spiteful." There are therefore provided 5 one-time bonuses that can be used during a campaign. They do things such as, "if you would die, instead do not die."

There's also some leeway given with random results on event tables. If it doesn't make sense for the situation, move on.

In exchange for the simple and fluid gameplay, the player may need to make a judgment call from time to time. A person with any minis skirmish or dungeon crawl background should have no difficulty making such snap judgments.

If this is your first minis skirmish game, be advised that there is no hand-holding. The rules are simple and fluid, but there's no tutorial and no hard and fast rules for terrain placement or scenario design.

Veterans of minis skirmish games on the other hand will find that the rules get out of their way and the structure provides a great deal of freedom.

I'm currently using minis from The Walking Dead: All Out War, Heroscape, Halo the Boardgame, and Warhammer40k.

It's worth noting that all the Five Parsecs games share a common ruleset so it's dead simple to switch to a Salvage Crew game or Gang Warfare game with your current characters.

If you buy this, I suggest getting the rules compendium as well. That gives a chunk of optional systems to flesh out areas in which you'd like a little more granularity in your simulation.

Then buy Salvage Crew and Gang Warfare. Add the other supplements as desired.

$8 is a great price.

For what it is, and what it is supposed to do, this system is perfect. It is rules-light, fast, and easy. It is fairly granular, so there isn't a wide range for variation; however, in the way that I have tended to use it, it does its job beautifully.

This is an excerpt from an email I sent to the designer, which I realized would work well as a review, so I pasted it in here:

So I got the PDF a while back from RPGNow, read it, and found it fairly interesting. I actually know the crew that created Tunnels & Trolls, so the reference to it (and the way you handled the "all or nothing" of combat, as you mention) was pretty interesting to me.

However, I hadn't really used the system.

I've got three campaigns theoretically going, but haven't really enjoyed running any of them, so when some friends were coming over and mentioned gaming, I decided to run a fantasy game set in my own world, and wanted a simple system, since they can have difficulty mastering new systems, and even 5th edition D&D, which I like a lot, was more complex than I wanted for a possible one-shot.

I chose B&L, and have really enjoyed it, as have the players.

The system is simple enough to be easy to pick up and keep up with, and while on the face of it, the available options are limited, this allows the players and GM to "write" the characters and situations as they wish. No nit-picking of options or lists of choices to make, no restrictions on what race or class to choose from, and this allows the players and GM to "write" the characters and situations as they wish, something I've sometimes seen more specifically detailed systems give people trouble with. Just decide who and what your character is and get going. I was able to whip up four sample characters in a few minutes, and make all of them interesting enough to appeal to the characters.

Play has been fast and easy, and the players all understood what to do, remembered what to do, and figured out how to use their characters' various traits and skills to their advantage very quickly ("I'm a soldier, I probably know where to find a good tavern.")

All of this has really contributed to my appreciation for the system, though I do sometimes wish it was slightly less granular, as there isn't a lot of room for nuance. But at those times, I try to remember that what a foe is like is up to how to describe it to the players, not what its stats say, or whatever.

[Please note that english is not my first language.] Five Parsecs From Home (FPFH) is not the first solo-wargame I've bought on wargamevault. But it is the first solo-wargame I played extensively.

0.) THE GIST You put a crew of more or less renegade space-adventures against a variety of foe. Inteded for (quick) solo-play.

1.) PRESENTATION Currently clocking it at 56 pages, the booklets layout is simple, yet effective. It is clearly meant to be printed out on half-letter/A5. Printing is a thing I can clearly recommend as it contains tons of tables which need to be referenced often. I should note: Tables are NOT used during combat! Only during the Campaign Turn (see below). It uses pictures sparingly - mostly "action" shots of sci-fi wargaming. Color is used to layout the tables (grey/yellow). Other then that, keywords are bold.

2.) FLUFF There is no "Five Parsecs"-Setting, though the influences are clear and stated by the author: Traveller, Trigun, Mass Effect, Firefly, and Borderlands. While there's no official background, the random tables give you a good feeling about the intent of the author, something often called "implied setting". For example, your crews ship can be a "Battered Mining Ship", your patron may be the "Local Authorities", your enemies might be "Isolationists" or "Mutants". All in all, enough to get your creative juices flowing if you want to add some story-depth to your fights.

3.) CREW/CHARACTER CREATION At first, you generate your crew of five. Characters are defined by four (five) stats - Reactions (Initiative), Speed (simple, in tabletop-inches), Combat Skill, and Toughness. The fifth skill, Tech is not really used in FPFH but will be needed if you want to mix the game up with other titles of the range. Abilities are increased via XP (and sometimes decreased via injuries), some items give flat bonuses to them, too. I won't go into detail, but let's say the following: While Speed-increases might be of obvious (minor) use, Reactions and Combat Skill are really powerful. Toughnes directly reduces your chance to get hurt, so it will be of use, too (1/6 chance per point). Since your character is generated randomly - Background, Motivation and Character Class are all rolled up randomly on beautiful designed random tables - you don't have too much influence on the results. All three instances give you a random assortment of Enemies, Patrons, Credits, Gear/Gadgets and increases on your Abilities. In addition to the items gained by character creation, you gain an assortment of gear that goes straight to your stash. Before your mission, you will need to allocate your equipment.

4.) WEAPONS/GEAR/GADGETS There are enough weapons to satisfy your crunchy needs. Weapons are grouped into Low-Tech, Military and Hi-Tech Weapons and, you guessed right, are determined at random. So your 1d100 roll can give you a lousy hand gun (12" range/1 shot/0 damage) or a mighty shotgun (12" range/2 shots/1 damage). As you can see, weapon range is used, a little bit more on that later. Shots shows you, how many attack dice you roll, sometimes (as with the shotgun) this is "Focused", meaning, you can only shoot at one target. Damage means a flat bonus to your Damage roll. Some Items are of single/limited use (e. g. Frakk Grenades come in a pack of three). Other then that there is a plethora of various Doodads, some very powerful (Combat Armor for example gives you a flat +1 Toughness and Reactions), other more casual (Loaded Dice give you +1d6 credits/turn but you'll lose them and get injured when you roll a 6). You'll find this throughout the book: Pleasure and pain go hand in hand, sometimes to a borderline frustrating degree).

5.) ENCOUNTERS Essentially there are 2 stages - the Campaign Turn and Encounters. The Campaign Turn can be played with just a pencil, paper and some dice. Essentially you'll manage your crew, next mission, patrons, enemies, experience, everything. This turn is really fun! Even if you don't have the time to put your minis on the table, you can create a crew and play up to the first encounter and have an hour or two full of fun with a simulation game. The Encounter is where the bullets fly. There are different types of encounters: Those given to you by patrons (earns you more money and sometimes patron-benefits), Enemy Encounters (which use predefined enemy-types and are generally not as profitable), Opportunity Missions (as with Patrons sans the bonus) and Quests (more of everything, harder to get). Once you get enemies, you'll sooner or later fight against them. Most often they will be reoccuring "Vendettas", so you'll have to develop a tactic how to defeat them. If you have no Enemies and Patrons and have no luck with Quests, you'll go on an Opportunity mission. Enemies use the same stats and weapons as you and come in all colors. You encounter 2d6h enemies (highest result of two rolled d6), modified by enemy-type. One enemy will be the leader (better weapon, +1 Combat Skill, the others will be foot-soldiers). Having fought six fights now, I can say: Enemy power varies widely, fitting snugly in the whole random-concept of the game. Example? You could roll "well" and fight against three punks (4"/0/3 - equipped with handguns), or you could fight against 6 black-ops (6"/+2/5 - equipped with auto-rifles and a leader with a fury rifle).

6.) RULES The rules are simple. Simple, yet quite brilliant. The best thing (in the current revision of the rules) IMHO is the initiative: You roll a number of d6 equal to your count of crew members. You then assign a d6 result to each member. If the corresponding die is equal or less to the characters Reactions ability, this character acts before the enemies' turn. All other characters act after the enemy. There is a "Guard" action called snapfire, which allows you to deliberately act later or as a reaction to enemy movement. This rule is simple, yet effective. Note that since your Reactions score is pretty low, most of your characters will act after the enemy. Shooting is allowed after movement, except with heavy weapons. A simple d6 roll (one for each shot of your weapon), a result equal or higher then 3/5/6 (depending on distance to the enemy and the grade of cover) is needed to hit the target. Here your Combat Skill is added. Damage is another die roll - you'll add your damage score, if any. If it comes up equal or higher then the enemies Toughness, it is taken out. Lower result means the enemie gets a Stun token, which may be reduced 1/turn, reducing you to movement OR attacking with each activation. If you move into contact with the enemy, you'll brawl. Brawling is a contested d6 roll, Combat Skill is added, there's a -1 penalty for not wealding a melee weapon/pistol or a +1 bonus for wealding melee weapons. The loser takes a hit, on a draw, both takes hits. Also: On a 1, you take an extra hit, on a 6 you'll inflict an extra hit. Damage is determined by best pistol/melee weapon/set to zero if none of both are used. As you can imagine, melee is pretty brutal! Well, this is it. Pretty much. There are more rules of course, but you'll have to buy the book for this :-)

7.) TERRAIN Terrain rules are pretty simple, too. Essentially you have a variety of terrain (Linear, Area, Field, Obstacle, Block, Individual), each with minor rules involved. There is no rule where to place what, but each Encounter gives you a Encounter site as a hint to what kind of terrain to place.

8.) THE A.I. As a solo-gamer you'll need to know how to handle the enemies. Of course you'll have a bias towards your little spaceship-crew, so it's good when there are rules how your enemies behave. FPFH deals with this with general movement routines: Each enemy is either Cautions, Aggressive, Tactical or Psycho. Example? Cautious enemies always stay behind cover if possible. When there's an enemy in sight, they will stand where they are and fire. Otherwise they will move behind cover, trying to establish a line of sight to an enemy. They will stay as far away as their weapons allow and won't deliberately advance nearer then 12". They won't enter a brawl. Does this description cover everything? Certainly not. Would it be nice if there would be more advice? A clear yes. So far I did not encounter a real problem, though. The fights were entertaining and if I'd would like more information on how to handle the enemies, it would have been possible without a hassle. Let's roll up an example patron encounter: Patron: Local gang. Job type: Patrol location. Mission target: Someone's turf. Enemy: Bounty hunters (tactical). Hah! That's easy: Your crew has to patrol the gangs home turf because they expect a group of bounty hunters to hi-jack them. Of course this leads to further questions, but hey: You'll need some imagination and some impromptu decisions to make this work.

9.) OTHER STUFF There are tons of other things in these pages: Optional rules en masse, including difficulty levels, oddball characters, rules for competititve (classic PvP) play and much more.

10.) CONCLUSION I did not really plan to do solo-wargaming. I started buying various sets of rpg and wargaming rules with a mild rules-fetish. The more I bought, the more I expected of them, effectively building a big hurdle to start gaming at all. Then came FPFH. This game seemed so easy to start with! I built some quick terrain with Duplos/Legos, some minis with Legos and started playing. This game delivers what it promises: Easy, fun and extendable solo-wargaming. If I needed to rate this product, I'd give it a flat 5/5.

BUY THIS, IF... ...you like wargaming at all ...you like sci-fi random tables ...you are interested in a good designed rules-set ...you are interested in a simple AI to handle opposition in solo-gaming

DON'T BUY THIS, IF... I have no really good idea. If you really hate procedural content, this won't be the game for you.

Hope, this'll help someone! F.Khalil

P.S.: Ivan Sorenson, the author, is very active at G+. He is a terribly nice guy and he will most certainly react if you contact him.

I am very happy with LaserStorm Sci-fi rules. I have found all the features mentioned in the rules overview are correct and the rules achieve the desired effect. I have tried numerous rules ranging from ok to good, and I believe for me, that this set of rules may be the one because it hits so many buttons for me. I like the no counters, the unique save concept, the unit activation cards....on and on.

I have 6mm figures (Space Marines and Orge) that I will use these rules for eventually. I also have 15mm figures (Hammers and Halo) that I will try as well. I have started with my very large and diverse 28mm collections and the initial two games were good using a red verse blue set of figures that I use for all rules I am trying out. I believe this rule set offers a nice game for either solo, as I am playing them, or large group battles. In a large battle setting, like how we do bolt action on large scale, I will be organizing each participant to have 3 battle forces, and be paired off with an opponent. Then as I draw the cards, the game flow will be similar to my solo adventure which has proven to be decisive, fun, and quick paced.

Laserstorm - nicely done. Thanks. Bart