First Game of Five Parsecs From Home

 

Finally got Five Parsecs onto the table.

Set Up

Randomly generated encounter as my teams first mission as per the book. I'm keeping an on-line record of the campaign over on my wiki at http://taunoyen.com/wiki/doku.php?id=five_parsecs_from_home.

My team of 6 (using Albedo figures, will buy some more generic spaces at Salute) were up against the 3 Warbots and the Hakshan Investigator I bought and described at http://newconverj.blogspot.com/2021/10/figures-for-five-parsecs-from-home.html.

All the team had to do was exit the far side, optionally picking up the loot box as they went.

Crew on the left, Warbots top right, Hakshan bottom right

How it Played

A good shot from Erma took the Shell Gun bot out as soon as it emerged from the wood. Toki got into a shooting match with the warbot leader and kept it stunned enough to eventually get close enough to kill it. Erma and Sciuris then took the 3rd Warbot out - some good 1s and 2s meaning that the Bots hardly got a shot in. 

First warbot down!

Frenchie picked up the loot box, a nice 5Cr. 

The Hakshan Investigator had been watching all this, but never really had a bead on anyone. She tried to pick the team off as they moved towards the wood but again the activation pattern meant there was never a clear shot. She moved round almost to the board edge and ultimately had to step out of cover to catch Erma just as she moved along the edge of the wood. Right on target and with a kill roll, but Erma's luck meant she just managed to dive for cover. The near-miss incensed the team and Paddy and Bloody just advanced forward letting loose with their shotguns, and the poor Hakshan had 5 stuns before they finally took her out. 

The Investigator takes a bead....

The crew manage to exit the far edge without further incident and the first battle is a nice success for no loss.

Rules Impressions

That all went pretty well. The combat rules are basic, D6  per shot with 3 DMs (range, cover, aim), so it moves along quickly. Results seemed more "realistic" than Stargrave (which has an opposed roll system which just doesn't seem/work right to me). The ability for some characters to activate before the enemy is a nice touch and some tactical thinking needed about dice assignment. The toughness stat and armour save seemed OK. Surprised that a stunned character could still fire with no penalty (except no aim), be tempted to house rule a -1 per stun. Having a +2 combat skill (like Erma) made a huge difference (3+ to hit not 5+).

An over-stunned Investigator as Paddy and Bloody take revenge

Broader Impressions

As a run-through all fine. It must be said that the campaign wrapper has a whole lot of dice rolling (about 15 for the post-battle!) and is calling out for an app! Combat-wise its deliberately light weight, which is fine, but I'll run the same scenario again with ACP164 to find out whether that actually takes much more time and whether it gives a better feel for the encounter.

Whilst I like the overall campaign idea of Five Parsecs I think that the fact that it is background-less, or at least the fact that I'm not invested in any background, does mean that the battles do just seem like they'll be a set of standalone encounters - even though the crew evolves between them.

I'm suspecting that the ideal system for me may be something like:

• Traveller's Third Imperium/Spinward Marches for background
• Five Parsecs for the campaign rules
• ACP164 for the combat

Would probably be a good thing to set up on Roll20/Virtual Tabletop for when I'm away from home too.

Once I've done the ACP game I'll probably do the next step on the campaign in "pure" Five Parsecs and then if I'm still of the same mind try my hybrid model out.