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Hey all! I have been fortunate enough over the last few weeks to be a playtester for No Stars in Sight, the sci-fi supplement to Nordic Weasel’s fantastic No End in Sight modern warfare game. Like its historical cousin, No Stars in Sight emphasizes fire and movement and the difficulty troops have crossing ground that is under fire.
Here’s a write up of a playtest I did today, using powered armor infantry (PAs) against a mixed force of enemy infantry and armored vehicles.
The PA force consisted of four troopers: two “maneuver” PAs, carrying heavy machine guns w/attached grenade launchers, a smoke grenade discharger, and a back-mounted “buzzbomb” rack of three rockets (buzzbombs are general AT missiles). The other two troopers were “fire support” PAs: one with a projected energy weapon and a shoulder-mounted SAW (he’s the AT guy) and another with an automatic-grenade launcher and a shoulder-mounted SAW (the anti-personnel guy).
The enemy consisted of two APCs, armed with automatic cannon and buzzbombs, and two squads of infantry, each of 8 men, carrying one projected energy weapon and a buzzbomb launcher.
The game objective: the PAs must get at least a single trooper off the enemy table edge. The enemy must stop them.
The game began with a PA trooper killing the lead APC with the projected energy weapon. The other enemy forces scattered, moving off the road as quickly as they could. The PAs shifted their advance to go up the left.
Situation on turn 1
The enemy troops moved their infantry forward, getting a lucky kill early with the projected energy weapon. A PA moved up and killed several infantry in an assault, forcing the others to fall back.
The other enemy infantry squad moved forward to lay down some fire but were hurled back by the same PA who had assaulted a moment earlier—you can see all the dice he rolls!
The projected energy weapon trooper tried to get a shot at the APC, but the APC emptied its whole rack of buzzbombs on reaction fire and killed the PA trooper. 2 PAs down—ouch!
The PAs tried to lay some smoke to get the AGL trooper across the road, but their activation rolls failed and the smoke screen went to waste.
The automatic grenade launcher PA then opened up on a group of enemy infantry, smothering them with grenade and SAW fire—killing 4!
The HMG-armed PA then lurched forward for another assault—he killed one enemy trooper, but then lucky small-arms fire damaged him thoroughly, leaving his suit immobile and with only his grenade launcher operational.
The AGL trooper moved forward, but the enemy projected energy weapon tagged him with reaction fire—and his armor melted under the attack. Game over for the PAs.
The game was very fun and took about an hour to play. The PAs had several tactical options, as did their enemies—there’s good replay value here, I think. I’ll write up the scenario for others to use.
As for the game—No Stars in Sight is getting close to completion and will have rules for aliens, lots of special weapons and gear, and all manner of vehicles. Powered armor troops have vulnerabilities, to mass small arms fire and definitely to anti-tank weapons, but man do they feel powerful when they open up with all their weapons! Really feels like you’re rocking some heavy troops.
Thanks for looking! Miniatures are rebel minis, modified Khurasan, and Black Ronin games shacks. The vehicles are modified Matchbox toys.
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