Tag Archives: Nordic Weasel Games

"All scifi gaming eventually leads to the movie Aliens" someone once told me.

Maybe that's not quite true, but the 1986 sequel to the original Alien certainly does loom large over miniatures gaming.

A squad of heavily armed marines alone against the ravening hordes of extra-terrestrial killers. Good stuff.

So now, you can indulge in the same sort of thing using Five Parsecs.

Create a handful of characters and lead your crew of soldiers as they accomplish objectives and fend off the alien terrors.

As with other Five Parsecs titles, everything is aimed at solo play (though you can play with a friend and even earn some bonus rewards, to account for the fact a human opponent usually is more devious).

Everything flows in a campaign structure with random events and unexpected things happening, though we've changed the structure quite a bit to account for the military nature of the campaign.

New mechanics include a fire team mechanic (many of your supporting troops will be squads of soldiers), new takes on the "contact" mechanics introduced in Salvage Crew, a Reputation mechanic that lets you cash in mission success for occasional benefits and a system for Mustering Out which should make Traveller players feel a tiny bit nostalgic.

Of course, you also get all the tools you need to transfer your Bug Hunt character to another campaign.
Start in the army, go AWOL and join a gang, clean up your act and get a salvage job. It's all up to you.

Updates are coming shortly to the existing game line, to allow transfers into Bug Hunt.
The new rules are all up to 1.03 standard though I'd expect a small update shortly after launch to clean up a few vague wordings and the likes.

LINK

The third step of Five Parsecs adventuring is here: Salvage Crew!

You can check out the new logo too.
When I get a chance, that will get added to the existing Five Parsecs games too

So what is Salvage Crew? (SC here after).

It's a new campaign you play, using the same mechanics and systems as the two previous Five Parsecs (FP) games.

Build up a random crew with their own backgrounds and ideas and then take on the universe.

Salvagers tend to be a bit less militant so you will find your crew may end looking a little different.

Campaigns work in a similar fashion: Assign your crew to jobs and play out table top missions.
Money is a much bigger issue now: Salvagers earn more of it, but they also begin the campaign owing a lot of money for their ship and license.
Bottom out and you can have your campaign ended by your ship being seized (seems like a great chance to delve into a Gang Warfare campaign then huh?)

Turn to turn game play is what you expect, but we now have rules for things like "contacts" (which can turn out to be enemies or not, a bit like PEF's in 2HW titles) and exploring "points of interest".

This is where the big change is:
Your salvage crew is mainly here to loot. There are things to be found on the battle field and you may or may not run into enemies. You'll have to evaluate the risk of getting a particular piece of loot or not, if it might trigger an enemy squad of bandits.

The result is an experience that feels pretty unique, even if the starting point is the same.

The rules are fully compatible with Five Parsecs From Home and Gang Warfare (the GW update will be live in a day or two, sorry for the delay) and you can transfer characters around.

Does it stop here? Probably not.
Five Parsecs could theoretically go any number of places.

Fighter pilots? Mercenary captains? Colonists? Private investigators?
There's really nothing you couldn't do.

Stay tuned.

LINK