98. Space Station Zero

Having seen a play-through on the Lead Adventure Forum about this new game called Space Station Zero, I had to check it out.  It's blend of horror, sci-fi and campaign play really caught my fancy so I purchased it in print.  The original post of the write-up also had pictures of their BattleSystems cardboard terrain, and that seemed to fit the bill just right.  That got purchased eventually, too.

I didn't really have dedicated miniatures that I wanted to use for it, and I really wanted to play it in 28mm scale, so my son used some old Star Wars pre-paints, and I dug out my Necromunda Escher gang, while I ordered and then painted some Stargrave miniatures.  You can see those closer to the bottom of this post.

One of the things about the game that I found difficult was being able to tell which miniature represented which character, since for me the miniatures were obviously not originally those characters, so I took a photo to help remind me.  In the game, different characters have different skills, so it's important to be able to know who is who.  My son, who has a much younger brain, had no problem with this.

Be warned, there are LOTS of SPOILERS below.  Stop now if you don't want the game Challenges spoiled.

I chose to run an Exploration crew of 5, with a Commander, Medical Officer, Soldier, Chief Engineer and an Ace Pilot.  (See the photo above for who is who.)

My son ran a Pirate crew of 5, with a Commander, Soldier, Engineer, Ace Pilot and Medical Officer.  (I think, L to R:  Commander, Engineer, Pilot, Medic, Soldier.)

Our first game began with Challenge 1, "Docking Bay Access Port," with Poison Gas and Ancient Sentries.  It's a good introduction scenario for learning the rules.

I used Space Marines to represent the Ancient Sentries.

I took these photos very quickly with my phone, so they are what they are.

We survived Challenge 1, and a random roll led us to Challenge 5, "The Medical Bay," where we had to overcome Medical Drones and Control Pods.

I ended up mixing Nightmares from Legions of Steel and Imperial Probe Droids to be the Medical Drones.  I only had 3 Probe Droids, so I had to use the Nightmares to supplement.

We were once again successful in surviving the Challenge, which then led us to Challenge 2, "The Darkened Hall."  There were Laser Traps and more Drone Sentries.

That Challenge ended up being fairly easy, so we moved on to Challenge 6, "Pod 6."  This Challenge had a Virus Bomb, Deranged Mutants and Gun Turrets.

I got to use some zombie figures for the Deranged Mutants.

We only just managed to survive that one, and moved on to Challenge 7, "Science Lab."  This had Experimental Mutants and a Black Hole.  By this time, I had finally finished painting the Stargrave miniatures for myself and my son.  Here they are:

Meet my Commander, Medical Officer, Ace Pilot, Soldier and Chief Engineer.  Going along with my not being able to tell who was who, I tried to differentiate these, by painting my Medic with a red helmet/white cross, the Pilot has cool sunshades 'cause pilots are cool, the Engineer has a wrench to fix things, etc.

These are (L to R) my son's Commander, Medical Officer, Ace Pilot, Soldier and Engineer.  I tried to paint them so it would be easy to tell who was who, but went mostly by what he told me he wanted them to look like.  I did talk him into letting me paint them with green jackets, in order to make them easier to distinguish from my blue jacketed figures when on the table. 

One thing he wanted was a "shoulder patch," identifying them as belonging to the same organization.  He gave me a basic design and that he wanted it an "aqua" color, and so I did the best I could.

These were recently shown in my previous blog entry about Blasters & Bulkheads, but here they are in greater detail.

I used some old Hormagaunts as the Experimental Mutants in Challenge 7, and a black hole as the Black Hole.

We continued to enjoy our good luck, and moved on to Challenge 9, "Chemical Lab."  This had Freezing Protocols, Anti-Fire Protocols, and a Chemical Reaction that, if not stopped, would kill all crew members in play!

We managed to strategize this one before starting, and gamed it pretty easily.  It helped that there were no monsters to deal with, more just a time-limit aspect.

Next we moved on to Challenge 11, which is where we left off.  Other interesting games have reared their beautiful/ugly heads, diverting my limited time and attention away from SSZ (or is it SS0?).  We'll get back to it eventually.

Never fear, the Stargrave miniatures have gotten a lot of use in those other games.  I really like the figures, and the box has 10 more waiting to be put together.  We never named our characters, partly out of laziness, but also because we were both afraid of the dying in the depths of Space Station Zero.  Maybe it's time to give the names.

Thanks for reading!