[miniature gaming] Lunar from Black Site Studios

[hepcat]

This past weekend, Seppe, Zarathud and myself attended Adepticon in the Chicago area. It's a miniature gaming convention dedicated to all things tabletop miniature gaming.

I'm not a die hard miniature gamer, but I do enjoy some of them. I have Core Space, Malifaux, Warmachine/Hordes, Infinity and some stuff for the Osprey solo miniature games (Rangers of Shadow Deep, etc.). I suck at paining, so I mostly do it for the actual game itself, and less the hobby of painting.

While perusing the various booths, we came across a set piece showing a vertical tabletop setting. It was a cutaway of a mine shaft and the miniatures were NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts in their 70s era suits. I have never encountered that as a theme and it really piqued my interest. I started asking about it and it turns out it's a game called Lunar from Black Site Studios. They started off a storage and terrain maker for miniature gaming before branching out and licensing small game makers to create their stuff for them.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen that setting in a miniature game and the way they described it was very cool. You have to fight in low gravity settings, so the rules heavily focus on mass and gravity. You also have to take into account you're fighting in a suit that's protecting you from death with only a millimeter or so of material, so piercing damage is exceptionally dangerous. Also, the weapons aren't sci-fi lasers and such, they're normally mining tools, with some 70s style guns. I also like that your action points are called oxygen. So you can share action points with those who have lost them due to damage to their suit at the expense of your own actions.

I had to order a starter box with NASA astronauts and the USSR cosmonauts. After I get a chance to play, I'll update here.

[Blackhawk]

It certainly sounds novel. It's not a setting that has a ton of draw for me on the surface (although I could imagine Moonraker scenarios...)

As to the company itself, I've seen a lot of their terrain on Wasteland Warfare sites, like this and this, and haven't heard anything bad about them. I've also had some of their modern miniatures bookmarked for a fun twist on Pulp Alley, and Pulp Alley + Core Space terrain + these could be a lot of fun.

[Zarathud]

Hepcat fails to mention that their Pulp miniature line included the “Gold(en) Girls” and he refused to buy them for himself.

[hepcat]

I just couldn't justify their use beyond bath tub time.

It certainly sounds novel. It's not a setting that has a ton of draw for me on the surface (although I could imagine Moonraker scenarios...)

Surprisingly, the game is advertised as being best played as a campaign. I thought it would just be a one off skirmish game in between other stuff, but they apparently have campaign rules where you can upgrade your characters/weapons/etc. as you play through a narrative about a modern day gold rush for resources on the moon. There's also expansions with unmanned rovers as weapons, fighting within bases, etc..

I'm not sure how it will play, and it really was an impulse buy, but it just struck me as such a novel idea that I couldn't resist. Plus, I like supporting a small company trying to work with indie game designers.

In a section of their site talking about a revised edition of their horror game, Don't Look Back, they talk about how they avoid kickstarters and try to do everything in house without involving crowdfunding. Although they do have a pre-order system for DLB that has unlocks and stuff, so I'm not sure how different that is from what kickstarter does.