Introduction
Ok, most people have probably heard of Space Station Zero by now, but for those who haven't (Tony) it's a new science fiction skirmish game for solo or co-operative play. Your crew is stranded in the docking bay of a vast and ancient space station with on hope of rescue and no way home. Given the choice between dying of home brewed alcohol or exploring the station you have decided on the later. The game has been written by Snarling Badger Studios (Adam Loper and Vince Venturella) who previously released the Skirmish set Reign in Hell.
The game is design to be played on a fairly small surface, ideal for those with little room, and with any miniatures you happen to have lying around. The suggestion is that you play on a 22" by 30" area (which just happens to be the same size as a GW Kill Team board). Personally I used the recently released Stargrave figures from Northstar Miniatures for my crew and some GW Necrons for some ancient Sentry Robots but you can use anything you have. There is no requirement for your crew to be human, so if you want to create a crew using GW Tyranids then go for it (Good luck remembering which one is the medic though)!
Creating a crew
The first step in the game is to create your crew which comprises either 4 Elite Explorers, 6 Regular Chaps or 8 Novices plus their Commander. There are six different types of ship you could have arrived on (Medical, Warship, Transport, Science, Pirate or Explorer) and which type you choose will restrict your selection of crew member professions. Being from a medical ship means you'll have to have several Medical Officers for example and will have the option of a Chief Physician (not available to anyone else). It will also affect your Commanders skills and equipment choices for the whole crew. You will also gain an 'edge' which is the unique advantage which sets your crew apart, again there are a lot of option to choose from (Nanotech in your blood that helps you heal - fine, Power Armour all round - sure, Harmonious Culture where members in close proximity buff each other - naturally (we've all seen Star Trek)). Choose wisely though as you will be facing a selection of challenges in your explorations which will not all be alien robots with guns, being unable to defuse a bomb because you've got no science skills in your group could lead to your campaign ending suddenly with a bang - literally.
Game Rules
The game mechanics have a few interesting twists. Firstly the game uses D12's (that's twelve sided dice for those who don't know), which is not an option you see very often. Secondly you succeed in your rolls by rolling even numbers with odd numbers being fails. For basic checks any even numbers will do but as tasks get harder you start excluding the lower even numbers making successful rolls harder to come by. Fortunately rolling a double 12 is counted as a Critical Success with the number of successes being doubled as a result. For balance rolling a double 1 counts as a Critical Failure and leads to an automatic failure of the roll. To give our heroes a slight advantage if you roll both a double 1 and a double 12 the double 12 wins out and the double 1 is ignored. For some tests the players just need to roll a stated number of successes to pass a test, at other times the players will be making an opposed roll against an enemy with the difference in successes rolled by each party giving the result - for combat this difference is the damage inflicted.
Battle Report
So time to dive in and see if the water is warm! For my team I decided on an average crew of 6 spacefarers together with their Captain. My ship was an Exploration vessel and the teams edge was a Harmonious Culture. To avoid gratuitous Star Trek references the Ship was the Orville with Captain Mercer, First Officer (Soldier) Grayson, Chief Engineer (LaMarr), Medical Officer Finn, Scientist Isaac, Security (Soldier) Kayali and finally Ace Pilot (Malloy). In the absence of the appropriate Wiz Kids figures, I used various Stargrave figures the represent the crew.
The first scenario is Docking Bay Access Port which is the default start for the campaign of exploration. It comes with two random challenges (from a list of four options). A random roll gave me Poison Gas Leak and Ancient Sentries, ironically because every YouTube video I've watched of the game have these two challenges in play. I set up the board by placing markers for the gas leaks, six Necrons for the ancient sentries, liberally scattering terrain across the board and positioning my crew in their starting zone.
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| The board in all its glory - the crew entered from the left. |
Captain Mercer, Scientist Isaac and MO Finn took the right of the board (bottom in the photo above) with Grayson, Kayali, LaMarr and Malloy on the left. Due to the gas leak each crew member had to check against breathing in the gas at the start of each of their activation's. Although this was unlikely to kill anyone outright the damage started building up quickly and demonstrated that the clock was definitely running. Closing in with the sentries my crew demonstrated a complete lack of weapon proficiency with a single point of damage on two sentries being all I had to show after the first turn.
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| Captain Mercer and his crew view the approaching robots with alarm |
Turn two went better with sentries starting to fall to somewhat better weapons fire while one getting in combat with the doctor regretted its life choices after being destroyed in hand to hand combat.
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| Commander Grayson and team push toward the left most vent. |
Turn three saw the remainder of the sentries destroyed but Scientist Isaac took a lungful of gas too many and died. The remainder of the team closed in of the vents with duct tape at the ready. With the absence of active enemy the remaining turns saw the crew progressively sealing off the gas vents to finish the game, although not before pilot Malloy also keeled over after one failed poison test too many.
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| Grayson and Kayali seal the final vent to complete the challenge. |
With the scenario successfully completed it only remained to raise the dead and assign the experience. Isaac was able to make a full recovery but Ace Pilot Malloy was found to be 'dead and gone'. Fortunately my Captain had taken a Stabilisation Module allowing me to re-roll the damage effect - nope still 'dead and gone'. A reminder that the game has its brutal side with permanently dead members being irreplaceable during the campaign and the chance of out of action crew members being dead being higher than is usual in other skirmish campaign games.
First Impressions
The game was easy to play and only took a short time to play despite being my first game. It was easy to set up and presented few problems finding suitable miniatures or terrain (ok that might be because I've been gaming for around 40 years and have accumulated a lot of stuff) but I suspect it will create few challenges for most players.
Ironically the choice of D12's is likely to present the main problem for newer players, I had a bag of 50 or so D12's on hand but I suspect a lot of new players may struggle to put together the 8 or so needed to play the game. For what is probably intended to be a 'gateway game' into the hobby this was an unusual choice although it allows for the adoption of the interesting dice mechanics discussed earlier. I suspect for young players lacking the physical D12's there is a suitable app which will suffice.
Overall the game works well and provides sufficient challenge to keep you on your toes. I suspect it will prove difficult as crews get whittled down over progressive challenges but only time will tell.
Chris
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