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Solo Sci-Fi Wargaming With Modiphius’ Five Parsecs From Home
March 25, 2021 by brennon
If you're getting into the Sci-Fi mood then you might want to check out Nordic Weasel and Ivan Sorensen's Five Parsecs From Home, a new solo wargaming experience that is now available from the team at Modiphius.
Five Parsecs From Home // Modiphius
Five Parsecs From Home is available to pre-order now ahead of a May release. You will get the PDF right away with a physical release later on down the line. As a "Solo Adventure Wargame", you will assemble a "ragtag crew of galactic trailblazers", exploring the stars and getting into scrapes.
Battles play out through procedurally generated combinations of enemies, weapons, battlefield circumstances and objectives. You might even find some rivals who are looking to take you on.
Five Parsecs From Home Interior // Modiphius
As a solo wargaming experience, the joy is going to be in levelling up and continuing to expand your crew between missions. You'll be able to build on your character and the crew as a whole, telling their story and looking for new adventures to undertake.
Five Parsecs From Home works with any miniatures and you'll only need a handful of them to get started. Grab some dice, your old collection of Sci-Fi miniatures and dive right in.
Five Parsecs From Home Interior // Modiphius
This new version of the game, released by Modiphius, contains all of the original material by Nordic Weasel but comes with options for making robot characters. You'll also find an entire section dedicated to upgrading your starship with expansion modules.
There are also a bunch of new difficulty levels for you to encounter, ways to Game Master scenarios as an RPG-like campaign and also a full solo campaign for you to dive into. I do like the idea that it comes with a solo campaign right out of the gate. It means that you can snap this up and venture into the game right away.
Are you going to be giving this one a go?
"I do like the idea that it comes with a solo campaign right out of the gate..."
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I am torn on this. On one side it would give me the opportunity to re-use my 40k stuff… but I really don’t want to game TT all by myself. If I want to game alone I play on PC or console. When setting up the table for wargaming it’s like preparing for a party or a dinner: it’s simply much more fun with friends.
Oh and I don’t really see the need in another system simply for the sake of “playing alone”. There are a lot of systems providing solo and multiplayer rules… Hey, AMG…. what about those SW:L solo rules that where mentioned on stream? Can I haz them please?
I feel you, 100% percent on this. I’d love to TT alone, but also, part of the reason I TT is to not do it alone lol.
This is the first I’ve heard on this but the reviews on DriveThruRPG are positive. I’ll pick it up as another thing to try with the stuff I plan to paint up for Stargrave
Interesting. Ivan (on the Nordic Weasel blog) indicates he still “owns the IP” and Modiphius is just the publisher of this 3rd Edition retail book. The Modiphius press-release doesn’t mention anything about this being a pre-existing game line (or anything about the rest of the various Nordic Weasel titles in print,) but the store listing does reference Ivan & Nordic Weasel. Ivan indicates on the blog Modiphius has plans for expansions here, and that other games may or not also end up with them.
Seems interesting.
I’m really looking forward to this one! I played one of Ivan’s other games, Five Klicks From the Zone, which uses a similar system but in a post-apocalyptic setting. It is a great little game, and a wonderful way to get some pandemic gaming in! This one looks even better. It seems you typically take 6 figures into a battle, but there are rules for taking different numbers in this new edition. I really like that, so that you can have your own crew of figures, and can invite a friend to play as well with their own crew. You can play out a battle with some of your crew and some of their crew fighting against a common foe. Seems very flexible. I love the way a story just kind of spontaneously develops based on what happens in the battles and the events that happen in between battles.
This sounds good to me an with a firefly twist as a rag tag group trying to make a buck or two as mercenary trader’s?
One of the reviews lists Firefly as a … potential theme. There’s no fluff so making up your own or importing some (WH40k, Necromunda, Star Wars all spring to mind) gives all the freedom
It does have potential for a great game I think.
I’ve been playing all of Ivan’s “Five x From X” games for years now (even more so during the lockdowns) and I’ve had a blast every single time.
I’m a bit gutted that there wasn’t any kind of discount for those of us who have bought everything he’s released so far but I can understand it if Modiphius have taken over the reins that sort of thing would be difficult to co-ordinate. That said, I dropped one of my Modiphius gift vouchers onto it and now that I’ve gotten my hands on the PDF, I can’t wait for the book to arrive. The colour illustrations etc. have long been one of the things missing from Ivan’s versions and I can see what the deal with Modiphius has brought to the table. His was a one-man-band operation and his excellent rules suffered (layout-wise) from this. Modiphius have the resources to take his work to not only the next level of production but also to a much wider audience that has been missing out on his little gems so far.
As an aside, anyone interested in 5PfH should also check out Starport Scum by him (and Dungeon Scum, if fantasy is more your jam), another Stargrave (or Frostgrave in Dungeon Scum’s case) type of game that focuses heavily on narrative RPG-like campaign skirmishing. Again, miniatures agnostic.
This looks interesting and could be a good rules set to use alongside Stargrave and rogue stars rulesets,thus tripling my use of miniatures from one to another.
As an aside has anyone played/ got both 5PfH and rogue stars, and can say how they might overlap as both sound similar from the outside.
OK, the in-depth answer to this is way too big to try and squeeze into a single comment, so I’ll try some simpler baby steps. I own and play both of these games, although technically this new ruleset is 3e 5PfH and I own 1e/2e but that shouldn’t stop me from throwing some pointers in here.
The TDLDR version:
5PfH and Rangers of Shadowdeep are solo games, the others aren’t but can be.
All are 28-32mm (but scalable) and miniature agnostic.
Easiest to learn (in order): Star/Frostgrave, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Rogue Stars then 5PfH.
Fastest to play (once you’re familiar with the rules): FG/RoSD, RS, 5PfH.
Winning is most important in: RS, FG/RoSD then 5PfH.
Surviving is most important in: 5PfH then the others.
5PfH is all about (long-term) campaigns, the others (even with campaign rules) much less so.
5PfH requires more investment in getting started than the others, but it’s a one-off thing that will constantly evolve and pay dividends the more you play.
Firstly, 5PfH is solo-based from the get-go (although, like all of his other games, Ivan does say you could play it with multiple players or even players vs. GM) and Rogue Stars is written from a 1 vs. 1 standpoint (again, there are optional rules available on the RS Faceache group that offer up solo rules, etc.). Also, 5PfH is meant to be played as a narrative campaign, not single missions (even if they are linked). A 5PfH campaign is procedurally (as opposed to 100% randomly) generated and only tends to end once your squad can no longer function – KIA or unable to field enough members. It’s an awesome thing to get in to but is definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Secondly, PDF-wise, RS is part of the Osprey (A5 blue book) series and comes in at 68 pages, whereas 5PfH rocks in at 182 pages. I think it may be A4 (Modipihis’ preferred size) but since the physical copy isn’t available yet, I can’t swear by this. The complexity/detail differences between the two rulesets are born out in that page-count. RS (SG/FG) are easier to pick up and play, but if you want something with more meat on its bones (but still being very similar to these) then go 5PfH.
Thirdly, both are miniature agnostic, and although written for 28-32mm, they can easily be scaled up/down. Both start with a 4-6 figure squad/team but 5PfH’s campaign system can lead for your ranks to swell up to 10+
You know what, the more I try and compare the two (and Star/Frostgrave) the more I realise they are pretty much the same from a basic viewpoint, but each has minor (or in some aspects of 5PfH, major) aspects that set them apart. In my opinion, as a player of 5PfH, RS and FG/RoSD, I’ll just offer these last bits up:
As noted, all of the games have some form of campaign mode. The others treat the campaign aspect as what happens AFTER the action, whereas 5PfH uses it AS the game. There’s a reason the other games play out in rounds/turns and 5PfH uses campaign turns. It doesn’t matter what happens in the action as much in the others as it does in 5PfH. Sure, you’ll take wounds/die, etc. but in 5PfH you can pick up rumours that can lead to missions, your victories may generate enemies (who may come back to attack you later). Also, the longer your campaign lasts, the less important wins/losses become compared to keeping your guys functioning.
If anyone has a specific query relating to “how does this aspect compare to that” then please ask, but on the whole, it comes down to horses for courses.
Final statement:
Once Stargrave is available I’ll most likely drop Rogue Stars from my top shelf, but Five Parsecs from Home will still be there (and definitely be my choice for solo play).
I’m glad I revisited this post and read your comment – that’s a very helpful rundown. i have ordered 5PfH as it sounds amazing! Thank you for taking the time to set that out!
You’re most welcome and I hope you have as much fun with the new version as I had with the old ones.
Makes me hope they do the same with “Five Leagues from the Borderlands” (fantasy) and “Five Klicks from the Zone” (post-apoc.). Two great games that could become awesome ones if given the same degree of lovin’ that Five Parsecs got.