(Turn) Limit Break

Stuart and I played another game of Stargrave Notromunda this week at the Dice Saloon; our rival crews entered an abandoned high-tech factory -- loot rolls after the skirmish indicated that the place only produced pistols, much to our disappointment -- and things got very ugly indeed!

Stuart's crew escaped with two bits of loot -- pistols, obviously -- while Fateweaver Duu'ey and his inscrutable space elves only managed to get one crate... of pistols. On the other hand, the aliens only took two casualties while Stuart's band of pirates and mutants lost seven (!) members. Duu'ey himself was reduced to only two hit points and was lucky to survive, not least because the factory's half-functional security robot was stomping around nearby, making an I-have-a-machine-gun-ho-ho-ho nuisance of itself.

We are both very much enjoying Stargrave Notromunda but we have yet to complete a full game, always with at least two turns to go when a member of the Dice Saloon team politely suggests we stop so they can close up and go home. I'm not sure what's taking us so long as it's a simple enough game, and crews are limited to about ten models, but we are only managing about three or four turns in three hours and we haven't achieved either of the game end conditions -- all loot recovered, or only one crew left on the table -- so far. I don't remember us having this problem in Mordheim Frostgrave.

I assume we're doing something wrong, because the game's author Joseph A. McCullough hasn't included any way of resolving a "time out" situation, which suggests it never occurred during playtesting.

Here's one potential resolution. I'll put it to Stuart next time we play:

If a game runs out of time, then a crew scores any loot that was extracted, as normal, plus any loot that is held or controlled by a crew member that is not in combat. Any loot that is "loose" or contested by a rival within 1", or is held by a crew member in combat, is lost. Any loot that has not been unlocked is also lost.

This is more or less what we decided after the game anyway, but I feel better having it written down. Er, typed out.

Is anyone else out there playing Stargrave Notromunda? Have you had the same problem? How have you solved it?