Bug Hunting – Ep03
Something that has always intrigued me is Virtual Table Tops (VTTs). There are pros and cons comparisons in the hobby (especially Solo Roleplaying & Skirmish Miniatures Gaming) about analog versus digital.
Having lived since the completely analog era, to todays bombardment of digitalization, and in the transition period (’90s-’10s), I find myself catering to both.
On one hand, with a daily job in (mostly) front of a computer, a smartphone that has become an extension of myself, PC gaming hobbies, TV Shows, Movies, I find this immense desire to escape and get into a tabletop game with physical tangible assets, pen and pencil note taking, and rulebook reading.
On the other hand getting everything setup on the board (and storing them afterwards), gathering everything, painting miniatures and terrain (a hobby on it’s own) and finding a place in the room to put them in, takes as much time as it does playing, if not more.
There’s some other reasons, like playing on travels, getting everything ready for blog posting, immersion, but I won’t go into any more detail.
The thing is, I want to have options. Sometimes I want to lay out a whole table in front of me, sometimes the home desk is occupied by my minis painting set. Sometimes I have the monsters I am about to face, sometimes they’re only available by a vendor across the atlantic without IOSS, and there’s no suitable FDM STL to print.
I’ve already tested the waters successfully with Foundry VTT (after trying out others) on the Solo Roleplaying Games front, and it was immensely helpful in taking away the load of bookkeeping and complex combat. But what about Skirmish Miniatures Gaming?
With regards to the tabletop experience, there’s a difference between RPGs and Skirmish Miniatures Games (SMGs?) as to the information and number of assets. In order to allow for a larger number of assets on the board SMGs store less information behind them (usually no stats or wound tracks, few things to keep track of) and rely on the visual experience to rule the outcome (a wall provides cover, a hill provides height advantage etc) but they have to be on the table somehow. In an RPG you will rely more on character sheets and stats, while in an SMG you’ll rely more on tokens, markers, minis and terrain. Both types of games use both options; it’s not black and white, there’s a whole spectrum, but just stating out where each of the above leans.
So, a 2D VTT like Foundry, with a very strong engine behind it to calculate complex rules and character sheets, isn’t the right tool for the job. Plus I’d completely lose the Z axis. I needed something in 3D. There’s a few options there. One of them was 3D Canvas which is a module for Foundry VTT; however this comes with a subscription model, and I’m not too fond of that. The other popular option is TableTop Simulator, followed by a less popular more modern software, The RPG Engine. Both are on Steam Sale right now half off, and I was balancing between them, when I stumbled upon Talespire. And I was wowed. Top notch graphics, some innovative features like Slabs and Boards, importing your own models, different types of rulers for measurements; more or less what I wanted in a modern format, and in discount (smaller) also!
I decided to take plunge and try it out for my next session in Five Parsecs from Home: Bug Hunt. Since TitanCraft exports custom miniatures to Talespire, and it has a more affordable and reasonable pricing scheme (pay for the assets) than HeroForge (pay per export) which also exports custom miniatures to Talespire, I bought the sci-fi assets and spent the day designing some Red Coyotes in the Character Creator. My references where the Five Parsecs from Home: Complendium cover and interior art, and the description of the Unity forces uniforms from Unity Field Agent. Did the entire player forces roster so that I can use them anytime in the future.
I wasted a lot of time researching boards, terrain generators, slabs. But then I found a 2×2 Living Dungeon board, which was perfect for my Bug Hunt game, and an excellent opportunity to test the waters without spending another day building the board.
I also used a lot of the community assets (there’s a lot of modders who did the work of “painting” the STLs meant for 3D printing to use them in Talespire), mainly for alien scatter. But I think I’ve talked a lot about the setup. It’s time to get into the game, and I’ll talk some more afterwards, summarizing how it all played out.
Special Assignments
Ariana attempts to join Leadership Training: Success: +2 XP.
Jake attempts to join Marksman Training: Failure.
Kato attempts to join Survival Course: Failure
Fight a (Virtual) Table Top Battle
For the objectives I rolled up a Retrieve, Scout and a Secure objective. For mission difficulty I choose Mess Me Up, which is Moderate.
I rolled for the Priority Rating and it was 1. That’s a really low Priority Rating, and the Spawn Rating was 1 also.
For the loadout, I give Ariana a Hand Cannon and Boarding Sword, Kato gets a Combat Rifle and Jake gets a Shotgun.
Let’s see what force we’ll field. I have 1 Support Points (equal to the Priority Rating) and start with one Fire Team as standard. I managed to get a Precursor Explorer.
I placed the Tactical Locations, and decided to use the Signals optional rule, rolling 2 Signals. Also added one Contact Marker to each objective and one at the centre of the table.
Finally, I rolled the battlefield edge, and had to push back one of the objectives as it was too close to my troops.
In the dropship Jake Bradley took a good look at his new teammates. He was locked up in the brig during the last mission when they had battled against some AI virus infected bots running berserk on an alien planet. They even saved some civies along the way. Some sort of scientific exploration team who as it seems were the reason for the whole mess, as they had been experimenting with alien virus coding into machine. They were meant to try this on bots, in order to keep the virus isolated, or at least that was the plan…
They hadn’t seen his mates get slaughtered by shambling reanimations, but as he looked at Ariana, he noticed a scar along her neck. They hadn’t escaped unscathed either. Then he noticed two coloured stripes on her uniform, a gray and a white one.
“Technical *and* Leadership training” Jake pointed out. “Brace up troopers, we have a Leader among us!”.
“I’ll be an officer before you know it. Then I’ll be able to boss you around Bradley”. She responded in kind.
“Hold it troopers.” Kato intervened. “We still have a mission to do. Landing is imminent.”
“Yeah, what hellhole is this time around?” Jake asked.
“If only you had paid attention at the mission briefing…” Ariana sighed.
“Lay it down for me. You want to become an officer, here’s your chance to get a taste.” Jake answered.
Ariana was up to the challenge. “Alright. Fringe Planet PC-551. Long-distance scanning shows alien flora and fauna, but nothing concrete, no evidence of sapient life. A Precursor scout ship was sent to investigate, but for reasons unknown it crashed. We have to drop in, retrieve the black box, secure the area, and scout the surrounding region. This is a low priority mission, that’s why we only have these four grunts with us.”
“And that mysterious dude over there.” Jake gestured towards the Precursor Explorer. She hadn’t said a word since they were introduced.
“We’re landing boys and girls!” the pilot’s voice echoed distorted via the shuttle comms.
Battle Round 1
The Red Coyotes split into the cavern system. The troopers order the Fire Team down the slope, while they take the route towards a naturally formed balcony overhanging towards the centre of their target objective.
The whole place gives them eerie vibes, fingers twitching.
Battle Round 2
I just realized that Google Photos integration in WordPress.com doesn't exclude them from the Storage limit which I reached also. There also isn't a way to view the file size of uploaded media (perhaps I could replace some high-quality uploads with smaller ones). So I'll be using Flickr embed from now on. Hope this doesn't cause any viewing issues. Since this a free blog that doesn't provide any significant monetary incentive (apart from the DTRPG affiliate links which are minimal) I can't justify a subscription to the pro model of wordpress, and I'd rather not migrate to another platform and start over. I'll look further into the available options, but for the moment I'll proceed with this.
The Precursor jumps down from the balcony. “Wait!” Jake shouts over the comms. He had noticed blips in his scanner towards this direction, but he’s too late. Alerted by her presence, a swarm of alien horrific monstrosities start slithering towards the Explorer.
“What are these things?” Ariana shouts.
“Slithering…. things!” Kato responds.
“More like Slithering Horrors!” Ariana adds.
“I don’t care what they are! just shoot them!” Jake intervenes.
He fires his shotgun and wounds one of the creatures which screeches in pain. Kato aligns his sights on his combat rifle, and kills another. Ariana fires her hand cannon, but she doesn’t have the same aim, and misses.
At the same time, the Fire Team turns around a corner in the cave, aiming to secure the area, by holding this location, when they come face to face with four of the slithering horrors. They open fire without second though, suppressing two and wounding another.
Turning into the cave has given the emergency signal buried in the ground enough strength to reach the Fire Team. They can listen to the screams of the Precursor scout cautioning anyone who came afterwards about a passage to the South, behind them, from where the Slithering Horrors emerge.
“We need to block their entry!” Ariana mentions.
“What about these things in front of us?” Jake responds. “Let’s kill these first before bothering with whats coming from the rear”.
“Low priority, huh?” Kato wonders.
Battle Round 3
The Precursor Explorer moves to the West as far as the plateau allows, and shoots back towards the swarm, but she misses. A Slithering Horror dashes towards her, and chomps her down.
A few of the alien swarm that are closest, climb quickly and attack our heroes. Jake kicks one back, stunning it, while Ariana draws her blade and digs it deep into its body, turning it into a carcass.
The rest slither onwards, under the overhang.
“Feels like we’re on stage and they’re our fan crowd huh?” Jake mentions.
“That’s not a good time to joke around!” Ariana replies.
“Well, let’s give them a good show then!” Jake open fires, but he misses.
Ariana and Kato shoot as well, and they kill two of the creatures.
The Slithering Horrors on the other side initiate close combat, killing a trooper after three of the creatures jumped on him. After the initial shock, the Fire Team responds in kind, with Unity Firepower, killing three of the creatures, almost securing the area.
Kato takes a look at his scanner. “That’s… not good, they’re coming at us from everywhere. I can see so many contact signals all over the screen.”
“Yet once more Intel screwed up.” Jake adds.
Battle Round 4
Ariana fights back against 5 Slithering Horrors! stunning them, before falling down next to her companions.
Jake takes another shot at the swarm, killing a Slithering Horror, moments before the start climbing up, en masse. Quickly our heroes are overrun, Jake falls first, then Kato, then Ariana. They put up a brave fight kicking, stunning and dazing about eight of them, before perishing.
The Fire Team had suppressed and wounded the Slithering Horrors in front of them, and they eliminate two more. They have all but Secured the area.
Battle Round 5 – 7+
There was a chance for the Fire Team to Secure the Objective. However, since they didn't manage to do it in Round 4, the Slithering Horrors swarm quickly entered the 6" range of the objective. In the meantime, the Contact Markers and Spawn Points kept overruning the table, and despite the Fire Team making a valiant last stand, there was no point running the game further, and I stopped at Round 7 with two Fire Team troopers still alive. With the Main Characters already being a Casualty there was no point calling Evac or trying to escape from the table edge. I called it a day and went to the much disgraceful Post Battle Report. I'll post some pictures below, and write a short narrative, but won't detail everything step by step.
But it’s too late. With noone to hold them off at the Southern balcony, the brunt of the alien swarm turns towards the few standing troopers.
They kill three horrors advancing from the entrance, but more come. They fire and suppress them, but they jump them another trooper is down. They keep shooting. The Slithering Horrors keep coming, with no fear. The scanners are filled with blipping signals all over the screen. Behind them, in front of them, at the other objectives. The swarm is endless. The troopers are not.
Post Battle Report
Pay the piper
Jake: no court martial.
Determine Casualties
Jake: Minor Injuries: 1 Turn
Ariana: Head Wound: 2 Turns
Kato: Leg Wound: 1 Turn
I’ll spend a Reputation Point to have Jake receive Advanced Care and be ready to fight for our next battle.
Update Completed missions
Check for Mustering Out
No chance
Determine Reputation
Received 0, spent 1, Reputation Total is 10.
Experience and Leveling
Jake gets +2 XP
Ariana gets +1 XP
Kato gets +1 XP
Operational Progress
Vital Operation: no Objectives completed.
Roll for Military Life
Kato Got in a Fight, but due to his Combat Skill roll he wasn’t wounded further.
Check for Entitlement to R&R
Not entitled yet
Ready for another Campaign Turn
Here’s the Roster and Hall of Fame.
| Name | Reactions | Speed | Combat Skill | Toughness | Savvy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jake Bradley | 1 | 5″ | +1 | 4 | +0 |
| 1 | 4″ | +0 | 3 | +2 | |
| 2 | 5″ | +0 | 3 | +0 | |
| Ariana Raschke | 1 | 5″ | +0 | 3 | +1 |
| Kato Minoru | 2 | 5″ | +1 | 3 | +0 |
| Name | Completed Missions | XP | Origin | Basic Training | Service History |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jake Bradley | 2 | 3 | Prison Planet | Planetary Militia | Garrison or patrol duties |
| 2 | 2 | Scientific Outpost | Naval forces (Ships Crew) | Extended campaign | |
| 1 | 0 | Core Systems World | Ground forces (Scouts) | Police action (Commendation) | |
| Ariana Raschke | 3 | 8 | Trade Hub | Planetary militia | Anti-pirate operation |
| Kato Minoru | 3 | 6 | Military Outpost | Ground forces (Scouts) | Police Action |
| Name | Special Assignments | Missions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jake Bradley | Ep01, Ep03 | Minor Injuries Ep03 (0) | |
| Ep01 | Death Ep01 | ||
| Ep01 | Gruesome Fate Ep01 | ||
| Ariana Raschke | Technical Training Leadership Training | Ep02, Ep03 | Minor injuries Ep02 (0) Head Wound Ep03 (2) |
| Kato Minoru | Ep02, Ep03 | Leg Wound Ep03 (2) |
The Search and Rescue landed in the overhang, and quickly recovered the Red Coyotes after the Slithering Horrors had settled to rest.
In the Med Bay, they met with a very angry Lt. Thompsanch. He was hovering over Jake.
“Trooper Bradley, can you explain to me how did you manage to accomplish ZERO objectives in this mission? No black box retrieval? no securing the location? no scouting the area?” He demanded.
‘The man surely has in it for me’ Jake thought for a moment, and he opened his mouth to respond, however Ariana jumped in.
“Sir, if I may, given my training, I had seniority in the mission. Responsibility is mine.” She said.
The Lieutenant turned his back to Jake. “Seems you have a knight in shining armor to save your precious butt Bradley.” and turning to Ariana, looking at the bandaged head, he continued “And since you want responsibility so much Roschke, care to explain why you failed the mission?”
“Sir, intel was inadequate. The oppposition was not analogous to the priority rating given during the briefing and the support we received. We didn’t go down there in reduced strength because we needed troops elsewhere, we did because someone thought this would have been a walk in the park. Sir.” She responded.
“Alright trooper Roschke. I’ll talk to intel to find out who screwed up. Get yourselves patched up, we’re gonna need you soon enough.” The Lieutenant turned and left.
“You earned some points in my book Roschke.” Bradley told her. She cracked a smile, before wincing in pain.
“Hey nurse!” she called. “Give me something for the pain, and get trooper Bradley in Advanced Care. The Lieutenant said he’ll need him combat ready for the next mission.”
As she lays her head back for a moment, she heard a ruckus down the hall, and saw nurses and troopers running, soon enough a very angry Kato is being drawn into the med bay by two nurses asking him to calm down.
“Everything alright Minoru?” Jake asked.
“Had to settle a difference in opinions with an idiot from intel.” Kato responded.
Jake looked at him, waiting for more details.
“Let’s just say, he’ll think twice before sending us ill prepared down there.” Kato continued. “And not because Lt. Thompsanch came asking for explanations a few moments later.”
“Did he…” Jake was worried that Kato would also end up in the brig.
Kato shook his head negatively. “We’re good. Seems the Lieutenant was in our side for once.”
Session Summary
That was a total disaster in terms of mission deployment. I made an operational error, and decided to have a Precursor Explorer (and I just realized I didn’t re-roll initiative as described, but I doubt it would change much) instead of something with greater… numbers? I should have gone for a second Fire Team at least. Also I need to learn to use those Reputation Points. I’ve gathered 10 of them, time to spend them. No wonder the Red Coyotes have a good Reputation since they always go in ill-armed. I did a quick check versus the previous edition of Bug Hunt (2ed) and noticed that Spawn Points did not exist. Yet another reason that I should go in better prepared.
With regards to Talespire and using it run Five Parsecs from Home: Bug Hunt. Overall I really enjoyed it. Setup with a prepared board was really easy. Moving miniatures around, using Initiative to track down activation order, using the rulers to measure distance, it all worked like a blast.
Things I liked:
- Great graphics
- Custom miniatures import
- Rulers, markers
- Community content
- Friendly User Interface
Things that were less than ideal:
- Processing heavy
- Custom scatter terrain acts like miniatures
- Status tokens and markers workarounds
- Chat
The good stuff are pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t dwel on them.
I see there’s some things down the road that will resolve some of the issues. I worked around the processing topic by swithing to a windowed version instead of full screen as I needed to alt-tab to write down things for my report, and this solved most of the problems.
Custom scatter terrain being a “miniature” asset means it gets picked up and moved around if you’re not careful (as would happen with a real table, ha!).
I found some useful Status tokens from someone who made them for Savage Worlds, and they’re essentially a little bigger than bases, which you can overlay on top of a miniature to show the status. Not bad, but need to be a bit careful moving them around. There is also a mod available to add icons on the base of a miniature, which could also work. Not out-of-the-box though.
Chat doesn’t retain it’s history and is very basic at the moment. It would be nice to have a date and timestamp, history, ability to clear it, and also filter and search.
Overall I found that it worked as well as a physical board (on some parts even better – measuring distances for example). Which is absolutely great!
I didn’t find myself constrained in any way, and the good thing is that I could pick it up anytime, without it collecting dust somewhere. The bad thing is that after a few hours playing and writing my report, I got fed up with the screen time and needed a break, but that’s not Talespire’s fault!
If I have any feedback about what needs to be improved to work better for Skirmish Miniatures Games, it would be Foam Terrain combined with a Terrain Generator (because all you need sometimes is a quick battlefield to place stuff on top), more Statuses (there’s Knockdown now, but we need Wounded, Stunned, etc), an improvement in handling Initiative for multiple miniatures (perhaps grouping them together, and a way to send to “Start” or “End” to sort them quickly), and objective markers that are visible on the normal view and not only with the Tab view.
Onibaba and 
Solo, Pen, Paper and Dice 
Onibaba 12:39 pm on July 8, 2025 Permalink |
Nice report i understand the need of make the work easier but the tabletop experience it’s something else
LikeLiked by 1 person
giorgis 1:05 pm on July 8, 2025 Permalink |
Thanks!
Yes, it is, and my next game is back on with a physical board. I just wanted to see available options, and it’s great to have the choice.
I don’t have a dedicated gaming space, so the table space isn’t always available for setup or for leaving it unattended to pick it up the next days.
LikeLike
Onibaba 9:17 am on July 9, 2025 Permalink
I understand perfectly, I have the same problem as you and with the preparation of the table the time to play is really little, it almost becomes a job
LikeLiked by 1 person