The Solo Adventure Wargame Five Parsecs From Home – Third Edition (Modiphius Entertainment, 2021) traces it’s legacy back to the original Five Parsecs From Home game system developed by Nordic Weasel Games in the early 20-10’s. While the original Five Parsecs From Home is not found on DriveThruRPG (almost certainly because of contractual arrangements between Nordic Weasel Games and the current publisher of Five Parsecs From Home – Modiphius Entertainment) there are several other products from those early days of Five Parsecs From Home still available. Among the few titles found are three small digital downloads from Art of War Games called The Black Company. Each booklet of The Black Company consists of background and a series of scenarios for Five Parsecs From Home (and another Nordic Weasel game called FiveCore) drawing upon a common setting. The three booklets of The Black Company are not only excellent scenarios for playing with Five Parsecs From Home but also wonderful examples of how to build your own alternative campaign setting for the game.
Company! Atten-shun!
Each booklet of The Black Company follows the same general eight or nine-page format. The cover page not only identifies the title but has a nice miniatures battle scene. The second page is the “ticket”—or mission—at the top half of the page and a star system setting map at the bottom. The next page is, “How to use this Scenario Pack” and gets at some of the rules interpretations needed to play these scenarios. In the later products (Operation Mongoose and Operation Camelot) a page is added with details of the members of Alpha and Bravo Teams of the Black Company. This section is followed by four scenarios. After the scenarios is a page on the Black Company and the nemesis in this series, the Synod Security Services. The last page contains the legal matter, including a note that, “This is an unofficial supplement for the FiveCore system and is not sanctioned by Ivan Sorenson or Nordic Weasle [sic] Games.”
Entering blackout
While the title of these booklets is The Black Company, the focus of each is actually on a subelement of that mercenary unit: Black’s Commandos. Described as “4x Squads of Light (Expert) Special Operators” these are your troops in Five Parsecs From Home. Further, though there are only four scenarios in a booklet, each one is designed to be played at least once, if not several times. For instance, here are the four scenarios in the first booklet Meeting on Ysgard (minor spoilers ahead if that concerns you):
- Scenario 1 – Skylark Down (This mission can be played only once in order to secure the crashed shuttle.)
- Scenario 2 – Tag You’re It (This mission can be played up to four times in order to locate and tag all defensive installations.)
- Scenario 3 – Haxxors (This mission can be played up to four times in order to locate and retrieve intelligence information.)
- Scenario 4 – Bridge of Lies (This mission can be played only once…)
Some scenarios in The Black Company are designed to be played an undetermined number of times until certain conditions are met. Further, the scenarios across the three The Black Company booklets, Meeting on Ysgard, Operation Mongoose, and Operation Camelot also form a campaign that can be played sequentially.
Five parsec shortcut
Given the units and rules in The Black Company were originally written for the second edition of FiveCore (the third edition is currently available) and that Five Parsecs From Home was the afterthought, there is some work to be done to convert each mission scenario to the rules used in the latest Five Parsecs From Home. Fortunately, the rules for the third edition of Five Parsecs From Home are easy to hack, and very likely will be even more “hackable” once the Rules Compendium releases in March. The booklets of The Black Company also show how easy it is to create a small campaign arc within a setting. I must admit that I previously overlooked the possibility of playing the same mission multiple times to accomplish an objective, a design tool that The Black Company repeatedly leverages.
Given the cost of buying all three booklets was a paltry $3, the background setting material and 12 scenarios (with some played out multiple times across a three-booklet campaign arc) makes the three booklets of The Black Company an incredible value.
Feature image courtesy
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