Thursday 13 August 2020

Five Parsecs from Home Campaign - Mission 1. The Scavenging

So after the bug hunt on that nameless settlement, two teams of scavengers are going to have a rifle through. One team is the campaign team. The other team will just be goons. 

Here is my starting point for the crew and characters of the main scavenger team:

Augustus Holmes

Origin: Religious Cult
Motivation: Glory – defeat the strongest and become immortal!
Class: Hacker. Re-roll one hack/intrusion task per mission.
True Believer. On a BAIL result, move 6in towards the nearest enemy to initiate a brawl.

Aralay Brenko

Origin: Primitive/Regressed world. Off the beaten path. Low tech.
Motivation: Technology – The hunt for alien and advanced tech.
Class: UCS Agent. If fighting mutants, dissidents, anarchists, roll 1D6. On 1 or 6 add a goon with auto rifle.
Counter Attack. May reroll when attacked via brawl.

Ward Roberts

Origin: Lower class Mega City.
Motivation: Order. Disorder is bad. Must fix the universe.
Class: Bounty Hunter. Can find patrons on 1 or 6. This patron can only be used once.
Free Auto Rifle.

 

Weapons Available.
Ward Roberts’ free auto rifle. 1K 1S. May fire at any point in movement but only 1S. 2S when guard firing.
Hand gun. 1K 1S Range 12. Will win brawl on a draw.
Glare sword +2 brawl. Enemy within 4in of a kill roll 1S. If wielder is knocked down, 1D6. On 1 injure self and fo out of action.
Hand gun
Hand gun
Old fashioned blade (knife). +1 in brawl.

Ordnance
1 Frakk grenade
1 Dazzle grenade

Gear
Duplicator. Add a free grenade after each mission.

There will also be a couple of goons/grunts along for the ride, who may develop into characters as time goes on. I will be interested in leveling these characters up and seeing where to go.

I also have a viable solo play AI taken from a Facebook group all about solo gaming.

The Mission.
For this mission, Augustus Holmes is armed with a frakk grenade and hand gun. Ward Roberts has the auto rifle, while Aralay Brenko has a hand gun and the glare sword. They are accompanied by two goons armed with hand guns. 

                                                                                                                                                               

The deep space listening device aboard The Pelican chattered away. Augustus Holmes was only half listening when he stumbled across the messages from a marine unit active in the Tavroid System. They had just successfully eradicated an infestation on a planet not important enough to have a name. If the crew of the Pelican didn't act fast, someone would get there before them. This settlement was within a three day flight. It was time to go. 

Landing a way off, and then leaving their transport hidden behind the trees, the crew advanced on foot into the settlement. It was time to search the place and look for that massive pay off, or failing that, enough junk to keep them flying for another little while.


Splitting up, Augustus, Ward and Malachi headed to the transport vessel to search what looked like  fresh supply drop. Meanwhile Aralay and Quentin went to search one of the habs.


A rumble in the distance. "We've got company!" Aralay called over to the rest of the crew. It was time to draw weapons and protect whatever haul they might be able to make.


As per scav law Aralay and Augustus fired a few warning shots towards the vehicle. It was the polite thing to do. I mean no-one liked to get sloppy seconds, but when the Pelican crew were done with this place these other scavs could have given the settlement a once over.


Not accepting second best, this scav crew jumped out of their vehicle and opened fire! 


Quentin dove for cover behind the hab, bullets thudding into the plasticrete. 


Three of the incoming scavs ran up to the hab, seeking cover behind it.


Augustus opened fire, shooting off some hot lead! His bullets caught an enemy scav, sending him sprawling on the ground, very still.


Aralay blasts on another crew member, sending her scurrying for cover behind their transport.

This was a FIREFIGHT. So no moving but lots of shooting.


The two enemy scavs behind their transport returned fire, causing Augustus and Aralay to dive for cover.


Augustus ran around the hab, managing to avoid getting shot! His own fire caused an opponent to seek cover.


Malachi decided to circle around to get a bead on the scavs hiding behind their transport, and then opened fire...killing one of them. Things were looking good for the Pelican crew! Hopefully this would all be worth it!


Aralay charged up to one of the other scavs, swinging her alien blade to great effect! It slid through flesh with ease. The scav crumpled to the ground.


The two remaining enemy scavs opened fire on Augustus, knocking him out of action. The rounds caught him in the flak vest, but with enough force to knock him out for the time being.

He was knocked out of action, but in the after game injury rolling, it was determined he was just knocked down, and will be able to be in the next mission, whatever it is.


One of the scavs fired on Malachi, who had to scurry for cover.


Aralay, inspired by her brawling success, charged down another scav, slicing him up with her humming blade.

She gets +1 for being attacker. Then +2 for having this alien blade. So she is almost always going to win a brawl.


Surrounded, outnumbered, seeing his team dead, the one remaining scav surrendered. After a discussion, it was decided that she could join the crew, but would need to be watched for a while.

Afterwards, having searched the entire settlement, the crew decided to remain here for a little while to rest and refit. It turned out the transport space craft was in much better condition than the Pelican, so while Augustus recovered, the others began the process of cannibalizing the Pelican and upgrading the new craft. Many, many government issue nutrirations were also found, which while unappealing, would keep the crew fed for a few months. The cargo hold of the new ship was also large enough to hold a larger ground vehicle, so they commandeered one of those found in the settlement. 

I liked this. The game lasted 40 minutes. The campaigny part is going on right now as I write this. Not sure what they will do just yet and it is nearly midnight so I will be calling it a day.


Saturday 8 August 2020

Iliada Game Studio order

I have been following Iliada Game Studios for a few years now, and one of my only regrets regarding my science fiction gaming is that I never ordered some of his original Mars miniatures, before he pioneered MDF miniatures. I don't know why I never pulled the trigger. For a while now I have been impressed with the laser-cut buildings, and now the Afterwinds setting. So, with birthday money in hand, I went online and put a tentative order in, expecting to be happy.

I was not disappointed.
I was unsure about the size of these, but they are cool. Annoyingly I tried straightening out a gun and snapped it. But I will just have a long barreled and short barreled gun.
This is how I expected it to be. Normal feeling MDF. I love the aesthetic, and am excited about having some oil drilling settlements.
I bought some doors and fans to add to buildings. I wanted the wind-turbine thing, and I wanted to try out a satellite uplink. They are so unbelievably thin. They terrify me!! However, online they look absolutely gorgeous. I might need to just think about how I store things now.

 This is the pack of "Mediterranean buildings". They will look good dotted around my galaxy. Again, very thin. But they look durable enough when built.

Ali kept me updated, and shipping was fast. It cost $15 to ship, which felt steep, but I didn't experiment to see when that $15 ticked higher. It might be more cost effective in the long run if I do larger orders.

Wednesday 5 August 2020

Bug Hunt with 5Core

When did I buy 5Core? Not sure. Within the past few years. How many times have I played it? None times. Starport Scum is my go to small action fighting, and recently I thought I would bust out Clash on the Fringe, the original sci fi rules that I bought...and have since never used. But, while re-reading it, my copy of Five Parsecs from Home (also unused) fell out of the folder. I started reading that...then realised it is only a campaign making book, and the skirmishes need to be played via 5Core. So I set about reading those. To be honest, there was a lot in there, and I am not sure. I like some elements of it. Maybe even loads of elements. I am just unsure about it. Maybe I am scared of trying something new. 

Thus I decided to go bug hunting. Next game I will try and do a bounty hunting thing.

Another day, another hunt. Across the galaxy there are countless small settlements, where people from all backgrounds eek out an existence on the fringes of society. This place is another nameless-armpit-of-the-galaxy settlement. A few families with a ship and a dream. Places like this draw little to no attention from anyone other than the odd pirate or slaver raid. That is, until they do draw attention. 

In a room, in a basement, on another planet, equipment beeps. Listening posts like this are all over the galaxy, programmed to flag up certain words, phrases, or strings of code. One such string of transmissions contained enough to be sent on to an actual human. This desk jockey in turn pushed it up the line. And so on, and so forth and here we now were. A detachment of marines sent to the ass-end of nowhere to investigate.

Two squads of marines advance through the woods to find the small settlement.


At the lee of a mountain range, the small settlement seemed deserted. It was time to move on in, searching each building and the spacecraft.

I set it up that each turn, the marines would have a turn, then I would roll to see if a xeno spawned somewhere. Then, when they search a building, a roll of 1 would find a civilian, whereas a 6 would find a xeno.


One squad advanced up to one of the buildings.


One squad advanced cautiously up to the settlement spacecraft.

For activation then, to see what I would be able to do this turn, I rolled 1, which is "scurry". All my squad can activate and move, but may not fire or anything.

While searching the building a xeno burst out of the wall! Contact! 

So the marine who made a search action rolled a 6. Searching is instead of firing.

One marine backed up and opened fire, sweat dripping! It was Johnson's first combat mission. The xeno scurried for cover.


Hutchins, 1st squad's plasma gunner crept around the building to open fire again on the xeno, causing it to climb behind the building to shelter from the high powered fire.

In game terms, I rolled a 1 on a kill die, which means it was "knocked down" and would need to rally if it wanted to activate.

Suddenly the xeno ran up to Hutchins, causing him to panic and retreat into the woods. 

This was a brawl. Each rolls, and if attacker wins by 1, then the defender panics (retreats 6 inches). Attacker can then move 3 inches and brawl again. The xeno has the ability where it can roll two dice and pick the highest.

The xeno then moved on to attack Johnson, causing him to fall back behind the building.

This was a "follow up". It is quite powerful. I asked Ivan from NWG on Discord and he said that technically you can "follow up" as many times as the dice allow, so I could have done it a third time, but didn't.


Seizing the initiative again, the marines open fire...

This was actually because the turn type that the xeno rolled was a "Firefight" meaning no-one moves and everyone who can shoot shoots, on both sides. Because xeno can't do ranged fire, I allowed him to charge and attack. Four marines had LOS to the xeno so could fire. You can't shoot over another character's base. Time to get smaller bases amiright?!


...knocking the xeno down.

Xenos have an ability called "tough" where if they are knocked down, or out of action, then they can re-roll the kill die and if they score 1 or 6 then they aren't knocked down or out of action. If they get 2-5 then the original result stands.

Taking advantage of this momentary respite, Martinez unloaded almost an entire clip, splattering the alien across the sand, acid blood sizzling around its disintegrating corpse.

This might be the point at which I realised that if you are shooting at a target in the open and are within 12 inches then you add another 1K to your roll, doubling the chance of a kill.


With the immediate threat gone, second squad regrouped and carried on advancing to the building on the western edge of the settlement. 


Likewise, the main part of first squad advanced to the landing pad to take a closer look at the space craft. It looked like it had been mid-unload and the colonists are just...gone.


Second squad searched the building only to find a terrified settler who explained that he thought all the others were dead and he had been essentially holed up inside for two standard months eating nothing but ration cubes, waiting to be found and...well it didn't bear thinking about. He then scurried off, the isolation having done a real number on him. Poor sod.


While searching the spacecraft first squad again found another xeno! It was time for another showdown, but this time with a traumatized civilian in the mix!


Almost reflexively, Martinez let rip with another few bursts of fire! It caused the xeno to pause, and look for an easier target!

Again, the xeno was knocked down, but that doesn't sound too good in battrep narrative speak.


Recovering quickly, the xeno stormed over the half loaded truck right at Smith and Brown. Smith tried vaporizing the xeno with his plasma gun, but missed wildly.

This was reaction fire, when I discovered that you can only react to an action with one other figure. Shame.


The xeno leapt at Brown dismembering him without even a second glance!


It then pounced on Smith who also went down under a flail of limbs and assorted other members.


Johnson and Martinez both opened fire on the xeno as it approached them, both falling back with discipline, covering each other.


The xeno managed to catch Hutchins, who managed to fight free and fall back in an attempt to join his comrades. More marines joined the fray and this xeno was blasted apart by concentrated rifle fire.

Or at least I think it was. I don't remember it being killed, but it definitely was. Maybe even in this brawl by Hutchins. 
 

The civilian made for the mountains, likely to die of desert exposure or dehydration.


As members of first squad approached another homestead another xeno appeared! They had just gotten rid of two of them, how many more are there?!

This is the only time a xeno actually spawned. If there were no xenos on the table and it was their turn, I rolled and on 1 or 6 one spawned. Then a die roll to see where.


Lightning reactions from the Johnson, Martinez and Siebert allowed for enough fire to cause the xeno some problems, but not eliminate it.


Unable to get a break, Hutchins goes toe to toe with his third xeno, but this time in the struggle, while managing to shoot off a limb, the acidic blood sprayed all over him, killing him.


Getting better at this, second squad advanced up to the final home and uncovered another xeno. However, rapid reactions, and pinpoint fire made quick work of this one.


Upset at the loss of Hutchins, Martinez opened fire a final time, shredding the xeno in accurate fire. The settlement had been searched, cleared, and would now likely be ravaged by scavengers, picking on the corpses of the fringe worlds. There were likely enough supplies here, and a functional ship and vehicles to keep someone's crew flying for a while now. It wasn't everyday a settlement just disappeared.

I enjoyed this game. 

1. I regret facing xenos, because I would have liked to experience a real firefight. I will, however likely return to this settlement with a couple of bands of scavengers to duke it out properly. 

2. I love the 1 and 6 mechanic with dice. I like the kill and shock dice mechanic. 

3. I LOVE the activation structure. I can really get behind activation systems that limit how many you can activate, or if all then what they can do.

4. I will actually finish reading the rules to see if there are any pre-made characters that I can use. 

Nordic Weasel Games produce some good looking, run to read rules. I love the little narratives at the beginning of his books. Starport Scum is my all time favourite, but this was fun. And has potential. If combined with Five Parsecs, then I might have a game on my hands. I might also use it at school with the kids...if we ever go back.