Five Parsecs from Home - Turn 2.1. The first turn with the new Five Parsecs rules.

 Having gone back to their renegade patrons, the group was paid a few credits. This would be enough to cover the crew upkeep costs and to pay off a little bit of the debt on The Pelican. When checking out the battlefield they found what looked like a stash of jewellery that seemed quite unique. They decided to keep hold of it and put it out on the Net that it had been recovered. 

After consulting with each other, the crew decided to stay on Launia for a little while. With any luck they could earn enough with another couple of jobs to upgrade The Pelican. Launia has some well established shipyards and there is enough ship related infrastructure to make upgrading a starship cheaper. 

Aralay Brenko was sent out to find a job, which she managed to do. Augustus Holmes went to a local dive, in order to find someone to join the crew, he came back with a machinegun armed Lars Nicolau. Lars was looking to get paid and get off this planet asap, so it seemed like a good fit to him.

Aralay came back with a job from the Scappers Guild who needed help dealing with some pirates who were proving especially difficult and resourceful.

Left to right: Estelle Phillips, Augustus Holmes, Lars Nicolau. 

Left to right: Oslan Baratski, Aralay Brenko, Mao Yung-Zu

The job was simple: gather information on a shipment of important scrap parts, from a station that had a pirate problem. The idea was to speak to the attendant, get the information, then push through, past the pirates in order to bring this info to the Guild's contact across the city.

The crew came from the southern district, intent on quickly grabbing the important information and making off with it with minimal stress. The pirates, on the other hand, had other ideas. They wanted that scrap and would fight to get it.

Brenko and Mao were able to get the drop on the pirates and advanced up towards the west. The plan was to split into two teams and sneak through the cluttered freight yard, in order to meet up with the attendant.

Brenko has a Reaction value of 2, while the rest are on 1. So only two were able to move in the "Quick Moves" part. Next would be the enemy, then the rest of the team. For this game I changed all measurements into centimetres and while it was a bit fiddly moving my tiny figures around, it worked and meant I could have a nice, busy looking game area that fit in a 1x1 square.

The pirates advanced swiftly, keeping a tight formation, hoping to be able to hose any hostiles with enough fire to drive them off. The front left there is a sniper with a hunting rifle, while the front right has a pirate with a handheld flamethrower. In the back, third from the left is the leader, who is also known to the authorities and has a not insignificant number of warrants out for his arrest. If my crew eliminate him there is a reward. There is also a bounty out on any members of this pirate crew as they have been causing quite a few problems to a few organisations. 

Pirates are and Aggressive opponent, so they generally would always advance into combat, or advance to find targets. Heavy weapons (the kneeling sniper figure) would not move if they had LOS to a target. I get 1D3 credits for eliminating the leader, and 1D6 credits for winning a battle against these guys.

With the freight yard so cluttered, there was little room for line of sight. The crew and the pirates all advanced and closed in on each other. It was only a matter of time before bullets would be flying.

With no shooting they are all adding +2cm onto their moves as they are dashing.

Brenko made it unnoticed to the shipping containers, her plan was to dash over to the logs and again into slicing range! Her blade humming, ready to go.

These pictures might be in the wrong order.

Mao and Baratski dashed along the outskirts of the freight yard, while Phillips advanced along the northern edge. Lars was positioning himself to cover the entire area with machinegun fire and Holmes found himself a nice firing position nestled in cover.

The first shots rang out with Lars attempting to lay down some heavy fire. Unfortunately, the pirates not being in close range, and some having cover, he missed his shots, although one was pinned and dived deeper into cover.

Pinned is stunned. I just prefer the term pinned. 

Return fire from the pirates sent Lars scurrying for cover, but  there had been no blood spilt so far. 

It was at this point that I think realised I was doing shooting wrong. I wasn't adding the character's combat value to my attack roll. I was also rejecting any damage roll that wasn't 6 because I misread the rules. I just have to equal or go higher than their toughness value, which for pirates is 4.

The flamethrower-toting pirate decided to sneak behind the buildings, in order to surprise anyone who would try to advance up into close combat.

It was at this point I realised I had been playing the pirates wrong and not following the Aggressive AI properly. With no LOS they should be advancing max move. With LOS they should be advancing (to cover if possible) and shooting. I read that as advancing out of cover to new cover, or to the open no matter what. Their goal is to close the distance and brawl if possible.

Brenko's quick reactions allowed her to advance further, in the hope she can get her blades working on someone's face. She was, however, all out in the open! It is a good job for her that the pirates couldn't shoot for anything in this moment and some bullets bounced harmlessly around her.

Advancing out of cover, Holmes attempted to take down a pirate, but his shots went wide, leaving a handful of bullet holes in the rear of the train. Hopefully it would buff out...

Estelle Phillips had managed to sneak around the top and was hoping to hold off the pirates who were also sneaking around the back of the train.

Brenko advanced again, while the pirates laid down some withering fire, which was mostly ineffective ... mostly. Lars went down in a hail of bullets, clutching his chest, blood seeping through his fingers. He quickly stopped moving.

So upon figuring out how fire should really be, the first casualty was my newest recruit. Great. He is out of the battle and afterwards we will roll for his injury or death.

The flamethrower-toting pirate jumped out and tried to burn Brenko up, but launched the flames too high. It was ineffective. This may have had something to do with Brenko's sonic emitter, which works to disorientate opponents who are in close proximity. Meanwhile Mao leaned around the corner and blasted his shotgun. Two shots, to hits, two pirates went down in a flurry of buckshot. 

It absolutely had to do with Brenko's sonic emitter. Enemies within 5 get -1 on their hits. Quite a nice bit of tech. Brenko did no combat this game, so didn't get to take advantage of the Battle Visor she was wearing, which lets her reroll 1s. 

Holmes laid down some fire on the flamethrower. It was a scary weapon and he didn't want to be on the end of it! His shots struck true and the pirate went sprawling across the floor.

This was a quick, deadly exchange of fire. It was really cool to see it work.

Seeing the pirates huddling up to sneak past the train, Phillips advanced and threw a grenade. A puff of black smoke, a muffled boom, and all that was left were a couple of red smears on the side of the train and on the tarmac, as well as one remaining pirate who was rethinking her life choices. Two of the remaining three pirates rethought it enough to run away and tell the rest of the crew about what was happening. They would be back.

It was at this point that I remembered I should have been rolling for morale. I think I had missed one round of morale? I honestly can't recall. I took the risk and advanced Phillips, which meant throwing the grenade had a -1 penalty to hit, but because they were in the open, in close range, I went from needing a 3+ to a 4+ which I still got. Ironically Phillips had an Arm Booster, which gave +2 to grenade throwing range, meaning she didn't even need to move!!

Quick reactions again allowed Phillips to fire at the last remaining pirate with her shotgun. The pirate crumpled and fell, blood dripping through gloved fingers as they clutched at her chest. 

With no remaining pirates to worry about, Holmes and Brenko found the attendant and got the relevant information from him, the crew then picked up Lars and took him to a local med-centre were they had to spend 1₹ to get him through some emergency surgery. Oslan Baratski stayed at the freight yard and found 2₹ worth of scrap parts. These would sell easily on the grey market. The crew also managed to get their hands on another damaged Distraction Bot and a damaged grappling gun. These might be worth repairing, they might not be.

With Lars stabilised, the crew went over to their contact in the Scappers Guild. It was time to get paid. They managed to walk away with 4₹ along with an extra 2₹ for taking care of that particularly nasty pirate leader. A meeting with local lawmen earned the crew another 2₹ for the bounty on these pirates. It was time to regroup, rest, train up and decide what else to do next. Brenko also completed a side job trading some tech, which earned the crew another 2₹.

Meanwhile, across the city some pirates met. This would not do. The time would come where this off-worlder ship crew would have to pay. That time would be soon. Revenge would be swift, messy, and final.

Lars gained 1xp as he was a casualty. The others all gained 3xp as they held the field. Mao earned 4xp as he got the first kill. Mao spent 10xp on 1 Luck point. Baratski spent 7xp to improve her Toughness by 1. The rest must wait, although in the next campaign turn Brenko will train, earn 1xp and spend it all improving her Toughness or Combat. 

In total they earned 11₹ which will be useful to pay off a chunk of their ship debt. After one more mission I hope they will be able to buy a ship upgrade with a discount of 4₹ . They get a discount of 2₹ for being on a shipyard world, and another 2₹ for something they found last game. 

I really enjoyed this game. Having it all in one book helped. Changing the measurements to 1cm worked well and I had a really small sized game. The combat worked well once I figured it out. It felt like I could lose my team, which is scary and makes me think of XCOM Enemy Unknown and how sad I get when I lose soldiers in whom I have become invested.

Looking forward to next game.