Campaign Turn 2 - Mission - Walk the Line

There is a lot of cash in the kitty (25 credits) so Blackhart takes a bite out of the ship debt with a 7 credit payback. Spends 4 more on spare parts to make sure that the repairs of the two weapons found last turn are successful – 841 and Goose Hawkins do the business and the armoury increases. Blackhart goes for some training, gains a point of experience and has enough to up his toughness to 4. Greeny trades some bits of junk for a stabilizer for a heavy weapon and Lermantov makes a connection with an information broker and spends two credits on a rumour and it turns out to be a +2, time-sensitive mission, this turn or next. Atsu does a patron search and meets up with someone in the local special agent field. Satathan Adams – a mid-ranking operative in ‘Department 52’. Worth knowing.

The time-sensitive mission turns out to be from Miles Galan, a higher up in the secretive Southern Crescent Industries corporation. Galan will generally come to the crew with more troublesome missions and so is willing to make an extra danger payment of +2. Seems good.

The mission is to Move Through a particular part of the warehouse district. SCI’s competitors have recently put out a warning for all other groups to stay away from those warehouses and Blackhart’s crew are required to basically thumb their noses at that request by patrolling through the area and exiting the far side, thus diminishing the prestige of those competitors. Hence Blackhart’s use of the phrase ‘walking the line’.

Opponents are rolled up as a team of 5 enforcers plus a lieutenant, mostly armed with colony rifles plus one autogun. These enforcers are experienced and well trained (+1 combat) and their light, armoured body suits increase their durability (Toughness +1). With a combat skill of +2 the LT is particularly nasty. I also rolled a unique individual who turned out to be a psyker – they must want this neighbourhood.

The action takes place around these two warehouses.

The enforcer LT took the autogun trooper and a regular enforcer and headed around the outside of the smaller warehouse. The other two enforcers and the psyker flanked right and took positions outside the big warehouse, pointing their colony rifles through the windows and doors. The crew of the Aurelian had redistributed their loadouts after the acquisition of the two heavier weapons in the campaign phase. Atsu grabbed the infantry laser and clipped on a seeker sight. With his propensity as a Feral of going first in a round the plan was to use the laser’s 30” range to have a ‘free shot’ at any enemies before they could move into the more normal 24” range of the better weapons. In this case the enforcers had colony rifles in the main and thus would not be able to engage Atsu until they had moved within the 18” range of their firearms. The enemy autogunner with his two-shot, 24” weapon was therefore Atsu's primary target.

Atsu climbed up to the roof of a building and drew a bead on the enemy heavy, just missing him with the first shot of the encounter.

841 with his +1 combat skills was assigned the hyper blaster and he used it to devastating effect by advancing to the doorway of the big warehouse and hosing down two enforcers. They didn’t stand a chance despite being behind decent cover.

This caused two of the enforcers nearest their own table edge to flee the battlefield, one of them being the under fire autogunner. This left just the LT and the psyker to deal with.

Goose Hawkins and Blackhart scuttled down the left flank, staying in cover and managed to line up the psyker with what seemed like certain kill shots but as they opened fire their target seemed to melt away and managed to duck back behind a gas container. Eventually their ranged firepower advantage told as they stayed out of the 12” range of the psyker’s pistol and when he finally charged them they were able to cut him down - his pre-sight couldn’t save him a fourth time. (Psykers act as if they have 3 luck points and, on a killing hit against them, are instead teleported a random short distance away – that was why those first shots ‘missed’.)

On the right Lermantov and Greeny started to hunt down the Enforcer LT. Unfortunately he turned out to be a crack shot and managed to hit Hastin Green, putting him out of action.

There followed a period of cat and mouse where Atsu and Lermantov stalked the LT each, in succeeding turns, stunning him but pushing him out of LOS of the other.

He kept on surviving these stun hits and managed to scramble back over a rubbish skip to collect his wits. Atsu drew his shotgun figuring the extra kill power was going to be necessary but before he could employ it, 841 slipped round behind the enemy leader and, being within 6” and in the open, he almost couldn’t miss. He poured three shots into his target and the lieutenant finally went over.

Good, fun firefight. Having two of the enforcers fail morale in the second turn was helpful. Having 841 wield the three shot hyper blaster was devastating. The psyker was fun to fight against. The terrain wasn’t to his benefit though. That and having all his supports shot away quickly. In the end he never even fired his weapon. It seems the plan to take advantage of the crew’s longer range firepower is working out well, although that has only been made possible by fate/the RNG allowing all these longer range, multi-shot weapons to fall into the crew’s laps in the first place.

One more thing. I forgot to do the two random rolls at the end of turns two and four. There is a lot to think about but hopefully things will get easier with familiarity and practice!

Post-battle – Miles Galan was happy to pay a total of 5 credits for the successful action. There were also some shiny bits amongst the buildings giving an extra cred for a total income of 6. Unfortunately Hastin Green’s injuries were pretty severe meaning either 5 turns in the sick bay or an expensive trip to the local hospital. I chose sick bay for now. There were no battlefield finds but a loot role turned up yet another good, long range weapon – a military rifle!

Mission Debrief Relatively lucrative. Potentially dangerous opponents where despatched before they could put up much more damaging resistance. One casualty though means the crew will be down a man whilst Greeny is in the sickbay. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Campaign Turn 1 Mission 1 - Swamp Fever

Campaign Turn 1 Bit of a mixed bag for the first pre-mission campaign turn bit. I gained a second patron but also managed to gain a rival. Spent a story point to re-roll the rival roll and ended up even worse as it came up as a Nemesis Rival who sends +1 enemies against you in any fight – I figured this might be the mercenary officer that did the dirty on Blackhart in the past and he is still tracking the captain down. Expensive use of a story point! Now onto the mission.

1st mission – 841 manages to break the encryption on one of Hastin Green’s data cubes which leads to the name of a local government patron, Chalcine Carrico (let’s say, Greeny’s patron in his initial roll up). She is a mover in the trade council and asks the crew of the Aurelian if they are interested in an urgent mission to investigate a missing cargo convoy.

On the western coastline of the main continent of New Sarthe is the Marsianna region. With a thriving trade in exotic foodstuffs, the capital city of Chagotier sits on the coastline astride the Red River. As well as dissecting the city, the river splits out into an estuary and flows slowly through the Marsianna swamplands which surround much of the southern edge of the city before finally reaching the sea. The swamps and mangroves provide a rich habitat for fish, shellfish and swamp critters.

For two months of the year the crawfish season is in full swing – the crawfish come to the edges of the swamp, in amongst all the mangroves, to do their thing and lay their eggs and this is where the bounty of highly prized shellfish is caught. They are such a famous delicacy throughout the local planetary systems that the yearly catch contributes almost a tenth of the off-world trade from New Sarthe.

Because the crawfish are twitchy at the best of times it has been found that the best way to bring them out from the mangroves from where they are caught is by pack animal, walking through the swamplands. They have tried swamp-boats and rotary-wing chopters and even landed spacecraft on the few prized areas of solid ground near where the best catching areas are. However the noise from any of these vessels saw the remaining crawfish disappear back into the swamps almost immediately, for the rest of the season, causing a huge shortage and a major hit to exports. So pack animals it is.

However in the last week a couple of the pack trains have just disappeared along with the teamsters driving them. Chalcine wants the crew of the Aurelian to go in on foot along the main route that these mule trains are known to take and see what they can find. (Mission object rolled is Move Through.)

Chalcine is good for +1 pay in addition to the +2 rolled for the danger of the task – two search teams have also disappeared without trace.

The battlefield is set on a bit of high ground in the swamps around a waypoint shack often used by the pack trains as a rest stop.

Special battlefield conditions came up as low visibility – 9” – story: an onshore breeze blew up sending cold, moist air in off the sea and when it hit the warm, humid swamplands a thick swamp fog sprang up – hence the 9” vis.

Now for opponents – I rolled Roving Threats which turned out to be pretty bad – vent crawlers! Only three, which was a blessing, but they have a move of 6” which, if they run, goes up to 9” – the exact distance of the available visibility! Not ideal. They are also toughness 5 and have a terrifying combat skill of +2 and big, nasty claws. Oh Great.

Here is the battlefield. Movement identified behind the barn and over at the edge of the swamp on the right but the fog is hampering sight somewhat.

1st turn – looming up out of the fog comes a vent crawler – bigger and nastier than your wildest nightmare.

On the right flank Atsu ventures forward to draw the enemies towards him and then hopes to out-sprint them for long enough with his speed until the rest of the crew can put them down with ranged fire.

Shots from Captain Blackhart, Lermantov and Atsu succeed in hitting the creatures but do not overcome their toughness. The 1” push back does put them beyond 9” though, and they disappear briefly back into the fog.

The Turn 2 roll for activation wasn’t great so 841 moves forward to take on the left-most vent crawler. He hit it with his autogun but the fast-moving creature shrugged off the fire and charged into close combat – both combatants scored two hits – 841’s toughness protected him from one hit and then he managed to save the other by rolling the necessary 6!

The vent crawler made its toughness saves and both opponents recoiled from the vicious clash. These things seemed almost impossible to take down! Lermantov stepped round the corner of the cabin and leant his fire to the fusillade that pummeled the creature and next turn 841 finally overwhelmed it with a third stun hit to put it down.

Over in front of the cabin Captain Blackhart had edged too close to one of the vent crawlers who now turned and leapt over a fence to come at him, whilst Atsu bravely pumped shotgun shells at the other crawler.

A lucky hit from the captain’s infantry laser found a weak spot and the first crawler went down.

On the last turn the dice roll for initiative was particularly good with four 1’s and a 2 and that enabled the crew to throw enough metal at the remaining vent crawler to finish it off.

Again the creature was only stopped by cumulative stun hits which succeeded in hurling it back into the fog. When they checked later they could only find a few blood trails.

Interesting fight – vent crawlers are fast and tough as you would expect. The crew of the Aurelian was lucky enough to only be facing three of them, especially in that swamp fog, and 841 showed his fighting prowess in holding off one of the big beasts.

Post-battle – The crew discovered the remains of one of the mule teams around the cabin along with a damaged autogun and a damaged hyper-blaster.

With that kind of firepower deployed it must have been a hell of a battle. This might explain why only three vent crawlers remained. If I can get those weapons fixed they will be fantastic additions to the armoury The 3-shot hyper-blaster is one of the best weapons out there and the autogun is also multi-shot and both have 24” range which is a bonus in 5P.

I spent 1 story point adding 3xp to Blackhart and also purchased a shotgun and blade – I want to get more crew members tooled up for tough opponents as well as being able to fight effectively in close combat.

Mission Debrief No injuries, a chunk of cash, a happy patron and a potentially significant upgrade to their firepower. The crew have got to be feeling pretty good about themselves after that one.

Five Parsecs From Home.

 

Campaign setup and first mission 

I have been playing solo wargames for 40+ years. During that time I have dabbled in several gang/group/band-level campaign-style games including Necromunda and Frostgrave so when I first noticed Five Parsecs From Home (5P) my interest was piqued.

Most other solo games are designed initially as multi-player. Then some home-baked or subsequently thought out rules amendments for solo play are bolted on with various degrees of success or otherwise. 5P is written specifically for campaigning and solo play. That is one thing different. Another is the insane (in a good way) level of detail and backstory that you can put into each battle if you want, as lots of rolls on random event tables give your miniatures reasons - and motivations - to fight that next group of bad guys. When I game solo I am often talking through the narrative in my head as I plan a battle, decide forces and terrain and get to playing. Here I have a structure to add my own creative input to in order to come up with some exciting storylines. That is what I find so pleasurable.

 

Let’s get quickly into generating my first crew.

My leader is a human, Captain Lucius Blackhart. He was born on the subjugated colony world of Banshee. A tough upbringing meant he was a willing and able fighter and so he joined a mercenary company and spent a number of years working his way up the chain of command. His motivation is Truth. (He left the mercenary company under a cloud after a mission he was leading ended in failure and he was advised to resign and get off planet. He believes that another mercenary officer betrayed him and set him up but hasn’t yet found out who it was or why they did it).

Blackhart has the normal characteristics of a human.

His equipment rolls resulted in an infantry laser, a hand cannon and a seeker sight. He also has a story point, a point of luck and 1 rumour (possibly to do with his back story?).

He cashed in his savings and put a down-payment on the Aurelian, an unreliable merchant cruiser, and he assembled a crew of five others to go out into the verse to make their fortunes.

Second crew member is Atsu Nushin, a Feral. Born in the Hive City of Sangslecht (giant dystopian city +1  speed) Atsu is quick-witted and a fast learner and managed to get a position in the Hive security services as a special agent.  Atsu used his contacts to become quite wealthy and has contributed 5 creds worth of funds to the pot. He dreams of making it big (motivation: wealth) and coming back home one day to improve the lot of his family.  For weaponry Atsu carries a shotgun and would any ‘Slechter’ be without their boarding cutlass? When he finally left the service he took with him a favourite little bit of spy-tech – a snooper bot.

Atsu’s special agent training included situational awareness and contact skills and drills giving him a reaction of +1.

The third crew member rolled turned out to be a bot – THX841. 841 doesn’t talk about his past so much but he must have had some combat experience because he walked into camp carrying a military rifle with a wicked blade attached (brutal melee weapon). 

 As a bot, 841 has no special background and just gets standard bot stats but that does include a reaction of +1, a combat of +1 and his metal-ceramic casing gives him a +1 saving throw, so he is quite an effective combatant. His Savvy of +2 also means he is really good at technical tasks and generally fixing things. 

  Goose Hawkins gained a reputation as a troubleshooter on the low tech colony world of Solidar IV. He acquired a good chunk of cash cleaning up one particularly irksome crime gang and then decided that he would head off into the stars to see what else life could bring him (motivation: adventure, +5 creds). He has basic human stats and he is armed with a colony rifle and carries a backup pistol ‘just in case’.

 The fifth member of the crew is a human, Petr Lermantov. He was the tenth son of the head of a wealthy merchant family on New Jebbadah. He ran one of the security companies owned by his family, learning the business by coming up through the ranks and honing his skills as a troubleshooter at the same time. Unfortunately his family was taken down by a bigger, nastier rival and he was fortunate to escape with his life. He made it off planet with a small fortune (9 creds) but not before he had assassinated the third son of the rival family in revenge for the downfall of his own.  That does leave the rivals out for his blood though (motivation: survival).

Lermantov believes in always being prepared for any eventuality. To that end he carries a colony rifle with a removable over-under shotgun attachment. He also packs a scrap pistol and a blade.

The last member of the crew is another human, Hastin Green.  A native of Halov’s World, an  industrial powerhouse near the centre of the local star quadrant, Greeny was born into the lower echelons of society and had to learn from an early age how to find value in other people’s rubbish (he grew up a scavenger). He believes himself to be good looking but he noticed that girls who live in scrap heaps are not known for their attractiveness so he has decided to head off and find a soulmate among the stars. (motivation: Romance).  Amongst a trove of valuable items he found on one of his better digs was a cache of encrypted data cubes (1 story point and 2 rumours). Over the years he has acquired a military rifle and a sonic emitter. Due to the polluted, often radioactive rubble and scrap heaps on Halov’s world, he and most of his scavenger contemporaries acquired one sort of hazard suit or another. Hastin has painted his a bright green colour, ‘for luck’ as he often says.

 

On the whole a decent mix of crew members, skills and equipment. An infantry laser, two colony rifles and a military rifle give a nice base of longer range firepower, supported by a couple of shotguns and some close combat weapons for more intimate death dealing. I think they will be a handful in a firefight – hopefully.   

8 story points and three rumours should be enough to keep the crew of the Aurelian alive until they get established and with 25 starting credits they seem positively awash with cash.

Rolling a few other initial backround facts determined that the crew met through the desire to make better of themselves (Atsu’s pursuit of wealth) and, with an ex-mercenary, a couple of troubleshooters, a lightning-fast, special agent Feral, a scavenger and what may be a retired combot amongst them, they are regarded on the whole as 'hardened rebels'. That’s not a bad billboard sign to have when you are on the lookout for patrons who need something done but want somebody else to risk doing it. 

They start out on the somewhat earth-like planet of New Sarthe where a recent long-running war has finally come to and end and so the place is full of people looking for an opportunity to utilise their warfighting skills (Planet trait – easy to recruit)

For this first crew I chose a campaign goal of completing three quests. 

Following is their first campaign turn and mission.

 

Old, Sun-bleached wooden fencing 

You know how you see some images somewhere and you think 'that would be a good terrain item to have?'. Well I saw a documentary about the people who had refused to leave the Chernobyl region. They lived in old, wooden houses and all the wood was sun-bleached and grey in colour and there were fences everywhere. Lots of high fences creating little courtyards. Well I had that as a source of ispiration and then married it with somebody else's idea about using bamboo place mats as a source of  wooden planks. After searching in charity shops for months I had given up but one day I happened across four table mats of the right proportions and bingo,the idea was back on.

Fabled bamboo placemat

 

The placemat - A bunch of built fences are behind on the left of it. Each mat is made up of lots of strips of bamboo, stuck together on a plastic mesh backing and then lines of sewed stitching clustered together. Those are the horizontal lines you can see. I think this stitching comes out quite well in the final fences. I tried to get most of the stitching to be at a similar height but didn't fret about it as I think the variations add to their rustic nature. It did leave some thinner strips of placemat without stitching and these I made into sections of shorter fence, of two heights.

I used large (6") crafting sticks as bases and then added matches for fence posts and more lengths of craft stick as cross-pieces and a fence top. In order to cover up the plastic mesh I cut a 12" strip of mat and wrapped it round to make a double piece with wooden strips on each side. This made the fences nice and sturdy and gave a better surface to glue the tops onto. Most of the pictures I had seen had some sort of top on the fence, to divert rainwater from soaking into the fence from the top you would imagine. It added to the construction time but that and the lateral strips of wood on top of each matchstick fencepost really give detail to the fences and bring them alive. Quite a bit of wood glue and some judicious clamping later

 Painting involved a bit of trial and error to get the right look before choosing the following recipe: -   

• Grey 'wet-brush' - keeping the coverage light but finishing each piece with brushstrokes along the grain of the planks. 
• Army painter burnt umber wash, making sure to get in the gaps between the planks and into any grain in the bamboo. 
• Then a very light, almost white-grey drybrush highlight
• Occasional touchups of more umber wash and re-applied highlight to fix errors.
• The bases where painted with Wilder Russian Mud textured paint and then drybrushed Vallejo US Army Tan to add depth and then Vallejo Khaki for the final highlight. The dust-grime staining at the bottoms of the fences is as a judicial accident of drybrushing the Tan where the brush edge rubbed against the fence! That on top of previous planned extra burnt umber washes at the fence bottom and either side of both the stitching and the lateral slats. 
  

I added grass tufts, bits of bark 'rock' painted black and drybrushed grey and other bits of detritus. Got the birch seed leaf idea from an article I read a couple of weeks ago. 

Also shown are some sections of shorter fence and a wooden door plus frame. I made a few of those to allow figures to pass through the fences. I also did a couple of large gate entrance pieces which you can see below.

I ended up doing quite a few fences!

I was quite pleased with how these came out. Just need to get some wooden houses done now and I have ideas about those.