Sunday 25 September 2022

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.

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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 sp...