Mission 6 (5 Parsecs From Home)

Step-by-step breakdown of the sixth Mission in my Five Parsecs From Home campaign. This will be the first Turn with an actual Story Track Event happening!

Crew names below are often abbreviated G to M, as explained in: Crew Roster, which also tells you about my team and a bit about their ship. See also the Index of my Five Parsecs articles for a list of previous Missions and other content.

Pre-Battle:

 Decide Whether to Travel: - I have looked up a new world, Tiresias-3 aka "The Soup" because of the hazy foggy quality of its atmosphere. It seems promising, but I think it will wait for a future Turn because of the Story Track happening this Turn.
 

Gain 1 story point if it's turn 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, etc. - Yes, it's Turn 6, so this bringing us up to 7 points "in hand".
 

Upkeep and Ship Repairs: - I pay off all my debt! Inshubur now owns the ship entirely! This, plus repairing our damage with spare parts, does bring me down to just 8 credits left, but it's worth it.
Crew Upkeep - 2
    Ship Debt - 8
    Ship Repairs - 1
    Medical Care - 0
 

Assign and Resolve Crew Tasks: -

Find a Patron - J - Juniper turns up a big job (story track) with AbsuCorp.

Trade - L,K - Leonidas sells a shotgun to a revolutionary, which is double-illegal (gunrunning and violates local import laws), then buys tourist garbage.

Explore - I,H -  H'Xex again eats awful rotten food, and doesn't notice.  -  Inshubur is offered a reward When fighting this campaign turn, select a random terrain feature. If a crew member moves into contact and spends a Combat Action, you can retrieve a package and earn 2 credits.

Repair Your Kit - M,G - Moreva repairs the Combat Armor. She's Savvy+3, Repair +1 for being an Engineer, and Repair +1 for the shipboard RepairBot, so a roll of a 2 counts as a 6!).  GcViib repairs the Unity Battle Sight (Rolls a 5, so even without the RepairBot it would be a success).


Determine Job Offers: - Story Track Event 1: Foiled!

Assign Equipment: - Inshubur gets Combat Armor.  Moreva gets Combat Armor and Unity Battle Sight.

Job Description:  I'm going to quote the Story Track a lot in this post, because it's a much more scripted Mission experience then is typical for the game. I'm a little excited to be trying it out, just like my PCs are:

 "Juniper was excited this morning. A big job lined up with AbsuCorp, good benefits. Quite a deal. Then it all went haywire. When we showed up at the designated meeting place, hired guns were waiting for us. What’s going on?"

 
Battle:

Deployment Conditions: "You are under attack! Set up exactly 12” apart with each side, in a rough line. All opposing figures must be set up behind Cover, but able to fire (such as at the corners of buildings, etc.) You cannot attempt Seize the Initiative."

Exploration result: Inshubur is offered a reward When fighting this campaign turn, select a random terrain feature. If a crew member moves into contact and spends a Combat Action, you can retrieve a package and earn 2 credits.

Objective: - We're meeting up with AbsuCorp in a parking lot. We're not sure how or why it went south, but it's a set-up. We're not two sentences into the negotiations when suddenly they start shooting and dive for cover.

I've named the bad-guy megacorporation "AbsuCorp" after the primordial entity from Mesopotamian Mythology. It's just an easter egg, as I've named several characters, patrons, and rivals with similar mythological references. 

4 Hired Gun regulars with Colony Rifle , 1 specialist Big Gun with Rattlegun & Handgun,  and 1 AbsuCorp Leader with Machine Pistol & Blade

The Set-Up: We're deployed at the south end of the parking lot.

 I forgot to snap a picture at the start of the game this time, and it's been more than a week, so everything is even more approximate than normal. It was a short, fast, bloody battle. Green arrows are PCs advancing. Red arrows are the movements of the enemy, which were minimal since nearly everyone on both sides were in range at the start of the trouble. The orange oval is the radius of the Environmental Hazard that exploded out of a engine block at the end of Round 2.

Round 1: - Juniper rushes forward and blasts the enemy big gun, taking him out before he can return fire. Inshubur pokes our from around a car and drops a hired gun. Kid misses. Moreva goes on overwatch. Hired guns return fire, mostly shooting up cover cars. One of them hits Juniper, and her flak vest saves her... but she's left stunned and out in the open. Enemy leader creeps forward from car to car. Moreva shoots at him but misses. Leonidas uses his action to move to the west edge of the lot and pick up the exploration reward.

Round 2: - (No Panic)  Juniper misses. Inshubur takes out a guy on the west end. Moreva on overwatch again to try to keep the enemy leader pinned down.

He snakes the west instead, and gets close enough to shoot at Inshubur, but luckily misses. A whole lot of 2's this round, nearly every shot a miss, but none low enough to get rerolled by aim.

H'Xex jumpbelts to assault the AbsuCorp leader, and his Shatter Axe breaks him.

Battle Event between Round 2 and 3 -  Environmental hazard: Select a random terrain feature. Any figure currently in, on, or within 1” of the feature must roll 1D6+Savvy and achieve a 5+ (enemies roll 1D6 and must roll a 4+) or take a Damage +1 Hit, ignoring any Armor Saving Throws. The feature is safe afterwards.

So I number off the cars, and roll. The car that Juniper had deployed near suddenly sprays chemicals from getting a round in the battery or engine block. She is stunned by this.

Round 3: -  Only remaining hired gun panics and bails.

Analysis: - The first story track mission is pretty fast and simple, and potentially quite bloody. I like that it's got a special set-up that's different from normal deployment, and messes with your strategy if you've been relying on long-range sniping. So that's pretty cool, and I'm excited to see what else will turn up in the future Story Track Missions. It is, however, weird that the fight starts with basically everyone in range of their weapons except the Enemy LT that should in theory be the biggest threat. If his gun had the range of his underling's weapons, this fight would have been much tougher. If you're looking for a real challenge here, you might house-rule him to have a Hand Laser or even a Clingfire Pistol instead of the Machine Pistol listed on his roster.

I have to say, I have had some tremendously lucky breaks in this campaign. Starting with getting 4 Plasma Rifles in the first few sessions., and continuing on a now 6-session winning streak. My characters keep avoiding death by narrow die rolls and lucky breaks. Juniper was left out in the open for two rounds this fight, and survived, Then the environmental hazard popped up on an innocuous piece of terrain at the edge of the map where it would have done nothing... so I decided to reroll it affecting a random piece of terrain adjacent to a random character, and got Juniper in the crosshairs... and while she did fail the savvy roll, the damage wasn't enough to knock her out.  I'm happy that my characters are doing well, but also worried that they might be doing _too_ well. Thankfully, this edition of the rulebook has Red Zone and Black Zone missions, and more difficulty toggles are coming in the next Expansion that Nordic Weasel plans to release, so I will be able to up the challenge level if it starts getting too easy. Right now, there's still tension. Every game I think it's about to go pear-shaped, and just hasn't yet. So for now, I don't yet need to ramp up the danger.

Post-Battle: 

Get Paid and Benefits of Success: -  On this mission, success is just a tidge bittersweet. "If you Hold the Field, you find that your corporate contacts were murdered, and your crew are being viewed with suspicion, though you manage to talk your way out of it." -  $3 + Exploration Reward: $2 = Total of 5 credits.

Battlefield Finds: - Vital Information. Turn it in to get an automatic Patron on this world.

Gather the Loot: - Concealed Blade

Experience:  G.0 H.3 I.3 J.4 K.3 L.3 M.3   - First Kill: J    Rookie: K

Campaign Event: - We overhear something, and gain 1 rumor. I guess that's a Quest Rumor, since we're on a Quest, but it's after the point where we would do anything with Quest Rumors. Man I wish the Quest and Rumor rules were spelled out with a little more clarity. It kind of feels like they are a placeholder until some more detailed version comes out in an expansion or something.

Character Event: - The Kid reflects on his adventures, earning 2XP.

Tick Story Clock: 3

Thanks for reading this battle report.  See also the Index of my Five Parsecs articles for a list of previous Missions and other content.