Step-by-step breakdown of the seventh Mission in my Five Parsecs From Home campaign.
This Turn my Crew is up against a band of K'Erin Outlaws as we close in on the final stage of our Quest for "The Strange Brain of the Skulker".
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:
. Flee Invasion: - n/a
. Decide Whether to Travel: - not yet
. Starship Travel Event: - n/a
. New World Arrival Steps: -n/a
. Gain 1 story point if it's turn 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, etc. - Not this Turn
. Upkeep and Ship Repairs: - Crew Upkeep -2
Ship Debt -0
Ship Repairs -0
Medical Care -0
. Assign and Resolve Crew Tasks: -
Train -J
Trade -H,K
Explore -I,L
Repair Your Kit -M
Decoy - G
Noteworthy results from Tasks: - Juniper gains her first point of Luck. H'Xex trades for Bipod. Kid trades for Stim-pack. Arms Dealer takes Leonidas money but just gives him a Military Rifle that's not as good as his Plasma Gun. Inshubur trades for Basic Supplies.
. Determine Job Offers: - Going after the big Quest Finale. The Strange Brain of the Skulker shall be ours!
. Assign Equipment: - H'Xex gets Concealed Blade. Leonidas gets Seeker sight. Juniper gets Bipod.
. Resolve Rumors: - n/a
Battle:
Deployment Conditions: - Toxic environment: Whenever a combatant is Stunned, roll 1D6+Savvy skill (0 for enemies). Failure to roll a 4+ becomes a casualty.
Criminal Element: When setting up, roll 1D6. If the score is 1-3, that many bonus credits will be paid out if you Hold the Field after the battle. Career criminals also tend to get even.
Notable Sights: - Really shiny bits: Gain 2 credits. 13" NW of center.
Objective: - Straight-up Fight.
Enemy Type: - Criminal Elements Subtype: K'Erin Outlaws
Very similar to the gang we fought in Turn 5, but somewhat better Equipped.
Numbers: +1 Panic: Fearless! Speed: 4” Combat: +1 Tough: 4 AI: A Weapons: 2A
4 regulars with Infantry Lasers + Blade, 1 specialists with Hand Gun & Ripper Sword , 1 LT. w/ Infantry Laser + Blade
and one Unique Individual: K'Erin Warrior Sp 5" CS +2 T5 AI A L1 Machine Pistol, Ripper Sword. Let's name him Warlord Girt B'Lilu.
Deploy: Because of the toxic environment, I set up the map with grody pools of chemicals, and piles of scrap, like it's a contaminated industrial junkyard. The small piles of scrap provide cover but don't block LOS. The larger cylinders do block LOS. The horizontal sheets of corrugated steel on the map are functionally just bridges across the muck, and provide no cover at all. Toxic environment: Whenever a combatant is Stunned, roll 1D6+Savvy skill (0 for enemies). Failure to roll a 4+ becomes a casualty.
These K'Erin Outlaws are aggressive, so they start in one large cluster and want to rush me, but they also have long-range weapons so they benefit from getting a turn or two of pot shots from outside my range. So there's no clear cut best place for them to deploy. Their side of the board is sort of divided into 3 areas by the toxic pools, so I rolled a d3 to decide. To make the Unique Individual K'Erin Warrior feel more unique and independant (and to make the battle a little more complex) I rolled his starting position separately. So the main group is in the SouthEast corner, and he's scouting in the NorthEast corner trying to flank us.
On the map above, the red arrows are the movements of the K'Erin Outlaws. The green arrows are the movements of my crew. The blue arrows are the movements of one particular crewman, H'Xex, who has a jump belt that allows him to leap right over the toxic pools and most blocking terrain obstacles. The purple arrows are for some nasty critters that crawled up out of the muck between turns 4 and 5 due to a battlefield event.
Sieze the Initiative: Successful. The Kid shoots and misses, everyone else just gets into better position on the cover. H'Xex moves laterally, as I realize I might need him to go for the notable sight or to intercept the Warlord Girt B'Lilu.
Round 1: - K aims and still misses Warlord Girt B'Lilu.
The Warlord isn't in range of his pistol, so he dashes forward, advancing into cover. The Ripper Sword Specialist is way out of range, so Dashes forward as well. The others split up and spread out, as moving in a clump would cause them to block each other's line of fire. 4 of 5 shots miss, but one of lasers Juniper and she has to spend her Luck to survive. Since she spent Luck she's not Stunned, so she doesn't test for the toxic environment.
Leonidas shoots the Warlord. Girt spends his Luck to survive, and dives 5" NorthWest. It does leave him out in the open, but also got them basically a full movement closer to a target, so it's both good and bad. (Edit: I just noticed I marked this wrong when I recreated the map, above. I think the text is correct, and the red arrow at the top is in error. The arrow should have moved NW, not W followed by NE. That's what I get for playing one day, drawing the arrows on a different day then I extracted the text out of my notepad on a third day.)
Feeling vulnerable on her pile of scrap, and out of range of her own gun, J dashes forward to the LOS-blocking larger hunks of metal. Inshubur still has Luck, so she just sits tight.
Moreva and The Kid both shoot at the Warlord. M misses. K hits but only stuns. The Warlord makes his roll to not succumb to the Toxic Environment.
H'Xex jumps to the Notable Sight, and picks it up instead of shooting as the Warlord is just outside his Shotgun's range. The Notable Sight is on some jagged scrap in the middle of the toxic pools. Officially, that has no effect, but I think Jump-Belting to it should be a little dangerous. I have him make a roll for Toxic Environment as if he'd been stunned, but with a +1 bonus to the roll since it's just me arbitrarily imposing danger for the sake of realism. He barely survives, had I not decided before the roll to give him the +1 it would have taken him out.
Round 2: - I've got 3 characters acting in Quick Actions phase. The Kid shoots the Warlord, giving him a second stun. Girt saves vs the Environment again. H'Xex jumps closer to him, risking being in the open to get into shotgun range. He scores two hits, one doing enough damage to kill on it own, and the other putting a third stun marker and knocks him off the edge of the map, so the Warlord is at least double-eliminated. This raises the question of what happens when a model is knocked off the edge of the map? There's no rule for it, so I'm inclined to say that you just stop your movement on the map, and resolve that I will avoid intentionally abusing that. No creeping along the edge of the map so that I can't be knocked back by stuns, for example.
The rest of the K'Erin advance, and take long-range pot shots, all of which miss. Only the ripper sword specialist dashes, which brings him into Inshubur's LOS, but her plasma shots bounce off his cover.
L and M cannot get into range without both dashing and leaving themselves out in the open, so they just sit tight. J peeks out from around the cover and kills the enemy Lieutenant.
Battle Event between Round 2 and 3 - Ammo fault: Select a random figure in your crew. If they fired a weapon last round, it cannot be used for the rest of the battle. If they did not, select a random carried weapon, which can be fired only once this battle. This effects Moreva. She did not fire in Round 2, so I flip a coin for which of her two guns can only be used once. Her hand-gun "wins" the flip, which is a lucky break for me. as she'll only need to use it if the enemy makes it all the way to brawling range.
Round 3: - As this is a Quest Finale, the enemy are Fearless and ignore their loses.
J kills the Ripper Sword Specialist. The only surviving K'Erin in that southern group stands over the body of his fallen friend, and shoots Juniper. Despite cover and a Flak Vest, she becomes a casualty. Guess she shot the wrong K'Erin! The rest of the K'Erin shoot at Inshubur, but all of them miss.
Inshubur misses, and most of my other characters continue to sit tight in cover. The Kid clambers out onto the scaffolding over the toxic muck.
Round 4: - My initiative roll sucks, so the K'Erin advance firing. They miss Inshubur repeatedly, but one of them can't see her because of his comrades getting in the way. I look to see if there's another possible target from where he ended up, and sure enough, there's a potential shot against where Leonidas is in cover. Two 6's later, and Leonidas is out of action. This is starting to look bad. I've won most of my previous battles without casualty, but my poor deployment choices and the K'Erin's extreme range lasers are making this fight exciting in a way that I haven't seen since the first mission of the campaign. Sucks for my team, even if it is a lot of fun for me.
From his position on the makeshift bridge, K takes an extreme-range shot with their laser, and eliminates the K'Erin that just shot his friend Juniper. I moves forward to get into range, taking cover behind the rocky ridge. Unfortunately, both of her shots miss. Aware of their mortality, and out of range, H stays behind the blocking terrain, and M ducks behind some as well.
Battle Event between Round 4 and 5: Critters! Place 1D3 Vent Crawlers (p.102) in the center of the table, and move each of them 1D6” in a random direction. At the beginning of the Enemy Actions phase, they will move towards the nearest figure and attack, regardless of which side the figure is on. If you are already fighting Vent Crawlers, this is bad news, as they are of course part of the enemy brood.
After random deployment, one of the three vent crawlers is in position to go after the K'Erin, but the other two are heading towards my PCs. This was already an exciting battle, and now it just got real scary.
Round 5: - The tension spike from the Vent Crawlers resolves very quickly. Moreva climbs back up to her prior perch on the cylinder pile, and blasts a Vent Crawler into nothingness. Inshubur also falls back to her previous cover spot, and likewise kills a Vent Crawler.
The remaining Vent Crawler is closer to the K'Erin Outlaws than to my team, so it rushes them. However, it's just a smidge too far away to get to attack them. From such close range, the lead K'Erin burns a laser-hole in its carapace. The toxic environment does the rest.
This leaves 2 K'Erin to act. One advances behind cover and shoots at Inshubur. Her Luck saves her, but she has to dive 5" to the SouthEast to survive. The other K'Erin fires at Moreva, and misses.
H'Xex jumps over the cylinder and a toxin pool, and opens up with his shotgun, but misses with both shots.
The Kid picks his way across the makeshift bridge, but can't line up a shot.
Round 6: - Inshubur moves to where Juniper fell. She cracks off a shot at the K'Erin, but it ricochets off a piece of intervening scrap and misses. The K'Erin returns fire just as ineffectively.
The other two go after H'Xex since he's closer. The laser of the closer one fails to penetrate the cover that H'Xex is in. The second K'Erin moves wider and leaves himself out in the open to get a clearer shot. It hits, and stuns, and K'Erin fails his Savvy test vs the Toxic Environment. This time, however, I remember I have Story Points, so I spend one to reroll the Savvy test. The reroll saves him. H'Xex does get dunked in the toxic sludge, but he manages to keep his head above the goo, and his gasmask prevents the fumes from knocking him out.
Round 7: - I get a single "1" on my Initiative roll. Crap. I plan to activate H'Xex, and then realize that he's kind of stuck. He's stunned, so he can either move or attack, not both. But as a K'Erin, if he starts his activation within charging distance he has to move to attack them. If I don't activate him, they won't charge him because his Combat Skill is higher than theirs. So instead they'd shoot him from point blank, which probably means my story point to save him was a waste. That's potentially a painful learning experience.
Looks like my best bet is to have Moreva aim and fire at one of the baddies that's going after him. She gets a lucky hit and high damage, dropping the villain closest to H'Xex.
The next one in line runs past his fallen comrade and burns H'Xex from up close. It only stuns, but H'Xex fails his environment toxin roll. I'm tempted to double-down on the Story Points, but since it would at best be a 50% chance to leave him in the same crappy situation he was in at the start of this turn, I decide to just let him fall.
The other K'Erin fires at Moreva and misses. The Kid picks him off immediately thereafter.
Inshubur advances behind the ridge and shoots at the last K'Erin, but sadly misses.
Round 7: - Moreva goes on overwatch. Inshubur advances and fires again. She hits, but rolls low on damage. The final enemy is stunned, but makes his roll vs the toxic environment.
He fires back, but misses due to the cover of the ridge I is sheltered behind. Since he doesn't move, Moreva is unable to use her overwatch. She's up high and in cover, so I leave her there instead of moving her during the slow actions phase.
K gets back on solid ground and advances behind cover.
Round 8: - Inshubur acts first, and kills the last enemy.
Analysis: - Quest finales are no joke! This is the longest 5 Parsecs From Home mission I've ever played, largely because the quest made the NPCs Fearless. It was also the most exciting and dangerous, due to the combination of long range weaponry, toxic environment, and the mid-battle vent-crawler ambush.
That said, if I'd remembered I had Story Points and Stars Of The Show cards in the early turns when Juniper and Leonidas were in peril, it potentially might have been a much easier battle. Still, it's good to see that the solitaire game still has the ability to punish strategic mistakes, even after my crew has accumulated lots of Armor, Luck, and Combat Skill.
Overall, this was my most exciting and enjoyable game of 5 Parsecs thus far.
Post-Battle:
4.1 Resolve Rival Status: - Career criminals tend to get even. I add the B'Lilu Gang to my list of Rivals on this planet. Aceso Menrva is starting to heat up.
4.2 Resolve Patron Status: - n/a
4.3 Determine Quest Progress: - Yes! I have finished the finale!
4.4 Get Paid and Benefits of Success: - 6 Credits, plus H'Xex got the Really shiny bits: 2 credits. Total of +8 credits.
4.5 Battlefield Finds: - An infantry laser and a blade.
4.6 Check for Invasion!: - n/a
4.7 Gather the Loot: - Damaged Camo Cloak, Damaged Communicator, Teach-Bot, Unity Battle Sight. The Sight we take off the corpse of the war lord. The teach-bot is actually The Strange Brain of the Skulker itself. The two damaged items are things Moreva found in the junkyard while ducking for cover.
4.8 Determine Injuries and Recovery: - I need to be more mindful of my options, and not just accept situations. I forgot that I had Story Points to spend to keep J & L in the action. I also forgot I had a Stim-Pack that could have turned a KO into a stun. Then I forgot that I had a nano-doc that cancels a post-battle injury roll until I'd already rolled a "Death or permanent injury" result for Juniper. So I spend my "Looked Worse Than It Was" card from the "Stars of the Show" deck to save her. That's a one-time-per-Campaign card, so I need to be more mindful next time. I then spend the Nano-Doc so that I can skip rolling at all for H'Xex. That leaves a random roll for Leonidas... and luckily, he just gets "Knocked Out, no long-term effect". So several resources are burned, but all my characters survive and recover before the next mission.
4.9 Experience and Character Upgrades: G.0 H.5 I.3 J.1 K.4 L.1 M.3 - First Kill: - H Rookie: K Unique: H (for downing Warlord Girt)
H'Xex bought a point of Luck, The Kid bought a point of Speed, Moreva bought a point of Combat Skill.
4.10 Invest in Advanced Training: - none
4.11 Purchase Items: - We add a Cargo Bay to the Rhapsody of Inanna (our spaceship). This takes 15 of our 18 credits, so it's a little risky, but I really want to able to explore the universe (for purely thematic / narrative reasons), and having a way to recoup expenses when I do so seems critical to making that a viable playstyle.
4.12 Campaign Event: - An alien merchant offers a random item, but we just spent nearly everything improving our ship, so we turn him down.
4.13 Character Event: - Leonidas is working on the installation of the atmospheric regulator of the cargo module, and a pressurization blowback pops a gasket and the blast cracks 2 of his ribs. L has to spend next turn in the Sick Bay, and the ship takes 1 point of damage to its environmental system. He was already having misgivings about the notion of leaving the planet of his birth, and this just solidifies those feelings. "Maybe I'm just not meant for outer space."
4.14 Check for Galactic War Progress: - n/a
4.15 Tick Story Clock: - 2
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