Five Parsecs from Home - Part 4

Battle Turn 2

Deployment

The invitations for the WI Summer Garden Show must go in the post today, but the starport post office was recently shut down. The only open post office is on the other side of town. The invitations need to make the last collection, and the quickest route is through a danger zone -- the shattered remnants of the old tourist district.

[The rolled objective is Move Through -- 2 PCs must exit the other side of the table to achieve Victory.

There are no special deployment conditions or notable sights (mainly because I forgot to place the rolled 'Shiny Bits' worth 2 credits. Oops!).

The enemy are a band of Gene Renegades, transhumanists addicted to black market body modification.

Lizard is slowly transforming into a reptile. Greyface is turning his skin translucent. Cyclops is a metalhead from a hairless species who wanted a good mane for headbanging. Trollface wanted to look like his favourite character in the epic fantasy cycle, Swords Against Whatever.

Ginger (the lieutenant) has a tasteless mod you can't see with his trousers on. Insectoid (specialist) is the Woman Who Would Be Queen.

They all have colony rifles except for Insectoid, who has an auto rifle.]

Battle

The sky above the battlefield was the colour of cheap curtains that came with the flat and have sat at the bottom of the closet for months.

Round 1

Everyone moves up under cover. Because that's pretty much how these things always start, innit?

Round 2

Many more furtive steps behind broken walls.

Slow hand moves out round the side a bit, and Cyclops moves up to a column for cover, and sees Slow Hand trotting beside a platform in the distance. He squeezes of a shot, but Slow Hand merely mocks him for his poor marksmanship.

Insectoid charges up a flight of stairs onto what's left of the old TV (Transdimensional Vectors, LLC) building's first floor. [2 Lego stairs = 1" to keep movement simple]

GBH tries to keep walls and wreckage interposed between itself and the renegades, but both Greyface and Lizard are able to take a shot. Bullets plink all about, but fortunately none hit.

Zllgx leaps up onto a platform. She just has a clear LOS to Insectoid, and takes her shot. The bullet ricochets off her fashionable carbon fibre pauldron, and she staggers back -- just narrowly stopping herself from falling off the building [hit, Stunned. Forced back 1", which was literally just to the edge].

Post Round 2 Battle Event

[Running out of time -- 1-in-6 chance at the end of each round that the battle immediately ends.]


Round 3

Zllgx dashes along the platform as she no longer has a LOS to anyone.

Wilmer leans round a jagged chunk of hotel wall and fires at Lizard, but ineffectually. Muffy rushes up behind her.

The renegades flit from one pile of rubble to the next. Trollface has been creeping up beneath the TV building. He leans round a pillar and fires at Wilmer, but misses.

Lizard can't hit Wilmer either.

Round 4

Zllgx runs along the platform, leaps over the gap, and makes it all the way to the low wall at the end [Dashed -- +2" movement but cannot attack]. Slow Hand saunters to the column beneath her. Cyclops runs all the way up the stairs to hide behind a pillar [also Dashed].

GBH dashes forward -- no enemies in sight! But then Greyface appears from round the corner, and Ginger rushes up into view. Both of them fire at close range, but the shots go wild. Perhaps the sonic emitter GBH carries threw them off, perhaps they're just terrible shots; who can say?

[Targets in the open within 6" are hit on 3+. The sonic emitter gives enemies within 5" a -1 to hit. They rolled 2 and 1...]

Insectoid leans round a pillar and unleashes several bursts in Zllgx's direction, but the shots go wild.

Muffy leans round a corner and squeezes off a few rounds at Trollface. One hits, but pigs off his helmet [Stun]. He staggers back a few paces, firing blindly.

Post Turn 4 Battle Event

[Snap Shot - one crew member gets a free shot. Pistols hit automatically]

Muffy takes another shot, a little lower this time. Trollface is hit right between the eyes.

Round 5

GBH keeps running [Dash], just wanting to get out of harms way. Ginger and Greyface shoot the hapless bot in the back, but it just keeps on running [2 hits, both Stun; 1 more Stun and the bot is a casualty].

Many others took shots at their opponents, but I will spare them the embarrassment of saying how that went.

Muffy makes a dash for underneath the TV building. Dirk moves up behind Ginger  -- if only his blast pistol had a better range!

With a flourish of his swingin' cape, Slow Hand fires a blast from his laser duelling pistol. Cyclops falls from the top of the TV building, a small charred hole bored neatly through his organ sac.

Seeing her comrade shot down is too much for Insectoid, so she throws aside her rife and bugs out. [Panic rolls were made at the end of the turn like they're supposed to be, but it makes for less choppy narrative to put this here.]

Wilmer blasts away with his military rifle. One of the slugs tears through Lizard's chest and propels him backwards over a railing in all defiance of the Conservation of Momentum. Looks pretty wicked, though.

Round 6

GBH and Muffy are still running full out [Dash]. They almost reach the edge of the battlefield. Greyface and Ginger are still shooting away at GBH. Still without any effect. Dirk fires at Ginger from extreme range, but only grazes him [Stun]

Round 7

Muffy and GBH dash off the battlefield.

Ginger and Greyface jump for cover, then unload at Dirk. One bullet hits his armour, and knocks him back a step. The others pepper the ground where he was standing, forcing him to leap back further. [The first shot hit, but only Stunned him -- the armour roll didn't actually deflect it. The second shot would have taken him out, but he spent his Luck point to stay in the fight.]

Then there is a whistling sound, followed by an explosion. The urban renewal bots are shelling the zone! Everyone breaks and flees in a blind panic.

[With 2 PCs off the enemy side of the board, the Victory condition was met. There was a chance for the enemy to withdraw, but the dice said they would not. Then I finally rolled a 6 at the round's end, meaning the battle came to an abrupt conclusion per the round 2 Battle Event, which further dictates that the characters will not Hold the Field.]