As promised heres the battle report for my recent Stainless Steel Rat game. I used the old Rogue Trader rules, slightly modified to speed things up a bit.
The Background
Soon after Jim is inducted into the Special Corps he discovers a plot to build a secret battleship but the culprit manages to evade him along with the nearly complete ship. After some digging, Jim finds that his foe is a girl called Angelina and sets out to find her before she manages to set her deadly scheme into action.
Looking through the blueprints of the ship, Professor Coypu, the Corps most brilliant, if somewhat eccentric scientist discovers that the ship needs a very rare mineral called Harrissinium to complete a deadly laser weapon that will make the ship all but unstoppable. Hearing this Jim sets out to the Planet Plunder, a one time haven for space pirates where archaeologists have been digging for lost treasure only to find a meteorite made from solid Harrissinium!
Now Jim is in a race against time to get to the dig before his nemesis!
The Scenario
Jim has just arrived at the site and is discussing the best way ahead with the local League Naval commander when Angelina attacks along with the dregs of several systems. Now Jim must stay alive and stop Angelina from carrying out the raid successfully!
The Forces
The Heroes
Jim has not had much chance to raise an armed party to defend the place and is totally unprepared for the attack when it comes.
Slippery Jim and Co
Aside from Jim theres the defence detail, consisting of Sergeant Fung and ranger Kreedo who have been guarding the site. He has managed to bring the League Naval Captain Chard along with able crewman Pooloo. The site also has access to Bertha, an aged and at present dysfunctional armoured car.
The Villains
Angelina has been busy since making off with the battleship and has managed to collect all the worst sort of villains to do her bidding and has turned up at the dig site with some of them to steal the Harrissium and slaughter the archaeologists and anyone else who stands in her way!
Angelinas Raiders
Her force is split into two squads, a more able group with an assortment of pistols and rifles and a group of thugs to do the heavy lifting and armed with knives, pistols and clubs.
Angelina herself is armed to the teeth but prefers to keep out of the action when possible allowing her minons to take the heat.
The Civilians
The archaeologists on the site have been working at clearing the Harrissinium and are still hard at work when the raid starts.
The Dig Site
Professor Churn, his assistant Bunko and a pair of robots along with the film drone are busily working when the shooting begins.
Setup
The raid begins soon after Jim arrives and Angelina gets the first turn.
The battlefield
Angelinas raiders begin on the southern edge of the board, the thugs on the left to capture the meteorite while Angelina and the trained gunmen deploy in the centre.
Angelina and the Gunmen
Thug Deployment
Jim begins the game in the prefab that doubles as the digs headquarters along with Chard and Kreedo, Fung is standing guard on top of the storage shed and Pooloo is tinkering with the armoured car and enjoying an illicit cigarette.
The Headquarters
The Storage Shed
Pooloo enjoys a sneaky smoke while trying to repair the armoured car.
The Game
Turn One sees Angelina and the Gunmen moving towards the headquarters and the thugs moving toward the dig.
Angelina and the Gunmen take cover behind some puffballs and rock formations
The Thugs thunder forward swinging their clubs in belligerent glee
Obviously asleep at his post, Sergeant Fung fails to see the raiders and does absolutely nothing while the archaeologists continue working and Jim and co are still deep in discussion in the headquarters.
Turn Two sees the action hot up a bit, the thugs charge at the dig site causing the archaeologists and their robotic sidekicks to panic and scatter.
Thuggish Attack!
Run Away!
The archaeologists and their robots panic and scatter. The Drone camera unit manages to fly directly into a tree but survives with only chipped paintwork. Churn follows the robots but Bunko flees into the wilderness and spends much of the remainder of the game hiding behind a cactus.
Bunko behind said cactus
The Gunmen clamber over the rocks and into the clearing (something they would soon come to regret) and begin shooting wildly at Fung but failing to hit.
Pooloo drops his smoke in panic and desperately tries to start up Bertha but the aged machine refuses to start and Pooloo can do nothing but sweat uncomfortably and wait for the engine to turn over.
Chard Attacks!
One of the Gunmen Goes Down!
Turn Three sees the thugs chase the professor and robots into the edge of the copse of pines before turning back towards their objective, the meteorite.
The Thugs chase the Prof
The Camera Drone, obviously malfunctioning, careens off the tree and into an ancient statue, exploding spectacularly and reducing the priceless artefact to rubble.
Kaboom!
The Gunmen, incensed by the death of their compatriot blaze away at Chard but the stalwart captain returns their fire, winging another assailant. Meanwhile Fung finally gets his act together and manages to put down another attacker with a well aimed burst from his autopistol. Jim springs into action and dives out of the building and adds to the shooting but his needle pistol fails to cause any damage, its tranquilizer darts shredding clothing but failing to find skin.
The Heroes attack
Chard adds another notch to his gun
Pooloo finally manages to get the armoured car going and cackling maniacally sets off from the rear of the building in search of targets.
MWAHAHA! Bertha rumbles into action!
Turn 4 and things are hotting up, once again fire is exchanged between the heroes and villains but Chards luck runs out and he spins and falls as a gunmans shotgun blast knocks him sprawling. Fung, seeing the heroic captain fall, moves to cover him but Kreelos autogun proves more effective and punches another gunman off his feet.
Chard goes down
At this point things are looking grim for the raiders and they start pulling back just in time to see the cackling Pooloo at the controls of Bertha open fire, incinerating another gunman with a well aimed shot from the plasma gun in the turret.
Angelina looks on as her gunmen are shot up
The gunmen die to a man
Despite the losses, Angelina's gunmen have done their job and held up the heroes and as Angelina retreats she sees her thugs lugging the meteor towards a waiting hovertruck.
Jim spots Angelina and moves off in pursuit
Aftermath
Jim spares his compatriots an anxious glance and is relieved to see Chard is still alive as Chud brings the first aid kit and heads off in pursuit of the villainous Angelina hoping to stop her before she can put her diabolical plan into effect.
Whee! Well that was a fun game to play out! I think in future I need to get Jim more involved early on as he didn't act suitably heroically. Still it provides lots of opportunity for a follow on game!
Hopefully I will be able to get some more games played out soon as its been great to get back into the swing of things!
All the best!
Bunko better redeem himself in the follow-up game! Great batrep, looked like a very fun gun!
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments folks!
I must admit its been great fun to play a game again, especially with Slippery Jim featuring in it after such a long hiatus!
I hope to get a fair few games played over the coming weeks but need to get more terrain put together as its all a bit flat and needs more hills, buildings and alien vegetation to really work with a sci-fi skirmish.
Ideally I would expand my board to 3x3 as well as it doesn't give too much space for maneuvering but will have to make do with what I have got for now. I do have some different colours of tiles so should be able to have a few different settings including a water logged board too but more on that later!
All the best!