Planet 28: Death in the Throne Room Campaign Part 3

 Hi!

Following Inquisitor Fisher's arrival on Neo Trantor and the skirmish at the spaceport I managed to play the next game in the campaign which features General Shunt's goon squad raiding a nearby hab zone in search of the smuggler who had escaped in the previous game.

The smuggler had been wounded by Fisher but managed to flee to the Glamour Heights hab block, a somewhat rundown mega structure controlled by Baron Thaddeus's gangers in search of both medical aid and to drop off his cargo of contraband. 

General Shunt, having been on the receiving end of a verbal smackdown from an irate Inquisitor Fisher has dispatched his goon squad to raid Glamour Heights and grab the smuggler to get the ire of the Inquisition directed at someone else.

Early in the morning, a military flyer is dispatched from the space port crammed with troops and they jet towards Glamour Heights.

Again I used the scenario generator from Rogue Stars which gave me the idea for this scenario which requires the attackers to secure two rooms and the contents of them whilst fighting off the defenders who are scattered around the table.

The game began with Shunts transport opening fire on the 72nd floor of Glamour Heights, the suspected headquarters of Baron Thaddeus's gangers in the megastructure. The cannon fire from the transport blasted out the windows at the north west corner of the floor and Shunts goons, accompanied by a Killbot to give them some much needed muscle flooded in.

As the goons began to clear their way through the first room, they encountered the first signs of resistance as gangers began opening fire on them from several directions at once with small arms. In the ensuing firefight, one of Shunts goons was badly injured while the officer in charge was badly mauled by a cleaver wielding ganger and one recruit broke and fled back to the transport having taken a small amount of damage (half of Shunts forces are made of raw recruits who need to take a morale check each time they take damage and suffice to say, their morale isn't great. In the campaign I'm classifying them as raw recruits until they survive three games without being removed as casualties or fleeing)

Things were looking a bit bleak for the Goon Squad at this point but the Killbot lumbered forward and began blasting. Despite the fanatical resistance of Thaddeus's gangers, the armoured machine began to make short work of the lightly armoured crazies and buoyed by this, the Goon Squad redoubled their efforts. 

Sensing the change in the skirmish, Thaddeus's Gangers began trying to bring down the more lightly armed Goons and one of the recruits fell to a burst of autogun fire before the clown like gunman was blasted off his feet in return.

With the first room secured, the Goon Squad began moving forward, pushing through the cordon of gangers who were trying to hold them back and despite several heroic attempts by the gangers to hold them in one room, their losses meant that they found themselves outmanoeuvred and began to flee.

Hearing the desperate struggle outside, the gangers holding the first target room unsealed the door and rushed out to try and bring fresh fire at their foes but ran straight into the Killbot and despite managing to cause some damage to the hulking robot, were in turn hit with several accurate blasts, killing one and forcing the other to flee, badly wounded.

In the last room, the smuggler, having just been patched up by the Hab blocks medic, realised that things were looking grim and decided to make a run for it but one of the Goon Squad was waiting for him and despite a bit of a scuffle was soon captured having been given a few clouts with a shock baton.

With the capture of the smuggler, the game came to an end. Shunt's Goon Squad was victorious and have driven the Mad Barons gangers out of Glamour Heights (something the inhabitants have decidedly mixed views on) and the smuggler has been whisked away to face Inquisitor Fisher who wants to know what he was smuggling for Thaddeus.

So here's the results from the game, Thaddeus had five gangers taken out of play and three fled whilst his smuggler has been captured by Shunts goons.

In return, Shunts troops took one casualty and one fled. Many of his Goon Squad have been injured but will be available for the next game.

I rolled on the Planet 28 casualty table for each and while nobody died, one of my Gangers now has brain damage and another has a shattered hand whilst the rest have been shaken, giving them morale issues going forward. I also had one badly wounded who will be pretty fragile in future games and may end up needing cybernetic augmentation...

As for Shunt's cadet who was removed as a casualty is also shaken meaning his morale is even worse than it was before!

I did modify the game somewhat by halving everyones damage so I could play with fairly large gangs without taking ages and I had a really enjoyable time with the gangers giving a better account for themselves than I'd expected and what the end results really shows as early on it looked like the Goon Squad was going to get slaughtered but the Killbot really helped turn the tide in favour of Shunt's forces as the lightly armed gangers just didn't have anything that could stop it.

I suspect in future games, Thaddeus is going to shell out on some more powerful guns to kit out his crazy followers and will no doubt hold a grudge against the Goon Squad in general and the Killbot in particular.

My next game will involve some of the other forces of the Neo Trantor campaign but I also have the investigation of Inquisitor Fisher to deal with, especially as she now has the smuggler in custody, that is if Shunt will hand him over rather than using the information his goons will beat out of the guy for his own Imperial ambitions.
 

I'm really enjoying this campaign and can't wait to get some more games in as time allows and I've also managed to play another couple of sessions of my Colostle campaign so will be posting up the next update for that in the next couple of days once I've got the artwork done as its also developing into a really exciting campaign too!

In the meantime, All the best!