Rogue Stars playtest
Attackers:
Mercenary squad from the book, except dropped BB#3 and Big Brother. Replaced with single character "Robot Enforcer" as it fit the model better. Changed leader's weapon to something appropriate for boarding action. (Everybody got non-penetrating ammo)
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| Leader "Bud". Blue and Red from the Merc squad. Blackie the robot enforcer |
Defenders: Vivan Roo's squad straight from the book.
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| Jinn the leader, Dalla the Psion to her right, Pip to her left, and Crunch the roadie in front |
Mission: Boarding Action.
Location: space ship interior.
Complication: Love is in the air. Bud (merc leader) and Dalla (psion) secretly have feelings for another. May not shoot each other. May melee, but never with more than +1 weapons.
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| This ship is full of choke points! |
Bud got the ship access code from Dalla and brings his team on board in the middle of the night. 2 defenders must start in quarters, 1 in workshop or entertainment room, 1 on duty in control room. Characters in bed must spend 2 actions to get dressed and grab their weapons. All door start unlocked.
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| Crunch and Pip are in bed. Dalla is watching a mindless holo-vid in the rec room. Even when docked to a space station, Jin keeps watch from the command deck. |
Initiative roll: Even with Blitzkreig, a 3 on the init roll means the attackers trigger an alarm when entering. Defenders will go first!
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| Oops. That wasn't the doorbell... |
Crunch activates first with 2 dice and gets dressed.
Pip tries to activate but gets caught in his nest, 2 fails.
Bud reacts and runs for the stairs.
Pip tries again and gets dressed.
Jin hears someone pounding up the stairs and tries for a triple activation, passing 2. Blackie fails to react. She draws both SMGs and turns towards the door.
She activates again and gets 2 successes. She runs across the control room, bringing her in sight of Bud on the stairs. Her marksman cancels out the -1 for ambidextrous, and surprise attack cancels his heavy cover of the stairs, so she unloads both SMGs at Bud.
First is a hit to Bud's arm. He takes 1 pin, his arm is crippled, and he drops his gun.
Second is a crit to the head! Bud sucks on his damage roll and is OOA.
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| Well, that didn't take long. It sucks when you can't blame the other player for the damage roll |
Morale roll. All 3 cyborgs hear Bud go down, but pass their roll.
Crunch sees an opportunity to block up the intruders. He activates twice, running to a corner and then shooting at Blue, standing in the doorway. Crunch isn't known for being subtle, he uses his laser cannon. Better not miss! Again, the surprise offsets the heavy cover of the door. He hits the torso. Blue, even with Tough 2, blows his damage roll too and is OOA.
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| Did I mention he was using a laser cannon? And that it sucks to roll your own damage? |
Red sticks it out, but Blackie is hit by bits of Blue and fails his morale roll, suffering a pin and a stress.
The Merchants spend two of thier determination points to remove 2 stress.
Getting nervous about losing the initiative, Dalla rolls 1 die and activates. She attempts to Encourage Pip and succeeds. Pip decides to go for broke.
2 successes and a critical failure to activate! But Pip is Lucky, and re-rolls the critical failure, getting a 3rd success. With his tiny little rodent legs, he has to run to get to the corner. He is about to throw a stun grenade when he realizes it would be useless. So he draws his sonic pistol and shoots Blackie. He almost crits his attack, giving enough for a head shot. Tough offsets the pistol damage, and Blackie rolls a 12. That's enough for a pin and light damage. He's knocked prone, and goes for his Endure test. Easy pass.
The Merchants are up to 13 stress, which would make a Take The Initiative roll easy. But so far nobody is failing to activate. And it doesn't help that all the remaining Mercs are non-reactive.
Dalla rolls 1 die to attempt to activate again. This time she fails. The Mercs Take The Initiative! Finally.
Red goes first, getting 2 successes and 1 fail. Pip fails the reaction roll. Red moves to the door and takes a shot at Crunch. Being in a bad situation, he opens up with a Hail of Fire. Of course, he misses with both.
Thanks to his non-penetrating ammo, nothing happens but some scratches.
He activates again, getting 1 success and 1 failure. Crunch reacts (and I finally remember his Veteran bonus). Critical failure on the reaction! He is a Sitting Duck! It's Hail of Fire time for Red again. Of course, he misses with both, again.
This time he hits a locker, and lookie! Some contraband spices fall out. +2XP if they can get them off the board.
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| Red is shooting at the guy in the bottom right corner, and somehow hits a locker in the room to the upper left, tumbling out some purple spice. That's some pretty poor shooting! |
Blackie gets 2 successes and a fail on his activation. Crunch tries to react again.
He does.
He misses.
Spectacularly.
Crunch blows a hole right through the side of the ship! Pressure loss!
Nobody makes their save roll, everybody gets dragged towards the hole.  |
| That big blue hole goes to the vacuum of space! Everybody, alive or not, is being dragged towards it. Red is screaming in terror... |
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| Al least I did not die in vain. Hey, look at Red floating out in space... |
Unbelievably, Blackie still passes his Morale roll. He stands up and moves into Melee with Crunch.
With nothing to lose, he rolls a critical success, critical failure, and a success. He uses the crit to cancel the crit, then manages to blow his melee attack.
Dalla activates on 1 die to help Crunch, but fails. The non-reactive Blackie gets a 19 and reacts! He melees Crunch and scores a critical hit to the torso. 2 pins, 1 wound, he's Prone and Staggered.
Pip, finding himself way to close to a large enraged robot, rolls 3 successes. He aims (1), shoots, and gets a 19! With the point-blank range and aim offsetting the darkness penalty, that's a headshot.
Crunch has head armor and tough 2, against a measly 2 damage pistol. Crunch rolls a 1 for his damage roll. Another pin, another wound, and OOA unless he passes his endure roll.
Crunch fails his endure roll spectacularly. The Mercs are wiped out.
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| Don't mess with the mouse... |
Game 2:
That was a solo version. When Miles was done with his homework, we played it again. He took the attackers, and was much more effective. His strategy was to lead with Blackie, instead of Bud.
Crunch blows up an interior wall early, spraying high-temp hydraulic fluid over a large arc. Later on Red, even with non-penetrating ammo, managed to blow open a cage and let critters start running around the ship. Blackie rushes up to Crunch and chest-punches him OOA while Dalla is right next to both. She critically fails her morale roll and surrenders.
By the end the ship was listing to port, the artificial gravity was at half strength, and the only 2 left standing were Jin and Red. Jin was holed up at the top of the stairs and not letting anybody pass. Red decided to grab Dalla and run for it. Jin couldn't stand the thought of losing all her crew and attacked Red. But in the ensuing gunbattle, Red managed to send Jin staggering. Instead of running away, Red moved up for the kill. A narrow win for the Repo Men!
