When we last left the crew of the Azure Dawn, they were about to embark on a mission for a VIP, Hiram Nox, escorting him to a dead drop in the rather unpleasantly crime ridden world of Nocarth.
How’d that turn out?
Well, as the title suggests…not well.
The Models
For Hiram Nox, I elected to use Stanislav Kuznetsov’s “Cyberpunk Gentleman” figure, because, well, it was perfect for any number of mysterious benefactors now and in the future.
Opposing the crew would be One Page Rules’ “Dynasty Warriors”. These particular models are what drove me to back OPR for a month or two, and while intended as a sort of “Not Tau” aesthetic, they also fit the sort of high tech but also Japanophilic/phobic style of classic Cyberpunk stories. Given these would be some sort of organized guild unit, they felt right for this, and as a bonus, they’ve also got a few weapons options that help.
We’ve also got some new terrain on the board as well – the last ever piece I printed from the now defunct Terrain Machine (RIP), as well as a number of buildings from “Flatline City” by Saucermen Studios. I absolutely love this collection, and you can expect to see a lot more of it in the future, especially as I’m currently actively working on a more cyberpunk city feeling board. I did however realize that I failed to actually order a properly urban board, so for this scenario, the dead drop is in something of an industrial district, awaiting Mr. Nox on the back of an inconspicuously parked truck. All I have to do is keep him there for a turn and we win. There’s also a small pile of containers and cylinders half-hidden under a tarp near a drone repair shop that has caught Alexis’ eye.
Deployment and The Plan
The Plan was fairly simple. Trouble and Garret would escort the VIP to the truck and hold down the fort, while Estelle, Felix and Alexis advance or provide covering fire as needed. Viv, per usual, takes up overwatch on the roof of a nearby building. She’ll have trouble seeing through the gloom until the shooting starts, but hopefully once it does, she’ll be able to keep things under control.
For their part, the guild enforcers split up into two units, each with either an officer or specialist as well as two Colony Rifle toting grunts. They take cover as well, but unlike the last gloomy scenario, I’ve decided that they’re trying to set a trap, so they will move toward the objective to try to bring it into line of sight, rather than move randomly – primarily because the way this mission’s parameters have been set up, there’s a way in which I simply win without anyone firing a shot, and that’s boring.
I’ve also overriden the AI’s “always shoot at the closest threat” thing, to allow them on a 4+ to shoot at their priority target, the VIP. Because again, there’s a tactic of just hurling bodies forward yelling “Look out Mr. President Nox!” that would ensure a win by exploiting the AI. One of the challenges of solo gaming is deciding when to unstack the deck for/against “You” to make for a more interesting game.
This will come up later.
Turn 1
Turn 1 is rather uneventful – having Seized the Initiative at the start which allowed most of the party to make a 4″ movement, most of them now run into position, trying to get the VIP to the middle quickly (there’s a bonus for doing so). The NPCs similarly move up, trying to keep “tactical” positions where they’re in cover, etc.
Turn 2
Here’s where things kick off. I get a very good series of Reaction rolls, allowing the VIP, Garret, Trouble and Alexis to all move before the NPCs do. The VIP gets into the truck and takes cover, starting the timer for his full turn, while Trouble and Alexis both move forward – and enter the 9″ range they need to see the enemy. Blurting out a warning, Trouble fires at the Guildsman in front with his Needle Rifle, rolling 2 6’s – which with the Needle Rifle’s special rules means the Guildsman takes four hits. Three exceed his toughness, and he is punched from his feet, spraying his compatriots in a mist of blood from a hundred tiny puncture wounds.
Alexis manages to hit as well, stunning the specialist with a blast rifle, but failing to do more than that.
The Guildsmen react like the experienced soldiers they are. The two with the stunned specialist dive into the nearby building, taking up firing positions behind the counter, and the specialist follows them. They shoot at Alexis, but don’t manage to hit her. Meanwhile, the Lieutenant’s squad returns fire – the rifleman only able to shoot Trouble, but the Lieutenant recognizing the priority target of Hiram Nox. The rifleman manages to hit and stun Trouble (there are a lot of 6’s being rolled this game To Hit), and the officer opens up with his plasma rifle, and with two shots manages to hit Hiram Nox with one and take him out of action.
At this point, the crew has officially lost.
But the battle continues – there’s a lot to be said for holding the field in defeat.
The remaining members of the party then react – Estelle vaults the counter she’s been sheltering behind to move to help the beleaguered Trouble and Garret, while Felix returns fire at the Lieutenant, stunning him. Viv lines up her shot, and takes out the previously stunned Sergeant.
Bereft of their leader, and having their mission been accomplished, the two Guildsmen on the right flank elect to retreat.
Turn 3
The tables have – belatedly – turned, with the two Guildsmen now badly outnumbered. Garret guns down the last rifleman in a disciplined volley of fire, while Viv fires at the downed Lieutenant, stunning him again. Dragging himself to his feet, he fires another burst from the deadly plasma gun, hitting trouble, the superheated charge punching through the Soulless’s hardened alloy chassis and knocking him out of action. Felix manages to stun the Lieutenant again.
Turn 4
Now worried that they’ve lost not only the VIP but also a crewmate, the crew of the Azure Dawn pour their fire into the pinned and rather injured Guild Lieutenant. Viv takes a shot and stuns him, which is his third token, and he succumbs to his injuries. The crew has held the field, and now has to salvage what remains.
Postgame
The reward for the missions is, predictably, not great, though the punishment for losing in Five Parsecs is fairly gentle. We get 1 credit worth of loot from the mission, and another credit from that pile of potential scrap and/or parts Alexis had her eye on. There’s a cargo crate in the vehicle alongside the dead drop intended for Hiram, the contents of which are sold for 4 credits, making this not a complete disaster for the crew. Their opponents decide not to become Rivals – if the Guilds had to swear blood oaths against every two-bit mercenary crew hired to do protection runs for one scheming rival or another, there would be no end to it. Plus, they failed.
“What’s that?” Felix nodded down to the scorched, nearly unidentifiable remains of Hiram Nox, who had taken a plasma blast full in the chest. Laying within the…puddle…was a small, gleaming data wafer. Alexis picked it up with a gloved hand, wiping it clean.
“This is what he was after, poor bastard.” She placed the wafer in one of her many handheld tablets, using the one reserved for potential security threats, her eyes scanning over the readouts. “Lots of data on the guild. Has a couple references to Knight-Ryder Industries – looks like a local corp that might appreciate the tip off? Or we can try to return it to the Guild…”
Estelle waved her hand. “No. They tried to kill us. We’ll take it to the Corp, see what they make of it.”
The crew also finds “Vital Info”, which automatically earns us a Corporate Patron – Knight-Ryder Industries.
Trouble recovers well – the blast did some cosmetic damage, but nothing more than that, and he has a spectacular story to tell now, giving him +1 Luck. It’s Viv’s turn on the event table, and a rival from her past has come calling…
Everyone but Garret, who was feeling melancholy after the last mission, gains 2 XP. Felix, having felt like this mission caught him a little flat footed, boosts his React by 1, while Alexis, feeling the opposite, having charged merrily into the sights of three soldiers she couldn’t hope to handle, boosts her Combat by 1. Everyone else is saving, potentially for advanced training, or trying to buy some new equipment in a few turns.
Coming Attractions
All that’s left is to set up for the mission for Campaign Turn 5.
The Azure Dawn, having been paid off, is fully revenue neutral. So long as we don’t take on any initial crew, the water purifier offsets our monthly maintenance costs.
Estelle and Alexis go out looking for jobs – the Vital Info loot from last game makes sure we have a patron, but not that the patron has a job for us (though it does provide +1 to that roll). We roll a 3, which combined with the +2 for the number of crew plus the additional +1 for the patron themselves, means we actually get offers from two patrons – Knight-Ryder Industries and a 2nd Patron.
Trying to make good on the fairly lucrative failure of a mission, Garret, Felix and Viv all set out trading, while Trouble acts as a decoy for the round. Felix hits up a local and disreputable weapons dealer, who offers him a good price on a damaged Plasma Rifle. Having had the crew experience the business end of one of those recently, he agrees to buy it. It’s damaged, and will need repair, so we’re at least one turn from that significant upgrade, but we are there. Garret finds a local smuggler willing to buy off-world registered weapons at a premium 2 credits each, but the crew isn’t quite in the position where they have extra inventory to sell there, so he passes on the opportunity. Viv ends up doing what Viv normally does, chatting with people who seem interesting, and picks up a quest rumor – but we fail to roll below the number of rumors we have to actually trigger the quest.
Which leaves us with determining jobs!
“Where did you say you got this?” The smartly dressed executive turned the data wafer over in his hand, a thoughtful frown on his bio-sculpted features.
“We were contracted by someone named Hiram Nox. It was in his possession when he died…”
The man laughed. “Nox? No wonder he hired off-worlders.” He paused, realizing the woman standing in front of him didn’t follow. “Knight. Night. Nox. Hiram Knight was my erstwhile partner, and in our dealings with the guilds, a strong advocate for using…well…people like you…to act where we cannot. I warned him his extracurricular activities would end like this. Still, thank you for returning his effects. For your trouble, there is something Knight-Ryder Industries needs doing, for which we can compensate you handsomely…”
The contract with Knight-Ryder is in place for this campaign turn and the next, giving us a little flexibility, and offers both private transport to and from the job as well as a generous +3 credits in danger pay.
Our second patrol also turns out to be a corporation – Bioplex Engineering. They have a similarly flexible timeline for the job, and an extremely generous +3 credits as well as rolling twice for mission pay, picking the highest. They’re willing to offer health insurance to the crew, which will knock two turns off any injuries sustained. But they don’t tolerate failure – if the crew fails this, Bioplex Engineering becomes a rival, not a patron.
The crew picks the job from Bioplex Engineering – if they get back in the saddle, it will be a stunningly lucrative job, and by exploiting Knight-Ryder’s offer for private transport next turn, they’ll be able to keep their enemies at bay a bit longer. Neither of the two rival groups on the planet manage to track us down this turn, the use of Hiram Nox’s transport – and his subsequent death – throwing them off the trail. So it’s off to find out what Bioplex needs doing.
What they need doing is blockade running. A gang has claimed one of the streets leading to one of the corporation’s offices as their territory, and the corporation needs the crew to try and break through – which should undermine the gang’s position enough that, hopefully, they abandon their claim. There’s also going to be another “Curious Item” on the table, that’s either 1 credit or, on a 5+, a roll on the loot table.
The tricky bit to all of this is that there are a lot of gangers. For numbers, I rolled two sixes, which is already a bad start. Gangers add +2 to their number, and the high crime modifier to the planet itself adds another +1, so we’re at nine total Gangers. Fortunately, six of them are only armed with Handguns, but they have two specialists with them, one carrying a Clingfire Pistol, and the other a Shotgun. There’s also a Lieutenant armed with a Handgun, a Blade and a Hunting Rifle. Adding yet more to the numbers, they also have a Gene-Dog with them, who will be treating the Clingfire Pistol specialist as it’s owner.
All we have to do is get two crew members to the other side of the table. But there’s an awful lot of people between us and them. Sure wish Felix had that Plasma Rifle fixed…
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