War of the Worlds Survivors 2

 The guys came over for another game in our periodic post-Martian Invasion campaign. 

Here is the table lay out. The survivors have ventured into an urban area for this game. Centres of population were the initial targets of the invaders, so they tend to be more ruinous that the country villages.

There are 3 shades wandering about the area at the outset. the light brown boxes mark search points and there are 3 manhole covers which mark shade entry points. The players will each enter from a corner, the two bottom ones and the top right.

Henry initially had problems getting his party to activate, but Mark and Colin both rushed forward and reached a search point each. On searching them they both found useful first aid kits! Mark displayed his usual inquisitiveness and opened the sewer cover closest to him. he didn't see anything in the dark below, but did not replace the cover, which would give him issues!

Just 1 shade appeared in turn 1, coming out of the manhole next to mark. I had intended that new arrivals would take their entire turn to emerge from the tunnels via the heavy sewer cover, but as mark had left his open I decided to let the shade activate this turn and it attacked one of Marks party, knocking them to the ground. This melee went on with another PC joining in and taking it in turn to be knocked down, then regain their feet before the foe could deliver the coup de grace. he fianally despatched the shade but another turned up and took one of his men Out of the Fight ("dead" but possibly not!).

The players were aided by the fact that I had appalling dice and in 4 turns I rolled 2 activation fails for the first or second figure I tried to activate (each figure rolls for up to 3 activations per turn, rolling 2 failures ends your turn and passes on to the next player). This meant that even though a scuttler and stalker arrived , as well as several more shades, for the first half of the game they just stood around looking confused.

Once he got going Henry moved across the table and searched several objectives, but was very unlucky and did not fond much. In panicked him a bit when the stalker turn up really close to him, bit it's dithering allowed his party to hide in the ruins.

Finally I got some Martians moving, but most of the shades had been picked off by now. The scuttler advanced on mark. His party blasted away, but only knocked it down. It got back up and killed another of Mark's men. Henry and colin had found almost no loot at this point, so Colin took some pot shots at Mark, hoping to nick some of his stuff while he was occupied with the scuttler. this was the first time there had been any exchange of fire between survivors. Mark decided he'd had enough and grabbed his fallen PCs and exited, dragging their bodies with him.

Another scuttler turned up on Colin's flank and he started taking fire from the stalker, so he decided to make a quit exit as well.

In the meantime, Henry kept playing hide and seek around the ruins with the stalker. A couple of shades did make contact and attack some of his PCs, but they killed them both. His party then ran off the table when Colin distracted the stalker momentarily.

A great game which got quite tense towards the end. Mark got the most loot, a rifle, a first aid kit, 1 reload of ammo and 1 portion of food, the other two found just a first aid kit and some salvage between them. One the other hand, Mark also had two PCs Out of the Fight.

In the post game rolls, both of Mark's PCs proved to be only stunned with minor injuries, so they will be fully fit for the next game. Because he retrieved their bodies he got to keep all their equipment and loot. If he had left them behind it would not have affected their survival roll, but he would have lost anything they were carrying at the time.

On to the next game! It will be interesting to see how the parties interact after Colin opened fire on Mark. Previously the survivors have ignored each other, and even picked off a shade threatening another group on occasion. But will Mark be out for revenge next time?