War of the Worlds Survivors 3

 On with our monthly VSF adventure.

This times things were complicated by a river dividing off a quarter of the table with a single bridge. I told the players that the river was fast flowing but wadable, but there was a chance of being swept off their feet by the current. No one bothered to ask further or try and cross until the later part of the game, so they didn't realise it was quite a low chance of most PCs being swept over!

There were 5 search points on the player's side of the river and a tempting 3 search points on the other side. There are a few Shades wandering about, but no Martian Fighting Machines as yet.

It went like this.

Mark advanced confidently towards his nearest search point (out of sight behind the hedge) whilst his rifleman took a pot shot at a shade, but missed.

Colin moved towards a different search point, swing around to avoid the two shades close to the centre of the table.

Henry advanced more cautiously, pausing to shoot a nearby shade.

A shade rushed up to Mark's rifleman, but he held it off until two of his companions charged in to his aid. Between them they beat the creature to the ground and killed it.

At this point Mark rolled spectacularly for the Martian reinforcements and a Stalker arrived, just across the river from his party. I make the players take it in turn to roll for Martian reinforcements, which allows me to pass the blame on!

Whist Colin and Henry engage the Shades by the bridge, Colin's Sikh boldly rushes forward towards a search point on the bridge itself. Mark's party all run for cover behind a nearby copse, out of sight of the Stalker, which moves towards the bridge.

Whilst Henry's party take cover behind the hedge, Colin braves the Martian and run across the bridge.

Instead of firing it's heat ray the Stalker moves closer and unleashed a new weapon. It shots a net that drops down over two of Henry's party. Avon avoid it, but Blake, the leader, is caught in it's folds (Henry is reusing his name tags from our previous Sci-fi campaign!).

More reinforcements, a Scuttler this time. 

A birds eye view of mark's party, who spent most of the game like this, waiting for the Stalker to be drawn off chasing after the others. Unfortunately for him, I kept rolling rubbish activation dice and the Stalker spent at least three turns just standing in front of Mark's position.

Co9lin managed to destroy the Scuttler with a very lucky shot and rushed forward to claim two of the search points. At this point a second Stalker arrived so everyone decide to leg it whilst everyone was still alive! Whist Henry and Colin dodged Stalkers and Shades on their frantic retreat, Mark quietly slipped away in all the chaos.

A great game, may a little easier for the players due to my poor dice rolling (yes it does happen sometimes!). The Stalker turning up so soon in the game could have been very nasty for the gang.

Everyone found some useful salvage to make stuff from and Henry and Colin both found much needed food. But everyone's food stocks are very low so the next game will be a food hunt of some sort.