We played the next game in the post Martian Invasion campaign, unfortunately, without Colin this time. As a change from the countryside or ruin villages, I went for an urban setting.
It was a completely different experience for the two players. Mark advanced quickly, but this drew the attention of the various Shades wandering through the streets. He found himself bogged down in a prolonged melee for the first couple of turns, unable to search any of the potential loot points. Mark's combat rolls were fairly average for a time, he kept knocking the Shades down, but they kept getting up again and keeping him distracted. Henry, on the other hand, avoided getting into hand to hand combat and rolled some really good scores in shooting (helped by my inability to roll anything over 2 for the first three turns!) This allowed Henry the opportunity to snatch most of the available loot.
Henry also scored the first kill of the campaign on a Martian war machine, admittedly it was only one of the smaller Scuttlers, but it shows that the players perception that the machines were unkillable wasn't correct! I wonder if this will impact on the player's behaviour in future games?
By the time any of the larger machines appeared, the players had searched all the possible loot points, so everyone very quickly legged it off the table.
Here are a few pictures from the game.
The quiet before the storm, a view through the peaceful streets, well peaceful apart from the occasional Shade wandering around.
An overview of the table.
A Martian Scuttler turns up early.
Mark's leader has to resort to using the butt of his shotgun as the Shades close in.
And more are on their way.
No helped by the rifleman covering him running out of ammo on his first shot!
In the meantime, having set up a crossfire on the Scuttler, one of Henry's party takes aim and must have hit something, because the machine topples over.
Mark keeps knocking Shades down, but they keep getting back up before he can deliver the coup de grace!
As more of Henry's party pour lead into the fallen Scuttler, someone hits a vital spot and it bursts into flame! (It doesn't matter how much tech and armour it has, when he rolled a 6 and I rolled a 1, there was only one result!)
With the threat neutralised, one of the party breaks cover and runs for the next loot point to see what they can scavenge.
Having finally finished off the Shades around them, Mark advanced to try and at least find something for his troubles. Another Shade appears and Mark's leader lets fly with his shotgun, only to run out of ammo. No problem. he had a unused action to reload....then realised his leader didn't have any spare ammo left!
Now some serious opposition turned up, in the shape of a Stalker. Both plyers decided it was time to quit and started retreating. It took after Henry's party, which led to a running gunfight through the streets, before they managed to get off table safely.
An interesting game, with very different results for the two players. Mark moved up first, which drew the roaming Shades down on him. His failure to kill any of them quickly, pinned him in melee for the first few turns, allowing Henry to scoop up most of the available loot in relative safety. In a change from his usual cautious behaviour, Henry aggressively engaging the fighting machines proved to be a successful tactic, achieving the first kill on a Martian machine in the 7 games so far!
Of the 7 potential loot points on the table, Henry searched 5 of them and only one was a blank. On the other hand, Mark only searched 2 and one of those was a dud.
No comments:
Post a Comment