War of the Worlds Survivors - The Final Game

 Our Martian Invasion campaign concluded with an intense encounter in the sewers, where the Martians had installed some puzzling machinery that the players needed to examine. To achieve a full victory they needed to get an engineer to study the machinery in order to fully understand it's complexity.

The photos are a bit haphazard, several were too blurry to use and at a critical point I forgot to take any pictures!

The Martian machinery, the objective for the players.

Assorted shades are wandering the tunnels.

Mark and Colin advance quietly, trying to avoid their presence being noticed.

Henry, on the other hand, rushes forward and starts shooting. The sounds of his gunfire echo ominously through the tunnels! This triggers more shades  from all sides. Also two Martian machines make an appearance, a scuttler emerges close to the machinery platform and a Stalker arrives just ahead of Mark's party. Due to the height of the tunnels the larger machine cannot move out of the water.

The Stalker shoots a black smoke canister at mark's advancing group, who are find themselves envelope in choaking gas! Fortunately they all pass their poison rolls and fall back out of the cloud.

Mark sit's out the next couple of turns, waiting for the gas to disperse.

Henry gets involved in a firefight with the scuttler as more shades press towards him. A lucky shot knocks the machine over.

A carefully aimed shot hits a vital spot on it's underside and the machine bursts into flames!

But the delap has allowed more shades to move up and block Henry's advance.

Almost unnoticed, a strange creature stirs amongst the machinery, a Martian technician.

Clutching a strange, tubular weapon, the creature positions himself to watch the approach to the machinery platform. At this point the smoke clears and Mark advances three of his party, right in front of the Martian. It fires and the three are engulfed in the beam of a heat ray! (I rolled high for the Martian firing, mark rolled two 1s and a 2!) 

Mark's surviving characters rushed forward, where the tunnel walls blocked them from the Martian's sight. Seeing a shade closing in on one of Colins's party ahead, mark let fly with his shotgun, knocking the shade down. But he had "forgotten" at that range the shotgun blast spread, so he hit Colin's character as well (but missed!). But now another stalker showed up, immediately behind Mark! Karma??

They exchanged shots, but then, Mark's rifle jammed! The next shot from the scuttler downed the character with a shotgun. In the next turn another pack of shades arrive, who overran the surviving characters and tore them to pieces! (Again, rolling 1s and 2s in combat is never good, especially when outnumbered!).

Elsewhere, Colin and Henry had partnered up, combining their firepower to blast their way through the shades opposing them. They each managed to get a character onto the weapon platform. The Martian's heat ray was a deadly weapon, but not suitable for close range use. Once the two humans ganged up on the Martian in melee, it was all over!

At this point a called it as a human victory. With the Martian dead, the shades had lost his psychic control and would only activate on a roll of 5 or 6. Any close to the machinery were dead, so there was no way I could prevent Henry getting his engineer up (who he had carefully kept at the back of the party, out of harm's way.

A much bloodier game that usual, with a lot more Martians and shades for the players to content with, but then it was the campaign finale! But the human resistance had succeeded with the loss of only 5 characters (all Mark's!).

Great fun all round!

War of the Worlds Survivors 8

Earlier in the week we played through the next game in our VSF post-Martian Invasion campaign using Fear and Faith/Mutants and Death Ray Guns. This was another scavenger hunt in a deserted? urban setting. I put three sewer covers on the table, these were intended to be surprise spawning points for the Shades, but that didn't turn out as expected.

A view of the table set up.

From another angle.

And from Google Street View 😁

The opening moves. In his usual 'restrained' manner, Mark's party rushed forward towards the closest loot markers. His rifleman paused to take aim and fired at a Shade, dropping the creature with a shot to the head.

Slightly more cautiously, Colin's group moved down the street, towards the nearest loot marker.

Mark reached two loot markers, but without time to search them as he drew all the Shades in the area down on his head. A careful pistol shot dropped the closest Shade as they closed in.

Next to appear, a Martian Scuttler. As luck would have it the only PCs in sight were Mark's party! It moved forward and fired, but just made Mark's leader duck into cover.

On the other side of the table Henry had been quite successful at shooting the odd Shade in his way, but found himself in a race with one of Colin's gang to get to the next loot marker.

At this point a second Scuttler appeared.

Despite this, Mark's party pushed forward, firing at the fighting machines. One of the group rushed into the church to check out another loot marker....

...only for three Shades to emerge from the shadows.

Mark's hail of lead had some effect, damaging one of the Scuttlers' legs, causing it to topple over.

Then a blast from his leader's shotgun stopped the other Scuttler in it's tracks. A few moments later flames could be seen emerging from the machine's engine.

Two of the group advanced on the last Scuttler, whilst a third gave covering fire. But suddenly the firer heard the dreaded "Click" of the revolver's hammer landing on an empty chamber, Out of Ammo!!

Whilst the Scuttler was distracted, Mark's swordsmen rushed into the church to help his comrade. As they cut the Shades down, two more groups emerged from behind the altar! At this point I rolled a double fail on my first activation, so the creatures just wandered about, growling at the humans. Knowing when to quit, they grabbed the last loot marker and fled, with a horde of Shades lumbering after them.

Elsewhere, Colin and Henry had an easier time of it, despatching the few Shades close to them and grabbing some loot each.

Now a Martian Hybrid fighting machine appeared, armed with a heavy heat ray and the dreaded black smoke discharger, right on top of Mark's party. Once again I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, failing my first activation and allowing the humans time to ran off the table before I could even fire once!

Another fun game! Once again Mark's aggressive play drew most of the attention onto his party, but again my rubbish dice prevented me from exploiting it. 

Three groups of Shades deploying in the church over 4 turns could have been decisive, if I could have activated them. This was unexpected, the Shades were expected to mainly deploy from the sewer covers, only appearing inside the church on a roll of 6.  But they players managed to roll a 6 each time the Shades deployed.

For the next game they venture down into the sewers, who knows what may be lurking down there!!!

War of the Worlds Survivors 7

 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.

War of the Worlds Survivors 5

 I played through the latest game in the War of the Wolds survivors campaign with Colin, Henry and Mark. Henry's party arrived late (emergency dental appointment), so Mark and Colin had a free hand to begin with.

This was a food gathering scenario, although there were a few points with something else useful might be found, scattered about.

A view across the table, the various crop fields represent areas that could be harvested to food.

From another perspective, there are several shades wandering about.

Colin more forward confidently, perhaps too confidently as he got close enough for a shade to charge one of this men , but he kills after a quick struggle.

Mark was a little slower on his advance, pausing to shoot at two shades in front of him, killing one and knocking the other to the ground.

Colin checks out one of the search points and rolls a 12! he has found some salvage, some food and a Random Weapon. A roll on that table and he has found...a sword! No bad, but not the best for someone short on firearms (because he keeps breaking them!).

Whilst some of his party starts harvesting, Mark checks out another search point and finds some salvage. Perhaps an improvised bomb-making session is on the cards for tonight?

Colin checks out another search point and finds another sword!

In the meantime a Martian scuttler turns up.

Mark's part of the table seems infested with shades. he didn't have chance to harvest much of the crops as he had to keep stopping a fighting off attacks. One of his men went down, out of the fight!

To make things worse a Martian stalker machine arrived, firing at Mark but missing.

Henry arrived at this point, and, seeing all the Martians had been drawn off after Mark, decided to take the opportunity to harvest as much from the closest field as he could, ignoring the rest of the table.

Colin did the same over the other side of the table, while Mark grabbed his fallen comrade and ran his men for cover behind a high hedge. He was able to get everyone safely into cover because I rolled appalling dice and only managed to activate 1 model in two consecutive turns!

After a couple more turns, a Martian hybrid arrived, right next to Henry. This was very bad news for the players, as it was armed with a "proper" heat ray, with a blast radius, rather than the lighter weapons carried by stalkers and scuttlers. Luckily for him, none of his PCs had strayed very far onto the table, so the were all able to escape before the Martian activated. Except for his leader, to duck down behind a wall. Just in time and the cover saved him from being fried by the heat ray. He then ran off the table at double time!

With the hybrid marching across the table, as well as the stalker, the scuttler and some shades closing in, Colin and Mark decided to cut their losses and run!

Except Mark could not resist taking a final potshot...at Colin's sailor!

He missed and the sailor charged him, hitting (and killing) his man, then ran off table! Forgetting he could have plundered the body and lifted his revolver! As all Mark's other PCs had already left the table, this meant the body was abandoned, which would make it harder on survival rolls.

At the end of the game everyone had restocked their larders, at least for the next couple of weeks, so the pressure is off for feeding PCs for the next couple of games. Mark had some useful salvage, as did Henry and Colin had more 2 swords!

Only Mark had PCs out of the fight, the PC he had carried off was wounded, so will have to miss the next game, but the abandoned guy was proper DEAD! So Mark lost the gun and other kit he had been carrying, plus his replacement comes with nothing, so will need arming out of Mark's existing stocks (but he still has at least a crossbow kicking around somewhere).

Thia should make the next game interesting (in the Chinese proverb sense!).