Sister Mary Elephante's Baptism of Fire
This was my very first play of Strange Aeons, and I took "Sister Mary Elefante" a Catholic nun in a convalescent home recovering from a breakdown due to a pair of unruly youngsters from East LA. Regardless, she is one tough lady as I took "tough" for her freebie skill and then went whole-hog and got her a .45 pistol and light armor (her special "support bra/girdle"). The nun also carries a old hair pin (i.e. a knife). The other "agents" are Albert who is packing his pump shotgun (ie. 2-barrel) and a club. Good old Albert is near impossible to keep down with his "jump up" skill. Stephen is our last agent and he packs a (cane) sword but with the sword's ability to parry (from tenure as fencing captain at the university) he is much more "rugged" than he appears (his skill). After this mission Stephen will reveal himself as an member of a covert "Vatican Action Team" and recruit the others into the fold of VAT (with his holiness's blessing of course).
I decided to keep it (very) simple on my first game. I picked "fight" and laid-out a simple table with fields that act as light cover only. Heavy cover was only to found hiding behind the water tank on this battlefield. And, as the plot above said, a set of railway tracks bisect the field near the north edge but that act only as eye-candy and provide no cover. As Lurkers, I also kept it simple and picked 3 Mi-Go and left them unarmed (they fit so well at 5pts each that way).
Of course she knew they were just humoring her... I guess you could not really blame them for not believing her, not really. I mean, she had been one of the most well respected sister's at "Her Holy Mother's School For the Underprivileged", before she had her episode. It was so long ago, now...or at least it seemed. And so, very, very trivial those dealings with those two students that sent her over the edge when she compared them to what she had witnessed last night...
She had gone for a long walk at night to calm herself and pray. The moon was near full and as she often did that when she was very, very upset she was lost in prayer when she realized that she was nearing the scene of the horror. The brutal death of those the two children the police had found by the abandoned railway siding was enough chill anyone. She had trouble finding solace in the police account that they had been hit by a train and somehow later moved to the abandoned siding by "animals". Everyone knew that railway siding had not been used for years and what kind of animal would do that?
It was just as she neared the water tank when she first heard that sound. It was like a very loud bumble bee, almost in your ear it was so loud, but a higher pitch. It was almost a whine. And it was not near either, but it near enough. In fact she could tell it was coming from the other-side of the tracks and was just rounding the water tank to look when she saw "them". They were hideous! As large a man they looked nothing like a human. More like crablike bugs, with wings! But it was not the wings that made the sounds...no. It was far more horrifying than that. They had no heads! Just a mass of tentacles or feelers that they flailed about wildly and made buzzing sounds with as they glowed in faintly different shades of green, blue and yellow...she was awestruck with terror! She began to recite "The Lord's Prayer" and she was no longer afraid. It was these things that had done those unspeakable acts to those poor childern! Just as the brave sister was about to confront these abominations they stopped buzzing and all suddenly turned and took flight to the west and were gone. That was last night. It had taken her all morning to work up the courage to tell Albert. He would listen. He might even believe her.
Albert was in the maintenance hut as usual still trying to fix that old old gas heater. He listened of course, and she 'thought' she caught something in his eye when she told him about the buzzing sounds she had heard and he had asked her several times to describe it... But by the time her story was over, she was convinced he would only accompany her back to the spot because they were such close friends. It was Ablert's idea to inform Stephen what had happened. Stephen was a good sort (as far as administrator's went that is) and she was against it but Albert insisted he should know as soon as possible. Sister Mary could not have been more surprised when Stehpen insisted on coming along that very night.
Setup: The Sister and her compatriots enter from the East side and stay in the open hoping to use their ranged weapons to full advantage against the spaghetti headed aliens! The MiGo setup in a field on the other side trying to avoid these same weapons.
Turn 1 VAT and MiGo: The sister moves first and they move up full speed making it about half way to the cover of the tank and keeping away from the tall fields of corn and barley. The MiGo stay the North, out of range and try to circle around using the cover of the crops to shield them from the firearms the humans carry.