Sellswords and Star Wars

[Spinal Tap]

Had another blast today playing Star Wars (ish) with the solo Sellswords and Spellslingers fantasy rules.

Ran the scenario twice as 2 players, one with a powerful Jedi (61xp), the other with a crew of 3.

First run through I lost 2 crew and the pilot but still got the codes off the table; second one (which I played better as well as having slightly better rolls) I achieved victory and all PCs made it off the field safely.

Roughly copied from 'The Healer' scenario in the rulebook.

No report today, just a few pictures, but I've included details of  the Jedi and the foes stats should someone want to have a go.


The Pilot

A Rebel pilot has escaped from an Empire holding facility, stolen a Speeder and made his escape to the Northern climes of the continent. He managed to get off a single message saying he had the self destruct codes for a research facility creating a weapon of mass destruction under development by the Galactic Empire.

He went on to say that he was very near the facility but had crashed and Stormtroopers were searching the area; he had not been found as yet but it was only a matter of time, although he has been able to activate the craft’s defensive forcefield.

No Rebel forces are located on the planet and an alternative plan is quickly formulated.

A reclusive Jedi, Kristos, resides in the North and has been approached and, reluctantly, agreed to aid a party of mercenaries hired to rescue the pilot, get the codes and continue to the facility entrance to the West of the Speeder.


Rules as per ‘The Healer’ but with the following changes:

Set Up: The crashed Speeder is located in the centre of the field with scatter all around the area.

Designate 2 locations on the Western edge where the PC’s can escape the field.

Foes: Four Stormtroopers per player, randomly placed as 2 equal sized hordes.

         A C1Attack Droid per Player +1

Deployment: Foes are deployed randomly but no closer than 8” to the Speeder, which contains the Pilot who has activated it’s shields.

PC’s deploy after the Foes but at least 4” from the nearest.

If no PC’s are currently in shooting range, and the pilot remains in the speeder, then foes will move towards it attempting to reduce the range to 4”.

Once within range they will attempt to disable the forcefield (DL15); if the forcefield is breached the pilot will exit to the far side of the speeder.

Foes will always choose to attack the Pilot (2HP, no combat modifiers and 4 levels in Tech) unless a PC is within 4” or the pilot is in full cover.

Traps: There are no traps.

Wandering Monster: A C4 Attack Droid appears on a random table edge, it’s weapons are currently disabled but it still retains enough of it’s programming to maintain it’s allegiance to the  Empire.

If a PC and C4 Droid engage then an attempt to override it’s systems can be made instructing it to return to base for repairs; PC must roll a DL14 Tech Roll to succeed.

If this fails then melee combat will ensue as per the standard rules.

The Pilot will deactivate all shields once a PC moves within 4” of the Speeder so long as no Foes are within 4”; he will then become part of the team for the duration and pass on the codes to the rescuing PC.
         
Scenario Event: A loose shot has activated the Speeders security protocol and fires an electric charge at the closest figure (PC or NPC).

If the target is a foe then a D20 roll over it’s DL will kill it; if the nearest foe is in a horde then the whole horde is classed as a single foe and the roll will be against the hordes DL; should they fail they all die.

If the target is a PC then dodge roll against a DL13 or lose 2HP (no armour/shield roll allowed).

Mana Flux affects The Force.

Things Could Get worse: a storm (that fits the terrain eg. sand, snow etc.) occurs reducing visibility and all ranged attacks add 2DL.

Victory occurs when the PC’s leave via a designated exit point.


20210222_152259 by markndebs, on Flickr

20210222_152307 by markndebs, on Flickr

20210222_152316 by markndebs, on Flickr

20210222_160442 by markndebs, on Flickr

20210222_165735 by markndebs, on Flickr

20210222_165807 by markndebs, on Flickr

20210222_171720 by markndebs, on Flickr

20210222_171756 by markndebs, on Flickr

[skirmisher]

Great scenario and setup. The Force is strong in this one!

I like the wintery affect achieved by having winterised rocks mixed amid normal looking ones.

[Sunjester]

That looks brilliant! You are making me want to dig out my old Star Wars models and have a go (I've a plastic sweetie box full of plastic collectable pre-paints from years ago).

[Mark]

Good to see this next installment!

My 3rd party Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano appeared in the post last Friday so I spent the evening getting them table ready before a game with my boy on Saturday afternoon. We had our most enjoyable game yet as a two player version of "Of Wine and Brambles" - he ran the two new jedi and I had 4 clones in support. We achieved the mission aim of finding two Maguffins fairly early on but I have Anakin with the "Glory Hound" negative trait which meant he had to run off towards the middle of the board for a 1XP individual reward (I think "That's a Big One"?). This left him pretty close to a horde of 8 battle droids which the boy decided to attack rather than withdraw. This led to a lovely cinematic sequence of him lightsabring his way through the whole horde as well as a few single battle droids elsewhere in the vicinity!

Obviously, being Sellswords and Spellslingers it then got really hairy when a load of separatist reinforcements hoved into view (including 3 droidekas) but we managed to extract with no losses, though Ahsoka and one of the clones were down to 1HP. I did actually have a clone go out of action as well, but he luckily rolled a 19 on the out of action chart and jumped back up with 2HP!

How did your force powers pan out? I still haven't put a character together with the Magic User trait to keep costs down, but I was much happier with my profiles for Anakin and Ahsoka than my original attempt at Obi Wan.

[Spinal Tap]

Great scenario and setup. The Force is strong in this one!

I like the wintery affect achieved by having winterised rocks mixed amid normal looking ones.

Thank you. The winterised rocks are actually compressed kitchen foil covered in hot glue with a bit of paint on; the grey ones are just slate chippings.

That looks brilliant! You are making me want to dig out my old Star Wars models and have a go (I've a plastic sweetie box full of plastic collectable pre-paints from years ago).

You really should.

It's the WOTC pre-paints I've been using for my heroes, except the Jedi which is an old metal mini from goodness knows where that I painted when I started in the hobby.

I have no Jedi at all so I straightened his sabres and painted them purply-red as light sabres.

I have a load more to use for smugglers and ne'er do-wells too, and a small Marro force from Heroscape that I'll stat as a warlike alien race.

How did your force powers pan out? I still haven't put a character together with the Magic User trait to keep costs down, but I was much happier with my profiles for Anakin and Ahsoka than my original attempt at Obi Wan.

Quite the battle you had, it seems.

The force powers worked well.

The knockdown is great for protection but it really bumps their DL if you're shooting at them; I knocked down a C4 Droid and that bumped his DL to 18. Needs to be used sparingly.

Teleporting a foe is good but I rule that they do not have to roll to avoid disorientation - with Droids have 20" or 24" weapons they can still get distance shots in, albeit with high DL's.

Anakin's 'Glory Hound' may be fitting cinematically but I could see it causing problems.

[Mark]

It certainly was! Glad to hear the force powers were useful - and the downside gives a good decision point.

I did wonder how "Glory Hound" would play out when I generated the character, but it went well the first time around - I will see if it backfires next time...

[The Rock]

Nice!
We waiting next reports/contents/profiles for Sellswords.
Thank you for sharing.

[Spinal Tap]

I have the second scenario to do yet as I wrote them both together.

Should get it played this weekend and another enemy will appear with some altered rules.

These may work really well or be a total disaster, time will tell.

[Spinal Tap]

Here's part 2 of the joint scenario:

In Search of an Active Terminal

The crew find them selves at an unguarded Empire bunker protected by Level 10 security systems.

These are easily easily disabled with the pilot’s codes.

‘OK’ says Kristos ‘ we need to find an active terminal to enter these codes then get out of here as quickly as possible.

Entering the elevator they all make note of the 18 digit self destruct code and make a final check of their gear before descending to the nerve centre of the facility.


Set Up:

This is basically the ‘In Search of Rare Herbs’ scenario with few changes to increase the difficulty; the board is a large laboratory with multiple rooms and equipment blocking line of sight.

Security systems have alerted all hostiles to the crews presence.

The possible Computer Terminal locations are placed on the board followed by the party and, finally, the starting foes -

2 Stormtroopers per PC (includes any scenario derived crew from previous games) with half forming a horde and the others being spawned singly.

C1 Attack Droids equal to the number of players +1

Drone Flies equal to the number of players +1

Doors are DL8 to hack open or closed.

3 possible locations for Computer Terminals are placed.

When a PC contacts a Computer Terminal they perform a DL12 search.

Passing the test reveals an active Terminal and the codes can be entered with an action.

If no active Terminal is found at the first 2 locations then the 3rd will be active by default.


Scenario Event – a rebel spy armed with a blaster appears and can be utilised as per the scenario rules; 2 HP and 14” range on blaster – no modifiers.

Wandering Monsters – 3 Drone Flies will generate at random locations on a table edge.

Complications – None.

Mana Flux: Affects The Force.

Traps: Security Trap activates roll a DL11 test to evade. Damage 1 if trapped.

DL11 to escape, -1” movement until healed.

Victory Conditions: An active terminal is located and the code entered and a minimum of 1 PC escaping the field.


Essentially the crew did meet the victory conditions although it's lucky that this was the final scenario.

Basically, with poor rolls throughout, and the unusual activation of the Drone Flies, we ended up with all dead except Casper, who just made it off the field with 1 HP remaining.

Was thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless and quite relaxing to know that a TPK would not mean either abandoning or resetting a campaign.

Here's some camera phone pics to give a flavour to the battle:

20210301_161936 by markndebs, on Flickr


20210301_140340 by markndebs, on Flickr


20210301_140856 by markndebs, on Flickr


20210301_154230 by markndebs, on Flickr


20210301_153215 by markndebs, on Flickr


20210301_135125 by markndebs, on Flickr


20210301_152958 by markndebs, on Flickr

[Mark]

Great to see you got another game in, even if it was very bloody!

Myself and the boy played The Healer this weekend - Commander Cody had escaped capture and was holed up in an empty building. As seems to be par for the course, the route in went very well, although Ahsoka took two hits from a Super Battle Droid. However, it all went wrong during the extraction - 3 out of 6 PCs went out of action, including Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex who were caught in a crossfire between a droideka and some battle droid reinforcements. Some lucky recovery rolls meant that they did make it off the table - just! Of the 6 PCs, 5 were down to 1HP, 3 of them moving at either half or quarter move.

I need to start taking photos so I can document the games properly!

[Spinal Tap]

I need to start taking photos so I can document the games properly!

That would be a treat.



I've come to the realisation that I really enjoy one off or 2-3 part campaigns where you lose a few characters.

Longer campaigns have seen me resetting a scenario if I got a near total party kill just so I could continue the narrative; I put together a 10 episode fantasy campaign when SS and SS first came out and I was really burnt out by the end ensuring characters survived to continue the story, often to the detriment of fun in the active game.

And they can always be reincarnated for a new set of games

[Mark]

I will see what I can do - might need to be solo so I don't have a child to manage! 😆

I have also been working on terrain as what I have is not very star wars. It is all WIP at the moment though it didn't look too bad in its natural cardboard/foamboard state at the weekend.

Good to hear your experience on campaigns. I was planning to put something together and was considering 3-4 missions. The thing I haven't worked out is how to build in the treasure aspect of the between game phase without breaking the verisimilitude. I can't justify allocating treasure to battle droids in my head!