Apologies for the late posting of this conclusion to Fletcher's hunting party, but I thought I had already posted this.
This game gets Fletcher's crew to the point where they should be able to venture on multi-game campaigns, having now survived their first run into the Red Zone.
Hunting Party Part 2
Fletcher, Lukewarm, Godber, Ingrid and Heslop were gathered in Dave's back room at the Winchester. They were hidden away here so that they could plan the next run without evesdroppers.
MacKay, their client, badly wanted to go back to the Zone to bag more trophies. Realistically the only place to go would be the Red Zone. Fletcher had for some time had an area in mind that they could try, up on the moors beyond the abandoned village of Grimford, where they had just taken their client for his first Zone hunt. It was an unfashionable isolated part of the Zone and now overrun with the Zone's creatures. However, the road over the moors to Stonehaven ran through the area.
After the first incident everyone in a wide area was either evacuated by the government or made their way out if they had the means. Some left it too late to leave and were caught by the second, much larger, energy emission as they tried to escape. The Stonehaven road still bears testament to this, being littered with vehicles that got caught by the emission. Their occupants instantly killed or worse.
As well as the prospect of good kills for their client, Fletcher had been waiting for the opportunity to check out the vehicles on the road. With so many mutants in the area to deter lone stalkers, there was a good chance that at least some of the vehicles might contain salvage of worth.
Fletcher thought that, with Heslop having returned, his crew probably now had enough experience between them to face the Red Zone. Even young Godber seemed to be ready. He checked off his shopping list. Chest rigs and hot loads for their SMGs were at the top. Oh, and remind their client to get a gas mask for himself.
The game was run at TL3 with an 8 turn duration.
Board layout
Entering the Red Zone
As the mist came down Ingrid's inspection of the ruined farmhouse succeeded in alerting a trip of mutated moorland ponies. A horse lover, Ingrid was shocked by the sight of the mutants (her bolt toss was a critical miss, resulting in a pin)
MacKay the client got a good clean kill on the first mutant. Lukewarm got a second, but Godber succeeded in only grazing his. Heslop then vaulted the wall to finish off the last one with his shotgun. Good teamwork!
Fletcher got into position so that he had a good view of both the road and under the bridge. He didn't expect to see a horde of revenants.
Heslop moved into position too quickly and fumbled his attack (three misses) but Godber nailed the first one. Then the rest of the revenants surged over the bridge. Fortunately they were slow and couldn't close on the stalkers.
Concentrated fire took out the revenants, but Ingrid's SMG jammed (critical miss). Meanwhile the client finished taking and bagging up a trophy of his kill.
Inspecting the trees by the river bank revealed an anomaly. Jackpot!
While Heslop headed towards the anomaly, the rest of the team investigated the first van. Lukewarm wasn't having a good day, as his bolt toss rattling on the van's roof woke something nasty inside.
As the huge mutant climbed out of the van Godber opened fire with his SLR. A double tap of 7.62mm took the lumbering brute down.
Before the dust had settled, Fletcher raced past the car to investigate what was in the van and Ingrid headed toward the ruined cottage.
Meanwhile Heslop the scrounger successfully grabbed a low level artifact from the Whirlpool anomaly. However, he became overconfident and tried to grab a second artifact. The anomaly's gravitational field slammed him to the ground and he found himself stuck in place!
Fletcher put his scrounger skills to use and made a good search of the van, finding some decent salvage together with a load bearing harness and an intact starlight sight. He then shouted instructions to Heslop to help him free himself from the anomaly.
Meanwhile Lukewarm led the rest of the team to check out the cottage. In the poor light he made out the swirling glow if phantoms. Best to leave well alone.
Moving on they checked out a tarp covering something amongst the trees. A careful inspection revealed nothing hostile, so Lukewarm went to check it out.
It was a cache of ammunition, including a satchel charge, some 40mm grenade launcher ammunition and some SMG magazines of 9mm hot load ammunition (perfect to replace some of what Fletcher and Ingrid had been firing).
With insufficient time remaining to investigate the other points of interest, the crew then started to make their way home.
Epilogue:
It was a good run and the crew performed very well. They came away with a good haul, in addition to the client's payment. Heslop got his first artifact and Godber amazed everyone in taking down the big mutant. The client was very pleased too and gave Fletcher a grand on top of Fletcher's red zone fee. He was very happy with the trophy from his kill.
The crew were now ready for bigger and better runs. This was a good thing, as Fletcher had a meeting at the Institute tomorrow with a new client, for what could potentially be some lucrative work.
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September 28, 2023, 08:14:11 AM
July 15, 2010, 08:33:44 PM