New Exclusion Zone Campaign (pic heavy)

[CapnJim]

Funny - that's the first thing I though when I saw that photo.  They looked suspiciously like Solo and Kuryakin...

[Dan55]

As to the previous picture, yes - I think of them as agents of United Nations Covert Law Enforcement, although that's probably a cover name and their real name is something silly.

Vagabond, my Horseman's Deli is slightly different.  The shack on top is oriented differently, and it never has those pesky runs on the coffee supply.

New Campaign, Week four - Special Delivery

The item to be delivered arrived along with two sets of adjustable corporate armour.  The item was a small locked suitcase, and since he was so full of energy we gave it to the Kid to carry.  Dalila and I got the new armour, while the vest was passed on to Max.  Dalila and I also had our precious last two remaining med kits (actually stims).  We left as soon as it got dark.  There was a half moon out, so there was some light to guide us, but engagement range would be limited.  So much for our expensive long range assault rifles (again).  We'd been given a map with an abandoned building marked.  We were to hide the suitcase in some bushes directly behind this building.



Following the map was easy and we found the building with no problems.  The bushes were right where they were supposed to be.  However, off in the distance I could see a campfire.  Someone else was already here.  They looked like cultists.  I turned to Dalila who frowned, then shrugged.



There seemed to be two men on guard while I was pretty sure I could make out more individuals bedded down for the night in among the rocks.  They must have decided to camp there instead of inside the building.  At least that was a bit of luck.  I was worried that they might spot the Kid, who needed to get closer, so I decided to distract them.



Oh yeah, and in spite of the campfire it was dark.





We moved up along the rocks on our left, attempting to gain a flanking position on them.  The Kid moved towards the building.



When we were ready I shouted "Hello there, the campfire".



They must have been light sleepers.  In just moments they were up and armed.  They definitely looked like cultists to me.  There seemed to be six of them, including a leader with an auto pistol and someone with a shotgun.  The rest had normal rifles.



Meanwhile, the Kid took advantage of the noise and hid the suitcase.



The cultists advanced towards us and opened fire.  There were bullets flying everywhere.  Except near us, it was dark and they hadn't spotted us yet, but it certainly was impressive.  (In the dark a natural six was needed for a hit).



We didn't have the same problem.  We had muzzle flashes to aim at.  I hit the man with the shotgun and he went down.  Max ran forward to get into close range with his shotgun, suddenly changed his mind and moved towards the gap in the rocks in front of him instead.  "Gotta get closer" he shouted as he ran past me.  Meanwhile I got shot by the enemy leader.  I guess two can play at firing at muzzle flashes.  I was knocked back and stunned, but the wound was a minor one.



When Max arrived at the gap he found a cultist waiting for him.  Max was hit but his vest saved him.  His return fire, also hit and the cultist went down.  Two down.  A cultist and the leader moved to our left to clear their lines of fire.  The large rock formation was blocking a lot of their fire. 



Meanwhile, the Kid was shooting it out with the sixth cultist.  Neither was having much luck due to the darkness, but eventually the Kid won and the cultist went down.



The two cultists came around the end of the rock formation and opened fire.  Dalila was their target but they managed to miss.  She fired back hitting the one with the rifle.  He shrugged it off.



I moved up beside Dalila and fired, also hitting the cultist with the rifle.  He changed targets to me.  Max and the cultist leader were exchanging shots but the rock formation was preventing any hits in spite of the close range.  The cultist to our right suddenly realized he was all alone in the dark and fled.



At this point things got a little confusing for me as I was hit again and this time the armour didn't help me and I went down.  Dalila and Max both opened fire and finally the cultist with the rifle went down.  This left only the leader, but not for long, as the Kid had snuck up on him and opened fire.  The battle was over.  I quickly used up our second last med kit on myself to stop the bleeding.

[Bullshott]

Great report. I like the way this campaign is going. Hopefully payment for this job will buy you more med kits.

[Cordvane]

Great little solo campaign you have running here. 👍
I like the setting, style of storytelling and the pictures.

[Daeothar]

Armour and med kits FTW!

Maybe buying/finding some night vision equipment might help in night fighting scenarios such as these? It would certainly increase the engagement range and would prevent some nasty bruising onderneath those fancy pieces of armour

Another great and exciting report; please keep 'em coming

[CapnJim]

Well done!  Both in terms of the crew and their exploits, and your telling of their story.  A+

[Vagabond]

Another enjoyable story and a successful conclusion to the mission. Thumbs up for that.

I said last time that your table looks great and this is just as good, simple effective and realistic, then I realized that we have a few things common to our layouts apart from Horsemans Deli. Individual aquarium plants, clump foliage scattered on the table mat as well as bits of scattered stuff, barrels etc that tend to tie the thing together so I guess I'm a bit biased in my view. 

I've never thought the aquarium type of rocks work particularly well when I've seen them on other set ups but in the games you've shown they blend in really well. I'm not sure if that's your painting or the mat graphics but I'm reconsidering my opinion on them.

Is the mat a Deep Cut one or another manufacturer and it's hard to see in the photos but have you flocked your aquarium plants? I just dry brushed mine cause I'm lazy.

Keep it up, I'm enjoying reading games on LAF there's not enough posted in my opinion.
Cheers

[Dan55]

In the last game I expected the third turn random event would spawn a monster which would have arrived via the abandoned building in the middle of the table.  This is one of the reasons why the cultists started on the opposite edge (the other, more important one, being they were the opposition and that's where the opposition deploys).  This created an excuse for the setup.  However, when the third turn came around, the random event turned out to be a double move for Max.

Vagabond - I find that the "scatter terrain" makes or breaks how the battlefield looks, and I try to use more than the usual amount.  The aquarium plants are an easy way of filling up much of the available space.  I'm not sure what you're referring to with "aquarium type of rocks".  If you mean those rock formations they are actually cedar chips (I think) glued together, painted, drybrushed, flocked and based. 

The mat is GRASSY FIELDS and it's from Battle Systems Terrain.  As to the plants I'm using, the ones you probably noticed are the ones I'm using for bushes which are dry brushed (to get the sheen off) and flocked with fine dark green flocking.  They are not aquarium plants - I got them from a dollar store and they come in large sections.  I cut them into pieces and based them.  The rest are not flocked except for the tall ones.  When I based them I found they looked rather scrawny so I used spray adhesive on them, dropped them into a bag with fine flocking and shook them up.  This resulted in scrawny looking plants with flocking on them.

[Vagabond]

I have some wood chippings in the garden, I thought they were much thinner than yours, I'll take a look and when Mrs V isn't looking I'll pinch some.  I had a look at the mat manufacturer, they have a couple of nice ones, I like yours and the paving slab one looks pretty good too. Could be spending more money. 

Thanks for the info.
Cheers

[Dan55]

We reported the assignment successfully completed and the sponsor of the mission seemed very pleased.  We may have won over another new patron.  The payment was fine and made promptly.  However, there was one complication that I should have seen coming - they charged us for the armour.  They never did tell us it was free after all.  Oh well, we still made a profit.

Artur was up and around again and I sent him into town.  The Kid was walking the perimeter of our camp, and King was resting. Dalila, Max and I were debating on what we should do next.  I thought it was time to check out what little info we had on that artifact sighting near the twin cabins.  After all, it was what we were all here for.  It didn't require much convincing to get the other two to go along, so we decided to put it to a vote later.  We had enough surplus to live on for at least a week, so this was seen as our opportunity.

Dalila and I got into a discussion about the mysterious group that was snooping about asking questions about us.  Dalila admitted that the gang we had just fought looked familiar.  She believed the cult might be looking for a chance for some payback.  On the other hand, I knew my leaving the science & technology firm (which remains nameless) wasn't on the best of terms.  So it was a toss-up.  We'd deal with it when we needed to. 

Artur came back from town early along with a doctor that had just gotten off shift.  Artur said he'd been telling stories about our adventures and the doctor volunteered to come by and check up on King.  The doc looked him over and pronounced that he should be up sooner than expected.  He left behind some medical kits and stims with the instruction to let King rest another week and administer some of the stims to see what happened.

Max hadn't been busy so he ran into town for some quick shopping and came back with a cheap (used) drone.  He claimed it would be great for scouting . . . as soon as it was fixed.  The Kid had an interesting time.  That old farmer wandered by and got into some in-depth talks with him about what he'd seen in the zone over the past year.  The Kid came back thoughtful and excited about some "tricks" he'd learned.  Later, we took a vote, and our next mission will be for us - search for the artifact.

[mikedemana]

Having bought and read most of "5 Parsecs from Home" I am seeing the mechanics of how you've adapted the campaign system. How much retooling of the charts did you have to do? I'm considering using the Wiley Games rules Fistful of Lead for my action, but would love to port in this campaign framework. It does a beautiful job of storytelling!

Mike Demana

[CapnJim]

Looking forward to reading about your mission to search for that artifact....

[Dan55]

Thanks again for the kind words.

Mike - I haven't made very many changes other than superficial ones, things like names and descriptions.  Most of these changes are due to my taking a sci-fi set of rules and using them for essentially a modern setting.  So, no aliens or space travel and the monsters need to become mutants instead.  Travel by mobile home around the perimeter of the zone to new towns replaces flying to new planets.  This requires some changes, but not so much to the rules or charts.

Most of the charts I left intact, only making on-the-fly changes whenever needed, depending on what I rolled.  And I use them as designed.  After all, it's their number and variety of results that work towards creating the story.  For example, in the wrap-up of the last adventure the random campaign event for turn 4 was "friendly doc" and Max's trade attempt in town was only 2 percentage points from getting "medical supplies (reserves)".  So, spending a story point allows this to become a visit from a new npc - the friendly doctor, and as a bonus King rejoins the action two weeks sooner.

One change that is needed, of course, is the zone itself.  I use the common idea of levels of "weirdness" the deeper one goes into the zone.  So far the gang has been adventuring in the White Zone (level 0), a one mile deep perimeter around the zone, which has no anomalies or artifacts.  The next level, the Yellow Zone (level 1) will have one of each, probably located in the center of the table.

As far as using other combat rules, I can see no problem.  I started by using a home-brew set of skirmish rules and I had no problem using them instead of the provided rules.  You just insert them in place of the official ones and modify any problems.

[Vagabond]

Like Mike I've thought about how you are using the 5 parsecs campaign background to flesh out your storiy/games. I'm reading through the game system and campaign rules at the moment. It looks promising. Thanks for the tip.
Cheers

[Bullshott]

I've got Five Parsecs on order and it should be arriving this week. I'll then look at it in slow time and work our how I'm going to use the campaign rules with Zona Alfa (or perhaps Kontraband supplement). No rush though as, after I post the next game report for my Northmoor setting, I have three more episodes of the Quatermass Run written and ready to play (I just need to finish some terrain pieces for them).