Stargrave game 3 - Commence rescue operations immediately.

 I was in charge of designing the scenario for this game.

Here was the initial background information we all received.

Initial Message

“Calling all independent crews. This is Duke Federugo from Zingara. My daughter the Princess Chabella has taken the royal yacht and a small crew and fled the palace. I am not sure why she left, maybe asking her to marry Count Verona was too much. Please find and bring my daughter back safely. If you are brave enough to achieve this task, the reward could be more wealth than you can imagine!

Second Message

“…….This is Princess Chabella…..Mayday. Mayday…….. My ship has fallen under attack, we are making an emergency landing on the only habitable planet in the system….

We made it to the surface, it’s very cold here. Some of my surviving crew have disappeared. We dare not send out search parties to look for them….

It will be dark soon, and it’s only going to get colder. We are going to take shelter in some nearby caves …

I’m setting the ships communication system to transmit a homing beacon on a sub channel. We need immediate retrieval …….. and I need someone to take me to Tovarro.”

So we are off to rescue a Princess, what could possibly go wrong?? We are about to find out.  The short answer is just about everything.

This is the initial layout of the caves, the Princess and her crew have made it to the caves in some rovers. However, the have been followed by a squad of Space Rangers led by the renown lead Buss Lightyear. The rangers want to arrest the Princess and a tense standoff result.

Here is my team advancing towards the caves. The Red crystal spires are the locations of clue markers.

Here is Richards team advancing towards their own clue marker. My team is off to the right of this picture.

The two players that sore lowest on the initiative roles get to place a blip, This one reveals to be a Soldier droid. It is advancing towards George's team on the top right.

This is the layout of the table with the 4 crews coming on from the corners. This shows the positions at the end of turn 1.

Here we are advancing past the clue marker. My team discovered that there would be an eclipse starting next turn and last 5 turns. During this time it will get very cold, models activating out in the open would take 2 points of damage each turn. The only shelter is the caves currently occupied by the Zingaran Navy and the Space Rangers.

George decides upon a very different strategy, he openly states that his team are not going into the caves and would only be going after the two objectives closest to his deployment point. This increases his potential for conflict with me and reduces any chance of conflict with Alan to near zero.

Everybody in my team makes a dash for the nearest cave entrance to minimise the damage from the cold. George is covering his advance with smoke grenades. My new Medic, Holliday is first into the caves. I can't refer to him as a Doctor because the Daleks get very upset and want to exterminate him.

George's team are closing in on the objective. Alan and George have both laid down a wall of smoke grenades to conceal their activities. One of George's team made it to the cave entrance but decided he didn't like the smell, so to everyone they were better off outside. The team medic managed to poison himself trying to analyse some unidentified compounds. At least he was in the best place to administer an anti-toxin.

Alan's team are advancing across the snowdrifts and preparing their assault teams to enter the cave. Having been offered a peace treaty with George he is then free to concentrate his forces on an assault into the caves.

Some more of the crew make it to the relative safety of the caves We manage to take out one of George's free crew members thus gifting him 30 experience. This did also earn me 10 xp. George is laying down a real London fog of smoke grenades between us. We have run out of templates so are using dice to mark the centers of the smoke clouds.

The fight in the caves has turned into a real melee between the Rangers and the Zingaran Navy.

George reminds me he doesn't need LOS to shoot me with one of his smart grenades. Billy gets shredded, the Master is stunned (probably with outrage at being shot. Holliday the medic also takes a scratch but Sticks the Master with some stims and they both duck around the corner.

The Dalek uses its temporal shift ability to move deeper into the cave complex. Richard's Lieutenant is trying to collect the bounty on Buzz Lightyear. Buzz has managed to land an effective strike on what everyone thought was the Zingaran Princess, it turns out the Space Rangers knew what they were doing, and it was actually the alien tentacle monster Pondo Pondo. 

Richard decides that he would rather I not interfere with his plan to collect the bounties for Buzz and Pondo Pondo, so he blocks off the cave passage with a forcefield. Alan is moving his crew in from the far right and Richard from the left and my crew are arriving from the bottom left. Richard discovered how to move easily on the snow so could move without penalty so has more of his crew further into the caves.

Casualties are mounting for both the space Rangers and the Zingarans. Pondo Pondo struck down Buzz to kill steal the bounty from Richard. Richard is busy machinegunning both parties. Alan and I are separated by a small thickness of rock wall. 

Pondo Pondo makes a break for it pursued by Richards Lieutenant, Pondo won the first exchange but was then taken out by the angry biomorph. Alan's crew are penetrating deeper into the caves and are eying up the console at the back of the caves.

My crew have all taken cover in the caves, I am trying a flanking movement to the right to get around the forcefield and maybe grab another treasure.

Georges team are undergoing a hard winter march across the frozen tundra, Taking 2 damage a turn its a race against time to see whether the cold will incapacitate them before they reach the end of the table. The command crew and medic are busy keeping everyone upright with healing powers and medication.

I'm establishing a perimeter around the one loot token I have opened. I don't really want to go and pick it up and thus expose myself to another grenade so I'm not moving someone to pick it up.

After trying a move to the right, I get there just in time to watch Alan pick up the loot and cover it with machineguns so I abandoned that plan and move back. I now have two choices to get a second treasure, get one off George or get the one Richard has had his eye on all game.

After trying a flanking move to the right I get there just in time to see Alan dart forward and pick up the loot and lock it down with overlapping fields of fire. This makes it far less desirable so I pull back. "Didn't we just leave this party?"

I decide on trying to get the data loot on the left. Richard is not overjoyed about my decision and lays down a forcefield to protect his team while they evacuate from the caves. Some Berserker bots are guarding that loot token and are exchanging fire with Richards Crew

Alan's crew are leaving the caves and get ambushed by a large number of Berserker Bots

Alan's team have taken a third treasure that Richard had been trying to collect and are now trying to escape from the closing jaws of the Robotic trap.

George's crew are getting close to the end and now that the Eclipse is over, they can stagger to the exit. Several crew are down to their last wounds and are being kept on their feet by powerful pain masking drugs.

Richard has completely blocked off the entrance with forcefields although the last one took so much effort his Captain is completely exhausted. The Robots guarding the loot are being ground down by the concentrated fire from the troopers. The Dalek has used its antigravity power to levitate over the forcefield. The Master is making sure everyone is healed.

A gunner bot appears to inconvenience George's team but can't survive the massed firepower. After harvesting the Bots for all they are worth George's team make their escape to the warmth of their spaceship and it's well equipped kitchen.

More of my troopers arrive as do more Berserker Bots. My crew are starting to shoot at the yellow forcefield to bring it down but no one quite manages it.

The Dalek skims over the snow and takes position in a crevasse and blasts one of Richards crew with its weapon. The Return fire takes it down to one wound. The rest of the crew have managed to bring down the force field so they will be able to add their firepower to the engagement. The Master heals the Dalek which then shoots another of Richards troopers and moves back behind the forcefield. I can do this because I get to activate most of my models before the soldier phase.

Richard's troopers are now all damaged and starting to leave the field.

The last damaged robot is destroyed and we pick up the data loot and make our escape.

I may have been too hasty about making a clean escape. Two Pirate ships attack before we can enter the Time Vortex. This is OK I have my best crew members on piloting and gunnery. In the first exchange I take minimal damage (I fail the required piloting rolls by 1 and 2) but my Dalek hybrid manning the weapon systems blasts one pirate ship. On the second pass I take a bit more damage and then destroy the second pirate. This earns me 100 Credits in reward money.

Having secured two treasures I rolled up an Alien Artefact (useless junk I converted into gold) and a Clearsight. This gives me enough to improve my crew and ship.