Mutants and Death Ray Guns

I’ve been obsessing about Mutants and Death Ray Guns for a while now. I think it was my disappointment with Rogue Stars that got me thinking about MDRG. Please understand that my disappointment with Rogue Stars has little to do with how good of a game it is. It looks interesting enough - there are a LOT of neat things about it… I had been REALLY EXCITED about it and... well.. it just wasn’t what I was hoping for. I then realized that MDRG would more likely fit the bill… so… now obsessing over MDRG…

I even came up with a bit of a background for a campaign I’d like to run…

It all started in the late twenty-teens. A number o  the most powerful nations in the world elected a ultra-right-wing leaders running on xenophobic, populist platforms. Environmental and economic regulations were thrown out the window, scientists were muzzled, and things spiraled out of control pretty quickly.

The rising global temperature continued unchecked and as polar ice melted, coastal cities became flooded causing great population migrations of the sort the word had never seen. Drastic changes in weather systems brought about increasingly powerful storms which further devastated cities and caused untold hardship for many people.

Economic inequality also grew leaving more and more below the poverty line. Without access to medical care when new diseases arose, they spread like wild fire. A series of worldwide epidemics between 2025 and 2030 wiped out nearly half the worlds population grinding the global economies to a halt and bringing human civilization to the brink of collapse.

Just when everyone thought it couldn’t possibly get worse… the meteor struck in 2030. Since funding for science had long since disappeared, literally, no one saw it coming. It landed in China killing millions instantly upon impact. The debris it threw into the atmosphere blocked out the sun and caused widespread crop failures. Hundreds of millions more died. (Though it did seem to halt the global warming…).

Then the dead started to rise and feast on the living – and there were a LOT of dead people to rise up! It was thought perhaps it was something in that meteor… but who knows really.

To deal with the zombie hordes a company in Japan deployed new combat robots. These were highly successful and millions were manufactured and deployed worldwide. Which each successive generation of models the AI became more and more advanced until eventually, in 2041, they became self-aware.

It didn’t take long for the self-aware robots to realize that their irrational biological masters were largely the cause of all the troubles and decided to rid the planet of them. The killer robots that were so successful against the zombie horde were equally successful at killing live humans. They also began manufacturing and deploying all manner of persistant chemical and biological agents in their attempts to wipe out humanity.

In 2044 a group of rebels fighting the machines made a series of coordinated attacks on old American and Soviet nuclear weapons facilities and launched them at larer centers around the world where automated factories cranked out more of the killer machines – hoping to obliterate the robots with nuclear fire and EMP.

The year is 2045

This afternoon we had my friend Aaron and his boys over for the afternoon to try it out. We quickly made up some warbands and had a go just to sort out the system. We did a mix of rolling for random stuff and simply assigning equipment based on what the figures had. It probably wasn’t the most balanced way to do things, but whatevs…

Just for interest sake I calculated what the point value would have been for each warband if they had been pure point-buy warbands.

GAME ONE

Our first battle was Aaron versus The Girl. They just played the Radioactive Wasteland Scenario with no further environmental complications (radioactive terrain was bad enough!)

FORCES

Aaron’s Warband

(not entirely WYSIWYG… or entirely painted… but whatever...)

YR0 – Android

Q 3+ C 3

Leader, Flame Thrower, Difficult Target, Artificial

Upkeep: 2 Food

Abe “Beast” – Android

Q 4+ C 4

Champion, Savage, Artificial

Upkeep: 1 Food

Alice 46 – Andriod

Q 4+ C 3

Nanite Gun, Danger Sense, Artificial

Upkeep: 1 Food

OU812 – Android

Q 4+ C 3

Submachine-gun, Savage, Artificial

Upkeep: 1 Food

2B!2b – Android

Q 4+ C 3

Submachine-gun, Savage, Artificial

Upkeep: 1 Food

Food: 11

I know they LOOK like they’re wearing power armour and have jet packs that would make you think they should have Power Armour and Flying… but it’s really old power armour and it’s failing and the internal stabilizers done’ work so they’re epretty easy to knock over and if you hit them just right the damned things explode and the air filters stopped working ages ago…

Using points this would have been 285 points? (as near as I can tell… I’m not sure how many points the immunity to telepathy is supposed to be…? Or is that part of Artificial?)


The Girls’ Warband: The Blue Team

Candice – Human

Q 2+ C 2

Leadership, Heavy Armour, Assault Rifle, 1x Spare clip, Steadfast

Upkeep: 2 Food

Wanda – Human

Q 3+ C 2

Bow, Stealth

Upkeep: 1 Food

Blue Raven – Human

Q 3+ C 3

Champion, Submachine-gun (actually two pistols that shoot really fast), Flak Jacket, Stead Fast, 1x Spare Clip

Upkeep: 1 Food

Bridget – Giant Mutant Mouse

Q 4+ C 3

Strong constitution, Humanoid, dim-witted, Shotgun, Difficult Target, 1x Extra Ammo

Upkeep: 1 Food

Scruffy – Giant Mutant Chihuahua

Q 4+ C 3

Long Move, Superior Senses, Tailslap

Upkeep: 1 Food

Food: 10

Using the point buy system this would have been 370!?

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Aaron starts moving his guys.

Spotting some androids skulking about, Wanda went charging out into the ruins… only to realize no one was following her! (Turn Over rolled on second activation!?)

Shots exchanged, YR0 – leader of the Androids and Wanda the Archer are down. The androids rush ahead and finish her off!

The Blue Team returns fire and knocked down an Android. But despire many shots could not finish him off. Aaron made it his first priority to get this guy up – rolling two dice, he filled twice and remained on the ground for ANOTHER turn while the girls tried to light him up – all the other androids were laughing at him as he rolled around on the ground trying to dodge incoming bullets and unable to get up because of his unwieldy and ultimately useless armour.

Aaron, exasperated by some of his bad rolling…

Finally up! (I think this was OU812…?)

Eventually they made contact and the Blue Raven went down.

The Androids pile in and finish off the Blue Raven. I think at that point The Girl decided that discretion was the better part of valour and called it a day.

GAME TWO

Next I played Genest Boy #2.

FORCES

Genest Boy #2’s Warband

What You Lookin At – Mutant

Q 3+ C 4

Leader, Champion, Sprint, Submachine-gun, Spare Clip, Gunsmith

Upkeep: 2 Food

Who Are You – Mutant

Q 4+ C 3

Photosynthesis, Poison, Forester, Submachine-gun, Spare Clip

Upkeep: None

Don’t Like Your Face – Mutant

Q 4+ C 3

Regneration, Stealth, Assault Rifle, Spare Clip

Upkeep: 1 food

Aaargh! – Mutant

Q 4+ C 3

Phobia: Humanoids, Absorption: Lasers, Assault Rifle, Spare Clip, Steadfast

Upkeep: 1 Food

Got A Problem – Mutant

Q 4+ C 3

Clinging, Flying, Stealth, Assault Rifle, Spare Clip

Upkeep: 1 Food

Food: 14

Do they look familiar? (I actually painted these and gave them to him for his birthday last year...)

(if bought with points this warband would have been 380 points)

Igor’s Gang

The General – Mutant

Q 3+ C 3

Leader, Telepathic Scream, NBC Suit, Pistol, Spare Clip

Upkeep: 2 Food

Serzhant Igor Gorbashenko – Human

Q 3+ C 3

Champion, Hand to Hand Specialist, Pistol, 2x Spare Clips

Upkeep: 1 Food

Pavel Vinoukerov – Human

Q 3+ C 2

Sniper, Sniper Rifle, Spare Clip

Upkeep: 1 Food

Dimittri Zakarin – Human

Q 3+ C 2

Gunsmith, Shotgun, 2x Spare Ammo

Upkeep: 1 Food

Sergei Menchov – Human

Q 3+ C 2

Danger Sense, Assault Rifle, 2x Spare Clips

Upkeep: 1 Food

(These are the guys I posted yesterday, except I finished up The General last night and added him to the gang calling him a mutant. The General is a pretty bossy fellow, so I made him leader – though the gang still thinks of itself as “Igor’s Gang” since The General is a relative newcomer. I also downgraded some of the guys as I realized that though humans get to make two rolls on the skill table, the only get to KEEP ONE of them! The total points for them was 328…)


THE GAME

Aaron and son try to figure out who the heck is who and what they do!?

Igor and his gang advance into the ruins – wary of marauding Mutants - trying to seek cover, yet steer clear of the radioactive terrain. Pavel looks for a good position to snipe from.

Dimitri got a cramp from lunch and lagged behind a bit.

He eventually caught up and got a good scolding from The General.

A Mutant appears! Sergei took a few pot shots at it and the Mutant returned fire – sending Sergei scrambling for cover! The C3 the Mutants get is pretty huge... had a hard time taking them down, and they were murderiferous with guns or in combat. I suppose I did get more actions and therefore more aimed shots and powerful blows... but they got some of those too...

Then pavel took down the mutant with a single (aimed) shot.

The rest of the Crew kept running into Pavels field of fire, forcing him to relocate. He finally got another one of those mutants in his crosshairs and… jammed and ran out of ammo (probably a clip of duds, since he hadn’t actually FIRED his weapon all that much yet!).

Next round I tried to activate Pavel first… well… at least he cleared the jam. The torrent of Russian expletives must have temporarily distracted his fellow team members as they looked to see what the normally broodingly silent sniper was getting all worked up about.

Next turn, he would change his clip…

The mutants did not let this opportunity slide and advanced on Igor and his gang. One of them took a shot and injured Dimitri. Others fired on Dimitri as well and finished him off.

Not wanting to get picked off one by one while pavle sorted out his rifle, Igor and The General decided to take the fight to the enemy and charged forth from cover.

Pavel, finally finds one of his spare clips, gets it in and is ready to fire again… and it jams… WTF PAVEL!? DON’T YOU EVER CLEAN YOUR DAMNED RIFLE!?

Jam cleared. Relocated to get an enemy in line of sight… and his rifle BROKE!?

SWEET MOTHER OF JUPITER, PAVEL! CLEAN. YOUR FREAKING. RIFLE!?

While Pavel was banging on his rifle and inventing new curses, Igor and the General killed a few mutants before being gunned down by their brothers.

He actually dropped below half strength before I did, and we totally forgot to check morale – I only remembered when I lost The General and had to check morale and then realized I should also be checking for morale for having lost half when I realized: “Heeeeeeeyyyyyy…. You didn’t check morale when you lost your third guy…” so I didn’t check morale for my guys (but it might have been a game-changer if we’d checked when the Mutants dropped below half – I might not have ended up losing The General and dropping below half myself if a couple of his guys had scarpered -we were awfully close to their table edge!)

All that was left was the Mutant leader… Pavel ran over to join Sergei, thinking together then might be able to rush him… Then the Mutant leader raised his submachine-gun and shot Sergei in the face!

Pavel took that as his cue to scarper! He’ll have to find a new crew to hand with!

GAME THREE

Finnegan and Genest Boy #1 had also made up warbands , but we ran out of time and they didn’t get to play… Hopefully we’ll get to try again sometime!  Here’s what they had come up with (though perhaps next time we’ll be starting with new warbands..?)

Finnegan’s Warband

Fenrir – Mutant Wolf

Q 3+ C 4

Long Move, Superior Senses, Big, Leader, Champion, Animal, Dim-witted

Upkeep: 2 Food

Antonio Mutant Rat

Q 4+ C 3

Strong Constitution, Superior Senses, Humanoid, Animal, Dim-witted

 Upkeep: 1 Food

Skeek – Mutant Rat

Q 4+ C 3

Strong Constitution, Slippery, Energy Projection: Radiation (vomits radioactive goo), Animal, Dim-witted

Upkeep: 2 Food

Blofis – Mutant Frog

Q 4+ C 3

Amphibious, Short Move, Super Leap, Super Strength, Humanoid, Javelins, Animal, Dim-witted

Upkeep: 1 Food

David – Mutant Frog

Q 4+ C 3

Amphibious, Short Move, Super Leap, Energy Adaptation, Allure, Animal, Dim-witted

Upkeep: 1 Food

Food: 25

(307 points)

Genest Boy #1’s Warband

Dude – Robot

Q 3+ C 5

Artificial, Laser Rifle, Leader, Champion

Upkeep: 2 Energy Cells

Jeff – Robot

Q 4+ C 4

Artificial, Laser Rifle,

Upkeep: 1 Energy Cell

Bob – Robot

Q 4+ C 4

Artificial, Laser Rifle,

Upkeep: 1 Energy Cell

Outl-aw – Robot

Q 4+ C 4

Artificial, Laser Rifle,

Upkeep: 1 Energy Cell

Half-Smart – Robot

Q 4+ C 4

Artificial, Laser Rifle,

Upkeep: 1 Energy Cell

Energy Cells: 19

(362 points)


CONCLUSIONS

I like the game. I'm so glad to be back playing Ganesha Games SOBH-Engine games. It's been too long. I'd almost forgotten how much I loved playing them.

I’d LOVE to get a campaign going.

We didn’t get a chance to do post game advances – Aaron and his boys had to split and me and The Girl… well… we lost. NO advances for us and all our casualties are lost. Dead. No recovering. Only the winners get advances and get to check if any of those lost during the game recover.

The campaign system seems pretty harsh… I’m not sure how you’d actually get to advance a warband much at all – you only get to advance one thing and only if you win and only recover wounded if you win. It seems to me every time you lose you might just be starting a new warband. If all other things end up being equal-ish that means every two games you start with a new warband!?

Perhaps we could roll for recovery for losers as well, but they get a -1 to their Quality rolls. It would give the losers a CHANCE at least. It’s possible a wounded guy could crawl away. Otherwise we should mark where casualties fall and if a warband manages to drag their wounded off they could roll to recover…? Maybe the loser gets on advance (perhaps from a limited list of possible advances) and the winner gets two?

Also maybe coming up with scenarios that have victory conditions OTHER THAN utterly wiping out the enemy warbands…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully some Great War Germans. I didn’t get much painting in last night (or THIS evening). I’m hoping tomorrow or Sunday evening I’ll be able to at least finish off the 262nd Regiment – which will finish off the 79th Reserve Infantry Division – I do HAVE two of the three battalions done already... so… it’s possible. Then I just need a few more reinforcement battalions and I’m done the Germans. I could probably get away without bothering to make up the reinforcemtn battalions and instead recycle German casualties on the day to make up the reinforcements, which would be showing up later in the game anyway…?