Escort Mission - Bronze Gates Campaign

Sunday evening, after the kids had gone off to my folks, Amanda and I played another game of Necromunda. Earlier in the afternoon I'd played Finnegan's Genestealer Cult. The One-Eyed Red Snakes were not in a good way. They were down to six active fighters - having lost one dead and another recovering from a critical injury. A Juve from the settlement had stepped up to join the gang... but the gang had no gear or cash to buy gear with which to equip him! So we petitioned the House for some help. Conveniently the house coughed up some wargear - and we were able to bring seven to the next battle...!

We decided to try one of the scenarios in the Arbitrators section of the main rulebook - Escort Mission! A Guild Agent with close ties to how Cawdor and the Redptionists said if the One-Eyed Red Snakes would escort her out of the Bronze Gates, she would petition House Cawdor to have the One-Eyed Red Snakes maintain control of the Shrine of the Sinners Past (Bone Shrine) as there were no representatives of House Cawdor residing in the Bronze Gates at this time.

Technically I could have included d3+7 in my crew - d3 more than I had... but we'd just have to make due. Amanda's gang only started with d3+5 (which turned out to be seven!) but the rest of her gang could show up as reinforcements from the second turn on... Lucky for me she only had one other active fighter!



The Delaque Gang escorting the Guild Agent bask to the Bronze Gates where she was to meet up with a Guild Kill Team that would escort her wherever she needed to go beyond.



Just to the other edge of the table... it doesn't seem so far...



Amanda doing a little pre-game fiddling - She'd petitioned her house for help and they sent a Juve... so she had to shuffle some equipment around to get her tooled up - and now she had two reinforcements she could bring on.

Reinforcements are kind of crazy in this game. Generally speaking, unless otherwise dictated by the scenario, reinforcements can show up on ANY edge of the table - that isn't within 6" of an enemy fighter! So those two could show up just about anywhere and harry our flanks or rear as we tried to get across the table.



The Crimson Wave crew all set up on their half of the table. There were three bottlenecks that she could try and catch me up in. I decided to take the one with the least hazards!

We were trying out some of the hazard tiles from the Badzone Delta-7 set. It included the Furnace (if you fall into it, you aren't just out of the game and make a roll on the lasting injury table, you are automatically critically injured!) and the Vent Tunnel (anyone within 6" has to make a Strength Check or it drags you d3" towards the centre of the vent and falling into it knocks you out of the game and you have to make THREE rolls on the lasting injury table.



Amanda trying to select a few tactics cards... there are a ridiculous amount of them at this point. I Generally just hand out ten and say pick two of those... but we had time, so I let her look through the stack. I had a few randomly drawn cards - which might have actually been useful - if I'd ever remembered to USE them?





End of Round One keeping the Guild Agent in the middle of the field while sending gangers out to the flanks to keep then guessing which way we're going - if any committed to going to my right, they'd have a long way to go around to get back to my left - if they wanted to avoid the giant turbo vent!



Three of my gangers tried to engage the bulk of her force on the right and keep them busy for as long as they could while the rest went left with the Guild Agent.



There were only three Escher gangers to contend with on the left... mind you, one of them was her Champion: Kat H - who is just BRUTAL in close combat... and to get past them, it was eventually going to come down to that...



and then reinforcements show up on the left... to our rear...



These guys couldn't hit a barn wall if they were standing inside the freaking barn... I expected that from the Juve, but Glacies is a full ganger... shooting an autogun at short range!?



Artifex took a side trip to deal with the Juve sneaking up from behind. Somehow she survived the first round of combat - tying him up for a round more than he could really spare!



My plan was to stack up behind the door and then take down the room beyond all special ops style... but before I could get my Delaque Ducks in a row, so to speak, the Escher gangers charged up and yank that door open and shot my ganger that was there - leaving a JUVE between the Escher champion killing machine with a freaking POWER SWORD and the Guild Agent we desperately needed to protect!



I kind of knew these guys were doomed... but they tied up "Mad" Donna as long as they could...



The Juve was taken out and they started to push past. Another round and Glacies was taken out of action.



An extremely close range firefight ensued - mostly targeting the champion - who was relatively hard to kill - but they kept shooting at her because a hit meant she would be pinned and pinned meant she couldn't' CHARGE anyone.. Enough lucky shots left her seriously injured - she recovered with a flesh wound relatively quickly, but not before another ganger was seriously injured and the gang Bottled Out!!

Of course the Delaque Gang bottled out too... because... that's what they do!

SO now it was a rush to see who could run away the fastest and who would be left to claim victory!

I think the second turn after bottling out, the Escher leader decided she'd had enough and fled the field... and things generally went downhill from there... Of course the following turn my OWN leader bottled out and things went downhill for the delaque gang from then on.



At this point there was the Escher Juve... the Guild Agent... the Escher Champion he's fighting in close combat... and another Escher ganger with a shotgun rapidly advancing on the scene... BOTH of these combatants above had been wounded twice and received flesh wounds and were both reduced to a Toughness of 1!! That Juve only hit on a 5 but he somehow didn't get hit or wounded when the champion attacked... TWICE.... and then hit her rolling a six... but she has a parrying weapon so he had to roll again... ANOTHER six... fine, she has the step aside skill - has to pass an Initiative roll to just step out of the way of the attack- needs to roll anything but a one. Rolls a one. Somehow he wounds her... and she fails her 4+ armour save... and was out of action!





That Juve is a freaking HERO!!



The following turn the last Escher ganger fails her cool check - and the Juve luckily passes his... and he finds himself alone on the board with the Guild Agent... so... I guess we they won...?

Here's the really weird thing about this scenario... The objective for the defenders (that's me and my gang) is to EXTRACT the Guild Agent. To successfully extract the Guild agent they need to be gotten to the far edge of the table and, when they are in contact with the far edge of the table need to roll a 5+ in the End Phase to be successfully extracted... if not they have to wait for the next turn and are extracted on a 4+, etc. It states that the game ends when either the Agent is successfully extracted, the Agent is taken out of action, or if at anytime there is only one gang left on the table. It also very clearly states in the victory conditions that if the defender successfully extracts the Agent they win. If they fail to extract the Agent the attacker wins... It also explains that if the defender voluntarily bottles out and flees, they automatically lose (which one would think would be obvious, because if they did, they could not possibly extract the Agent, right?). But... what if the ATTACKER bottles out and flees? (either voluntarily, or because of bad luck/rolls - as was the case here) TECHNICALLY the  game ended when the last Escher Ganger fled... but as I had not successfully extracted the Guild Agent at that point, I should have lost the game and the Escher gang won?! perhaps it's a mix up in the "If the defender voluntarily bottles out..." bit and it should be the attacker? I mean, what's to stop the attacker from voluntarily bottling out and winning the game!?

Amanda seemed to think that I won fair and square so we treated it as though I had.

Going through the Post-Game Sequence...

Neo86753 had a head injury and is now permanently -1 to all Ballistic Skill tests... yeah... so now he only hits things on a six... great... All he misses a game. Parten also misses a game while recuperating from a permanent hand injury (-1 to WS tests... fun times...) Rotis and Mutatio were only knocked out and will be returning to fight next game!

 For extracting the Guild Agent I was to receive +d3 Reputation!!! which turned out to be +1... which was negated by the -1 for bottling out... so... still at -2 Reputation.... AT least I finally gained a second territory (everyone else already has TWO beyond their initial settlement!)

One of Amanda's also ended up with a permanent eye injury and another had a grievous injury that would cause her to miss a game... it also used her to not get away fast enough and the Delaque gang actually CAPTURED her! I offered to random her back for only 30 credits - a STEAL! She was worth 70 - so it's less that what I could sell her to the guilders for!?

I did gather up 100 credits between rewards for the scenario and income from my TWO territories! Damn... felt like a millionaire... didn't spend it all (well... not MUCH) as I'm saving up for a Champion (Amanda and the kids are all shocked that I don't have a champion!)

Anyway, that was that... I really like the scenario (despite the unclear game end/victory conditions) I like that there is a clear objective which doesn't necessarily involve utterly obliterating the other gang... I mean, that's still a legit thing to do... BUT Ideally if I could have completely AVOIDED the Escher gang, that obviously would have been the best course of action. And, on her part, if she could have taken out the Guild Agent that would have ended the game without any further risk to her own gang...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

One more Game Report from the weekend - Amanda mounts a rescue mission to spring her captured  ganger!