ToonCon 2020 - Part 3 - Sunday - Necromunda (and Power Grid!)

Sunday morning we headed back out to ToonCon 2020. We decided to walk again because... reasons... It was cold and windy, but, thankfully, hadn't snowed nearly as much as they'd predicted.



Amanda was nice enough to carry all the miniatures for my Necromunda game.



I hauled all the terrain, books, tokens, and everything else, really... Those walls are solid MDF. They may not look like much... but they're really damned heavy when you put them all together in a box in the bottom of a back pack and then dump all those big hardcover books and a copy of Power grid and a bunch of other stuff in on top!

The walk took a bit longer - going up hill... into the wind... through snowdrifts... hauling all that stuff... But we made it there on time and I just finished setting up as the last players arrived to sit down and get started.



Jonathan joined me once again (he'd played in Blackstone Fortress on Friday and Hellboy on Saturday). Keith showed up thinking he'd signed up for Gorkamorka - even brought his own Ork buggies (he got over his disappointment and joined in!). Rachel - Jon's partner also joined us, as did James - who played in my Faustus Furius 3000 game at ToonCon 2018)



We played the Return of Karloth Valois scenario I played a few weeks back at my Birthday Bash (and played the week before that with Rick and had soloed a day or two before that, and is more-or-less the same scenario I ran for the kids and a friend of theirs last summer).

Basically rival gangs have to work together to stop Karloth Valois the ancient Rogue Psyker, long though dead - who can control Plague Zombies - from getting into a more populated area of the Underhive, where he will create more and MORE zombies who will be under his sway and help him achieve his dastardly goals of total domination of the Underhive... and perhaps the whole of Hive Primus - or even all of Necromunda!!!

IF Valois was not defeated ALL the players LOSE!

Assuming they did defeat him, we kept track of some victory points as follows:

1VP for taking out a Zombie, Scavvy or Rival Ganger
2VP for taking our a Leader or Champion, or for each wound dealt to Valois.
5VP for taking out Karloth Valois.

Each Gang had a "Secret Agenda" as well - something that gained them MORE victory points.

Three of them (Escher, Delaque and Cawdor) had similar Agendas: Vendetta - a rival gang has wronged them and they demand blood - taking out that rival gangs leader gained them +5VP each were to take out a different gangs leader - i.e. Cawdor was gunning for Escher's leader, Escher was after Delaque's leader, and Delaque was after Cawdor's leader.

The Redemptionists were above such petty rivalries. Their Secret Agenda was called PURIFICATION THROUGH FIRE! The Redemptionists like to purify heretics with FIRE! In addition to the standard Victory Points, they received +1 (extra) VP for taking zombies or scavvies out of action or causing a wound to Karloth Valois with a FLAMER. Three of their gang were armed with Flamers - but two of them were armed with COMBI flamers - which are unstable weapons and there is essentially a 1 in 12 chance that, any time they fire them, it explodes and takes the firer out of action!

I had two other gangs prepared - complete with Secret Agendas - that I didn't end up using.

The Enforcers secret agenda was "LET THESE HIVE SCUM KILL EACH OTHER". They received +1 bonus VP for each other gang removed from the table before the end of the game (regardless of who caused them to either flee or be wiped out) and +5VP If ALL of the Enforcers remain on the table at the game end (the idea was to give them incentive to just sit at the back and cherry pick...).

Kal Jericho and Scabs would have had "ONLY THE BIG FISH". Kal Jericho cares nothing for taking out zombies and hive scum and is only after Valois. Jericho and Scabs DO NOT gain point for taking out Zombies, Scavvies, Gangers or Gang Leaders. Instead they gained +3VP for each wound dealt to Valois and +12VP tor taking Karloth Valois out of action. 

Keith took the Cawdor gang and set them up at the far end of the battle zone from Valois and off to the left.



Jon took the Delaque Gangers and were closer to Valois, but also off to the left.



James took tech Escher Gang and set up close to Valois and off to the right.



Finally, Rachel to the Redemptionists and set them up right at the back - slightly off to the right.




I put out a few Giant Necromundan Greenback Spiders - as disincentive to go skulking around in the corridors off to the flank... I told the players they COULD go there... but they'd have to face the spiders to do so... No one tried!



Zod the Scavvy.

In addition to Valois and his Plague Zombie horde - he also had a gang of Scavvies that had thrown their lot in with him - hoping to get back at the upperunderhivers that had cast them out...

Zod tried flanking around the sides (not in one of the spider-infested corridors, though!)

Zod's also a bit of a graffiti tagger and I said I'd give a bonus VP to anyone who found one of his tags on the walls... Can YOU find one!? Let me know in the comments... there are three or four of them on the walls - one is pretty pretty obvious, another is visible, but you'll really have to look for it!



Cawdor Gangers moving up.




Delaque Gangers laying in wait.



The Redemptionists decided to sneak around the back and come up behind their fellow Cawdor gangers.



Norg opens the door and takes a pot shot at Tiffany.



Valois and the zombies surge out into the open (this pic is best viewed while listening to Black Sabbath's Mob Rules)



Zod, still sneaking around that flank... waiting until the next turn to open that door - so he can open it and have an action left to SHOOT at the Escher Gangers that are completely ignoring him!



Cawdor stats taking fire from behind! Their leader, Rufus, was pinned by fire. Their return fire pinned the Redempionist's Brother Zimiri.



Delaque moving into a better position. Shots being taken at zombies and knocking them down.



Out of nowhere, Artifex, leader of the Delaque gang, charges and seriously injures the Cawdor Juve, Leeroy... but instead of finishing him off with a free Coup de Gras, he uses the consolidate option to retreat back behind cover!



Sneaky, sneaky Zod...

Sneaky, sneaky, scared, cowardly Zod...

One of the Scavvies was seriously injured in the second turn. They were basically treated as a separate gang - Valois and the zombies were immune to bottling and fear and any sort of morale issues... but not so the Scavvies... They bottled out at the end of the second round, and at the beginning of the thirds EVERY. LAST. ONE. OF. THEM. FAILED their cool check and fled!!

I guess they were only interested in loot and pillage in theory - once they faced actual hostile gangers that, y'know, shot at them, they just melted away!



beginning of Turn Three, just before the Scavvies skedaddled (Doelgr, the Scavvy Champion is still there)



Boom! Scavvies gone... Yikes! Things were looking bad for Valois as his forces started looking a little thin on the ground.



Delaque Champion, Vindex, blasting away at zombies with his Bolter!



Turns out Bolters are super effective against zombies - those exploding shells just ripping them apart from the inside. He took out two of them in one turn!



Zombies approach the Escher gang!



"Grrrrrr! Brains!"

"Urrrrrr! Chardonay!"



Jo Njett took out a Zombie...



As did Mad Donna and Kat H.



But then a Zombie attacked Mad Donna and knocked off one wound - which was enough that when Karloth Valois drained her of one - it took her Out of Action!!



Cawdor and the Redempionists decided to stop shooting each other and made their way forward. Escher moving aggressively agains the zombie horde.



Redemptionists moving forward... but having trouble in the wind caused by the fan! They failed their strength roles EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! (Luckily no one was ever close enough to get sucked right in! (Anyone ending their activation within 6" of the edge of the fan had to make a strength check - roll d6, add strength, if 7+ they would have been fine, otherwise, they were sucked d3' towards the centre of the fan - falling into the fan would immediately take them Out of Action!)



Delaque and Cawdor Leaders having it out!



Rotis - one of the Delque Gangers - tried to join in the melee, but was Seriously Injured by Rufus, the Cawdor Leader.

In the background, Henry, the Cawdor Champion, can be seen gunning down Delaque Gangers with his Heavy Stubber!



The rest of the Cawdor Gang - ganging up on Artifex, the Delaque leader. they totally took him down!



With Delaque and Cawdor having it out, I thought I might be able to sneak through, but Escher and the Redemptionists put up a line of defence and did a pretty good job of thinning out the zombies!

I think this is where we ended. Kind of ran out of time. As they'd failed to take out Valois in 4.5 hours I declared them all to have LOST!

MWA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaa!

I tried to keep the pace up and the game moving along... There were only four so I'd given them six gangers... maybe if they'd just had five, things might have moved along a bit quicker - to SOME sort of actual resolution.

One of the REdemptionists DID use their Cobie flamer and DID need to do an ammo check... but rolled a 4 - a 1, 2, or 3 would have meant their flamer blew up killing them... so close...

Despite the lack of clear resolution, I had a lot of fun running it, and it seemed like the players did too! So, I'll call it a success.

In the end Rachel had 7VP, Keith had 6VP, James had 5VP, and Jon had 3 - and I think less than half of his gang still on the table!? Whoopsie!




Numbers were down at the Con this year - probably because of the shift from autumn to spring meant it's been a year and a half and people start to forget... Still, there was a LOT going on. Down the centre of the hall there were a half-dozen FULL tables of people playing Twilight Imperium 4! They played that ALL DAY!



While I was running Necromunda, Amanda was playing Terra Mystica. She said it was fun and she'd like to play it again, sometime...

 

By the time I was done necromunda, they were all finished Terra Mystica and Amanda's playing Azul. We'd both played it a couple years ago over at our friends place. She was having fun - even suggested it might be a game we could pick up some day...



For the last game of the afternoon I played Power Grid.



We played with one of the earlier editions (I have Power Grid deluxe). It is similar enough - the North America map is different and there is Garbage instead of Natural Gas. The card mix was weird and we got a few reactors that powered FIVE cities in the second and third turns - and those were quickly snapped up by the others - who then didn't buy any new reactors for a few turns and there wasn't much turnover in the market and I was stuck working my way up through a succession of crap power plants in a most inefficient sort of way! Eventually I was able to pick up a couple Green Energy plants, but I was stuck with only the capacity for powering 13 when everyone else had end-game capacity.



By the end of the game I picked up the Plasma Reactor - which was kind of fun - our copy of the game doesn't have one... but it was too little too late. I'd spent so much money on successive reactors and trying to expand out west - while three of the others were having a knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth battle for the eastern seaboard. The winner powered 16 cities in the end. I had the capacity to do so, but only had 14 cities in my network... I tied for dead last...



While I was playing Power Grid, Amanda was playing Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar with Other Tim and his new lady-friend, Treena.

And that brings us to the end of another ToonCon. part of me feels like running three games might have been a bit much... but I'm not sure which I would have cut out - all three ended up being great games!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I'm not sure...

Maybe some painting...? Probably something Chaos-marine-ish...? Either more Noise Marines - or maybe the Venomcrawler - which I've started assembling and painting!