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…?
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