CORPORATION

Corporation – The first game Weds 08/08/07

This was the first playing of Corporation at Halesowen Boardgamers. Corporation is a game set in the 26th Century, where Earth and its surrounds are controlled by vast mega-corporations. The players are Agents of a Corporation, undertaking various missions. The game only came out last year, the rules are excellent, well-written and work well and the rulebook itself is a work of art. Check out http://www.corpgame.com/ for further info.

The players were the junior members of Halesowen Boardgamers, all Executives of Eurasian Incorporated. Ben C played Riku, a droid engineer; James played Winter, an Observation specialist; Matthew G played Fish, a Hacker; Matthew played Gaarak, a Security Specialist (thief); and Charlotte played Ilyana Dumas, a master of unarmed combat equipped with some assassins devices.

After an introduction to the game system they were given a briefing sheet. I ran Redemption Recovery, the intro mission in the rulebook; but wrote it out again and statted the guards; plus noting some useful rolls. Told to choose a leader and given the designation Division Alphanor, they elected Ben. A few prompts from Kazan, their Briefing Officer about equipment and had they considered exit routes etc. and they were ready to go. Their mission was to travel to Redemption Spire, Cape Town and recover a stolen piece of cybertech from a Comoros reverse engineering lab. The entry point was to exit a sub-orbital shuttle above the Spire and, using drop suits, land on a ledge on the 644th floor

On the shuttle, gaining access to the cargo bay was relatively easy and they exited approx. three miles above the Spire. Gliding down, they were caught in a vicious thermal up draught; Garaak landed ok but the others had to try again. Ilyana and Winter landed the second time but both Riku and Fish had to make a third attempt. Fish nearly snagged a communications antenna on the way in.

Ilyana swung down off the ledge and through the middle window on the 643rd floor. To her surprise it was open! As the others followed she scouted the room, noting a computer terminal on a desk, a chair and a filing cabinet.. The cabinet held sheets of paper with rows of numbers; nothing of interest. Noting a line of light under the door and correctly surmising that it probably led onto a corridor; Riku slid one of his AV bugs under the door and linked into his PDA. The bug showed a corridor with a security camera and three doors, the middle one transparent. Fish set up his computer using the rooms data socket and hacked into the camera. The image showed three doors; the left hand one had a sign [G74], the middle transparent one read [DECON] and the right-hand one read [CHEMICAL STORE]. Fish looped the camera signal to show an empty corridor (nice idea Matthew G!).

Deciding it was safe to enter the corridor; Riku slid a bug under the door marked Chemical Store, but it was dark inside. Ilyana noticed the transparent door led onto a corridor lined with red-glowing lights, ending with another transparent door. Winter and Gaarak, at the door marked G74, heard a radio playing Skansa music. Summoned by smeaker (sub-vocal communicator); Riku slid an AV bug under the door. The bug showed four guards in combat armour and helmets in a guardroom.

A plan was quickly decided. Winter opened the door, threw in a KO gas grenade, then slammed the door. When they opened it again there were still three guards awake, a fifth was unconscious in a doorway at the rear. Without further ado the Agents opened fire on the guards and a vicious fire fight erupted. At its height, Fish withdrew back to the office to check on the cameral looping. Winter took heavy damage but eventually the guards were taken down. Gaarak executed the other unconscious guards (“ because they are witnesses!”. The radio was still blasting out Comoros Skansa; outraged by this, Riku threw the radio down the toilet.

They checked out the other doors; the Chemical Store held, well, chemicals; one office (identical to the one they had entered by) had 500c slip in a drawer (slip is unregistered cash, illegal under UIG rules) and the other office held an encrypted data disc labelled ‘ODESSA’. Riku took both the disk and the slip. He intends to turn them over to Eurasian.

Opening the transparent polymer doors; the Division ascertained that there was some kind of scanning device at the far end.

The game stopped at this point due to time constraints, and is to be continued in two weeks time.

This was my first running of Corporation and the game delivered in every area. The rules are simple; intuitive and yet flexible enough to cover every situation (the thermal up draughts mentioned above being a case in point). Combat is fast and effective (it must be noted here that I down-powered the guards; cash-strapped Comoros wouldn’t have guards with ion shields guarding a tin-pot facility like this). Having said that, Winter is down to 1/3rd of his HP; thus demonstrating that Agents are above-human; not super-human.