28th Feb dawned and Ben and I left at 06:30 to drive down to Mongoose Towers at Swindon to take part in the Corporation Launch event. The motorway and roads were clear and we arrived at 08:20, despite the gonzo AA route planner taking us down a dead end in Swindon. We found the Sunflower Café and met up with Last Best Hope, who was having breakfast. We had a full English breakfast and a giant mug of tea and talked about RPG’s of all kinds. We headed down to Mongoose and got in just after nine. There was a whole range of stuff on offer; I bought the reprint of the rule book and Machines of War and Eastern Bank ( so my signed copy of the core rule book can be preserved), and Ben bought himself one of the Lone Wolf books. Met a few more people and chatted to them (Arakor, Agent Baxter (Ruth) and James); then it was time for the first game. Arakor was our GM; there was Ben and I plus two other guys who were new to the game (Jason and … sorry, can’t remember, was it Craig?) plus another observer sitting in.
Characters were pre-genned; our Division (code name Mad Dog) were EI. I was Division Leader, specialising in dual weapons with pistols plus lying and acting. To back this up I had Krieg Ocular Repigmentation. Ben was an assassin/stealth expert with a sniper rifle, Jason was a nuke toting a laser cannon and our fourth member was a tech. My heart sank when I saw Bingo wings on the assigned equipment list; with an Agility of 8 and no Athletics I was not the best person to be using these.
The Mission brief given by Mr Henderson (= NCIS Gibbs). Agent Lauren Vetch, in deep cover in the Altai gene labs (Ai-Jinn territory) had missed a scheduled check call. Conclusion was she had been compromised. Our Mission – go in and get her out.
As I feared, the insertion involved exiting a stratospheric shuttle and dropping down to the landing site some 30 miles from the lab facility. The only sat photo was some years out of date and the area was now sat – blanketed. As it turned out, the drop wasn’t too bad, we landed in heavy snow, after some time we regrouped and headed for the labs. Ben took point, after some time he reported movement ahead. A Sentinel droid!. A shot with the EMP rifle had little effect, Bens rifle shot revealed that it was ion –shielded. A combination of cougar fire, followed by a laser blast took out the shield then blew the thing apart. Our tech examined the smoking remains; got some radio codes and determined that no alert had been raised. Approaching the lab, it was ringed with AV cameras. We bypassed these by using an invisibility field and a brief shut down of the camera. The labs were a squat, concrete building, two vehicle entrances, and a helipad with a chopper parked and a normal door. A guard was seen on the roof; a superb sniper headshot by Ben took them out. At the rear was an uplink comms tower. A remote detonated explosive was planted on this by Jason; realising that the chopper was our only escape route, a quick examination showed that it was locked and chip coded on a starter key. AV bugs were placed to cover the helo, and then we headed for the main door.
Boldly marching in, I used the Ocular Repigmentation to change my eye colour; wearing buttoned up Cold Weather camo to disguise my face, as did the others. I announced in fluent Mandarin that I was Major-General Chang, come to collect the prisoner. A flustered- looking officer came out and apologised, but Agent Chow was already here interrogating the prisoner. I tore a strip off him, asking why he had assumed that Vetch was the only Agent, had he searched further and that he would pay for his incompetence. Jason blew the radio tower, the guards were sent out to search for the saboteur. Ben assassinated the officer, Craig accessed the computers and shut down the security systems and the droids (apparently there were two Murder-class droids present!).
Deeper into the complex; the dead officer’s hand/ID chip was used to get us into the main lab complex.. Agent Chow challenged us but I was able to successfully pull off the role of Major-General Chang again. He agreed to bring the prisoner out. Realising that the bluff was not going to stand up to close scrutiny, as soon as they appeared, Chow and two females (Agents? – they were packing some impressive kit) along with Vetch, a fire fight erupted at close range which took them all out. Agent Chow had the key for the helicopter. Returning via the garage area, a final appearance of Major-General Chang got the helo prepped for flight whilst the rest of the Division took out the guards outside. Jason flew us back to EI territory.
The Mission was a complete success.
We broke for lunch and then started the second Mission. We swapped groups; the GM for the second Mission was James (Norbury, the person who wrote the game). LBH was leader, Eric was a psychotic Frenchman, Hugo was a computer hacker, Jon was a Nordic (Icelandic) gunbunny and Ben was the assassin again.
I’m a wheelman, I can drive or pilot anything. I also like explosions and carry a stock of explosives. Although I’ve got a cougar, my favoured weapon is a Rocket pistol (loaded with 6 small rockets). Kaboom!
The Mission was to locate and recover a top-secret experimental droid that apparently had emotive response programming. Codenamed TIMMEE (?), it had been lured out of the lab by the theft of his favourite teddy bear Solomon(!) A fun time was had interrogating the lab staff, with Jon and Eric playing ‘Bad Cop/Worse Cop’ respectively. It appeared that one of them, Yuri, knew more than he was letting on; a search of his apartment by Hugo, Ben and I revealed some real incriminating stuff, it also resulted in Huge nearly being force-fed a huge slice of chocolate cake. With this info, Jon and Eric really put the pressure on and he confessed to being part of the Droid Liberation Army (if Eric had had his way then he would also have confessed to being a member of the Order, of the Cult, to being a rogue Archon or in fact to be nothing more than a highly evolved bicycle!) He identified his contact, who Hugo was able to backtrack through the security cameras, and eventually the trail led to Tokyo Old City (Shi-Yukiro territory – stock up on Compound H!) A disused metro station was apparently a DLA meeting point and the guy we were seeking was there. Ben tried to sneak up on him but got himself trapped and repeatedly shot at PB range with a blade launcher. The rest of us piled in, a few Flash-bangs took out the mooks and a few rounds of combat took out the rest. The missing robot wasn’t there but it turned out it was being kept in a video arcade in the shopping mall above. We headed upstairs to the arcade and set off the fire alarms as a diversion. Three Shi-Yukiro Agents exited out of the rear door at impossible speed and attacked, I targeted the one carrying the twin plasma pistols with my rocket pistol and missed (critically). The rocket punched through into the storeroom, there was an explosion and bits of burning robot flew out of the door. Oops. A second shot at some security guards out in the Mall also missed and set a shop on fire.
“It is the rocket pistol M’seur” said Eric helpfully. “You are expecting recoil no? Perhaps you are overcompensating”
“No,” I replied. “I’m just shit with it”
“That’s what we meant,” said LBH. “We were just being tactful”
Eventually the SY Agents were taken down, one in a particularly graphic way by Eric with a full strength Mental Assault; but not without some bad wounds on our side. The remains of TIMMEE were recovered and we headed out and back to Magadan Spire.
By now it was 17:15 and it was time to pack up and go. We said our thanks and goodbyes and headed back up the motorway, getting home just after 19:00.
Overall, we really enjoyed the day. It was great to meet with people and put faces to names; I gather from reading on Deniable Resources that some others were there (Ook, Uber etc.) It would be good if a meet-up like that could be held on a regular basis (Corporation Day?)
First thoughts on MoW and EB – there is a LOT here to take in. The new trainings open up a whole range of possibilities and EB – only just beginning to take in the whole concept. Were they worth the wait? Very definite YES!
Happy gaming…
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2 comments:
Nice report Dave, it looks like you had a great time, although it goes without saying (but I say it just in case) that I have no idea what you're talking about in places. Just one other thing. Were the pre-genned characters allocated at random? and if not is there something we should be aware re. Ben and Assassins?
On the first Mission we selected the characters from those available. I was (sort of) elected leader as the other two had never played before and they were unsure of Ben's leadership abilities. When we changed after lunch we retained the same characters, but as the mix of players changed it transpired that someone was already leader, thus I became the wheelman. Ben retained his assassin. He was rather good at it as well.
Addenda to the Sea Prison Affair:- th practice of Meat Shielding (using another body as a shield)is now covered in Machines of War. It is a Training, so it's not so easy to do and you have to learn it, but it is more effective.
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