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| The cargo skimmer, disguised as a yellow submarine in its undercoat. I made this 15 years ago out of cardboard stuck to sprues, which was the last time I played this scenario. I seem to be regressing as I get older... No time to build crates, so two packets of fruitella did the business on the night! |
The skimmer moved 9" a turn, starting with its rear end touching the narrow end of the game board. The table was to be 4' x 6', covered in high towers and sweeping walkways and bridges. Martin's Arbites simply had to make it the opposite edge of the game board (6 feet away) to survive and win - but he'd need to weave between a forest of broken down industrial ruin to do it! In his path lurked four rival 'robber' gangs - Robert's Van Saar, John M's Orlocks, Craig's Delaques and John S.'s suicidal chaos cultists.
The scenario made for a pretty eventful, fun game. Martin chose to start at the end between Robert's Van Saars and John M.'s Orlocks and he immediately got hosed down with fire from both for his troubles. Nevertheless he soaked it up! Outrunning arbites on foot threw themselves at their flankers, the robotic pooch taking almost an entire gang's worth of shooting to smack it down, whilst the cargo skimmer itself pushed on. Martin's return fire was pretty abysmal, missing everything in sight (and there was a lot of scary stuff in sight) so that initially it looked horrifically grim for the long arm of the law.
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| The arbites close ranks and hope for the best! |
Seeing the quarry abruptly zoom off brought the Orlocks chasing down off their perch, and in a stroke of luck for the clenched anus of justice, both Orlock heavy stubbers ran out of ammo. One loot hungry Orlock did manage to sprint over and board the skimmer, straight into combat with an arbite. Another tenacious fellow with hipshooting ran after the skimmer, continually popping off hopeful bursts of autogun fire. As the skimmer driver put the pedal to the metal, the hapless boarded Orlock fought like James Bond and a French assassin on the roof of a train for round after round as the battling scoundrels gangmates dwindled away into the distance behind....
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| The skimmer - a fireballing death trap if ever there was one. |
As John M and Robert rained down fire, Craig and John had raced into position at the other end of the table. Early on the arbites were soaking so much fire it seemed doubtful if not ridiculous that they would ever make it out. Desperate to grab something from the game, Craig's Delaques ignored the prize and instead turned their guns on John's cultists as they scuttled across open ground to break for the high bridges. The result was disastrous for the cultists. Numbering only 5 to begin with (chaos it seemed had not smiled upon these particular disciples...) he put two down and pinned another. John passed his bottle test however and pressed on to make the bridge, even in the face of horrific casualties...
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| Chaos Cultists - good at dieing, not much else. |
Martin's arbites made the half way point, bloodied and torn. Their outrunners were down and left for dead behind them. They'd run over an Orlock, and now two arbites were battling toe to toe over the crates with their Orlock boarder. The plasma turret gunner was down, although one fast speeder remained. The fire from Robert and John M was dwindling but Craig's Delaques still posed a major obstacle. To draw fire, Martin sent his fast speeder to shoot up the nearest emerging Delaques and fend them away from the cargo skimmer. A crazed one-eyed Delaque ganger armed only with a length of chain broke cover, running out and swinging wildly at the speeder pilot. Amazingly he connected and knocked the man cold as he hurtled past. Tragically however, the unmanned speeder spun out of control and impacted into a nearby wall, exploding into a ball of flame and wicked shrapnel. The blast took down chainboy and a second Delaque bystander. After the dust had settled, the Delaques found chain boy half buried under the wreckage. Although he yet lived, tragically the fire had taken his remaining eye. Blind, half mad and as useful as a two legged horse, they cut him loose outside a nearby settlement. The gang had enough mouths to feed. Cant be having no passengers in the Pit....
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| Yup, I'd like to say the game board looked like this, but it didn't! You get the gist though.... |
Passing yet another bottle test, John S.'s two remaining cultists vaulted off the high bridge as the cargo skimmer passed underneath. Epic move John! The cultists crashed into arbites crewmen like human missiles. Sadly, stunted and withered from malnutrition, the arbites easily batted aside the plummeting cultists with their heavy riot shields. The arbites took an easily saved str 2 hit (the jumping model's str) whilst the cultists suffered a hit of str equal to the height of the fall in inches (str 5). Both cultists dinged themselves and went down. One even fell over the side and was run over by the skimmer, which killed him. It seems the chaos gods were unmoved by their minion's display of insane courage!
Last two turns and victory implausibly seemed in sight for Martin arbites. Three arbites left standing now. The battling Orlock was put down by a token shot from a lingering chaos cultist shooting into the combat. Truly the dice gods are fickle! Martin just had to get past Craig's Delaque gunline overlooking the highway. To his credit, Craig threw everything in, but it wasn't to be. His heavy had already exhausted his ammo. His leader hit the driver twice with his plasma gun yet failed to wound with both strength 7 hits! A hail of lasgun fire did nothing against arbites armour, and a speculative shotgun shot over the shoulder of a comrade saw one Delaque miss so badly that he shot the back out of his mate's skull, knocking him dead on the spot!
At the last, it all came down to one shot. Martin stood on the cusp of making it out. It was his turn next, and Robert had only one man in range. High on a tower overlooking the battlefield (surely some mile to two miles away), the Van Saar heavy armed with the heavy stubber was in range, and could draw a bead on the back of the driver. He fired.. and missed. Against terrible odds, withering fire that could peel the face off a daemon, and frankly mind-numbing casualties - the caravan made it through!
Well, its a well done to Martin! Against the odds indeed.... His gang earn 140 credits reward, and not a crate was pinched (even though Kev swooped in from above and ate a strawberry one!). Everyone had a bite at the cherry and their own piece of glory to tell of, and it was genuinely quite tense to see if Martin would actually make it! It was a great game, and definitely a variant of scenario I'll use again.
On another note, the skimmer rules and speeder rules worked well, with a little on the hoof tweaking. They were fun, but didn't unbalance the game or trouble the players with trying to comprehend the ruleset. For the upcoming speeder based scenario, there'll be more scope for use the piloting skill table when things go wrong, such as fighting a round of hand to hand combat, or taking damage to a moving speeder. I'll also reintegrate pistol shooting for the riders, and tool up the speeder gun to increase its strength.
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| In the Underhive there is only war! |
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