Scenario 2 : Chariots of Fire (60/2335 - After Action Report)

 The scenario is here.

 

The smoking (well, no smoke actually, as there is no atmosphere on Pandora....) wreck is in the centre of the table, with Martian IS spilling out of it.  The MCRN Sergeant was killed in the crash.

Although most of the Tears of Corruption crew seemed surprised by the arrival of the vehicle, a couple of its members were ready to fire.

The bullets just seemed to bounce off the MCRN armour, however, whilst Armat Sin, thanks to his Relentless trait, was a tempting but difficult target.

The MCRN team decided to break to the right (relative to the sense the photos are taken).  A hail of fire pinned Mercy and shook up one of the OPA operatives, who was quickly taken out by the MCRN Marine.  Comms Operative Moira, in their path, returned fire with her Multi Rifle but was too far out to efficiently use its auto-fire capabilities.  The two MCRN Marines were also operating back to back as an efficient fire team.

In a nutshell, MCRN were all over their opponents from the beginning, and things were starting to look grim.  It was at this point in time that Ashlee, with an aimed shot from her rifle, pinned the MCRN marine, and the Tears of Corruption Nasmat Bot started jamming their comms.

The pace of the firefight changed, with Spektar closing in on Armat Sin and keeping him busy, and Ashlee and Moira able to get closer to get in more effective shots.

With things heating up, Green Zed made a run for the exit point.  To the general surprise, he was put out of action by an aimed shot from Engineering Officer Najjar.

The MCRN Private with the support weapon made for his inert body to grab the vial, but seemed to freeze [causing three successive turnovers, ndlr].  This allowed Mercy time to finally stop her bleeding and get back into the fray, intending to take out her Martian foes in close combat with her energy blade. 

Armat Sin has been in far worse situations, however, and he kept a cool head.  Moving out towards the exit point, his HMG took down Spektar and pinned Ashlee in a hail of bullets.  This example seemingly snapped the MCRN marine back into action, and the two finally managed to escape, vials in hand.  The second MCRN private followed closely on their heels. 

The outcome was a total victory for the Martians.  Spektar was only stunned and recovered from his wounds; and the Martians had to leave Green Zed behind as a prisoner for their enemies.

Najjar, who played an important role in this firefight, joins the list of named characters.

Renown is gained as follows :

Armat Sin : +3 (winning side, vial, took down Spektar)

Najjar : +1 (took down Green Zed)

Others : 0

 

Another splendid game, my only regret is taking so long to organise it : the last game of this that I played was back in May !  My mods to the shooting rules make the game less deadly, but also reward manoeuvre - especially if there is a lot of cover to get round - and reduce luck.  Once "shaken", a character takes time (and a risk of turnover) to get back into the game, so that discourages them from providing opponents with an easy shot.  A character such as Armat Sin with his C3, plus a +3 weapon, lays down a lot of deadly firepower (for a big points cost), but going up to C4 and +4 weapons or higher should not unbalance the game, as long as they are not too commonplace.