Scenario 2 : Chariots of Fire (60/2335 Earth Standard Calendar)

Background :

Looking for a way to get Fiday out of jail, the Tears of Corruption crew are approached by two local mercs, alerted to an opportunity by the recent gunfight in the streets of Pandora-A.  Thanks to their local contacts, they know what the Martians are after, and how they plan to get it off-world.  They offer this information to Fiday's First Officer; if she relieves the Martians of the vials, then sells them back, it would be worth a substantial payment and her Captain's freedom.  All the two mercs want is a 40 percent cut of the bounty, which after some haggling, is reduced to 25.

What none suspect, however, is that the two "mercenaries" are actually OPA agents, aiming to use the Tears of Corruption crew as involuntary backup, to grab the Phoebe vials for themselves.

The Scenario :

One player represents the Tears of Corruption crew and two OPA agents; the other, a Martian Intelligence search and destroy team.

 
Players' Briefing :

Tears of Corruption :

Martian IS has your cargo in hand, and Pandora will soon be putting Captain Fiday on trial for capital charges.  Some local mercs, sniffing an opportunity to make some easy money, have provided you with intel that should get you the bargaining chips needed to get out of this mess.  They will even ride shotgun during the ambush, and although they'll probably be more interested in saving their own skin than anything else, at least they bring some extra firepower.  Here you are in wait, on the road that leads to Pandora A spaceport; here comes the Martian IS vehicle and its escorts, and, well, isn't this just one of the biggest rocket launchers you've ever seen.

Martian Intelligence Service :
 

The precious cargo is in hand, the pirates are dead, behind bars or on the run, the red tape has finally been dealt with and you can get off-world.  You are used to more discreet extraction, but the recent gun battle in the streets of Pandora-A got a lot of media attention, the governor is starting to get a bit tetchy about a Martian military presence and there are a lot of powerful people impatient to get their hands on whatever that glowing-blue shit in the vials actually is.

Oh, and to hell with it, for once it is a comfortable ride out, rather than shimmying up a hastily dropped cable in a freezing unbreathable atmosphere.  Even the Martian marines have dropped their stiff attitude, for once.  Which is of course why no one saw the attack coming.  As your vehicle rolls over, your mind is already racing; given the delay between the back blast of the shot and the impact, the ambush is no more than a hundred meters out; not even a complete amateur could miss with a guided warhead at that range.  So whoever is attacking you didn't intend to destroy the vehicle, which means they want what it is carrying.  The troop carrier slams back into the tarmac with a sickening crunch, bending the armour plates inwards, and killing someone.  As it rolls to a halt, you have already jammed your breathing mask on and are out of the back hatch running, hoping that whatever is left of your team is just behind you.

 

Setting up :

0m90 x 0m90 gaming surface, portraying a desolate road through rocky terrain, between a remote moon-city and its spaceport.

Combat in The Expanse can be deadly, so there should be plenty of cover.

Anything physically placed on the table offers some cover.  Small elements of scatter terrain, or bystanders, are soft cover.  Walls and buildings provide hard cover; doors and windows are always WYSIWYG. A character can climb up a surface if there is physically portrayed some way of doing so (even a drainpipe to shimmy up), or if the obstacle is under 4cm tall.

Cover is defined as "concealing" if a character could lay down behind it, either from choosing to go prone, or having to go to ground.  This includes all doors and windows and corners of walls, as well as any terrain feature which is either at least 15mm tall and 15mm wide, or of any height but at least 30mm wide.  Obviously, concealment is dependent on direction of LOS and it should always be obvious on what side of the cover a figure is.

Note : plenty of such cover allows characters with Move and Shoot weapons, which are common in this setting, to "stand, fire and duck back", and therefore also rewards well chosen overwatch tactics.


The Martian IS player plays Armat Sin, Green Zed, and the three anonymous Martian marines from the MCRN-IS Team Roster (557 pts).  One of the three marines, determined randomnly, is then immediately removed as a casualty.

The Tears of Corruption crew prepares a 450 pt group, without Fiday or Morlokx. To these are added any two unnamed Soldiers from the OPA Militia Roster, but for no more than 100 pts.

Environment :

Gravity : Pandora is a spun-up moon, with 0,68g.  Any characters with the "No Earth-G" penalty trait increase their Q by 1 during the rest of the scenario if they cause a turnover during an activation for which they used 3 dice.

Oxygen : the ambush takes place outside Pandora's domes, so there is no atmosphere.  Should any character lose his breathing mask, he, or another character in base to base contact, must use two actions in one turn to put it back on; failure to do so before the third turnover results in being Out of Action.  After another three turnover results, the character is Killed in Action.

Spin : the rapid spin of Pandora is disorienting outside of its domes.  If a character spends three Actions on movement, the direction of the third movement, whose distance must be decided beforehand, is in an entirely random direction (use a directional die or a D12).


Deployment and First Player :

In the centre of the 90cm x 90cm table, place a wrecked vehicle. The lack of atmosphere has put out any fire, so the wreck can be used as cover.

One Tears of Corruption crew member is placed within 20cm of the vehicle, the others no closer than 40cm.

Martian IS are then placed within 10cm of the vehicle.  Armat Sin and Green Zed are carrying one vial each.

Each member of the Tears of Corruption that so wishes can attempt to be placed on Overwatch, by obtaining 2 successes on 3 dice.

The Martian IS player goes first.


Special Rule 1 : My ears are ringing...

The Martian IS player may use only a total of four dice Actions during his first and second turns, six dice on the third, and is free of this restriction thereafter.


Special Rule 2 : I can't breathe !

A character in base to base contact with an enemy character who is Shaken, may knock his breathing mask off for free.


Special Rule 3 : Take this and run

A character in base contact with another friendly character may spend 1 action to give him or take from him a blue-liquid vial.  It is possible to use this action as a simple lure, even for two characters not carrying a vial.

A Handcuffed, Out of Action or Killed in Action character, or a character whose breathing gear has been knocked off, can be searched by an enemy character for 1 action.  If he has a vial, it is taken.

A character that fails a morale test and flees off board, will drop a vial it is carrying at the table edge.


Special Rule 4: I'll take this...

If a Tears of Corruption crew member (not one of the two OPA agents) has a vial, then the OPA agents must activate before any Tears of Corruption crew member.  In this situation they will always roll three dice, and are controlled by the opposing player, who must use the first successful action to fire on a vial carrier, if possible, and all remaining actions to move closer to him.

This rule encourages, but does not force, the ambushing player to place the vials in the hands of the OPA agents, which is the direction of the storyline.


Game Over

The scenario ends instantly if both of the two vials are off-table.

As soon as the Tears of Corruption player lays hands on one of the vials, a countdown begins at 12. Each turnover reduces the countdown by 1, and the scenario ends when it reaches 0.


Victory Conditions

Either side wins if they are in possession of both vials when the scenario ends.  Otherwise victory goes to the side who has the least number of points Out of Action or Killed in Action.


Post-scenario bonuses

Tears of Corruption is a campaign, which means that the characters involved can acquire advantages or suffer penalties for future scenarios.  Only named (recurring) characters are concerned by this.

Any character that suffered a Gory Death result is permanently dead, and cannot be used again in the Campaign.

Any character that was put Out of Action may not gain Renown.

Any character that was Killed in Action is Dead on a D6 roll of '1', or '2', otherwise is considered as Out of Action.

All characters eligible for Renown gain it as follows :
+1 if on the winning side
+1 for each enemy the character put Out of Action or Killed in Action
+1 if the character was in possession of one of the vials at the end of the scenario

 

Renown
Renown has no actual in game impact, but serves to measure the importance of the character in the Expanse universe and affects their storyline.  For each 10 Renown gained by a character, something special should happen to him (promotion for a soldier, a ship hand on a pirate vessel getting their own ship as a captain, and so forth...)