Background :
Fiday being the only person in the solar system who knows where the mysterious glowing blue vials were to be taken - Cornelius Groot's hole-in-the-wall having been thoroughly cleaned out by MCRN-IS and then burnt to the ground - the OPA decide they have no other choice now than to break her out of prison.
Such a late decision to help "one of their own" might surprise some, but it obviously means that whichever faction of the OPA is behind this operation, it is not one that Fiday has run with in the past.
When the lights go out all over Pandora A-dome, and the only illuminations are the rays of light pulsing behind the filthy windows of low-grade bars and seedy strip clubs, those on-planet OPA teamers who were not playing "fake merc" two days ago, sneak into the loosely guarded prison compound.
The Scenario :
One player represents a team of OPA agents and Fiday, captain of the Tears of Corruption. His or her opponent runs the Pandora prison guards and an on-site on-call team of SWAT agents.
Players' Briefing :
OPA :
The inner circle tried to play a sleight hand, and look what that came to. Fiday is a Class A bitch that cannot be trusted any further than her ship's AI can spit, but you don't believe she is truly loyal to any particular OPA faction. She is just a Belter who hates Earth and Mars, which is what the OPA is supposed to be about, until politics and egos get involved and make everything messy. Fiday will run with you, as long as you explain what is, and explain it quickly. Anyway, if it takes too long, it'll have to be a bullet to her brain and out quick, 'cos Pandora just can't know that an OPA covert ops team is working under their dome. The Solar System isn't ready for that, not yet.
After the excitement caused by the firefight in town 6 days ago, the prison guards have slumped back into suicidal boredom, but the maximum security section, in which Fiday is held, is protected by drones. Drones as their
name implies, never sleep, but they can be hacked. It'll be a race against time, and if the athletes are too slow, the on-site SWAT agents will get an electronic kick up the butt and come running. This is all about being quiet and being quick.
In elder days, pirates like Fiday were hung from yardarms; then came more civilised times when such executions were done humanely and behind closed doors. Thank the Nine Heavens that such silliness is also a thing of the past. If she is convicted, and she will be, the lady will be taking a long walk outside the dome with an almost empty oxygen tank, and the bets will be on to see how it will end.
The terrorists got their ship away before it was impounded, but they are still hanging about, as those creepy MCRN spooks found out the day before last. There is no honour among thieves, but you have put the prison drones on double duty, despite the tech guys whinging about the impact on their reliability.
No point pretending that your men are amped up and ready to go, they are only doing this job because they couldn't keep their previous one down. Let's hope that the on-site SWAT team are a little more enthusiastic, apparently they do like an excuse to use their firearms.
Setting up :
0m90 x 0m90 gaming surface, portraying a run-down prison on a remote moon. On one side of the board, half-way down the board edge, is the barracks which houses the SWAT team. On one of the two board edges to which it joins, again half-way down the board edge, is placed the maximum security block with Fiday placed inside.
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 OPA player plays an OPA Infiltration Team (300 pts).
The Pandora Security Forces player draws the following 433 pt force from the Local Security Forces roster : three LSF Support Drones, one SWAT Team, one LSF Officer and five LSF Grunts.
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 : Pandora A is a domed city with normal oxygen levels.
Spin : Thanks to the dome, the spin of Pandora is imperceptible.
Deployment and First Player :
The Security Forces player places all SWAT units in the barracks. He then deploys all other figures as he wishes, except no more than two figures inside the maximum security block, and only drones can be within 15cm of the building. All human figures have an orientation, for drones it does not matter.
Drones however are chosen to be either "Fixed" or "On Patrol".
The OPA player notes the side of the table opposite the maximum security block, chooses a corner and rolls a D20. A 2cm wide breach is placed at this distance from the corner along the table edge. From this spot he rolls 2D20 and places another breach, and so on until the result would place a breach off-table. A "breach" is a weak spot in the prison wall, for example a gate opened thanks to a bribe, a sewer pipe, a wall whose barbed wire has been cleared off, or an area that nothing is lighting up.
The OPA player places his characters in any or all of the breaches he wishes.
The OPA player goes first.
Rerolls
Making a daring and surprise attack, the OPA commando may make up to three rerolls during the game. Rerolls may only be used on activation dice; all dice must be rerolled and the new result must be accepted.
Special Rule 1 : At least walking keeps me warm...
On the Security Forces turn, any unalerted human guard not inside a building will patrol before any activations take place, in the order of the owning player's choice. Roll 2D6, one white, one coloured. The white die represents the distance (1 = None, 2 = Medium; 3, 4 or 5 = 2 x Medium; 6 = 3 x Medium).
The coloured die represents the direction (1-2 = current facing; 3-4 = turns 90° left (if a 3) or right (if a 4); 5 = turns to face closest enemy character or 90% max, 6 = the owning player chooses facing).
Special Rule 2 : Drones don't walk, they zip
Any drone designated as "On Patrol" does the same thing, but rolls a coloured die three times, moving Long each time. If two dice out of three are of equal value, the player may then designate this drone as "Fixed"; or instead designate any "Fixed" drone as now "On Patrol". Note that if all drones are placed as "Fixed", it will be impossible to use this special rule to put them "On Patrol".
A drone that has been successfully Hacked rolls one less die for each current -1 to his Q value.
Special Rule 3 : Intruder Alert
If, at any point during their activation, a guard or a drone is within L of an enemy character, they might spot them. They stop immediately, and roll a Q check with 3 dice, which is unaffected by Leader bonuses. 1 success is needed if the enemy character is standing in line of sight in the open; 2 successes if the enemy character is behind cover but in line of sight; 3 successes if the enemy is out of sight.
If the guard or a drone was already within L, they only stop and make the spotting check if their movement would bring them closer.
Should the spotting check succeed, the defenders are alerted. All characters (including the SWAT) can now activate as normal.
Special Rule 4: You can't always go where you want...
As long as the defenders are not yet alerted, any OPA player who activates must indicate if he is moving and, if so, to where, and without any pre-measuring of course. The first successes on the die roll must be used to move at normal rate (unless the character has indicated he is crawling there), and in the direction of the arrival point.
The character obtains 1 free success if no enemy is within L, but can only use it for movement.
Special Rule 5: If you shoot me, you betta kill me dead...
If an OPA character opens fire, the defenders are alerted, unless the result of the shot is at least an "Out of Action". Firing whilst the defender is not alerted always counts as an Ambush.
A character using Hacker will not, however, put the defenders on alert.
Special Rule 6: Maximum Security..for Pandora.
All the OPA agents are carrying equipment that allows them to open the doors to the Maximum Security building for 1 Action. It is once inside that the hard graft begins, that of convincing Fiday to follow them out.
Make a 3 dice opposed Q roll, Fiday's successes cancelling those of an OPA character. The OPA player gets an extra die for each 1 Action spent. Each uncancelled die represents a convincing argument.
Once Fiday has received 3 convincing arguments, she will follow her rescuers. Count her as now being armed with an Assault Pistol. Her Leader skill cannot be used on the OPA characters. The defenders may not optional "Target Priority" rules to shoot at Fiday, as both the shadows from the harsh lights and the confusion make it difficult to pick out targets.
Game Over
The scenario ends instantly if Fiday exits the playing surface by any of the breaches in the wall, or if she is killed.
Victory Conditions
The OPA win if Fiday exits the playing surface; the Security Forces win if she is killed.
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', 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 finally convinced Fiday to come with them
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...)
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