Andy’s short roundup of games at this weekend’s meeting.
First up Stephen and I tried out Barons War rules for the first time. As it was our first outing we decided to go small, and had 500 point armies. We managed two games in around 5 hours, with much referring to the rules. All in all we thought the rules worked quite well.
Meanwhile Jeremey and Tony were playing a War of the Roses game using Sword and Spear.
Elsewhere in the hall six of our Field of Glory players (John, Peter, Brett, Paul, Mark and Colin) fought out a tournament. Final results to be confirmed…
Mark J guides through his painting technique for 6mm HYW figures.
This article follows on from my first 6mm painting guide, “Painting 6mm Romans” which appeared on the Maidstone Wargames Society Blog in May 2020. So, it’s been a while since my last blog, but I’ve been busy painting more 6mm over the last 12 months or so. This article covers my English 100 Years War army. This is another FoG army, we still play 2nd edition at the club, however I have also built the army to use with MeG and you could use it with any rules system that doesn’t stipulate base sizes.
The army is loosely based on that which fought at Crécy, very loosely as I just wanted to pick a point in history to use, my army commander is painted as the Black Prince.
The figures are from Baccus, while they are listed as 6mm, they’re closer to 8mm. I really like them and there’s a wide range of periods available which continues to expand. The painting method I’m going to take you through is block painting, which begins with the application of a dark undercoat and then adding brighter colours to bring out detail, while retaining some of the dark undercoat to emphasise shadow.
I use a black undercoat as I find it works well at this scale, however you need to be careful not to overuse the base colour otherwise your figures will look like dark blobs on the battlefield. The idea with block painting is to trick the eye; this is where the brighter colours come in, as you’ll see below, I’ve used quite vibrant colours on the longbowmen. This would look odd on a larger scale but is a must at 6mm.
So, start by washing your figures in warm soapy water and then gently dry them off with a tea towel or just leave them somewhere warm or in sunlight to dry; this will remove any casting residue which can interfere with the paint and stop an even coat forming. I then spray my figures black with an acrylic spray, I use a matt black spray from a national hardware chain, it’s cheap and works very well. Always wear a mask and ensure you’re in a ventilated room when doing this.
I’m going to start with a unit of longbowmen, there are 64 figures in each unit, I find I can paint one unit in a couple of hours, ready to base. Once the figures have dried I, begin by painting the main part of the body, in this case the tunic working with a strip of 4 figures I paint the front of the tunic remembering to leave some parts black, the belt, collar quiver, scabbard and under the arms. You don’t need to be really accurate here, paint your first strip and then look at the figures from about 3 feet away, if they look right then you have accomplished the first part of the ‘trick’.
Carry on painting each strip and then repeat the process on the other side of the tunic, you’ll notice that Baccus longbowmen are not all the same, some carry their arrows to the front others to the back, some have small shields. Just follow the principle of using the undercoat and leave these black for the moment. Remember to go bright, a general rule of thumb is to go 2-3 times brighter than you would at 28mm. You can see from the picture below how I’ve used a bright pale blue and yellow with one unit and an orange with the other. Both can be seen from the battlefield and don’t look out of place. They would look out of place at a larger scale for this period, but the rules of painting are different for 6mm, trick the eye with bright colours.
Once you’ve completed the tunic it’s now time to move onto the bow, quiver and scabbard. I use the same colour brown for these, again this would not work with a larger scale but is fine for 6mm. You can use differing colours, but they won’t really stand out and will take longer. I find a light yellowish brown works very well. Again, follow the front and then back method that I describe above, I find this gets me into a good rhythm, which gets me through a unit quickly but means I achieve the effect I’m looking for. This method also works well if you’re painting multiple units. I tend to do 3 at a time and can complete three units, fully based in around two evenings, 1 evening at a push.
Massed Longbows WIP
Once you’ve completed the bow and leatherwork it’s time to work on the metal parts, for the longbowmen this is their helms, shields if they have them and sword hilt, note that the sword hilt is optional, the figures will look fine without this. Again, apply to each strip front first and then back. With the helms it’s really important not to overdo things, too much silver and it will look like a huge silver blob, this is where your skill with a brush comes in and using the undercoat to provide shadow. I tend to use a semi dry brush when applying the silver, not as dry as I would when dry brushing, general rule of thumb is to apply enough paint to your brush to cover a couple of helms lightly.
It’s now time to move onto the flesh, I use a light pink flesh colour, those often used to highlight larger scale figures’ flesh. Again, front first then onto the back, you’ll see with the longbowmen that most of the work is covered from the front of the figure but it’s worth checking the back just to ensure that the flesh can be seen from all relevant angles. Paint the flesh in the same way you painted the silver, less is more. Try and keep a gap between the hands and cuffs and face and neck, this is where the dark undercoat really works well, this sounds hard, but it’s easily done with a little practice. Don’t worry if you don’t achieve this on every figure, remember you’re looking for an overall effect that will usually be viewed from the battlefield, tricking the eye with shadow and bright colours.
Once the flesh is done, then figures are complete, I usually quickly check each strip as you can miss some parts when painting large numbers of figures. Once dry, I then varnish the figures with a matt varnish. I spray my figures, if you do the same then make sure you’re not doing this in a cold room as the spray reacts to cooler temperatures and can fog, giving your figures a dusty look, which is a complete disaster at this scale as it obscures all your hard work. If this does happen, let the figures dry and then apply gloss varnish and another light coat of matt. I find a quick spray does the trick, again less is more. If it feels too cold don’t spray!
Basing next, I use a similar method to the Baccus basing, I apply a ready mixed earth texture paint first, make sure to apply up to the base not over it. Once this has been applied it is time to highlight. I use the Baccus 3 colour system, which starts with a dark beige colour moving up to an almost bone white, simply dry brush the bases. Once this is done it’s time to add some static grass, you’ll need the smaller grade, 3mm I believe. Apply some watered down PVA to the front and rear of the figures and where there are any gaps along the line. Once done sprinkle some static grass over the figure; what you’re looking for here is enough to hide any of the metal base while not covering the figure. The picture below shows how it should look.
OK so that’s how I paint 6mm longbowmen, for the men at arms use the same principles but when doing the armour ensure to use the undercoat well, leaving gaps works really well with armour. Use the same brown for any wood or leather and the same method for flesh. If you have any troops with padding, then apply this using the bright colour and shadow approach, you can see some mine below.
Finally, I painted the generals and camp using the same method, took a bit more time on some detail, but the same rules apply re tricking the eye. Up close they look a little messy, on the table they look the part.
The camp was done using a white undercoat and special contrast paints for the tents, the pigs, fires, well and baggage have a black undercoat with a block technique applied.
The next few photos provide some completed units, in all there are 6 of longbow (8 bases each) and 6 of men at arms (4 bases each).
A selection of the retinue
You’ll also notice some stakes placed in front of the longbowmen, these were scratch built using wire and Milliput. I cut the wire into 10mm long pieces, placed some Milliput onto a base and then added the wire to the Milliput at around a 30 to 40 degree angle. It was then a case of painting the stakes dark brown with bone white tips, and then basing using the same method described above. The stakes are bigger than they would have been relatively speaking but this is required to catch the eye and look right on the battlefield.
I hope this has been helpful, I hope to have another guide out soon covering my 6mm Spanish Napoleonic.
The Society has been busy this weekend jut passed, a small contingent ventured to ExCeL for the delayed Salute 2020 (or 2021?) whilst others attended the normal society meeting. First up, Salute. Andy’s thoughts with pictures by John, Mark and Andy.
Five of the membership, John, Brian, Mark, Marcus and Andy, attended Salute putting on Marcus’ Pulp participation game “Biggles and the Island at the Top of the World“.
The theme for the show was the Battle of Britain. The 2020 show was intended to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the battle. Centrally displayed in the hall were a replica Spitfire and Hurricane, with some RAF reenactors making an appearance after the photo was taken.
I got the impression that Salute hired more of ExCeL than usual, to space us out more, although I also understand there were fewer games and traders scheduled to attend than in “normal” years; and there were a few “no shows” in both categories.
In Marcus’ game Biggles is searching a lost Artic island for a missing Professor and the strange artefacts he was studying.
His party discover a secret labyrinth, with ever changing chambers and passages.
However he was not alone, a party of Nazis with unworldly weapons were also trying to recover the Professor.
The Russians had also sent an NKVD team to prevent the Nazis securing their objective.
And finally, a lost tribe of Vikings were hellbent on preventing anyone from leaving the island with the Ragnarok Stones, the phenomena the Professor had been studying.
We ran several games throughout the day, with up to four members of the public taking control of one of the four parties.
A selection of photos from the games:
We are pleased to announce that the game won the Jim Clarke Memorial Award for the Best Science Fiction / Fantasy game at Salute.
Meanwhile, back at the regular Society meeting, other members were running a series of games. Photos courtesy of Mark J and Stephen.
First off Mark J and Pete ran a game of Fields of Glory, pitching Mark’s Hundred Years War English against Pete’s Hungarians.
The first battle was won by the English, the Hungarian Knights couldn’t cope with longbows and stakes. The Hungarians won the second battle by focusing on the men at arms and drawing the longbow fire away from the knights. So, honours even.
Alan ran a Star Wars X-Wing game.
And finally Stephen ran a Stargrave game – A Hive of Scum and Villainy:
Stephen reports on a recent Sci Fi solo game using Black Ops
Since it was a wet weekend I thought I just fancied a game of something. Since I hadn’t played Black Ops for a while I thought that’s what I’d do.
I went with a simple meeting engagement. Each side had 100 points each. The human squad had two fireteams of five men – in the first was the leader, heavy weapons support, a technical expert, and two troopers. In the second was another heavy weapons support, a sniper, and three troopers. The droids had three fireteams of five, each consisting of a heavy weapon support and four troopers.
The idea behind the scenario is that the droid army has captured a human communications station and the human squad has to go in, recapture it, and get it online. They have seven turns to do that and get to safety.
Turn One
Black Ops is a card activation system. Each troop type has two cards in the deck and when they are drawn a model can take one action (e.g. the human Specialist card is drawn – the technical expert and sniper can each take an action). In addition, the leader gets a bonus third card which can be used to activate a third time or he can order a model within 6” to take a third action. Simple enough.
On the first turn it seemed like there were only droid cards in the deck, all the droids had taken one action, and the droid troopers had taken their second, before one of the human cards came up. This allowed the droids to make a quick advance and move up to halfway across the board (I was using my smaller 2’x3’ board). This put the humans on a back foot, particularly the sniper (private Urek Ricci) who I had wanted to move up to an advantageous position but this was now denied because the droids, ZX81 and CPC464, had moved so far forward.
Turn Two
The human leader, Sergeant Waylan Gomez, led his team up through some cargo containers. Urek Ricci advanced on another position and took a quick snapshot with his rifle at ZX81 – he missed. I’d made the terrain nice and close, to eliminate too many long-range avenues of fire that could dominate, so models had to move carefully to ensure they couldn’t be seen. The droids well and truly moved into the comms relay station area and crossed it safely to cover the approach of the humans.
Turn Three
The humans had to get a move on. Private Yan Obrand, with his M77 plasma gun, saw the droids Dragon 32 and HP85 moving around the back of the comms relay. He let rip, but missed. He then took a second burst and this time both droids went down! First kill to the humans. Urek also had a go with his sniper rifle at the droids in the station compound, this time with a steady hand and good rest for his weapon. But he missed again! Close to Urek was private Cove Longstern and he moved up to put some suppressive fire down. The droids responded by moving an entire squad against Ricci and Longstern. They opened up but failed to hit anything. Sergeant Gomez with specialist Sorel Marsden and private Dorian Zenward continued to sidle through the containers trying to find a way to the relay station.
Turn Four
Again, Urek Ricci took a shot and again he missed! Some sniper he was turning out to be. That would be his last shot though, because ZX81 returned fire and he went down. Two of the droids moved up to occupy his position where they would be able to make a flanking attack on the rest of the human squad. Private Longstern gave fire and a droid went down. But then C64 took a shot and it was bad news for Cove Longstern – it was the end of his game.
Turn Five
The droids sought to consolidate their position and see if they could exploit the flank they’d opened up. More droids moved up. Another pair of droids, one armed with a heavy kinetic lance, tried to counter the advance of Yan, Sorel Marsden, and Dorian Zenward. These three had advanced to the side of the comms station, but were waiting for the right moment to break cover and make a dash for the doors. Sergeant Gomez took private Uriah West to shore up the weakened flank left vulnerable after Ricci and Longstern had been taken down.
Turn Six
With not much time left it was obvious the humans had to get a move on. It was already looking extremely unlikely they would have time to re-enable the relay station and get off board so if they were to they would have to get moving. With that in mind, Yan, Sorel, and Dorian moved up to the station. Immediately the droids opened up and took Dorian Zenward out. But on their second activation Yan put down some suppressive fire and Marsden managed to unlock the station and get it back online. First part of the mission complete!
Turn Seven
Last turn syndrome – go for it! So the station was working but could they get away? It pretty much happened how you think it would – the humans made a dash for the table edge and the droids opened up where they could.
In the end none of the humans escaped. The station had been reactivated but they hadn’t quite got away. Human loses were four models, and droid loses were six – so a pretty even ratio. The humans could claim a partial success.
John’s latest report on Li Chee the Pirate Queen’s feud with Admiral Feng Shui using Ganesha Games Galleys and Galleons rules.
Months had passed since Li Chee’s raid on Qui Nhon harbour, the junk she had captured now had a new crew and was ready for action.
Meanwhile Admiral Feng Shui set sail with his treasure ships hoping to reach India safely but first he had to negotiate the Straits of Molucca. He had taken the precaution of hiring a trusty Proa to act as pilot, he would be glad of this before the day was out. It was here, close to the dreaded ‘Whirlpool of Indesit’, that Li Chee planned her ambush and with some of the treasure won at Qui Nhon she had enlisted the help of some head hunters, Sumatran cannibals of terrifying reputation.
Making good use of the wind, the Treasure fleet made stately progress through the straits, until…
The new Pirate junk captured at Qui Nhon and refitted, moves in to attack a Treasure Ship, keen to show her mettle.
First blood to the pirates, it’s a devastating attack that the Treasure Ship will struggle to recover from. Li Chee attempts the same tactic on the small Merchant Junk with less success.
The badly damaged Treasure Ship attempts a risky manoeuvre to avoid the attentions of the Pirate Junks.
Meanwhile the smaller Merchant Junk is unable to avoid a collision with the Pirate Queen’s ship and comes off worse.
Things were looking bad for the Treasure Fleet, with two junks badly damaged. Where was Admiral Feng Shui? He’d decided to hang back to prevent being cut off by the wind but horrified by what he could see before him, Feng Shui swung into action, attacking the pirate junk that had devastated the Treasure Ship. A Devastating cannonade from Feng Shui’s flagship ripped through the Pirate Junk.
The Pirate Junk’s crew manage to extinguish the fire but are so preoccupied and cannot prevent the Junk heading directly for an island.
The Merchant Junk which collided with the Pirate Queen veers away but strays too close to the ‘Whirlpool of Indesit’ and is sucked in, never to be seen again. To this day, on still nights it’s said you can hear the mournful cries of the crew.
Meanwhile Feng Shui’s Junk comes under attack from the Head Hunters. No vessel is off limits, they just want a nice collection of skulls. They have enough actions to move up to the Flagship and grapple but frustratingly not enough to board.
Here two activations are required to cut the grapples. As a flagship, Feng Shui has an extra free activation. The grapples are cut. But there are no activations leftConcentrating on cutting the grappling ropes Feng Shui’s flagship is unable to avoid a collision with a Treasure Ship.
The ships collide with a destructive crash. Both vessels are badly damaged.
The Pirate Queen opens fire on the badly damaged Treasure Ship which takes more damaged and is now crippled.
Feng Shui’s nightmare day goes from bad to worse as the Flagship cannot avoid a second collision with the Treasure Ship. A gaping hole develops in the bows and despite the reinforced hull, the pumps can’t prevent the Flagship sinking. Feng Shui escapes, clinging to driftwood.
With Admiral Feng Shui clinging to floating wreckage, Li Chee seizes her chance to board the damaged Treasure Ship.
The damaged Pirate Junk which had escaped grounding also managed to avoid the ‘Whirlpool of Indesit’ so now Li Chee had a huge prize and both pirate junks survived the encounter. Time to pay off the Head hunters cheaply, repair and refit the junks and spend days counting treasure. As Feng Shui drowned with his ship she looked forward to further profitable ventures, but first she needed a patron to establish bases for repair and re- victualling.
Feng Shui was grateful to be picked up by the Proa, though whilst he clung onto the outrigger, he pondered his next move. Returning to China was out of the question, an excruciating death at the hands of Emperor Ming the Merciless lay in wait. Yet if he tried to make a new life here, the long hands of Ming’s empire would grab him by the throat. What he needed was a Pirate Hunter and fast.
Stephen reports on a game of SAGA: Age of Crusades fought at a recent meeting, with occasional comments from his opponent, Andy, the editor. For those whose schoolboy Latin is a little rusty, the title translates as “But give glory to your name”…
Sir Fulkes LaMont was awakened early by the wailing of the muzzerain. He calmly threw aside the tent flap, the sun still low and it’s warm glow lighting up the sky like molten metal. There was no breeze. Nothing. Just the call to prayers carried across the still air. Sir Fulkes looked out to the silhouette of the distant city walls, the tall towers of the mosques rising above all, and the cries of the muzzerain carrying far…
It’s been the best part of 18 months since I have had a game of Saga. During The Great Plague I painted a Saracen army and since we agreed we’d have a game of Saga at the club, it was time for them to whet their blades.
Andy took the Saracens and I had the Templars (Milites Christi in Saga: Age of Crusades terms). We went with 5 points each. The Saracen force was entirely mounted and had a warlord, three points of Ghulams (hearthguard) and two points of Ghazis with composite bows (warriors). The Templars had a mounted warlord with three points of mounted knights (hearthguard), one point of crossbows (warriors) and one point of foot sergeants (warriors).
The table was set up and then, using the Book of Battles, we made a roll for deployment (Confusion), Duration (Cautious), Special Rules (A Dash of Nostalgia), and Victory Conditions (Overrun).
So, Andy took first move. And forward the Saracens went. He took quite a wild move on my right flank, obviously trying to outflank the crossbows, and maybe come around the back. (Andy: I was trying to draw one or two of Stephen’s units off to counter the Ghazis leaving him weaker in the centre). On my turn I put the crossbows on top of the hill where they could have a good field of fire. The knights went forward, and I repositioned the warlord behind some rocks – a defensive position until I could see what Andy intended on doing (Andy: Leading from the back eh?).
What I noticed was that Andy had shifted his warlord forward, just ahead of the rest of his army. I’m sure Andy will claim that’s because he was bold and daring, but I reckon it was because he wasn’t concentrating. (Andy: I’d like to claim that too, but Stephen was right). This was too good a target to ignore, so Sir Fulkes ordered his knights to charge and in they went!
Fortunately for the Saracen emir he had a unit of Ghulams nearby, which is just as well because otherwise he would have ended up dead! Instead, those bold warriors laid down their lives for their leader. Badly shaken, badly beaten, and badly fatigued, the Saracen warlord boldly fled to the rear of the table, as far away as he could get from the knights.
Now, one should keep in mind that we’d never played Age of Crusades before and not only that, but we seldom, if ever, use mounted troops in previous games of Saga. That, added to the fact that it had been a long time since playing, meant there was some learning to do. Andy’s Ghazis also had composite bows, which activate differently to regular bows. (Andy: These units have free Shooting activations, but cannot do two such actions consecutively). So there were some inevitable teething problems. From my perspective I felt that Andy, initially anyway, was using his Ghazis like regular fighting troops. Although as the game progressed he seemed to get the hang of using them to skirmish – dashing in, loosing their arrows, then off again. (Andy: I was trying to combine Shooting and Movement, took me a few turns to get it right).
The Ghazis on my right moved within crossbow range and took a salvo for their troubles. Not too damaging, but enough to make him start to think about the Saracen battleboard properly. Meanwhile, on my left where the other unit of Ghazis were, they started harrying my spearmen. Still can’t think what made me take dismounted warriors when I had the option to have them mounted. Oh well. They were always going to be out of their depth and prone to attacks from all the fast moving cavalry around them.
Realising the game was going to be won or lost in the centre, I pushed my two units of knights forward. This would mean I might get outflanked on both sides – my hope was the crossbows would tie Andy down on the right and the spearmen would hold him off on the left. I was partly right.
We had an almighty clash in the centre. My knights had gone forward. I’d combined my three points of hearthguard into two units of six, whilst Andy had kept his three points in three units of four. One of those had been decimated whilst saving the skin of the Saracen warlord. But now the other two units took it in turns to charge my knights. Andy came out slightly on top of that one (he lost four models, I lost five). And then I sent my spearmen in, trying to take the heat off the knights. But that didn’t go too well for them (Andy: I managed to follow up a Shooting attack by the Ghazis with a subsequent charge from the Ghulams).
So we had a five turn game limit. Along came turn five and, to be honest, it was looking fairly even to me. You normally expect your opponent to throw everything at you on the last turn but Andy was surprisingly restrained. (Andy: I’ll blame my SAGA dice).
‘I’ll show him,’ I thought. I loaded up my battleboard so my few remaining knights could charge in to his unit of Ghazis. It went alright – the Orison ability of the Templars saved their skins, and sent some of the Saracens packing.
And that was it. Game over. We totted up points and the final result was…5 points to the Saracens, and 11 points to the Templars.
A quick round up of the games at the recent club meeting, four scales, four periods.
First up, a 15mm War of the Roses game between Stephen & Tony (Lancastran) and Jeremey and Andy (Yorkist) using Sword and Spear second edition rules.
Jeremey added some flavour with some random event cards, one to be drawn by each player. The four used in this game were:
Jeremey will write up the game, so I won’t go into detail on how the cards were used here.
Next up Mark, David and Alan fought a battle in the War of the Spanish Succession using Mark’s 6mm collection and his own rules.
Moving on several centuries, we come to 2004, Fallujah, using Force on Force rules. This 20mm collection was put together during the lockdown by Peter, this is its first outing at the club. Peter was joined by John, Brett, Colin and the other Mark.
And finally we move into the near future, with an excursion into Zona Alfa. John (another one) took Eric through the rules with a series of short scenarios using his 28mm collection.
Peter reports on his major lockdown project, making its debut at the club today.
This is my lock down project that’s taken the best part of two years to complete.
It is a modern warfare game using 20mm scale figures and the Force-on-Force rules from Ambush Alley Games.
We’ve played the rules a few times during past meetings with Mike, who left the club a couple of years ago. They were memorable games and great fun. That’s why I decided to start assembling figures and models to put on a game based on the battle of Falluja, Iraq, 2004.
Here are the first figures ready for action – US Marines and a Humvee with Grenade launcher.
After assembling and painting more US Marines and a couple more Humvees, I started on the Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters.
And a couple of Technicals with machine guns.
Next the terrain.
The game board is about 4’x4’ and depicts a section of a modern middle eastern city with damaged buildings, debris strewn streets and abandoned vehicles all over the place.
I chose 4mm foam board for the construction of the buildings as it’s readily available at shops like Hobby Craft and the Range. It’s also easy to cut and it’s light to transport around. The rest of the terrain and building details were sourced from places like S&S models and model railway shops.
Here are some completed buildings.
Rubble mounds were made of scrunched up newspaper and coarse basing material from various wargames and modelling websites and all stuck down with good old PVA glue.
I got hold of a plastic model Abrams M1A2 MBT and enhanced it with some baggage and lose rubble.
More rubble and damaged buildings were made next …
The roads are black 3mm thick soft foam sprayed with grey paint and debris sand and rubble stuck down. The road markings were done with masking tape and paint – gently rubbed down with glass paper when dry.
A couple of Helo’s adds to the US Marines arsenal…
A couple of shots from a practice game, Delta team on building clearance mission.
A short pictorial round up of the games at the latest meeting.
First up a couple of FOG Ancients games.
Next, on a planet far, far away, Alan ran a couple of games using Fistful of Lead Galactic Heroes rules.
Lastly Several SAGA Games. Stephen and Andy in the Age of Crusades, Templars vs Saracens.
There will be a full write up of this game in a couple of week’s time.
Jeremey and Tony were playing SAGA Age of Vikings, Norse-Gaels vs Anglo Saxons.
Later in the afternoon Tony (Norse-Gaels) and Jeremey and Andy (both Vikings) had a couple of three handed games fighting to control a Bard, after all, he who controls the bard writes the saga.
Andy tells the story of the Fenris mission from a different perspective.
Following the limited success of the first mission to Denides, Captain Ash de Vere set about recruiting replacements for the losses incurred, Eric Olsen, the First Mate and Sam Fleet, a pathfinder had both died during the mission.
The first order of business was to recruit a new First Mate, by a stroke of fate the best candidate Ash could find was also called Eric, Eric Bamburgh. After some reflection Ash decided the crew really ought to have the services of a medic, and fortunately the new first mate knew of a good man called Dan McIntyre who was looking for a new berth.
As the two new crewmen were settling in Patina dZuk, one of the Runners Ash had engaged for the last mission, popped in and asked Ash if he could stump up 20 credits to get her the kit needed to become a Chisler. As there was just enough credit remaining after hiring Dan, Ash agreed.
So, with the crew back up to full strength Ash set about looking for a new mission to bolster the funds. An information broker Ash knew, Germy, had heard some rumours that Fenris, site of one of the major battles in the Robot Wars, was awash with loot and knew of potential buyers for any physical loot that Ash could find. What Germy didn’t say was how many robots remained active on the surface of Fenris…
Ash and Eric tried to lay some groundwork for the mission, Ash tried his usual sources for some high impact ammunition, but none was to be found. Eric tried greasing some palms to get possible rival crews to look the other way at an opportune moment, but there were no takers.
As Ash set the shuttle down on Fenris he briefed his crew. He would lead one team with Charlie, Jen and Patina. Eric would lead a second team with Skel, Honu and Offler. Bren, who hadn’t fully recovered from the injuries sustained on Denides, and the new medic Dan would be the reserve.
As the teams approached the ruins of a town movement could be seen, several of the Fenris incident robots were moving around the town.
In addition, more than one other crew were in the town, no doubt searching for the same loot Ash was after.
Ash led his team towards Tony’s crew, an ex-military group judging by their uniforms, activating his Energy Shield as he moved through the ruins.
Ash’s team took up positions behind some rocks while Patina got out her lock picks and set to opening a promising looking crate. Success, unlocked!
As Patina checked the contents of the crate she came under fire from Tony’s crew, presumably trying to take her out so they could steal the loot.
Ash and the rest of the team returned fire at Tony’s crew, giving the wounded Patina the chance to fall back with the loot behind some rocks to take her out of the line of fire. Ash told Patina to get back to the Troubadour with the loot as fast as she could; he and the rest of the team would cover her retreat.
In the ensuing firefight Jen was knocked down, and as Ash and Charlie were both hit before they pulled back. As did Tony’s crew, perhaps they realised they weren’t going to be able to catch Patina.
Meanwhile, Eric’s team had moved into a different part of the ruins searching for more loot.
As they advanced a clanking sound was heard behind them, one of the Fenris Robots had appeared from the ruins and opened fire, wounding Skel.
Bren and Dan came to Skel’s aid, Bren taking out the robot, and Dan treating Skel’s injuries.
Honu took up a position to guard the right flank, hunkering down amid the ruins. Good job too as another Robot moved up, firing on and wounding Honu. In returning fire Honu managed to put the Robot down.
While Honu dealt with the robot, Eric and Offler advanced through the ruins, finding another crate.
As they examined the crate they came under fire from Stephen’s crew, who seemed to be concentrating their fire on Offler. She was knocked down, and after returning fire Eric pulled back to some cover, with Bren coming up to support.
For some unknown reason the crew that had shot Offler then fell back, giving Eric the chance to go back and unlock the loot.
With Bren and Honu covering, Eric grabbed the loot and headed back toward the ship, only for yet another robot to appear! Luckily for the crew the combined fire of Bren, Honu and Eric managed to take down the robot, although Bren’s carbine jammed part way through the firefight.
With the robot down Eric’s team made good their escape, with Eric wondering why they had been robot magnets.
Once the Troubadour had left orbit, Dan took Jen and Offler into the sick bay to treat their wounds. Jen was remarkably uninjured after all, it must have been just a glancing blow, but Offler was in worse condition. Dan managed to patch her up, but she would not be back to full strength for a while.
Back at the Grand Market, Ash decided not to fence the loot through Germy, he hadn’t forgiven Germy for the bad intel on the robots. After some haggling, he found buyers for the Trade Goods and Alien Artefact they had recovered, netting 250 and 400 credits respectively. Ash would have to think on how to spend the hard-earned credits.
The crew gained 135 experience from the mission, enabling Eric to advance a level.
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