"Drive Through"
Happy Burger Mission Arc - Mission 1
A Firefight 2.0 scenario for two players by Gavin Syme.
Continuing from where the scenarios in the main Firefight 2.0 rulebook left off the Muster Captain, Emeritas Hughes, must survive until help arrives.
~
Far overhead lasers with a power range into the gigawatts lanced over the upper atmosphere as Canlastrian Coupe class starships attempted to explode Yordist troop carriers dropping down onto the scarred cityscape of Coggshall. This was a task vital in stopping the re-enforcing of the League of Yordan forces already in the vast city.
Emeritas Hughes wished them luck and smiled as a dazzling green laser lit up a troop carrier and popped it like a bubble into an instant oblivion. Hughes could hear no screams or explosions and it would take nearly an hour for the shattered fragments to reach the ground but the victory was full felt none the less. Another hundred enemies gone without him needing to fire a shot.
Hughes hoped his luck would hold as the last week had been tough for him and his fellow Canlaster troopers. They were a very small cog in a massive machine organised by the hand of the Baroness Margrette of Canlaster herself. His squad was one among several thousand in this huge city and from the sound of recent commcasts into his helm it was not all going the way the Baroness would have liked.
The Baroness wished to conquer the whole of New Bosworth but the Yordists were proving stubborn in their defence of the whole planet, not to mention Zone 17, the linchpin to taking the whole kit and caboodle away from the League of Yordan. Hughes knew for himself how hard the enemy was resisting.
Hughes had lost several mustermen already in the advance on foot into Zone 17. It was true that he had gotten some additional muscle from the rearward camp on the edge of the zone but this did little to settle his nerves.
Now, only hours after he had fought his way out of a lethal engagement among the Lillywhite commercial district’s parking bays, he had been ordered to secure another platoon’s advance into the Zone.
Duke Ramsey was a powerful lord of men with nearly six thousand in a personal muster of his own. Now he wanted to get in on the glory and with the permission of the Baroness high in orbit he was entering Zone 17. Hughes had been ordered to block the end of a roadway.
This roadway was pot marked and burned by plasma drops and a lot of armour piercing bullet impacts peppered the re-enforced rubbacrete. It had obviously been a place where a lot of action had already taken place. But there was a familiar site, a branch of the once omnipresent Happy Burger chain. That would make a good place to block the road.
Emeritas Hughes ordered his men to spread out and take up positions across the frontage of the fast food restaurant. They were now well used to this so it took only moments for them to seek the cover of some road blocker blocks and a couple of wrecked skimmers.
Using the small gravity repulsar unit that the squad’s resident communications man Private McGill carried they shifted some of the blocks and also one of the skimmers to make a more effective barricade. This took some time but as it turned out was well worth the effort. As McGill dropped the final block a spatter of automatic gunfire forced him to the ground.
McGill was unharmed, more luck than fortune on his part, as the heavy Angis rounds were more than capable of killing a musterman with a lot more ease than the Moth Type 6 rifle that he carried. Hughes swore and ordered that fire should be returned at once. Angis rounds meant only one thing. Retained!
The Emeritas peered around the block he was using as cover and indeed Retained Knights were advancing down the roadway, their green and yellow Alwite powered armour marking them out as in the pay of the Yordan League. True they had little cover to make use of but they outnumbered the mustermen and that meant nearly certain death as Hughes had no heavy weapons to call upon. On the other hand the enemy seemed to have at least two support weapons including a Moth Type 12 launcher.
This was going to take some careful work. Hughes knew that the Duke had the ear of the artillery. An artillery strike would smear these Retained dogs and save his neck in the process.
Hughes ordered private McGill to call up ordinance to have an artillery strike dropped on the roadway to their front. He told McGill to ‘assume’ the identity of the Duke’s muster. That might swing it. Seconds passed.
The private commlinked back that the strike from super basilisks in the rear of the Zone would take three minutes to arrive and scour the roadway clear of the Yordan scum. Fantastic, the ruse had worked!
Hughes just hoped that he would be able to see out the three minutes. The glass frontage of the Happy Burger blew out in a hail of jagged splinters as a Phelot 50mm Ex14 AP round powdered the rubbacrete wall next to it.
Setup
Assemble your Battlegrounds as shown here. Place your cover scenic tiles approximately as shown by the white squares and your Player 1 (P1) and Player 2 (P2) characters on squares as shown by the ‘starting placement’ designed icons for each player.
The Mission and Its Aims
This mission requires you have to a copy of IAG001 Firefight 2.0 Killing Streets for the rules of Firefight. You will also need some Ion Age miniatures both Muster and Retained which you can find on the Alternative Armies website. The miniatures supplied with the Killing Streets game pack are suited exactly to this mission.
In many ways this mission carries on from the end of Mission Four in the Killing Streets booklet as well as being the first in the Happy Burger mission arc. If you are new to the Firefight game then we recommend you try out missions one to four in that booklet before tackling this mission.
This is a mission for two players with player one taking the role of the mustermen squad commanded by Emeritas Hughes and player two taking the role of the attacking Yordan Retained knights.
The objective of this mission for player one is to survive for the number of turns as set out in the special rules part of this scenario.
The objective for this mission in the case of player two is to storm the barricades and kill all of player one’s characters before the end of the allowed number of turns.
This is a time sensitive mission with some special rules. You must read and adhere to these special rules during play.
Begin play with the first Turn as normal.
Player One - Baroness Margrette of Canlaster IV
You have 65 Points to assemble a Squad of Muster troops. You must have four characters, you may not have any Heavy Weapons troops or Heavy Weapons either. All four of your character must be armed with a projectile (P) type weapon and you may not field any Retained troops.
Place them on P1’s starting places.
Optionally use one Muster Squad of four consisting of one Emeritas and three Privates all armed with Moth Type 6 Rifles.
Player Two - Baron Thunderset of Yordan III
You have 210 Points to assemble two Posts of Retained troops, each consisting of three Varlets led by a Knight. You must have eight characters, you may have up to four Heavy Weapons troops and two Heavy Weapons. All eight of your characters must be armed with a projectile (P) or Energy (E) type weapon’s and or powered melee weapons. You may not field any Muster troops.
Place them on P2’s starting places.
Optionally use two Retained Posts of four men each. The first Post consisting of a Retained Knight armed with Octa Powersword, an unarmed Retained Medic and two Retained armed with Angis 12.5mm Rifles. The second post consisting one Retained Knight armed with a Moth Type 12, a Retained Knight armed with Minstrel Taser and two Retained Knights, one an unarmed Loader and the other armed with an Angis 12.5mm Rifle.
Special Rules and Conditions
There are some special rules for this mission. Please read these special rules and apply them in your playing of Firefight for this mission.
Special Rule One - Artillery Strike
The Muster squad commanded by Emeritas Hughes has called in an artillery strike from heavy guns several kilometres away. The call went out just before the action began in earnest in the roadway in front of the Happy Burger.
The Artillery Strike will arrive in six turns’ time, that is it will hit the roadway at the start of the sixth turn of the game. It will kill any and all characters in the main roadway or on the pavement either side. Only characters who are within six squares of the marked Happy Burger edge of the battle boards will survive unharmed.
If any of Player One’s character are out of the safe area they are killed and equally if any of Player Two’s characters are in the safe area they will survive.
However victory goes to Player One at the end of turn six once the artillery strike has landed regardless of how many characters survive the strike IF he has any characters left alive at the start of turn six.
Survival of the artillery strike is only relevant for you if you intend to play this mission as part of the Happy Burger arc. Keep note of survivors if you are.
Special Rule Two - Death of Emeritas Hughes
During play if Emeritas Hughes is killed then keep a note of it if you are playing further missions in the arc as it will affect the characters allowance for the next mission for the player.
Special Rule Three - Yordan Maintenance Problems
One of the troop carrying ships due to land on New Bosworth was destroyed and it just happened to be carrying most of the bonded men assigned to armour maintenance. This means that most of the Yordan Retained have not had their powered armour properly serviced.
Before play commences roll 1D6 for each Yordan Retained in player two’s force. On a result of 1-3 that character has its Armour rating reduced by 1. On a result of 6 the Armour rating is reduced by 2.
This puts the Yordan at a bit of a disadvantage, but they have superior numbers and weapons...the fates have shone on Hughes more than most it seems!
Expanding the Mission
This mission is part of a mission arc and should be played along with the other missions in the arc in the correct order. You can expand this mission and scale it up if you fancy a challenge or you are not playing it as part of the Happy Burger arc.
This can be done by adding another Yordan lance of Retained (4) which makes it VERY unlikely that Hughes will win or even survive until Turn 6! You can also give Hughes the luxury of another squad (4) under his command or a couple of HW troopers armed with perhaps an Anvil 888 launcher to even the odds.
Mission Linkage
There are no mission linkage mechanics in this mission as it is the first in the arc. In the rest of the Happy Burger missions the Mission Linkage will give you the chance to make changes to the total number of characters and or points on each side (even some special rules) depending on how well you did in the previous mission.
Designer's Notes
This mission is the first in an arc that will see Emeritas Hughes, squad commander, progress to gaining his Majoris command over a whole platoon of Muster troopers through his outstanding ability in combat to grab victory from the dung heap of defeat.
Those of you who already have the IAG001 Firefight 2.0 The Killing Streets booklet will know of the exploits of Emeritas Hughes of old. He features in the four beginners missions out of the eight missions provided in that set. The Happy Burger mission arc follows on pretty much straight after the ending of ‘Parking for Pain’ on page 24 of the Killing Streets booklet in the murderous battle for Zone 17. More missions in the arc will follow in these very pages.
In terms of the designers’ notes for this mission, the first in the Happy Burger arc, here are my thoughts on it.
Its always hard to fight with your back against the wall. Well some might say that you fight at your fiercest when you cannot run away. Either way for Hughes it do or die this time. He is out numbered and pinned down. Can he hold on for the required number of turns before the planned artillery strike sweeps his foes away?
In our own play testing of this mission at Alternative Armies we managed most of the time to hold on long enough. This was down to several factors. Firstly the more experienced player took the role of Hughes and this made a difference as it made tactical play easier. Secondly using the cover on the battle boards was much to the advantage of Hughes and his men, it was easy to select and pick off some of the Yordan as they advanced. Lastly some luck in the rolling of dice for the armour malfunction among the Yordan, this makes the fight easier for Hughes.
Next Time in Bosworth Zone 17
The next mission in the Happy Burger arc sees the plucky Emeritas breaking out after the artillery strike gave him room to breath. Making a run for the edge of the commercial district he gets a message from command that forces him to seek another branch of the famed Happy Burger chain to look for a hidden cache. But on the way there...ambush in the Killing Streets!
See you there for ‘Tray Served Snack’ the second mission in the Happy Burger arc!
~
Webmaster's Notes
This article was originally published on Barking Irons Online and is reproduced here with permission.
~