The Dinom Channel: All Dinom, All the Time

I think I’ve run this scenario four times, including a playtest. Each session plays differently. At Travellercon in 2008, the mercenaries barely escaped while the getting was good. At GZG-Con the mercs fairly waltzed off the board with their objective, after giving the miners a good stomping.

At Cold Wars, the miners decided to put the boot in.

There’s not much point in going through turn-sequence again: the scenario is set up to follow a certain course for the first two turns. Miners shoot Alpha Squad, Alpha shoots back, APC’s enter and then the fun begins.

At Cold Wars, the mercs entered via the vehicle locks in the south and EAST – hey? That’s different. As a result, fighting actually spilled into Standpipe Park and the nearby Facilities Complex (combined Police/Fire/Emergency Services), which had not happened previously.

With fighting raging across the dome’s full southern hemisphere, the mercs were less able to mutually support their squads, while the miners had more effective units (the technicals and mining-bee) deploying against them . The mining-bee actually engaged an APC with its mining laser. It didn’t matter, the APC destroyed the ‘bee, but it took 2 turns and scared the knickers off the APC crew.

The miners also developed a new tactic – disable the vehicle airlocks. This was enacted by happenstance, as a desperate technical executed a bootlegger turn into the vehicle lock on east Avenue X to block it. An APC fired its support laser, destroying the technical, and the lock was now quite impassible (bet you wish you heard what the vehicle commander said to the gunner when they learned that the west lock was no longer an exit option). Rather like speaking in tongues, it was.

The miners also developed another use for technicals – hunting command air/rafts. Really, the only vehicle they could go toe-to-toe with was the air/raft so a single technical was tasked with bringing the mercenary command air/raft down. Both vehicles were armed with light machine guns, and after an interesting duel the technical had the better of the air/raft.

Suppressed and cut off, the air/raft landed and the miners were treated to the sight of SMS mercenary officers surrendering. “Do NOT shoot them” said the shop steward, “just kick their ass”. Ah, unions.

Capturing the mercenary commander essentially offset the loss of the data crystal for the miners, resulting in a draw, which really is a victory for the miners.

As a postscript: mention must be made of Kinsey’s Rowdies, the denizens of Kinsey’s Drunken Clambo pub at the corner of Ave.’s X and Y (We're Open All Nite). After two or so turns of building Dutch courage, the rowdies attacked the nearest merc squad, which had deployed in the street outside the pub. The ginned-up buggers fought bravely, but were soundly thrashed by the mercs. Limping back to the pub, their leader had a random though - maybe they should have tried shooting the mercs first?

Nahhhh.
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