Just Another Bug Hunt...Full Metal Anorak

Two weeks ago, Megz and I had another visit with the Wargames Association of Metro Philadelphia (The WAMPS) and decided to test my basic concept for a bug hunt scenario, featuring Traveller's favourite Alien derivative, the Chamax Horde. Miniatures used are Denizen Ventaurans, and WoTC D&D Mad Slashers. Acid Splash and Suppression Markers were from Litko.

Miller's Crossing Farm

These wicked wee beasties have featured on my blog in the past; this time, Zhodani troops, supported by their famous Teleport Commandos, would attempt to quell the Chamax threat.

The situation at hand: A Zhodani agricultural colony has had an outbreak of Chamax, and a platoon of Zhodani regular lift infantry is sweeping a protected farm for bug contacts.

We were using the beta test of Full Metal Anorak, basically an abandoned rules set, derived from GZG's StarGrunt II. Supplementing this were element of Nordic Weasel's Bug Hunt, part of the Five Parsecs from Home rules group.

First Contact - A Questing Bug

Players take the part of the hunters, whilst the bugs are run automatically. In Bug Hunt, there are contact markers (we're using chits) and objective markers (again, chits) which I assigned random rolls once encountered. There was also a random value assigned (my own inclusion) which meant that players could compete with each other, while also working together.

I was also using the Bug tables from 5150, hence, there are a lot more bugs than you tend to have in Bug Hunt. OTOH, there are also more soldiers.

Second Contact - these chamax are more alert

Bug Hunt assigns a random set of d6 for rolling  movement and aggression. To simulate the chamax state of "questing" - where the bug is not actively attacking potential food sources, I altered the aggression level down to a d4, making it less likely the chamax would attack unless a figure got within 8" (movement range).

Once a bug was killed, however, it emitted a radio/psychic shriek, which caused all other chamax on board to increase their aggression dice by one die type. This would eventually max out at a d12.

Forming a firing line?

The Zhodani Infantry were standard line, so they were armed with 4mm Gauss Rifles. These had an impact of 2d6, vs the Chamax armour/toughness of d8. A trooper had to at least double his impact roll vs the chamax defense roll to kill it, or else there was no result (alien biology, and all that...)

As an added bonus, when a chamax is killed, it's because the acid sack behind its gullet was ruptured, causing a spray of fluoric acid and molecular debonder to shower out in a 1.5 inch radius.

The Hive is aroused...

 The first two turns were spent with the Zhos advancing cautiously toward the contact markers.  half proved to be non-contacts (random wildlife fleeing the area, puddles of digested colonists, etc.), but still worth VPs.  The first chamax contacted was blown away fairly easily - as Megz noted, a little too easily.

"We've got movement all over the place!"

As each chamax died, another 2d6 swarm would activate, with dead figures recycled back into my "bug pool". Then they enter via a random map edge. By the third/fourth turn, there were bug swarms on all sides of the Zhos, except to their left flank.

So they began to draw together.

And they called for help.

*TADAAH* The Teleport Commandos Arrive.

One of the nice things about playing the Zhos is their high degree of telepathic officers and NCOs - all of them, to be exact. This means that actions can be passed from higher ups to riflemen with greater flexibility than in Stargrunt II or FMA,  Another perk is you can ask for help from the Consular Guard Commandos, who can teleport in like...magic.

A fireteam of three commandos and senior NCO was held in reserve for just such an occasion.

Effects of directly applied Plasma Gun fire.

Armed with PGMPs (Plasma Gun, Man Portable) and the comforting thought that they could, if necessary, just manage a quick teleport back to base if things got too dicey, the Commandos arrived. The Effing New Guy in the team got teleport sickness (out for a turn - suppressed) but the rest opened up on the bugs with their plasma guns - with devastating effect.

"HERE THEY COME!"

Chamax melted and burst, sending showers of acid on those bugs next to them, causing them to melt and burst as well. A cheer went up from the encircled Zhos.

And more swarms activated.

And other hives in the area were beginning to activate, as well.

"Time to go!"

There were three waves of chamax swarms coming toward them from the building area, and the Zhodani decided it was time to breakout back to their rally point, call in an airstrike, and then return for the mop-up sweep.

First though, they had to deal with the bugs that were reaching them.

Chamax have no morale to break, so they keep coming until they're all dead or you're all bite-sized niblets. The two or three survivors of the plasma-storm reached the commandos and attacked.

In melee, chamax get two slashing attacks - if both are successful, there is an automatic acid-laden bite on the following turn. Also, armour is degraded by one level for each bite, this can continue even after the bug is dead. And speaking of dead - don't forget the acid spray.

Winning the melee is also losing the melee...

Three chamax sprang at the commandos - the senior NCO/TD* was able to use his gauss pistol in melee and got off a lucky shot, killing the chamax and spraying everyone in the immediate area with acid. The two commandos took a couple of slashes, but not enough to warrant the dreaded bite attack.  By the second round of combat, the NCO had killed another chamax and acid spray did the rest to its companion.


With armour smoking and more Chamax on the way, the Leading Officer saw the opening and gave the telepathic code: "Guardsmen, we are leaving..."

The final result was Megz had gathered more VP than myself, but the calling in of the Commandos had elevated the priority of the sweep, meaning we'd be going back in after a quick refit to take out the Maternal/Queen. So no clear victory as far as a campaign would be concerned.

Post Game Thoughts:
Usually, I find games with the Chamax Plague to be lots of fun, and this was no exception. There is plenty for the players to do, while the mounting numbers of opposition keeps the pressure on to take objectives, gather clues and keep from becoming tomorrow's leftovers.

My main thought is the chamax might be too vulnerable to their own acid. With a d8 Strength vs. a d8 defence, it seemed that they were dying more from their own acid than from Zhodani fire. I'll need to play again and keep closer track of the casualties.

Bug Hunt has more tweaks and options I'd like to incorporate, like Location Effects. Kinda like Objectives/Clues except they effect the environment, possible slowing bugs down or delaying swarm activations.

Plans are to run this at Cold Wars and at GZG:ECC in March. I'm going to add some grain silos and water towers, as well as an out building or two.  That will reduce the lines of fire a bit and make the game more...interesting...Ω

*TD: Teleport Director. That's a real MOS in the Zhodani Armed Forces

Return to the Cargo Deck...of DOOOOOOM!

This year's past TravellerCon provided a great opportunity to break out the Cargo Deck of Doom, a generic setting for 28mm Traveller (or indeed, any Sci-Fi) miniatures, and I was able to run two games with rather different results.


The cargo deck itself is composed of cross-stitch mesh, painted gray, on foamboard. with various bits of cargo, and platforms (by Dwarven Forge) providing cover and points of interest. The card-stock raised walkway is from an Italian company (Century XXXI Barricades) and is OOP. I'm sure a resourceful gamer could contrive the equivalent with something in MDF board.

This is essentially a bug hunt scenario, except, as in Soviet Russia, the Bugs Hunt YOU.

To keep it interesting, the boarding party (in this case, the lousy, stinkin', dirty Zhos) are instructed to search the cargo area for a hidden diplomatic pouch (or Cosmo DNA, or Ruby Slippers, etc.) The referee can mark the cargo to indicate the desired goal, roll randomly, or, as I did, use a small bingo/poker chip.

"3 metres is IN THE ROOM!"

The scenario is on with which most old Travellers can empathise - a bug hunt featuring the Chamax horde. The last time I played with the Chamax, I used the 1st ed 5150 rules set. This time, I used Full Metal Anorak, a beta-version of the scaled-down StarGrunt II rules from Ground Zero Games. StarGrunt II is free for downloading - buy some miniatures from Jon at GZG if you like them.

I recommend interested readers use their solid skirmish rules of choice. FMA was never released commercially, as a result, IMO, of "too many cooks". I suspect, someday, there will be a free PDF available. Hope springs eternal...

Even in it's old beta-form, FMA was more satisfying that 5150. Both groups said they really enjoyed the game. That gave me a happy.

Post-Game Thoughts

I ran an encore game the second night (Saturday). The first group had been fortunate in their rolls, the second group somewhat less so. Being psionic, the Zho command was ably to pass actions outside of the normal FMA command radius. It was also amusing to watch the Zho commander telekinetically lift a cargo barrel and slam it down on a chamax - the resultant acid burst killed two adjacent bugs as well. Nice.

"Err...Mr. Rico?..."

For future games, I'm going to make the chamax slightly easier to kill - death on serious wounds or better. It would also be fun to add some Imperial opponents, marines and navy crew, to give the Zhos something else to worry about...Ω.

Just Another Bug Hunt…

"5150" from 2 Hour Wargames

This past Sunday, Megz and I had a quiet, post-Easter-dinner game using the 5150 rules. While I’ve read the rules through several times over, this was the first time I was actually using them - to resolve an encounter between a squad of Star Marines and a bug infestation, aboard a derelict freighter.

Using the Traveller Universe as background, the freighter I.S.S. Trope-McGuffin arrives in-system several weeks overdue. She was to deliver an important case of hamdingers to the Viceroy of the planet Torgo X. When she proves unresponsive to radio hails, a squad of marines is dispatched via cutter to investigate and if possible, recover the all-important hamdingers.

.

Oh, and find out what’s become of the crew. Carry on.

Using a combination of Denizen Federation Space Troops and WOTC D & D aberrations, I set up the Cargo Bay of Doom. One of six red cannisters was marked “hamdingers” and then placed randomly so that even I wasn’t sure where it was. Then, with a clang and a hiss, the airlock door opened and the marines entered.

Each marine was assigned a 5150 reputation of 4, which represents your average military, a jobbing squaddie just trying to get through a sidereal day in an uncaring universe. Reps range from 1 to 7, with 7 being roughly demi-godlike (Alice from Resident Evil 3 springs to mind - as she often does *numnumnums* - as does River from the film Serenity) while a 1 represents a particularly inept, sickly, or aged role-playing gamer type). The lieutenant leading the squad and his sergeant were rated as Rep “5”. The infesting bugs were rated as “4” as they too, were just trying to get through the day.

Turn 1 was spent with the marines advancing cautiously into the cargo bay, led by fire team 3 (aka “The Young Expendables”), while yours truly added to the atmosphere by making alien skittering noises under the table with his hand. Megz doesn’t much like bugs, so I would think my attempts at humour had a soothing effect on her nervous disposition.

Turn 2 was going smoothly – fire team 3 opened their red canister, but no joy. Fire team two entered the next floor tile and thus triggered an encounter. 5150 has a table (5150 has lots of tables, but let’s come back to this, shall we?) that has you generate numbers of xenomorphs randomly. Megz rolled a maximum encounter (and that was the last decent roll she made all night) and suddenly the marines found themselves being charged by large, spiderlike aliens from opposite directions – they were caught in the middle.

5150 has squaddies make a reaction roll as the aliens sped towards them:

“Holy f---, they’re chamax!” someone yelled into their comm unit.

The Chamax Plague, a nasty species of arthropod the size of a great dane, with a mouth like a buzz saw – an hungry buzz-saw.

Reaction dice were rolled.

And everyone froze.

Except the bugz.

Oh bugger.

Xenomorphs in 5150 move at a constant 12”, whereas a human moves at 6” to 8”. You can see the potential for troublesome interactions.

The squaddies of team 3 just stood there as three chamax rushed them from the shadows.

Turn 3 – fire team 3 ran for the stairs to the upper walkway, while team 1 took the charge from three chamax that had rushed out from under the platform. One chamax was knocked back while another took an “Obviously Dead” result. Time to check for where the blood sprays.

“Don’t tell me they have acid blood…” said Megz.

“All right, they don’t, except this one, which does.” Quipped I. Megz was not amused.

The acid blood splashed on the floor harming only the finish (I just can’t have nice things…)

Turn 4. Team 2 was getting frightfully chewed up. The chamax were rated as Rep 4 and “vicious”, which meant that in melee, they are given an extra d6 advantage. A squaddie throws two d6 to successfully roll his rep (or under), while a chamax rolls three dice (including advantage). There isn’t really any “wounded” result in 5150, either a figure is dead, alive, knocked down or out of the fight. (Out of the fight is similar to StarGrunt’s “Incapacitated” – you don’t know how bad it is until a medico looks at it…)

From atop the walkway, a hail of grenades rained down. The way she was rolling for firing, Megz decided a little area-saturation was in order.

Standard grenades in 5150 seem like they’ve been neutered by the game designers, possibly because the rules governing their availability are relaxed – if a squad has them, they have all they need (kinda like the US army – take all you need but use all you take, we’ll make more)… Grenades have an impact of 2, so you must roll a 2 or less for a grenade to be effective once you hit. One more chamax burst, spraying acid blood.

Turn 5 (and wrap) – the grenades had some effect, as did the Eltee and Leading Sergeant entering the mix. The last two chamax died messily. Five squaddies were down, and the marines had only explored two tiles.

Megz was not amused.

Then I told Megz her squad had really been whacked by a random encounter, there were more chamax waiting on other floor tiles.

“How many more of those things can there be?” asked Megz.

“Well” I said “the ship’s probably full of them. The rules say that we roll two d6. You could be outnumbered by two-to-one.” (In my mind, I had already replaced the “Bugs” table with the Xenoform table to avoid the possible outnumbered-four-to-one result…)

Megz was several-light-years-from-amused.


Post-Game Thoughts
“To Hit” in 5150 is non-intuitive. All skill checks are based on rolling Rep or under, but not so ranged combat. You must roll a 10 on a d6 to score a free-and-clear hit (you can roll a hit on an 8 or a 9 , but some cover will negate the success). You do this by adding the firing figure’s Rep. Or not, as the dice would often have it. Little square bastards.

Possibly I’m jaded by StarGrunt and the Full Metal Anorak system, but it would seem to me to be more consistent to adjudicate a hit using the same skill system that REP is based on. Pass 2d6: hit in cover, Pass 1d6: hit in open. This would require the use of a saving throw, which to me seems faster than searching for a chart.

Grenades – I’m inclined to dispense with the “Everyone’s Got the Grenade” rule. With the availability of Litko tokens, keeping track of grenades should be a simple task. In doing so, I’m inclined to give a standard grenade an impact of 3. Or possibly not.

There. Are. Too. Many. Tables…
Truly.
Or so it seems to me. Possibly we’ll get the hang of it in the next game, as the author often maintains this will happen when posting on The Miniatures Page. We’ll aye see….

Plans for the next 5150 game will involve two sides of opposing sentients, to provide a more traditional feel to the firefight. Probably Imperial Marines vs. Zhodani, sans warbots (since 5150 doesn’t cover bots, just yet).

Right now, the jury still deliberates on 5150. Does it simply read better than it plays? Ω