The Hand of Redemption -v- GothikaIn accordance with the CAWDAQUE BOCATE masterplan, I attacked Joffrey's Guilder Contact. Joffrey was still pumped up after his thrashing of Gannicus. We rolled for the scenario:
UH: Rolling for the scenario . . . 4. Okay, that's a gang fight.
J: Actually, Shamora has a Ratskin Map.
Shamora, the Escher leader picked up a Ratskin Map, at the trading post, which carries random benefits, one of which is to influence the scenario roll. So Joffrey got to pick the scenario, which is exactly what I didn't need.
Once again, I started lining up my Hired Gun models in a bid to bluff Joffrey out of picking a
Shoot Out. Joffrey wasn't fooled for a second though, and the smug little prick went with the
Shoot Out.
J: I think that we'll have a Shoot Out.
UH: Are you sure about that? Shoot Outs are a bit 'meh' . . .
J: We're having a Shoot Out.
I accepted his choice with good grace.
UH: beslubber you.
Even though my gang had improved since the last time I got plastered in a
Shoot Out by Octavian,
Shoot Outs are still a major weakness for me. Only one of my guys (Abijah) had
Quickdraw, and there was no guarantee that he would even be one of the ones who randomly turned up (because
Shoot Outs are a amphetamine parrotilly designed scenario, as I think I might have previously mentioned). My Gang was certainly still not a match for Joffrey's gang (which has several
Quickdrawers), plus some Scummers, which he would certainly hire.
Anyway, we rolled to see who tuned up. Joffrey got 2 gang members, and he hired 3 Scummers:
Shamora: The Escher leader, with Initiative 5 and a plasma pistol and power sword.
Morgana: a CC specialist with initiative 4, a bolt pistol and sword.
Magrav: A scummer with a plasma pistol, autopistol and
Quickdraw.
Gallow: A scummer with twin boltpistols,
Quickdraw and
Gunfighter.
Coates: A scummer with a plasma pistol and laspistol and
Quickdraw and
Gunfighter.
I rolled 3 guys (the minimum number of casualties necessary to lose a territory. Yay!), who turned out to be:
Abraham: My leader with a boltpistol, chainsword and initiative 5.
Zohar: Loot Runner. Initiative 4, and a handflamer (which is lucky considering his BS is 2).
Amon: Gang Buttmonkey.
In all seriousness though, Amon wasn't actually a bad choice for a Shootout. He had Fast Shot and Gunfighter, so he could shoot three times. He also had I5, and was packing twin autopistols, so he had a decent chance of shooting early.
I also had one other thing working in my favour - 9 wounds. All three of my guys had 3 wounds each, so they couldn't actually all be taken down in the first volley of fire. Not that it mattered much - I was well aware that all three of those scummers had Quickdraw, so more than likely, my guys would all be pinned before I got a chance to shoot anyway. If that happened, they would be hard pressed to survive a second volley of bolt pistol and plasma pistol fire. And if Joffrey got the chance to enter Close Combat, even Abraham (if he was still standing) would have a hard time beating off Shamora, if she got the charge.
We set up as follows:
Magrav (plasma pistol, auto pistol):
O Gallow (boltpistol x2):
O O Zohar: (flame pistol, stubber)
Shamora (plasma pistol, p-sword):
O O Abraham: (bolt pistol, chainsword)
Coates (plasma pistol, las pistol):
O O Amon: (autopistols x2)
Morgana (boltpistol, sword):
OI was hoping that Zohar would stay on his feet long enough to lay a flame template down on Gallow and Shamora, wounding both, which would allow Abraham to wound Shamora with his boltpistol and take her out of action. That would hopefully force the rest of the Escher
Quickdrawers to focus on Abraham and Zohar, and leave Amon free to pump out 3 shots. With luck, I might take out, or at least pin 3 of the Escher, leaving things even for the following turn.
The build up to the Quickdraw went as follows:
1st turn:
Escher: 3 Cawdor: 52nd turn:
Escher: 8 Cawdor: 93rd turn:
Escher: 11 Cawdor: 114th turn:
Escher: 12 Cawdor: 135th turn: My guys lost their nerve and went for their guns.
The Order of the Quickdraw went as follows:
Gallow: 13
Magrav: 12
Shamora: 10
Abraham: 10
Morgana: 9
Coates: 8 (Calls himself a quickdraw artist. Pfft.)
Zohar: 8
Amon: 6 (the one time I think I can count on him to do something right - get a good score on the quickdraw,
and he beslubbers it up!)
Gallow unloaded both boltpistols into Zohar, hitting and wounding with both shots.
Zohar was still up though, so Magrav shot him with his plasma pistol, taking him out of action. That sucked, since his hand flamer could have come in real handy.
Shamora and Abraham tied and shot at each other simultaneously. With BS6 and being at shot range, Abraham was never going to miss, and he didn't, putting a wound on Shamora. Shamora got off a shot with her plasma pistol simultaneously though, and wounded Abraham right back.
Morgana took her shot with her boltpistol at Amon (who was her closest target), and missed.
That left Coates, with 2 shots (plasma and las), and a difficult choice. He could either fire both shots at Amon, and reduce him to a single wound, and pin him, or fire once at Amon and once at Abraham, maybe doing a wound to Abraham. Joffrey elected to divide his fire between the two.
Coates fired his plasma pistol at Abraham and stung him with a second dose of plasma to the chest, dropping him to only a single wound. So Abraham was still on his feet, and possibly in a position to charge next turn, in which case his target would be Shamora, who only had one wound left, and he had a decent chance of beating if he got the charge. If he won against Shamora, then a follow up move into Magrav, might save him from a round of shooting, and Joffrey would be taking a bottle roll at leadership 7 (because Shamora would be out).
It might just have worked. But it all relied on 1 - getting the first turn (50/50 odds), 2 - recovering from being pinned (5/6), 3 - beating Shamora in CC (50/50 at best), and 4 - Joffrey failing to roll 7 or lower on a bottle roll (42/100). None of those were guaranteed, and if one of them screwed up, then it all fell apart.
Coates took his second shot at Amon with his laspistol. And
missed. If he had hit, Amon would not have been pinned and unable to shoot. And that cost Joffrey the game.
Amon was free to shoot, and with 2 autopistols at point blank range, even with BS3, he wasn't going to miss. But it got better.
UH: Alrighty then! 3 shots! I think they'll go to Morgana, Coates and Shamora!
J: Three? (he evidently thought Amon only had
Gunfighter. Always check your opponent's list.)
UH: Yep - he's got Fast shot and 2 attacks, so with Gunfighter, he gets an extra shot. They stack.
Gannicus: You actually get
4 shots with Fast Shot and Gunfighter.
UH: I don't think so.
G: You do. They stack. Why do you think I've been telling you to give him boltpistols?
J: Fast Shot only gives you an extra shot on your main hand. Fast Shot doesn't stack on both weapons.
UH: Yeah, that can't be right. If Amon got another attack he would get 6 shots per turn.
G: That's exactly how it works. I know I'm right. It's in the FAQ.
J: Get the FAQ.
So we looked up the FAQ , which had actually also been published in White Dwarf back in the mid nineties.
G: See - By Jervis Johnson. it says ". . . positively John Woo-esque."
J: Holy amphetamine parrot . . .
UH: Hahahahahahahahahah
ahahahahaha!
So Amon got to shoot 4 times. And man, did he ever pick the moment to step up.
UH: Okay rolling to hit! . . . (4 hits) Hahahahahah!
UH: Rolling for wounds . . .Wound! . . . Wound ! . . . Wound! . . . Wound! Hahahahaha!
UH: Rolling for Injuries! . . . Down! . . . Down! . . . Out of Action! . . . Down! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Morgana, Gallow and Coates were all down wounded, Shamora was out of action. That left only Magrav on his feet.
I got the first turn. Abraham (no doubt pissed off at having another tabard ruined by a couple of plasma bolts) charged Magrav and chopped him to bits with his chainsword. Amon stepped up to Morgana and put a bullet through her chest taking her out of action. All of Joffrey's ganger members were either down or out of action. Game over.
3 casualties to 1. I took the Guilder Contact. Having been on the rough end of many a
Shoot Out, I expressed my sympathy to Joffrey:
UH: Yeah, I probably got a bit lucky there . . . those Shoot Outs can be like that . . . they can really go either way . . . I can't really claim much credit for the win . . . even though it
was a pretty big one . . .
J: beslubber off.
UH: Heh heh.
Gothika -v- The Black CoatsGannicus has the lower gang rating and he got to pick the scenario, Joffrey's Ratskin Map not being good enough to influence the result that time. Gannicus picked
Scavengers, which was a good choice for him.
Normally, I would be cautious picking
Scavengers against Escher, since their Agility and Stealth skills come in so handy for it, but it's a bit different for Gannicus. His gang has 2
Infiltrators and some Vents, so he can set up 5 guys on Loot counters. He also hired Jonah's infiltrating Ratskin, giving him 6 forward movers. Joffrey by comparison, has only one
Infiltrator, and had already spent his extra cash on hiring Scum in the earlier games.
There were 3 pieces of Loot, and Joffrey was at least smart enough to set up one piece within easy grabbing range of his deployment zone, with a view to denying Gannicus a victory by nabbing all the Loot.
That was a wise move, and it worked. But only to a point.
On turn 4 (or maybe 5 - I can't quite remember), Joffrey and Gannicus had been involved in a short to medium ranged firefight involving about 10 models on both sides. The fight was in the balance, but eventually, an Escher fighter went down to Overwatch fire , and triggered the rout of 2 comrades (Gannicus had made the highly astute tactical decision to target the fighter just
before she left cover, which made the shot more difficult, but put both of her comrades in range for the morale check when she went down.
That rout collapsed Joffrey's right flank, and left 3 downed Escher models completely vulnerable to being dispatched automatically in close combat by sprinting/leaping Delaques in the following turn. Which is what happened. The two who ran were also left in range of the Delaque Flamer Heavy (Flaming Moe), who can run and shoot (I would
love for Isaac, Boaz or Jemuel to get that skill), and one of them got taken down the following turn as well.
At that point, both sides had 5 guys down, but 3 of Joffrey's were out of action. On the next turn, another Escher Juve and Ganger were taken down by overwatch fire, and Joffrey only succeeded in pinning 2 Delaques. Flaming Moe managed to avoid close combat by less than a centimetre due to a bad
Leap roll from an Escher CC specialist. On the next turn, Joffrey failed his bottle roll. He hadn't even taken the piece of loot he had grabbed into his deployment zone.
Gannicus took the Holestead.
The Map at the end of Turn 9:
Cawdor: The Hand of Redemption
Escher: Gothika
Delaque: Black Coats
Van Saar: The Second Stringers
Orlock: The Mortlock Cartel
Goliath: House Bloodaxe