[Three Sixteen] The Second Session (Where we actually kill some bugs)

[Gregor Hutton]

So, following on from [Three Sixteen] The First Session (Character Creation and Flashback), we have the second session.

Malc and Neil created characters without all the footering of last week (though it does expose that my playtest file doesn't list their Training, or have their equipment listed in an easy to find place). Shannon is here again, but Shevaun is on a train I think and only arrives at the end.

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I prepared some colour on the planet and star system by rolling some d10s.

Korchnoi (planet)
Gravity: 1, so very low, small mass planet
Atmosphere: 8, highly toxic
Hydration: 7, large chemical oceans and a lot of precipitation
Vegetation: 10, lush jungles on land and thick forests in the seas
Seismic Activity: 8, highly seismic with undersea vents and active volcanic islands
Turbulence: 2, slowly spinning planet with low sea currents and winds
Hostility: 2, low threat and initially left untouched by previous units

Zereb 7 (Star)
Activity: 4, quite stable and not dangerous
Luminosity: 5, average brightness
Colour: 5, F class star bathes planets in white/yellow light
System: 8, exotic system full of small lush planets used for refuelling

I planned to make the aliens be spiders -- given the planet I came up with this. They are omnivorous and normally eat plants but grow in size rapidly when they eat meat. The Queen Spider has been birthing SpiderBabies and recently they have matured into full size bugs after consuming some scientists who had landed on the planet to investigate its volcanoes. These larger spiders have since finished off an initial landing party of soldiers.

Players:
Malcolm Craig - Lt Hendley Frinks, Rep: Fragile Disciplinarian, FA: 3, NA: 6, 7 kills.
Shevaun Frazier - Sgt Alvida , Rep: Mean Bitch, FA: 5, NA: 4.
Neil Garbutt - Cpl Ike 'BamBam'Borachev, Rep: Edgy and Twitchy, FA: 5, NA: 4, 52 kills.
Shannon East - Trooper 'Dawg', Rep: Psycho, FA: 8, NA: 1, 54 kills.

Unit
'F' company, named "Frinks' Fireballs" by the Lt, and "Frinks' Fools" (and other unkinder things) by the troops in the squad.

>>Captain Evans' Mission Briefing, 0100 Hours, in orbit around planet Korchnoi.

Evans gives a briefing. Korchnoi was thought to be a peaceful planet, but a transport landed there a few weeks ago and all hands on board were killed. A wave of troopers went down to the planet a few days ago and there has been no report back.

Lt Frinks is given the task of landing on an island, setting up a base camp and securing it. The squads are to sit tight and see if they are attacked. They are then to be relieved of camp duties and sent out into the jungles to find the previous troops.

The Lt gives a rousing speech to the men and inspects their kit. He informs Pte Scruggins, his right-hand lackey, to note that Trooper Dawg is to be penalised 3 days' pay for his poorly cleaned equipment. The troops are soon bitching about Frinks once on board the troop transports, and Frinks can hear it all. He glowers at Scruggins.

The landing craft fires a missile at a heavily forested island and with a satisying BuhWUMP! a landing site is cleared. Out! Out! Out! And squads Delta and Fireball are piling out the back of the craft. Dawg and BamBam lead the way.

The landing zone is silent and around the clearing are thick vines and fronds stretching high into the sky, bathing in the yellow sunlight. Quickly the troops are digging foxholes in the black sand and arranging thick trunks of vegetation to give cover for firing points.

Lt Frinks maps out a defensive arrangement (with him, notably, protected in a bunker in the middle) and the troops take up their positions. Throughout the afternoon nothing happens and the Sarge is making a case for scouting around the forests before sundown. The rest of the troops have taken to idling about and talking about what a dead deal this is. Frinks won't entertain any talk of it and tells the troops to sit in for the night.

4 hours of the first watch pass and nothing has happened. BamBam and Dawg are doped up on combat drugs by this point and itching for a fight. They plan to be on full watch through the whole night. Then all hell breaks loose.

A volcano goes off in the distance and spouts of molten lava shoot hundreds of metres into the rarefied atmosphere. In the bright glow BamBam thinks he sees something (no roll here although I had planned to have the spiders attacking at this point), and lets loose with his Energy Cannon. In a typical knee-jerk reaction the whole emplacement lights up! Dawg and the Sarge are letting loose into the forest and soon swathes of vegetation are cleared. All the kill counters on the guns are flashing Zero.

Frinks cries "Cease Fire" and they all stop firing, just as BamBam's Energy Cannon hits 6. The first 1/10th of the enemy, my planned advance guard, are wiped out...

Frinks starts to discipline BamBam and then BamBam points out the smoking dead carcasses of the SpiderBabies. Each one has a body as big as a man's torso and they lie smouldering, large gaping holes blasted through them. They had been drifting on the warm currents from the volcano, using some sort of silk sails.

Frinks tells everyone to get down into their foxholes and using NFA calls in an airstrike. If he wins he'll kill d100 creatures, and if he loses the camp is getting hit pretty hard and everyone gets a "kill". He rolls a 4 and succeeds. The low-orbit craft streak through the sky overhead. Pock! Pock! Pock! Small cluster mines arc through the sky, deploying their parachutes and drifting to ground all around the camp. The d100 roll is 68 and the remaining 54 SpiderBabies are immolated in the firestorm. All the surrounding fronds burn from the ground up leaving the camp surrounded by about a metre of ash in all directions. Frinks gets 54 kills on his sheet and is jubilant!

The Sarge, BamBam and Dawg think it's a BS way to kill a bunch of SpiderBabies, while Frinks triumphantly tells command of his success.

[Gregor Hutton]

In the morning new squads arrive to secure the camp and Frinks gets his troops transported to the volcano island, as this is  where he surmises the SpiderBabies came from carried on the thermal currents. He then gets them to march in line with the complainers at the front and Trooper Dawg out to the left hacking his way through the undergrowth with a motion sensor and machete.

A test of NA between the trap-laying Spiders and Dawg (to the left), Sarge (at the front) and Trooper Zed (at the rear of the column) results in all three being smothered in silk and thrown into the air. All three drift on the light currents away from the volcano. BamBam lights up the forest in front of him but fails to hit anything as the creatures are downwind of the column.

Frinks uses NA to jump up using his Mobile Infantry sealed suit and succeeds (he's rolling well). He grabs the Sarge and brings her back down to Earth. Zed and Dawg fail to get free and Sarge puts a bullet into Dawg's back in an attempt the shoot him down (he failed on NA), the Armour makes the save though.

Dawg and Zed land amid a chattering group of eight 10-foot spiders, while Frinks rallies the troops and sets about rescuing his men.

Well, it's now clearly Fighting and Zed is ripped limb from limb and repeatedly punctured by the spiders' probosci. Dawg gets to go first and succeeds. He uses his success to roll free and pull out his Energy Rifle. He rolls and succeeds again. 2D10 kills is the outcome and he easily guns down all the Spiders, adding 8 kills to his total, before joining back up with the others.

The rest of the spiders on the island head back to their caves and the troops track them down.

In the caves the troops put the Corporal out front and he leads them down a warren of tunnels and vents on this apparently dormant side of the volcano. He leads them into an antechamber where he can sense spiders ahead. BamBam readies a grenade, while Dawg looks on. Just then the Spiders strike.

Dawg goes first and grenades d10 of them. Then goes again, killing another d10. Then Dawg rolls a 10 and grenades his own men in the confined space killing 9 including Scruggins and some of the PCs. Dawg's armour saves, but BamBam's doesn't (it soon becomes a feature of the character) and the spiders attack. They get Dawg and he gets a puncture wound in the chest. He's now a mess and having chunks of tissue sucked out him. They get BamBam and he fails the armour save again, and is now crippled.

They get Frinks but he pulls a Weakness (our first of the game).

Malc frames a scene of Frinks on an alien planet surrounded by bugs, he has a terrifying fear of them and on the previous occasion had to be carried from the field. Back to the present and he goes limp, filling his space suit as his bowels and bladder empty. The creature gets some of this and leaves him for dead. So Frinks survives, near drowning in his own faeces but otherwise uninjured. He chooses not to end the conflict with his Weakness.

The Spider now fails on Dawg and Dawg gets to go, he succeeds and guns down some Spiders. A low first roll leaves Shannon hoping she won't roll a 9, 10 next time. BamBam gets stiffed again and spends a Weakness.

Neil frames a scene of BamBam's wanton drug abuse since he joined the Force. He is juiced and twitchy almost all the time. His blood chemistry readings are dangerous. Back to the present the creature sucking his blood is almost poisoned by the  drugs in BamBam's system. It spits the matter out and leaves him for a more palatable meal.

Dawg wins again and despatches the last of the Spiders.

After cycling the waste button on the Lt, and patching up the now crippled BamBam they head deeper into the caves. The Lt wants to get them from orbit but Captain Evans says they need one of the spiders alive.

The next large chamber is full of 40 spiders and BamBam just flat out spends a Strength.

Neil frames a scene where BamBam just goes crazy and kills a load of stuff on his first exercise and how he was fighting on pure adrenaline. When the chips are down he's like a man possessed. Back to the present and he runs into the chamber with his Energy Cannon and guns down every one of the Spiders. 40 kills and the rest have to wait until he comes out of the "zone" to approach him.

The last chamber has the Queen Spider herself and at this point Frinks uses a Strength.

On a live fire exercise on of his men was clipped and he was under orders not to leave a man behind. Frinks ran across the range, bullets, flechettes and energy beams ripping all around him. He successfully put the man over his shoulder and made it back alive. The poor trooper had his head blown off by a tray bullet though. Still, Frinks can put himself at great risk and achieve great things when he is ordered to do so. In the present he runs into the chamber, chops the legs off a SpiderBaby and then runs away having commed in the location of the queen. A basalt-piercing killer bomb soon follows directly on to the head of the queen in the style of a bunker busting bomb. Frinks gets one more kill.

The end is back at the camp with Frinks handing the mutilated but alive SpiderBaby over to Captain Evans, who promoptly shoots the last creature on the planet (and gets 1 kill and the associated campaign Kill Badge). They leave the planet the volcano erupting wildly below them.

Frinks demotes the Sarge to Corporal, promotes the Corporal to Sergeant and is himself put up to Captain. He makes no recommendation on Dawg but Scruggins died on Korchnoi so he gets to keep his 3 days' pay.

Frinks killed the most (by 2, using NA mostly!) from Dawg, and goes up a Level. Dawg rolls highest on the dice off and goes up too. Arbitrarily I put up Frinks again.

Coming next, mechanically what worked and what just didn't and thoughts.