Terrain: Torii and Machiya

One of the things that make a cyberpunk board right is mixing in some asian pieces. As always the lovely TT Combat will provide cheap little pieces for something like that. So these are going into most Reality's Edge setups.

Torii Gates
These come two gates to a set. Originally these should be with round poles and you can finde those one the market - just not as cheap at these.

I base coated the gates with red and black spray before assemble. Then used a fine marker to draw up random 'asian' symbols - non of these are real. I just scirbbled randoms signs.

I also used my Posca markers to make some grafitti on the gates, a quick gang tag and a dragon pieces. Then used a few printed posters from the RE Facebook group.

Machiya Shops
A machiya is a traditional Japanese town house made of wood. I looked around on the internet for some inspirational photos and found that must are actually a dark brown wood. So I base coated mine dark brown outside, then made the inside grey.

These pieces come with a few sliding doors (that have to be glued in place). There's enough to make an open entry on the front and use the last to add detail on the back. There's also some banners with a logo on, made sure to use these in different places.

This is some nice little pieces to put next to the larger brick buildings for the mixed urban sprawl.

As with all my cyberpunk terrain I've added grafitti and posters to the buildings.

Reality's Edge - Electronic Redundancy 1

Originally posted on Osprey Games blog. 

Finished my first game of Reality's Edge. It was a good game, happy that I knew the simpler TNT rules beforehand. The only thing really slowing down the game was remembering the different apps out Console Cowboys, shadow backers and a griefer avatar had. A very good choice would have been to make a quick reference card for the griefer avatar.

I'll try here to write up an AAR on our first game and how it went.

The crews
My first crew is an Enforcer show runner with a band og rag tag gangers. There's background info and bit lists on them here.

From left to right is: Console Cowboy 'Circuit', Sprawl Ronin 'Glitch', Enforcer 'Cliff', Gangers Hogger and Ina.

My opponent runs a team lead by a Masque, with a console cowboy, drone commander, sprawl ronin and a few gangers. Also shown with the gang is their apps. A Lemmy Iduro, a guardian angel (robotic monkey) and shadow backer.

Setup

The board is a 3'x3' setup with a lot of terrain made for the setting and some updated pieces of modern terrain. There's pretty much step-by-step blogs on all the pieces on the terrain hub. We didn't really have any specific theme in mind for this setup. So we just slapped on a lot of pieces and place 4 C.A.Ts around the board. We quickly figured out that the large crowds would have trouble moving about.

So we added a rules that the random movement of crowds would move vehicles forward on the roads.

Surveillance drone fly over
A quick little video showing off more details of the board, flying over the terrain.

The game
We played the Electronic Redundancy, a JOBOP for hacking and then controlling most terminals. For the scenario we had the lockdown hitch (all doors and windows locked), White ICE on all terminals and a Griefer Avatar doing trouble on the board.

My crew setup close, within the 9" motivate range of the showrunner Enforcer. My plan was pretty straight forward. Get my hacker to a nice covered terminal. Get the shadow backer to another with the remainder of the crew. Make sure the Street Ronin could chop down some enemies for their Big Media backers - get some more cash.

Unfortunately my showrunner could not seek and kill an enemy for his personal motivation as all the enemies were lower costed than himself.

 Opposite my enemies setup. We were both covered from each other before getting closer to the middle of the board, where a sort of open area was possible to enter. My opponent chose to split his gang in two, keeping both halves in cover.

We both chose to let our shadow backer remain stationary and use all available action points for weakening the White ICE guarding the C.A.T.s - and we were immediately surprised how much of a different that higher Firewall is going to make.

We had some trouble figuring out how the White Ice would be dangerous when they only attack hacking in contact with their C.A.T. - but after turn one we knew. They spend both their AP using buffing apps. We would get traces for attacking when and take damage if failing Slice attacks.

Here's my hacker 'Circuit' moving towards a White Ice - staying covered from any possible enemies.

One White ICE is the form of a protective knight in shining blue armor.

Moving towards the open center of the board with a lot of muscle. I want to seek a bloody confrontation for the extra REP it'll bring in for the crew.

Taking control of the center open area, trying to find some cover. The enemy is moving around on both sides of the red brick building in front of my guys. 

'

A bystander waiting for the bus. The crowds and bystanders turned out to be very cool - even when all the bullets started flying around. We really didn't see a lot of panic, even with a lot of gunfire.

My opponent was quick to get rid of the White ICE, breaking it with hard attacks from both shadow backer and console cowgirl. My gang is just around the corner - confrontation is imminent.

Having gone another route, aiming for another terminal is the showrunner Masque, a drone jockey and the shadow backer. The drone jockey is armed with a helo fire support drone, that flies quickly around a building. I takes cover in some trash and have a nice firing lane towards my gangers and sprawl ronin. The Ronin is not yet within cover and is wounded. She doesn't fail her grazed test - which would have been nice actually.

A lurking gun drone.

 My crew had the rotten luck of getting a Griefer Avatar close to them, entering from their own entry point on the map. I was dead terrified of the possible damage the griefer could do me - as he has to spend AP on bad stuff each turn. Only my own crew would be within range. So for the first three turns of the game, my console cowboy and shadow backer spend all the combined hacking power to bring the Griefer offline.

In the end they were succesful without getting damaged too badly - but wasted valuable time, Breaking down the White Ice and getting control of the two C.A.T.s near me would be hard.

The center battlefield. An open space with bystanders and two visible C.A.T.s - blood would be spilled here.

Not wanting to disappoint my Big Media backers, my ronin 'Glitch' charged forward attacked my opponents own ronin. 'Glitch' came out on top, scoring a critical hit with her sword causing a lot of damaged - those chrome arms bringing in some extra bang.

I've been lucky rolling 'against all odds' skills for my ronin and the ganger Hogger, so they don't mind being outnumbered - in fact it's a bonus for them. But it even turned out that models block line of sight, so all those gangers in cover near the wall couldn't charge around their partner.

And then failing some activation roles and only getting 1 AP, they couldn't help much.

Sitting at different ends of an alley my ganger Ina first brought down the gun drone and started shooting at the jockey. She was backed up with a few shotgun blasts from her enforcer leader. But at the other end the showrunner masque and drone commander fired back - bringing down Ina after a few rounds of shooting.

Moving away from the wall and into cover of a hovering noodle shop, my opponents gangers started firing at my guys on the square. And I was getting afraid of getting caught in a crossfire situation. The female ganger in a red tanktop rushed in to support her sprawl ronin friend.

In return my ganger Hogger rushed in and smacked her to the ground with a cybernetic punch. And 'Glitch' managed to down her enemy as well.

Now the enemy console cowgirl (having control of a terminal) overheated 'Glitch' chrome legs giving her a lot of damage. Then green haired ganger 'Animal' fired a hand cannon and 'Glitch' bringing her down to a single wound.

Mean while my console cowboy and shadow backer had finally taken their White ICE offline and still had a few turns left to hack and take control of their two C.A.T.s. At the moment my opponent controlled one.

The enemy shadow avatar had access to a terminal as well and quickly got control of the system. The enemy now had control of two C.A.T.s in the area - and I was still trying to hack into one.

Feeling the situation under control and knowing my console cowboy was busy working his deck, the enemy showrunner tried to stop him. Running around the monorail station, he climbed a car and started shooting at the hacker 'Circuit'. Luckily for me he was hard to hit from hard cover - and continued working.

The fight kind off went out of our guys at this point and the game was ending. My ganger Ina was down and a few of the enemies guys as well. My showrunner climbed a food stall, to stay in cover and safe, maybe take out a few enemies. My sprawl ronin hid, nursing here wound trying to not go out of action.

 Showing off the enemy console cowgirl uploaded her guardian angel to the grid, but otherwise stayed our of more fighting - not having brought a ranged weapon to the battle.

The gangers Hogger and Animal ended in a fist fight, no one getting the upper hand. The only backed off from one another when the showrunners called them. The battle was over. Corp Security was inbound, they were out of time. Too much shooting and hacking activity on this part of the grid.

Aftermath

That was a brilliant and fun game. It all felt very cyberpunk and it was nice playing a mission with a critical focus on hacking. 

My opponent got out on top. He got a REP from two hacked terminals, taking two ICE offline and received extra crypto currency from his Unshackle AI master. There was also a lot of nice XP for him. The injuries all turned out to be minor and no crew members would miss the next JOBOP. All in all he came out with a lot of INFO and 70CC. 

It didn't go badly for my own crew - as in there was no permanent injuries to the team. But my failed hacking attempts did bring a lot of trace on me. My own shadow backer will be offline for two turns in my next game. And I failed to hack any of the terminals spending all that energy on the griefer. My income roles were bad as well - 30CC brought from that fight. 

Maybe it was the fight (or not offering enough cash), but my attempt at bringing the sprawl ronin 'Glitch' on as a permahire failed as well.

A few money in the bank, that's okay - I'll take those other scumbags next time.

Rangers of Shadow Deep: First Ranger and Warband

Finished my first band of warriors for Rangers of Shadow Deep. This was a nice warband to build and paint, good models from different places.

I plan of starting getting through RoSD in 2020, just need to finish a few bits for the first couple of scenarios.

My ranger have spend some of her starting points, to buy more soldiers for the warband - strength in numbers I think.

My ranger is Haelga (middle model). She's a ranger from the South of Alladore. She's been working as a city guard captain in a medium sized town. After the appereance of the Shadow Deep, she's left the rather boring position and started out as a ranger again.

I've painted the Star of Alladore on her breastplate. The bow and quiver is a bit added from the bit box. I used thin paper strips to make the strap for it - actually it's three small pieces, because here braid and arm was in the way.

Next up i Bertha, who worked as a rat catcher in the town Haelga was captain in. Bertha didn't much enjoy her work and really wanted to get out, so when a chance to enlist as a ranger companion arose, she took it.

The shield I've added to the model myself and the halberd is an addition as well.

Last is Wurt, a wood cutter by trade. His now drafted as a ranger recruit for the warband. As Wurt already knows his way around a forest, is fit and strong - he was a perfect candidate to maybe become a ranger.

All three models are from Dunkeldorf Miniatures by King Games.

Next up in the warband is a couple of city guard archers, Pine and Bee. These guys are used to sitting in a tower or watching a gate - an easy and comfortable job. They didn't get a choice, and watching a peaceful town gate is not going to cut it in a time of crises.

Both models are unconverted Oathmark humans from Northstar Military Figures.

From the region where Haelgo was born and raised comes a couple of warriors for her expedition. Sveinur and Holgir are both experienced soldiers from the kings army. Haelga knows both men from her earlier ranger days, before she joined the city guard.

After a bit of (mostly for the principle) haggling back and forth, Sverinur and Holgir joined her warband.

Last in the crew is Topper, a halfling chef, thief, tavern regular and occitional sling competition partioner. Topper is acutally in the crew an indentured servant to Haelga - looking at some bad prison time after a poor job. Looking to get back into the fresh air, he agreed to help Haelga with some lock picking - hopefully at not too much risk to his life.