Zona Alfa: The Crossroads at Blyatsk

"Okay Roaches, listen up. This is gonna be our first trip into the zone under my lead. We've been over the rules. Shut up, stay close, do everything I say. One of the guards owed me a small favor, nothing big, but we won't be disturbed.

We're going just inside the cordon, a BTR-80 and team have gone missing - they're toast. No doubt. The weather shifted and the thing has been covered in radioactive rain for days, the army boys ain't gonna get it back anytime soon. 

Consider this a team work excercise, see if this team work out. Any loot we'll split between us. No rookie! Nothing for you or your friend. Your payment is your experience gained in a safe environment. You'll get some cash eventually - if you make it. So remember: Shut up, stay close, do as I say". 

Going solo
So my first 12AP team is going into the zone for the first time. I've chosen the introductionary scenario from the Zona Alfa rulebook, but I'll be playing the scenario solo.

The objective is to clear a small town of hostiles, get to a vehicle and retrieve any loot from it. There's a few zombies and mutated dogs roaming around the area.

As there's no direct solo rules in the game, I've made a few tweaks before entering the zone.

• The monsters are not 12" bound to the objective - they can roam free. 
• Monsters will start attacking player models when they get LOS to them.
• Monsters can intervene the player turn.
• After the first player model have taken its actions roll a d10. On a 10 the monsters will take their turn.
• After the second player model enemies will intervene on a 9-10. And so forth.
• Enemies will get an increasingly higher chance of intervening the player turn. 
• I roll for a random corner to enter with my team, after setting up the monsters.

In setting up this scenario I did read a bit wrong, only having two packs with a pair of dogs in each - should have been four dogs instead. 

Setup
The layout is a small town with a broken down military BTR-80 (a russian APC) in the middle. In two random houses there's some nasty mutated dogs. Around the vehicle in the middle there's also four zombies - part of the military unit that went missing.

A roll on the weather table had this be a high radiation zone - so one less turn to get the job done. Six turns to clear the area and successfully loot the vehicle.

I used some of my red brick mdf buildings for the town and choose to set them up as single storey buildings. I added a few vehicles and a giant pile of junk. I imagine such junk piles all over the zone - piled up dangerous junk, from cleaning up roads and paths.

Unlike my other wasteland setups, I want an overgrown and swampy feel in this zone. So as a touch up to the board I add clumps of moss all over the place, as nature has started to take back the zone. And then a sprinkle of static grass, dirt, cinder blocks and twigs to add texture to the felt terrain.

An abandonned excavator, last used to pile up contaminated junk. This is a little nod to the excellent A Roadside Picknic.

The BTR-80, russian armored personel carrier and some zombies around it. These are actually sci-fi zombies from Mantic, painted in modern camo and with a few modern bits added. AK-47s and bergen rucksacks.

Entry point

I split my squad into two teams and decided to roll a a dice for the corner to enter from. This way I can't take to much advanced of the map - and random is good when playing solo. Both teams had to enter the board from the top left corner.

Some of those nasty dogs who roams the zone eating everything they can get close to. I should have doubled the amount of dogs, but only realized this after finished the game.

Turn 1

My team is entering the zone. Everything is wet from radiactice rain, they are close, this is their first zone run as a unit. My leader and his veteran friend. Two hardened fighters have joined the crew - they know their way around. And last two rookies, my Leader doesn't have a lot of money yet and rookies are free - paid with the expereince they get.

The unit quickly spread out to form two flanks of attack. The veteran and hardened soldier armed with a light machine gun ran away from the other, staying hidden behind a house. The veteran has the hustle skill - very nice in the first turn. Getting 2" more for moving into position.

The rest of the unit moved on the other side of the building. The rookies of cause would fall a bit behind, but the leader gave an action point to one - giving him a bit of extra speed. Hug the cover, stay out of sight of the zombies.

Through the first turn the monster didn't intervene and take the turn. All my guys are out 12" away and outside LOS anyways. Quite before the storm.

Turn 2
"мозги!"

The second turn started with my bone-doc a hardened trooper, moving a car and taking a shot a zombie. He manage to take one out with a clean headshot, but he rolls a fumble and gets a pinned counter - something is jammed in his old AK47 assault rifle. 

I consider giving an extra action to one of the rookies, but they are terrible shots - and that would go better for the leader. So he stepped out of cover and fired his battle rifle twice, the red dot sight coming in handy. He takes out another zombie.

The veteran moves across an alley to hide behind another house, aiming down the alley he shoots at a visible zombie. The armor of the zombie saves it from death. Having the unload skill, the veteran empties his magazine and with four firepower dice the zombie is brought down.

After the veterans action, the monsters make the 8+ intervention roll and the take over the turn. Being within 12" of objective the last zombie and two dogs rush down the alley towards the veteran. This also take them out of sight from the rest of the unit - good for them. 

My LMG trooper nows up to the alley and scores four hits with the weapon, he has both the steady hands skill and a red dot sight. He takes out the zombie, as this is a more dangerous target than a couple of dogs.

Turn 3
The imidiate thread is the dogs in the alley and I decided to start out with the LMG wielding soldier. This is the first time getting a critical when rolling dice and quickly use the extra activation to take out the dogs closing in.

The monster don't get to intervene at this time and the veteran (also in the alley) have a nice clear shot at the dogs on the other side of the street. Having three action points he reloads his weapon just to unload it again. With the hail of lead he's able to take out the last reamining dogs and the objective is now clear of enemies.

Turn 4
This turn as there's no danger and every man of the crew is running towards the armored vehicle. And after a few failed attempts, the bone-doc manages to find the military attaché, a couple of grenades and a pair of binoculars.

Aftermath
"Not too bad rookies, not too bad. We all made it out alive, found a few pieces of gear for the guys. Hey, you didn't even get scratched, burned or bitten!

Now let's take this attaché to the locksmith. There must be a reason for it to be hidden in that armored car and I don't want to wreck whatever is inside. 

Go to the bar and get a drink. I know there's no rubles! Here, you can pay with a couple of 7.62 from those braindeads. I'll get back to you as soon as I get another hint to follow, this time we'll perhaps make it a bit deeper into the zone. 

Dasvidaniya."

That was a fun little game! My crew made it out and got a bit of gear. The group earned a totalt of 8 advancement points - not enough for any kind of increase, but it's a start.

Perhaps the game would have been a bit more challenging if I hadn't forgotten those last couple of dogs. On one side, there was no opponnents to shoot at them. But that works both ways.

For the next scenario there'll be bandits with guns - that should change up things a bit. And hot spots. I'm looking forward to the hot spot part of the map. Because you have to get fairly close, the spawned enemies will be bigger trouble.

It's gonna be good, I'm looking forward to entering the zone again.

Ghost Archipelago: Tribals

I really like the tribal models for Ghost Archipelago, one of the top kits brought out by Northstar. I've gone for different colors on the various cultures on my version of the Ghost Archipelago. Purple on the Dricheans, blue on the snake-men and for the tribals red, blask and bone.

I've sold half the box, meaning the 11 miniatures I had left were at a really nice low price. I often do this with pre-orders. Make an even better deal for myself. The first 5 models I've done, is build to fit the core book bestiary entries. Four close combat fighters and a hunter with bow.

There's not really enough shields on the sprue, so I've added some extra shields from Warlord Games zulus - a super cheap way to get some extra tribals models.

At some point I'm gonna use the rest of the models, to make a full warband. Gonna build both a war chief and spell caster.

Reality's Edge: Infastructure Safekeeping

"The Direction have managed to overtake a local broadcasting station and secured the us of an gov.mil. signal jammer. So for the past 47 minutes H.8-Corp have blocked the competitions signal and overridden with our own broadcasting. Everything is setup and the engineers have already left the area to avoid unwanted heat. 

Get in there, secure that sation and keep the broadcast alive for as long as possible! We need a total off 93 minutes time online for this JOBOB to break even. And the Direction do hate taking a loss.

Gov.mil and local security teams are already pinpointingthe signal, get out before the enter in force. All asset affiliation will be denied. 

There's word of enemy activity nearby, there's some shady glitches cyberspace - so the signal jam might be interfering with an unknown force. Deal with them. 

Recap: Stay online t-46 minutes to get paid. 

Anchorman out."

Setup and scenario
This time we're playing Infastructure Safekeeping in Reality's Edge. The story is that my Big Media shadow backers have taken control of a broadcasting station and set up a jammer. While jamming other media signals in the sector, they override everything with their own shows and targeted advertisements.

As an unknown result of this media feud, the jamming and overriding broadcast is interfering with an Unshackle AI operating in cyberspace. Enter the attacking team, boots on the ground to stop the jamming and broadcasting - so their shadow backer can get back to their own business.

Whoever has the most CC worth off models on the objective score victory points, so the defence will start out getting some for free. But the attacker can earn extra VPs by smashing equipment on the objective when they get there.

The Hitch: In this scenario there's a bunch of nasty sprawl rats running around. The rats have clearly been driven to agression from the strong jamming frequency messing with their brain.

At the center of the board is the broadcasting station a 4Ground satelite control center and a Sarissa radar model as jammer. Around the center we've build a city block, lots of neon adverts and lots of traffic.

Remember there's step-by-step and build blogs for most (otherwise it's coming) terrain on the blog.

Deployment
As the defender my crew was allowed to split up and deploy on the objective and in the streets. My showrunenr enforcer, sprawl ronin and ganger with a gun setup on the roof - able to look around and have the edge of height over the enemy.

My console cowbow and a ganger bodyguard setup hidden behind a car - dangerously close the to enemy. But I wanted to get a chance at hacking some CATs, while staying close enough to defend the objective.

The attackers set up on the top left side, behind a red truck. This would give them the most direct route to the main doors of the broadcast center. I got the chance of deploying the frenzied sprawl rats and set them up behind the red brick building - right next to the enemy.

Circuit and Hogger hiding behind a car, the enemy is setup to the left of them - they must get to another position quickly.

Turn 1
The enemy showrunner is a Masque and wasted no time sprinting across the street and hide in a crowd. A good way to get some cover, avoid getting shot and getting really close to the objective. And he's already met he personal motivation, so there's XP for him at the end of the game.

The console cowgirl moves up the street, towards the metro line. There's som CATs to hack that end of the board and my gang is tied to the objective. But right from the start the sprawl rats start running towards her. She'll need backup from her team.

Circuit moves down the street, away from the enemy's position and getting nearer to the CAT close to the objective. In our first game the CATs were all guarded by White ICE and there was a Griefer Avatar on my neck - so I didn't get any Info pulled. Time to remedy that.

The prize, a CAT nice an close to the objective. I'm hoping Circuit can hack it quickly and then move in an support the rest of the team in the defense of the broadcast station.

The broadcast center and the gov.mil. jammer. My most expensive and hardened troops are on the roof, ready to defend the building. The plan is to shower the enemy in gunfire when they approach and then leap from the roof into melee.

An innocent sprawl bystander going about her business wondering why her HRO is filled with adverts and her regular show got cut - soon gunfire all over the streets.

Moving Sgt. Cliff my show runner and Ina Haze into cover at the edge of roof. The shadow avatar will provide virtual support.

A drone jockey from the enemy is hiding near their starting position, in cover from my guys on the roof he activates his drone. The hover gun drone and himself choose to fire shots at my ganger Hogger, who not yet in proper cover.

Turn 2
The first sprawl blocking the console cowgirl is shot down by a friendly ganger. Stopping for a short time before moving towards the CAT, the hacker loads up an app and summons an Iduro. Soon sprawl bystanders will start to show up to catch a look at the legendary Saint Lemmy. Extra meat shield covers when moving towards the broadcast station.

After getting wounded by automatic rifle fire from the hover drone, Hogger manage to hide behind a car, Returning fire towards the drone jockey but without doing good damage to him.

I've equipped the console cowboy Circuit with augmented legs, that extra speed means a lot and he gets to the CAT. Hopefully he's not a target going by his own business and he tries to hack the console. The firewall however proves to hard to break.

Ganger Animal is covering the rear of the gang, more sprawl rats are coming. He'll be protecting the teams console cowgirl and the others attacking the objective. The Iduro reminds him of an old friend.

As soon as the show runner Masque got to the objective my own sprawl ronin Glitch jumped from the roof. Unfortunately the jump took a lot of energy and she couldn't slice him in half. To protect her boss, the ganger Sharkie charged the sprawl ronin.

And that was what I hoped for! My show runner Enforcer Sgt. Cliff has the highest CC value on the board, so he can't meet his personal motivation taking out enemies. But now he could use his bodyguard skill and switch places with Glitch. That's some nice XP in the bank.

8-Ball a crazy sprawl ronin armed with a chainsaw and hand cannon if moving towards the objective covered by all the people in the street. His friend Sharkie, a ganger, is already at the front door to the broadcast center. It was 8-ball who cleared off the first sprawl rats.

Glitch is not happy getting thrown out of the way by the enforcer, she's itching to get into combat. And knowing how dangerous she is in combat the enemy shadow avatar starts spamming her system with overheat apps, slowly wounding her - 'cause Glitch is mostly made off chrome.

A top down view from a passing corp.sec. drone. This will become bloody and the next turns initiative roll will be super important. If the defenders take the initiative they'll swarm the Masque. If the attacker gets the initiative they'll get a lot of bodies on the site and can start smashing it to pieces.

Turn 3
The attackers take the initiative and the Masque promptly moves in cover of the building and starts breaking the jammer with his augmented arm and steel fist. He's now so far away that Glitch will again not be able to get into melee combat with him.

The console cowgirl has gotten far away from the fighting and sprawl rat, safely hidden underneath the monorail she starts hacking the CAT. She's having better luck than circuit, break the firewall an extra valuable Info from the network - and adding crucial extra action points to the shadow avatar.

More crazy rats pouring out from the red stone brick building, charging past the Saint Lemmy Iduro and towards the ganger Animal.

From the roof Ina Haze moves to the edge and start emptying SMG shots down towards the masque. Besides dinking the pavement and jammer she does no damage - hitting no flesh.

Glitch jumps from the roof again to join the enforcer fighting Sharkie. 8-Ball have crossed the street and is now also at the objective - it's time to tally up who has most CC on it. There's no guarantee my defenders have the better numbers anymore.

The sprawl rats are aggressive and nasty beast and the jump Animal and he's taken out. After this the rats starts attacking and killing random bystanders nearby.

Turn 4
The drone commander from the attacking team have managed to shoot down the ganger Hogger. And his drone is then free to fly across the battle field, it moves in to support the masque near the jammer.

In what can only be described as reckless behavior, the drone then start flying full speed into the jammer. It's suddenly super expensive, remote controlled wrecking ball - but it's effective. The enemy starts taking in some serious victory points. The masque doesn't want to fight my sprawl ronin - no way. He breaks away from her and hammers the jammer instead.

In all the mayhem an fighting I lose count of the combined value of troops - and the attacker take home some VP for having most CC value on target. They find themselves in the lead.

Turn 5
Having the hacking time of her life, the attacking console cowgirl run to another CAT, breaks down the firewall and steal more info - again bolstering the shadow avatar.

Despite my own defending avatar taking its opponent offline, it gets running again. And with 5 actions points pr turn, all the nasty attack apps starts breaking down the defenders.

In the streets what can only be described as a feeding frenzy turned into a massacre is occurring. The activated Iduro app, visible and glowing in the civilians HRO keeps pulling in new bystanders. After experiences all the jammed signals for an hour, anything shiny pulls them in. Too late do they see the giant mutated rats, all to real and non-virtual. It's very bloody. 

The last couple turns
The rest of the game is brutal hand-to-hand combat around the central compound. My battle hardened enforcer managed to take out the enemy ganger Sharkie and Ronin 8-Ball. 8-Ball was at at huge disadvantage when my shadow avatar managed to shut down he chainsaw for multible turns with a hack.

Glitch does what she can to take out the Masque beating up the jammer, but in the end the constant attacks from malicious apps bring here down. And despite Ina Haze emptying clip after clip, she is unable to take out the enemies right below her on the ground.

In an effort to regain the upper hand, my hacker Circuit leave without breaking into a CAT (for the second game in a row!) and runs to the roof instead. This turns out to be crucial, as it brings my guys to the highest CC value again and brings in some victory points.

The time goes, corp.sec. and gov.mil. units will start swarming in very soon and both gangs have to leave. After the smoke has cleared and the wounded have been pulled it show the defenders were successful. The defenders win with highest VP score, thanks to the console cowboy getting to that roof in time.

Aftermath

"The Direction is pleased with your results Sergeant. The operation is considered a success, you made a break even minute count plus 7 minutes.
The Direction is especially pleased with the unexpected show of violence. CCTV in the area captured every detail and thanks to our setup, we'll be using it all in an upcoming broadcast. A crypto currency bonus will be transferred to your account based on show ratings. 

Be advised those attackers were not corporate, c-sec or gov.mil. affiliates. Huge cyberspace energy spikes were monitored. That's all we currently know. Lay low - expect aggressive retaliation. 

Oh, and Sergeant: The Direction request you contact them if such an event occurs, it'll be good show material. 

Anchorman out."


The defenders:
Hogger Haze - was gunned down with automatic fire from a drone and its jockey. He was looking at a long recovery and some hard earned CC was spend to bring him back.

Glitch - the sprawl ronin. Overheated chrome through virus attacks. Glitch suffered a permanent injury and -1 to her Aim stat. Nevermind that, she'll never be shooting at anything.
The sprawl ronin was then offered a good amount of cash and decided to join the media corporation as a permahire. She got a nice +1 on activation tests as here trick of the trade.

Having won this scenario my crew now had enough REP to be offered some high end items and spend some INFO on getting something better. They got themselves a lightened combat hatchet, might go to the sprawl ronin.

Sgt. Cliff got himself 3XP not enough for a good upgrade, that'll have to wait.

After paying for injuries and a permahire there was still a nice 50CC chunk for the bank. I think it's now time to search the watering holes for a good drone jockey or infiltrator.

The attackers:
Three casualties after the attack on the station. Animal the ganger, badly wounded by all those rats, was captured when c-sec swarmed the area. And the crew had to pay 30CC to bail him out of jail.

Sharkie (ganger) and 8-ball (sprawl ronin) were both lucky, it was a only close calls. Should that didn't ruin the economy.

The show runner Masque really wanted to bring in 8-ball as a permahire and decided to sell off 3 INFO to get the cash. Offering a major 70CC as a signing bonus, 8-ball joined on as a permahire.

Because they won our first skirmish, the attackers also went searching for some high end items. The got offered a heavy melee weapon with armor penetrating power - 8-ball just got an upgrade for that chainsaw.

So after two games of Reality's Edge, both teams still seem equal in strength. And both have some slow and small increases in permahires and skills.