Zona Alfa - Focused Mission 3 - Scout the Ship

Had a weekend off last week but definitely noticed the lack of dice rolling affecting my mood.

Back into the focused missions, in part to 'prove' them all, in a larger part they are fun. Probably more like solving a puzzle than free-play is.

Anywho, today's mission was 'Scout the Ship'.

I set up this board with the previous board in mind again. This new board sits roughly 'upper right' of the previous board on a larger 'world ma'. I might make a sketch of how they all fit together in due course.

The right side of the board is predominated by the water so about 1/4-1/3 of the board is largely unusable. I don't think this really provides any overwhelming advantages or disadvantages - it didn't feel that way, it was just different. 

To expand on that briefly - this means all the action is compacted, so you have less room to move.  A lot of action happens/happened on board the ship which is even tighter... kind of a theme for the mission I guess.

The Infil site is bottom left and the Exfil site is top left. The APC follows the road around, moving as appropriate every turn, just for mood, though it could theoretically be used as cover.

There are 4 hot spots and 2 mission objectives - fore and aft on the ship - as per the first pic.

The Hot Spot were less randomly placed this time and are in positions that are... 'morally inconvenient'. As in, they are adjacent to important areas (infil, exfil, gangway - with the exception of one up near the warehouses). Although they aren't going to necessarily be automatically/inadvertently triggered, they do present tempting targets along the way.

The first HS was right near the Infil site. The crew set overwatch and triggered it. Bandits and an anomaly *1.  Overwatch was moderately successful taking out one AK guy, the rest were dispatched by the end of the turn without any wounds inflicted on the crew. (blue dice shows scatter, 5" toward upper-right)

[*1 - I like to hit up a HS early while the crew is fresh, full strength and all in the same place. Means i can opt for a tougher hostile (preferably one with an anomaly) and score some loot and an artifact early and relatively safely.]

With the Infil site clear the crew hoofs it across the map to the gangway.

The board the ship and head for the MO point on the foredeck.

Mission Overview (briefly): The ship contains 2 MO points. When the first is triggered both points produce hostiles. They may (one, either, both, neither) produce hostiles in subsequent turns until they are both Searched.

For this reason i opted to crowd the entire crew on board to deal with the hostiles en masse.

I knew there would be hostiles from both directions and also wanted to use the superstructure as a shield from the aft deck hostiles.

As it turns out i rolled lucky, rat swarms from both fore and aft decks.

These were both slaughtered with activations to spare, then HUSTLE booted for the aft MO point alone (little risk going solo at this stage).

Just as things were looking like they were going a little too easy, a bandit patrol enters from the bottom-middle of the map. (Rolled up in the 'Control Check' at the end of every even numbered turn - for those playing Zona Alfa this is a cool little wrench for solo games, and i'm thoroughly enjoying the Control/Hostile Phase rules too - all part of the same doco).

The timing and position couldn't have been worse (*2), they were blocking the gangway and the crew had no option then to deal with them. And right before i'd done the MO point Searches too!!

[*2 - this is why these games are great, although they seem fairly predictable the dice have a way of leading the story where they will. This is the fun stuff!]

SNIPER took out one of the AK guys before the other AK guy returned fire, hitting SNIPER and putting him "Incap!"

Pistol bandit moved and took a shot at... someone, before being capped. and Machete bandit made a gambit along the gangway before someone else popped out and ganked him. All the while HUSLTE and KNIFE were making Search checks desperately to stop the MO points generating more hostiles.

With only LEADER left to activate, the AK guy was behind a stone barricade waiting for the next turn. LEADER leapt from the gunwall, bolted down the gangway, up onto the barricade and took out the last bandit point blank like a champion!

Note the APC moving up along the pier.

With the mission objectives secured (hazzah!) It was time to head for the Exfil site. SNIPER self med-kit'd and with extra orders from LEADER got a hurry-along off the ship.

There were now only three turns remaining, and a fully sprint across the board required to avoid the shenanigans of 'Hostile Phase'. 

The crew were fortunate that no further hostile patrols were rolled up as they made a conga-line across the board after the APC.

They bypassed the barrel Hot Spots on the pier, and the crate HS in the woods although they were within easy distance to activate it. Time didn't feel like it was on their side, though so every one Exfil'd easily and safely at the start of turn 9. Although there was a valid question as to taking the final HS we felt it was better to play it safe.

They'd been lucky with most of their rolls so far and no point loosing someone for a few credits when the APC was right there. 

And that was the mission done. SUCCESS!

No casualties and the Ship 'Scouted'.

In terms of ongoing mission narrative i'm contemplating whether to run the next 'Ship' mission immediately or not. This map is now 'disturbed' i.e. the hostiles are going to be all agitated so might be best to leave a mission for them to dissipate. I will also set up the exact same map for consistencies sake.

So contemplating a different mission just to break it up a bit.  We'll see. 

Additionally, i'll need to refit the crew. Three of the guys got promoted today, which is nice but means that i'll need to adjust the roster to maintain the 12k limit.  Didn't really want to contemplate that today (hence just playing the one mission).

Congrats KNIFE, SCROUNGER and SNIPER on promotion to veteran. LEADER gets a commendation (no promotion as he's already a vet).

Didn't bother adding any mission reward. No new purchases, just replaced the consumables, so I've got just shy of 9k to spend plus a '5k armour artifact' in the kitty. Well over the 10,000 credit limit for retirement - but I think the lads will keep at it for a while long. Tonnes of 'advances' sitting in the pool too.

Will come up with a new line up for next mission.

The game might be feeling a bit easy, however i'll adjust the crew and keep going rather than upping the Threat Level (for example), just because i want to give the missions all a play through and don't want to adjust everything all at the same time. Hopefully some new blood in the crew will adjust the dynamic of the game play.

NOTES

And finally, just thought i'd drop in pics of my mission notes just for shiggles.

First page is the mission briefing, where i roll up parameters like the number of turns, what hostiles i'm setting for the map, and a map of the map so i can record MO points, HS points, etc. My memory isn't super.  I sometimes write down a 'game plan' under the map, especially for the free-play missions but here the plan was simple: ship -> home.

The next 3 or 4 pages are the turn-by-turn action in, what is becoming, a fairly standardised shorthand. This is in part to keep track of who has activated, what turn it is (so i can remember to do 'Control Checks' etc), results of combats, salvaged gained, consumables used etc etc etc.   It doesn't make for great reading, but is a useful memory jogger.

Taking the time to jot stuff down also means i'm more likely to remember to i.e. use electricJuice, make sure i calculate the correct combat rolls or will checks with appropriate adjustments etc.

Last page or two is book keeping where loot is recorded, dues paid, gear replenished or bought, loadouts adjusted, and promotions and skills upgraded etc.

And that was the game. Dice sanity restored.

Was fun - FAR more entertaining than watching some slop on tv. 

Update 2020-11-09

Of course this was always going to happen...

update ends

Until next time...