Post by richjones on Feb 24, 2010 1:02:17 GMT 1
Band on the Run …
A Flying Lead scenario by Shaun McTague, narrated by Rich J
Additional rules finalised by Rich J
Sum 50 were a band always on the verge of ‘making it’ … their inherent want to stray of the straight and narrow had however kept them on the fringe of greatness. And so it was after a successful gig at the Mayor’s daughter’s 23rd Birthday party. Just as most of the band entered their ‘band trailer’ (they hadn’t made the heady heights of ‘tour bus’ yet) Billy Joe, the lead singer came hurtling out the Mayor’s house. Not content with giving Susie Sue (the birthday girl) a special ‘present’ in the Mayor’s office, he JUST HAD to make off with the spanking new Apple laptop sitting on the desk … the laptop that just happened to have the Mayor’s somewhat sensitive information on about exactly WHO was on his payroll …
So with the band SUV and trailer heading off in to the distance, the Mayor contacted the first ‘interested party’, the Police Chief, who immediately set some of the city police force in hot pursuit. Now the band were obviously oblivious to this and figured the people who seemed to be rallying to give pursuit (information gleaned from the SUV’s radio scanner) were doing so because of the ‘birthday present’ plus the theft of the laptop and were not to worried until one of the pistons on the SUV went just before a hump back bridge leaving them without enough power to tow the trailer any further. Leaving a roadie and the bass player (armed with smg and LMG – it wasn’t the first time they had had to shoot themselves out of trouble on the road) to guard the trailer the other 3 limped off to swap vehicles.
The police had been sweeping the area on foot trying to find the abandoned caravan (the helicopter had not given exactly brilliant coordinate) … it looked like it was a race of time.
Scenario rules:
• The band return on the corner of the table furthest from the trailer which itself is blocking one end of the bridge. They will need to ‘reverse’ into position, hook up and take off.
• The cops have to stop this happening.
• The game uses standard VP procedures but the band will earn 7 extra victory points for taking trailer along the corner road off the board and 5 for the shorter side route. The cops will earn an extra 7 points by making the trailer (and thus the laptop) available for recovery. 5 VPs will be earned by capturing Billy Joe so he can explain to the Mayor exactly what his present was!
We used a ‘Writer’s House Rule’ to cover the rules of engagement for the cops and to cover the ‘Police … Freeze or we shoot’ mechanic:
• The cops are not allowed to open fire until they are shot at.
• Any Out of Action character in Hand to Hand combat is deemed to be subdued and ‘cuffed’ by the cops. Any ‘shaken’ or ‘downed’ character can be cuffed by a cop spending one action next to them.
• Any cop within a medium of a ‘perp’ can spend 2 actions to yell, “Police… freeze or we shoot!” This sparks off a ‘Hands Up’ test. This is done like morale with 3 dice rolled against the character’s quality with all normal morale modifiers plus the Quality getting one worse for every TWO additional cops within a long of the character (e.g. a Q4 figure who is challenged by a cop with a further 2 cops within a long will be testing as if Q5). Check the number of passes on the table below:
3 Passes – the character will not give themselves in AT ALL … it counts as the cop rolling 2 failures ie their TURN is over!
2 Passes – the character gets one action to do what they like with … this may be to open fire “Screw you Copper!” or to sprint a distance away from the cop … they use the next length up from their normal movement (ie a medium move becomes a long).
1 Pass – the character runs a normal move away from the cop.
0 Passes – the character drops their weapon and gives themselves up!
The Coppers enter onto the table from a random direction which is determined as they roll for actions … we use a ‘scatter’ dice rolled with the activation dice … the arrow points to the point of the table edge the cop will enter from.
The band
The table
So these two are left to guard the trailer
The band got the first activation chance, the SUV moved on but the LMG totting Roadie failed to get the two actions needed to put him on Overwatch ... which would have been handy
The cops entered from random directions but can't just open fire ... they moved towards the trailer and to cover the escape routes.
A terrible next roll saw the band fail to activate ... although the SUV got one move action as per the vehicle rules. SO the cops moved in and the Lt shouted at the roadie; "Police ... Freeze or we shoot!" The roadie rolled 3 dice against his Q4 +1 for the other cops near so counting as Q5
He passed 2 and got a free action which he used to jump over the bridge wall (moving a short).
The Bass player used the leaping rules to get on the roof of the trailer and open fire, having Combat Fiend and using a SMG he got a lot of lead flying making a few of the cops seek cover quickly ... meanwhile the SUV started reversing over the bridge as the 'plodders' all failed to make any effect on the vehicle with their dire shooting.
All was looking pretty good for the band, the SUV stopped short of running over the roadie but the cops made little headway in their next short activation except one lucky shot from their hero took down the Bass player (out of action).
With the SUV in place the lead guitarist jumped out and tried to hook up the trailer ... this was handled with the task mechanism. Normally it would be an 'easy task' but was made a medium by the amount of lead flying about ... still on Q3 made Q4 but then back to a Q3 as he had a spare action to spend he was not likely to fail ... unless of course he rolled a 2 ... oops
The cops made him 'shaken' in a hail of fire !
Billy Joe did what all good heroes did at this point ... jumped out and did the job himself ... banging on the tail door to tell the Roadie driver to 'GO, go, go' ... pity he was in the way still. The driver floored the pedal (got 3 actions) and took off ... Billy Joe had to make a quality check to dive out the way!
Looked as if the trailer would escape at the least!
The SUV took fire from everywhere but the bullets all seemed to bounce off ...
The cops called to Billy Joe to freeze ... but still passing 2 dice he took off running after the SUV.
It was just after this that the cops finally managed to take a tyre out (doubling the SUV roll and thus 'destroying it'
The unfortunate cop in the way of the out of control vehicle managed to dive out the way
The writing was on the wall ... the band was now really just a 'solo' act ... but in a last moment of defiance the roadie remembered he had a grenade and hurled it over the bridge ... taking out a copper!
The rest of the game saw the roadie getting captured (OOA) Billy Joe and the other roadie managing to run off the table ... but on the whole the coppers won the day!
Here are a few other random pictures from the hugely enjoyable game!
A Flying Lead scenario by Shaun McTague, narrated by Rich J
Additional rules finalised by Rich J
Sum 50 were a band always on the verge of ‘making it’ … their inherent want to stray of the straight and narrow had however kept them on the fringe of greatness. And so it was after a successful gig at the Mayor’s daughter’s 23rd Birthday party. Just as most of the band entered their ‘band trailer’ (they hadn’t made the heady heights of ‘tour bus’ yet) Billy Joe, the lead singer came hurtling out the Mayor’s house. Not content with giving Susie Sue (the birthday girl) a special ‘present’ in the Mayor’s office, he JUST HAD to make off with the spanking new Apple laptop sitting on the desk … the laptop that just happened to have the Mayor’s somewhat sensitive information on about exactly WHO was on his payroll …
So with the band SUV and trailer heading off in to the distance, the Mayor contacted the first ‘interested party’, the Police Chief, who immediately set some of the city police force in hot pursuit. Now the band were obviously oblivious to this and figured the people who seemed to be rallying to give pursuit (information gleaned from the SUV’s radio scanner) were doing so because of the ‘birthday present’ plus the theft of the laptop and were not to worried until one of the pistons on the SUV went just before a hump back bridge leaving them without enough power to tow the trailer any further. Leaving a roadie and the bass player (armed with smg and LMG – it wasn’t the first time they had had to shoot themselves out of trouble on the road) to guard the trailer the other 3 limped off to swap vehicles.
The police had been sweeping the area on foot trying to find the abandoned caravan (the helicopter had not given exactly brilliant coordinate) … it looked like it was a race of time.
Scenario rules:
• The band return on the corner of the table furthest from the trailer which itself is blocking one end of the bridge. They will need to ‘reverse’ into position, hook up and take off.
• The cops have to stop this happening.
• The game uses standard VP procedures but the band will earn 7 extra victory points for taking trailer along the corner road off the board and 5 for the shorter side route. The cops will earn an extra 7 points by making the trailer (and thus the laptop) available for recovery. 5 VPs will be earned by capturing Billy Joe so he can explain to the Mayor exactly what his present was!
We used a ‘Writer’s House Rule’ to cover the rules of engagement for the cops and to cover the ‘Police … Freeze or we shoot’ mechanic:
• The cops are not allowed to open fire until they are shot at.
• Any Out of Action character in Hand to Hand combat is deemed to be subdued and ‘cuffed’ by the cops. Any ‘shaken’ or ‘downed’ character can be cuffed by a cop spending one action next to them.
• Any cop within a medium of a ‘perp’ can spend 2 actions to yell, “Police… freeze or we shoot!” This sparks off a ‘Hands Up’ test. This is done like morale with 3 dice rolled against the character’s quality with all normal morale modifiers plus the Quality getting one worse for every TWO additional cops within a long of the character (e.g. a Q4 figure who is challenged by a cop with a further 2 cops within a long will be testing as if Q5). Check the number of passes on the table below:
3 Passes – the character will not give themselves in AT ALL … it counts as the cop rolling 2 failures ie their TURN is over!
2 Passes – the character gets one action to do what they like with … this may be to open fire “Screw you Copper!” or to sprint a distance away from the cop … they use the next length up from their normal movement (ie a medium move becomes a long).
1 Pass – the character runs a normal move away from the cop.
0 Passes – the character drops their weapon and gives themselves up!
The Coppers enter onto the table from a random direction which is determined as they roll for actions … we use a ‘scatter’ dice rolled with the activation dice … the arrow points to the point of the table edge the cop will enter from.
The band
The table
So these two are left to guard the trailer
The band got the first activation chance, the SUV moved on but the LMG totting Roadie failed to get the two actions needed to put him on Overwatch ... which would have been handy
The cops entered from random directions but can't just open fire ... they moved towards the trailer and to cover the escape routes.
A terrible next roll saw the band fail to activate ... although the SUV got one move action as per the vehicle rules. SO the cops moved in and the Lt shouted at the roadie; "Police ... Freeze or we shoot!" The roadie rolled 3 dice against his Q4 +1 for the other cops near so counting as Q5
He passed 2 and got a free action which he used to jump over the bridge wall (moving a short).
The Bass player used the leaping rules to get on the roof of the trailer and open fire, having Combat Fiend and using a SMG he got a lot of lead flying making a few of the cops seek cover quickly ... meanwhile the SUV started reversing over the bridge as the 'plodders' all failed to make any effect on the vehicle with their dire shooting.
All was looking pretty good for the band, the SUV stopped short of running over the roadie but the cops made little headway in their next short activation except one lucky shot from their hero took down the Bass player (out of action).
With the SUV in place the lead guitarist jumped out and tried to hook up the trailer ... this was handled with the task mechanism. Normally it would be an 'easy task' but was made a medium by the amount of lead flying about ... still on Q3 made Q4 but then back to a Q3 as he had a spare action to spend he was not likely to fail ... unless of course he rolled a 2 ... oops
The cops made him 'shaken' in a hail of fire !
Billy Joe did what all good heroes did at this point ... jumped out and did the job himself ... banging on the tail door to tell the Roadie driver to 'GO, go, go' ... pity he was in the way still. The driver floored the pedal (got 3 actions) and took off ... Billy Joe had to make a quality check to dive out the way!
Looked as if the trailer would escape at the least!
The SUV took fire from everywhere but the bullets all seemed to bounce off ...
The cops called to Billy Joe to freeze ... but still passing 2 dice he took off running after the SUV.
It was just after this that the cops finally managed to take a tyre out (doubling the SUV roll and thus 'destroying it'
The unfortunate cop in the way of the out of control vehicle managed to dive out the way
The writing was on the wall ... the band was now really just a 'solo' act ... but in a last moment of defiance the roadie remembered he had a grenade and hurled it over the bridge ... taking out a copper!
The rest of the game saw the roadie getting captured (OOA) Billy Joe and the other roadie managing to run off the table ... but on the whole the coppers won the day!
Here are a few other random pictures from the hugely enjoyable game!