Hard Boiled EGGS part 2

 When we last left our protagonists they were being squeezed by the Emperor’s Getaway Guardian Service.

The EGGS were pushing the gangs into a cul de sac. The gangs were retreating up into a large manufactorium intending to make a stand. 

The EGGS were inching forward but were inexperienced and most were armed with shorter ranged guns.  An excitable Cavalier dropped a Pale Veiler but ran out of ammo.  One of the squat auxiliaries lugging a heavy bolter also wounded a Veiler, but the sneaky boys were pulling back out of range.  The Wastoids were screened by the manufactorium and the Waste-Side Bears were already on top of the giant structure.

The Mischievous Misbehaviors were more aggressive.  They had already come up against the EGGS and one of their little lads had been captured by Foot Sergeant Oliver Oakwood, who bonked the lad over the head after a fellow Guardian Thia Bluestream had shot him down with a bolt gun. 

The EGGS had a serious problem.  The retreating gangs were fleeing high.  This left the Cavaliers unable to follow on their horses.  The Cavaliers were each armed with rifles but could never get an angle on the elevated enemy.  Billy Bot had the same issue.   Giant clunky metal boxes don’t do ladders. 

It was up to the foot troops.   The Guardians crossed a bridge that connected to the upper levels of the tower while the squats climbed out of a giant warehouse and closed in from the flank.  The EGGS also had a an ace up their frilly sleeves.   

If you will recall, two gangs decided to turn over the looted items to the Blightwater leadership instead of selling it to Aidus Johipok. The Shrouded Path had already snuck away from the trap.  The Waste-Side Bears was the other gang and was the trap.  Foot Captain Howl Neckbreaker spoke the code phrase through the Vox Staff and the Bears turned. 

“Run Burp Chickens Run”

Throughout the early stages of the scenario the Pale Veil loudly and persistently pointed out that the Bears had taken the deal and not to trust them.  They told anyone who would listen and did so repeatedly.   So it was ironic that when the Bears pounced it was the Veil that was situated closest to the traitorous tricksters.

One of the Bears immediately charged an unsuspecting Veiler and routed him due to having a killer reputation.   The Veils wormy beast, who ignored psychology counter charged.  Soon one other Bear and one other Veiler were locked in. 

The hand to hand was short and bloody.  The Bear dropped the Veiler and the beast.  The human was captured and the beast went to the bridge of death for judgment. (He would fully recover.)

The Veil immediately sought revenge, and an angry Veil charged the Bear monkey (monkey bear?). The fight was over quickly as the ape had sustained a chest wound in the last fight and was just a fresh faced young monkey with a reduced toughness.  “Bonk”. The monkey was out.

Things between the two gangs only became more vicious.  A Veiler with a hand flamer torched two Bears and a Bear shot a Veiler.   Another Bear roped in the Wastoids by flaming two of them.  One of the poor Wastoids lost his footing and plummeted from the fifth floor to the ground with a flaming splat. 

Meanwhile the Misbehaviors were doing all the heavy lifting against the EGGS and Auxiliaries.   Five separate hand to hand struggles were playing out across several bridges and the smaller tower.  

The Misbehaviors were taking a beating but were dishing it out. The most protracted struggle and ultimately the deadliest occurred on the middle bridge where one EGG had already been shot down by a little green, and another had been flamed out.  Old Arthur, the eldest of the Guardians had sprung forward to cover Molly Mudgummer-daughter of reknown slag collector Enron Mudgummer-who was the shot down Guardian and who was crawling back down the bridge. 

 One of the not so little green Misbehaviors pounced on Arthur  with an assist by a mechanical dungeon bowl ball that the Misbehaviors had found in Hethel’s Bowl. 

The hand to hand was ongoing and Arthur was holding his own. The ball stabbed at Arthur’s shins with a sharpened appendage, and as Arthur lowered his shield to block the strike, the large green menace brought down an axe and struck Arthur a killing blow.

     Elsewhere a battle of the short legs ensued.  A Luminary named Baldur Mossfinder was charged by a newly recruited Misbehavior.   The two tangled until Mossfinder shot the green down and captured him.

..

The Bears were taking hits and the EGGS were dropping.   Foot Captain Neckbreaker’s  Guardians captured five scofflaws and shot down several more.  It was time to pull back.  The newly formed militia hadn’t set the world on fire with its first action (The Bears and  Veil did that) but it held its own. The EGGS could be proud that they had brought in members of each of the thieving gangs.  Old Arthur was dead, and he would be honored.  The scaffolds in Blightwater Borough would be seeing action.  

Hard Boiled EGGS

The gangs of Emperor’s Getaway never pass up an opportunity to find loot.  If they hear about loot rumored  to be in abundance in one of the many pockets of the Underhive they head out to cash in.  This is how our intrepid not-really-heroes found themselves converging on an old administrative district. 

 

The Waste-Side Bears, Shrouded Path, Mischievous Misbehaviors, Pale Veil, and Wastoids all arrived in the area after hearing a tip from a merchant in Blightwater Borough.  The Slag Ratz with a Z for Maximum Doucheyness lost track of time and were running late 

There was indeed loot galore in the district.  There was also a lack of easily accessible exits.  This was a trap.

Barrister Kowlis McVallek had sworn vengeance on those that looted Hethel’s Bowl.  He had raided the abode of Aidus Johipok, the Archeopriest who had offered a reward for items found in that area, and recovered most of the items, but the Barrister felt that there needed to be consequences for those responsible for the looting.   He had offered compensation, albeit minimal for those that turned in the items found at Hethel’s Bowl, but only the Shrouded Path and Waste-Side Bears cooperated.

Barrister McVallek had also recently formed the militia known as the Emperor’s Getaway Guardian Service to help bring local order to the chaos of the Emperor’s Getaway.   This was a perfect chance to try them out.  The Auxiliaries of the Luminaries Guild, the militant wing of the light guild,  joined the EGGS in the hunt. One of the savvier Luminaries possessed an old Terra tome “Rouge  Traitors “ or some such and used old scrap to build what he called a Dreadnought, but was really just a crude engine stuck in some metal lockers.   The creation dubbed Billy Bot clunked along occasionally breaking down as the militia advanced   On the march to the cavern the inventor Luminary went on about his next project, a hover craft built using old odorous drums.

It was the agents of the Barrister who spread the word of loot in a cul de sac of a cavern near Jersey Sump.  It was The Emperor’s Getaway Guardian Service that followed the gangs and shut the trap.

The gangs arrived in a cooperative spirit as there appeared to be plenty of loot to go around.  They entered the cavernous chamber and spread out.  

While four of the gangs crawled about looking for goodies they didn’t notice that the Kroot of the Shrouded Path disappeared one by one from the cavern.  The Foot Captain of the militia Howl Neckbreaker arranged with the Kroot’s human  interpreter to allow the Kroot to leave the area before the shooting started.  The Shrouded Path was one of the gangs to hand over the Hethel’s Bowl swag to the Barrister, and although there were some dirty looks and unpleasant words from the Militia members aimed at the mutant scum, no violence broke out.  

The EGGS spread out and entered the administrative district.  The auxiliaries, an entirely Squat outfit climbed to the high ground to better position themselves. 

The booming voice of Foot Captain Neckbreaker, amplified by the Vox Staff of the Militia’s Caller, rang out.  “ Surrender and you will be given fair trial for your transgressions against the citizens of Emperor’s Getaway.”

The Foot Captain, The Caller.  One of the Cavaliers (with Bolt Cannon)

The militia advanced slowly and the Foot Captain made the offer one more time but it was ignored by the gangs who knew what Underhive justice looks like.

The remaining gangs began to retreat towards the rear of the cavern, taking time to loot as they went. The Waste-Side Bears who inexplicably had acquired a monkey they painted orange were farthest away from the new threat and calmly grabbed credits. 

The Pale,Veil, closest of all gangs to the advancing militia was more cautious.  

The Foot Captain huddled up his militia and barked out “ EGGS break!” and the guardians(foot militia)  spread out and advanced 

The four Cavaliers fanned out and hung back.  They knew they blocked the only exit. 

A word about the Cavaliers.  What would drive an Hiver to hammer out archaic armor and get on a horse (where did they even find a horse let alone four of them?) and go riding into the Underhive.  The answer is eccentricity.   Cavaliers are weird folks.  Often having some wealth and prestige ( at least for someone living below the Borderlands) the Cavaliers like to believe that they are like the knights of old.   They also like shiny things.  

One of the Cavaliers arrived mounting a Bolt Cannon to his arm and he was excited to use it.  Taking aim, the horseman spotted several Veilers running across a bridge.  He unloaded.  The first volley missed but a second volley dropped a Juve of the sneaky gang.  Excitement for the event may have slightly affected the Cavalier’s rationing of ammo as he emptied his Cannon and withdrew with a giddy smile on his face but a now useless gun.

The EGGS cautiously advanced at the same time their quarry withdrew. The gangers headed for higher ground while the militia was split high and low.

A Mischevius Misbehavior either wasn’t paying attention or was feeling bold as he wandered onto a platform of a powering  tower and straight into the path of a militiawoman who wielding a Boltgun.  She shot the Juve and he fell to the floor bleeding from several holes in his body. 

The withdrawing gangs were taking the “ignore it and it will go away approach” and continued to load up on valuables. 

The wounded Misbehavior acted on this philosophy to the extreme when approached by two EGGS who offered aid if the little green guy would crawl to them. The grot looked at them and then crawled in the opposite direction toward a box of valuable booty. 

The gangs realized that it would babe unwise to fight each other so rhey acted on their live and let someone else shoot you dead philosophy.   They continued to back up but were running out of real estate.  They would have to turn and fight. 

 

Would the alliance hold? Could the gangs escape? Would Billy break down again?

To be continued..

The Beast Comes To Hive Decastus

 It’s time to introduce a new member of the Irregular(s) Wargaming group. Weighing in at a cool 27lbs and standing two foot tall, the newest piece of scenery is what happens when an idea comes from lack of scenery skills and teams up with a scenery craftsman.  

We introduce …

Some Background-Scenery for the sci-fi faction of the Irregular(s) usually germinates in the brain of the group scenery guru.  This is where the talent sits.  We get this…

                

The Hive Master(Game Master/Dungeon Master) has less talent…so much less talent, but has ideas.  A typical conversation is as follows.  

 

HM-Hey Scenery Guru i have this totally realistic and functional idea for scenery.  

SG-Ummm, that’s totally unrealistic and will cave in on itself within two hours of gameplay. 

HM- Nah (having no understanding of geometry or physics) it could totally work.  

SG-Sigh.. how about we do this instead.

HM-But I like my way.  

SG-…which won’t work.

Hm- You know you want to…

SG-I totally don’t

The end result usually meets somewhere in the middle.   This latest piece of terrain is the result of that teamwork.  And there was even no strangling of the HM by the SG even though there were thoughts.

The Piece-The newest terrain piece lacks the finesse of previous SG pieces but goes for practicality.   Each level of the piece is of uniform height and is built for modularity.   The first example of this can be seen in the fact that it’s actually two pieces.  Here we see the pieces naked and separated 

They are interchangeable.    They are also magnetized.   Those are metal pieces on the top and magnets are sunk into the bottom of each four level piece. 

Magnets are the key to the piece being flexible as scenery.  Every floor is metal.  We then add accessories.

We have ladders (two types-caged and ladder/hatch combos) and stairs.   We have railings.  We have various other items.  They are all magnetized.   They can be moved around as needed and moved out of the way when miniatures need to be moved.   All magnets are covered with a rubberized tape to limit magnet on metal scraping.  

We have the naked tower of doom

Then we add the various add-ones

The metal tops also serve another purpose.   We are clumsy gamers.  Entire gangs have gone overboard when a bridge holding them is bumped.  Now all bridges have magnets underneath. 

Old scenery is not magnetized in this way but any bridge touching the new piece will be secure on one end.  It’s a start.  

The piece is also practical with pass throughs on each level and the ability to have at least two methods of moving from each level.

Two additional components were added to the main build

The porch 

Who doesn’t want to pull up a rocking chair and gaze out over the hive bottom.  The removable porch was first attached with magnets under one of the ends.  It didn’t hold.   A brace was then added below; getting closer.  Finally two clips designed as fences were added and boom.  A porch. The hab is magnetized on the bottom and can be removed. 

The final touch was dedicating the beast.   We grabbed our tiny bottle of champagne to smash on the side of the structure and added a sign.

The sign is also magnetized for when a gang sells naming rights.  

So we now have a new piece of Necromunda scenery. Next comes playing with the beast.

Hethel’s (Dungeon) Bowl Part 2

 The gangs at Hethel’s Bowl were popping from teleport pad to teleport pad as they searched for items to sell for loot.   The focus was on finding rare sports memorabilia and not brawling until a four legged  fellow chomped on the leg of a Pale Veil ganger and made (minor) Hive Decastus history.

Hello

The Pale Veil was, in the short campaign so far a cautious bunch who didn’t like to fight when they didn’t have to do so.   The Shrouded Path would claim that the Kroot hound would just not listen.   The little fella popped out of a nearby teleport pad and seeing dinner, charged.  The hound had horrible scars and the  sprint skill. The juicy Pale Veiler watched in horror as the toothy beast charged.  The Veiler failed his leadership test and broke but the hound was too quick and brought him down.  It was with this action and resulting consternation on the part of the fellow members of the chew toy’s gang that resulted in the hound to be christened Pale Tail.

Elsewhere, the Wastoids became aggressive.  A sniper with a long rifle shot down a Kroot who just previously was completing a happy dance after finding swag in a chest.  The same sniper also shot down a Waste-Sider who was caught in the open.

The very same sniper later after teleporting away

The Mischievous Misbehaviors finally showed up, and the Ratz bailed out.   This left the Bear who was pushing the crate without a partner and thus stuck. 

Sad trombone

The Bear would soon receive help from a Misbehavior who popped onto the nearby pad.  They worked together to push the giant crate of jerseys..until they realized that they could only move the jerseys by throwing the crate onto a teleport pad.   Thus, a crate of Hethel Hydra jerseys spent the rest of the scenario teleporting from spot to spot as it was bumped by teleporting gangers who tried to hunt it down…by teleporting.  It would be one of the last acts of the event when a Pather and a Wastoid worked together to haul it away.

The Pale Veil were succeeding in bringing off loot.  They didn’t make much use of the teleport pads and moved as a pack.

The Wastoids, Shrouded Path and Waste-Side Bears clashed in small skirmishes that broke out whenever they popped up on teleport pads near each other, and casualties among the Bears were starting to grow. 

Dungeon Bowl, as our gangs were finding out involves looking for a football (or footballs) hidden in chest(s.). Other chests have bombs in them that explode when the chest is opened. This very thing happened to several gangers from various gangs as they searched for loot.   But where do the explosives come from?   They must be stored somewhere before being loaded into those individual chests. 

A Mischievous Misbehavior solved this riddle.

See that Waste-Side Bear? Keep an eye on him.

One of the smaller green fellows must have been tickled to come upon a giant storage crate. His fellow ganger recently helped drag a crate of loot that had come out of a similar container, but imagine his surprise when he opened the large metal door only to find barrels of explosives.  The last thing he was heard to say before his demise was “that doesn’t look stable….”

The explosion rocked the entire dungeon stadium.   Fire and smoke billowed from the container and the blast carried across the cavernous bowl.  A Waste-Sider was thrown from a nearby walkway (no safety rails) to the floor several stories below, and almost the entire gang of Pale Veilers were pinned when the concussion hit them as they were going about their loot collecting. They were largely uninjured due to their distance from the blast, but one Veiler was struck down by debris.

The large explosion signaled the beginning of the end.  The teleport pads began to go haywire tossing those standing on them from pad to pad. Then, one by one, the pads began to shut down threatening to trap gangers in otherwise inaccessible nooks and crannies. 

During the chaos, two gangs decided to go to war.   The Pale Veil were smarting from the hound bite and the Shrouded Path felt the Veilers were escaping with too much loot and too little hassle.  A Kroot with a frag grenade snuck around some debris in hopes of flanking the Veil, but was caught out by a Veiler with a hand flamer who recognized the danger and struck first.   The big bird was fried like some kind of winged meal.  The fire breathing pet worm of the Veil charged another Kroot and was soon joined by his human companion.   The Kroot was deft with his newly acquired power sword and struck down the worm, but was in turn taken out by the club wielding human. The Kroot had loot which the pale fellow picked up and carried off.

A hand flamer wielding Pather leaped across a perilous gap and surprised a young sneaker who was suddenly running around on fire.  The run was short.  The fire extinguished as the lad dropped and was taken out of action. 

Two very young and very inexperienced Kroot Juves were struck down and killed by Pale Veil guns and clubs before both sides called it quits and fled the chaos that was Hethel’s Bowl.  One by one, the gangs had experienced enough sport for one day and left the dungeon.

The adventure had been fruitful for the gangs.  They had escaped with a hoard of artifacts that represented Emperor’s Getaway high culture.  

There was, however a decision to be made.  A recent edition of the Grimfish Harbor Howler reported that the leader of Blightwater Borough, Barrister Kowlis McVallek had threatened that if any items recovered at Hethel’s Bowl were not handed over to the council, there would be consequences.  The gangs had three choices.  Hand over the items for a much reduced amount of five creds per item, give them to the Archeopriest for a higher sum, or sell them on the side for possibly more and possibly less than their value. 

The Waste-Side Bears and Shrouded Path turned the items in.  The Wastoids, Shrouded Path and Pale Veil sold them to the Archeopriest, consequences be damned.

One final note. Over time, a tradition has developed in fights in the EG that when fighters go out of action they are placed on the bridge of death (usually a nearby shelf or spare table space) in a line to await their fate.   When the scenario is finished, the after-battle injury rolls are made amidst taunts and pity by the group.  It just so happens that the scenery guru surprised the group this session with a bridge of death in real form.  

It quickly filled up.