Five Parsecs Turn 6: Money For Nothing

A combination of being busy and being sick has meant missing a couple scheduled games recently, and I’ve been wanting to actually see some of the cyberpunk terrain I’ve been working on on the tabletop…so this seems like a good time for another Five Parsecs game.

When we left our crew last, they were facing a lot of gangers, trying to punch through their territory.

Estelle took in the scene – a raucous group of heavily armed gangers mingling between the Bioplex facility and a nearby drone repair shop. The threat was definitely there, but they weren’t exactly trying to batter down the sealed doors of the facility.

“Thoughts?”

Alexis takes a peek past the building they are sheltering behind. “It’s a protection racket. New expansion. The corpos can’t afford to pay, and the optics of corporate security getting involved are bad. Makes sense now, why they’re paying so much and putting so much pressure on it.”

Trouble let out a blurt of data, which was translated a second later. “Oh yeah, they can afford *this* protection racket. But if word of this gets out, it’ll be every office on every world they operate in. It’ll be thousands of credits, maybe tens of thousands. But if you undermined the gang – like say, by paying some mercinaries to waltz through their shiny new territory – folks’ll start rethinking things…”

Estelle nodded. “Alright, what’s the play?”

“Hit them hard and fast. This is new territory for them – not worth dying for. And hope enough of them realize that.”

 

The Miniatures

Per usual, I’ve chosen to lean pretty heavily on Print Minis as the source for my figures – first because there’s some solid variety there, and also because coming from a single source, there’s a fairly consistent scale and style. I’ve chosen to represent the gang as a mix of the “District Army” collection that looks like insurgents or partisans, and the “Night Market” collection, which has a much more overtly cyberpunk flair. The reasoning behind that is primarily variety, but also the idea of combining a more established criminal organization with some impressionable local recruits. For the gang’s leader, I go with “Gabriela” out of the Bounty Hunter collection because, well, she looks like a threat with that rifle.

 

Deployment and Setup

The board is designed so that the crew deploys from approximately next to the parked taxi, behind the hospital building or behind the Torko Borko franchise (listen to the 40K Badcast if you want an explanation of what the hell that is – short version, ‘What if Taco Bell was run by Orks?’). Meanwhile, the gang is deployed in a fairly tight cluster, within the triangle between the bus stop, the red LED sign (which I rotated after this picture so it provided cover), and the corporate headquarters, which is the tall building.

Viv sets up inside the small circular retail store, which gives her cover and a good fire lane if – and when – the gang tries to cross the street to close with the crew.

Turn 1

Boosted as usual by Trouble’s sensors, the crew seizes the initiative, with Felix and Trouble moving up toward the entry to the hospital, while Estelle, Garrett and Alexis circle behind the fast food restaurant. Viv takes an opportunistic shot at an exposed ganger, but needing a 6 she misses.

Four of the crew get the jump on the gang, Garret using his action to open the door of the resturant, while Alexis moves into position and fires her colony rifle at a ganger, missing. Viv fires at the same gang member she targeted last time, this time connecting and taking them out of the fight. Felix shelters in the hospital’s entryway (the ethics of that are open to debate) and fires at another target, taking them out as well. A pretty decent start.

The gang dives for cover. Three shelter behind the drone repair shop’s sign, firing at Alexis, but all of them miss – as does the shotgun-wielding lieutenant who fires at Felix. The leader of the gang targets trouble, who is out in the open, with her rifle, and scores a hit, but fails to knock him out of the fight, merely stunning him. The Soulless rises and fires his needle rifle and kills the lieutenant that’s trying to pin down Felix.

Alexis’s plan comes to fruition, better than she could have expected – while braced for a turn with a high volume of fire, even if much of it isn’t great – what actually happens is that all but two members of the gang opt to retreat, including the major threats – the leader with their high powered rifle, the lieutenant with the clingfire pistol, and the gene-dog. That leaves just two gangers with the unenviable task of covering the retreat.

Turn 2

The second turn sees a now badly outnumbered opponent very much on the ropes. Felix and Alexis are the only two who go before them, with Felix missing his target, and Alexis hitting hers. The last remaining ganger fires at Trouble (the easiest to see and the biggest threat) but misses, before being finished off by the Soulless’s needle rifle in return.

 

Aftermath

As promised, the mission – more of a rout – is wildly lucrative. The gang don’t turn into rivals, perhaps obeying the ancient maxim “Don’t start none, won’t be none”. The crew is paid 7 credits for their trouble, and Bioplex is added as a permanent patron, which is doubly beneficial as the corporation would have become rivals if the crew had failed. They also recover a shotgun, which Alexis claims as a replacement for her colony rifle. The object of interest (the tarp-covered pile by the bus stop) gives a roll on the loot table.

After the battle, a shady character approaches the crew, offering to trade one piece of equipment for a roll on the trade table – on this planet, off-world registered firearms are insanely valuable, so Alexis trades her now surplus colony rifle for five credits worth of starship fuel. Estelle apparently helps herself to a Torko Borko Value Combo #7, gaining the “Well Fed” trait, which will allow her to ignore her next roll on the injury table. Between all the loot table rolls, the party also ends up with a large haul of broken equipment – some combat armor, a deflector field, a gun stabilizer, and an upgrade kit. The party has a lot of repair work to do, so it’s good they have their next job lined up already with Knight-Ryder.

Estelle uses some experience and credits to enroll in a pilot training course, while Trouble finds some new firmware to boost his Reflexes – he’s tired of taking a hit or two before he can fire back.

Turn 7 Setup

As referenced, there’s an existing job with Knight-Ryder, which has +3 credits in danger pay, and private transport, which means the party doesn’t need to worry about dodging rivals this turn. Upkeep, per usual, is offset by water sales.

Viv, per usual, goes exploring. She chats up a number of interesting characters, and picks up another Quest Rumor. She finally connects some dots and the party receives a Quest, though for the moment, she keeps her mouth shut – there’s another job in the hopper, and they’re already committed.

Trouble, Alexis and Estelle set to working on repairing gear. Alexis doesn’t have much luck, but both Estelle and Trouble manage to repair their items. Having been out of range several times recently, much to her frustration, Estelle installs the repaired gun upgrade kit onto her Beam Pistol, while Trouble fixes the Plasma Rifle Felix has his eye on. Some firearms shuffling ensues, with Garret taking Felix’s old Blast Rifle with the Beam Light upgrade to replace his Military Rifle.

Garret and Felix go trading. They turn up another 5 credits of fuel (gas is apparently dirt cheap on this world), which are stored in the ship’s hull as Estelle has no intention of leaving this planet for quite awhile if things are going to pay this well. Other random bits of scrap net the crew another credit.

Once everyone’s returned, Estelle goes and meets with Knight-Ryder. There’s a catch to the transportation – the crew will have to come in two waves, with two random crew members not on the table. There’s no notable sites, and what the corporation needs doing is for the crew to gain access to a console – another dead drop, this one highly secured. Knight-Ryder’s hired muscle (the crew) will be going up against some Skulker mercenaries (definitely not Space Skaven, why do you ask?). There’s a lot of them, and they’re fast, but not particularly brave. Seven total, including two specialists and a lieutenant. They’re well armed as well – all of the non-specialists are carrying Infantry Lasers, while the specialists are armed with a Plasma Rifle and a Hyper Blaster.

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