27 Fyrmont 1000 AC - Tyger, tyger...

 Broneslav woke at dawn, primarily because the mosquitoes also awoke and breakfasted on him. He got up and carried on northwards. It was slow, heavy going and he was beginning to doubt that he would make it to the city and back within the two weeks he had allowed himself. His youthful optimism had done him a bad turn! Well, he had given the captain orders and would see how far he got before he needed to turn back.

He waded out of the swamps into the hills. The going became easier for him, although not by much. As he crested a hill, he saw in the distance smoke rising as from a camp fire. He pondered whether to approach. While he pondered, he looked around. a couple of hundred paces away, he saw a group of zombies shambling towards him. They had obviously spotted him. He knew that these tireless undead would never stop pursuing him, so he prepared for battle. He placed his sword in the ground in front of him so that he could quickly pick it up. He placed his shield beside it and readied his bow. He reckoned he could get half a dozen shots off before the six zombies reached him. His first shot wounded one zombie. His second shot missed but his third and fourth shots killed a zombie each. The fifth shot wounded a zombie. The remaining four zombies were now just forty paces away. He dropped his bow and grabbed his sword and shield. In the time he took to do this, they were nearly upon him.

Broneslav leapt to the attack. Two more zombies fell as his sword cleaved through them, taking away whatever force animated them to unlife. The remaining two attacked, their claws making shrieking noises as they dragged across his shield and armour, but they could not penetrate the steel. Broneslav responded, manfully slicing his sword across their heads and bodies. Both zombies fell still. He paused to catch his breath before cleaning his weapons and putting them away. He examined the undead corpses before him. The shabby, rotting bodies stank, but there was nothing remarkable about them. He recovered his arrows from the corpses and carried on towards the smoke.

By early evening, he could see an encampment ahead. Half a dozen brightly coloured tents lay in a flat area in front of him. Smoke rose from the open sides of a central tent whose sides were rolled up. Three pavilions had a one side rolled up, and he could see giant cat-like creatures with foot-long, dagger-like teeth. He had never even heard of sabre-toothed tigers before, but the name sprang instantly to mind when he gazed upon them. A couple of dozen cat-like warriors were gathered in the camp. They appeared to be cooking dinner and repairing their equipment.

Despite his careful approach, several of the warriors were standing looking towards him. He decided to approach openly in the hope of gaining their trust, or at least a less-than-hostile welcome. Stepping out into the open he neared the camp, his hands held away from his weapons. He stopped fifty paces short of the camp and called out to those who watched.

"Hello the camp. I come in peace. Will you let me approach?"

The warriors conferred. One who was larger and more decoratively attired nodded to the others.

"Come ahead," the warrior said in strange, almost sibilant Common, as if using a human language through the sharp teeth that filled his mouth was difficult. Broneslav took note of these teeth and also of the iron sheaths on the razor-sharp claws at the ends of the man's fingers. The pantherish grace with which these men moved was not a metaphor. Although humanoid, they definitely had the appearance of tigers too.

Broneslav approached them and introduced himself.

"Our scouts saw you fight a group of zombies. You are a good warrior," the leader hissed. He touched his hand to his head in a gesture that Broneslav took for respect.

Broneslav nodded in turn and was lead to the camp fire where dinner was almost ready. He offered up some of his fresh supplies for the pot and the group began to talk, warily at first but more relaxed after a little as Broneslav told of his adventures and they told of their lives.

They were Rakasta warriors, a nomadic people. Their group was scouting for food for their main group which was based elsewhere. They knew of the city and informed Broneslav that it would be many days before he could reach there. The going was difficult and the challenges many, but they respected his desire to challenge himself. They invited him to stay the night with them, and then he could go on his way. Broneslav gladly accepted the offer.

As they were getting ready to bed down for the night the guards reported crashing sounds in the undergrowth. The Rakasta warriors grouped themselves and prepared for whatever approached. As they did so, a group of three cave bears blundered into view. Surprised, all three reared up on their hind legs, towering over the group of warriors and roared a challenge.

Broneslav was the first to react. He charged the nearest bear, his sword carving huge gashes through its hide. The Rakasta warriors were quick to follow suit, laying into the bears with teeth and claws. In that first rush, the group of Rakasta that had followed Broneslav tore down the bear he had badly wounded, while other groups of Rakasta wounded the other two cave bears. As the first bear crashed to the ground, the wounded bears roared in fear and fled back through the undergrowth.

The leader of the Rakasta examined the dead bear's wounds, "You have sharp teeth and are fierce, Broneslav. Count yourself our friend and know that you are welcome in our camp again. Come, bear meat is not good to eat, but creatures larger than this would consider it a delicacy. We must take the pelt for ourselves and move the meat away from our camp so that we are not disturbed again."

The next two hours were spent doing just that, before all but the guards bedded down for the night. Fortunately, the rest of the night was peaceful.

Notes

I've started redoing the map slightly and decided to leave the hex grid in, because Broneslav's movements were confusing me. I also now wish that I had just created the full map for the Isle of Dread and blocked out the unexplored hexes, as I am now doing. When setting up these turns, I plan to try to get ahead by filling in whole terrain areas from now on. That should make the movement part of these turns easier for me to keep track.

Broneslav got a brilliant reaction roll from the Rakasta. His boyish charm worked well on them. I figure they were particularly impressed by his warlike attire and one of their scouts may have seen him take down the zombies with ease. As a warrior race, they appreciate other warriors. I can fully imagine that this encounter would have resulted in a bloody aftermath in my youth, and it seems that the module is written that way, because it tells you little about the Rakasta other than their hit points and treasure.

The zombies were no threat at all really. The only annoying thing was him missing a couple of them. I decided that he could recover arrows from those he hit, but that misses meant he would lose the arrow. This could become important later on in this exploration.

Full Throttle Lemmings: Bringing it home (5150: Mecha Combat)

 "Good to see you back in the saddle, Anna. Right, we've cleared the way, so this time we're going in. It will be the full team again. The goal is the Kurita base. We're going to cause some chaos and hopefully make it uneconomical for them to stay here. Any questions?"

Anna and Mike shook their heads.

"Good. This is the layout of the ground. As you can see, we'll advance through these woods in the centre and form up on the edge of them. Once we know where the bogeys are, we'll aim to use the line of hills between us and the bad dudes to sneak up. We're going in at night to make this easier. There's a low hill off to our right flank. We'll swing round from the centre to that hill. Once past that, we have a clear run at their main depot. The main issue will be that they have not fielded their heaviest mechs against us yet, so we need to be canny and try to take them out piecemeal. Our goal here is to clear the operations area. That will give us a straight run at the main Kurita depot. Remember, ff they gang up on us, we're toast, so we need to pick them off one at a time."

Anna and Mike did not seem particularly enthralled by that last comment, but they understood. They were mech pilots, after all, and this was what they lived for. And died for sometimes.

"Right, mount up. We're moving out in 30 minutes."

They all headed for their mechs and the start-up checks that Jennie insisted upon, surprisingly given her cavalier attitude to most other routine tasks.

"Ready, Lemmings?"

"Aye!"

"Sure!"

"Ok. Move out. You know the plan."

Control had reported bogeys ahead in a rough line covering the approach to the Kurita depot. One seemed to be in the open, so the Lemmings headed towards that one. Moving out as a tight group, they advanced through the woods until Anna had sight of the bogey on the right flank.

"Looks like a decoy, Lemming 1. I have a bad feeling about this."

The Lemmings moved as a group into the lee of the nearest hill. Anna manoeuvred her Locust to the crest line for a view over to the next bogey.

"Kurita Archer ahead!"

She backed her Locust swiftly back to join the other two.

The Archer's pilot quickly ducked back towards the remaining bogey. So far none of the bogeys had moved, which made it feel like the Lemmings were walking into an ambush.

Jennie suddenly felt unsure of what to do and the Lemmings waited where they were. The decision was soon taken out of her hands as the Archer advanced to the crest of the hill above them. The Lemmings got the first shots in, but apart from some minor damage to the Archer's left arm, their shots all went wide or churned up dirt just in front of the Archer. The Archer returned fire and the Locust's left leg flew off threw the air, taking a direct hit from a rocket that melted the armour and crushed the substructure beneath it. A volley from its other rocket launcher blasted Anna's Locust to bits. The explosion lit up the night sky as the Locust's chest disintegrated and its turbine blew up.

"ANNA!" screamed Jennie as she saw her oldest friend blasted to smithereens before her eyes.

Jennie and Mike let rip with everything they had, but again their shots were poorly aimed and just scratched the Archer. It returned fire. A volley from its heavy lasers blasted the legs off Mike's Wolverine. To her relief, Jennie saw Mike's autoeject deploy.

While this was going on, the other bogey was slowly approaching closer. It moved up to join the Archer on the crest of the hill, but turned out to be static on the scanner. Kurita was clearly struggling with funding the defence of their facilities now that the Lemmings had trashed so many of their mechs.

It was now the Kurita goon's turn to dither. Who knew what was going in his cockpit but he just stood there as Jennie fired everything she had at him. It caused little damage, but he decided to withdraw to cover.

Jennie followed up, taking up a position on the crest of the next hill. She fired again before the goon could react. Although most of her shots bounced off the larger mech's armour, she still blew chunks off its leg and a volley from her own rocket launcher blew its lower torso apart, just as she brought her PPG to bear and smashed a hole straight through its chest. The Kurita mech made an even more spectacular explosion than Anna's Locust had as its turbine went critical and exploded.

With the battlefield clear of enemy mechs, the way was open to the Kurita compound. Jennie's mech was a mess from missile and laser hits, but that could be repaired easily, and Kurita had no real defences left. She marched her Thunderbolt towards the compound, her faced hardened into a grim mask. She would make them pay for the loss of her friend.

Epilogue

The campaign had been costly for the Lemmings. Anna's loss hit Jennie particularly hard. Neither Mike's Wolverine nor Anna's Locust were recoverable either. Fortunately, they had been able to salvage and repair two of the knocked out Kurita mechs, so Mike was now back in the cockpit of a Wolverine, although this one would need repainting to something other than Kurita red.

The money for the ticket would tide them over to the next ticket though, and that was what they were here for. The worker's collective was happy with what they had done and was going to ensure they got good references too. The Full Throttle Lemmings were on their way.

Campaign

Lemming morale: 4

Kurita morale: 0

Despite the losses, the Lemmings achieved their goal and won the scenario. They then scored two more successes than the Kurita goons on the campaign morale table, so Lemmings morale went up one point while Kurita lost a point taking them to zero. That signals the end of the campaign.

A future campaign will see the Lemmings starting with a campaign morale of 5 because they won this campaign. On top of that, I shall deploy all my Lemming mechs, so that they have a full platoon of mechs available.

Afterthoughts

That was a rough scenario, even though the Lemmings only rolled up one opponent. The key problem was that I made a couple of mistakes, like forgetting to use Jennie's Marksman skill when rolling for hit location, and not applying Duck Back results on hits that failed to do damage until late in the game. No idea why I forgot both of these given that they are clearly written on the record sheets and reaction charts, but shit happens. I think the Duck Back issue would have made a difference to the outcome of this game, because the Lemmings consistently won the In Sight tests, meaning that they could have shot at the Archer and forced it to duck back before it could shoot at them. Lessons learned. I'll remember next time (possibly!).

I was also spectacularly disappointed with my dice. The Archer took up position at the crest of a hill, which meant that its lower half was protected and could not be damaged. I then promptly rolled leg hit after leg hit when the Lemmings did hit it. Worse yet, the Lemmings missed so many shots. I think the dice were making up for all the hits in previous games.

The final lesson from this mini-campaign is not to put pilots you like in light mechs. The Locust is great for scouting, and the way spotting and In Sight tests work means that it can pop up to spot and then duck back to avoid the consequences of spotting, which is very useful. However, the second it starts getting shot at, it is almost certain to be knocked out unless the enemy has only the lightest weaponry.

As far as this iteration of the 5150 rules goes, I like it. The games are quick and it will benefit from campaign play rather than single scenarios. I kind of wish light mechs were more durable, but I'll just have to keep that in mind when assigning pilots to scenarios, and also make sure that the light mechs never get too close to the main action. Some aspects of the rules require interpretation, but I'm ok with that. The main thing for me was the timing of when you react to something happening. So, does a mech duck back after you fire your first weapon at it and not cause damage, or do you fire everything and then apply all the effects? I interpreted it that all the weapons were linked by the fire control computer, so you fire everything you want to at one target and then apply effects, before turning to the next target, but I don't recall reading that in the rules anywhere. Maybe I missed it. I'm not sure how mech losses will affect campaign play. I suspect that once you start losing, then you will continue losing unless you get a lucky scenario or two and you could run out of mechs at some point, so maybe campaigns need to be relatively short. We'll see.

26 Fyrmont 1000 AC - Into the Interior

 Waking early, Broneslav was grateful that nothing had disturbed his sleep. He shook his boots out, disturbing a scorpion in the process and got ready to move on. The hills looked like easier going, so he headed east around the tar pits and then north, skirting the edge of the hills. Somehow he wound up wading through the swamp.

As the day progressed, it got hotter. The mosquitoes became more annoying. Shortly after lunch, he was wading out of the swamp towards the hills when he spotted a group of very large bears 100 paces or so away from him. He froze, as one of the bears stood up on its hind legs. It was nearly three times his height. The bear snuffled in his direction as he backed slowly into the swamp again and skirted around the group. As he retreated from them, he saw the bears return to their lunch, which appeared to be an unfeasibly large creature that he could not identify at this distance. It made sense that giant bears would eat giant prey, he guessed.

Broneslav continued on through the swamp and ended the day making camp on its edge. He hoped that the bears were not still hungry as he tried to get to sleep.

Full Throttle Lemmings: Getting Offensive (5150: Mecha Combat)

 "Listen up, Lemmings! We're going to raid those Kurita goons. We're all of us going in together and we're going to hurt them."

Jennie hoped her morale-boosting speech did not jinx the operation, but she had to be positive.

"Anna, you're on point. Scout them out and keep that tin can of yours out of harm's way. It will be hard with the low hills all over the area. If you have to, retreat onto the reverse slope of any hill and wait for us to take out the threats. Our goal is to sweep the area clean ready for a strike at their infrastructure. Spot, kill, spot, kill, right?"

Anna nodded. She knew that her Locust had tinfoil armour, so she would use her manoeuvrability to spot for the other two.

"Sure thing, Jennie."

"Mike, you're with me. Stay on my flank and work with me to take any goons we see down."

Mike nodded too.

"Yup, boss. Got it."

"Ok. We're still quite new at this, so I want to see you take care, but also remember that if we do not know what we are going to do, how can they predict it? When they go low, we shoot them in the head!"

The words made no real sense, but Jennie felt better for having said them. The three mech pilots marched outside and mounted up. Once the startup checks were completed, they moved out up the dusty road in single file. Anna's Locust led the column.

An hour later they were deploying at the edge of the operational area. As the trio trio advanced off the approach road and onto their assault trajectory, comms squawked.

"Lemming team, this is Control. We have three bogeys on scanner, covering the whole front of the operations area, twelve o'clock, one and three. They should now be showing on your displays. Good luck."

"Roger that, Control. Lemmings ho!" called Jennie over comms, "And keep it tight!"

She had heard commanders say this last. She had no clue what it meant, but she was a commander now and so it was something she too must say, she felt.

The Lemming team moved quickly to the lee of the nearest hill.

As Jennie and Mike took up position just behind the crest of a hill, Ann advanced her Locust to the crest of the next hill ahead of her.

"All clear, Control. Bogey was negative."

"Bogeys advancing. Countdown to contact."

"Hold in position, Lemming 2."

"Roger that. Aw crap, incoming Orion."

Anna backed the little Locust behind the hill and out of sight.

Jennie and Mike quickly moved up to the crest that Anna had so recently vacated. The Orion lumbered round to face them and fired, but its payload only kicked dirt up into the faces of the Thunderbolt and the Wolverine. Jennie stabbed the fire button on her PPG a second before Mike let rip. The crimson energy bolt hit the Orion full in the chest. Armour melted as if it had not been there and the mech disintegrated into a thousand component parts, like a New Year's fireworks show.

"Lemming team, multiple bogeys incoming on our three. I count a Warhammer, a Wasp and a Valkyrie."

While they had been focused on the Orion, a Kurita goon team had moved up on their flank. The Lemmings raced to swivel their mech's torsoes and fire.

Jennie counted the nanoseconds as the Thunderbolt's systems locked onto the approaching Warhammer. Each nanosecond felt like an hour. The time it took her thumb to depress the fire button felt even longer. But it was her shot that went first. Rockets blasted the chest of the Kurita mech, melting bits of its armour to slag. Then her PPG lanced out. A crimson beam of death nearly ripped the giant mech in half. As the pilot ejected, Mike turned his attention to the Valkyrie beside it.

Green fire leapt from all his lasers only to set light to the dry grass around the little mech. Then his rockets landed and the mech's head exploded. The headless mech toppled to the ground. As this was happening, Anna focused her fire on the remaining Wasp. Her Locust and the Wasp exchanged fire, it's laser lancing out, only to hit the hill that Anna's mech was behind. She, in turn hit the enemy mech but failed to do more than scratch its paintwork. The gun duel continued until suddenly a lucky shot hit Anna's mech in the middle and nearly cut it in half. Cursing as her autoeject went into action, she now had a bird's eye view of the rest of the battle, while her parachute opened and she drifted back to the ground.

Both Jennie and Mike turned their attention to the Wasp. It was never clear which of them hit it, but there would be no salvage from the little mech. Their fire had cut it to bits and triggered an explosion in its turbine.

"Objective complete. Operations area secured. Control, send salvage teams. We are returning to base."

Stopping to pick Anna up, Jennie turned for home. Things had gone better than they could have.

Campaign Morale

Lemmings: 3

Kurita: 1

Outcome

Anna was recovered with her pride hurt but otherwise uninjured. Her Locust was also recovered and  repaired. It will be usable next scenario. With Kurita morale reduced to 1, the next scenario could be the last.

This could have gone a lot worse than it did. Anna's gun duel could have gone better though. She and the other mech got into a duel where neither side managed to roll low enough to damage the other but both kept passing tests, so they kept fighting until the goon got lucky and blew the Locust in half.

With the way casualties pile up, I get the feeling that a campaign could quickly see you running out of mechs if you lose a scenario or two. I guess it is probably best to stick to fielding a smaller percentage of your force. Enemies are scaled based on what you field, so it would make sense to husband your resources in that way.

The next scenario will be a Lemmings assault again. If you win an assault scenario, you assualt again. I mean, why wouldn't you keep kicking someone while they are down if it means the war will be over sooner? Will it be the last battle for this mini-campaign though?