Two Witches Meet The Zombies

Yeah, so it was time for another game of Five Parsecs From Star Fleet starring the Star Fleet Grammas. I mean, no one was forcing me or anything, but I wanted to get another game in. As a bit of background, I added the "Bug Hunt" as a mission just for completeness, because it isn't a very Star Trek-like adventure. And I included Zombies because they were already on the Mission table and I didn't feel like coming up with something different even though I'm not much of a zombie fan. So, naturally, when I was rolling up the mission paramaeters, I wound up with a bug hunt featuring zombies. And since the zombies can kind of spawn randomly, I needed a batch of them. 42 Star Fleet Zombies later, I felt I had enough to play the game.

Magrat and colony militia on the left, Nanny Ogg and a Star Fleet securuity team on the right.

Now, the first thing I realized when I was setting up this game was that I hadn't make the tokens for a Bug Hunt. I had honest;y never expected to play this kind of scenario, and so I had to make do with what I had made for the other scenarios. So I set up the three Objectives using "Point Of Interest" markers, Tactical Locations using "Scout" tokens, and the Contacts using a combination of "Hazard: and "Contact: tokens.

Turn Three, with a bunch of zombies already dead and two looking to be dead soon

I was meticulous in documenting the game with pictures. And I didn't realize the flash was on because I have a spiffy new phone battery and the flash actually works now. So, of the dozen or so pictures I took, only about four of them turned out well enough to share.

Turn Five, and five zombies just spawned by the container...

The good news, of course, is that the game doesn't really need a turn-by-turn description. The first few turns saw both sides advancing, no one was turned into a zombie, and only one person was lost on each team. Towards the end, a lot of zombies spawned all at once, which was scary for a moment because until then it had been pretty smooth going... the colony militia really showed their stuff, though, and they killed most of the zombies. There were three Contact markers that split in two, and two that turned out to be nothing.

Final turn" everyone is ready for the Transporter to beam them up, and there are still two Contact markers wandering away

All the Objectives were met after eight turns, there were still two contact markers wandering away (there had been only one, but it split in two on the last turn,) and the crew all gathered to be beamed up. Success!

Afterwards, both Nanny Ogg and Magrat leveled up. Star Fleet was putting heavy pressure on them to get everything wrapped up on their mission to Pinkfluffdoodle IV, but that would have no real effect on the next game. They also came across a good business deal on the side, and managed to earn a couple of extra credits to add to their stash.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a fan of the Bug Hunt mission, and I'm not a zombie fan. But I really wanted to push through and see how the dice play out in making a Star Trek adventure. And, if Star Trek had zombies, I think this game pretty accurately reflected how it would play out. We lost a couple of the background people, and both of the heroes in this episode had a moment or two to really shine and save everyone. Magrat really did a good job, which suits her role as Chief Security Officer. I certainly hope I get a better mission next time! And I need to make sure I have all the right tokens and markers...

My Star Fleet hack of Five Parsecs can be found here.

Five Parsecs From Home and the supplements are available here.

Bold Brigands Beaten

So y'all know that Anasdiazi's Raft is getting a little powerful. On a day with good dice rolling, they can plow through an encounter five times stronger than recommended. And due to this, I have said that once they are done clearing all the Threat from the village of Oraskat, the difficulty of the campaign will be adjusted from "Adventurer" to "Warband" for hopefully some increased difficulty. This is the story of saving Oraskat for once and for all. A short story, but still a story.

Bugs, Mr. Rico! No, wait, wrong game... five Brigands and their Leader

The thing of it is, the residents of Oraskat can't figure out if they love the Raft, or hate them. It was all love and kisses and free beer, but then our fearless durulz go off and kill some slavers to prevent the village from being raided and suddenly everyone's mad at them. It's almost like the village was in on it with the bad guys, am I right? Anyway, the villagers were feeling pretty hostile to Our Heroes when they got back. Those fearless fowl did some tracking, and had a good lead on some Brigands operating in the area. Probably because the townsfolk were aiding and abetting the bad guys. But who knows? Oasasya got a good deal on a Quick warhammer, which was bought for Mataw. And then they went out looking for the Brigands. Unfortunately, the Brigands found them first, most likely tipped off by the fine folk back in Oraskat.

The Brigands had a plan for their deployment. Really.

The opening moves of the encounter yielded some amazing archery from the whole bow section, and then a little help from the Nameless Priest of Humakt ensured only one out of three Brigands an the left flank survived. Mataw and Pariwan surged forward to meet the enemy, and without much surprise the tall keet fell before the enemy and Mataw then dispatched two of them, including their Leader. The survivor on the left flank saw that only one of his compatriots was still standing, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and ran away. Probably back to Oraskat.

Mataw is shown killing the Brigand Leader after he cut down Pariwan Keetslander

The end of the first turn's slaughter

One Brigand remained. He was within Mataw's charge range. And that was the end of him.

Bad guys go bye-bye; the end of the second turn.

So, after the dust had settled, it was time to check on Pariwan, his pink feathers crimson with his own blood. Again.He seemed somewhat injured, but as he had been feeling particularly lucky, he turned out to be just fine after all. Quackmore levelled up, with +1 to his Luck. A Balanced standard weapon was found amongst the Brigands and added tp the Raft's stash. The Outlaw Threat to Oraskat was NOT reduced, the die roll was "1;" but because the Raft had been successful in Tracking while still in the town, they were allowed to re-roll and scored a "5" thus reducing the Outlaw Threat by one and rendering Oraskat safe from ALL threats.At least for the time being, the ingrates. Because the Raft has eliminated all threats to the town, they gain +1 Story point and a Loot roll, which yielded 16 gold crowns. They are getting rich as well as experienced!

I thought my last game was fast at three turns, and now this one is just two turns. I can't wait to start dealing with increased danger when the Raft migrates to Berstavalb next turn.

Five Leagues From The Borderlands and the supplements are available here.

Outrageous Outlaws Offed!

Way back in December 2019, Anasdiazi's Raft encountered some slavers outside of Garakt. That was their fourth outing in the campaign to rid the region of threats to four villages. Garakt has long since been safe, and the Raft as of late has been clearing the lands around Oraskat, And they have finally run into some more slavers, this time a group composed of professional people sellers as well as some hired military help from the Lunar invaders.

But first, a little bit on what has been going on for the Raft since they beat down the last of the Lunars and rendered Oraskat safe from the invaders for the time being. Upon their return to Oraskat, there was a bit of a bronze shortage, making it harder to acquire basic arms and armor. Anasdiazi, Quackmore, and the Nameless Priest of Humakt all recovered one further turn of their healing time. Mataw came out of her sleep from the Winter's Flask, with an increase of one each in Agility, Speed, Combat Skill, and Toughness. She has become a true melee monster now! There was much foraging done with a result of three dose of Healing Herbs. Puddles caught two gold crowns' worth of fish. And then every able bodied member of the raft went out adventuring and found nothing to meet or fight. And si they went back to Oraskat. In game terms, I rolled a "2" for encounters, meaning neither a Roadside nor a Combat encounter would be involved. And so we rolled on to the next campaign turn...

Our Heroes. Y'all should know them by name by now.

The people of Oraskat have been very happy with Anasdiazi and the Raft, so much so they they were showered with gifts of food and ale. No Upkeep costs this turn around! Even better, Anasdiazi, Quackmore, and the Nameless Priest of  Humakt were all healed up and ready to fight. There was some Tracking, and the Raft thought they had a real good idea where to find some Outlaws. There was some laboring done, to the effect of six more gold crowns in the Raft's coffers. And Puddles went fishing but caught nothing.

The bad guys, with both old and new faces.

The Raft had no Roadside encounter. But their Combat encounter was automatically Outlaws, because both the Border Tensions and Dark Secrets threats had been reduced to zero for Oraskat. And who they encountered were a mixed group of eight, both Slavers and Lunar deserters (all using the Slavers profile, of course) as well as their overall Leader. Worse, while tracking down the Slavers, the Raft found themselves tracked down and attacked while they were investigating a copse of trees!

The Raft, effectively ambushed in the woods

The first run saw very little happen except the Slavers advancing towards the Raft in two groups, and in turn Our Heroes trying to get out of the woods to either get a clear shot or Lay The Smack Down. Seriously, only one shot was fired and it didn't hurt anyone.

The first turn of movement, shooting, and no effect

The second turn, however, saw what a true combat monster Mataw had become. She personally felled three of the Slavers. In other news, Pariwan Keetslander didn't go out of action, and archery was again useless. Anasdiazi and Quackmore held their own against some other Slavers, over on the other side of the woods.

Mataw shows her new moves in Turn 2

The last turn saw some nice archery from Trackquack the Guide and Oasasya, Mataw killed the fourth Slaver over on her side of the woods, Anasdiazi and Quackmore killed some Slavers before Quackmore went down to a counter-strike, and finally the Nameless Priest of Humakt finished off the last two bad guys.

The end of the game sees nine bad guys and Quackmore down

In the aftermath, it seemed that Quackmore was suffering a serious injury, but he pressed his luck and turned out to be just fine. They found some battered weaponry, one basic weapon usable out of it all. They managed to reduce the Outlaw threat to Oraskat by one, to just 1. The original Threat level had been 1, so the next Combat encounter would not be a Last Stand. The Nameless Priest of Humakt leveled up, with +1 Agility. Finally, they found a Spring Vial on a corpse, which is a life-saving magical fluid.

This was the quickest game of Five Leagues From The Borderlands I have ever played. No, really, it was a whole three turns. I think it took me longer to roll up the encounter and get it all on the table than to actually play the game. I even tried to stack the encounter against them by sticking them in the woods so their heavy-hitting archery would be nerfed for a few turns. The Raft has gotten powerful. So powerful, in fact, that Pariwan Keetslander has now survived a few games. If they smoke through their next Combat encounter and reduce the last point of Threat to Oraskat, I am raising the difficulty of the campaign when they get to the next village.

Five Leagues From The Borderlands and the supplements are available here.