[Necromunda] Bad Heir Day (Shift 260502, M42)

How do you even tell this story?

Annie busted out. Or she got busted out. Nobody's sure. The Palanite raided that doc shop we set her up in. Some say they dragged her out kicking and screaming; some say she went quietly; some say she set the whole thing up.

Noisette's gone. Filled her pockets and bolted. Left us three vials as a goodnight kiss - some really ill shit, she'd emptied the lab right down.  

And we were stuck down here. Left on venom and revenge. Nothing else to do. 

Big Steev was running the show by now. Nobody who messed with the Ogryn Autonomy Plebiscite came out with much to show for it. Biggest gang in the dome, and the biggest gang in the dome to boot.

No way we were gonna take him down by ourselves, but we wouldn't be by ourselves. We knew Drekki was gunning for him - like, plasma gunning, he'd had his crew working on those things for weeks. Turns out Squats know where the safety vents are on those things.

So that's the thin red line, between Steev and the grey belt. He ain't getting out this way.

 Then there's the 'rathi, the nomads. They burned their way across this dome and now I guess they're heading home - but ol' Steevi Boi's in their way, so for once the clickers are on our side. Maybe Swordsmari did us one last good turn before she went uphive. Hell, maybe she's gone clicker like that boy who wanted her. Maybe everyone's screwing us.

And that's the grey belt. You've got the inner gates, the ways in and out of Y'Fenni. Then you've got the outer gates - the big rockcrete ones that keep the Bri-chem NiOG storm out. You can work your way around that deadzone and get into any of the settlements - or outta the dome altogether. 

one

Everything started off pretty shiny. The clicker rockets and Jenna's flashbomb kept a bunch of heads down, and then that giant bog roach climbed outta the dark and cut the Ogryns off.

Plasma's bright as hell, you knew that? Hurts like real raylight, which is what we were dropping on our side.

Shame Jakki and PowPow couldn't land their hits. Woulda loved to see what Noisette had cooked up, but one shot really means one shot I guess.

But we still had a surprise for 'em, savv? Harri K was waiting for them by the exit, and we'd cranked her all the way up. Frenzon shot, stimm slug, and her claws all juiced up with Noisette's last parting shot. If anything was gonna take down Big Steev...

 two

So that's where we're at when one of the lobo-slaves slams a door back and we realise we're feeling wind. Hot wind. And dust. The hellgates were open... and the storm was coming in.

Harri's so juiced she can't not take her shot, and... God-Father, Master forgive her, she krukked it. Why'd we ever get so twisted to bring her back? Why'd we burn our last creds on a rutting zombie? What fool gave her claws and not something with some reach to it? 

I don't think that lug with the rock saw even blinked - cut her in half. She lived, she died, she lived again, she died as she lived. Useless.

Drekki's crew do what they can, but those krukking meat slaves know their way around a mining tool. Las-cutters kept the lil' guys dancing... and they work pretty good on plasteel doors and all.

 

Before we know who's who, Big Steev's out and away, running for the main doors. Did... say he didn't plan this! They all say he's a thinker. I thought it was all kitten shit, but here he was, getting out a way nobody thought was there.

Looking pretty bleak for his crew, though. 

three

I say that. This bushwhack's starting to fall apart now. Turns out robo-slaves are welcome in Big Steev's revolution, and he's got a whole-ass AmBot turning on the Urathi. Rather them than us. You can't poison those things, and we've got all of one plasma pistol left to hurt it.

The big bug's doing work. Proves the lobos aren't invincible - you just need jaws of death to take 'em out. We coulda done with a Khymerix out there...

Instead we're up here with bolters and lasers, trying like hell while the clickers steal our krukking kills! Jakki's trying, she hits and hits, but nothing doing. Like punching starch sacks.

And then we see him, buried in amongst the barricades, hugging the tunnel holes. That rutting dwarf. That krukking squat. Francesco Scaramunda. The man with the golden grenade. He's screwed us all one way or the other. Dud rockets, empty flashers, pistols that kick back in your face. If we do nothing else here, we're gonna take him down... but PowPow's outta shots, and Jo's not got the line. There's only one of us fit for the job.

Buttons, I love you. I want you to know that. Best fifty creds we ever spent. Just pict it - the most crooked guy in Y'Fenni, taken out by a housepet.

 

It's a great day for long shots. The clicker on the tower's got his head up again - ducked it down to save his ass from storm welding, can't blame the bugrutter one bit - and he's lining something up. Straight down the alley. Straight through the doors. Straight in the ass of Big Steev, right as the Squats start blasting too.

I never saw it for myself, but I heard they hit him. Actually got him to bite dust, just for a minute.

Lotta dust in the air, though. Everyone that side of the wall's strong enough to stay standing, but I'm thinking - I'm feeling we gotta split before that crap starts coming through the inner doors. Nothing makes you bleed like rad-sand, and nothing makes you feel bad for bleeding worse either.

 Last thing I hear from that side's Drekki laughing like hell. Last thing I see from that side's three Ogryns catch and burn. Mad dwarf captain with a hand flamer strikes again. Least it wasn't one of us he'd burnified this time. Every other day him and Jo are on the same field, she walks away with a brand new skin graft.

 four

They say Big Steev made it out. You hear it from the Ogryns already, the ones still working the pits and the forges and the mines. "We is all Steevicus," they say, "an' Steevicus got out one day."

 We know that AmBot didn't. The bug turned around, jumped it for messing with the clickers. Just... legs. Legs, and jaws, and the hiss and spit of acid. I get why Swordsmari bolted.

Jo wanted a parting shot. Said there was one last scummer who'd been trailing off the Ogryns, running around on fire, getting webbed by clickers, not krukking dying. Said that wouldn't stand. She bolts out, shoots her shot, and we call it. The dust's coming through the inner wall, through the guardholes, through the open doorways. We've gotta run.

Waste take them all, and be dust to them. I hope they choke on it.

So, Pastor. That's my confession. We got betrayed, we shot our shot, we turned tail and ran. That's where it all ends. Now God, beloved, Father of All, say I'm forgiven. Say there's hope for me. Say I'll get out of this bed some day, that these burns'll heal. Say I'll be saved. Say it... with a kiss.

- Sister Evan, of the Damp Stain  

wrap

What a cracker that was. A somewhat doctored Gateway to Hell scenario, adjusted to fit the bodies present on the day, and - since I was nowhere near the running to win any damn thing - I felt much freer in making on the spot rulings to move things along and curate some sort of conclusion in the time we had. An hour to set up and socialise, and an hour for the first round, and it was clear we'd not be playing out the full nine, so the gates came down early and a moral victory from a technical draw was being pursued.

Honestly, we couldn't have made up anything better. Steev's run for the door and the gateway, the longest rocket shot our tables have ever seen, and he still dragged himself up and forced himself out through the winds to the dreaded outside world. Drekki's straight-down-the-line shot on his followers, penning them in with fire while his plasma crew hosed them down, Ogryns scrambling into the dust after their boss and going down like it's Blackadder Goes Forth out there, while inside the Dome all the petty treacheries of the campaign start bleeding out again.

Considering the campaign as a whole, I think that went vay well in terms of people having a good time. I've had five very keen players and haven't had to do any really hardline Arbitrating - the main job has been cutting through the yap-fog and imposing decisions once the tempo of the room has made itself clear, and I think I've made consistently decent calls in that regard. We've played, in by-the-book terms, half of a "real" Dominion campaign and it's been a good way to spend four months.

There is a practical concern, in that the Ogryns seem to have swept the board in terms of actual trophies. More games played, which means more XP gains, and more games won, which means more territories and wealth. We have had a snowball, and I think it's partly down to the good stats and high-yield weapons available to the Ogryns, and partly down to player availability and the number of (failed) challenges thrown at them. 

I think there's something to be said for making the challenges less freeform or maybe making the post-battle sequence a once-per-cycle rather than once-per-game thing in an attempt to restrain runaway success without saying "this game doesn't count" - which I know is a pain point for our Ogryn player, if he's getting his models out he wants to be putting scores on the doors and I don't blame him.

As for my own gang, well. Well. I've learned a lot. I started with a grab-bag of secondhand models built with some... weapon choices which I would not have made... and doubled down on them when I built my first expansion sprue with some very questionable rule-of-cool aesthetic decisions. I don't regret having a Death Maiden with two venom claws or a Wyld Runner with a bow, they look cool as hell and the models are lovely now they're painted, but I have been annoyed with them on the tabletop. 

The thing is, a piece has to be both Cool and Good for me to truly value it, and these fighters who can't land shots or complete charges - OK, look, I'm overinvested in Harri Karrion the character, but Harri Karrion the set of rules has never popped off, and that sours my beans something fierce. Partly I need to step back and stop getting my hopes up - let the story emerge rather than wanting things to happen. Partly I need to build models with kit that doesn't suck and make more informed choices in the rules. Partly I need to stop tilting at Ogryns with rock saws and Genestealers with power picks in the first place. It just seems like such a waste to build a killing machine and then only throw it at the softest prey in town.

That said, I do think there's mileage in House Escher, just not an Escher gang built the way this one was. The part of my brain which fails to recognise sunk cost fallacies is already scheming a second generation of gangers and I may end up indulging it, but not at the expense of getting my Goliaths done.

 Since this pict was captured, the Meat Sweats have been re-primed, and one more weapon swap has been carried out. The starting lineup of seven is ready for a second go with the brush and slather, and at the moment I'm pretty confident about going out into the Wastes so Hedgehog can use his full Nomad kit, Steve gets to actually drive his custom truck, and I have an excuse to build two Maulers.

We will have to do this again, sometime.