Sessions 1-3 summary and results.

So because I'm coming from a backlog, here's a little bit of info.

I have 4 players, who are:

• A female DC samurai who successfully tamed a Branth, owns a Branth farm and pilots a HBK-4H.  She has an NPC attendant with her as well.
• A 'Faceman', low level FWL noble who is charismatic but owns little property.  He's essentially the con artist of the group.  Pilots an Orion ON1-K.
•  A hillbilly FWL moonshiner who stole a mech (a customized LCT-1E I made for him called the LCT-1Fp) 
• A FWL Sergeant who pilots an FS9-A but carries a dark secret past.

They have arrived separately (not my choice) with 1 (the samurai) coming separate due to real life constraints.   Anyways, they first arrive at a spaceport and are harrassed by the local customs officer.  This is a free flowing encounter, designed to test their role playing skills and get them assimilated into the game easily.  They can bribe, punch, sneak - there's a lot of choices.  Ironically, two took bribe and one took negotiate... but he only negotiated a smaller bribe.   So it went easy.

From there, they are lead to believe they're going to fight in a coliseum as they are ferried off by armed men on trucks to a dusty arena. 

They get there and are told to put on colored armbands.  This is simple dynamic tension, designed to get their hackles up.  Then I pull the rug out from under them and have them find out they're actually being brought on as an 'off the books, anything goes merc group' for the Taurian Concordat to find out who is authorizing some "letters of marque".  Letters of Marque are essentially authorized piracy.

From here they're given a unit Liason (Alexander Barston) and a mission.  They get three choices from here - go to comstar and find out about some communications irregularities, go to the local militia barracks to track down some black market shenanigans, or visit the 'Pirates Heaven Bar'.  They took the Bar, not realizing of course that they left their gear in the hotel - they were underarmed, under equipped and went into the lion's den.

The first fight was scripted to always happen at the bar. All roads lead here.

It is designed as an intro fight, with simple melee combat NPCs (3500 xp for their builds) using broken bottles or knives, a heavily armed bartender (neo chain mail, 3750 xp, double barrel sawed off) and one 'big bad'  - a 4250 xp heavy armed/armored enemy named "Big Betty".  So far things have gone well and will conclude shortly.

Comedy/combat boiled down to - Bartender was shot, badly hurt but not killed... hillbilly-man kicked the shit out of 2-3 people, sergeant-man beat the pants off 3 of them with one arm and killed 2 with gunshots.  So yeah, combat's concluding nicely.

Betty was done in by 14 points of damage from a dragon falling on her head.