Monday, August 6, 2018

Summary of events to this point:


Session 1/2
  • Players arrive at Althea's Choice, on the edge of Taurian Concordat space.
  • Players deal with 'locals' - aka Airport customs officer - Lady Gozen arrives later, same treatment.  Most players opt to negotiate or bribe the guy.  This has positive effect for the party later (to be revealed).
    • Regular players are taken to an arena, given a speech by Marshal Morton Grenadine.  Lady Gozen is not.
  • Players meet Alex, their Liason.  They are given their red armbands which are coded to their DNA and also act as a bank account - plus lord knows what else.  They are now part of a new, off the books unit called the Tenth Corps, or X Corps.  It's essentially a freelancer's group in pursuit of state interests for personal reward.
  • First mission: Find the source of the Letters of Marque.  Players are not shown a letter of Marque and cannot make out what Marshal Morton's says.   They opt to avoid comstar, the hotel, the militia barracks and decide to cut to the meat and go straight to the Hornet's nest, aka the "Pirates Heaven" bar.
  • They realize they screwed up (or didn't?) when the locals local the door and go for their weapons.
Session 2/3
  • Players arrive at the bar and initiate a fight before the locals have a chance to go well.  Lady Gozen is not yet present, she's held up by diplomatic problems.
  • The three players proceed to:  Blow the jaw off a bartender with a large firearm, smash a mug filled with tabasco and 190 proof moonshine into a man with obscene force, and grapple->judo throw->fuck shit up in a hurry.  Combat is seeming to go well.  Bunny girls run out of the bar to adjacent rooms.  One scared local leaves to the back room as well.
  • A large woman named Big Betty comes out of a nearby bathroom complaining about having to pinch one off.  She has a lot of armor and a big machine gun.
Session 3
  • 3 locals shot & killed.
  • Betty comes out, fires some shots.
  • Screaming from the back *unknown what*
  • Arrival of Lady Gozen.
  • Pancaking of Betty
  • More raw violence by Beau.
Session 4
  • Locals are mopped up.  Most are killed.  Bartender and 1 Bunny Girl live.
  • Players find secret basement
  • Players find source of letters of marque
  • Players learn of "Black James Demoor"
  • Players use verigraph machine to get more info (important for later).  Timely intervention of Branth eating Betty allows this.
  • Players loot several rooms, obtaining a significant cache of goods.  Players receive:
    • 1 TDF SASF Combat Battlesuit
    • 1 TDF Ailette Exo
    • A stack of approximately 8 flak vests (1/5/1/3).
    • 1 Descartes IV computer (no microbattery)
    • 1 Lockpick set, 1 Forgery Set
    • 2 Medikits
    • 2 Standard power packs
    • 4 Quick Charge power packs
    • 10 automatic rifles
    • 2 Light SRM launchers + 2 rounds of ammo
    • Thousands of rounds of ammunition for the guns
    • 8000 cbills under a desk in a hidden container
    • 2000 cbills from upstairs desk.  Was distributed evenly to all players (2500/per).
  • Players returned to hotel.  They were advised 'please don't kill anyone on property or burn the place down.'
  • Dragon took a bath in the pool.  A groan was heard coming from the owner.
  • Players were told the TDF would clean up the bar. 
  • Players were told Alex is waiting for them at the spaceport.
  • Players healed fully or somewhat recovered.  Full fatigue restoration.
Session 5
Players elected to go to the black market/Militia Barracks for intel. They discovered signs of a struggle and were able to isolate through muddy's form of 'enhanced interrogation handslapping' some additional information:
  • Bobby and his two friend/cohorts were out getting supplies when the pirates came and killed a few of the Militia.
  • Bobby had been selling supplies on the side to 'locals' who were likely pirates but it hadn't been anything malicious.
  • Bobby got cleaned out when some of his 'local helpers' came back and killed a few militia, converted the rest (typical pirate Join or Die method), and took a significant portion of the equipment. 
  • Players did not learn if there were additional survivors.
  • Players did not learn of any other additional information (there was some).
Players then headed to the spaceport to report their findings. 
  • Miles Spattol, security guard, advised them that he was able to pay the constabulatory to keep them off his back and pay off his debt to engineering school which got him an apprenticeship to New Vandenburg Autoworks with their generosity.  This has a positive effect for the players later.
  • Alex informed them the SASF suit was TDF Property.
  • He was happy with your findings, noting that they found additional documents at the bar indicating Yakuza material support (possibly including an advisor named Yoshihiko)
  • They were interrupted by an attack on the spaceport.
  • They were informed they could keep the suit(s) if they lived and cleared the airport threat.
  • They were informed mechs are inbound, 15 minutes out, and their mechs will take 10 minutes to start (60 turns). 
  • Combat begins against spaceport assailants.
  • All players gain flat 15 exp. No loot.
Session 6 (Spaceport Combat PT1)
  • Infantry level combat commences with players.
  • Players attack the axe gang with utter severity.  Things don't go well for the BGs.
  • Miles fires ineffectively.
  • Gozen's dragon misses it's DFA attempt but bites the arm off the poor bastard instead.
  • Also bites his foot.
  • Heinrich stomps puppies.
  • Hash blows the head off of someone without mercy.
  • Beau starts his mech up for reasons unknown to other players at this time.
  • An SRM launcher equipped power armor enemy breaks through a wall. 
  • Beau shoots at him, misses.
  • Miles shoots at him, crits his head and blinds him with shards of razor-sharp armored glass.
  • Grenades are thrown.
  • Grenades hit, but not as well as they could.
  • Marie's positioning ruins GM Mike's attempts to overwhelm players by holding a narrow choke point.
  • Gozen gets 20 exp, Hash gets 20 exp, Heinrich gets 20 exp, Beau gets 15 for lack of combat.   No loot.
Session 7
  • Infantry wave 3 arrived.  Gozen was shot in the head, non fatally. 
  • She recovered a significant amount of HP via medkit..
  • Dragon devoured a power armor user.
  • Three erupted from office - 2 torturers/interrogators and a leader in power armor with an autoshotgun.
  • Enemies attacked a mech (the Orion), dealing 2dmg to LT and 2 dmg to LL.
  • Beau landed two consecutive headshots, successfully concluding the entire eastern portion of the map by himself.
  • Enemies were cleared, no loot gained in short period after.  Players healed up and fired up their mechs.
  • Mechs were fired up.  All players noted additional detail on their screens they were not normally privy to. 
Session 8
  • Hot Mech on Mech action commenced.
  • Enemies began their blind rush towards the spaceport.
  • Firestarter took 6 leg damage due to LRM10 fire.
  • The players crippled the empty APC.
  • Lady Gozen shot the other incoming APC and killed it's infantry with a combination of laser fire.
  • Beau's locust maneuvered.
  • The urbanmech was scanned by Beau. (a 2xLarge Laser Variant).
  • Players were joined by a friendly NPC, a very Jilted "Col. Eustace P. Cutprice" on the far right of the field.  He began laying down long range fire.
  • Firestarter killed another APC, this time an SRM toting one.
  • The first Scorpion light tank was scanned and it's main gun destroyed, it's engine crit (50% move speed).
  • At the conclusion of combat, players received 25 exp, Dan got 30 for assisting by playing muddy's char.
Session 9

  • Locust fired a single small laser expertly through the holes in a light srm assault vehicle's armor, destroying the vehicle.
  • Hash's Orion slalomed through the woods with expert precision.
  • 1 enemy tank was expertly dispatched by Lady Gozen who suffered only some minor machine gun fire in return.  Her combination of laser fire and armored mech knuckles allowed her to make quick work of her foe.
  • Wasp got its head smashed flat (Squish, just like grape).
  • The remaining two enemy tanks fired with moderate success on the orion, which merely shrugged off the hits while in return both were severely crippled on their motive systems with one suffering complete engine failure and the other is clearly having difficulty moving.
  • Urbie got turned into a stick and obliterated (hidden objective met!), ejected.  This happened as a result of 12 LRMs destroying a torso full of heatsinks on a turn when the pilot over-extended his heat, causing a shutdown, which then gave opportunity for the OTHER torso to be destroyed. 
  • An enemy dropship arrived, delivering 4 unknown combatants.  These combatants piloted 2 types of mechs which have not been seen in 500 years or more and yet appeared relatively new.  These mechs are both the Bellerophon and the Icarus (type I).
  • 25 exp for all players this week.
More to follow.