Sgt. Baxter scanned the smoking crater through the scope of his M-50, braced on the charred wreckage of a Bauhaus Sabretooth ATV. The smoke cleared, revealing a battered structure which defiantly rose from the crater's center. The control tower housed an access terminal of the ancient Thinking Machine known as MONIAC, built long before the Dark Symmetry had even entered the vocabulary of humankind.
Already, he could see movement in the trees beyond. Figures in tattered uniforms staggered slowly in the direction of the crater, goaded on by the guttural barks of a burly Necromutant. Behind them, a large muscular form with reddish hide held to the edge of the woods, hauling a cannon-sized rifle.
Sgt. Baxter prepared to call in the airstrike, when his view was obscured by the billowing cloud of an explosion which sent Legionnaire bodies flying. He looked up and away from his scope in time to see a Rams Air Cavalry Twin Barracuda lobbing Southpaw rockets while dodging Nazgaroth fire. Within moments, the Legionnaire squad was eradicated, and the Razide had retreated back into the woods.
"Cardinal be praised," Sgt. Baxter murmured, and signalled his troops. "We've got friends in high places."
But no sooner had his troops begun to move from their cover, when the tiny craft brought its Southpaws to bear.
"DIVE FOR COVER!"
This scenario is based on a large battle we played on an 8' by 5' table with 6 players representing Dark Legion (Algeroth/Ilian), Capitol, Imperial, Bauhaus, Brotherhood and Mishima. Basically, it's a free for all, with the intent being to hold an objective in the center for two consecutive turns. (In our own battle, it was quite close many a time. Mishima ended up winning with a single Shadow Walker on the board, after finishing up the last opposition in the form of two Ilian Templars.)
The premise behind this battle is that a control tower for an ancient Thinking Machine has been discovered in the thick of the Venusian jungles, amongst the ruins of an old Bauhaus research center. The Dark Legion plans on activating a terminal contained within the long- buried tower, so that the Dark Symmetry may make use of the knowledge and power stored within the age-old processors hidden under the soil.
The mega-corporations have learned of this, and intend to stop the Dark Legion. They have their own intentions as well to gain what information might be had from the Thinking Machine, before deactivating it so that the Dark Symmetry cannot corrupt it (and so that their rival corporations can't get anything out of it). The Brotherhood is intent on simply disabling the machine entirely, so that no information about such forbidden constructs may fall into the wrong hands.
This scenario is for 3 or more players. If you play with as many as we did, you may have to subdivide your table edges into "quadrants" of a sort. What we did was to essentially divide up the table into six pieces, with those in the corners actually having two table edges to choose from (or, at least, small portions thereof). Those not in the corners were a bit closer to the objective -- due to the proportions of our table -- but had a little less flexibility for deployment. In this situation, we dropped the rule that you can't place within 6" of a table edge, but we designated a border between each deployment zone of at least 12 inches.
Players may choose from the different corporations or a Dark Legion force. We played with 500 points (well, technically, 501 with our "you can go one point over" tradition) each, and ended up playing well into the night. No force may use the "Seconding" rule to have Brotherhood individuals ... except, of course, for a Brotherhood force.
While the Corporations shouldn't usually be trading shots with the Brotherhood, we came up with our own excuses as to why this might be the case. For one thing, our Brotherhood player insisted on loading up his individuals with cybernetics, so we decided that it was an /apostate/ Brotherhood force, and therefore it was okay to shoot at him! Otherwise, one option we did not test was that corporations on good standing with the Brotherhood (certainly Bauhaus, probably Capitol, possibly Imperial, probably not Mishima, and certainly not Cybertronic) cannot trade shots with the Brotherhood. If you are playing Bauhaus and refuse to fight the Brotherhood, then if they get to that tower first, you can't do much but secretly hope that Capitol calls in an airstrike before you get there! (Using the Art in a non- damaging way -- such as with an Etoiles Mortant hero, etc. -- is perfectly acceptable as a means of thwarting the Brotherhood (or vice versa) without "trading shots". Shock grenades are okay as well.)
In the event that you should run out of forces and need an 8th, someone could potentially field a Cartel all-agent force. Such a force could only consist of Agents and Special Agents ... plus Cartel Consultants, if they ever come up with the stats for them. A Cartel force cannot contain Corporate units, Brotherhood individuals, nor Doomtroopers. This diverges from the usual rules for the Cartel, and also supersedes the "-4 to Initiative" rule that usually plagues them, since this renegade Cartel force (operating under cover, of course!) would not have to be dealing with squabbling Corporate forces under its command.
To set up the table, have a tower or some other structure in the dead center of the table. It should be tall enough to be in line of sight to a large part of the table, but for game purposes it will only take a single action to climb it -- due to ladders, hand-holds, etc. There should be a large area around the tower which offers no cover, representing the "crater" in an abstract fashion. Around the perimeter, I'd recommend a good assortment of terrain, as evenly dispersed as possible. Stay away from totally impassible obstacles such as rivers, which might seriously handicap whomever is unfortunate to have to deploy on the other side. Also, be sure to have a number of high vantage points on the far outer perimeter of the table, with line of sight to the center tower. Basically, if someone chooses to invest points in some guy who can deliver long distance fire support to keep that tower clear of enemy troopers, let him do it. Also, there should be a good amount of cover in the initial deployment zones so it's not so easy for adjacent enemies to wipe out each other on the first turn, thanks to a lucky Initiative roll.
When deploying troops, note that none may be placed in the "crater" area (however you choose to denote it). This specifically applies to the Free Marines, who may otherwise be deployed normally. Airborne troops which come in later are perfectly at liberty to be dropped in right on the tower. (After all, that's Capitol's claim to fame, and they don't have any use of Dark Gifts or the Art, as Dark Legion, Bauhaus and Brotherhood would.)
If you have more than 3 players, when rolling for Initiative order, I recommend the following method: First, have everybody roll off. The highest roll is the one who wins the initiative. This is where you start going around the table. The second highest chooses which direction turn order will then proceed around the table, either clockwise or counter-clockwise. When rolling for PLACEMENT, whomever makes the highest roll gets to choose whomever much place first, and the second-highest again chooses what direction to proceed around the table.
When placing for more than 3 players, I'd recommend just having each person putting down all his troops at once, rather than turn by turn. This may over-amplify the significance of the order roll, but I think that with a lot of players, this spreads out a bit, since EVERYBODY is after everybody... and even if you place your troops first and player #2 decides to react to your placement, he's going to have players #3 and on to worry about as well.
When play starts, this clockwise-or-counter-clockwise order makes things a lot easier to handle than trying to figure out the crisscrossing path of order that results from having everybody roll separately. (It got to be a real headache, so we instituted this rule in the middle of the battle. It made a world of difference.)
Basically, the object is to occupy the tower for at least two consecutive turns, which represents that your figure (while fighting off the enemies) is either downloading information (and transmitting it via secure channels to his base), activating the computer, or disabling it. Any model in the tower may take actions normally and has no penalty to defense, etc. It's assumed that all models are carrying the equipment they need to essentially plug it into the computer and pay it only minimal attention to keep it running between barrages of enemy fire.
Once you get at least one of your models into the tower, and he survives until his next activation, that's turn #1. If he can survive in there to another activation, that's turn #2 and you win. If you have a model in the tower who has survived a turn, a second friendly model gets in there, and THEN the first model is killed, you still win if that second friendly model makes it to his next activation. However, if during any point there is a time when none of your friendly models are in the tower, it is no longer occupied. Even if you successfully spent a turn there, you have to start over.=7F You have to keep the tower for two CONSECUTIVE turns. As soon as you win, the game's over -- It doesn't matter how many models you lost or who is left to finish off the maniac who made it to the tower first. The tower has been activated, deactivated and/or downloaded, and that's all that matters.
Whether the tower offers any cover is up to you. I personally would recommend that it just be a big flat surface with no cover, so that it's not TOO easy for someone to just airdrop in or teleport in, beat the others and win the game hands down. Given this, you may want to consider that larger tables may give an even greater advantage to the corporations with access to such abilities, as the rest are forced to go on foot. Granted, Mishima can have a pretty good advantage against terrain with their Shadow Walkers, but Cybertronic has no great mobility under the basic list. If you have a larger table than 8' x 5', you might want to consider going to requiring /three/ consecutive turns, so that the foot soldiers can have a chance to move in before the action's over.
Dimensional Warp:
However, during our battle we interpreted this spell such that it could be used to teleport friendly (Dark Legion) models or the caster himself. Since then, we've learned that this is not proper use of the spell. This may not necessarily be a "house rule", but it might be worthwhile to clarify this, as this did turn out to be a rather powerful spell.
Teleporting:
Necromowers:
Climbing into or out of the Necromower takes one action, and would either put the driver on foot in base contact with the vehicle, or require him to be there to get in, respectively. Use the Wolfbane Hero figure to represent the Necromower driver on foot.
The Necromower driver cannot take the Charger with him. Instead, it is assumed that he has a Claymore which he can use while on foot, already figured into the cost of the vehicle. Note that he only gains the +4 resistance to Dark Gifts while wielding it. Additional weapons may be purchased for the Necromower driver to use while on foot.
In order to disembark, the Necromower must be stationary -- either through a Stop action or by hitting an obstacle. While it is stationary (under these house rules) it IS possible to attack the driver in close combat, and vice versa (with the Claymore). However, sweep attacks are not possible either against nor by the Necromower driver. (Those roll bars kind of get in the way.)
While on foot, the Necromower driver has a MV of 3 and Armor of 24.
The Necromower may not be driven by anyone other than another Necromower driver, nor may the mounted Charger be used by anyone else. The untended Necromower may be disabled by anyone in base contact who takes an action to do so, or by an area-effect attack which beats an Armor roll of 28. Otherwise, the Necromower may not be attacked. An untended Necromower gets no Leadership roll resistance to any Dark Gifts which may be applicable. (It's very, very vulnerable in that respect...) Note: The Necromower is considered "untended" only if the driver is not in the vehicle and is not in base contact with it. If it is "disabled", it still remains on the board, but cannot be driven, and the Charger cannot be fired.
Shadow Walkers, etc.
If you have any comments on this, please let me know! Basically, we played the game as described here, though some of the notes about corporate forces indicate that we thought a bit about what we'd do *IF* some of the players had chosen their forces differently.
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