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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jcayer" data-source="post: 6054052" data-attributes="member: 76960">For your Thanksgiving pleasure, Session 5: Tonight's session was very interesting. As an important note, this battle ran over three hours, so I may have a few details out of order, left out entirely, or just wrong. The survivors had just taken out a few of Hell's boys and were heading back to the Marina clubhouse to rescue their loved ones. The session opened and I told them they had around 25 minutes in the vehicles till they got back to the marina. I knew they could spend hours developing a plan, so I basically set a 25 minute time limit. I also stressed that it was likely Hell was 20ish minutes behind them, but they had no idea if that was true. They discussed numerous options, and proposed four different plans. They knew there would be ten bikers at the clubhouse. They assumed the bikers would be holed up in the Marina where they last saw their loved ones. The first option was to split into two groups. A small group of two or three could sneak into the basement of the Marina clubhouse through the basement window which they had smashed previously. Bob had hidden two Glocks with 60 rounds of ammunition in the bodies of the dead there. They could reclaim those weapons and sneak up into the house through the basement. Joel had hidden a glock in a ceiling tile of the second floor. Jeff had hidden a glock in Lt Dan's wheelchair. Meanwhile those in the second group would start a firefight and a distraction outside. The small team on the inside could distribute their weapons to their fellow hostages, increasing their numbers from 7 to 15. The second option consisted of a frontal assault. The third option was to ram their Humvee through the front window of the clubhouse, perhaps accompanied with a makeshift bomb. The fourth option was to bury a can of gasoline near the clubhouse and set it off after luring the bikers outside. They agreed to go with the first option. In the end, they decided to park at Henry's house, which was a five minute walk to the marina. Then things started to go bad....the entrance to Henry's driveway had a couple of trees cut down blocking the drive up. The trees had been cut down recently. The road had not been blocked when they left. While surveying the situation, they heard a gun shot and someone cry out in pain. They left their vehicles hidden in the woods and walked to Henry's house. Slowly advancing through the brush, they eventually were able to see the front of Henry's house. There were 2 bikers on the porch. Lt Dan's wheelchair was 15 or 20 feet from the porch, and Lt Dan was lying motionless further out. The 2 bikers were taking pot shots at him. He appeared to have some superficial wounds, but was definitely taking a beating. He was unresponsive and bleeding. It was clear that the bikers had relocated to the cabin. It was time for a new plan, but with Hell potentially 15 minutes behind, time was short. The group decided to split and flank. One group with Mike, Bob, Joel, and Adam approachedfrom the front of the house. Jeff, Kris, and Henry approached from the right side of the house. Then there was a scream. With a double raise on his notice check, Bob immediately recognized it as Andrea. A moment later, there was another one, likely MaryLou, the very attractive political activist . Her scream was punctuated with a couple shouts of, "No, NO." With Andrea's scream, Bob lost all sense of tactics and immediately took off for the house. I have to admit, as the GM, I was baiting him a bit. Bob likes to take a lot of time to analyze, plan, and reanalyze. I wanted to run this encounter without a lot of analysis since it's a shootout. Bob's major hindrance was his wife Andrea. I knew he would do anything to make sure she was safe. This was relatively effective. Before the party could take any other actions or position themselves further, even before they were able to attempt to sneak up on the cabin, Bob flat out fired at one of the bikers. In his rage, he didn't even bother to aim. He lost all sense of self preservation. We dealt the cards and combat began. [Bob drew an Ace. The bikers and Spiderbait came next. Then the rest of the party would follow. The survivors had a guardian angel watching them as Bob exploded on both his hit roll (17) and damage (16), dropping the first biker. Not caring about anything but his wife, Bob then used his same turn to run toward the entrance of the cabin. He dropped a glock at Lt Dan, unsure if he was still conscious and able to use it. He ran as far as he could, and then did not drop prone. It would have been ugly here with the ten bikers coming next, but Bob decided to play the adventure card that he had been dealt: "...NOW!" This card allows all of your party members to act on your turn as if they had drawn your card in the initiative. Suddenly, the entire party was now able to act before the bikers could. Mike followed that up with the same result. Mike's three round burst exploded on the second biker. Within the first 2 turns, the guards on the porch were dead. Another biker broke out some glass on the second floor facing the side Jeff, Kris, and Henry were approaching from. Jeff opened fire and did the same thing, multiple dice exploded for hitting and damage. It was so high, even though he couldn't see the biker, I had to give it to him. Biker 3 down. After such an amazing start, I was afraid this encounter would collapse in upon itself. That was not the case, as things now started to go bad for the players. Bob continued to recklessly advance his mind only on the possible harm to his wife. He was hit, but was lucky enough to soak the damage. Most of the other players advanced, or were pinned down with suppressive fire. Another 2 gunners took places upstairs, facing Jeff, Henry, and Kris. Spiderbait took a spot on the second floor overlooking the front of the house while 2 more bikers flanked the front door. This was very difficult for the players. Both Joel and Adam had a hindrance that gave them a pace of five and a run of d4, and they simply weren't fast enough to get the house without being considerably exposed to gunfire. The next round was a devastating one for the players as a grenade came out the front door toward Bob. As the only person not taking cover, all the bikers laid into him. At the same time, the other biker on the floor opened fire on him. Bob managed to shake another wound, but in the end, was completely cut down in the middle of the drive for 31 points of damage. Bob asked if I might be willing to grant him a benny for playing to his hindrance, and I agreed. But it didn't help. You'd have to be an expert Yatzee player to soak 31 points of damage on a single benny. Bob fell to the ground, blood bubbling from his mouth as he spoke his wife's name for the final time. He became the first casualty in the War of the Dead. For a couple more rounds, combat stayed flat with people going prone, aiming, and working from cover until a few things happened all at once: Kris decided to try to advance, making his move, he was hit, but shook it off. Likewise, an unseen biker made a dash for the RV on the far side of the house. Joel responded heading for the RV to try to cut him off. Spiderbait pealed off a 3 round burst at Joel, hitting him. Fortunately, Joel managed to shake the hit and keep going. With so many people moving, Mike saw a chance and played Run for It, an adventure card that allowed everyone to run(maximum roll) as a free action. Joel got much closer to the RV, Adam advanced on the house, Kris made it to the house, and Jeff got halfway there. With their turns still to go, most of the survivors made it to the house. Mike opted not to run, but instead took down the biker who was going for the RV. Joel managed to pick off one of the bikers by the door quite accidently, as he used an M16 with full auto and fired a hail of bullets at the two bikers standing at the porch. This led to an interesting situation. Joel's shooting skill was a d4 only. He took three shooting rolls from full auto. And took a -2 to hit due to recoil. He took another -2 for being at medium range. Under the rules, a 1 or 2 with an automatic weapon automatically hits an adjacent bystander. Thus, if he rolled a 1,2,3, he would be guaranteed to hit an enemy. The combination of his low shooting skill combined with the full auto miss rules truly worked to his advantage. Though he missed his intended target, the stray bullets riddled the biker nearby him, and Kris was able to snipe the other one through the side window. Seeing that his friends had made it to the house, Mike chose to advance. He made it to Bob's fallen body and dove into the dirt next to it. This was good timing, as the lone biker on the porch fired a grenade at Mike. Mike pulled up Bob's kevlar vest-clad body as the grenade went off, and managed to somehow soak two wounds. Spiderbait and the two other upstairs shooters went silent. Jeff made it to the back door and peaking in, saw the two thugs dragging Andrea and MaryLou out to use as human shields. He withdrew to see how things developed. Mike thrust a knife into Bob's lifeless eye socket, ensuring he didn't rise again. Then he ran for the house. Spiderbait made it down the stairs and was all but invincible as Mike, Adam, and Kris all took shots at her, hitting her time and time again. The dice were with her as she soaked wound after wound after wound. I think I burned 5 or 6 bennies on her. She should have been dead four times over until Adam finally put her down. Before dying, Spiderbait unloaded with full auto on Mike, who soaked another wound. As this was transpiring, Mike yelled, "Bob is dead!" For the cost of a benny, I let someone control Andrea(NPC, Bob's wife) for a turn. Mike tossed me his chip, and promptly aced her roll. The good old stomp on toes and elbow to the gut, shook the biker and allowed her to get away. Further complicating things for the bikers, MaryLou managed to escape, and Jeff came around the corner, burying a pair of bullets in him, leaving him shaken. He recovered and made a break for it once Spiderbait went down. Another biker fired rapid fire - six bullets from his Glock into Jeff, who managed to soak one wound. The other biker wasn't able to shake it and just made it out the door when Jeff opened fire on him, killing him. The last biker was gunned down by the group, ending a 3+ hour tactical combat. This was our first real go at a big battle using the grid. Much to my surprise it took far longer than I had hoped or expected. What was even more surprising was it wasn't like a typical 4E battle. There was no grind and everyone pretty much stayed focused. We did have to look some rules up in the book but that didn't slow us down that much. Overall, it was an interesting session, leaving one player dead as we learned a great deal about how Savage Worlds plays on such a large scope.</blockquote>

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