A band of fearless
law officers have pursued a gang of merciless thieves to this
desolate outpost in the Bone Counties (called the Home Counties
before the Fall). Little do they know that these vicious “scavengers”
have managed to reactivate a Fallen artifact – a battle tank!
Whitecliff City Law Officers
Captain
Ana Kane, Quality 4 Lone Wolf
Two
Light Support Vehicles with machine guns, Quality 4 Vehicles
2x 3
Officers, Quality 3 Squads
Bone County Burglars
5
Lone Wolves: Colonel Slaughter, Lucy Thorn, Wolf Arson, Jackson Claw
and Madjack
“Crazy” Loon, Q3.
13
goons in three Gangs (4, 4, 5), Quality 2.
Fallen
battle tank, Q2
Victory Conditions
1pt
per dead Law Officer
3pts
per Law vehicle destroyed
1pt
per scavenger gang dispersed or
Lone Wolf killed
2pts
per scavenger Lone Wolf seized in CQB
10pts
if Fallen tank seized in CQB
Recon Phase & Deployment
The
scouting duel ended up giving both sides a sort of “chevron” for
their deployment zones. Captain
Kane stayed with one of her patrols, and the scavenger heroes also
bolstered their gangs – except the Colonel and Madjack. With blips
and vehicles deployed, it was time to play!
 |
| Infantry are just blips on the radar until they're spotted. |
The Game
Yells
sounded across the rockfield as the first law officers were spotted.
The LSVs roared to life and chugged forward as scavengers – or
civilians – ran here and there. The first exchange of fire saw two
scavvies go down,
As the two sides
began to advance in earnest, the LSVs showed their worth, scything
through scavvies with their heavy machine guns – but they couldn't
kill Lucy Thorn! With blood on her teeth she laughed as her men died
around her, and limped away into the desert. Return fire from heavy
rifles in the fort immobilised one of them too. And at the far end of
the field, an ominous rumble spurted into life...
 |
| An LSV assaults on the Law's left flank. |
 |
| Lucy Thorn's lucky escape. |
 |
| The tank appears at the end of the highway. |
Accurate rifle
fire forced the crew of the immobilised LSV to bail out, halving the
patrol's heavy firepower in one fell swoop. Lucky for them – the
awakened battle tank's main gun blew it up not ten seconds later.
Captain Kane and the other LSV caught Wolf Arson and his men in a
deadly crossfire and sent them all to Kingdom Gone.
 |
| The first LSV takes a main gun shell straight on. |
Jackson Claw and
his men fled their little fort, leaving Colonel Slaughter to rage
impotently behind them. The surviving LSV dashed into cover, while
Captain Kane plotted her next move. The gang they had been sent to
catch were dispersed – but now there was a tank to deal with – a
tank which had just blown up her second LSV! Things were desperate
now. Her patrol was stranded in the Bone Counties with no transport
home, and a clearly lethal Fallen artifact in the hands of villains.
It was time for an all-or-nothing attempt to seize the tank!
Her decision to be
heroic was interrupted by the frothing appearance of Madjack “Crazy”
Loon, swinging a serrated knife in her face! Forgotten in the horror
of the tank's appearance, this melty-faced madman had been psyching
himself up watching his friends die, and was determined to wreak
revenge! Although the Captain injured him with her nightstick, he
still gutted two officers in the time it takes to draw breath!
 |
| Although outnumbered, Madjack is VERY dangerous! |
Noticing that
Jackson and his men were loitering behind him at the foot of the
wall, Colonel Slaughter ran down with his trusty dog to scare them
into shape. The tank trundled towards Captain Kane as she and Madjack
continued their deadly dance of death. Neither of them could get the
upper hand until Kane's surviving bodyguard came up behind him and
broke his neck. No arrest was worth the lives of two officers, not
out here.
Kane and her
bloody-visored officer looked at each other, at the bodies of their
comrades, at each other once again, and charged the tank.
 |
| We are the Law! |
The captain leapt
up the titan's armour, ignoring the scream behind her. She unlocked
the turret hatch and threw her whole grenade pouch inside. A shot
from her peacefinder pistol, a jump to cover, and a super-heated
whoosh! blew up through the
air behind her. The tank was neutralised.
Things
went back to SOP after that. The delta team came in from the right
and supported Kane's peacefinder volleys against Colonel Slaughter's
counter-attack. Jackson Claw and several known associates perished in
a hail of bolts, and Colonel Slaughter fled into the wastes to avoid
lawful custody. All that remained was to wait in the hot sun for a
helicopter to come and collect the four surviving law officers, and
hope that this wouldn't look too bad in her report...
Final
Tally
Law
Officers: 15 Victory Points. Casualties: six law officers, two Light
Support Vehicles.
Scavengers:
9 Victory Points. Casualties: 13 scum, Jackson Claw, Wolf Arson and
Madjack “Crazy” Loon (or is he really dead..?). Escapees: Colonel
Slaughter and Lucy Thorn.
Man of the Match: Fallen
Artifact Battle Tank. It killed two LSVs and a law officer with three
shots, and scared the hell out of the Law until Captain Kane took it
out with a heroic assault on the hatch.
After-Thoughts
Once
again, T.H.R.E.A.T. played very smoothly. It was the first playtest
of the recon phase, which went very well (I think!) and gave a
slightly less than conventional deployment zone, which is what it was
designed for. The Law's softskins went up in flames before the Fallen
tank's B.F.G., which was also appropriate (if gutting). Madjack's
monstrously high Vitality, which turned far too many kills into
injury over the course of the game, made him quite the serial-killer
scaremonger. The great white
hunter Colonel Slaughter rolled nothing but 1s all game, so clearly
he has an ironic title!
