A Very Bloody Rescue Mission

The Problem with Rescue Missions

Following on from my previous game against Pat and Vinny, I captured a member of The Greater Profit, now, in my experience rescue missions are seldom played, as the mission itself is quite unlike an average game, with all that skulking around and not shouting and firing off your weapons and that. Also I found a lot of the time it was far easier to pay the hey-I-just-found-your-ganger money, as a lot of leaders see tax free non deductible ransom as a way of keeping Throne Geld out of the grubby mitts of their wastrel fighters. In my experience I also found captures seemed to come in groups of two or more with many times both warbands capturing an opponent. I myself, don't suit the rescue mission as I'm far too keen to go in guns blazing then failing to rescue my fighter and totally cocking up the attempt. In any case, Pat decided to rescue Ashict an autopistol wielding human ganger with a WS of 4. Just the sort of thug the Inquisition want down the mines so they can't do any harm. 

My initial deployment, in the centre of the board,Ashict is proudly dsplayed standing on a crate. Clumsey stands guard next to him, Greylocks to the right on a gantry, Hellion to the right of him and Mr Bom, the new recruit stands in the bottom right of the table wedged in such a way he can only move left and right.

Tactical Considerations For Guard Duty

Pat rolled for his raiding party and got a 6, so he took his leader, his heavy, plus four other capable fighters. I rolled up 4 guards which was not too bad. So I picked Clumsey (-1 to hit should come in handy for bad guys shooting at him), Hellion, as 2 wounds are also handy, Greylocks as he is pretty much expendable and Mr Bom as I was hoping to drop some hallucinogen grenades of some Tau. Something else I did was employ a hired gun. I went for a Crazy Doc as they have possibly the most horrible special rules in the post game sequence - the ability to transplant a serious injury from one of your fighters to a captured one! This could turn out very unpleasant for Ashict, shellshock, old battle wound and partially deafened were some of the choices on the menu, if his gang didn't come up trumps for him. So I rolled up his stats and he got +2 WS (up to 5), killer rep and nerves of steel. I gave him a bionic arm too so that if he did get into combat, damage would be done! He would be part of the reserve force as a combat monster such as that shouldn't be wasted.

Farbio Bole (who looks uncannily like Fabius Bile) stands next to a pile of skulls he found.

The Game

Pat rolled for his deployment table edge and he got the east edge. After much deliberation he bunched up his gang in the north eastern corner in the picture above. 

A picture taken from the Eastern table edge, as it gets all four guards in the picture. 

Pat's furtive rescue squad.

Now for the next 6 or 7 turns Pat skirted around my sentries, I managed to roll very badly in my spotting distance roll for those turns, in fact only once did I roll a 5 the whole hide and seek section of the game. The upshot was for another 5 or 6 turns the enemy climbed slowly up the only building that looked down on their prisoner.

Clumsey was facing the right way but couldn't see past the sticky buns in his hands presumably.

Some top class sentryism.

Meanwhile down on the ground.

Some time later.

Two of Pat's fighters are under the walkway, otherwise Greylocks would run over to the crate and shout "40-40, I see Xenos!".

More clandestine movement.

Sneaky Tau.

On Por'O s orders hell was unleashed.

At this point Pat unloaded on the three guards next to the prisoner, all three were taken down. Hellion and Greylocks both fell off their gantries too, and worse yet Hellion took a high impact hit (I can now see the value of catfall skill). Perhaps it's my own fault for putting an I 2 ganger up 9" above the unforgiving ground. With that the alarm was raised. As Pat had three levels to climb before he could get to Ashict I had enough time to get some reinforcements on. Unfortunately they all seemed to want to come on the most awkward edge so there followed a mad dash to the other side of the table to cut them off.

Run like the clappers, lads!

Pat's sneaky Tau have to travel two thirds of the table to escape now!

The picture below is the last one I took for a while, due to excitement and/or frustration. Excitement mainly due to some of Pat's fighters getting taken out and frustration because I forgot to move a Scummer who had a great chance of sniping at Tau gang leaders and such, but unfortunately I neglected to move either into cover or shooting line of sight and Pat subsequently put him out of his misery. Other non photographed happenings was Jenna Pursuivant finally doing something in a game and taking out an enemy fighter. My bad doc Farbio Bole ripping several enemies up (despite being fleshwounded) and Derric burning himself again with his rather dangerous plasma gun.

The prisoner is shortly about to be freed?

As the game went on it proved to be a real game of attrition I couldn't bottle it, (voluntarily or otherwise) and Pat's group could only bottle it after 50% casualties (so with a gang of 6 +1 for the rescued Ashict, he had to lose 4 before he could scarper). What I could have done was give Pat a free pass after I lost a certain number of gangers to minimise further losses by letting him go but as is often my wont I decided he'd have to pay in duffed up Tau if he wanted a win. So the game went on until I had lost five gang members and Pat lost the magic ganger number four. He subsequently bottled it. Yay, team Pursuivant!

Farbio Bole, mad doc and shitkicker-out-of lays some serious boot into the aliens and alien lovers.

The Tau heavy weapon bloke is about to be put to sleep.

A Pyhrric Victory?

So the game ended and it was time to pay the butcher's bill. With 9 gangers facing injury rolls it could have been pretty horrific. I got an old battle wound, arm injury, head injury, bitter emnity and a full recovery. The arm injury was a pain as it was on Hellion and she needs good arms to beat people up with her swords. Clumsey McFearsome took the head injury, this was bad as I like sending him up ahead of everyone else and his Ld of 6 won't help if he gets the stupidity result and his piss poor combat ability means combat for him could prove fatal as well....Jenna finally got a Ld increase so there is a better chance of my gang staying around in future.

Pat's injuries were also exciting, he rolled a dead which was rerolled due to his medic to mucho damage, he also got a bitter emnity, old battle wound and full recovery. All in all, I think we both got off very lightly. One thing I will say for Rescue Mission, it can be deadly for a gang if the player is reluctant (or unable to bottle it), I also had another ganger down at the end of the game so I could have been in worse shape! No wonder a lot of people just pay ransoms.......

My Post Rescue Mission Shopping List

After the game I got to thinking what would make another rescue attempt much more unattractive for any would be intereferer with Imperial Justice. So, with that in mind - when funds and fit gangers permit - first on my list are some screamers, a cheap and cheerful way of sounding the alarm before a veritable bucket load of bullets shoot the crap out of any poor unfortunates on sentry duty. A bio scanner is also quite useful but more expensive with the added problem of who to give it to. Also high on my shopping list is a bionic arm for Hellion, a ST2 model with the skill juggernaut isn't going to ignore many hits at all. A juve to stand in front of Bangs too. I also want to keep hold of Farbio Bole as he got MVP for the game. In any case it was a challenging game and enjoyable, just next time I may have a few more tricks up my sleeve!

Thanks for reading.