Salvage Run: a 2013 5150 game.

This is a 5150 AAR I did in 2013 and put up in the Yahoo group. I figured I'd add it to my blog, even though the rules are outdated.
Salvage Run

The following is a solo game using the Xenoform part of 5150, and various interpretations from earlier Two Hour Wargames rules.

Planet New Iberia is the scene of sporadic combat between humans and bugs.  All has been quiet for several months now.  The mining outpost of Wheel Leisure has been abandoned since bugs were found in the lower mines.  Everyone left in very hasty way, so lots of valuables were left behind.

Bailey Mull had talked to enough drunken miners at the spaceport bar to realize that there were lots of goods in Wheel Leisure ripe for the pickings.  Her good looks and free hand with drinks brought some very exact info as to what she could expect to find for salvage.

Her ship, Grifter, had lain on a rocky ledge for 3 days as she and her crew scouted out Wheel Leisure for any signs of bugs.  For 3 days, there was nothing but the wind to disturb the dirt streets.

She had six crew in three vehicles to head to the warehouses on the far side of town n The crew consists of :

Bailey Mull: Rep 5, Hard Armor, Assault Rifle, Stone Cold

Froggy Hunter:  Rep 5, Assault Rifle, Slow

Al Scramuzza:  Rep 4, Assault Rifle, Hard As Nails.

The Ferret: Rep 4, Flamethrower, Brawler

Izzy Knot:  Rep 4, Grenade Launcher, Medic

Natalie Goodbody: Rep 3, Pistol, Ambidex- terous

Juliette Street: Rep 2, Machine Pistol, Runt

They were in three vehicles.

The lead vehicle was a Teixeira T35, an armored half-track, with a heavy machine gun in an enclosed turret, and a flexible mount light machine gun.  The T35 was cobbled together on a mid-tech world, and due to being just good enough to do the job, and low cost, was as common as a Volkswagen beetle was in the 20^th century. The vehicle was driven by Natalie, with Al riding shotgun, and Bailey in the turret.

Next was a pickup truck, driven by Izzy, with The Ferret as co-pilot.

Tail-end Charley was occupied by Sadie,a Salvage Dog halftrack with a lightly-armored cab and a flexible mount light machine gun.  It’s driven by Juliette, with Froggy riding shotgun.

Bailey led the parade down the main (only) street in Wheel Leisure until a bug hole opened up and out poured a mix of Big Ones and Little Ones to the tune of one dozen.

Bailey immediately let rip with the HMG and killed one Big One.  More bugs filled the holes in the ranks, and Bailey kept shooting, knocking out a total of 2 Big Ones and 2 Little Ones.  And then 4 Big Ones jumped on the T35, blocking the driver’s vision, and too close for the turret gun to bear.  As the T35 came to a halt, Izzy gunned the pickup around the bugs and headed for the warehouse.  Sadie lumbered up, and Froggy hosed the T35 with LMG fire, taking care of 3 bugs.

Bailey hoses the bugs that didn’t make it to the T35, and takes out 2, and tells Natalie to run over another 2.  She misses.  A Big One charges Sadie, but Froggy guns him down.  Meanwhile the last Big One on the T35 strikes frantically at it, but can’t damage the T35.  Since the T35 is impervious to LMG fire, Froggy takes care of the last Big One on board.

Up the street, Izzy and The Ferret jump out of the pickup and enter the warehouse.

The T35 takes care of the last Little One, and heads up the street.  Sadie inexplicably hangs back.  (Juliette’s lousy Rep 2 plays havoc with continuing activation)

While Izzy and The Ferret start looting the warehouse, the T35 turns around and comes up next to Sadie.  Bailey opens the hatch and screams blue murder at Juliette, who lurches forward.  Natalie keeps the T35 fender to fender with Sadie, as Bailey makes interesting comments as to the family history of Juliette, while the 2 vehicles make their way to the warehouse.

Bailey leaps out of the T35, and jerks Juliette out of Sadie, and continues to chew on her, while everyone else loads Sadie, glad not to be Juliette.

Natalie goes to check the fuel tanks across the street, and the pickup starts back to the Grifter.

Sadie is loaded, and Natalie moves the T35 to the tanks to fuel up.

Suddenly 14 bugs pop up between the crews and the way out.  The pickup is long gone, and going faster.  Only Bailey sees them.  She jumps back into the T35, and yells at Natalie to get in and drive.  Sadie rounds the back of the abandoned hauler, and Froggy spots the bugs and takes out 1, and runs out of ammo 

Natalie spins the T35 and Bailey takes out 1 bug.  Froggy reloads.

Bailey fires again, and knocks 1 out.  Froggy takes out 2.

The T35 and Sadie move slowly forward and fires.  Bailey takes out 1, and click, click, is out of ammo.  Froggy misses and is out of ammo.

Natalie guns the engine as Bailey reloads and Sadie lumbers forward as Froggy reloads.  But while they are unloaded, a Little One leaps on the T35, and another jumps on the front of Sadie, and attempts to get Froggy, who gives him a haymaker on jaw, with no effect.

Both the T35 and Sadie move out, with bugs clinging to them.  Froggy and the bug spar ineffectively.

As they roll forward, a sudden lunge from the bug kills Froggy.  The bug continues to slice and dice, and Sadie rolls to a halt, as Juliette grabs for her machine pistol.  The T35 continues on, unaware of what is going on behind them.

Bailey opens the hatch and kills the bug on the T35 with her assault rifle.  Only then does she realize that Sadie is halted, and can only watch as the bug slips into Sadie’s hatch and kills Juliette.

The T35 spins around, with Bailey firing with her assault rifle, since the HMG is too low to have any chance of shooting down the hatch, and might damage Sadie. 

As they pull alongside, she finally pink mists the bug.  She sends Al to get Sadie running so they can get out of Dodge with all of the goodies.  Al cleans out enough goo in record time, and Sadie lurches forward.

As they pass the only 2 story building in town, the second story door swings open and a young voice yells, “Hey, don’t leave me, you salvage skanks,” and Niki the Twister sprints down the stairs, onto the T35, and into the co-pilot’s hatch that Al left open. 

Bailey screams at her, and Natalie says they can’t leave her; she’s just a kid.

Bailey groans, “And you thought the bugs were trouble?”

Even in a vehicle, bugs can give you trouble.  The bugs were very unfortunate in activation rolls, or the game might have gone differently.  There was also a bug activation 45” off the table, so it was ignored.  The humans were drawn with the ATZ NPC table, with appropriate weapons for the figures I had.

Salvage Run 2005

This is a post of a game that I put up on Two Hour Wargames in 2005.  Unfortunately, the original photos are no longer available, so I had to print out the pages in color, scan them into Photoshop, and do what I could.  Therefore, the picture quality is abysmal.

Salvage Run

The following is a solo game using the Xenoform part of 5150, and various interpretations from earlier Two Hour Wargames rules.

Planet New Iberia is the scene of sporadic combat between humans and bugs.  All has been quiet for several months now.  The mining outpost of Wheel Leisure has been abandoned since bugs were found in the lower mines.  Everyone left in very hasty way, so lots of valuables were left behind.

Bailey Mull had talked to enough drunken miners at the spaceport bar to realize that there were lots of goods in Wheel Leisure ripe for the pickings.  Her good looks and free hand with drinks brought some very exact info as to what she could expect to find for salvage.

Her ship, Grifter, had lain on a rocky ledge for 3 days as she and her crew scouted out Wheel Leisure for any signs of bugs.  For 3 days, there was nothing but the wind to disturb the dirt streets.

She had six crew in three vehicles to head to the warehouses on the far side of town n The crew consists of :

Bailey Mull: Rep 5, Hard Armor, Assault Rifle, Stone Cold

Froggy Hunter:  Rep 5, Assault Rifle, Slow

Al Scramuzza:  Rep 4, Assault Rifle, Hard As Nails.

The Ferret: Rep 4, Flamethrower, Brawler

Izzy Knot:  Rep 4, Grenade Launcher, Medic

Natalie Goodbody: Rep 3, Pistol, Ambidex- terous

Juliette Street: Rep 2, Machine Pistol, Runt

They were in three vehicles.

The lead vehicle was a Teixeira T35, an armored half-track, with a heavy machine gun in an enclosed turret, and a flexible mount light machine gun.  The T35 was cobbled together on a mid-tech world, and due to being just good enough to do the job, and low cost, was as common as a Volkswagen beetle was in the 20^th century. The vehicle was driven by Natalie, with Al riding shotgun, and Bailey in the turret.

Next was a pickup truck, driven by Izzy, with The Ferret as co-pilot.

Tail-end Charley was occupied by Sadie,a Salvage Dog halftrack with a lightly-armored cab and a flexible mount light machine gun.  It’s driven by Juliette, with Froggy riding shotgun.

Bailey led the parade down the main (only) street in Wheel Leisure until a bug hole opened up and out poured a mix of Big Ones and Little Ones to the tune of one dozen.

Bailey immediately let rip with the HMG and killed one Big One.  More bugs filled the holes in the ranks, and Bailey kept shooting, knocking out a total of 2 Big Ones and 2 Little Ones.  And then 4 Big Ones jumped on the T35, blocking the driver’s vision, and too close for the turret gun to bear.  As the T35 came to a halt, Izzy gunned the pickup around the bugs and headed for the warehouse.  Sadie lumbered up, and Froggy hosed the T35 with LMG fire, taking care of 3 bugs.

Bailey hoses the bugs that didn’t make it to the T35, and takes out 2, and tells Natalie to run over another 2.  She misses.  A Big One charges Sadie, but Froggy guns him down.  Meanwhile the last Big One on the T35 strikes frantically at it, but can’t damage the T35.  Since the T35 is impervious to LMG fire, Froggy takes care of the last Big One on board.

Up the street, Izzy and The Ferret jump out of the pickup and enter the warehouse.

The T35 takes care of the last Little One, and heads up the street.  Sadie inexplicably hangs back.  (Juliette’s lousy Rep 2 plays havoc with continuing activation)

While Izzy and The Ferret start looting the warehouse, the T35 turns around and comes up next to Sadie.  Bailey opens the hatch and screams blue murder at Juliette, who lurches forward.  Natalie keeps the T35 fender to fender with Sadie, as Bailey makes interesting comments as to the family history of Juliette, while the 2 vehicles make their way to the warehouse.

Bailey leaps out of the T35, and jerks Juliette out of Sadie, and continues to chew on her, while everyone else loads Sadie, glad not to be Juliette.

Natalie goes to check the fuel tanks across the street, and the pickup starts back to the Grifter.

Sadie is loaded, and Natalie moves the T35 to the tanks to fuel up.

Suddenly 14 bugs pop up between the crews and the way out.  The pickup is long gone, and going faster.  Only Bailey sees them.  She jumps back into the T35, and yells at Natalie to get in and drive.  Sadie rounds the back of the abandoned hauler, and Froggy spots the bugs and takes out 1, and runs out of ammo 

Natalie spins the T35 and Bailey takes out 1 bug.  Froggy reloads.

Bailey fires again, and knocks 1 out.  Froggy takes out 2.

The T35 and Sadie move slowly forward and fires.  Bailey takes out 1, and click, click, is out of ammo.  Froggy misses and is out of ammo.

Natalie guns the engine as Bailey reloads and Sadie lumbers forward as Froggy reloads.  But while they are unloaded, a Little One leaps on the T35, and another jumps on the front of Sadie, and attempts to get Froggy, who gives him a haymaker on jaw, with no effect.

Both the T35 and Sadie move out, with bugs clinging to them.  Froggy and the bug spar ineffectively.

As they roll forward, a sudden lunge from the bug kills Froggy.  The bug continues to slice and dice, and Sadie rolls to a halt, as Juliette grabs for her machine pistol.  The T35 continues on, unaware of what is going on behind them.

Bailey opens the hatch and kills the bug on the T35 with her assault rifle.  Only then does she realize that Sadie is halted, and can only watch as the bug slips into Sadie’s hatch and kills Juliette.

The T35 spins around, with Bailey firing with her assault rifle, since the HMG is too low to have any chance of shooting down the hatch, and might damage Sadie. 

As they pull alongside, she finally pink mists the bug.  She sends Al to get Sadie running so they can get out of Dodge with all of the goodies.  Al cleans out enough goo in record time, and Sadie lurches forward.

As they pass the only 2 story building in town, the second story door swings open and a young voice yells, “Hey, don’t leave me, you salvage skanks,” and Niki the Twister sprints down the stairs, onto the T35, and into the co-pilot’s hatch that Al left open. 

Bailey screams at her, and Natalie says they can’t leave her; she’s just a kid.

Bailey groans, “And you thought the bugs were trouble?”

Even in a vehicle, bugs can give you trouble.  The bugs were very unfortunate in activation rolls, or the game might have gone differently.  There was also a bug activation 45” off the table, so it was ignored.  The humans were drawn with the ATZ NPC table, with appropriate weapons for the figures I had.

This game was played shortly after 5150 came out, and uses the original All Things Zombie for characters.  The buildings are from WorldWorks.  The T35 is a modified US WWI M8 that I got from Ed; the salvage vehicle is lead, and the transport is paper.

Bayou Wars XXI, June 7 - 9, 2013

Bayou Wars XXI was held a the Doubletree Hotel on Veterans Blvd in Kenner, LA.  It was a chance to run and play enjoyable games with old and new friends.  This is a very gentlemanly convention, with lots of welcoming gamers.

FRIDAY

On Friday, I ran a 5150 Star Army game in which Planetary Defense Force fire teams were pitted against marauding Lhurgg.  The players learned not to engage the Lhurgg in hand-to-hand combat.  Shoot and scoot, if possible!

Chris Swearingen and I ponder the likelihood of the PDF surviving, and completing their mission of clearing the table.  Due to being an early game, we didn't get started for about 30 minutes, waiting for players to join the con.

The lumber yard, from which a small group of Lhurgg attacked, and the PDF Lt. ran away, though all his troops thought little enough of his actions to remain.

Jeremy (center) and Josh Gremillion capably handled their fire teams, as did the young man nest to them.  The ultimate result was that the PDF cleared the ruined factory, but forgot about the lumber yard.  More time might have seen them succeed.  The Lhurgg were run as PDF's, played by Brian Simmons, who arrived late.

These are shots of a beautiful game that I didn't see.  Theresa took all the pictures.

And here we have Duane Rock and Rudy Nelson of Time Portal Hobbies at his dealer's table.

Next to my dealer's table and game table, Ken of All The King's Men ran 54mm ACW games throughout the convention.

Steve Wirth ran a dinosaur game in the other gaming room, and apparently all had fun getting eaten!

Larry Reeves gets a clarification from Steve Wirth.

JonnyCon 4.5 ran a what if game in which the Battle of New Orleans was fought in 1864.  I believe that the Rebels won.

And I tried my hand at the new Star Wars fighter game, and being loyal to the 501st, took a flight of tie fighters to their deaths, though my tie fighter was the last on the table, avoiding damage from a flight of X-wings, with very bad shooting rolls.  Thomas and I gave up both our flight to take out Wedge; an expensive accomplishment.

While we were eating dinner earlier, Elizabeth and Walt Bourgoyne stopped by.  It's always nice to see other gamers wives at the conventions.  Theresa is always there for moral support.

And the Jackson Gamers were getting silly as Jim Campbell puts horns on the svelt Jay Stribling and Phil does his best to ignore them.

SATURDAY

Saturday, of course, is always the big day at a convention.  In order to play in Mark Stevens "colonial" game, I moved my game up to 9am, unfortunately to the disappoint of Mark and Joshua Brown, who didn't arrive in time.

My game was a rip-off of Gunga Din and Mark Stevens' game of Bayou Wars XX.  He's an excellent painter and uses more expensive figures.  I use Ral Partha, being cheap!   I of course used Colonial Adventures 2, by Two Hour Wargames.

Here's the initial layout.

Cutter, Ballentine, and McChesney attempt to fix the the downed telegraph wires.  The buildings were some of the first I built from foamcore about 25 years ago.

Rick Doskey chose the telegraph repair unit and died gloriously to a man, the first unit on the table to do so.

I was quite happy to have Marc Stevens in the game, a dyed-in-the-wool Sword and The Flame man. Of course, he handled his troops well.

Jim Campbell stopped by to take pictures while Duane Guilbeau helped with setting up the Pathans!  Duane is another disciple of Two Hour Games, and active on the Yahoo group.

And we finally got to meet Duane's lovely wife, Theresa!  In the background in the green shirt is Mike Bobbe of Bobbe's Hobbies, Pensacola, FL, who is running Pelicon III on the 29th of June, a great one-day con near the Pensacola Air Museum (Yeah, they're both in Pensacola)

And, of course, I'm carrying the dispatches.  The Brits won the day; the Highlanders were the deciding factor.  Without them, the Indian troops might have been wiped out.  As it was, it was a neat thing.

I'd like to thank brother-in-law Ron Gros for running Saga in that helmet, making sure that I didn't have the silliest hat!

These are the pics Theresa took of Saga units.  Ron ran this all day long, teaching the rules.

Allie of +1 Gaming playing on the Portmouths Games table.  Lovely looking game that never seems to start when I'm available.

Marc Stevens game of Napoleon in Egypt.

The British commanders, Jim Pitts, Al Himmel, Richard, me (GOC) Larry Reeves son, and Larry himself.

Mark Brown and Martha Stevens, French commanders.

Our right flank crumpled as our cavalry was outnumbered 3 to 1.  The worst troops on the board, the Ottomans, led by Larry Reeves crumpled the French right flank, and my Guards brigade threw the French center back.  The French had to occupy the two buildings on the board.  They never seriously threatened the one on our left, and bypassed the one on our right without bothering to occupy it.

Chris Swearingen ran a great early France WWII game using NUTS! 2nd edition.  I took HQ, a squad, and the HMG detachment.  Brian Simmons bravely took the lead ahead of me and suffered for it.  Even the Stuka attack that should have landed on me deviated to Brian.  The Germans were PDF's run by Chris.

Brian and I get last minute instructions from GM Chris.

All of the PDF's have not yet revealed themselves.  A Stug IIIa appeared on the left and held us up, while a German squad with a MG34 did damage to the left until finally a Rep 4 activation allowed my HMG team to do away with them.  We won, but there were a lot of Adrian helmets to put atop rude crosses.

   

                                      

Here a couple of pics of a Star Wars game atop CorSec Engineering's beautiful Red Nova mat.

These are pics of games that I did not get to see.

SUNDAY

Of course, on Sunday many of our friends are checking out of the hotel, but I managed to gather 17 players for my Six Gun Sound: Blaze Of Glory (Two Hour Wargames) hillbilly game.

Yes, I know many GM's despair over playsheets on the table, but it's my Sunday Morning Brain Dead Game, and neatness doesn't count!  The Clampetts were angry because the Skaggs had killed one of Ellie Mae's racoon and made soup.  The Skraggs were in a foul mood because Jethro Bodine had impregnated Laurie Lee and never crossed the river again.

At the end of the game, the last Clampett blew up the kerosene tank behind the store (the only place to replace ammo), and the remaining Skraggs rolled off for the 'valuable' prize of a hillbilly dice bag.

Ron Francis' possum-eatin' grin!

Marshall and Mark Mod

Ashley Nicholls and Jeremy Gremillion

Rick Doskey wisely played Laurie Lee and survived the whole game, for once!  Allie sits in disbelief.

Angela played Ellie Mae and was unfortunately shot down before any of her critters could come to her aid.  The shock around the table as our Baton Rouge star bit the big one!

 The bloody bridge!  I painted it Sunday morning!

 I laugh as silly things happen to Ashley Nicholls and Josh Brown.

 Apparently the far end of the table was invaded by some alien who had no effect on the game.

 Rick Doskey gloats as Laurie Lee survives the slaughter.

And Allie of +One Gaming wins thd coveted dice bag!

Angela and Brian Simmons take their prize home!

The final gasp of JonnyCon 4.5

Duane Rock does all of this terrain.  The fences have plastic tubes inserted into the stryofoam that they fit into quite sturdily.

Well, as always it was a great con.  Special thanks go the the Board of Directors for keeping it going, and to all the GM's and players for making it so enjoyable.