Indiana Jones and the sword of Cortes part 2

School holidays! Time for a Fistful of Lead game with my son.

The story so far:

Baron Otto von Drüben and Doctor René Belloq have escaped from Central America with the fabled sword of Cortes (read all about it here). Indiana Jones is recovering from being nearly clubbed to death by the natives protecting the temple of Hoaxcoatl, but his companion Rupert Jenkins of the British secret service has intercepted the boat carrying the Baron back to the Heimat. Rupert relieves the Baron of the sword, only to find out that he has been fooled! It's a replica.

Meanwhile Doctor Belloq has taken the real sword via a different route to Iceland. There he will meet up with the Baron and take a fast boat to Germany.

However...

British intelligence has identified the harbour basin and ship the Baron intends to use. Rupert, two fellow agents and a local asset will intercept the Baron and Belloq and attempt to steal the sword back. In order to make sure they have the real sword this time they have taken Doctor Marcus Brody with them to verifiy the authenticity of the sword.

The bad guys

The good guys

The harbour

Rupert and his team enter from the left side. Kapitän Badesalz is on the ship. Von Drüben, Belloq, Bootsmann Lautstärke and the grunts will enter from the top in a car and a lorry. 

When the sword is on the ship, two jokers are added to the deck. When a joker comes up, the ship sails and Von Drüben has won when the sword is still under his control on the vessel. If the sword leaves the table in possession of anyone of Rupert's crew, they have won. My son wanted to play the good guys this time, so the bad guys are for me.

Von Drüben arrives while Rupert's crew is advancing behind the box cars.

When the car and the lorry arrive at the quay, Belloq gets out of the car and moves towards the ship. The grunts take up covering postions.

My son sends agent Perrson forward to spray the car with submachine gun fire. The grunts and bootsmann Lautstärke return fire. Rupert, agent Bedevere and Galahad also fire at the car (I told my son that if he hit the car and would roll a natural 10 on the to wound roll, the car would explode in cinematic fashion. It took a lot of fire, but didn't explode 😀). Von Drüben exits the car, taking cover behind it.

While Belloq is running to the ship, Kapitän Badesalz appears on deck and fires his revolver at agent Persson.

People are running out of ammo, but in the hail of fire both agent Perrson and Belloq go down with a wound. Belloq drops a briefcase. He is/was carrying the sword!

Aimed shots from agent Galahad with his sniper rifle put Belloq out of action.

A succession of good cards provide Von Drüben with the opportunity to run from the safety of the car to the briefcase and subsequently onto the ship with the sword. 

Agent Galahad drops bootsmann Lautstärke with a headshot. After this Agent Bedevere bravely engages the grunts, so Rupert, Galahad and Perrson can use the distraction to reach the ship.

Sadly Bedevere does not survive.

Having reloaded below deck, Badesalz again appears with his revolver. At point blank range this time. Also the grunts have swung their rifles towards Galahad, Perrson and Jenkins.

Galahad and Perrson go down in the crossfire.

Rupert Jenkins fires his Thompson in response and Badesalz goes down.

Quickly Marcus Brody climbes on board. Von Drüben has withdrawn into the ship.

When Marcus opens the door, Von Drüben is waiting and fires his pistol at point blank range.

He misses and is out of ammo. Frustrated he jumps towards Marcus to knock the academic senseless.

Despite fighting only with a d8 (Marcus has the "green" trait) against Von Drüben's d10, Marcus wins!

He takes the briefcase from the cabin, checks the sword and turns around.

Seriously wounded, Rupert Jenkins stands his ground against the grunts that are blocking Marcus' escape. He has already dropped one and shaken another.

Marcus pulls out his revolver and fires a wild shot at one of the grunts, taking him out while Jenkins reloads!

Jenkins shreds the last grunt, Marcus gets off the ship and both escape with the sword.

Von Drüben and Belloq have their wounds treated in a local hospital and convince the Iceland police that they are the victim of a vicious robbery. Rupert Jenkins and Marcus Brody may have escaped with the sword but Von Drüben has friends working for the German Abwehr. Their network of spies have  seen Jenkins and Brody leave Iceland on a ship heading for Canada. Von Drüben is already organising a raiding crew to steal the sword back.

This isn't over yet so stay tuned for part 3!

Crystal research

At the club we played another Sharpe Power Armour game.

The mission is to retrieve the research logs from the vehicles at the centre of the board. The research team itself has disappeared while investigating strange crystal growths in a city destroyed in an apocalyptic  conflict long ago.

My opponent's force (armoured troopers supported by robots and vehicles carrying heavy weapons) enters the area.

On the opposite side, my heavy power armour units advance, supported by two armoured trooper squads and a heavy weapon team.

Units of my opponent move towards the vehilces while taking fire from my guys.

One of my power armoured units reaches a vehicle, plugs in and starts downloading (and wiping) the research logs.

Soon both sides are lobbing grenades at each other over the vehicle.

Another power armoured unit I send in to assist, runs into my opponent's "panzerknackers". They are wiped out, but the power armour is also destroyed, forcing the pilot to eject and skedaddle.

My surviving power armour is accumulating damage and two of my supporting infantry squads have been destroyed so I decide to withdraw.

The remainder of my force manages to withdraw to safety, but when we roll a die after the game to determine which vehicle contained the high value logs (the other one containing almost worthless survey data), I found out my force obtained the wrong data!

I fought the Law and the Law won

After Curly Billy shot down Crazy Sam McGee Part 5.

Curly Billy and his crew are trying to escape with the load of silver they took from Broadstone's mine in the previous game. They intend to take the last train to Clarksville, which is currently waiting at the Broadstone railway station.

White Feather is already in the carriage, while Mad Jack has taken up position on the roof of the station. The scenario is the rescue scenario from the What a Cowboy rulebook. The Outlaws have stashed the silver in the station while waiting for the train.

The Pinkertons are determined to stop Curly Billy and take back the silver.

The Duke approaches the train, trying to keep out of sight, but fails to spot White Feather in the carriage (due to his stealth skill).

Josh Scott joins him, but he also fails to spot White Feather.

Bill Doug runs across the tracks and tries to get a bead on Mad Jack up on the roof, using the cart as cover. This prevents Curly Billy from seeing him while he moves forward amongst the cows to support his friends at the station.

The Duke exposes himself and he and White Feather exchange fire.

Curly Billy rushes forward and wounds Bill Doug. Not enough to put him out of action though.

On the other side of the table, Eagle Eye has forced Pinkerton Thomas Brown to retreat after a fabulous long range pistol shot.

By now the civilians are scattering to get away from the gunfire. Dr. Spitzenfinger shows his true character when he kicks an old lady out of the way to get to a horse. Fortunately the stagecoach slows down long enough for her to get aboard.

Eagle Eye now pays for his overconfidence and is gunned down by Thomas Brown. With a critcal wound and no action dice left, he is out of the game.

Curly Billy finally manages to put Bill Doug out of action. With only two action dice remaining himself, it's not going well for the outlaws. 

The Duke decides it's time for some heroics. He charges towards the carriage and levels his shotgun to blast White Feather. White Feather uses his Bonanza token to swing around and empties his shotgun into The Duke.

The Duke survives the blast. Before White Feather can deliver the coup de grace, Pinkerton Josh Scott effectively ends the game by putting Mad Jack out of action.

Curly Billy and his crew fail their "Ride or Die" test and run (or rather limp away) to the hills. Almost everybody shot everybody in this game, but the Pinkertons have won and retrieved the stolen silver.

Despite the grievous wounds (gut and head shots), all characters survive and will return in the next and final game of the campaign. Only Pinkerton Bill Doug has sustained some permanent damage. He's lost an eye and now goes by the name of "One-eyed Bill".

The final game will be the High Noon scenario and take place in the town of Broadstone itself.

 

Project Star Wars part 18: Bikers, Bad guys and Bounty hunters

Finished painting some more miniatures for my Star Wars collection.

First the Black Sun enforcers (the Falleen).

I more or less stuck with the "official" colours. These guys are big! Even for Legion miniatures.

The Legion rebel is mounted on a thinner base, but still the size difference is striking.

Lando is an Imperial Assault mini.

The ghostbuster is from Crooked Dice.

I don't mind their huge size. They're aliens so who knows what their "right" size is. These could also be used for other sci-fi games such as Star Trek.

Fascinating!

Next are the bikers. I found a cheap one, including two hoverboarders. These are resin miniatures from the Warlord Judge Dredd range. The miniatures are not great. Detail is rather soft. If they hadn't come cheap I wouldn't have bought them.

And some official Legion Swoop bikes. I used the spare heads that came with this kit for my Rebel commandos.

Zombicide released a number of Iron Maiden Eddie's. Some of them are perfect as Bounty Hunters in any sci-fi or cyberpunk game.

Strangers in a strange land

The middle guy is a metal miniature from the Warlord Judge Dredd range. I'll probably use him as a frontier town sherrif. 

Still in the painting queue are Din Djarin, Yoda and Grogu and a squad of Anvil (brotherhood) Mandalorians.