This is Not a Test - Pest Control

Andrew and I got together this week for another instalment of our This is Not a Test campaign. Once again, his mutants and my peacekeepers - the Flores Minor Ranger Corps - clashed, but this time, in the verdant green lands north of the wastes.

This time we played the Pest Control scenario: the mutants advanced from the left, the FMRC from the right, and both sought to irradicate what were supposed to be rad-zombie nests (the thickets within the blue circles). My son took control of half of the FMRC for the game, commanding BT29 the depend-o-bot, Hotshot (the hot shot sniper), and two rangers with shotguns, the veteran Snake Eyes, and rookie Buckshot. Hotshot was ranging out ahead, hidden under the tree on the central hill, while the rest were aligned top right. The remaining rangers, Sarge, Doc, Demo and Heavy were deployed bottom right.

Andrew's mutant band had swelled to 11 members for this match, spread evenly along his board edge. The muties were closer to three of the nests and Andrew thought to destroy them quickly to clean up on victory points.

My rangers made a quick dash for the lower hill (with a variety of crates to provide cover), planning to establish a strong point from which to dominate the nesting sites to their front and right. Their seemingly successful jaunt was short lived, as Andrew's wretched escaped slave girl-psychic played her mind games and sent both Sarge and Heavy fleeing from the engagement (having rolled critical failures on both of their Will tests). Seeing his NCO run off like that, Demo then proceeded to flee the battle leaving my force with just Doc; the same Doc who rarely manages a shot without jamming his gun. Later in game he did actually manage to down one of the mutant rookies, but his final shot of the skirmish was another matter...

In the middle, the mutants started clobbering the so-called rad zombies who turned out to be nothing more than primitive hill folk.

The mutant dog-creature was attacked, but managed to shoulder past the hill folk making his way towards his old nemesis Hotshot. The two have a history which generally involves the dog being shot but never taken out of action, and Hotshot being taken out of action in a frothing rage. Over the course of the engagement, Hotshot lived up to his name taking down three mutants. That made him an even riper target for the mutant doggo.

BT29, Snake Eyes and Buckshot assaulted one of the other hill folk nests, but only managed to take down a single critter.

At that moment, the mutant dog leapt on Hotshot with predictable results. The sniper was taken down, reducing the FMRC to 50% of their starting size. BT29 calculated the odds as insufficient and high-tailed it out of there. Snake Eyes' gun was jammed and he failed his activation roll, Buckshot passed his, but missed a shot at the slabbering dog. At that moment, Doc, the last sniper standing, levelled his rifle, targeted the dog, adjusted for wind, steadied his nerves, and jammed his gun. Again. The skirmish was over, and the FMRC once again bottled it and left the spoils to the muties.

In the post-match sequence, all the muties survived, with a few more colourful injuries. Andrew successfully weaselled his way into a COG bunker and a port-a-potty, coming away with sack fulls of barter script. 

For the FMRC, Hotshot was the only injury and he survived, although feeling pretty banged up. Both he, and BT29 earned enough experience to get upgrades - Hotshot working on his melee abilities, and BT29 gaining a new skill - Flurry of blows. Demo was offered a job as a hired gun but declined, and Buckshot managed to find and tame three young wasteland critters who will join the rangers next time.