Weird War Two at ToonCon 2012

Instead of running my regular Saturday night game last night I dragged my WWW2 stuff out to ToonCon 2012. I’d originally said I could run it for four, but planned to take up to five or six. When I arrived they told EIGHT had registered – I had enough stuff with me that I potentially COULD have run a game with eight… but with that many players it could very easily bog down and have players getting bored and wandering off. Luckily a few didn’t show up and I ran a game with five.

One player was a friend of mine from Calgary that came out for the convention (which is organized by a mutual friend). There was another participant names Amy, who I think is from Saskatoon, and three enthusiastic young fellows (I will call them The Three Amigos!) … I didn’t catch where they were from… One was named Jared and another Ethan… and I can’t remember other their friend’s name… or tell you which was which… (sorry guys...).

It was a fairly busy convention in a relatively small space and I found the room very LOUD. I had to shout – almost non-stop for the three and a half hours it took to play the game. So my throat hurts now... and my ears are buzzing. I also had to run around the table and stand next to anyone that was asking a question or saying something just to hear them. And it was a bit warm… Other than that thought, I think everybody had a pretty good time.

SITUATION

Stalingrad 1942. A senior Psionik with the BPO had detected the presence of a Nazi Blood Mage in Stalingrad. A team was sent to deal with him and hopefully capture the Blood Mage for interrogation and vivisection. When they arrived in Stalingrad the Blood Mages work was apparent – Zombies roamed about the streets.

SCENARIO

Locate and Kill and/or Capture the Blood Mage.

There is an NKVD MG team at the start line that will fire at any Russians that retreat!

FORCES

Leytnant Pyotr Iliyavisch Putin - Wild Card Platoon Commander – played by one of the Three Amigos

Ag d6, Sm d8, Sp d8, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d8, Notice d8, Stealth d6,

Edges: Command, Combat Reflexes

Gear: Pistol (Range: 6/12/24, ROF 1, Damage: 2d6)

Serzhant Alexi Timurvich Stanislav – Wild Card Platoon Sergeant - played by one of the Three Amigos

Ag d6, Sm d6, Sp d6, St d8, Vg d8,

Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 8

Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d8, Notice d6, Stealth d6, Intimidate d8,

Edges: NCO, Rock’n’Roll

Gear: Ppsh SMG(Range: 12/24/48, ROF, Damage: , AP: )

Ryadovoy Sergey Vasilovich Kruschev - Wild Card Machine-Gunner – played by one of the Three Amigos

Ag d8, Sm d6, Sp d6, St d8, Vg d8,

Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 7

Skills: Fighting d6, Shooting d6, Notice d6, Stealth d6,

Edges: Brawny, Rock’n’Roll

Gear: DP LMG (Range: 30/60/90, ROF 3, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2, Bipod, Snapfire)

Borys Pavelvish Trotsky - Wild Card BPO Psionik – played by Shawn

Ag d6, Sm d10, Sp d8, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d4, Shooting d4, Notice d8, Stealth d4, Psionics d10

Edges: Arcane Background: Psionics,

Powers: Detect Arcana, Mental Bolt

Gear: Pistol (Range: 6/12/24, ROF 1, Damage: 2d6)

Ryadovoy Nadya Petyanova Gorbachev - Wild Card Sniper – played by Amy

Ag d8, Sm d8, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d4, Shooting d10, Notice d8, Stealth d8,

Edges: Marksman

Gear: Mosin-Nagant Sniper Rifle (Range: 24/48/96, ROF1, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2, Scope, Snapfire)

There were also Three Soviet Rifle Squads one started the game commanded by the platoon commander – the other two could be diced for whenever the Soviets drew a joker.

Soviet Riflemen (6)

Ag d6, Sm d4, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d6, Shooting d6, Notice d4, Stealth d4

Gear: 5x Mosin-Nagant Rifle (Range: 24/48/96, ROF1, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2),

1x Ppsh SMG(Range: 12/24/48, ROF, Damage: , AP: )

Germans

Nazi Blood Mage – Wild Card Wizard

Ag d6, Sm d8, Sp d10, St d6, Vg d8,

Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 6

Skills: Fighting d6, Shooting d6, Notice d8, Stealth d6, Spellcasting d10,

Edges: Arcance Background: Magik, Alertness, Command, Combat Reflexes, Rank,

Hindrances: Bloodthirsty, Fanatic, Overconfident

Powers: Zombie, Puppet, Fear

Gear: Luger (Range: 6/12/24, ROF 1, Damage: 2d6)

German Protection Detail

Ag d6, Sm d6, Sp d8, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d8, Notice d8, Stealth d6, Intimidate d6,

Edges: Rock’n’Roll, Combat Reflexes

Hindrances: Loyal, Bloodthirsty

Gear: MP40 SMGs (Range: 12/24/48, ROF3, Damage: 2d6)

German Sniper- Wild Card Sniper Ag d8, Sm d8, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d4, Shooting d10, Notice d8, Stealth d8,

Edges: Marksman

Gear: KAR98K Sniper Rifle (Range: 24/48/96, ROF1, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2, Scope, Snapfire)

Zombies

Ag d4, Sm d4, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 4, Parry 5, Toughness 7

Skills: Fighting d6

Edges: Undead

Gear: Bite/Claw Str+d6

Note: there wwere three or four Zombie Bombs – Zombies with bombs strapped to them and a crude triggering device attached to their chest – when they charged into close combat they could with a successful Fighting roll trigger the bomb. The Zombie would sustain 6D6 damage, the target (and anyone else in base contact) would get 5D6 damage, and anyone else within 2” got 4D6 damage. The bombs could be targeted with shooting which could detonate the bomb.

THE GAME

No one had played the game before so after shouting a bit of an explanation of how the game works and the mission for the team, I handed out some characters and had them set up at one end of the table.

Unfortunately it was very dark in the hall as well, so most of the few pictures I took turned out very, very out of focus. As I was trying to keep the game going, I also didn’t end up taking all that many…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The players stared at the bottom edge of the table. A few Zombies could be seen roaming the streets.

The Platoon Commander, Sergeant, Machine-Gunner and squad of extras headed up the one side, while the Sniper and BPO Psionik headed up the other.

The Platoon Commander, Sergeant, Machine-Gunner and squad of extras beat on some zombies and sprinted past the survivors. One soviet riflemen was lost to a zombie bite, another to a sniper shot.

The players pulled many, many jokers and the reinforcement squads showed up fairly early. The second was taken over by the Sergeant, the third which showed up a turn or two later was taken over by Shawn.

In the middle of the pic is the sniper having a sniper duel with the German sniper (in the top left of the picture). BPO Psionik wandering about in the open after having just exploded a few zombie heads.

Dead German sniper. I can’t remember if it was the Soviet Sniper that took him out or the BPO Psionik… I think they both had a go at him and caused wounds…

Feeling a little cocky, the BPO Psionk wandered into a building that turned out to be full of zombies. It did not go well for him… Luckily Shawn still had the reinforcement squad to play!

You can see one of the zombie bombs milling about in the back. After this crowd ate the Psionik they came shambling out to meet the second reinforcement Squad – lead by the zombie bomb which detonated and took out the whole soviet squad (and a few zombied too!)

One of the other zombie bombs had been detonated by the Machine-Gunner, which also took out a few zombies. A third, encountered later, was detonated by the Sniper – taking a few more zombies with it. Everyone thought this was great fun.

Amy, with Shawn hiding behind her and two of the Amigos sitting. About half way through the game. The Amigos characters (and supporting extras had just over run a machine-gun team that had been hiding in the same building the sniper had been in.

Shawn’s reinforcement team mopping up Zombies.

The Blood Mage was finally located and the Three Amigos characters (and supporting extras) charged in!

The Blood Mage was actually taken out by his own minders – who were under orders to, under no circumstances, to allow him to fall into enemy hands alive. When three of the Protection Detail had been taken out, the remaining two riddled the Blood Mage at point blank range on their next activation.

(It was also getting late... I was getting tired...) 

The Sniper took out the last of the Protection Detail with a pretty awesome shot through a window…

Started at 7:30, ended around 11PM – three and a half hours of non-stop, action-packed fun…. Thanks to all that participated and thanks to John Burt for organizing the event.