Another game of Wasters: The pro level characters Booster (level 9 Ronin) and Iceman (level 10 Sentinel) joined up with Theo and Ripps again, for another run. This time they were going to mess with cops: the anonymous client wanted to get the hard drives from a police station with active sensor arrays, to analyze the data they had collected. The comms station with the sensors was located some five blocks wide out in the wastes; a block with a high threat level due to police activity.
Iceman, as usual, failed to attract retainers, but Booster added the Sneak Huang Guanting to his other retainer, the Nomad Richard. Huang Guanting spoke only English, but he was OK in the HP department and brought 2 mines and an energy grenade to the party. Cool, but not enough, so Booster gave him a sniper rifle. He liked that: Anything to stay farther away from the actual action! (Which was not exactly as it went down)
Theo and Ripps brought Emmet the Sentinel, Jeff the Sneak, Preston the Ronin, Gripper the Guard Dog, and the Drone Dog “Bot”. For transport of loot, they had their mule.
Sneak & Scout
The group traversed the wastes through a relatively safe path and avoided trouble on the way. Upon entering the target block, they saw a group of 12 armored police trooping towards them in formation, so they beat it and fled into an alleyway, where Booster cracked a door with his cyber hand. They all got in, even the mule, and hunkered down. The police passed by.
Then most of the team stayed in here, in a ramshackle building that appeared to be in danger of falling over any moment, while two of the Sneaks went around to scout the block and find our target. Booster felt that sneakiness and good scouting were the keys to success here, because any gunfight would likely bring heavy response, more than would be profitable in the way of ammo investment and losses in life and equipment.
The area was full of terrassed houses with overgrown back yards and low fences, some streets and some narrow side alleys cutting through at irregular intervals. An area rich in concealment, but also run-down, and with electrical power only for two houses, both in the same, central street: The two storey police HQ and another three storey building, both under heavy guard from police and bots. Booster expected the three storey house to be the target, because it had an armor plated guard bot in front. So the team moved to the back of the house opposite from there and climbed up it to get a better look.
Heavy Guards
It was surely the correct house, with a small forest of antennae on top.
A main entrance and two boarded-up windows on the ground floor, a boarded and a broken window on top of that, (movement of people behind the broken window), and on the top floor a broken window and a window with a metal grille.
During one hour of watching, we saw 1 armor plate robot and a patrol of 4 cops in assault gear. The police HQ was in the same street, just 200 feet farther west, and always had between 6 and 10 cops in front, standing outside to talk / guard.
Mine Field
Anticipating HQ-troops to come and help the comms building in case of trouble, Huang the Sneak and Richard the Nomad went out through the gardens, and Huang crept forward to the street at an intersection to plant two mines aimed at the open street. Both of them with remote triggers to allow for maxiumum effect at the intended time.
Right as Huang had placed the first mine, the armor plate robot walked to his position on one of his patrol rounds around the immediate block. Huang stopped and waited, sweating and avoiding any movement, close enough to the guard to reach out and touch it. The robot walked a bit farther down the street and stopped again. Huang held still for a full turn, staring at the motionless feet of the armored hulk. Only then did the robot decide that all was quiet, and return to the comms house, and inside. That was the opening Huang needed to get to work again to plant the second mine, 30 feet closer to the comms building.
That done, he retreated with the remote controls, back to the junction and through the gardens.
Night Shift
For a lookout, the building opposite the police was not ideal, as it had almost no windows. So the team moved one over to the east and took the next building, coming in from the garden side. Here they had more windows. And that meant they could keep watch on the police compound.
They were already at it for more than 7 hours, so they called it a day and rested, under guard. During the night the police also changed guards, the cyber cop was replaced by two walker-robots with machine guns (who also took up an irregular patrol routine), some bots left to go “home” and six policemen came in to replace them. six tactical police men left, after a while only one returned.
On the next morning, after cutting off rations for everyone, the team started their action. Ripps took the sneaky road around the building to enter it from the back. Huang watched his mines and would explode them when enough soft or medium targets were to run into them, then he would take up sniper duty. The job of the rest of the team was to start a ruckus. So they gave Ripps some head start and went out the other way, to the junction.
Scout Action
Ripps had crossed the street and gone into their side alley to find the gardens. Suddenly the sentry bots came into that same alley, so he took a page out of the book of several dead bodies we had seen strewn about in the gardens. He lay down in a pile of rubble and hid. Not moving an inch, he played dead, and it worked, as the sentries stalked by with no interest in his unmoving body in the dirt.
Then Ripps took position in the wild, chaotic garden to scope out the back of the building and possible entry points.
Combat Action
After meeting Ripps, the two Machine Gun bots got to the comms building, stood guard for a spell, then moved west. As they showed up at the junction, Iceman jammed one of them, the others destroyed the second one in concentrated fire, partially with explosive rounds.
Even while that was going on, Booster and Richard went offensive and took pot shots at the police HQ and the uniforms gathered there. They wounded one, downed another for good, until all the cops there ran for cover and ducked out of sight.
Booster expected return fire, but none came. So he assumed they were going to come and circle around to get their assailants from the south – so he went off that way to keep watch against police guerilleros and welcome them with some nice controlled bursts.
Going Ninja
At the sound of gunfire from the rest of the party, Ripps seized the moment and broke into the building. His movements masked by the battle outside, he crept from room to room like a ninja, picked locks, listened at doors, and found a surprisingly low-tech environment. 1 computer was there, and he removed the hard drive. He heard someone use a radio in one room, and spiked that door shut with some deft hits. Behind another door, he heard a fearful group whispering in near-panic.
With no other room to sneak into, and very little hard info, Ripps decided to go from Ninja to robber: he pushed open the door to the whisperers to stand there, outlined against the hallway, tall and dangerous, hefting a gigantic sledge hammer, and looking down on a gaggle of civilian techies. “Help me find the computers if you want to live” was his offer. The tech-cops warned him that he had no chance, that there were lots of policemen in the house. But he was not fooled, and repeated his offer: He only wanted the computers, he had no desire to kill anyone – but he would if they’d force him. Finally they told him that there were only three computers, and two of them were up a ladder.
Ripps herded them forward to go ahead of him, because he did not trust them to stay quiet without his overwatch.
However, as soon as they all were up the ladder, they closed the hatch to lock him out.
Session End. To be continued.
Expert Level:
- Booster and Iceman
- Booster and Iceman: Sound of the Police
- Booster and Iceman: Cop Killers
Photos by Specna Arms on Unsplash
PAPIER UND SPIELE 