Necromunda Battle Report:
"Stinger's Crossing"

Gangs: The Volatile Liquids (Ratskin Renegades) versus The Body Shot Gang (Escher)

Campaign Event: None

Necromunda Before/After Event Cards: Dangerous Walkway

Treacherous Conditions: Gloomy Conditions (no effect)

Scenario: Toll Bridge

Ratskins on a Bike? Sacrilege! No, no, it was my Escher gang, the Body Shot Gang, that had the heavy riding a bike versus my Ratskin Renegades gang, the Volatile Liquids Gang.

This was the first battle for both gangs.

Getting the most playtesting as I can comfortably do in a battle, I also selected the new scenario called Toll Bridge from the Battles in the Underhive supplement.

Honestly, I was secretly cheering for the Body Shot Gang to win. They had a major disaster in their territory rolls: 3 (!) Slag territories, 1 Old Ruins (!!), and 1 Gambling Den (!!!). I wanted a good territory for them, and the Toll Bridge scenario had such a special good territory, and I had wanted them to win and gain it. So, I went through all the trouble of doing a battle to do so instead of fudging a roll or two. I don't fudge rolls. I obey chance and the dice as a scientific law.

And oh yes, I was also playtesting the Necromunda Event cards from Battles in the Underhive too.

The Ratskins elected to take advantage of Treacherous Conditions and rolled, Gloomy Conditons, which does not effect gameplay. Their Shaman with Slime Dance attempted to get a reroll to something nastier, but failed. Good news for my Eschers, of course.

One of Escher's Event cards was "Dangerous Walkway" which they played early on, but amazingly, the three Ratskins that crossed it all did so without making the walkway collapse.

The Ratskins divided their gang into two parts. One would ride the boat, possibly kill a Sump Spider and collect crystals, then get to the other side of the river's bank. (Anyone who does so at the end of the game gets 10 XP for the record)

The other group was concentrated at the buildings which the toll bridge was connected to. One group of three, armed with muskets and a handbow were going to take positions and give cover for their brother group of three. Their brother group of three, armed with a lasgun, autogun, and a shotgun would cross the bridge and attempt to secure it.

The Eschers had their Biker Heavy, Ha Ha Tonka set up on side opposite of the Ratskin boat, aimed to prevent them from crossing and/or give them hell, and a group of four juves led by one ganger to take the boat to the other side for them. Their leader and two gangers would secure the opposite building the toll bridge was connected to and counteract the Ratskins.

The battle commences..

The two groups move and take positions. The first moment of action, well, almost action, was as Ha Ha Tonka swerved near the river and attempted to do a skid turn unsuccessfully. She didn't crash but was unable to get out her pistol and fire at the ratskins across the river.

Those ratskins, all four, opened up fire on her and all missed spectularly. Even if she wasn't behind some cover and moving at fast speeds, they would have still missed miserably.

Meanwhile, two Ratskins, Battery Acid and Backdraft began to cross the bridge, opening up fire at Coo Coo, an Escher ganger, who was not yet in cover. Battery Acid's autogun found its targets and also knocked Coo Coo off the building to a long fall.

Moving behind a barrel, Cosmo Katie, another Escher ganger, retaliated with her boltgun and downed Battery Acid who amazingly and luckily did not fall into the sump river below. Backdraft next to him kept his nerve though and didn't panic, and was as cool as a.. ya ya.. a backdraft.

Not being slow to counter attack, Juicy Lucy, the Escher Leader, moved into cover, turned on her plasma gun to maximum power on Backdraft who got scorched and went down, but with Ratskin luck, didn't fall into the sump river. Miraciously, both fighters would simultaneously shake themselves up shortly with flesh wounds.

During the entire battle, the sump river currents kept pushing back the boats against the river edge. Neither gang were able to do any significant rowing.

A Sump Spider would attack the Ratskin boat party and at the same time, Ha Ha Tonka did a longer swerve around, avoiding something as flashy as a skid turn, and lugged a frag grenade at the sump spider, hoping that the ratskins would be partially hit by the blast. The grenade bounced off the sump spider's hide harmlessly some feet into another direction and ironically right into the ratskin boat, blasting everybody concerned. The grenade would take out the Brave and ironically, the Sump Spider as well before it could do any real harm.

Back at the Toll Bridge buildings, the continuing gun fight would knock off Battery Acid and Backdraft into the sump river. Juicy Lucy would be downed by the Ratskin Shaman 'Machine''s manstopper shotgun bullets.

Then, the Hive Spirits must have favored the Ratskins because a Sump Spider not only attacked the Escher boat party, took out their ganger, cause two Juves to break, have the Escher gang bottle out the following turn, but also, the other two Juves would be taken out of action as the gang bottled out by the same Sump Spider.

Previously, the Ratskins had thrown Stinger, a Brave with a handbow unto the Toll Bridge in a half-desperate attempt to secure it.

Consequently, thanks to Stinger, the Ratskins have now dubbed their Toll Bridge as 'Stinger's Crossing' with more than a little irony in multiple ways.

On top of that they rolled up 60 credits for the crystals gathered from the Sump Spider, and in the end, they would end up with well over 100 creds in their stash.

All of their fighters recovered fully.

The Body Shot Gang's fortune kept souring, even after the battle was finished. They would lose 120 credits because of their Gambling Den, have one juve acquire a right arm wound, have another juve die, and be forced to sell Juicy Lucy's plasma gun and Ha Ha Tonka's frag grenades and hand flamer to cover up their gambling debts. The Body Shot Gang have no absolutely zero credits in their stash.

And to make matters worse, the Ratskin's got a Tip Off and a Rumour for the next scenario, which, combined, prevented the Escher's from trying to play the Toll Bridge scenario again to take it from the Ratskins and forced them to play out a gang fight instead.

But, well, I will tell you one thing, the Bike rules are pretty fun, despite that my secretly favored gang got gutted and slaughtered. The Toll Bridge is a nice change of pace, and I think if I played it again, I'd adjust my strategy quite a bit. The Necromunda event cards add a little spice to shake things up too. I guess I should add that Cosmo Katie ran out of ammo, but got a spare clip thanks to an event card. However, the gang would bottle out before she could put the spare ammo to use. Oh, irony. As for playing an Outlander gang, it wasn't too shabby either and I can easily see now the massive benefits of Ratskin resilience.

Also, I am beginning to believe that the ratskin renegades really do have the favor of the hive spirits. Luck like that is just.. uncanny.

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