For Whom the Bridge Tolls

 

Shadows and dirt!

General Bubonicus and I have been battling regularly over the summer, and our Necromundan Dominion campaign is trundling along nicely. 

We're into the second half now. It'll come as a surprise to nobody that my Delaque are lagging behind, although not by that much. Half time in a campaign brings a welcome cash injection plus the chance for everyone to rest up and get ready again. 

Since they last appeared here, Hairless Whisper has picked up some extra members. Mostly lasgun-toting space fillers, but also the floating brainiac that is a Spyker and a second Nachtgul, much to my opponent's horror. Sudden ambushes and psychic attacks from behind distant walls remain my specialties. The robot is a Rogue Doc, which will hopefully save me money when everyone gets murdered.

On the other hand, I've lost track of how many Cawdor there are now. Many of them are simple juves, armed with a selection of chains and axes and sent screaming into the front lines, one of the favourite tricks being to use miracles to make one of them unkillable for a turn and then causing them to explode before they get removed for good at the end of their next activation. I often feel like I'm playing one of the bomber levels of Serious Sam, perpetually having screaming madmen detonating on me. 

Worse, they've just picked up a giant bomb crossbow, which means they're also throwing bombs at me from a distance. 

My counter? I'm using a combination of tactics cards and spiked drinks (from one of my gang territories) to somewhat neuter one of the Cawdor Champions. Deacon Frost clearly has quite a taste for hard liquor, I've made him hungover in every game we've fought since I captured the Drinking Hole. Tonight, he's also run up a debt, and will have to think twice about charging my gangers. Not quite sure how that works as a mechanic, personally I reckon I'd be much more likely to hit someone I owed money to with a chainsaw given half a chance, but it is what it is. 

Tonight's fight is Toll Bridge, and we're even fighting over an actual Toll Bridge in the game! 

You win by either having the opponent off the board, or by having someone within 12" of the central bridge when the opponent doesn't at the end of turn 3 onwards. We halved this to 6" to encourage people onto the bridge. Also at the end of turn 3 onwards, the bridge may randomly start spinning round. This will play out exactly as Wile Coyote as you'd expect. 

Under the Bridge Downtown

We each start on one side of the bridge. It's not the only way over, you can also jump on bits of flotsam and try to paddle them feebly across. Both of us commit to doing this, in strict contravention of common sense. 

Immediately, this leaves one of my juves in the middle of the stream, out of range and out of ammo, as the Cawdor start slinging autogun fire in my direction. 

When the Cawdor sniper sets up shop on the far bank, immediately picking off one of my gangers with his long rifle, the Spyker gets him back by hiding behind a wall and making him fall over. Alas, the walls aren't big enough, and some really inaccurate fire from the Cawdor crossbow manages to scatter a shot round a corner and into the fragile brain boy. This is not starting well for me!

A Bodge Too Far

The Cawdor's plan is pretty clearly to rush the middle with a massive wave of screaming zealots. He's going to soften me up first, though, and the first thing over the bridge is actually a rat with a hissing fuse attached. 

This at least I manage to pick off before it detonates, although there's another on its way shortly behind. The rest of the throng are lurking behind walls, or those who aren't flinging exploding bolts at me at any rate. The Spyker manages to boil the sniper's brain, taking him off the board, but another bouncy bomb throws my lurking gangers into disarray. 

By the end of turn three, there's a bunch of Cawdor more than half way over the bridge, led by the alcoholic Deacon. He's being protected by a miracle - he's glowing so brightly, I can't target him or those around him unless I'm within 3". 

I don't want to be within 3" of a melee lunatic with a spare flamethrower (I don't want to be within 24", really), but someone needs to be on that bridge by the end of the turn or I'll lose the game. Instead, the Spyker tries to psychically convince him to leave. 

As it happens, he's bought himself a Hexagrammatic Fetish at the market, and Bubonicus hasn't rolled to see if it's any good yet. It could be excellent, making him much harder to hit with esoteric powers!

Nope, it's trash. So useless, he can't do anything except sell it on to some other chump later. He hits the deck, but at least avoids falling in. However, this still leaves me without anyone on the bridge, especially when my plasma gunner stuff up his shot. Time for plan B. 

What I somehow need to do is:

1. shoot another protective bomb rat out of the way to make space
2. leap heroically over the lethal waters to get a man on the bridge
3. get a second guy on, only to have him immediately set on fire before falling in thanks to Cawdor counterplay. 

In total defiance of the odds and all my luck in life to date, this somehow all works out! The bridge is therefore contested - there are five Cawdor on it to one Delaque. 

At this point, it starts spinning, leaving all six of them stuck in the river. 

Troubled Waters

Whoever goes first here is going to have to pick carefully what they do! Luckily, it's me. 

That lone Delaque on the bridge, Schtum he's called, goes nuts with both pistols. The Autopistol misses, but the other gun, a poison-dart-firing flechette gun, manages an excellent strafing hit, putting hits on all three of the lead Cawdor. 

The Deacon is fine, his mate foams at the mouth and passes out, and the last guy shrugs off the dart but falls in the river doing so. The next Cawdor down the line, a juve with nothing but flails, panics and runs to the other end of the bridge. That's about as good as I could possibly hope for!

At the same time, I've also infiltrated both Nachtguls on the other bank. Much as the Cawdor would like to shoot them, they also really want the bridge, so Deacon Frost goes next and tries to charge Schtum. 

No he doesn't! He's too hungover and too afraid of how much I'll add to his tab. There's nothing to stop him setting me on fire, unfortunately, so he does that instead, running out of juice but leaving me ablaze at the end of a narrow bridge. Awesome. 

The Nachtguls both get stuck in, one wounding the Cawdor's leader before getting scragged by return attacks. The other utterly minces the autogunner who's been shooting at my poor guy on a raft, who himself is now near enough to the bridge to nearly shoot off one of the two remaining Cawdor there. 

After that, it's all madness and gunfire. Despite plasma and shotguns and brain bullets, I completely fail to get rid of any of the other Cawdor bridge-claimers. At least my burning man is still there and still alive for now, so the game is still anyone's, but I'm also running lower on gangers faster than Bubonicus is. 

The bridge decides to spin again, back to where it started, so it's time to reload it with fresh bodies. 

Who's That Trap Tripping?

Yelling praises to the Emperor and to being on fire, the Cawdor rush in a screaming mob straight down the bridge. If only I had some grenades! Or a combat shotgun...

As it happens, I do have a combat shotgun, which could come in very handy about now. Alas, the Cawdor Priest has remembered I have one too. My leader has a toe on the end of the bridge, and as the Priest rushes across, he risks a lowly stub bullet. 

Dammit - it's just enough, and my leader loses his footing, topples into the drink and takes my hopes of victory with him. My only guy left on the bridge is on fire, and it doesn't take that much from the onslaught of flame weapons heading his way to encourage him to leap off. 

Game!

Claimed! In the name of the Emperor. 

Neither of us come out too badly. Toll Bridge rewards both gangs just for taking part, although the victor takes a nice prize pot and bonus reputation as well. Our damaged blokes avoid terrible injuries for the most part, although my senior Nachtgul will be missing the next game as his leg tries to grow back. 

One of the better missions, this one, a proper hoot with plenty of things to fall off. We were worried about it devolving into a shootout if you leave the distances at 12" to claim the bridge, as then you can still lurk onshore and have a chance of getting in, and I'm glad we changed it for our match. In retrospect, I don't think that's necessary though, and may even be slightly too much of a penalty if your gang favours shooting over melee (neither of ours do luckily). Shooting is usually so arbitrary in Necromunda that a ridiculous shootout over a rickety bridge is probably going to be a hoot. 

Either way, great to be playing more and another excellent game!