The Jackals - Five Parsecs: Cold Eyes (Campaign Turns 7-11)

Wherein the crew of the Anubis chews their way through a campaign centered on cyborgs.

Check out the start of this campaign here.

CAMPAIGN TURN 7:

After the intense battle aboard Space Station IN-248, the Jackals found themselves almost immediately being tracked down and swarmed by their rivals, the Blood Storm Mercs.

With this being an "assault" attack from the rivals, the Jackals set up in fortified positions in buildings on the outskirts of the spaceport. 

Seven members of the local contingent of the Blood Storm Mercs (two of them specialists with hand flamers and one of them a Lieutenant) rushed toward the Jackals, going for cover where they could.

Apollo, Wepa, Freki and Skadi all fired on the one merc in cover, but only managed to drop a couple of stun tokens on him (and only because of the hits from Apollo.)

Captain Anpu opened up with her stabilized rattle gun, but at this extreme range, the most she managed was a kill and a couple of stun tokens.

The mercs took their turn, two rushing into cover while one stayed behind in the open and fired back at Anpu. The shot was clean, strong, and only "luck" kept the Captain from becoming a casualty.

Anpu's revenge was swift and strong enough to drop one of the mercs and to keep another stunned.

Apollo's needle rifle punched the clock on another merc.

While Wepa and Skadi sent more rounds downrange, Pip finally moved out of hiding and unloaded his shotgun. Unfortunately, all the shot went wide.

He made up for it by winning initiative and uncovering an Alien Artifact from a Notable Sight (+2xp, but not for him since he's a bot!) 

Blam! Pip's shotgun put the Lieutenant down before he could get into cover.

The remaining Blood Storm mercs got into cover and fired wildly, hitting nothing.

In the final round, the Jackals sent enough lead downrange to pop two of the mercs and to scare the last one off. As per my custom rules for Notable Sights, all the rest of these on the field were lost.

A victory with no casualties! It was very quick and felt a little anti-climactic. Next time, I will probably give the enemies a little more cover, though in retrospect, only two of the seven were actually caught out in the open, so maybe my Jackals need to graduate to elite enemies soon.

Pay / salvage was 6 Creds (yay!) + a Quest Rumor and a Duplicator. Being power hungry, I duplicated Captain Anpu's rattle gun specifically (it's stabilized!) and gave it to Wepa along with the +2XP from the Alien Artifact that Pip found.

Having the first kill, Anpu received a total of +3xp and everyone else got +2. With this, Apollo increased his Toughness by +1 (to 4) and Wepa gave herself a point of luck. Freki pointed out that the bad smell inside the Anubis was actually a failing life support issue, but 1 Creds worth of new filters fixed that issue. In addition, Apollo (once again) got a character event and made some friends who taught him +1xp worth of lessons.

CAMPAIGN TURN 8:

The next campaign turn started with the usual upkeep and assignments. Anpu and Apollo went exploring, with Anpu finding a quest rumor and Apollo finding a trainer that gave him an additional +2 XP. Wepa acted as a decoy to throw off the crew's rivals while Skadi, Freki and Pip went "trading." All told, Skadi "found" 3 Frakk grenades (again!) which were given to Freki. Freki, on the other hand, "liberated" a shotgun while Pip located a luxury trinket and sold it for a suit of Flex-Armor that he gave to Wepa.

After that, the Jackals got a call from a trader complaining about some missing cargo. Something about the cargo made enforcer involvement a no-go, so the crew of the Anubis was called in to check it out. Sounded like a simple run, but immediately, something smelled off. 

(This is the first mission of the Cold Eyes campaign.)

Tracking the cargo back to an old spaceport cargo depo in a devastated colony, the crew spotted the crates in question, but had to get in close to confirm the presence of the cargo in question.

Anpu and crew were definitely nervous about the approach. Only one way in and one way out, cramped and narrow. 

The yard was crawling with activity, but something was wrong with the people meandering around the cargo depo.

Grouping up, the crew got out in the open and started assessing the threat.

Shots fired! None of them hit, but it was enough to make it clear that the crew couldn't just walk into the middle of this one. They needed to find cover fast!

Pip rushed in and downed one of the gun-toting smugglers, while Apollo, Wepa and Freki tried to take down several others. While the smugglers did fall to weaponsfire, they didn't stay down. Something was wrong with them, something that kept them rising up again, their pistols tracking the crew of the Anubis.

Anpu was the first one to score a kill, splattering a shambling cargo-hand with her rattle gun.

Apollo won initiative in the next round and dropped another gun-toting smuggler.

That guy came out of nowhere! A shambling cargo worker suddenly spawned and closed the distance with pip, then smacked him hard enough to down him.

Meanwhile, a recently-spawned smuggler winged Skadi and gave her something to think about.

Unfortunately for the smuggler, what Skadi thought about was whipping around and downing him with her shotgun.

Actually scoring kills was hard, but the crew managed to drop three this round. Of course, all that lead slinging was bringing in an additional two shambling dudes every turn, so it was a target rich environment.

The next round, Wepa won initiative and used her rattle gun to good effect.

Anpu closed in on a smuggler and dropped her.

Using his underbarrel grenade launcher, Freki pumped a Frakk at the closest group of shamblers, but barely phased them.

Skadi and Anpu were heading to link up with the rest of the crew on the less-active side of the map, but most of Skadi's shots went wide. Apollo, on the other hand, dropped the smuggler that was tracking her.

Anpu bringing the paid (but not much more) with her rattle gun.

Freki rushed in and tried to scan the crates, but failed miserably. Covering him, Wepa delivered three stunning shots, but it wasn't enough to keep the smuggler down permanently.

Apollo kept covering Skadi's retreat, consistently knocking the smuggler down but doing little more than that.

A lucky shot from a smuggler popped Wepa, but her luck saved her from taking any permanent damage.

She, in turn, rattled off some more rounds as she advanced along the side of the truck, dropping one shambling horror and putting an end to another. Apollo also joined the fun, downing a couple of horrors.

Taking up a moderately defensive position, Captain Anpu rattled off a lot of rounds that (mostly) did very little.

Success! Freki finally got those crates scanned!

Then, with his remaining action, he whipped around and eviscerated a pair of the shambling baddies with his phase shotgun.

Leading the way as the crew preppared to bug out, Anpu splattered another baddie.

Bunching up and heading back the way they came (the other end of the map was swarming with horrors) the crew of the Anubis readied themselves for fresh attacks.

Freki's phase shotgun hardly "phased" the horrors ahead this time.

Two shambling cargo-workers had found their way into the entry gates, but they were fish in a barrel for Anpu's rattle gun.

Apollo, Skadi and Wepa worked together to blast some more of the dead-eyed horrors.

And when he won initiative, Apollo curb-stomped the last of the horrors stuck in the entry gates.

That's when Wepa got swarmed and went down.

More lead from Anpu put down one of the smugglers, but not for good. There was a serious swarm forming, large enough to threaten the crew's escape.

Freki won initiative and the crew started to rush into the entry gates area.

Apollo found himself under seige! One of the dead-eyed cargo-hands rushed him but was easily put down. Another smuggler took a pot-shot at him, but narrowly missed him.

Meanwhile, Anpu rattled some more rounds at a cargo hand and dropped him, even if only temporarily.

Skadi and Apollo boogied out of there while Anpu and Freki tried to stay in cover.

And soon, there was only Anpu, surveying the scene of the battle while the cargo yard swarmed with horrors.

All told, the crew of the Anubis permanently downed 14 dead-eyed colonists in the cargo yard. 

Victorious, they looted 2 rumors worth of data files, scored a story point and five creds. Wepa and Pip rolled high and didn't even need to spend any time in the med bay. Anpu got the first kill, so her total XP gain was +4 and she gained a +1 to Reactions when she spent her XP. 

Everyone else (except Wepa) got +3 XP, with Apollo, Skadi and Freki gaining a +1 to Savvy. All that experience trying to seal vents and scan crates was finally starting to pay off!

The crew also decided to spring for an upgrade to Pip's Combat Score, giving him a +1 at the cost of 7 credits. 

For the campaign event, the crew started hearing rumors of war (uh oh) and Apollo (again) got the character event, this time scoring +1 luck!

CAMPAIGN TURN 9:

With rumors of war on the wind and with Unity suddenly all up in Captain Anpu's business, things were getting very interesting very quickly. Whatever was in that crate caught Unity's attention, and it wasn't long before the Jackals ended up with a new contract they couldn't refuse. For better or worse, it felt to Captain Anpu like the crew had finally entered the big leagues.

Unfortunately for the crew of the Anubis, it turned out that the big leagues would require a bit more savvy than any of the Jackals were really prepared for.

(This is the second mission of the Cold Eyes campaign.)

At the start of Turn 9, Anpu and Apollo went exploring. Wepa, on the other hand, went as a decoy. Skadi, Freki and Pip went trading. 

Captain Anpu found a trainer (+2xp!) while Apollo found absolutely nothing interesting. Skadi was able to "liberate" a military fuel cell while Freki found 6 creds worth of starship parts. Pip was able to locate some trade goods. 

The mission sounded simple. Sneak into a secret lab hidden under a nightclub in downtown, secure a sample in the center of the lab, then sneak out. The hardest part? No guns. If you get caught, you spend the next eight hours in a corporate holding cell until lawyers working with Unity get you out and back on the street. Dodge the cameras, don't get arrested, and if you bring even one gun with you, the turrets will turn you into hamburger before you can blink.

Suddenly "let's be bad guys" had become "let's become annoying tresspassers."

Being the most Savvy of all, Freki quickly moved in to wait for his opportunity to rush past the closest camera watching the facility.

Staying quiet meant going slow. The guards were making their rounds while the Jackals gathered in the entrance of the underground lab.

Hey, someone has to guard the break room.

Things already started to get a little dicey as one of the guards started toward the entrance. Pip stayed in plain sight, ready to be a distraction if needed while Captain Anpu scoped out an alternate route.

Being the second most Savvy jackal in the group, Skadi prepared to make a run for it as soon as the guard's back awas turned. They just had to wait.

Meanwhile, as the guard at the northern end of the facility started pacing again, Pip prepared to make a run for it.

Wait for it. Wait for it. 

Oh no, is he coming this way?

As the northern guard turned his back on the hallway, Pip rushed in and hid behind a planter.

The guard to the south started to move north, so Skadi dropped into hiding and Anpu made a tactical withdrawal.

Then the southern guard decided to take off in a different direction altogether.

Turning around, the guard to the north suddenly stopped, startled, then failed his detection roll.

"Must have been the wind."

A lucky roll then put Pip in the bar. Any mortal man might have been tempted by access to free booze, but not this man of metal!

The guards kept pacing. Captain Anpu took up a position on one side of the door, ready to move forward if the guard in her way kept going toward the lab.

These two ended up spending most of the mission bouncing off each other in the break room. I think they've got a thing going on.

Time to move! The three savvyiest jackals in the group took advantage of a good roll and rushed in toward the lab through the main hallway. Detection came swift, but the crew was ready for it.

Anpu withdrew as the closest guard started north, ready to investigate the camera detection event.

In the end, the captain wasn't fast enough. She presented her wrists and let the security guard haul her off to corpo jail. A valiant sacrifice for the rest of the crew!

Another lucky roll and everybody but Pip was in or near the lab. The camera in the mail hall kept pinging a detection event, drawing the guard that had arrested Anpu to come check things out.

On his first attempt, Apollo got hold of the sample and transmitted the data. Mission accomplished!

But Apollo wasn't content merely to transmit scans of the sample. No, for extra challenge, he picked it up and prepared to escape with it.

Then Pip triggered another camera.

How many of the crew would be arrested? That's what we're about to find out.

Carrying the sample, Apollo hid behind a wall of crates, knowing that if he came out of cover, he'd be detected by the camera watching the other end of the facility.

Meanwhile, the guard to the north was fast approaching.

A lucky roll put Freki and Apollo in sight of the camera and almost all the way out of the facility with the sample. The closest guard (in the break room) took notice and started in their direction.

Luck carried them through. Luck got Apollo and Freki out of the facility before the guard could spot them, but what about Skadi, Wepa and Pip?

That guard must take his job very seriously. He paced and paced in front of that camera for like 6-7 turns while Skadi hid behind crates nearby, just waiting for the moment to move.

In the end, Pip and Wepa made a run for it back out toward the way they had come in, alerting the nearest guard.

Would Wepa and Pip be able to get out before the guard could catch them? 

Cutting through the lab, the guard moved in just as Pip and Wepa got their paws on the staircase out.

Detection event! Skadi rushed out into the open, eager to escape while the guards were in the breakroom.

Pip and Wepa make their escape!

Another lucky break! That guard's probably thinking that the camera must be broken.

Skadi made her escape! The only member of the crew arrested was Captain Anpu, and she was sprung by Unity shortly after.

Victory meant that the crew got a nice crate of cutting edge military stims, a free (use anytime) pass for a Patron job from Unity, and the nice lawyers over with the govt even convinced the Blood Storm Mercs to stop following the jackals around. The crew got some creds, some more ship parts (yay) and +1 story point. With the XP from the mission, Anpu got +1 to speed. A trader approached the crew with an alien device for sale (Campaign Event) but it was too pricey. Surprise surprise, the character event was Apollo (again) and he was so depressed after the mission that he had to sit out the next one.

I forgot to pull Apollo from this mission because of his character event, but he didn't actually do anything of note anyway, so I just skipped giving him XP after the mission was over.

I also forgot to update the amount of starship parts in the cargo hold until I was doing this writeup, so that one will be updated next time around, haha.

CAMPAIGN TURN 10:

The gratitude and the pressure from Unity was getting strong, but the next mission promised to be more along the lines of what the jackals are actually good at. Simple orders again. Get it, secure the area, nothing survives. The jackals even got the jump on the smugglers.

This time, everyone in the crew went trading. Anpu found some insider info, but casually tossed it aside. Apollo, on the other hand, was able to (completely legally) acquire a "quality pre-owned" cling-fire pistol (broken.) Wepa got her hands on 3 Frakk Grenades (from a presumably thoroughly looted grenade cache) while Skadi was offered a "great deal" on an "odd device" which she turned down. Pip got his metal fingers on a laser sight, which he affixed to Apollo's Needle Rifle, while Freki managed to get his hands on some quality food and booze.

With the job gone hot, (mission 3 of the Cold Eyes campaign) there were no rival checks and all of the crew gained (for this mission only) a 6+ saving throw. 

Rolling a D10 to determine the location where the Jackals would randomly deploy, I got the lower right edge. 

After the last mission, sneaking around the outskirts of the smuggler camp seemed almost trivial.

The "doom tokens" were piling up (+2 at this point) but Captain Anpu decided that it was worth it in order to get the crew into optimal positions.

First strike! Pip walks in and blasts one of the smugglers with his shotgun.

Anpu gets the first kill with her rattle gun, while Skadi and Wepa work to take down a second smuggler.

That is a delightful initiative roll. The jackals really must have caught the smugglers flatfooted!

Anpu took advantage of the situation and used her rattle gun to take down another smuggler while Skadi rushed in and popped one with her shotgun.

Wepa then rushed in and dealt some stun tokens to one of the smugglers.

Retribution was swift . . . and ineffective.

Apollo, Freki and Pip used the rest of the round to get into position, but Wepa was quick on the draw again and used her rattle gun to decent effect, blasting away the leader of the smugglers.

The smugglers shot back, and the security rebot in their ranks actually managed to wing Skadi. Good thing she's got that point of luck!

All of the jackals opened up then, but only Anpu did more than delivering a stunning performance.

I finally remembered to check for morale with the smugglers (after so many of them were slaughtered) and one of the rookies straight up rabbited.

With only the security robot on the table, it was up to Wepa to take down the last of the smuggler resistance.

All in all, it was clean, direct and overwhelming for the enemy.

Victory came with +5 creds, +3 dosages of a drug called "still" and some nice xp. Wepa and Skadi both gained a +1 to combat score while Freki took a +1 to his React after a character event gave him a nice +3xp boost. Unfortunately, a Soulless Task Force took an interest in the Jackals, so they gained another rival.

CAMPAIGN TURN 11:

Of all of the missions I was most looking forward to in the Cold Eyes campaign, it was this last one. Link up with Unity, build a fortified position in the middle of a map and survive an all-out assault by wave after wave of Converted soldiers. The scenario recommended a 3x3 map, but since my table is 2x3 at best, I put up some blocking terrain to slow the waves down a little.

To make things even more interesting, I was so caught up in the crazy personal events of the weekend (and so excited for this one fun diversion) that I totally forgot to do the initial actions for the turn until I was doing this writeup. As such, though they appear here, they do not appear on the handwritten notes at the end.

After paying upkeep, the whole crew went trading, Anpu scoring +1xp while Apollo found a (truly) useless trinket. Both Freki and Skadi found some "Trade Goods" for the cargo bay while Wepa and Pip each found 1 cred of scrap.

After talking with the author of 5 Parsecs, I realized that I could sell my starship parts for 1 cred each and some of my many broken things for 1 cred each as well. Because of this, I went on a selling spree and sold 20 credits worth of starship parts, plus a broken blade, a broken shock attachment and a broken motion tracker. No rival checks were made because the mission for Unity took precedence.

The objectives for this mission sounded pretty straightforward. Hack into a console in Converted territory and survive until Unity bombardments begin. With Freki being at +3 Savvy, I put him on the console immediately, then spread everyone else out around him. The crew was supported by two hyper blaster turrets, five Unity soldiers and four drone mines (that made me very grateful for Pip.)

Converted deployments were rolling high numbers almost immediately.

But after I put Pip in control of the drone mines, the waves of converted soldiers didn't look so threatening.

The second drone mine inflicted some stun, but still managed to drop a Converted soldier carrying a hyper blaster.

Freki's first turn at the console got the system at about 24% hacked status.

Anpu and the turret near her opened up and took down one of the converted soldiers to the north.

Winning initiative, Freki pushed the hack another 24%. 

More big rolls, more cybernetic horrors rushing in to try and crush the crew of the Anubis.

Blam! Another drone mine delivers an explosive performance.

Out of the trenches come cyborg horrors, but the sentry gun and Skadi were more than capable of taking care of those.

Anpu and the sentry gun hammered out some more rounds, dropping more horrors. Fish in a barrel!

More deployments, with Converted taking pot-shots at the crew.

A strong hacking performance by Freki kicked the operation up to almost 80% complete.

Rattle rattle. The big white dice are Skadi's shotgun while the little white dice are for the sentry gun. The single black die is the rookie unity soldier between them.

A strong performance from Anpu this turn, but an absolutely abysmal performance from literally everyone else in the north / east side of the entrenched position.

Well, Apollo made up for it by winning initiative and blasting the two Converted converging on his position.

This was the first real heavy-hitting round. All of those red dice are attacks from Converted soldiers. Thankfully, most of them missed, but one unity soldier was stunned and one took a bullet for Pip, who would have become a casualty otherwise.

Look at those low rolls! Come on Freki! 98% complete!

Flying the last drone mine into a crowd of Converted, Pip lightened the load a little for everyone else. We wouldn't have had this advantage if that Unity soldier hadn't laid down his life for our assault bot.

That same round, Pip also threw both of his concealed blades and fired his shotgun, overwhelming the Converted soldier and knocking him out.

Wepa turned and filled the gap left by the fallen Unity soldier and fired her rattle gun until the hyper blaster weilding Converted soldier dropped.

Get some! More super effective fire from the turret and the Unity soldier with the hyper blaster.

Flanked on either side by the Unity Sergeant and a rookie soldier, Anpu delivered a devastating salvo from her rattle gun.

Skadi working in tandem with her buddy to catch the horrors as they emerge from the trenches.

More shots, more stun tokens. No casualties, thankfully, though Apollo's luck was tested.

100% completion on the hack! That means no more waves spawn and all that's left is clean-up. We did it! We made it!

A celebratory salvo putting five more cyborg horrors on the ground.

Who ever said that working alongside Unity was a bad thing?

A not-so-good performance this turn on the west and south side. Skadi usually rolls an uncommonly high number of boxcars, but this turn she got snake eyes. Boooo.

With the system hacked and Converted defenses down, orbital bombardments started. First targets? Two of the FIVE hyperblaster weilding soldiers coming around to cause havoc with the crew.

That's when the second Unity rookie fell. He probably thought he was going to survive this one, but still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

More rounds from the advancing converted. Pip picked up a stun token, but mostly the rolls were too low.

Those turrets just kept earning their keep. Even Freki joined the fray, opening up with a grenade launched from his underbarrel launcher.

Just keep sending bullets downrange. The end is in sight!

Wepa and Anpu rattled off rounds together.

Blam blam! Two more hyper blaster weilding horrors dropped by orbital bombardment while Anpu and Wepa delivered another salvo from their rattle guns (they won initiative)

More shots from the advancing horrors wiped out the last of the Unity rookies and tested Skadi's luck.

But clean-up still kept coming along smoothly.

I like anything that fires three shots. Not a whole lot that can handle being the target of two hyper blasters.

Working together on the south and west ends of the defensive perimeter, Skadi and Freki (plus the turret) managed to bring the pain.

Orbital bombardment! Two less units on the board. That leaves only one left, a single stunned cyborg hiding behind a tree. 

Whoops! That turret made quick work of him!

After seeing how soundly the crew beat the last two missions, I decided to run this one in hard mode. With the doom tokens from Cold Eyes #3, Freki had to get a total of 22 points of hacking done on the computer console to bring the scenario to a close. Luck and Unity soldiers willing to take a bullet for this rag tag team of mangy jackals made this mission just easy enough for a clean victory with no casualties among the crew. I even, by some stroke of luck, had enough miniature cyborg soldiers to put every unit on the board that needed to be there! I almost ran out, though!

As a reward, everyone in the crew got an additional +1 XP, and the ship got 1 story point and +3 credits in pay. Somehow, the crew found nothing on the battlefield (evac'd before they could loot the corpses, I figure) but they did secure a suit of combat armor which was given to Freki to make our highest Savvy guy that much tougher to take down. If the crew were to do a mission like Space Station IN-248 again, Freki would probably be the MVP at this point.

With xp bonuses, Skadi got +1 Speed while Anpu, Apollo and Freki all picked up +1 Tough. Ten creds went toward buying Pip a "luck module" because he was the only crew member who didn't have a point of luck and it was about time we got him one. Additionally, the crew sold a shotgun (because I thought we were out of cash for upkeep, but later realized I hadn't done the first steps of the turn, lol.) The campaign event involved a "shady deal" trading a "personal trinket" for a "useless trinket" which was hilarious. Apollo (again) got the character event, but this time it was just +2xp.

To wrap things up, I decided to roll for invasion since the Converted technically are an invasion threat. When I rolled a 10 (even before the invasion rumors from before, which would make it a 12) I thought, ok, makes sense. Standing up against the initial assault by the Converted, the jackals may have won the battle, though the war was still yet to begin. The directive from Unity went out loud and clear. Time to evacuate. Time to move on to a new world beyond the now doomed Byng III.

Truly, I was tempted to just transition the group into a mercenary group / bug hunt group hybrid that would stay and take on the Converted, but I didn't want to risk my crew getting massacred. Maybe I should start looking into Red Jobs soon. Doing those, I could work up to Black Jobs and maybe take on a Converted invasion force directly. Something to think about. Maybe a new visit to Captain Deaf is in order soon. We'll need some good gear to take on the Converted. The more lead the crew can throw downrange, the better!