Chaos at the Spaceport - Captured Smugglers & Rebel Assault

    Atop a building in Keith's spaceport, a Greedo of uncertain motives threatens a civilian worker

A few months ago, my friend Keith told me he was itching for a project. He wanted to build something. As I was finishing up my figures for Star Wars skirmishes, I told him, "Build a spaceport." Fast forward to last week. Keith announced he was finished with the spaceport and had a scenario ready to break it in. We would be doing his own Star Wars skirmish using Galactic Heroes rules.

    Rebel leader Joel turns in a card & prepares to move one of his rebels in his attack on the spaceport

The scenario was that a smuggling operation at an imperial spaceport had been uncovered. The smugglers themselves were being held in detention by the Empire. This prompted a number of different factions to spring into action. The local rebel alliance sent two teams to break into the perimeter and search for the smugglers, some of whom were rebels. My own faction was personnel from the fleet naval arm stationed at the port. Apparently, we were the ones profiteering from the smuggling, selling arms and other supplies to the rebels and lining our pockets. Now that the smugglers had been caught by the Empire, our smuggling ring would doubtless be exposed. We needed to spring into action and see if we could secure (or neutralize?) the smugglers ourselves.

    The alien "Greedos" arrive, having sneaked onto the base, but what is their mission here...??

There were six players and those are the only three factions that I am actually sure about. My friend Tom had a group who was trying to rescue the Princess, who had also been captured. Doubtless, she was a rebel smuggler, but who was Tom? I assumed rebel sympathizers. Mike S had a mercenary faction. He was trying to find the pilot of a certain spacecraft for some reason or another. He made it clear he was anti-imperial by firing on the stormtroopers immediately, but I never learned what his ultimate mission was. The most mysterious of all was Mike W's "Greedo" force. These four, green-skinned aliens seemed to have no coherent mission that I could deduce, but seemed fixated on accosting civilians at the spaceport and stealing another ship. He was obviously anti-Imperial, though, as he shot and knocked one of my four men out of action.

    Rebel Leader Allen's people mover began the attack by breaking through the perimeter

My officer and three troopers began in the "control room" (which Keith did not tell me was the control room), but were not permitted to act until turn two. Once the rebels broke through the perimeter, setting off alarms, we could do what we wanted. That made sense that we would try to take advantage of the rebel attack to execute our desperate plan to save us from our treason. The only thing I was told was that the smugglers were being held in a small, block building in the spaceport. As it turned out, there were three separate groups of prisoners held in captivity. I didn't know that, thinking instead that there was only one group of prisoners. I also think this was what all six factions were led to believe.

    'That's what you get for sneaking up on a Fleet Trooper!' My trooper returns fire & downs a rebel

When we were allowed to move, two of my troopers headed in the direction of where Tom had quickly liberated a group of prisoners. Ah-ha, I thought, "that's where the smugglers are!" Along the way, one of Joel's rebels sneaked up and shot one of my guys in the back, causing only a shock, though. My guy returned fire, hit, and knocked the rebel out of action. Two other of Joel's rebels entered the control center, which was now occupied only by my officer. The other had climbed the ladder to the roof and was checking out another "small block building." The officer fired twice, knocking another of Joel's rebels out of action and causing a shock on the other. In Galactic Heroes, "shock" is not a wound and represents the fear, distraction, stress, etc., of combat. 

    Two more of Joel's troopers burst into our control room - one is gunned down by the Fleet Officer

Much to my surprise, my trooper who entered the small, block building found the Princess! He radioed that to the others on our comms. The two troopers outside the control center heard that and split up. One continued the dangerous mission of crossing most of the spaceport to make sure the prisoners were either freed by the rebels or dispatched. The other ducked back inside to help my officer. Once again, my dice proved deadly, and the other rebel was knocked out of action. Yeesh! After my excellent dice rolling last week in the FASA starship game, I thought for sure my comeuppance would be this Sunday evening. Not to be, apparently! Of course, not everything went the Fleet's way. My guy on the dangerous, cross-spaceport mission was shot and knocked out by a Greedo on the roof. A gung ho nurse entered the control room and began reviving the two rebels we had shot down. I ordered her to desist at gunpoint and Keith decided she was a fanatic and proceeded to ignore my orders even when she took a blast meant for the revived rebel. 

'Shoot him!' the Fleet Officer commands, bewildering the 'Princess' prisoner (& the trooper!)`    

Rolling his eyes ans motioning the trooper to join him, the officer climbed onto the roof and into the small detention cell in the nearby building (not that we knew it was a detention cell -- we had amazingly sparse information about a place we were stationed at for so long and were supposedly in control of...!). Once we were all in the cell -- the Fleet Officer, Princess, my two troopers, and the stormtrooper guarding her, I ordered my men to kill the stormtrooper. I planned on killing the princess, too, if I had to (thinking she was one of the smugglers). Was she actually a smuggler? Who knows? I found out at the end of the game there was an undiscovered prisoner whose card said "Smuggler." Wouldn't I have known who the smugglers were if I have been selling them arms for so long?

    Stormtroopers arrive and immediately attack Mike S's mercenaries

I think Keith's goal was for a wild and crazy game with each of the players acting on only partial information. Well, he succeeded! I was watching the action on the rest of the table as the rebels and rebel sympathizers (or whatever) were quickly rescuing all of the prisoners. If they escaped with them, they would basically be doing my job for me. As mentioned, I was unaware there was yet another cell block only a short distance away where the prisoner we wanted was being held. Keith was controlling the actions of the civilians and stormtroopers. In true ineffective stormtrooper fashion, he classified them as "Grunts," who use a d8 instead of the d10's the player characters rolled for shooting or melee. The other guys were doing a pretty good job mowing down the stormtroopers, though a surprising amount were taken out in melee. I decided to sit back and monitor the situation.

    Shooting breaks out all over Keith's recently 'fully armed and operational' spaceport

Things escalated when Keith allowed Mike S's mercenaries to take control of one of the spaceships and begin blasting away at buildings. This activated the perimeter defenses, which began to fire on the ship. That was somehow what Mike wanted, so he joined the exodus of rebels at this point, fleeing off-board with the prisoners. My own guys were going to discreetly exit the spaceport, too, with Princess in tow.  When Keith called the game, I was chagrined to find out about the "Smuggler", which meant instead of being wildly successful and neutralizing or seeing all prisoners freed, I failed miserably. The one prisoner who I needed to neutralize or set free was the only one who still ended the game in under control of the Empire!

    Classic Star Wars scene - rebels and stormtroopers shoot it out (but occasionally hitting each other!)

Well, if Keith wanted chaos...he got it! I enjoyed the scenario but obviously think my faction, as the only resident imperial one, should have had a LOT more information. Feel free to make our objective far from my starting location, and make me run the gauntlet of attacking rebels. I also think it should have been a bit more obvious which buildings housed prisoners and which were basic administrative or supply storage facilities. Mike W's Greedos were obviously looking for something, but all they ended up doing was interrogating a bunch of random civilians and searching wrong locations. Oh, and shooting one of my guys! The civilian medical personnel running around trying to revive anyone wounded or knocked out of action in the middle of a gunfight were simply annoying. How the Evil Empire got such fiercely loyal platoon combat medics willing to risk their lives didn't make a lot of sense. But then again, the "bad guys" in Star Wars movies often do things that don't make sense. So, perhaps it fit the canon after all.

    Mike S's mercs were obviously up to no good when they asked the rescued pilot to arm a ship's guns

Keith's spaceport looked nice. I don't think I have ever seen so much pre-printed cardboard or paper terrain assembled onto one tabletop before. There were a LOT of buildings, walkways, spaceships, scatter -- you name it! Interestingly, though, very little of the terrain provided any kind of cover. Lots of staircases or buildings, but not a lot to hide behind and squeeze out the odd -1 or -2 to the enemy shot. The Wiley Games rules provided their usual enjoyment, with wild swings in combat but also the ability to formulate a plan and try to adapt it to the order of movement cards you were dealt. This mechanic adds an extra level of a tactical challenge -- which figure gets which card, and what order to move your guys in?

    In the end, the Greedos stole a spaceship! Was it their mission? Who knows...

I also liked how Keith's game introduced the players to the idea of a spectrum of factions in the Star Wars world. That is precisely what my own Star Wars games will do. I plan to have the players represent everything from the Rebel Alliance to the Empire, with mercenaries, criminal syndicates, corporate security, and local rebels thrown into the mix. So, it was a good introduction for my own series of games I hope to run using the Space Weirdos rules. Why not Galactic Heroes? Well, I'm not a huge fan of short weapon ranges for a futuristic game, for one. Plus, I want to give these a try. A friend recommended them, I downloaded them from Wargame Vault, and they look interesting. When will my games kick off? Hopefully in May, though we will see what others want to run before that.

    One of Joel's rebels stealthily hides underneath a walkway in which 2 ship crew are walking along

 

In the meantime, look for more updates soon on the stuff that I've been painting up!

MINIATURES Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Miniatures acquired in 2025: 100
  
• Miniatures painted in 2025: 49 

TERRAIN Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Terrain acquired in 2025: 10
  
• Terrain painted in 2025: 16

SCATTER Acquired vs. Painted Tally for 2025

• Scatter acquired in 2025: 53
  
• Scatter painted in 2025: 30

    I really liked Keith's Star Wars people movers (or whatever they're called)...very nice models!

    The Gung Ho nurse ignores Allen's rebel and would continue to annoy every character she ran into

 

    A confused melee breaks out between stormtroopers and Tom's rebels & the prisoners he rescued

    Allen's troops deploy early in the game and launch the rebel raid on the Spaceport