Talathen Sector - End phase round 4

Personal Update

Well, this last month or so has been an unpleasant one for my group and I.

My sister lost her battle with cancer just after New Years, one of my other players has had to deal with a major family crisis, and another the death of a friend.

All in all, 2016 started off horribly for my friends and I and Talathen Sector takes a fair bit of work on my part, and focus from my players. This is something we have been without, so when we have met up, we have played games like roborally and Blood Bowl Team Manager instead. And that's been fine.

Things are starting to calm down a little, so i'm going to write up our last session from last year. Hopefully, next week we will be focused enough to get back into it.

Final mission

Just a few words on this one as it was a purely narrative mission, designed to introduce a plot point more than be an actual challenge for the players

It was set on Nimbala, with the rebels dispatched to capture a member of the Czerka board who had been located on Nimbala.

This board member was revealed to be "The Red Queen", a character introduced in the first RPG mission, a former Twilek slave from Nimbala who had married a member of the Czerka board.

She revealed that her plan has been to destabilize Czerka on Nimbala, buy up shares in the subsidiary as the price nose dives, then purchase a controlling interest, kick Czerka out, and liberate her people while placing herself as a self-appointed ruler.

Viewing this as the far lesser of two evils, the rebels have agreed to help.

Mission reports

• Luxon - Wookies deployed to assist the Luxon militia facing a full scale invasion. This mission was a success and generated +1 rebel support, +5 heat, and blocked some of the Empires potential gains
• Holonet Hack - To counter imperial propaganda on the Holonet, the rebels hacked it and uploaded footage of the rebel fleet destroying the shipyard at Korvas. Massive success, blunts Imperial PR campaign.
• Nimbala Diplomacy - Massive success, opned up the "Red Queen" mission on Nimbala
• Kronos - Diplomatic mission sucessful, initial reports of Imperial favour found to be untrue. Kronos is displeased with the empire.
• Samoth - Attacking a star destroyer that was launching probes to find the hidden rebel base. Major success, lots of heat in Samoth. Deliberately done to draw imperial attention away from other sites.
• Selano - Asteroid base raid, major success, +2 rebel support, massive heat.
• Cahn diplomacy - Meeting with the devourer cult, who need help with an internal issue.
• Nadir and Zenith - Draw, no relief to blockade, but lessens effect of imperial action.

Bidding

A lot of characters up for bid and a minor faction as well. After meeting the Bothan Spynet in the last RPG, they have become available. it's worth noting that the Chief of Staff NPC does not like Bothans, and all Bothans have the "shady" negative to represent his antipathy for them.

First up for bid was Nayr Bwa'tu and the Bothan Spynet, a powerful alliance that adds considerable grunt to the intelligence pool and comes with a powerful leader.

The round was blind bidding and the Bothans went to the Republicans for a surprising low 15 clout

Next up, was the unusual Pell family. As a married couple, these two characters come as a set, with Leeto being a smuggler and Jorda being a gunslinger.

The peoples movement picked them up for 22 clout, 11 each which seems pretty reasonable.

Manny Bothan's, Bothan super spy and generally all around powerful agent. Manny is phenomenal at spying missions and the most powerful spying character in the sector.

The downside of him is that he is doomed to die before the end of the campaign. After all, he needs to find the plans to the 2nd death star, so Mon Mothma can say "Manny Bothans died to bring us this information"

Yes..... the entire character is based on a bad pun A whopping 27 points to the Republicans, who have loaded up on Bothan spies this round.

Mak Eshka'rey is next, a truly useful character who can fight in Imperial assault squads, work as an intelligence officer, or be sent off on solo assassination runs.

22 points to the Luxon militia, I must say I was surprised at this, but clearly the players have plans and want the right people to fufil them.

Laila Jaxon becomes the first human for hire this round, in a round dominated by Bothans.

As a Wes Jansen ace, she has excellent pilot skill and in game abilities, while being an ok squadron leader.

14 points to the Peoples movement, who continue to stockpile military characters

Kolath De'rest is next. Another utility character who can be a good officer, imperial assault squad member, intelligence operative, or any form of command role.

13 points to the Basra consortium. This was the Basra consortium only acquisition this round, and they finished the round with 26 move clout saved than anyone else. I expect big moves next round.

Kryth Thu'wan is next, a solid leader character, but not a fighter. He could be a real asset in many fields, but probably not combat ones.

Stolen for only 10 clout by the Luxon Militia. And while i though they overpaid for Mak, this cheap deal more than overcompensates for that.

​Finally, Goran Alarno, a Torgruta solidier with the uncommon "instructor" special ability.

Goran could move into training immediately, or he could be deployed to the special forces teams who are in need of a 2nd commando.

Final scores

As this is round 4, glory scores per event have gone up by 25%, and will do so every 3 turns until the end of the game. The People's movement nearly top scored this round, and are closing the gap to the Luxon Militia and Republicans, while the Basra Consortium continues to play a long game.

My deepest condolences to you and your friends.

Thank you for continuing this.

What dice do you use in this? Thanks!

What dice do you use in this? Thanks!

The FFG star wars RPG dice. Most of the roles use that system, or others use a "points" system, where a triumph = 5 points, a success 2 points and an advantage 1, with negative results having the same negative values.

So, in a mission planning roll, a net result of a triumph, a success and 3 disadvantages would be a net of 4 points to spend on mission advantages. (5+2-3)

Do you think I could possibly run this with myself and 2 to three Friends?Thanks!

Do you think I could possibly run this with myself and 2 to three Friends?Thanks!

Sure. all the resources are on the dropbox (which you can find via the blog)

If something is undocumented, make it up, thats what i do

Do you have a specific way of calculating glory and Clout? Just wondering if i have to make it up or not. Thanks!

Do you have a specific way of calculating glory and Clout? Just wondering if i have to make it up or not. Thanks!

On the resource page is the clout spreadsheet. Basically, people earn clout for what positions their minions hold.

The Glory stuff is in there as well, but it's less carved in stone. The Mission commander gets the most, then their Commanding officer gets a slice, all particpating characters, all participating players, intel/diplomacy get bonuses as well depending on the mission.

There should be examples on that sheet, enough to give you an idea of the logic behind it, so you can apply your own framework

Alright, new style for doing these updates. Instead of spoonfeeding them as we are done, I will write up the whole "game round" over a week or so to help me recap the story to myself and plan for the next round.

Round 5 is in the bag, so lets start off with the planning phase.

The Situation

The war in the sector is obviously heating up and exchanges between the Rebels and Imperials are becoming more direct.

Luxon is under full-scale invasion by the Empire, which for the Empire is not that easy a task. The Luxon people are, well, a bunch of crazy militia survivalists who are very well armed, and Luxon cities are mostly located underground.

Orbital bombardment and air superiority don't help a huge amount when the battle is conducted in tunnels deep underground. So a messy close quarters war is underway.

Nimbala is about to enter a crisis point, and the identity of the 3rd faction was revealed to be "The Red Queen", a former Nimbalan twi'lek slave who married a Czerka executive and then poisoned him to gain his shares in the Nimbala holding company.

She has been planning on causing conflict on Nimbala to drive the shareprice down and cause a crash of the stock, so she can buy it up and free her people (While making herself ruler). She has enlisted the help of the rebellion.

With the rebellion destroying a Victory destroyer over Samoth that was using probe droids to search for a rebel base, the Empire has decided to raze the planet. Samoth has a low population, and this task is being conducted by a squadron of Victory class destroyers. This has forced the empire to lift the blockade on Nadir and Zenith.

The Plan

Luxon - Under Siege

Luxon is under pressure, so considerable resources were assigned to help relieve the Luxon militia.

Special forces were dispatched to help the militia by targeting key points in the imperial logistics network. A rebel general, Kolath De'rest, was also assigned to help coordinate efforts on the ground.

In space, the full might of the rebel fleet and it's logistics division were assigned to punch a hole in the blockade and deliver heavy munitions and supplies to the militia.

Nimbala - The Red Queens Gambit

For the first time in the campaign, three seperate elements were assigned to one planet on a joint task.

Special forces were to liaise with the local resistance and capture the Czerka security command station and arrest their security chief. With the security command under their control, they could lockdown the facilities and limit Czerka troop movements.

Fighter command was employed to stop Czerka troop reinforcements and to assassinate the board member who was coordinating them. Thanks to the Red Queen's inside information, they knew when these reinforcements were to arrive.

Finally, Aurek squad was assigned to the Red Queen as personal security and advisers, and to ensure that the Rebellions interests were looked after during the transition.

Sa'moth- Busy being leveled

The people of Sa'moth are being wiped off the face of the planet, but the rebellion simply cannot help them at this time due to issues on Luxon and Nimbala.

The only response was to send a HWK electronic warfare ship to observe and record the bombardment for use in propaganda videos later.

Elsewhere

Due to various reasons, the alliances played little part in this rounds planning. The hutts, Bothans and wookies were either exhausted from previous engagements or occupied in their own schemes.

Selano, in the face of seeing the Empire fail to establish a presence, and with concerted diplomatic pressure from the rebellion has become considerably more friendly the the rebellion.

Korvas continues to build up it's defences, Nadir and Zenith breath easier with the blockade lifted. Cahn has asked for help dealing with an internal political issue and probe droids have arrived on axamar to scan for the rebel base.

Plenty happening in Talathen Sector, battle reports and the "Nimbala buy out" story coming soon.

Luxon is under attack, and the rebels responded with a series of two missions.

Luxon ground operations

First up, The luxon Militia need help taking control of a series of underground junctions, and to destroy the entry and exit points for imperial reinforcements.

They had 6 satchel charges, and need to spend an action to place them and an action to detonate them. If the Imperials were close, they could deactivate the charges.

The team moved into position, two characters and some soliders for support attacking on each flank.

By the way, isn't Space Hulk 3rd edition just damned good to look at. Such nice components and perfect for the tunnel fights in Luxon

With satchel charges blowing the main corridors, the team moved in to defeat the E-Webs and officers defending the control station. The other objective was for the team to rewire the consoles, so that Luxon forces could control tunnel and gate access in the region.

One e-web down, and the rebels close the noose. One big gun, even one that can fire three times, isn't enough to slow the rebel advance.

With the guns down, the Rebels quickly hunt down and eliminate the imperials in the communications centre. Meanwhile, imperial reinforcements flock around to cut off the rebel escape.

With their escape route cut-off the rebels were forced to fight their way back down a stormtrooper infested corridor. And while they made it, two of them were badly injured and all their support troopers died.

A high price, but now the Luxon militia controls this sector, and the imperials will have to burn their way through. Which has slowed their invasion considerably.

The Battle in Space

The Luxon groups forces need supplies desperately, so the Rebel fleet decided to smash through the Luxon blockade to deliver the desperately needed materials.

They did so easily, but as they turned away from the planet they were boxed in by a squadron of four star destroyers. They needed to blast past them, protect their transports, and make it out of the planets gravity well and into hyperspace.

Three corvettes, an assault frigate and a Nebulon B were matched up against three victory destroyers and a gladiator.

The rebels plan was simple, push the freighters to the side of the board and screen them with other ships. Then put the hammer down and get off the board as soon as possible. The freighters (represented by X-wing transport tokens) had 6 hull and could move speed 3. They activated after fighters.

In what I considered a bold move, I threw the Gladiator ahead hard and fast on the first turn. I had the good fortune of acting first next turn and being in pefect range against Jaina's light, a Corellian Corvette. I got to roll many many black dice, and the corvette was blown to pieces. First blood to the Empire.

Unfortunately, the assault frigate did exceptionally well on return fire, and two turns later, the Gladiator was lost with all hands.

The Imperial fleet split up, one Victory trying to close down the freighter on the near side of the board, while the other two close on the pair on the far side.

Dramatically working to screen the freighter, the Nebulon-B frigate "The Pride of Luxon" under command of the infamous "Beast of Luxon" took heavy damage at point black range. But the ship kept moving and redirecting shields, and every hit it took was one the freighters did not.

That frieghter got away (with 1 hull remaining), but one of the freighters on the far side of the board was blown to pieces by the combined fire of two victory destroyers. When the dust settled, and the Rebels hit hyperspace, they had saved their fleet, with the cost of 1 corvette and 1 freighter. While taking down a Victory destroyer and a Gladiator.

A nice, well played victory.

Next time, we will look at the Nimbala campaign.

Very impressive, and very professional.

I so wish I had a regular groups what was large enough to do something like this. One down side of leaving the military, I know at my old duty station I would have been able to do this.

I so wish I had a regular groups what was large enough to do something like this. One down side of leaving the military, I know at my old duty station I would have been able to do this.

Our group is only 5 people. 1 GM (me) and 4 players. It could work with 3-4 people to be honest. But the time commitment is pretty epic. Not to mention all the damned printing.

Nimbala free? A Talathen Sector report

Background

At the end of the last round, the Rebel leadership met with The Red Queen of Nimbala. She is a freed slave who married a Czerka executive, poisoned him to keep him weak, and set about using his money and influence to drive Czerka off Nimbala for good.

Her plan from the start was as follows;

• Sell a large number of her shares while prices are still high
• Equip locals with weapons and training to increase disruptions
• Give the rebels information and intelligence covertly to help them cause maximum disruption to Czerka operations
• Arrange "accidents" for Czerka leadership
• Drive the Czerka Nimbala holding companies share price into the dirt through open rebellion
• Buy up a controlling interest as the investors bail out of a dying investment
• Set herself us as benevolent ruler of the Twi'leks of Nimbala

These three operations took place during the final phases of the plan

X-Wing - Nimbala Turkey shoot

So, we have a system that allows the rebel commanders to buy bonuses to their setup if they roll well on the planning roll. This mission they rolled phenomenally and purchased nearly every advantage they could buy.

As a result, it wasn't even remotely fair, but the mission was closer than I expected. The objective was simple. Eliminate the Czerka dignitary on his shuttle, destroy the reinforcement troop transport, and clear the skies of Czerka ships. It matched 6 rebel fighters against * scum fighters and the shuttle, plus they had to destroy the transport. But if you look at the setup below, you can see they had a good start on that by deploying on their flanks, at firing range.

The transport (8 hull) lasted all off one round, being scuppered by 2 Proton Torpedoes each doing maximum damage.

On the left flank, the Lambda shuttle did a little better as it's fighter screen went into overdrive. And while the shuttle was ionized for a few rounds from a pre-setup ion bomb. It did try and escape

But the end result was a bit of a turkey shoot, with Czerka fighters being blown out of the sky before the Lambda shuttle was finally destroyed one turn before it could reach the atmosphere and escape.

The Y-wings proved their utility in this mission, killing both the Lambda and Transport with torpedoes, and ionizing fighters so the X-wings could get 4 dice blasts on them at point blank range

As you can see, maneuvering was very tight at stages.

With a major Czerka executive dead, the board was seriously rattled

Imperial Assault - Seize the control room

Phase two was a surface operation, rebel special forces under the command of Del Kern and supported by Nimbalan insurgents were smuggled into the Czerka compound. Their objective, capture the Czerka head of security and take control of the security computers. With this facility in their control, they could black out communications, lock down security doors, and generally cripple the armed Czerka response around the planet.

After breaching the doors, the full squad marched down the main corridor and into the executives audience chamber

Fighting got very intense, with a lot of melee combat. Also, Czerka reinforcements began to arrive from the entrance area.

The pivotal part of the battle was when the executives Mandalorean bodyguard (bottom right) joined the fray and began dishing out horrific damage. He engaged and wounded the Wookie brawler, before finally succumbing to a total of 6 melee attacks from an angry wookie over two round.

With the Mandalorean down, resistance crumbled and the Rebels forced their way into the control room in the bottom right of the map, capturing the Czerka executive and locking down the planets security network. Open rebellion was on.

Final act- The nano-second buyout

As the dust settled, the Red Queen put into place her plan and readied to buy the shares as the price dropped. Our elite Aurek squad (The RPG party) turned up to help oversee the transition of power and ensure that the Rebellion wasn't going to put some petty tyrant in charge.

Each of our players had a secret mission as well.

Inomo Cel'fasa, Twi'lek force aware agitator (Megapope-Republicans) was appointed as an official diplomat. It was his job to ensure the rebellions interests were preserved, but that Nimbala did not openly revolt. Nimbala is more valuable to the rebellion as an ally supplier of gas for weapons and open rebellion invites swift and terrible response.

Zorrin Vox, Human Luxon soldier and doctor (Rahana- Luxon Militia) was primarily concerned with getting Nimbala ready to contribute to the rebellion as soon as possible. Luxon needs more people fighting as they are currently being invaded, Nimbala cannot have time to lick her wounds and needs to contribute soldiers and machinery now.

Ana Tola, Twi'lek Nimbalan Commando (The Millarnator - People movement) was from this planet, so wanted to make sure the Red Queen wasn't going to put the people back in chains.

JK (Jay), Human ex-imperial pilot (Arnvald von Kuggenstein - Guest player) was a former imperial pilot who was secretly working for the Bothan Spynet..... mostly due to blackmail. His job was to ensure that the Red Queen didn't have total control.

And finally, Oli Shim, Mon Calimari archaeologist with cranial computer (Ekim - Basra consortium) also had a secret mission, which i'll mention later

The Mission

As the team arrived, the Czerka compound was still in a state of open war, with laser blasts flying everywhere. Czerka forces had retreated to one part of the city and had set up formidable defensive lines, and with little disciple and training the Nimbalan rebels were stalemated.

When they arrived at the central control tower, they were met by a very nervous junior Czerka employee who worked directly for the Red Queen. He nervously wondered if anyone who worked for Czerka would end up being hanged or worse in the aftermath. Inomo assured him that if he was helpful, that he had nothing to worry about. from that point, he was very helpful.

The Red Queen had built a secret control bunker behind the front of a beauty saloon, her cover as a shallow and venal socialite made it a logical location. Inside, she met the team and outlined the last stages of the plan. Buy up the shares as the prices bottoms out. There was one major problem, the Czerka forces were using jammers which made communication to the outside world difficult.

The control room had loads of financial readouts, as well as information from the battlefield. Seeing the issue with the Czerka defences, and wanting to fix communications Ana, JK and Zorrin set about creating a plan to reconfigure their anti-bombardment shield so that it would act as a prison. They located a means to do this and hit the streets.

Meanwhile, Oli offered his technical expertise to help improve the system, and using his expertise in computers proceeded to do so, while conducting another series of operations in secret.

Zorrin, Ana and JK got in position near the Czerka lines, but someone had to go through the lines and disable a security console so they could remote access the shield system. Ana, being a master of stealth and violence, slipped through the lines, butchering a Czerka patrol on the way with consummate ease.

Zorrin on the other hand, found himself face to face with an angry mob of Twi'leks. Fortunately, one of the older Twi'leks recognized the Luxon uniform and saw his presence as a sign the Luxon militia was helping the Nimbalans. After a quick swap of war stories from the clone wars, Zorrin got the twi'leks to run messages up and down the line, telling them to retreat from the shield and get behind cover.

Once the shield was down, the buyout began in earnest. But immediately, there were complications. A 10% share was held by a trust connected to the Moff of the sector, and he wasn't selling.

As the other share blocks came online, two other parties were buying them as well. Within 30 minutes, the vast bulk of the shares changed hands and the Red Queen was stuck with only a 38% shareholding. A second block owned 27% and a third block 25%. This mean't that the Red Queen could be blocked in her takeover.

At this point, communications came in from Korvas that an Imperial Star Destroyer had been dispatched to the region. No doubt to check on the stability of the planet and see if Imperial intervention would be needed.

At this point, the owner of 27% of the shares spoke up.

It was Oli Shim, The Basra consortium had been using the Red Queens own computer systems to buy a share in the business. The Red Queen was furious, but also grudgingly respectful at being outplayed.

Then, a hutt cruiser and escorts appeared out of Hyperspace. Professor Hodda of the Hodda Cartel claimed to own the 25% share. Hodda reassured everyone that he wasn't a normal Hutt, and had no interest in running a slave planet. But he could offer the takeover legitimacy. The Empire would not want to interfere in a legal hutt commercial takeover of a business, especially if the supply of gas and other raw materials keeps coming.

All Hodda wants for his shares are a seat on the board, a small island on the southern hemisphere for his personal research and a 100km no-fly exclusion zone around his island for privacy.

If his terms are met, he would be willing to talk to the Imperials on behalf of the new owners, and would support the Red Queen as CEO of Nimbala.

All partied agreed, and when Admiral Trassk arrived, Hodda assured her the takeover was legitimate business, and that no imperial help is needed.

And when the dust settled, Nimbala was free, in a way. Owned by the Red Queen, the Basra Consortiuim and the Hodda Cartel, but certainly more free than before. Nimbalan's would still have to work the mines, but they would be paid for it, and have safety gear. In order to buy Nimbalan freedom, they had to continue the pretense of being an industrial slave planet.

It will be interesting to see how this balance holds.

After a long hiatus, mostly because we were playing a long RPG campaign section, Talathen sector returns with "the Wrath of Cahn", a story about intrigue, religion, conspiracies, terrorism and blind devotion.

Summary of part one here.

Updates on the X-wing, Armada and Imperial assault games in the campaign round coming in the next week or so.

Part two up of Wrath of Cahn.

So much happened I had to go to bullet points

Round six Strategy phase is here

Combat reports coming very soon (finally go the pics)

The battle for Axamar is here.

Includes a batte report for X-wing, Armada and Imperial Assault.