Majestic 13: Operation Wildfire

"Load up, kids," the Lieutenant said, passing out ammunition. "We've got special ammo for this mission. Something the eggheads cooked up - cadmium rounds. The same stuff they use in control rods for nuclear fission. Why, you might ask, are we being issued cadmium rounds?"

 "Because we're going after something radioactive?" Sarah-Jane hazarded a guess.

"Close enough! We're hunting a 'Cannonade' today - superheated plasma with a bad attitude. The good news is these suckers aren't particularly smart and can't take a lot of punishment compared to some of the other monsters in FORCE's menagerie. The bad news is they can dish out a lot of heat, and at fairly long range. This ammo should cool the monster's fire. Spread out, stick to cover, and I'll take you all out for ice cream after this is over."

*** 

Playing games of Majestic 13 always makes me want to play the next game of Majestic 13, which I think is the mark of a good campaign system. We ended on a fairly grim note last time, and hopefully this mission will give the Last Liners a much-needed morale boost.

 Due to a bureaucratic mixup, the Last Liners arrived via the northwest corner of the table instead of being able to deploy as they pleased. The Cannonade deployed opposite them on the large hill to the northeast, and the secondary mission, "Gear Collection," saw two weapons caches deployed - one right in front of the Liners, and one next to the monster.

 

The Cannonade activated first, spotting the Lieutenant and firing a blast of energy at him, only to miss! The scorching ray went wide, and the crew rolled out, with the Lieutenant leaping over the pickup truck and tagging the first gear cache. He opened fire on the monster, followed by Hank doing the same. 

 The cadmium rounds hissed and crackled as they froze the creature's plasma. Becky took off running, eager to take up a position where she could seize the second cache once the monster moved away from it, while Maria darted into a copse of trees - and disturbed a wasps' nest, getting stung for her trouble. She ignored the pain of the stings and fired at the creature as well. 

 The Cannonade floated down between Maria and Becky, hitting both of them with an energy wave - not dealing a lot of damage, but the actinic burst blinded Maria.

 Seeing her chance, Sarah-Jane squeezed off a round from her new sniper rifle, sending the cadmium bullet deep into what passed for the creature's torso. She winced as the creature roared and the blast of retaliatory fire off it swept over both Maria and Becky again. 

The creature darted for cover behind the old stone bridge, and the Lieutenant took the opportunity the spring forward and apply first aid to Maria. "Be careful!" he growled. 

 

"Or else what?" Maria blinked the blindness away and grinned. "I'll get cloned again?" She turned and ran across the woods, firing off another shot into the monster. Meanwhile, Becky made a mad dash for the gear cache, seizing it and completing the team's secondary objective.

 The Cannonade slithered forward, eyes blazing. Hank was in range, and it belched white-hot energy at him... and rolled a critical hit! Once damage was totaled, Hank was out of action.

 Maria, Sarah-Jane and the Lieutenant continued to fire on the monster, moving from cover point to cover point. Becky, her hands shaking too much to line up a shot, clicked the safety on the rifle Sarah-Jane had given her. The Cannonade saw her, almost seemed to sneer as it sprayed fire at her. It washed over her, burning hair and clothing, her skin blistering. It didn't matter; she stayed standing. 

That shot took her from full health down to just 2 HP!

 

She was stronger than it was. The whole secret war had seemed so overwhelming, too much for her. She was scared shitless. But right now, in this moment, she was still alive.

She knew what to do. The message was already keyed into the burner phone. Her thumb hovered over the "send" button, then pressed it.

The drone screamed across the sky.

"Everybody get back!" The Lieutenant shouted. "This thing'll explode! Keep going, keep going, run, run RUN RUNRUNRUNRUN-"

 

A spray of cadmium-tipped missiles erupted from the nose of the drone. The Cannonade screeched, it's alien voice something only heard in the hearts of stars. 

And then the whole world went white. 

 ***

The heat faded, and the Lieutenant pushed himself off the ground, shedding ash that had been trees before the blast. Everyone was caked in gray, coughing and spitting as they rose to their knees, then their feet. The creek had boiled away. Trees reduced to oversized burnt match heads. A few charred timbers remained of the cabin. The only trace remaining of the monster was its shadow burned into the ground. The Lieutenant pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. Slowly, he lit the cigarette.

Sarah-Jane coughed and tried to rub ash off her face with ash-covered hands. "30 seconds earlier and you could have skipped the lighter," she said weakly. 

"30 seconds ago I didn't need the cigarette," he replied gruffly. "Hey Becks, what was that place you were talking about last week, with the chocolate shell pinata filled with ice cream? You earned it." 

***

 That was a great game, and the kind of win (and morale boost) the Last Liners sorely needed. Playing smart did a lot to keep most of my team safe, along with taking opportunities for first aid wherever I could. The sniper rifle is not a huge boost in firepower compared to the regular rifle but being able to ignore cover is nice, and the damage does increase if the user doesn't move before shooting. I did play Maria more aggressively and Becky more cautiously based on the post-game results of last game, and I'm really pleased that the dice rolls and the decisions I made throughout the game led to a moment where Becky got to be a big damn hero without needing to make ability score checks and incur the penalty to her rolls that she'd garnered last game. 

Speaking of post-game processes, let's dive into this round.

Hank survived being toasted, but is now traumatized - he gains the -2 to all ability score rolls right as Becky is losing her penalty. 

The Last Liners have successfully requisitioned another kit of body armor, which will be going to Maria. Efforts to gain a Sighting HUD failed, but they did call in a few favors and gained access to Emergency Medical Facilities for their home base - which may be simply them getting to call on some of Sarah-Jane's veterinary associates for stitching and horse-tranquilizers with no questions asked. 

We did get some XP this game, and everyone got to raise an ability score. The Lieutenant began clawing back the Dexterity he lost, while Hank, Maria and Sarah-Jane boosted their Acuity scores. Becky added 1 point to her Combat score.  

All in all, a great game and a great end to my long weekend.  

Majestic 13: Special Mission #2, "Urban Assault!"

 "Keep sharp, kids, we got another live one today. Goddamn, I hate when FORCE drops their pet monsters off in the city like this! How the hell are we supposed to maintain OPSEC when there's a goddamn acid-spitting space octopus hanging around the pawn shop?" The Lieutenant continued to curse and grumble as he brought the van to a halt and threw it in park.

"Oh, shit..." Maria breathed, and pointed.

Shimmering into view were a number of figures in glittering, iridescent carapace armor, marching in unison, rifles at the ready. FORCE troopers were back. And with them...

 "Oh god, oh fuck, what is that?" Becky said, gagging. Behind the FORCE troopers shambled a pair of hulking monstrosities, gangly arms nearly dragging on the pavement, rudimentary heads lolling, featureless except for a pair of unseeing eyes and a lipless mouth lined with chisel teeth.

 The Lieutenant cursed again. 

"FORCE brought some backup. Higher ups call those 'shock troopers' for lack of a better name. Dumb as shit but savage in hand-to-hand combat. Keep back and keep your guns up."

*** 

 I haven't gotten any games in this month, so it was time to get moving - especially since I've got a long weekend this weekend. And it's been more than two months since my last game of Majestic 13, which is frankly unacceptable. So I got the table cleared off and set up for my next mission - a Special Mission, since my team had reached a rating of 6. This time we're back in an urban environment (the Last Liners' forte), facing off against five FORCE Troopers and two FORCE Shock Troopers - which I've chosen to interpret as 'roided up, maybe genetically altered FORCE aliens, with reduced mental capacities but boundless aggression and sharp claws to match. They don't have the armor that the stat block lists, but maybe it's sub-dermal implants? Either way, I'm using old RAFM "Ghasts" from their "Call of Cthulhu" line to serve as them. 

 

As always, Special Missions have their terrain and deployment predetermined. I realized I was doing it wrong previously by not rolling up a secondary mission - this time around it's "Gear Collection," with two tokens in the centers of the enemy side board quadrants, each of which give the figure picking them up +1 damage for the rest of the game. 

 For the first turn, the FORCE troopers had an initiative penalty, allowing all five of the Last Liners to act before them, spending the first turn spreading out into cover - and Maria reached the first of the gear caches. Unfortunately, once the aliens activated, things went to hell quickly. 

 As FORCE spread out, Hank, Becky and the Lieutenant all got shot with their plasmonic rifles, with Hank taking a critical hit. The Shock Troopers then pounced on Becky and Hank, eviscerating both of them almost immediately. 

 The Lieutenant took a pot shot at the Shock Trooper that had mauled Hank, then fell back to another cover point. Meanwhile, Maria called in a drone strike on the FORCE soldiers, and Sarah-Jane, sniping from cover, took a shot at the Shock Trooper standing over Becky's body. The FORCE troopers began to spread out, moving into positions to better gun down the Last Liners. 

 The two Shock Troopers converged on the Lieutenant, but failed to land any hits on him! He ducked and darted to another cover point, applying first aid to himself. Maria got out of the FORCE troopers' line of fire and Sarah-Jane kept sniping; staying in cover spared them both a few hits from the plasmonic guns.

 One Shock Trooper spotted and followed the Lieutenant, while the other wandered off, into Maria's field of fire. She squeezed off two shots at it before it took notice and charged her.

 Astonishingly, both the Lieutenant and Maria managed to kill their Shock Troopers - only to be knocked out of action by the post-mortem shockwave that FORCE's troops release! 

 Sarah-Jane continued to snipe at the FORCE Troopers from cover, and between the damage they took from the drone strike on turn 2 and her rifle, she managed to take out three of the five troopers before the clock ran out.

 Moving into the post-game phase... Ouch. Four agents put out of action means four rolls for survival. While Hank got the All Clear, the Lieutenant, Maria and Becky were not so lucky. 

The Lieutenant came out with a traumatic brain injury, reducing his Dexterity from 16 to 10.

Maria II lost her left arm at the elbow. She's stuck using only pistols going forward.

Becky has PTSD, and will have a -2 modifier to all rolls for the next game. 

On the plus side, the Last Liners successfully requisitioned a high-powered sniper rifle for Sarah-Jane. Sarah-Jane's current hunting rifle is being given to Becky to give her a little more firepower, and Becky's pistol is going into the team's storage unit. 

***

Hank wheeled the Lieutenant's wheelchair into the room. The old man looked smaller and grayer than he'd ever looked before, the side of his head shaved to allow the doctors to suture the wound FORCE had given him. The rest of the team was already there; Becky's hands shook as she lit a cigarette, and Maria contemplated the thin jointed steel prosthetic where her left arm had been. 

"Hey Becks, light me one if you don't mind." The Lieutenant's voice was thin and weak. 

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em, right?" Maria laughed bitterly. 

Sarah-Jane said nothing, just looked out the window, one hand resting on the first aid kit she never went anywhere without. She'd been a veterinarian before all this - a healer. Now her days were spent dealing death and hiding from retribution.

"How much is Majestic gonna take out of us?" Hank asked, shoulders slumping. "I mean hell...I've died, Maria's died, we've all been shot, stabbed, clawed, sprayed, injected... When have we given enough to this fight?"

"How much is Majestic gonna take?" The Lieutenant took the cigarette from Becky gratefully. "How much you got for them to take, kid? Because it's everything we have and then some until FORCE is kicked off the fuckin' planet."

"You know, meeting you might have been the worst thing that's ever happened to me," Maria said suddenly. 

"I get that a lot," the Lieutenant replied somberly. "Hell...for what it's worth, I'm sorry you kids have been dragged into this. None of us deserve this shit."

Maria contemplated the prosthetic silently for a moment. 

"They'll clone me again if I die, right?" she asked.

"Sure, as long as they can get a viable clone." 

"My next clone won't be missing an arm, right?"

"I don't like where you're going with this, Maria." Hank interjected.

 "Somebody give me a gun," Maria said with a grim smile. 

"How about we don't traumatize each other further, yeah?" Hank said. "Don't do FORCE's work for them. Make those fuckers earn every drop of blood we spill." 

Majestic 13: Operation Nightfall

 Hank scrolled through the information on the tablet. With the Lieutenant being held for continued observation following the last mission, it fell to him to lead the Last Liners on this mission. He ran a hand affectionately over the M249 SAW that the Lieutenant had set him up with upon recruitment. "Well, girl," he said to the gun, "looks like we're not done yet." Pulling out the burner phone, he thumbed a message into the group chat.

"New job. Higher-ups call it a Benzith Night Bringer - fast and sneaky fucker. Neurotoxin in its claws disrupt optical processing, blinding anyone even scratched by it. It's also psionic - inducing psychosomatic blindness. We're running short-handed today, so please stay alert and use as much cover as you can. Meet me at the following coordinates..."

***

Gina said "Do you want to get another game in today?" and since I had nothing else pressing to do today, and my next mission for Majestic 13 was already rolled up, I decided that yes, yes I did. With the Lieutenant forced to sit out this mission, and Maria taking a -2 to all rolls this game due to emotional trauma, I knew I was in for an uphill battle. But there was cause for hope: the Benzith Night Bringer isn't a physically robust monster to begin with, relying on stealth and attacking from ambush. Additionally, the Bureaucracy roll for this mission came up "Enemy Intel Overstated" - while the Jel Brute earlier this week had all of its stats increased by 3, the Benzith Night Bringer would have all of its stats reduced by 3. Finally, the secondary mission came up "Medical Recovery" - there would be three objectives around the table that would heal figures that came into contact with them for 1D6+2 hit points. 

It crossed my mind while playing the last game that I don't utilize the interiors of my model buildings that much, despite the amount of work I put into detailing said interiors, so with that in mind I decided that this game, with it being an urban mission, I'd spend as much time inside buildings as possible. 

The available Last Liners - Hank II, Becky, Sarah-Jane and Maria II - deployed inside several buildings, while the Benzith Night Bringer appeared lurking in the shadow of the container office, just visible beyond the chainlink fence in the above photo. Hank rested his SAW on the counter of the fireworks stand, waiting for the creature to show itself. Unfortunately, the Night Bringer spotted him before he spotted it and it pounced, slithering through the open window of the fireworks stand.

Long, stiletto claws flicked out, easily slipping past Hank's protective gear. His vision dimming from the neurotoxin, Hank squeezed the trigger, blazing away in hopes of hitting the monster. (Rules as written, while Blinded, Hank shouldn't be able to target the monster, but with it being within arm's reach of him and him having a machine gun, I decided he could shoot with disadvantage. He failed to hit.)

Meanwhile, the three women on the team sprinted through buildings and across alleyways, seeking vantage points to shoot at the creature and to put themselves in position to seize medical objectives.

The Night Bringer lashed out with its claws again, but failed to slice through Hank's coat; rather than linger longer and allow itself to be targeted, it skittered away, seeking the shadows beneath another building, becoming Hidden.

Blinking to clear his vision, Hank leapt out of the fireworks stand and gave chase, spotting and spraying the creature with hot lead. Screeching, the Night Bringer tackled him, clawing and biting. His vision again went black.

Maria and Becky moved into position and took pot shots at the creature as Hank, blinded, tried to shield himself as best he could from the monster's lacerating attacks. The creature's claws found his throat, however; a critical hit! And...uh oh. 

The Night Bringer successfully critically hit an enemy that is Blinded, for an extra 6D6 damage. And with the damage Hank had already taken, even if I rolled nothing but 1s, it would have been more than enough damage to put him Out of Action.

"Shit!" Maria swore as she watched Hank slump to the ground. "Becky! Sarah-Jane! We gotta focus!" She called out. The creature lurched back into hiding.

Maria and Becky seized the first two objectives, while Sarah-Jane closed in on the third.

Unfortunately, the Night Bringer appeared from around the corner, lashing out with a spray of claws. Bleeding, Sarah-Jane managed to resist blindness, and the creature quickly darted away again.

From her vantage point above the dispensary, Maria was able to spot the creature lurking. "Got you, puto," she whispered, keying in a request for an air strike. In a moment, the Night Bringer was engulfed in chemical fire.

Sarah-Jane seized the last objective, ripping open antiseptic packs and applying the stinging solution to the wounds as Becky squeezed off a few rounds at the monster.

Hissing, the Night Bringer compressed its rubbery body and forced its way into the gas station through a broken window, waves of psychic energy reaching out to Sarah-Jane and Becky, attempting to psionically disable their vision and failing. Maria and Becky closed in, shooting at the monster through the gas station windows, while Sarah-Jane fired repeatedly from the hip, but to no avail; the need to preserve OPSEC forced the Last Liners into retreat, despite Sarah-Jane's last shot sending the monster into Extremis. The mission ended with the Benzith Night Bringer still alive, if badly injured.

So that didn't go as bad as it could have! Other than Hank being put out of action, everyone else was either entirely unharmed, or had regained any lost hit points. Every time the Night Bringer used its psychic powers to try and spread blindness over an area, the Last Liners made their saves, avoiding blindness and physical harm, so it was really only its basic claw attacks that were dealing most of its damage (and blindness). All in all, I'm happy with how this game went. I'm also pleased to say that figures entered or at least passed through every single building except the ramen restaurant. And every building on this table had a detailed interior. 

Rolling into the post-game phase...

Hank II recovered completely from his injuries and will be fine for the next mission. Maria II loses the trauma condition she had giving her penalties for this game. 

The team gained enough XP for Sarah-Jane and Becky to boost their Fortitude stat, and Hank II and Maria II both boosted Combat. They also successfully requisitioned an extra set of body armor, which will be given to either Becky or Maria (not sure which yet). I also got another base upgrade.

The Lieutenant still looked pale, but stood tall and strong, a cocky grin on his face.

"You're going to like this," he said, with a slight cough and a wince. "Drumroll, please."

Awkwardly, Becky and Sarah-Jane started making a drumroll sound, with Maria and Hank slowly joining in. They stood in front of a storage unit as the Lieutenant pulled out the key with a flourish. Unlocking the door, he ushered the other four members of his cell inside before turning on the light.

"Holy shit," Hank said softly.

"Hell yeah, now this is what I'm talking about!" Maria added excitedly. 

The storage unit was lined with racks of weapons - pistols, rifles, machine guns, and more. In the back, a workbench and machines most of the Last Liners couldn't identify, but quickly understood to be useful for gunsmithing.

"I called in a favor while I was convalescing," the Lieutenant said, his voice unusually cheerful. "This little candy shop is ours for the foreseeable future. Now, who wants a beer and some dum-dum rounds?"