"A running battle against city street gangs or organisation assassins across the lanes of a huge, immensely complex, megacity traffic junction. Fast moving traffic lanes; a good chance of getting crunched trying to get across. Pedestrian high speed moving pavements. Traffic robots programmed to capture jaywalkers. Shooting across traffic lanes will give a chance of hitting a vehicle; possibly causing a pile up, certainly briging D10 police with needle guns and gas grenades."
That is what Bryan Ansell wrote in 1980 in his ruleset Laserburn as a suggestion for a scenario. I always wanted to play it but never got the right moment, so now I'm playing it in an attack of nostalgia and also missing terribly my gaming buddy Paco with whom I played countless Laserburn games in the eighties.
On 2018 I solo played Assault on Bunker 17, and after this new one I'm planning to play at least a couple more: Sewerville shootout and for a few gonads more.
I'm not using Laserburn rules but a home-made set inspired in them. There are four street gangs fighting for territory. I will lead one, the A-pes, and the other three will be run by the AI:
A-pes
1 x Shooting 3 Melee 3 Guts 3 Armour 3. Leader. Armed with Big pistol, Frag grenade and medkit.
3 x S3 M2 G3 Ar4 armed with Assault rifle.
1 x Gorilla S2 M4 G2 A3 with Minigun.
Scavengers (red chits)
1 x S3 M2 G3 Ar 3. Leader. with Ar, Frag, Mdk.
2 x S2 M1 S2 Ar 3 with big pistol.
1 x S2 M1 S2 Ar 3 with SMG.
1 x S2 M1 S2 Ar 3 with Shotgun.
1 x S2 M1 S2 Ar 2 with rifle.
Vultures (gold chits)
1 x S3 M3 G3 Ar 3. Leader with pistol, sword, Mdk.
1 x S3 M3 G3 Ar4. Thulgz wiht Bolt Pistol.
1 x S3 M3 G3 Ar2. Daemon with automatic grenade launcher.
3 x S2 M2 G2 Ar 3 with big pistol, pistol & axe and shotgun respectively.
Blades (blue chits)
1 x S3 M3 G3 Ar5. Leader with flamer and power sword.
1 x S2 M1 G2 Ar4 with laser pistol and power sword.
4 x S3 M2 G3 Ar3 with shotgun, big pistol and two pistols respectively.
Police
1x S3 M2 G3 Ar3. Leader with AR
Rest x S2 M1 G2 Ar3. AR.
Traffic robot
S2 M2 G5 Ar5.
Police hover vehicle
Medium Ar5 with HMG. Crew x2 S3 M2 G3 Ar3.
Everytime a chit is sighted and revealed I roll 1d6: 1 police, 2-3 one ganger, 4-5 two gangers, 6 three gangers. A chit per turn will come out from the buildings until they are all gone. All the gangs activate in clockwise order.
One of the Vultures is knocked down by a car.
I move all the Apes to the central building and go Overwatch.
Three Blades leave the building and finish the Vulture.
Another Blade enters the building to his right and is wounded by the Gorilla and his Minigun. A new Vulture in the street fires his gun and forces one of the Blades to duckback behind some barrels.
Later another Vulture goes out and is shot down by some Scavengers who sneaked from their base. Their leader put him down with his assault rifle.
But now my Apes react and fire in Overwatch to two Scavengers trying to cross the street. One is down whereas the other is wounded and run back to the building in panic.
Gorilla fires in his activation and finally kills the Blade on the other building.
More Vultures show up and a firefight starts between them and the Scavegers. All the city is a firefight. Where is the police!?
A traffic robot takes action and tries to arrest some Apes but it is shot down. Some cars collide and a fire starts.
One Blade tries to cross the street but the Gorilla stops him. He controls all the street. On the left Vultures and Scavengers keep shooting at each other while some Blades approach.
I order my Apes to assault the Scavenger building and finish the wounded ganger.
The Vultures suppress the Scavengers and then turn to incoming Blades. Daemon fires his AGL but misses. The Thulg misses too and is also out of ammo!
A remaining member of the Scavengers gets my Apes by surprise, killing one and forcing Duckback another.
Police finally shows up and in style! A police hover vehicle shoots at the leader of the A-pes who miraculously escapes alive and hides in the building to lick his wounds.
Another Blade shoots at the Gorilla and is down by the Minigun. He alone has killed three Blades so far!
The leader of the Blades is a tank in Assault armour and equipped with flamer and energy sword, so he assaults and burns all the Vultures in one shot.
Then, the leader of the Vultures duels with his sword the leader of the Blades. He wins the first round but he cannot pierce his opponent's armour. The leader of the Blades wins the second round and his power sword smokes the Vulture's innards in a flash. In the other building a wounded Blade kills the leader of the Scavengers.
More police coming, unaware they are being watched.
One of them enters the building and fires at the leader of the Blades who Duckbacks saved by his armour. The other two are gunned in the street by other Blades but they return fire and kill one of them.
A Vulture enters and shoot his shotgun (the template of the gun is the exact measure of the mouth depressor stick, 6") killing an agent but now he is out of ammo.
I needed all the monkey firepower to put down the police car. My leader used his only Frag grenade and the rest used their automatic rifles and minigun.
The power sword slices the last Scavenger like a hot knife through butter.
Police severely mauled and needing some back up. "Where is a Judge when you need one?"
My apes advance and kill a Blade.
The last Blade is their leader and he tries to close to use his flamer and sword, but Gorilla and his minigun finish him when he's crossing the street. Gorilla has killed most of the Blades!
