Mecha Against the Giants Session 10

Thursday is GURPS Day! When I remember.

I got a chance to run another session of Mecha Against the Giants. In session 9, the mecha pilots found themselves in the midst of a dungeon crawl, in a cave full of stinky reptile men. We resumed from where we left off last session: the pilots were in a wide cave, surrounded by 30 or more troglodytes, with reinforcements coming from multiple directions.

Automatic Weapons Fire Solves Problems

Most of the pilots started dropping their melee weapons in favor of automatic carbines. Several seconds of burst fire later, and many more of troglodytes were dead and the rest were fleeing. The pilots shot a couple in the back, or picked up javelins and did what they could, but they generally let the masses flee.

I told them that they could heard troglodytes voices in the caverns, somewhere probably to the north. They decided to reload and look around a bit, then press north.

A Brief Interlude

The pilots wandered around a bit, and found an ancient portcullis in the raised position. After confirming that the winch was on their side of the portcullis, and that troglodytes had fled down the other side, they dropped in. The portcullis was made from solid iron bars and improbably heavy, so they weren't worried about any more troglodyte reinforcements from that direction.

The pilots then scouted north, moving toward the sound of the troglodytes. The pitch of their voices changed, with a brief silence before a massed yell and then more silence. +Nathan Joy surmised that the troglodytes had probably rallied and given themselves a big cheer and were now planning to advance in silence.

Final Defensive Fire!

Almost immediately, the pilots spotted the first troglodytes sneaking down the corridor, and the troglodytes spotted them. +Kevin Smyth's weapon master charged forward, convinced that he could hold against the 20+ troglodytes charging toward him. His allies behind him screamed in frustration, as they were planning to use suppression fire on the charging hordes and Kevin was now in the line of fire.

Regardless, they opened up with suppression fire.  +Theodore Briggs was playing a gunslinger and scoffed at the waste of ammo with wild, untargeted shots. But in a narrow hallway packed with hordes of troglodytes, every bullet found a target eventually. Admittedly, one of those targets was Kevin, who got bruised by a couple of bullets that were stopped by his armor and had one weak penetration in his left arm.

Kevin, in the midst of the horde and the bullet storm, did his best to carve up any troglodyte that got near. One of the troglodytes, larger than the others, was wearing a heavy mail hauberk and carrying a metal faced shield and wood and metal axe - a clear upgrade over the unarmored troglodytes and their stone and bone weapons. Surrounded by troglodytes, Kevin tried to have a proper duel with the troglodyte. As is often the case, the duel was pretty anticlimatic: there was a brief exchange of strikes, and then Kevin critically parried the troglodyte's axe, forcing the troglodyte to drop it. On his next action, Kevin carved through the troglodyte's knee (maximum damage easily blowing through the DR 8 mail), though he critically failed on the second part of his rapid strike, and lost his katana in the process. He suggested that he'd lost it in the troglodyte's knee, planning (I think) to grab it back next turn. The troglodyte frustrated that by rapidly crawling away, and Kevin was forced in a different direction by the troglodyte tide and his ally's suppression fire.

We played through a couple more rounds, but the troglodytes were not making it through the suppression fire, and any that did were getting killed by rapid aimed fire from Ted. The dead troglodytes were beginning to form a barrier, further constricting the other troglodytes' advance. Looking at the clock, I handwaved the rest of the fight, and the surviving troglodytes fled again, even deeper into the caverns.

Perhaps charging through the chokepoint
into automatic weapons fire wasn't a good idea.

I blame +Peter V. Dell'Orto 

After dusting themselves off, the pilots examined the armored troglodyte and moved up to the north from where the troglodytes had come from. In the distance, they saw heaps of metal that were probably dead bodies in armor and a glint of gold. Investigating, they saw three bodies in gilded mail, surrounded by long-dead troglodytes.

There was a brief discussion about what to do. I pointed out that Nate's and Ted's character's were greedy, and would probably want to recover the gold. Kevin pointed out that the pilots were Heroes of the Nation (Kevin was very insistent that his character, as a Russian, would prefer that over Divine Champions) and could get whatever gold, silver, or other material goods they wanted from the Zosporbi. Given that the oracle had told them to be wary of the floor and the dead, and that the advice about the floor (well, the grey ooze) had paid off, everyone was wary of the bodies. That was enough for Nate, but Ted wasn't able to overcome his greed. Nate attempted and critically failed a Leadership roll, and Ted headed up to investigate the bodies closer.

At which point, as was more or less inevitable, the corpses rose. And I ended the session, because I've learned a thing or two about timing cliff-hangers over the years.

We'll pick up some time in the future with a fight against animated dead bodies in metal armor with axes and shields. I expect it will be interesting.