Road War! - Nuclear Renaissance battle report.

As promised many moons ago, a nuclear renaissance battle report.

NOW UPDATED... wiv slightlee beta spellin an grandma.

Showdown at Sweaty Bert's... 

East of the scattered townships and isolated cattle ranches that make up the Main Road Patrol's sector 44 are the 'fringes', once the suburbs and industrial zones ringing Sun city. 

Now they are reduced to prohibited badlands, rich with treasure for scavengers and salvage parties, but lousy with both fallout and marauding bandits.

Sitting on the threshold of the fringes is 'Sweaty Bert's Roadkill Cafe', an infamous establishment of dubious reputation and favoured eatery of Simius the Invincible, Grand Master of the Son's of Simius.

Out from the irradiated ground zero of Sun city spill the children of the apocalypse, a hoarde of deranged cannibal fiends welded into a ramshackle army by the monstrous warlord 'Psymon Sez'

For Psymon, the diner is nothing more than yet another pathetic hovel to be plundered on the children's journey to paradise, but for Simius the incursion is nothing less than a challenge to his status as bandit king of the fringes.

Children of the Apocalypse.

- Despicable Warlord and melee monster Psymon Sez in his lumbering juggernaut steamroller.

- Bushwacker Buggy... a citroen 2cv mounted with a mortar and also carrying a sniper. Crewed by Feral Runt, Shaman and Stalker.

- Bogan Buggy.. light transport for the assault elements of the gang. Driven by rabble rouser Feral Demagogue and carrying Skulltaker and Headhunter.

Son's of Simius.

- All round Badass Simius in his turbo nutter Saab Cheryl. Accompanied by the hulking ape'prentice Krump literally riding shotgun with his shotgun.

- Redneck. A supercharged, nitro boosted ram truck crewed by psychotic melee duo Wibber and Donk.

- Knock-knock, a lumbering but solid truck driven by Ziggy and carrying SMG toting juve Mama Zet in the back.

Psymon deploys alone in the centre, flanked by his shooters loaded into the buggy on his right flank, and close combat fighters in the buggy on his left. Simius starts behind the cover of a wrecked auto with both his trucks taking the flank, the gang is split equally with two characters per vehicle.

(Foreground) The Sons get the first activation and the redneck truck screams forward blowing off all its nitrous as it flies towards the enemy line, feral stalker responds by blowing out the windshield of the truck with a well aimed shot from his sniper rifle. With the driver stunned from the near miss the truck careens out of control towards a wreck. Luckily the passenger, Donk, is able to take control and slew the redneck to a halt before they crash, but now they're stalled out and under the teeth of the enemy.

(Background) Gunning its engine the feral's Bogan buggy speeds up the left flank seeking to deliver its deadly human cargo. It is met by the heavy truck 'Knock Knock' barreling along the opposite way. 

The drivers engage in a deadly game of chicken and scrape down the sides of one another in a shower of sparks leaving both drivers insensate. Mama Zet unloads her Submachinegun into the buggy as it passes, thoroughly ventilating feral demagogue, it's driver. 

The Bogan goes out of control, skids out to the right and broadsides Cheryl the Saab without effect, the famous swedish safety features working to full effect. 

Enraged, Krump jumps out the passenger side and unloads both barrels of his shotgun into Bogan's engine bay. The vehicle explodes spectacularly, killing Skulltaker and Headhunter instantly, my gang suffering near 50% casualties in one fell swoop. 

Krump miraculously survives with nothing more than a shock token for his troubles and even Cheryl escapes the worst of the blast, although Simius's fancy sound system is blown clean off the roof.

Cursing his right hand man for the damage Simius speeds off for the diner leaving Krump stranded in the dust.

Psymon urges his clanking steamroller forwards and over the redneck truck as its crew are still dazed and recovering, slaughtering both in a titanic fireball.

Suddenly the scores are evened up somewhat...

The bushwhacker gun buggy moves up in support as the sons advance.

Reaching the edge of the diners lot, the Bushwacker buggy begins to lob mortar rounds at the lonely figure of Krump as he sprints frantically for the cover of the outhouse. 

The first volley misses, but the second catches him just before he dives out of sight, blowing him into oblivion. The remaining Sons accelerate into close range, desperate for revenge.

The Stalker takes careful aim with his 50cal sniper rifle and fires at Mama Zet.

He whiffs the shot will a fumble roll at the worst possible moment leaving the crew massively exposed to the son's oncoming retaliation.

Sustained 9mm fire from Simius and Mama Zet mows down the Runt, Stalker and Shaman and explodes the Bushwacker, leaving it a triple funeral pyre.

A grenade from Simius cripples the Steamroller, forcing Psymon to bail out of his mobile throne. Alone, he howls defiance as the surviving sons circle.

Brashly Mama Zet hops off Knock-knock and advances on Psymon, spitting the vilest of insults and emptying the clip of her weapon into his massive frame. Shrugging off the hail of lead and laughing in contempt Psymon is looming over her before she can reload, pneumatic claw snapping in anticipation.

Simius desperately flings his car round and takes a pot shot at the lone nutter but to no avail.... Psymon snips Mama Zet clean in two, his powered weapon ending the juves life almost without effort.

In the distance Ziggy performs a sweeping 180' and hustles Knock-knock back towards the action.

Flushed with bloodlust Psymon charges again, his claw ripping the engine block clean out of Cheryl and wrecking her, Simius bails out, incensed and fires again and again until his clip runs dry.

Psymon staggers, his armour holed and bleeding in several places (used up my extra life upgrade)

Screaming unintelligibly Psymon charges again and the two leaders meet in combat, it's a close run thing, but in the end even the steroid ripped physique of Simius cannot compete with the leviathan of rusty metal and sheer willpower that is Psymon Sez, and the marauder chieften is cast to the ground bleeding and broken.

Emitting a subsonic growl of victory Psymon is too smug to notice the heavy truck bearing down on him at top speed.....

With the final move of the game Ziggy smears the enemy Warlord across the Tarmac with Knock-knock. 

Ending the battle and leaving him the last man standing...

Result...Victory to the 'Son's of Simius' by a hairs breadth.

This was a great game going right down to the wire, these two gangs seemed pretty well balanced whilst still retaining some individuality, following on from some early balance issues due to my unfamiliarity with the system (my opponent believes the steamroller still needs a bit of a nerf but I'm not so sure, he did roll some bad dice targeting it.) so I was very pleased with that. 

I made a massive mistake near the start sending the Bogan buggy rashly charging out at the enemy lines only to be raked by the son's punishing close range small arms fire and destroyed.

I Shouldve concentrated on taking out the stranded Redneck first and forced the Son's to come to me... running the gauntlet of my mortars and sniper across the table and then counter attacked with Bogan and Psymon.

Ive learnt the hard way that the Children's two buggies are both pretty vunerable. 

My opponent was able to kill off some expensive characters by blowing their vehicles out from under them in this game. 

The Bushwacker should stay well back and engage from long range whilst the Bogan can't go head to head against other vehicles and should be used simply as a delivery system for the melee warriors. Picking it's moment to scoot over and deposit it's warriors - next to an already activated and therefore vunerable enemy unit for example. 

With my melee goons killed so early on there was little I could do to keep the enemy from closing in on the fragile shooters. I didn't help matters by moving them closer for a better shot at Krump. 

Psymon proved himself to be a thorough ball busting menace in the game, personally responsible for four kills (two thirds of the opposing gang!) before he was laid low and single handedly ensuring  the game wasn't a complete one sided whitewash!

I also got the individual stat cards for the characters and vehicles done and they helped speed things up and made for easy reference in-game, I forgot to take photos (of photos - the irony) but you can spot them in the background of some of the shots above.

Thanks for visiting, hope you enjoyed the post... Any comments and feedback much appreciated!