NEW VERMS : TEAM TRAVIS UNDER WAY

A new set of Verms is under construction.
They are based on the Airfix SAS set which I think is one of the best they produced.

Every man in the reduced  size box one now gets can be used.

A little work with foam, wire and plastic remnants from my build box let me produce the following pack of Verms.

Of course 1 figure was stuck in the box and escaped conversion, for now (left).

 Let's have a look at the figures after their visit to the plastic surgeon .....

GRENADIERS

No grenade projectors for Team Travis..they will all be well-trained bomb-chuckers. Maybe with more variety of bombs available.

GUNNERS

 Team Travis will use ancient SMGs which were found to be handy in tight spaces, low powered enough to avoid puncturing bulkheads but with enough kick to damage most pests.

PULSE-RIFLES AT THE READY

 Team Travis will have some heavy laser rifles. These will be very accurate, have no range attenuation but be encumbering because of the battery pack.

Such a great figure... dashing gunners

 Maybe the running gunners will get something extra added later.

HEMG(left)  FLAMER(right)

Maybe Team Travis can have a flamer with higher capacity? Looks heavy enough..

FLAMER(left)  HEMG (right)

Incapacitated

The YOU figure.

The team is named after the dodgy Federation Commander in Blake's Seven. Blake shot his eye out (the only thing Blake ever did ? ). Travis led the elite troops which were some of the worst products of the BBC wardrobe ever seen. The puniness of their guns/blasters had to be seen to be believed.

The SAS lend themselves to this kind of elite deadly and, most importantly, cheapo, type of fighter to form a new Verm team. They should have little trouble performing more effectively than their prototypes.

Now they just need to be painted in DF livery.

And finally, a look at some of the things I am preparing for Awaydays. A defensive tower quipped with a Robo-gun.

MONGO 8 : THERE WILL BE BLOOD, BOTH RED AND GREEN

The screeching, wreaking horde had attacked and sent the Verms into chaos.

The first step in recovery was to get some of the Duck!ed Verms back into action. YOU jumped back to his feet but because he could not move over to the door mechanism and close it, had to be satisfied with holding his blaster ready and going onto WAIT - training it on the Harpy whose clutches he had so recently managed to escape.

SimultaneouSly, the Robo-Gun snapped into action and the Harpy clambering over the nest-entrance in front of it disappeared in a fiery green mist.

Next it took on the Harpy which threatened YOU. Whirring servos whipped the Robo-gun left and its six barrels belched fame. The heavy projectiles smashed into the Harpy's tough, shiny carapace which fragmented as they exploded. The Harpy collapsed into a formless, steaming mass.

The immediate threat to YOU was alleviated and no more Harpies would enter the Cargo Bay for now.

The next pressing problem was the Harpy on Higgins. Encumbered by the HEMG he at last managed to draw his cutlass but the fact he was Duck!ed guaranteed he was fighting for his life. He rolled no hits on the monster as it stood over him, snapping and grabbing. It could have been worse but the creature slashed him viciously across the abdomen. The fight continued but Higgins could not muster any more strength and he succumbed to unconsciousness as the Harpy sank its teeth in his thigh. Higgins form was snatched up by the wildly chattering victor , whcih intended to drag the human into the nest.

But cometh the near-catastrophic event, cometh the sharp-shooter. Higgins comrade, YELLOW, levelled his HAR and with  single shot cracked the Harpy in its head and forced it back, dropping Higgins.

YELLOW rolls well, saves Higgins and gets a Gold Star

This had the effect of attracting the attention of the Robo-gun which was not now blocked from acting by the presence of a Verm in the same SQ. The Rob-gun whizzed its battery of barrels round and they ripped heavy rounds into the Harpy at close range. Problem solved. Next ?

Harpy that nearly killed Higgins is mown down by Robo-gun

Blue next got into action. He jumped forward with his flamer and, swinging it round on his left hip took aim at the Harpy which had retreated to the back of the bay but remained unwounded and active.
There was no time for half-measures. To ensure the threat was eliminated BLUE gave it a triple blast of flaming jelly.

 As the Harpy sizzled in the corner, the edge was slightly taken off the victory by the proximity of a flask of flammable gas. It began to warm up..

Gas flask starts to warm ...

The last Harpy to be taken care of in the cargo bay was the one grappling with the loader.
Orange has successfully gripped the Harpy's head and now tried to finish it off.
Verm rolled badly, Harpy rolled well. It shoul dhave been crushed but the Harpy held on for another round, though wounded, and even damaged the loader.

Loader now has 4 of 6 damage points...it is leaking hydraulic fluid everywhere..Harpy is leaking blood..

Now what to do ? The immediate danger of the Harpies running amok amongst the Verms, most of whom were Duck!ed, has now past. Kongo acted to put a lid on it. He purposefully lunged forward and slammed his palm on the door control. The intense stench and fetid heat from the SciTech's pestiferous inhabitants was shut away in a second. The screeching ringing in the ears of the Verms subsided to a distant murmur. Everyone who was conscious and not holding a struggling Harpy at arms length in their loader arm breathed a sigh of relief.......

That was the end of the Verminator's turn.

Now, the Threats' turn........ exciting........ 

End of Verm activation....situation semi-normal, half-F'd-Up.

MONGO EPISODE 7 : PHEW, AN OVERVIEW, eeek

 The Harpies continue to pile on.
Luckily the Robo-gun kicks-in again and shreds the next potential interloper as he climbs the nest entrance. A queue forms...

 Now a chance to take an overview..
4 Verms are Duck!'ed.
4 Harpies now share the central cargo bay with the Verms, 1 of which is gripped by the Loader and not going anywhere soon. But.. we have almost forgotten the propulsion module...

 Meanwhile, in propulsion/engineering the threat to the nest has enraged 6 Harpies.
They move to the door/bulkead searching for ways through/under/over.

 

 The Antibian net vine is blocking the doorway. The Harpies try every other section. Scratching and banging and probing.

Unfortunately for our heroes.. one on the right here... finds a way where he can wriggle though a cable conduit through the bulkhead.(track marker).
This does not bode well for the project.

MONGO - EPISODE 6 - : THE RUSH

 Well we fired our guns and the Harpies kept a comin'...

Next Harpy leapt the door- he hopped straight over the Robo-gun (again failing to activate) and straight ahead stood  Trotsky   in the Loader.  

Unable to leave the Loader, Trotsky swung the arms in to fight his assailant. It was a close thing but the Loader managed to get hold of the spitting screaming Harpy before it could do any serious damage.

 The Harpy was held at bay - waiting a chance for the Loader to finish the job next turn...

Yet another Harpy rushed the doorway.
This time he turned left - Higgins stood in the corner with his HEMG, actions exhausted.
Luckily Pettybone stood adjacent with his loaded HAR. dddd Duck!'ed, allowing him a shot.
The Harpy fragmented.
But yet another was instantly loose - this time the Harpy leapt onto the Duck!'ed HEMG man and ripped into him.
Even though he was encumbered with his heavy weapon, Higins has an extra Grapple dice and fought back well.

 The Harpy's hit was countered successfully.  Higgins was hanging on - just- until the next round.

One six apiece - whew!

OOps time-warp. Rewinding... MONGO EPISODE 4

Just to recapitulate.. having forgotten to put up the opening of the door to the SciTech module...

YOU pressed his sweaty palm onto the door-pad and the door hissed open. A stinking rotten fetid greenish miasma washed out and over the expectant Verminators as they trained their weapons. 

The sight is not pretty. 11 harpies plus a Bull on the nest entrance makes the hairs on the back of the Verminators' necks rise. (Or would have, if they were not 100 percent depilated for hygiene and safety purposes - their masks should fit with 100 percent seal and wounds not get infected from bacteria on hair.) Anyway, they nearly threw up at the sight.

The Robo-gun did its stuff and opened-up on the  Bull harpy. But the dice were not good. It was blasted and wounded but merely flung back into the module, not killed.

The nearest Harpy leapt to the Bull's defence and it too was mashed by the Robo-gun but, again, not sufficiently unto extermination. A faint air of non-success could be sensed around the module. The same air probably sensed among the 24th Foot at Isandlwana as the dark horde approached.

The only thing left to do was to toss a grenade - this was done but it scatted left, only wounded the Harpy is hit and did not block the door. Was it Friday 13th today ?

 So the Bull and another harpy are wounded in the back area but 9 live ones ready to defend their nest in the Harpies' turn. The Robo -gun has now shot 3 times, we forgot somewhow that it would now start to react less reliably.. ooooohhh.

EVERYTHING GOES PEAR-SHAPED MONGO EPISODE 5

(NOTE this entry is wrongly posted, the next-youngest post precedes it in terms of game events)

So there were 11 Harpies in the nest area includig a Bull.

The Verms were hoping the Robo-gun would shoot down the Harpies as they defended the nest entrance.....

The Verms were staggered around the central cargo bay, all on WAIT hoping to stem any break-outs.


The first Harpy rushed the door, clambered over the nest entrance, and disappeared in a green mist as the robo-gun activated.

 But this was only the first of a pack, and the pack had diced 6 for their move - not good.

Second Harpy leaps up onto the robo-gun which failed to activate because it had now shot 3 times this turn. As bad luck would have it the nearest Verm was YOU. Mangling of YOU should be avoided, so ...

Higgins opens fire with his HEMG, using his WAIT shot. Damn..... a Catastrophe chit is awarded for a crappy dice roll ... The Harpy is blown away from the Robo gun but now has to retreat - guess who is in the way...
Disasterously, the Harpy flees over YOU and Kongo  Both have to Duck! to avoid getting attacked.

Then, meeting a bulkhead, the Harpy flees over Snitmeister who also has to Duck!. It ends its escape in the corner of the module.

This was not in th eplan - 3 men are now on the deck. No weapon remains trained on the door. Bad.

And still they came.....
YOU is now down on the deck so cannot shut the door.
The next Harpy gets through the door and attacks YOU, YOU being the closest Verm.

YOU fights back valiantly even when unable to draw his cutlass.
A good roll for the Grapple gives him a hit on the Harpy and he can crawl into the adjacent SQ.

 But now we have a pile of Duck!'ed Verms in a corner - neither ready to shoot.

The general air is one of evaporating morale as there are still half a dozen Harpies to act this turn and fields of fire the Verms set up were not good enough. The directional mine could have been better used here maybe?

2 Harpies in our module. 3 Verms Duck!'ed.  No one can reach the door control.