"Do not ascribe to malice that which can be explained by devil rats," to get into WinterRat1's quotations

"And yet forgeteth not that the day where an anamolous occurrence shouldst be ascribed to ye olden devil rats, surely shall that be the day that the sun doth set permanently upon thine life."

yeeah... I read the OOC before I read the IC... you can imagine my confusion... : P

aight then, whoever can get to it first, want to write us leaving per our plan? I won't make it till late tomorrow tops, so if someone else can do it, by all means, go for it.

Everyone: roll initiative

Dragon, Erebus: Roll a seperate perception check. (y'all are the only two out of the bar at the moment, Virgil is at the doorway, Daed and Temmou are inside). The missle will impact at the end of the combat round.

Virgil: 12
*Practically guranteed to go last unless magically enhanced

*Where the frag do all these missles keep coming from. Doesn't anyone wait outside with a sniper rifle anymore. Oh the good old days . . .

Perception (with a -1 to TN): 13 11 09 04 03 03 02

Talk about your timely perception rolls...

Initiative: 23

As an aside, please describe the battleground as thoroughly as you can BC before asking us for any actions. One question I have is: specifically, how far is it from where Dragon is standing to the car? I want my Franchi Spas and I want to know if it's feasible for him to run over and grab it.

To our team: I'm getting extremely sick of this. This week (IC) has pretty much been a textbook 'if it can go wrong, it will go wrong' week. I can't even LIST all the stuff that's happened that has cheezed me off. If we can get one prisoner, he/she will talk. Endo story. And if we can't get a prisoner, well, I'll settle for killing as many of them as possible.

Ronin: Are Talos and/or Icarus armed, and if so, with what? And have at least one of them looking for Hawkeye (the sniper). I don't feel like soaking a 14S (or worse, 14D) wound, armor and body notwithstanding. And if we can kill that guy, I know I'll feel a heck of a lot safer.

Bandit: I assume you've still got that spirit handy, correct? Also, how much use (or lack thereof) will your magical abilities be in this? I'm thinking that since last time, they sent an elemental after us, it's very possible they'll be sending one again, can you handle it?

Erebus/Tenmou: Do you guys have any long range killing capacity? I don't know how far they are, but the description makes it sound like something other than pistols would be nice here.

Oh and to the group: Do we want to

a) stand and fight, and try to take these guys out and/or get a prisoner OR
b) try to get out of here ASAP

And how do you think they found us? We freaking took physical, magical, and technological precautions. Do they have a homing device on us somehow that we don't know about, or some other way of tracking us? We may as well start thinking.

Seek and ye shall find, ask and ye shall receive (Adobe Acrobat needed, it's a PDF map, and it's kinda rough). As for scale, the missile is coming from about 25 meters away, and you're about 10 meters from the car. Erebus is about 5 meters away from his motorcycle

Dragon:You've spotted Goon 3, he's sneaking toward you; he's got a SMG slung over his back.

Virgil: You see 3 people from your positon, Goon's 1, 2 and the Mage. He's a low level initiate from your test, the goons appear to be mildly cybered.

Initiative: 25

Perception: 01, 02, 04, 04, 05

I've got nothing but pistols on my, I've got a grenade in my bike which I'm going to grab as well.

I'm for taking these guys out, we need to figure out how we were tracked and who is doing this.

WinterRat1,

I think we'd be best served by Erebus charging straight across the street and approaching the bad guys from the same side of the street as they are on. It'll give me better coverage and put me in better range to work with a pistol. I left my assault rifle in my apartment, you know, the place I was some day hoping we'd actually make it to.

Unfortunately, one of the things I think we ought to do is work out a 'battle cant'; specific one or two word sayings that we all understand to mean certain actions in a combat environment. Something that says point That way we can talk within our Free Action and the bad guys don't know what we're planning on doing. It was one of the things I wanted to do back at the apartment and it would be perfect for this situation.

Tenmou and Daedalus, I'd suggest you guys getting inside the bar and seeing if there is a back door. Tenmou is trashed and if Daedalus gets shot our drone fire support goes down. I don't know what kind of weaponry Tenmou is carrying but all Erebus has ever seen him use is a sword, which ain't going to be much help here. "Don't bring a knife to a missile fight."

Anyway depending on what Erebus sees he's likely to quickdraw the Gaurdian on his hip and dart across the street at a dead run into the cover of the building opposite the bar.

And, by the way, I'd like to point out that this is EXACTLY why I suggested meeting at a bar instead of just heading back to my "safe house". I don't think Erebus' renter's insurance covers missile damage.

Cedric- Couple possibilities

1. Dragon MIGHT be able to toss a grenade at the group of three, either to take them out or if not, at least give us concealment via smoke. Uncertain about grenade throwing ranges off the top of my head, I need to go home and check my book first. So that might be helpful for quick and dirty mass carnage.

2. I'd kind of like to go back to the car and get my shotgun, since we don't know what these guys are armed with, but we do know if they came for an ambush, they're probably packing more than just pistols, and I for one would like to get a bit more firepower, just in case. Not to mention they could have backup somewhere.

BC- How far is it from where Dragon is standing to the group of three? Need to know the range in case I have to toss a grenade.

Also, if it's 10 meters to D & D V3's car, moving at 6 meters per pass, Dragon gets there in 2 passes. Can he retrieve his shotgun in the same pass (i.e., pass 2) , or would it take him until pass 3? Keep in mind he'd be walking (or running) there the whole time, so he'd be able to get there without any specific action expenditures, and therefore he should be able to use his actions on pass 2 to get the shotgun out of the car. Your thoughts/ruling?

Ronin- Could Talos lay down suppression fire in that area to keep the goons heads down? Might want to have Icarus looking for any other trouble that we haven't seen as well.

WR1: Good question on the movement, I don't have my books at work with me. I'll check at lunch. Your distance to the goons is approx. 25 meters, and they're under partial cover of a car.

And Commissioner bclements sets out the Batsignal for grendel

LOL! :shines large nuyen symbol in the sky:

BC question, how far is it from Erebus' current position to the building across the street? Also with my weak perception roll what did I see? Okay with no athletics skill how far can I run in one pass? I've got a 5 body which I believe is the default for athletics, if its quickness then I am so set since I've got a 9 quickness. I'm wondering if Erebus can get from where he's at to the buildings across the street in one pass. Also with my perception check can I see if these guys are wearing obvious security armor?

It is quickness for running: you run at 3*Quickness meters per round. You're about 20 meters from the near wall of the building across the street: you'll easily get there by 2/3 of the way through this initiative round. Getting there will put you 6 meters from Goon 2, and you'll have the angle on him (you'll be under partial cover and have removed his cover).

Based upon your perception roll: Goons 1 and 2 appear to be armed with SMG's of unknown type, with bulky coats that look armored. Can't tell about the one in the back. You don't see Goon 3.

First off, I do not have support from the previous city-spirit any longer. Its last service before I left the city domain (to observe the restaurant meeting from the astral plane) was to protect my body while I was astrally projecting. Per the rules of a spirit carrying out its final service, it is cleared of duty.

*We have no offensive spirit capability at the moment, though Virgil can summon again if needed.

Right now the only limits I have observed on Virgil's magic use have been:
1. More difficulty in resisting drain.
2. Inability to astrally project
Please note that this does not include any other issues that may present themselves as part of this strange magical affliction.

Virgil's move will likely be to toss an offense spell at the enemy mage, with as much power as he can muster, if he is going before the mage. Given that the enemy mage is an iniate, Virgil may not be able to take him out in one shot.

*If we're going on the offensive I'd suggest that Erebus continue on his course of action and then make goon 3 his first priority.

*Dragon should go ahead and toss the gernade (is it a frag?) at goons 1, 2, and the mage. I would not make the run for the shotgun at the moment, as our first priority should be staving off the momentum of their ambush.

*Virgil will follow up Dragon's gernade by targeting the mage with a spell (if still visible) or targeting the goons with an area effect spell (if still visible). If no targets are visible then he will call up a city-spirit for support.

*Daedalus and Tenmou should retreat into the club and hold position, with Daedalus providing the best drone fire support possible.

*Since only Dragon and Erebus will remian in his chosen LOS, Virgil will use his free action to reassign spell defense dice to them.

Comments???

I've got one: a missile, heading toward the building you're standing in the doorway of (also, Erebus can't see Goon 3 yet, and can't engage him ATM)

WinterRat1: Unless grendel's got a different ruling, I'm going to say that yes, you can get the shotgun in pass 2, using 2 simple actions. You can't actually fire it until the next initiative pass, though.

Cedric: You'll have to make a seperate perception check each initiative pass until you spot Goon 3

Wow... I skip reading one day and we are back to playing missile tag once again... geesh...

Initiative 10

Daedalus's first action is to run back into the bar and hide (under a table or something) just far enough to get out of the way of the missile.

With a free action he'll order Talos to lay down suppressing fire at the goon 1, 2 mage triad, using a preprogrammed command
(I have worked out some of the mechanics of this with sedna, I'll PM her about this)

Daedalus would then like to jump into Icarus and run a scan for that specific missile firing drone in the area that the missile came from. (he has seen the drone before, any way I can get a bonus for this?)

btw, if there is a movement conflict for jumping into a drone in the middle of his run, he can delay action till he has arrived at his destination. (moving meatbod is harder when jacked in rigging)

And since Daedalus doesn't go until so late, it may be pointless for him to call out any sort of warning, but if is useful for him and if he can he'll yell something like "RUN!!"

Talos is outfitted with battletac IVIS, so IVIS test:

Small Unit Tactics roll
06 05 04 03 02 01 (I kid you not) TN 5 --> 2 successes going into the "IVIS pool"
(its like a little extra combat pool for the drones)

and thats it I don't think I'll be doing much else for a little while

Cedric: kudos to the bar idea.
Team:
we gotta find that missle drone, i'll take it as top priority... till things change... which they will. And I think flight may not be a bad idea or at least withdrawing back into the bar.
We could use the missile to cover our retreat if you guys can get in quick enough (thankfully we have the 2 fastest guys on dumpshock out there right?) though there is the danger of running out the back door... which... of course they will not have thought of... ...



As for spirits... ... yeah... ...

Hey BC, you wanna post the initiative order so we know when/if to go?

Are you guys sure you want to retreat INTO the building the missile is being shot at?

Bandit- Probably don't want to use a smoke grenade and obscure your vision as well, do I?

Cedric- If Dragon warns Erebus, would you want to take out Goon 3 instead, since he's closer and we have a spell, suppression fire (and maybe a grenade as well) heading towards the group of 3?

Will do (same as Shadow did), as soon as SR13 rolls. Other than that, are y'all done planning?

BC when Erebus acts I'm going to shout like COVER or CONTACT or whatever is the appropriate military word which means "holy shit someone is lobbing rockets/missiles at us everybody run and hide."

Erebus did a stint with a merc unit in East Asia with the various Chinese warlords so he should have some knowledge as to this, of course I'm assuming that there is some sort of standardized code for these sorts of things in military circles.

Also another semi-unrelated question, do you post our actions IC during combat or do you tell us what's happening OOC and we do the IC posts? I just want to know how you run things.

General question for all players, a quickdraw test what's the default since I don't have the skill. (I mentioned planning on learning that later in one of my IC posts, little realizing that I'd need it so desperately in the space of three hours.)

Oh, and I want to be clear on the plan here troops. Erebus runs across the street to bring his weapons into more effective range and force the opposition to fire at two different targets rather than just having one group to shoot at. It seems like good tactics to me but the only tactical experience I have is based upon which legal pleadings to file at various times to discomfort the opposition, so I'm kinda guessing. Erebus has Small Unit Tactics as a skill so can I make a roll to determine if my proposed plan is kind of a bone-head idea or not?

Also Virgil, I'd suggest you exiting the doorway and take cover rather than bothering with offensive spells. Dragon and Erebus will need your spell defense if we want to have any hope of fighting with the team with the mage. And you'd look really bad as a chalk outline on the sidewalk.

Thanks BC, I just wanted know how you ran things.

So that we're ready to go when SR13 posts his initiative;

Quickdraw Guardian test: Quick-9 default to attribute

01, 02, 03, 03, 04, 04, 05, 09 (that roll sucked)

First pass Perception test: Int- 5

01, 04, 04, 05, 11

Also to be clear, on the map there are two buildings across the street from the bar, one in yellow, one in red.

Erebus will be running for the one in yellow, which of course makes him like one of those little ducks in the shooting gallery for Goon 3 since I'm running right across his line of fire but that's what Erebus would do since he doesn't know that Goon 3 is there.

WinterRat1 Erebus can't shoot at Goon 3 until he realizes that Goon 3 exists, then I'll drop the hammer on him.

I"ll have Dragon warn Erebus. You'll know he's there.

Winterrat: We do not know if the enemy mage (who is an iniiate) is going to go before or after Virgil. We also do not know if Virgil will suddenely be afflicted my another strange magical restriction. If you throw the smoke you may obscure Virgi's vision, but you also obscure the vision of the enemy mage.

Just a thought . . . I'm trying to be a bit conservative. . .perhaps too conservative so please say something to straighten me out if need be.

WinterRat1, which way is Dragon headed, for his shotgun or towards the bad guys? If Dragon were to run for the corner of the building in yellow on the same side of the street as the bar that would give him almost complete cover from Goon 3(who would be around the corner of the same building) and good cover from Goon 1 and the mage and give him a decent angle on Goon 2. Erebus would have cover from Goon 2 and could engage Goon 3 (once Erebus knows he's there of course.)

Depending upon BC's ruling as to how much cover you had you might be out of the mage's LOS which would limit their magical support's effectiveness. You wouldn't have your shotgun but you'd be in better range for pistol work, you'd be moving away from ground zero, and we could have the main OppFor in a cross fire by the second or third initiative pass.

Also, Dragon might be able to see if there is a second strike team waiting behind the bar looking for us to come out the back, and thus warn Tenmou and Daedalus. I'm not sure about that because the map is a little rough but by looking at the map you'd at least have a chance to see if there is more than one strike team out there.

EDIT: Sorry about that. Grenades go off in your next combat phase. If you don't have any more combat phases, it goes off at the end of the next initiative pass. If it's at the last initiative pass, the grenade detonates at the end of the combat turn (P118)

WR1: Post Dragon's strength when/if you throw, so I can get the TN

Bandit: Virgil won't have a modifier by moving, but he's looking out of the doorway. So if he moves back in the bar, he'll loose LoS on the attackers.

I seem to be getting the most votes for 'towards the bad guys'. Sigh. That's it, pistols skill is going up. Every freaking time I've been in a fight, all I've had are pistols. I'm on the verge of not going anywhere anymore without my shotgun in a bag or something. Seriously.

BC- If I took Cedric's idea and tried to go for the yellow building Goon 3 is by, would I be adequately away from the missile? I.e. how far is the building from the bar? That'll probably be the major factor in going for the shotgun or on the offensive right away, how far I can get from the missile.

As far as the grenade: aerodynamic HE offensive (I believe, not sure about the HE part, almost sure it is though), and Dragon's strength is 6.

Team- Long story short, I will go for the offensive per Cedric's plan if I can get away from the missile by being in that position (or at least reasonably far, I need to know distances first). Otherwise, I'm going for the shotgun first, mostly because it isn't these three that worry me; between grenade, spell, and autofire from the sky, they shouldn't be a problem. It's anyone else out there that's got me worried, and I want to be adequately prepared for the second wave. I'm going with the assumption that there is more than one group out there, since this makes three times they've tangled with us now and I'm pretty sure they are going to be ready to throw the kitchen sink at us this time around.

Oh, and if we could take one of them alive, that'd probably be really helpful too. But if we can't, I'm not exactly picky about it.

just a minor note, that rigger is probably out there, which means we should be expected at least the one blimp with the missiles... and if I were him/her, I'd have a few more of those gun blimps (the ones with the SMGs) floating around too..

do note that these blimps are pretty hard to spot (until the fire) and ARMORED. Depending on their placement they can seriously compromise any cover you guys have.

I'll do what I can to deal with this but do be aware, my only flying drone with a gun is loaded with an MMG, nothing explosive. (the other drones are supposed to be part of that packaged that Vinnie fumbled) : (

hence the possibility of taking the fight indoors where they may have less of a tactical advantage (pending the fact that we can conjure up a way out)

BC are we ready to go yet? Is everyone waiting on me to post my first pass? If so I apologize, I'm tracking like four different dumpshock threads right now in addition to work and I'm not as on top of all of them as I should be, sorry.

Let me know if I'm supposed to post and I'll get that up today.

Edit: Ronin just reviewed your post, only problem with going indoors is that we have zero defensive depth and would have no room to move. The OppFor obviously has logistical support that we don't, they've chosen the battle ground, and they initiated the conflict. I prefer a running fight where we can break out of the box that I assume we're in to a static defense.

coincidentially, BC, how many people are in this bar?

Busy at work today; give me till this evening and I'll get the to y'alls questions up.

I agree that getting locked in is not a good idea, but they have cards that we may not know about.

Now before I go on, I guess it would be unrealistic for us to be able to coordinate like this, but for the sake of discussion I wanted to throw this out

How about something like retreating back so we don't get stuck in any crossfires, and rounding up the bar patrons and evacuating them out the back (read: moving cover).

this is dependant on a few assumptions:
1. there is a back
2. there are enough bar patrons to cover our movment
3. the OppFor (finally figured out what that ment ) does not have some horrific ambush waiting out back
4. the OppFor is not willing to butcher random innocent civillians

They are more prepared, its just a matter of figuring out what they are prepared for. What would they assume we would do, and how can we catch them off guard.

GMs: if you think this type of discussion is inappropriate (esp for the lenght of time it takes for a missle to fly), please let me know, I'm just throwing this out. Ultimately it could just have been a fleeting thought in Daedalus' mind.

Edit: it just occured to me that suggesting to use herds of people as moving cover is not exactly the most humane thing to do... hrm : / gotta figure out what I think about that...

Ronin, while all this discussion is going on OOC our characters are going to act only on the information they have IC.

I think the discussion is appropriate because our characters, I think all of them, have formal military training that would likely include emergency response scenarios. Erebus has small unit tactics which would help him know how to react in this situation and I have no knowledge that's comparable so I'm effectively trying to simulate that knowledge by picking the brains of all the other players. I figure between all of us we probably could come up with a Small Unit Tactics Knowledge skill of at least 3.

As to your suggested tactics I'm not sure. While Erebus as a character doesn't care about anyone not a member of his "gang" and would have no problem about ducking into a crowd of nuns to find cover, its unlikely that the bar is going to be with us long enough to provide much cover. Even a small missile is likely to make a mess of the place. Also, I doubt that any strike team that opens an ambush by firing a missile at a bar is going to give one nanosecond's hesitation about dropping another missile into a crowd of civilians. They'd just interfere in with our movements. Besides, it'll be almost impossible to get the civvies on their feet and heading out the back door in the kind of time we have before the missile hits.

As a rigger would Daedalus have an idea how much damage a missle like the one being shot at us could do to the bar? Is the bar's exterior wall going to hold up to the strike? I don't know nothing about no missiles.

Daedalus has a pretty high small unit tactics and a good vantage point from the outside, maybe I can appeal to the powers that be for tactical insights

But yeah I wasn't planning on doing this before the missile strike. I was figuring after, so like.. it hits, we be like "ok everybody stay calm, lets move out the back, it must be a terrorist attack" or something like that. you know, to kinda appear like the good guys.

well tis just speculation anyway, and you do make a good point about the strike team that leads in with a missile strike.

As for the structural damage, my conservative estimate would be no, I woudn't expect the whole place to come crashing down from one missile, (esp if it is an AVM) but I could be wrong (ahm, once again appealing to the powers that be) cause.. Daedalus probably should know..

Ok, Questions in order of Appearance:

-WR: The corner of the yellow building next to the bar would put Dragon at 8 Meters from the blast. It would put you under partial cover from the goons across the street, and at roughly 20 meters away from them

-Cedric: Waiting on SR13 to roll initiative. I'm in no hurry, I'm enjoying watching y'all plan

-Ronin: There are 6 total people in the bar. The waitress/barkeep, a cook, and 4 patrons. (Aside, SR4's Augmented Reality would really come in handy here with those drones). As of yet IC, all Daed knows it's a rocket, and its incoming. He's not jacked into the drone at the moment. Once you spend the action to jack in, Small Unit Tactic away . If Sedna, WR1 or grendel want to chime in here, I'd be enlightened by their august presence

-All: Plan out as much as you want to OOC, it doesn't bother me. As Cedric pointed out, IC planned actions are going to require some sort of gesturing, hollering, or headware communications in order to communicate this plan to each other. These can be free actions: D&DV3 have worked together enough, Erebus and Temmou are ex-military (or close enough) to catch on almost instantly.

Missed anything? EDIT: Yes, yes I did.

OK, given the uncertainty here, I'm going for the extra weapon. We shouldn't have a problem with the group, and Goon 3 is isolated, so hopefully he won't be much of an issue either. That being the case, I want to be loaded up for round 2, which I'd bet on at this point.

I've actually figured out a reasonable way of communicating effectively in three words or less if I can get a ruling on whether this work's or not.

'contact'. . . to indicate the speaker has come into contact with hostile forces

'(1-12) o'clock'. . . . to give a relative direction of the threat

'low/high'. . . .to indicate a relative vertical threat axis(in an urban environment that would mean street level or roof top)

The question I have is the phrase "(1-12) o'clock" one word or two?

If the clock designation is two words or more then I'm open to ideas as a replacement. Any of you military types out there, this is your queue to chime in.

EDIT:: Uhhh, just had a terrifying thought, BC we're located within a few blocks of the Tacoma docks. Now, having driven past the docks on several occassions I know for a fact that there are a variety of very tall cranes etc. on the docks. Would any of those cranes have a good view down into the streets around the bar where we are at?

[Cedric desperately thinking of a way to deal with a missile bearing drone AND a pre-positioned sniper in overwatch from 900 meters away while carrying only a pistol. Frustrated, he shakes his fist at the sky and curses soundly paranoia enhancing, ulcer creating GMs. ]

Go for it, as a free action (the Speak a Word free action rules allow it). Oh yeah, forgot to tell you above regarding the Quickdraw: you'll fire in that action (that's what the test is for). If you don't want to do that, you can just spend a simple action to draw the weapon.

Re: the cranes. Yep, they're there, but they're a long way away. It's low light conditions. You'd need one hell of a scope...

Oh, I can run fast and fire at the same time correct? that shouldn't be a problem.

Edit: BC you're an evil man.

Daedalus, can your drones look for snipers too as well as the missile bearing drone? Does anyone have any ideas for dealing with a sniper? I may be paranoid here but . . . . never mind, I remember all of the previous threats Dragon and Virgil have had to deal with, I'm not being paranoid, I'm just being realistic.

Yep, with modifiers (+4 to TN for running over smooth ground).

Has anyone else noted a directly proportional relationship between the level of paranoia in a player and the number of missiles that have been launched in any given shadowrun game?

Maybe its just me.

After BC noted the cranes I thought,

Hmmm, if these guys were really nasty they would have placed a couple of claymore mines to cover the street in front of them in case someone is stupid enough to charge them. Or they could have placed demolition charges on the bottom side of any manhole covers just ready to detonate! ACK, there could be a panzer light tank around the corner!

BC, Sedna, I hope you guys are proud of yourself. If Erebus gets home he's going to be looking under his bunk for the Tir adept-assassin that is lurking there and will be too afraid of Troll cyberzombie hit squads to ever comfortably open his closet door again.

Hey! How'd I get pulled into this?

Hey, its Shadow's game. I'm just the fill in.

WinterRat1 is correct Sedna, you started lobbing missile around and now every GM wants to get in on the fun.

I have to say, Shadow's run is living up to his "John Woo-ish" style of game play. I'm going to see if I can get Erebus into a position where he can dive and slide across the hood of the car the goons are hiding behind while firing at least 30 rounds from his 12 shot clip, spin/roll/kip to his feet in time to twirl wildly around while firing his remaining 15 rounds.

BC can we just proceed without SR13's initative for now? I know his initative isn't going to be as high as Dragon's or Erebus' and he's inside the bar still unaware of the incoming rocket.

Since he's the only one we're waiting for and he's still inside, unaware of what's happening I'd suggest we just get started with the combat round.