Laserburn: Nostalgia Kills

 Sometimes you can't truly appreciate what you have, or what you've lost, without going back and (re)discovering it for yourself.

Laserburn is one of those things that bears experiencing. It's a sci-fi game from 1980, which if you're reading this in 2020, was about 100 years ago.  This was apparently before the time of common word processors, or technical writers or editing I guess.  Clearly this was type-written and then copied to make books.  But who am I to talk?  I was alive in 1980.  How many beloved games did I write? :)

I actually didn't get into minis games until much later, so I don't have any nostalgia for the game, but I'm also kind of a gaming hipster, so I at least had to try it.  Here we go.

The game is a percentile system with just 3 stats at its base: Weapons Skill, Combat Skill, and Initiative.  Or Weapon Factor, Combat Factor, and Initiative.  Consistency hadn't been invented yet.  Sometimes the name of the game is spelled "Lazerburn".

Initiative is weird, in that "holding" your action is kind of the default.  When your Initiative number is called, you place a marker, and then at any point later in the turn (or immediately), you can decide to go, even in the middle of another character's action.  No real guidance on what happens when Initiative ties, though.

I'd never played this before, so I tried to balance things on points, but that was harder than it might seem.  On one side, a single, experienced soldier (WS:110%, CS:55%, IN: 5) with an assault rifle and power armor.  Initiative started at 10, but the power armor knocks it down to 5.  I also intentionally chose a model without a helmet as a handicap.  That's right, hit locations are a thing!

Boob armor to intimidate the enemy nerds.

On the other side, five unarmored, untrained conscripts (WS: 80%, CS:40%, IN: 10) with pistols.  Just to be contrary, these guys started with Initiative 5, but being totally unarmored bumps it up to 10).

You can take the Punk out of the Cyber,
but you can't take the Cyber out of the Punk.

The soldier cost 760 points by herself.  The conscripts cost 160 each, for a total of 800 points.  In theory the conscripts have too many points, especially with the soldier being helmet-less, but 5 guys bare-handing a tank are going to do just as poorly as 15 guys.  If I had been more familiar with the system, that would have been obvious.  Oh well.  This is how it goes sometimes.

The "scenario" that I came up with is the five conscripts are running in to loot a crashed ship, and the soldier is the only one in the area able to defend it.

Here's hoping it's not full of xenomorphs this time.

TURN 1

The conscripts all have higher Initiative than the soldier, so they basically all get to decide when they go.  There's not much going on, though, so they just charge the center, trying to stay out of sight.  The soldier does the same.  Everybody moves 10cm at a walk, or 20cm running like they do here.

The guy in the back must be the leader.

Much like the "ugly pretty girl" in the movies,
she doesn't realize that she's been a tank all along.

TURN 2

While the conscripts outnumber the soldier, they know that they're outmatched individually, and so they play it safe.  A couple hold their actions until after the soldier has gone.

They'll look back on this as the "good times".

Time for some action!  One of the conscripts pops around the corner.  Since he couldn't "see" the soldier last "move" (wait, my move or any move?) he has to make a Reaction roll in order to shoot her.  He needs a 5 or 6 on a d6, but gets +1 for looking right at her.

Failure is their signature color.

Now, admittedly, I set them up with no training and only pistols, so I guess this is my fault.  But here's how shooting goes:

Weapon Skill: 80%
Range: (18cm) x (-3 Pistol Mod) = (-54%)
Moved: -15%
TOTAL: 11%

He rolls a 98 and totally misses.  Rolling doubles is also a miss for some reason.  On the other hand, any missed shots get rerolled (at 2%) to see if they hit anybody else in the line of fire including the original target. So maybe those balance out.

Shooting uses up 1/3 of a move, so this conscript uses what's left to step back out of sight.

TURN ?

Okay, I'll admit it.  My notes aren't helping me here.  Suffice to say that, surprisingly, the reaction rolls usually succeed, and the conscripts miss quite a bit.  Here are some highlights, I guess:

This conscript reacts to the soldier's movement and shoots her.  He's closer, and hasn't moved this turn, so his modified Weapons Skill is 38%.  He gets 27 and hits her in [53] the Lower Body.

Power armor has a base Penetration value of 10%.  This is why the fight was such a blowout, really.  Versus power armor, a slug pistol get -5 Penetration, but even worse, at Medium Range it gets another -15 for a total Penetration test value of -10.  Basically impossible at Medium Range.

Having survived the hit, there's a 10% chance (power armor) of the soldier ducking back.  She gets 34 and holds the line.

THEN!

On her turn the soldier returns fire!

Weapon Skill: 110%
Range: (15cm) x (-2 AR Mod) = (-30)
Moved: -15
Power Armor: -15
TOTAL: 50%

She gets a 29 and hits him in the [10] head!  The conscript is unarmored (100%) but at this range the assault rifle still has a -5% Penetration and requires a roll.  She gets a 3.  I think she got him.  I roll a d10 on the head column of the damage chart and he's "just" Blinded for the rest of the fight.  If he had been moving, he'd stumble along blindly for a few turns, but as it is he'll just stay where he is grabbing his face.

"POW!" - "TINK!"
"POW!" - "AAARGH!  MY FACE!"

At this point, it's clear that the conscripts' only hope is to get in close, shoot a lot, and hope for a head-shot.  They probably should have just fled at this point, but I had just gotten started, and there was always a chance, right?

The pink-haired conscript runs out and misses.  The soldier returns fire, semi-auto, and hits with one shot in the upper body, killing him.

The penalty for semi-auto fire is -6 "1st & successive shot".  Is that -6? -12?  -6 for the first and -12 for the second?  I went with that last one, but it wasn't clear.

"FOR CONSCRIPTIA!  CHAAR...GACK!"

Another try!  Yellow mohawk  guy jumps out and fires twice, hitting the soldier in the torso with one shot.  There's a 5% chance to Penetrate at this range, but it's not enough.  She returns fire, shooting him in the head and arm, killing him twice.

"Do I count that as two kills, or three?  Ugh. Imperial paperwork!"

Blue haired-guy, learning nothing from his comrades, does exactly the same thing, only he gets shot in the leg and the body, and only gets killed by one of them.

Only got killed once.  Bragging rights!

Several turns go by with the soldier missing the (slowly) fleeing blind guy.  Meanwhile, the guy behind the crater is prone with this pistol resting on the edge for stability and is taking pot-shots at her.  They are, of course, mostly useless, but then one actually hits and penetrates and she takes a light leg wound! Tired of his shenanigans, she shoots him dead.  Bored at this point, she decides to let the blind guy go.  He'll recover his sight in time.  Will he seek revenge? Probably, right?

And that is a very lopsided example of the old "Laserburn" game.  I should have gotten into a hand-to-hand "combat" fight, too.  There's a whole other pile of rules for that.  Like, you roll off to see who gets the upper hand, and then the winner gets a chance to hit the loser.  Clearly you can just feel the clunk in this beast.  That said, it gives a lot of detail, and if you don't have anywhere to be (and maybe have a couple of calculators handy) it's a pretty neat experience.  There are supplements as well, with "advanced" rules and aliens and such.

And it's only, last I checked, £7.00 at Alternative Armies.

So, if you want a taste of your sci-fi minis wargaming roots, or you're just weird, check it out.  It really makes you appreciate the clean lines of modern games, but also makes me wish those games had a bit more character, more "heart", like some of these older games had.

Ĝis la revido!

Jason "Ludanto" Smith C;E