Blood in Space(...ace...ace..ace...)!

Blood.
In.
SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaace!

So, @Dutch_Law implied that I should try out Blood In Space.  I already owned it, but hadn't played it yet (after all, I have plenty of games to play already).  Blood In Space is a solo or cooperative game of sci-fi shoot-em-up.  It comes with a few pregenerated characters, but you can make your own.  It also has a campaign system of interlocking scenarios, which is nice for a solo game.

THE PLAYER CHARACTERS

These are my guys. Agent M is the leader, and then there's Bloo, Verdun, Flavio, and Amaranth.  I modelled their stats after the figures, so everybody has pistols except for Bloo.  They also don't have much armor.  I could have used better armed and armored figures (at no extra cost), but I didn't have any that were particularly distinctive.  With the few Experience Points I was given for beginning characters, I gave Amaranth bonus damage (to represent two guns).  Everybody else got bonuses to their Target Numbers (TN) so they would be harder to hit.  Agent M also received bonus Hit Points (HP).

Class photo!  Or maybe an album cover.

THE MISSION

The first mission in a campaign is "Exploration".  The goal is to investigate all of the Event Markers and eliminate any enemies that show up.

To begin, let me first apologize for the terrain.  I don't have a lot of "natural" terrain. I could have used my urban terrain, but I don't have any "difficult" ground for that.  I'm not even sure what that would be.  Rubble?  Anyway, you get this.  The scenario describes the table as long like this, with randomly determined terrain in each of six sections.  There are eight Event Markers, which are shuffled, and then only six are placed, one in each section, in or by the terrain.

Ugh!  Fine!  I'll get better outdoor terrain.

THE ENEMY

So, there are a variety of enemies to choose from, including an alien menace, mercenaries, savages, stormtroopers and wild animals.  I chose "Cybers" because I have some nice robots for the job.  But there's an element of chance to what sort of Cybers I'll encounter.  It could be just a Patrol (fingers crossed), but it could also be an Assault Team or (if I had a better Reputation score) a War Unit.

I roll on the chart and get a Patrol, which is good, because I don't know how I would survive an Assault Team.

THE TURN

So, this is kind of neat.  Each of my guys gets a token.  They're not unique to the figure, but they are unique to my side.  I probably should have used blue for the blue Cybers, but I didn't.  Deal with it.  So, five Player Characters (PCs) gives me five blue tokens.  And there's one, red, End of Turn token as well.

To play, you make a blind draw from the cup.  If it's a blue token, one of my guys (my choice) who hasn't gone yet gets to take a move action and one other action.  If it's the red token, it gets noted and goes back into the cup.  If the red token gets drawn a second time, the turn ends, whether you've activated all of your PCs or not.  Since I'm playing using the basic rules and there aren't any enemies yet, there are no white (enemy) tokens.

The tea leaves say that your path will be easy... for now.

TURN 1

To start, I drew a blue token.  Agent M moved up to an Event Maker.  As soon as he was within 2 inches of it, I revealed it and looked up the number.  It's a Loot token guarded by two Drones and a Guardian (makes sense, what with the Loot to guard).  Agent M can then complete his turn, including spending any unspent movement points.

I feel like there's something up ahead...

POP!

I immediately added three white tokens to the cup, one for each enemy.

For some reason, I really enjoyed pulling tokens from a cup.  *shrug*

The second draw is also blue.  And Bloo, hearing his name, leaps forward into cover and takes a shot at one of the Drones.  The Drones have a Target Number (TN) of 10, +1 because Bloo moved, so Bloo needs an 11 to hit.  His weapon is rated at "3D" to hit.  He just barely gets it, with 6, 4, and 1!
The damage on his blaster rifle is "H+2", which means "high die plus two", for a total of eight damage.  Unfortunately, the Drones are armored and have a Damage Reduction (DR) of -3, so the drone only takes 5 damage (out of 10).  I fill in some damage bubbles on the enemy sheet.

BLAM!  First blood! (Or... oil or something.)

Dang.  Drew a white token!

I roll on the AI table and get a 6, telling me to have the weakest (fewest HP) enemy attack the weakest Player Character (PC).
So the recently injured drone hops over the fence into cover and fires at Bloo.  Bloo's TN is 9, but he's in cover, and the drone moved, so now it needs to meet or beat a 12.  It rolls 4 and 5, plus two is only 11.  It misses.  Luckily, the Drones and Guardians have "2D" weapons, which makes them less likely to hit me.

No more laser pointers.  Too much work to hold steady.

The next three draws are blue, and the PCs advance.  Flavio fires and misses.  I roll a lot of ones this game.

At least he tried.

White token.  The AI says the nearest Drone attacks the nearest PC, so it moves around the building and fires at Verdun, but despite the very close range, it still misses.  More ones.

"Initializing Stormtrooper Protocol." Pew-Pew! "Failure successful."

White again.  The AI says to attack the  "easiest" (to hit) PC.  The Guardian wants to stay in cover, but can't quite see Amaranth (the character without any cover) from there, so it edges out into the open.  It hits with a 3 and a 6, plus three ("2D+3") versus her TN of 9.

The Guardian's damage is "H", so it does 6 damage, minus Amaranth's DR of -1, for a total of 5 damage.  She only had 8 HP to begin with.  Ouch!

That's what she gets for standing in the open waving guns in the air.

And with nobody left to activate, that's the end of turn 1.

TURN 2

Basically, there's a whole bunch of shooting going on over by this building, but nobody hitting anything.  I honestly feel like the target numbers are too high, even before taking modifiers into account, but maybe this is how it's supposed to play out.  I am playing beginner characters, after all.
Then, the End of Turn token gets drawn.  This does nothing the first time, however.  It's simply noted, and returned to the cup.
Eventually, Flavio runs up and shoots that damaged Drone, but still can't kill it because of its hefty DR.
Now the End of Turn token is drawn again, and as it's the second time, that ends the turn, even though Agent M and one of the Drones didn't get a chance to activate.

"Guys, wait!  I wasn't ready!"

TURN 3

More misses at point blank range.  Amaranth would have taken another hit if the Drone hadn't had to move to line up the shot.  Bloo, however, absolutely demolishes the injured Drone.  I mean, it only had two Hit Points (HP) left, but Bloo rolled 6, 6 and 4.  With a damage rating of "H+2", there's a tie for the "high" die, so they both count.  6 + 6 + 2 = 14 damage!

"SKA-BOOM!"
(But it didn't catch fire for some reason.)

The Drone is destroyed, and since it hadn't gone yet, its token is immediately removed from the cup.

Then, I draw the red token twice in a row, ending Turn 3.

TURN 4

The pistol-packing PCs try to get out of the way so that Bloo can shoot the Guardian with his rifle, but they also take shots at it. (Your first action can only be spent on movement.  The second action has more options.)  Verdun gives it a solid hit, but 6 damage -4 DR does just a measly 2 points.
Agent M, on the other hand, rolls double sixes, for 14 damage - 4 DR = 10 HP of damage!  That Guardian is almost dead!

The other Drone tries to support the Guardian, but its fire is ineffective.
The second red token ends the turn.

OK!  Maybe we have a chance after all!

TURN 5

Bloo misses, but... ERMEGEHRD!  Agent M does it again!  Double sixes for 10 more damage!
The Guardian is destroyed, and its token removed from the cup.
And then the second red token ends the turn.

THERE'S the fire!

TURN 6

Another near miss at Amaranth, but double fours from Agent M soften the Drone up.  Everybody else misses, and Bloo doesn't get to go.
The turn ends.

Progress is slow.

TURN 7

Agent M finishes off the last Drone, and the rest of the team move to surround the next event token.
Flavio picks up the Loot token.  We'll find out what it is later.  Right now, he's at -1 movement point and -1TN due to lugging it around.

"So, just because it's yellow, it's my job to carry it?" -Flavio

TURN 8

With everyone ready, Amaranth approaches the next Event Marker.  A "6" is nothing (whew!) but there's a 50% chance (1-3 on a d6) of revealing the next nearest marker.  A 6 on the die doesn't trigger it, though.
With that, everyone double-times it toward the next marker.

Token 6, ignored again, wanders off to a corner to sulk.

TURN 9

Bloo approaches the token in the woods... but there's nothing there!  Spooky!

Ch-ch-ch! Ah-ah-ah!

So, he moves toward the rocks... and it's another patrol of two Drones and a Guardian!  I was hoping for just two Drones.  Oh well!  At least it wasn't THREE Drones and a Guardian.

"Wait, do I know you guys from somewhere?"

Flavio and Agent M move into range before dropping prone and opening fire on the Guardian.  Agent M hits, but the Guardian's armor absorbs all of the damage. [sad trombone noise]  One of the Drones circles around Bloo to get into the trees before firing at him and missing.  The red token shows up again, signaling the end of this turn.

It seems a little close to be prone, but rules is rules.

TURN 10

This turn starts out well, with Bloo blasting the Guardian with double sixes, leaving it with only 3 HP.  Then the Guardian dodges past him and into the woods, hoping for some vengeance by shooting at Amaranth, who's out in the open and also only has 3 HP.  It misses, though, and Verdun finishes it off with another double six roll.  Gotta love blasters!  Everybody else misses, and with nobody left to go, the turn ends.

"Hey, you leave Amaranth alone!"

TURN 11

Well, that was almost a turn of nothing happening.  Red, white, red.  End turn.  One of the Drones moved into a better position and fired at Flavio (because he has the Loot).  Targeting the loot-guy has been happening quite a bit the last couple of turns.  It missed, of course.

Everybody agrees to take a break, but this one Drone had to ruin it. :(

TURN 12

Yuck!  Sure, Verdun brought the nearest Drone down to 1 HP, but the Drones both returned the favor, bringing Bloo and Verdun down to just a few HP each!  There are still two Event Markers left, too, so with three seriously injured PCs, it might be time to withdraw!

We're never going to get the blood-stains out of this grass!

TURN 13

Bad luck!
Everyone concentrates fire on the nearest Drone, and Verdun finishes off the first one, but not before the second one takes out Bloo!  Noooo!  Blooooooo!
I seriously considered abandoning the field at this point, but then my mission would be a failure and I wouldn't even get the Loot token that I picked up.  Although maybe I read that part wrong.
Enraged, Amaranth charges into the woods, taking cover behind the trees and fires both guns (not that the game has rules for that) into the other Drone!  Triple sixes!  That's 19 damage before DR.  That drone is dee-stroyed!
But I have to remove Bloo's token from the cup!  Insult to injury!

Well, he should have left when he had the chance, I guess.

TURN 14 & 15

I'm not sure what to do with Bloo's combat ineffective character, so we just leave him there and move on...
Everybody gets into position, and then.  Man, it's more of these guys again!

"OK. Now I think you guys are just stalking us."

Agent M hurts one of the drones, but then Amaranth runs up and crits it! (Well, there aren't "crits" exactly, but rolling really well for damage is about the same thing.)  Unfortunately, the other Drone lines up a shot and drops Verdun!  Not looking good, folks! (And then the turn ends.)

"Dude!  Get up!  You're embarrassing us in front of the Cybers!"

TURN 16

Dang!  The Drone shoots Flavio, bringing him dangerously low on HP.
But then there's Agent M!  He rolls an 18 to hit for a ton of damage, but its sort of wasted on attacking the already damaged Drone instead of the full-strength Guardian. :(

"I swear, I was aiming for the Guardian!"

TURN 17 & 18

Well, crap!  Turn 17 was spent missing everything.  The next turn, the PCs managed to bring the guardian down to just 2 HP, but then it incapacitated Flavio!  Boooo!

"I'm not carrying that Loot!" M says, placing his finger on his nose.

TURN 19

Well this was a nail biter!  Agent M just baaaaaarely takes out the Guardian, scoring exactly what he needed to hit and exactly enough damage to drop it.

Amaranth picks up the loot, and they both move into position, trying to use the tree for cover.  Agent M creeps forward to reveal...

Nothing!  (Whew!)

Lucky 7!

And that's the end of the mission!

END SCENARIO BRIEFING

So first, we find out what we looted.  "Valuable pieces of alien technology"!  This lets me choose "Escort (Science)" as the next mission, instead of rolling randomly.

I get 1 Victory Point (VP) for the loot, and one per "surviving" PC.  So, three guys were eliminated, which means they didn't survive, but I have the option of letting them survive with injuries (and 2 HP), so I do, and get 5 more VP.  I can spend VP on Reputation or XP.  I'm not doing so great, so I dump all 6 points into VP, giving me 12 XP.

Then, I check on those eliminated characters.
Bloo rolls and gets a "Left Arm Wound" (-1 DEX)
Verdun gets... lucky!  No permanent injury! (Double 1s!  Unlikely!)
Flavio gets a "Chest Wound" (-1 CON)

Technically, that's the end of the campaign turn, but at the beginning of the next campaign turn, the PCs will heal d6+CON HP, can spend XP on upgrades, and recruit new guys.

The next mission is rolled for on a web of interconnected missions.  From this Exploration mission, I can always choose "Big Hunt" next (or "Escort Science" because of my Loot), or I can roll, possibly getting "Big Hunt", "Military Contract", "Space Mission", or "Ambush".

And that's mostly that.  Fun, but pretty tough.  Maybe that's what it's supposed to be like for beginners.  A bit of a "PC funnel" to weed out the weak?  I liked drawing the tokens out of the cup.  I didn't like having to reference eight separate files to play, though.  Sure, put the rosters and characters sheets in a separate file, but I'd like to be able to flip to the scenario rules or the combat tables in the same book, please.  So, not my favorite, but it has a pretty solid and engaging solo mechanism.  Maybe I can get my niece to play co-op with me when she visits.

You can get it from WargameVault HERE, you sad, lonely wargamer!

-Jason "Ludanto" Smith C;E