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The edge is very different to the core worlds around Terra. Sure, there are pirates, a general lawlessness and unspeakable horrors, but there is also a degree of freedom and enterprise for the adventurous sort. Rogue traders and mercenaries rub shoulders with aliens and regular folk just trying to get by.
The freedom to strike out on your own and seek your own fortune. The sort of freedom that Caleb Isaacs and his small team was looking for.
After years of war and service to the imperium Isaacs grew disillusioned with the red tape and vagaries of high command, so he decided to strike out on his own when his term was up. Augustus Couley and Ali Yanaga, his former subordinates, decided to join him. Together they form the independant contractor group “Outer Rim Solutions”.
Being their own bosses suited the trio, even if it wasn’t always easy. For a few months now they hadn’t gotten a promising contract and the coffers were starting to look decidedly depleted. But all this could change in a moment, as it had in the past.
One day not long after, a encrypted message came in to the group. It read:
+++MESSAGE DECRYPTED, READS AS FOLLOWS+++
++CONTRACT OFFER, OUTER RIM SOLUTIONS++
+RETREIVAL OF OBJECT, TIME SENSITIVE+
+REWARD OFFERED 500 000 CREDITS, PAYABLE IN PLATINUM INGOTS OR ACCOUNT TRANSFER UPON COMPLETION+
+REPLY WITHIN ONE (1) STANDARD DAY FOR ACCEPTANCE OF CONTRACT AND FURTHER CONTRACT DETAILS+
+++END MESSAGE+++Caleb called his comrades in to his office to review the message. This might just be what they had been waiting for!
After a short discussion they decided that the offer was too good to pass up, even if the amount made them wary of the possible risks involved.
In the end, they couldn’t afford to pass on this in any case..The next day the contract executor contacted them via comms;
“Greetings. My benefactor is pleased that you chose to accept his contract. I am Mayweather and will be serving as your contact for the duration of the contract.”
“Greetings Mr Mayweather, I’m Caleb Isaacs, leader of ORS. In the message you mentioned further details? Would you let us know so we can ge to work?“Certainly. This contract is a non-exclusive, time sensitive one. Other parties have been contracted as well and only the contractee that brings us the stolen object within a standard month will be elligible for the reward. The object in question is a locked plasteel container. It was stolen from my benefactor and we have tracked it to a planet called Luxor IX. I believe it is where you currently are?”
“I see, we better get started then. Isaacs out.”“Am I the only one who are worried by the lack of information?” Ali asked the other two as soon as the call ended.
“Sure am, but what can we do? We need this. I’ll start hitting up my contacts and see what we can find out.” Augustus looked to his battle brothers before heading for his terminal.
“I don’t doubt this will be tricky Ali, but as Augustus said, we need this. Let’s prepare as much as we can, that’s all we can do at this point.”
“Right boss, let’s get too it.”The next day, Augustus had come through. He had found somebody that claimed to know about this plasteel case that came from off world. A meeting was set up at a local cantina..
The cantina where the meeting was to take place, a few houses that surrounds the bar.
At the end of the street there is a Git Burga, a popular fast food franchise. This makes a good spot for Ali Yanaga to set up his overwatch.
Augustus meets up with the contact behind the cantina. His contact belongs to the local gang the green hoods, a group of thugs, criminals and deserters. The contact seem jumpy and keeps looking over his shoulder, as if to see if he was followed.
As Augustus tries to get the information out of the cagey thug, Caleb starts sneaking from the side entrance of the cantina. Across the street he thinks he spots another green hood.
Ali calls his team over coms”There is a bunch of green hoods coming out of the bar, this might get hairy..”
As the comms dies down, Augustus finally presses the green hood contact. Rather than trying to share anything useful, the thug goes for his autogun!
Scrabbling to get to cover behind a close by dumpster, mr Couley aims and fires his plasma gun at the traitorous hoodlum. The superheated plasma rips into the man, his screams slowly fading as he falls to the ground.
Hot lead slams into Augustus from his flank, finding seams in his armor as blood starts flowing. He grunts and grinds his teeth agaist the pain. This must have been as setup, they seemed ready for the team!
On the other side of the bar two of the green hoods are blasting the barrier that Ali is currently crouching behind. Lucky for him, the aim of the thugs are not good enough to hit the marksman.
Using the advanced scope on his hot-shot lasrifle, Ali send a bolt of death nearly blowing the head off the shooter.
With a burst of speed, Caleb Isaacs closes on the hoodlum that shot Augustus. His bolt pistol rips a chunk out of his target, but he keeps coming.
Smashing into the team leader, the green hood member and Isaacs struggle, locked in close combat.
Distracted from his wounds and Calebs charge, Augustus is unable to fight off a charging hood member who further injure him!
The battlefield after the second round of combat.
Summoning strenght to fight off his attacker, Augustus knocks back the thug and fires several shots. The green hood member goes down hard.
Mr Yanaga ducks down after his shot, sneaking behind the barrier to get a better shot at his final attacker. Popping up again, his lasgun fires and silences his enemy.
His chainblade whirring, Caleb cuts into the struggling thug. With the rest of his members down or dead, the last thug throws down his weapon in surrender.
“I give up,ok! I’ll give you what you want, don’t kill me!” the gang member cried out as he was dragged to a barrier behind the bar as the team gather around him.
“Speak.” Isaacs spoke, his tone low and dangerous. “Alright, alright! If you go into the desert west of here, after about 30 minutes there is a small rock next to some bushes. You can’t miss it, there isn’t any other vegetation for a klick from it!”
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” His pain evident, Augustus put on a brave face until the green hood had turned and run.After having his wounds tended to, Augustus and the team starts the trek into the western desert to find their prize..
But it seems somebody else already beat them to it!
“I knew it wouldn’t be this easy, not for that many credits..” Ali shook his head.
“Hey, what’s that?” Augustus asked as he bent down at the edge of the dug up mound of earth.There was a small metal pin, with a design he didn’t recognize.
It might be nothing, but it’s the only clue they have at the moment..I hope you liked the first part of this series!
The blog: https://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com/2019/07/new-beginnings-on-edge-of-imperial.html
Thanks for reading!
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
@Mike: Cheers, glad you like it!
@Rhoderic: Thank you 🙂 Personally I love the lore of RT and the early 40k, it’s just such a great mix of fantasy and sci-fi greats. Git Burga denies the rumors that squig or orc spores can is present in their proprietary Git Pattys’™.The buildings are from TT combats range of MDF building kits: https://ttcombat.com/collections/sci-fi-utopia
@Thorstenfrank: Thank you, I appreciate that, particularly if you are not a fan of GW! I can’t say that I’m a fan of the company in it’s current form, but like Rhoderic mentions there are parts of the older setting/lore that I’m fond of still 🙂I have both of those rulesets and a few more besides actually. I don’t know, it just felt right to go with a RPG ruleset since it allows me lots of freedom. I realize that I might want to clarify that the rules are OSR revival rather than a 30+ year old ruleset
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
I finished a few of these models after making a mould and duplicating a few of them:
The detail was somethat lost I realized when I picked them out of the moulds, so that was a bit of a shame, but they are serviceable and look good enough on the table. Hopefully I will get them into a game and maybe even make a few reinforcements down the line..
I started re-basing some of my single 6mm sci-fi minis as well, they are on the blog along with some more bits and bobs I painted leading up to my vacation:
https://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com/2019/07/all-things-completed-up-until-my.html
Thanks for having a look!
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
Great to see this project starting up again!
I wonder what will happen next? Keep up the good work
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
It looks great, the complex has a particularly good feel to it with some cool color choices!
Those mechs are IWM battle armor, right? Nice
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
You are not alone I can promise you
Oh I haven’t forgotten about them, I still have a few unpainted waiting for a project like this one!
They are great, no doubt
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
First of all, cheers for the kind words guys 🙂
@Steven: I hope you didn’t get dissappointed by the relative “newness” of my idea of what can be called retro. Some 50s style atomic sci-fi would be quite cool now that you mention it..
@jagannath; I prefer 6mm for most things if I can get away with it 🙂 I’m also fairly certain that this size is the limit of detail I can produce with my current level of skill!
@Rhoderic: Yeah, I have taken some cues from both the droid tank and some similar scratch-built models I found online.I don’t know why the photos won’t show up here sometimes, I’ll try another way, let me know if you can see the images now?
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
Those models are really nice, impressive work there! Do you have any plans of offering these printed infantry through your store? I am sure I’m not the only interested party!
Did I hear someone mention M.ak./SF3D? I’d love to see/hear more about that *wink,wink*nudge,nudge*
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
So now I managed to find some time to write this up as well:
The Udouu system is technically part of Unity, as all human settlements in explored space. But like many systems on the fringe it’s payed little attention by the core worlds. Add to that the fact that it’s an unsanctioned colony with no offical Unity presence, you can begin to understand how the sqaubbling of these single-system powers have escaped notice.
With fewer than a dozen inhabitable planets and moons, Udouu isn’t a poor system by any stretch, but it’s too far away for most of the mega corps to involve themselves.
This has led to there being a few local powers fighting with what would be considered obsolete tech, even from many fringers prespective. Without wide-spread access to Unity tech there is little fusion tech on Udouu prime, the largest habitable planet in the system. As you go down in size and importance, the technological resources available to the locals decrease as well.
Necessity being the mother of all invention, the inhabitants have managed to create surprisingly efficient combustion engines, able to run on virtually any fuel. The lack of advanced armor materials and shielding have caused their warmachines to emphasize speed and manuverability over heavy armor, leading to the almost universal use of small bipedal mecha.
These suits are straddling the line between armored suits and true mecha, allowing for pilots to be trained quickly as it’s operation is little different from using their own body.On Udouu Prime, or just Prime (as the locals usually refer to it), there are two major factions:
The Northern Alliance and the Confederation of Southern states.
As the names indicate they hold roughly half of the planets single continent each, with a strip of uninhabitable desert and a great lake forming the natural boundry between the powers. The remainder of the planets landmass is spread out in small island chains dotted around the great sea.The Alliance and the Confederation are in an almost constant conflict that sometimes blossoms into full-blown war, but for the most part there are little more than border skirmishes and raids followed by political condemnation and finally attempts at reaching a lasting peace that inevitably seems to break down. And so the wheel keeps turning.
A scout had failed to report in at a stretch of the border that was recently in dispute between the Alliance and the Confederation. The local Alliance commander was feeling the pressure, so he sent out the newly formed Red Cap squad and a sniper team to investigate:
Red Caps, distinguishable by their red heads and white shoulder stripe. The sniper can be seen sporting a orange fin on his head while the spotter has no distinguishing marks.
In the distance the Alliance pilots can see a pillar of smoke rising. It doesn’t bode well for their mission..
They all advance together, taking up whatever defensible positions they can.
The smoke is indeed coming from the downed scout mech! The sniper team spotter moves closer to try and see if the pilot made it. As he approaches, a voice comes over his local comms: “I have important information for Alliance command, you need to get me to them!”
Suddenly all of the Alliance mechs sensors go off, it’s an ambush!
The Confederate mechs must have been in low-power mode, waiting to spring the trap. A mech comes barreling out from behind some ruins, it’s rotary gun chewing chunks of armor out of the spotter’s mech!
With quick reflexes, the pilot of the Red Cap’s heavy mech pivots and fire his auto-cannon. The large shells strike the enemy mech head-on, blowing out the reactor and stopping it dead.
The spotter begins to drag the wounded mech to safety when he realizes that the pilot is stuck inside. They’ll have tools back at the hangar to cut him out of there, if he can only get that far!
Another of the Red Caps cause some damage as his bazooka shot cracks open a fair bit of the armor of a mech hiding in the ruins.
With his agressor out of reach, the wounded confederate pilot targets another of the squad, his shots messing up one of the leg actuators on his target.
Returning fire with limited success, the Red Cap squad member seeks shelter in some ruins as well.
Explosive shots blow sand and rock into the air as the last of the Red Caps narrowly avoids some bazooka fire from a mech speeding towards him.
He takes careful aim with his own rifle and sends a stream of penetrator rounds through both the legs and cockpit of the offending mech, bringing it down!
Feeling lucky, he then takes aim at the already damaged mech hiding in the ruins. Most of the shots ricochet harmlessly off the ruins, but some find their mark and the mech topples over, defeated.
Seeking to stop the enemy from recovering their downed pilot, one of the few remaining Confederate pilots charge towards the Alliance line. Hitting a scout mech is hard given their size and made no easier by having to dodge incoming fire. As he dodges and weaves, the Alliance sniper adds his deadly precision fire to the barrage, bringing the mech to permanent stop.
With little opposition left, the Red Cap heavy moves forward, his auto cannon stitching a pattern into the ruins as well as the mech trying to hug it for cover.
Hoping to take down the enemy heavy, the mech zooms between cover, laying down a hail of fire. The bullets rip through the tracks on one of the Red Cap mech’s leg, shredding them!
Finally the last Confederate mech reveals itself! As it charges out of it’s hiding place, the pilot opens up with both cannon and rockets, blasting most of the armor off of the unsuspecting Red Cap mech!
Eager to help his squad-mate, the bazooka-wielding mech sends a explosive shot right at the Confederate heavy, almost blowing it’s arm off!
The heavy mech disengages from the remaining Confederate light mech to support his squad and fires a few shots into the leg actuators of the heavy mech.
Realizing that they cant stop the scout’s pilot from being rescued, the Confederate commanders give the order to pull back, they have lost enough good pilots today!
Both remaining mechs fire suppresive fire and deploy smoke grenades to cover their retreat. Alliance command orders their pilots to bring back the scout pilot, pursuit is not a priority.A slightly better picture of the mechs of Red Cap squad. You might be seeing more of these guys in the future!
That was an overwhelming victory for the Alliance, the dice really wasn’t with the Confederate pilots!
I hope you have enjoyed this little report, I have a few ideas for future scenarios and there might even be some RPG-lite campaign focused around the members of Red Cap squad coming up!
The blog: https://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com/2019/05/save-scout-horizon-wars-aar.html
Thanks for checking it out 🙂
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
After a long while of no gaming at all, I have managed to play some HW today 🙂
I have a report waiting to be written up, but in the mean time I thought I might share the recently finished Red-Cap squad:
I have yet to name them individually, but that’s next on the to-do as they might feature in some lite-rpg games I’m considering ATM 🙂
http://lasersandbroadswords.blogspot.com My project blog
