Hot Potato - Mission Monday

The ancient vessel has been critically damaged, neither security or the attacking forces have time to put repairs on before grabbing the Intel. Once the ship has stabilized, our specialists can analyze the data but a copy is just as useful as the real deal.

Objectives:

Conquer the Terminal Room (3 VP)

Dispute the Terminal Room (1 VP)

Have the Data (2 VP)

At the end of three turns, the game ends and count up VP.

Deployment:

Side A and Side B will deploy 12" deep on a 48" x 48" table.  Place an 8" x 8" room in the centre of the table with an equal, symmetrical points of entry.  Either two Wide Gate Markers on non-Deployment sides, or two additional Small Gate Markers on Deployment sides.  Place a Terminal Marker in the centre of the room.  Ensure there is low level terrain that would provide Partial Cover for units within the Terminal Room. The doors are closed but not locked.

Troops with Impersonation, Infiltration, Mechanized Deployment and Airborn Deployment may not be deployed within 4" of the Terminal Room.

The IFF on Mines, E/Maulers and Crazy-Kaolas do not function within 4" of the Terminal Room. They will detonate on any Orders or AROs performed by any models.

Scenario Special Rules:

Conquer the Terminal Room:

Conquer or Dispute - they're ready

If your forces are unopposed within the Terminal Room when the game ends, you have Conquered the Terminal Room.  Non-Ghost: Sync, non-Marker models only apply for this. You end the game with 3 VP.

Dispute the Terminal Room:

At the end of the game, if both players have models inside the Terminal Room, the player with the most points is to have Disputed the Terminal Room. G: Sync models do not count, but Markers do. You end the game with 1 VP.

Have the Data:

The Data can be extracted from the Terminal by a model in base contact with the terminal. Hackers and Models with Repeater must succeed a Short Skill Normal WIP-3 roll while Engineers and Forward Observers may succeed at a Short Skill Normal WIP roll.  At the end of the game, the player with the Data receives an additional 2 VP for having the Data.

Hottest Potato Around

The Data cannot be copied, it can only be “Cut and Paste.” Its behaviour is like the ball in a football match. The Data can only be transferred to another Hacker or Model with Repeater if it is in a ZoC, always spending a Short Skill. The Data can be stolen from an enemy Hacker through a successful Anti-Hacking Protocols or enemy Repeater through a successful Immobilization.

Engineers and Forward Observers may not pass the data unless it is in base contact with a friendly model; however, their data cannot be stolen through Anti-Hacker Protocols or Immobilization. Passing the Data in this fashion is a Short Skill.

G: Servants cannot extract or pass the data.

Scenery:

Hot Potato occurs during a boarding action of a damaged ship. The crew and the pirates are scrambling for this important piece of information. Create a very claustrophobic environment, a Sniper Rifle should never be considered on this map while a Boarding Shotgun would be worthwhile.

Optional Rules:  If both players agree, they may decide to increase the environmental factor of the Scenario.  If they both agree, select Space Vessel or Sea Vessel. 

Water or Space - Your Pick

In the case of a Space Vessel, oxygen is slowly be vented. Models not within scenery elements, such as rooms or hallways, are considered to be in Hostile Terrain. On the 3rd Turn, areas that are considered to be Hostile Terrain become Zero-G terrain. Troops with Multiterrain: Zero-G ignore the Hostility levels.  Hostile Terrain is triggered whenever a model rolls above an 18 on a d20 on non-Courage, non-Armor rolls; in which case, the unit must make a save of against BTS Damage 10.

In the case of a Sea Vessel, the rooms are slowly filling with water. On the first turn, areas that are not considered to have Scenery Elements, such as rooms or hallways, are in Level 1 Water. On the second turn, Scenery Elements are Level 1 Water, while areas without Scenery are considered Level 2 Water. Continue this trend until on the final turn both areas are filled with Level 3 Water. The Terminal Room is never affected Water.

Design Notes: This wasn't designed by me.  It was one of the original scenarios that was posted on the Infinity forums.  The Battle Report has since long been corrupted.  Why am I posting Hot Potato instead of one of our excellent scenarios? A few reasons.

First, it's the holidays so this was written two weeks in advance so no one got stuck with writing this over holiday time.

Secondly, I think it's a great scenario.  The amount of points available dictate the difference between a Major Victory, Minor Victory, Minor Loss and Major Loss.  That's nice in my mind.  Furthermore, if this is used in a Campaign, you can easily control how much XP your SpecOps get by doubling the values or keeping them low (depends on how gritty you want the game).  This was designed before Classified Objectives and in my mind, they take away a bit from a simple scenario: secure the room, grab the data. There's so much tension in controlling the room but also making sure you have the data.  Sure, it's easy to grab and go but that's a model that is out of the fight for the centre.

Lastly, I wrote a series of scenarios for a Campaign in mind.  I've been toying with the idea of putting out monthly Campaign Missions so you and a few friends could get together and have a Paradiso experience.  Part of what I wanted to do when I wrote the original Scenarios is to make Terrain matter.  We'll see how that has changed in N3 but I think it's important to use environments in your games.  Some of the most memorable games I've had were due to some of the wacky terrain used - such as fighting in an Ocean or Outerspace.

Let me know what you think of this classic scenario and if you have a group that would be interested in running a Campaign game based off of scenarios Crits Kill People.

Would You Like To Know More?
Infinity Wiki - Hackers
Infinity WIki - Forward Observers
Infinity Wiki - Repeater
Infinity Wiki - Engineer
Infinity WIki - Hostile Environment