Space Station Zero Mission Two: The Repair Bay

I'm treating my first game of Space Station Zero as a training exercise, not only for the seven wallies who make up my team but also for the wally in charge, i.e. me. At the end of the first mission I rolled against a table and got a four, so next up is the Repair Bay!

Betty opens her eyes to find Packman leaning over her, looking concerned.

"What... what happened?" she asks, her head feeling like it's stuffed with cotton wool. "I can't remember anything... are we all OK? Oh, and Packman," she adds, "you can stop staring at my cleavage whenever you want."

"Sorry, Captain," says Packman, bringing his eyes up to Betty's face. "We managed to destroy the robots and switch off the gas, but you, Globnik, Axon and Misloi all passed out. We dragged you out through the nearest exit and waited for you to come around."

"Where are we now?" Betty asks.

"We're in a large, dark room," replies Vashtar. "There's some kind of huge tower in the centre. I can't make it out... it's just completely black, as if the builder hadn't got around to painting it."

Betty stands shakily, waving away Packman's offer of assistance. "Anything here likely to attack us? Misloi, can you run a scan?"

"Cnjkdvs vnfrigh ersnift mvmrsnlbn vmnsdk," Misloi replies.

"Misloi, your translator's broken," says Dee Dee.

"Hwqdnask kewjq enifgwn there are several life readings at the other end of the room. The scanner says they're human, but they're not acting like humans. And that tower is giving off a large energy reading."

Betty takes a deep breath of the stale air. "OK. Let's keep moving..."

The Repair Bay is dominated by a large black tower that should be a large orange tower only I got called into work. In addition to finding out what it is and ultimately escaping the room, the crew is threatened by mutants, who are unarmed but have "sharp teeth and wicked claws". Wicked claws? Are they from Boston? Oh shit, they're basically genestealers. The mutants are represented by zombie models because Cthulhu knows it's about time I used them for something. They have a move of 5", combat skills of 3, and three wounds.

The rules state that there are four mutants per crew. I couldn't work out if this meant only four in total or four per crew member, so I slapped 28 on the table to be safe. I think I might regret that. One change I did make was to initiative rolls: instead of the second roll being a 10+, I made it 8+, then 10+ for the third and 12 for the fourth and all subsequent rolls. Obviously this also applies to the mutants, and will more than likely bite me on the arse during the game.

I'm not going to type out "so-and-so rolls/wins/loses initiative" over and over, so if several mutants move in turn then they held on to it, and the same goes for our brave band of interstellar pirates.

To emerge victorious, the team has to kill all the mutants and carry out another objective, which is set to be revealed at the start of the second turn.

Without further ado, let's get going!

The team lines up along the bottom of the board, with the barely-visible mutants evenly split at the top left and right corners. The large alien tower is bang in the middle of the room. Vashtal moves 8" up the board, and initiative goes to the mutants. One moves 10" towards the middle, and thanks to terrible (or great, if you're a mutant) rolling they keep it and three more move down.

Betty moves up 4", takes a shot at one of the mutants and misses. Dear God, here we go. Happily Axon is up next. He also moves 4" and manages to take out two mutants with both his shots. Way to go!

Misloi and Globnik both move 8" towards the tower to check it out, and by a miracle I hold onto initiative again and move DeeDee up to cover the engineers. Two more mutants move 10" towards our heroes before Packman moves 4" and takes one out with a well-aimed shot.

One thing I wasn't entirely sure about this level was the end of a turn; usually it's when all minis have activated, but with 28 mutants that sounded ridiculous. So for this mission I decided a turn was over when all my guys had done something. Welcome to Turn 2, and the big surprise...

A sudden hum fills the room, echoing off the metal walls and floor. Within seconds it reaches mind-buggering levels of noise. Lightning arcs off the black tower, striking the ceiling and sending showers of sparks raining down onto the pirates and mutants.

"Well this is interesting," says Axon.

"Misloi!" yells Betty. "What's going on?"

"Tnfberrh sjeilzhr fusion reactor. Some of our shots must have hit it and caused damage. My sensors say it will explode in 20 minutes if not shut down."

DeeDee shakes her head. "And if we don't switch it off?"

"Zfnkewf ieweih lifeforms within three miles will be destroyed."

"Oh, so nothing to worry about then..."

"Hey," chips in Packman, "this reminds me of that old documentary. I think it was called Aliens or something."

Betty shouts over the noise. "Misloi, Globbers, get to the tower now and shut it down! We'll cover you!"

By the way, "20 minutes" actually means "by the end of Turn 4". Fun times ahead...

As it's the start of a turn, the Muppets hold the initiative. Globnik and Misloi immediately move 8" up to the tower. Betty jumps onto the pallet of pipes and takes a shot at the nearest mutant, wounding it twice. The mutant clambers onto the pipes and takes a swipe with its wicked claws but fails to harm Betty and she kills it with her backswing!

Two more mutants move down behind Globnik. Axon fires at the one in front of him but can only manage two wounds from 16 dice! Another mutant lopes into position in front of DeeDee and rakes her claws into her body but fails to harm her. Unfortunately DeeDee's punch manages to completely miss the diminutive degenerate.

Two mutants begin to shuffle down from the corners of the room. Vashtar takes out one of the horrors near Globnik, and Packman kills the other. Turn 2 is over, sparks are still flying from the tower and everyone's slowly going deaf from the noise...

OK... how do I shut down the reactor? I have to make an Intelligence Challenge Test 5 (8+). Er... after checking the rules for Intelligence Challenge Tests I still had no idea what to do. Each member has an Intelligence Level of 3, except Packman, who for some reason is 6. So I decided that to give the tower 10 power cores and every Intelligence roll of 8, 10 or 12 would shut down one core. 

Placing a D10 on the tower, Turn 3 kicks off with Misloi rolling 1, 3 and 9. Oh God. A mutant staggers up to her and causes a wound, and Misloi completely fails to take it out. Betty shoots it and causes two wounds. Globnick rolls against the tower and succeeds in shutting down two power cores! Only eight to go before everyone's turned to dust!

More mutants move down towards the Muppets. Vashtar takes aim at the one next to Misloi, pulls the trigger and...

...somehow rolls one even number out of eight dice. If he had to get 11s he'd be laughing. Happily his second shot vaporises the mutant, leaving Misloi safe for now.

DeeDee, on the other hand, isn't safe. She takes a wound from a mutant half her size and fails to inflict any damage on it. Happily Axon is there to miss completely with his first shot and cause a wound with his second. Honestly, I doubt if any of my team could hit a cow's arse with a tennis racket from a foot away.

Even more mutants move towards the team. Four are heading for Globnik and Misloi, and another one is making a beeline for DeeDee and Axon.

Packman moves up to the tower but will have to wait till his next activation until he can have a go at saving everyone's lives. Oh shit, it's the start of Turn 4! There are eight power cores to go, can the Muppets do it?

DeeDee disengages from combat with the little mutant and legs it to the base of the tower to hang out with the cool kids. Packman, who has an Intelligence score of 6, rolls spectacularly well, getting 8, 8, 10, and 12, meaning four power cores are switched off! Only four to go! Yay Muppets!

A mutant female moves in behind Globnik and attempts to cause some damage with her claws but rolls a double-one, which is a critical failure. Misloi shuts down another core, leaving three, Vashtar blows the mutant to pieces, and now safe from attack Globnik rolls well and shuts down one more core. Two to go!

Two more mutants are now hobbling towards the group. They keep initiative, but this time I've remembered Betty's Sneaky Scoundrel attribute and make them roll again. They fail!

DeeDee examines the control panel, takes a deep breath, and rolls a... 3. Oh dear. But her other two dice are both 12s. Critical success! The remaining cores power down, the lightning bolts vanish, the eardrum-shagging noise cuts out and the Muppets are safe!

All that remains is for the team to mop up the few remaining mutants. It goes without saying that they make a total meal of this, and Axon even takes a wound from a stripper! Eventually all the mutants are slain and the Muppets can take a breather.

"That was fun," says DeeDee, her ears still ringing. "Is there any room in this place that isn't trying to kill us?"

Vashtar examines the tower.

"I was right," he says. "It isn't finished. Look, you can even see the brushstrokes where-"

"Never mind that," says Betty. "Is there an exit out of here? Preferably to a beach?"

"Over here," calls Globnik. "The door's a bit rusty but I think we can get it open."

"OK," replies Betty. "Everyone take five, smoke if you've got them, and then we'll move on."

Next up: The Fabrication Bay! Coming soon to a screen near you!

Wow. This game was a load of fun, and the fusion core threatening to reduce everyone to atoms added a real sense of danger and urgency. I really have no idea if I did the shutdown process correctly — well I know I didn't as I couldn't get my head around the rule for it — but giving the team 10 chances, especially knowing how they roll dice, worked well.

One thing I would change in this mission is the way initiative works. There were never more than about three or four mutants heading to the team at any given point, and only a few actually made it into position to be a threat. If I played this again I think I'd make it that four mutants could move per initiative roll just to get a real swarm going and increase the danger level.

Again I forgot that the engineers can increase any weapon's strength by one dice, although to be fair they were a bit busy during the game. I also need to use Packman's medic ability to heal wounds as I really thought the mean little zombie was going to kill DeeDee.

I'm going to have to knock up some more scenery and robots for the Fabrication Bay mission, so I'll do that on Wednesday as I'm off that day and have explained to my manager in words of one syllable that no, I'm not available if someone else calls out sick. 

As for the tower, it's another piece of trash terrain made from an empty plastic jar of coffee creamer and some more pipes. It's stuck to a 6" wooden disc and painted with the usual Mod Podge/craft paint mix. It was going to be sprayed a dark orange colour but as I said, I was called into work before I could paint it, so it remains in its primed state for now.

Adios, amigos!