Space Station Zero Mission Nine: Chemical Lab

After almost a month off, the remaining Muppets are back exploring another deadly room in the massive space station.

Packman places a dazed DeeDee gently on the floor while the plant known as Axon moves up next to them. The room they're in is freezing cold, the floor is covered in frost and the ancient machinery even has a light covering of snow. The only noise is a light buzzing sound coming from the opposite corner.

DeeDee slowly opens her eyes and sits up. Looking around, she spots a large green and pink plant of some kind looming over her medic. Instantly awake, she leaps to her feet and aims her pistol at it. At the last second Packman knocks her arm up, sending the round into the ceiling.

"What are you doing?" she yells.

"That's Axon," Packman replies.

"What?" says DeeDee, staring at the plant. Its fronds are waving gently in the freezing air but apart from that it isn't moving.

"Look, the last room had some sort of mutagenic gas in it. It turned Axon and Vashtal into these plant things," explains Packman. "It didn't affect me and you."

DeeDee looks around. "So where's Vash?"

"He didn't make it. I'm sorry."

DeeDee's shoulders slump. "Shit," she says. "So it's just the two of us now."

"Three," says Packman, indicating Axon. "Anyway, I don't know about you but I'm freezing to death here. We need to get a move on before we're dead."

Amazingly, there are no droids, drones, mutants, robots or zombies in this room. In fact, there are no enemies at all, just three tasks the Muppets must perform in order to survive. First off, the lab's safety protocols are active and the temperature is rapidly dropping. To shut this off and not freeze to death, the control panel must be deactivated. It's on the middle top of the room and needs a Reaction Challenge Test 8 (6+) to be shut down. In other words, there are eight switches to be flipped and only rolls of six or more will work.

Not only that, because of the freezing temperature each Muppet must make a Life Save of one plus the current turn number upon activation. If they fail, they suffer however many wounds they failed by.

The second challenge is the fire safety system. Their body temperatures are causing the system to randomly spray toxic chemicals into the room. On activation, each member must roll a D12; a roll of 9+ they are doused with the toxin and must make a Reaction Save 4. The fire safety system shuts down when the safety protocols are switched off.

Lastly, and most dangerous of all, a leaking cooling hood is spewing highly reactive chemicals into the lab, which is mixing with the air to form an explosive gas. If the chemical hood, which is in the top left corner of the room, isn't shut down, it will cause a massive explosion at the end of Turn 4. To switch it off, the Muppets need to make an Intelligence Challenge Test 7 (8+). 

So, they could freeze, burn or blow up. Here we go...

DeeDee is going to head for the temperature control panel as she has the best Reaction stat of 6. She rolls her Life Save and fails two, leaving her on two wounds before she's even moved an inch. Awesome. Happily, she next rolls a 4 and isn't affected by the fire control chemicals. She moves 8" to get closer to the control panel.

Axon and Packman are heading to the cooling hood. Axon activates first, and rolls 1, 10, 10, 11, and also drops to two wounds. Luckily he gets a 6 and isn't splashed with corrosive liquid, so he moves 8". Packman only fails one dice on his Life Save and then rolls a 7, so he too is safe from the fire suppressant. He moves 8" next to Axon. That's Turn 1 over, welcome to Turn 2!

The Life Save increases by one. DeeDee rolls four successes so she's safe! But then she rolls a 12, and is hit by the fire suppressant chemicals. Having to make a Reaction Save 4, meaning she needs four successes from six dice, she rolls 1, 1, 5, 5, 6, 11. Five fails... DeeDee is out. I think it's safe to say that the Muppets are buggered.

Axon passes the Life Save and the D12 roll, and moves 8" across the room towards the control panel. Packman loses one wound on the Life Save but thankfully passes the D12 roll, and keeps moving up to the malfunctioning cooling hood. We're into Turn 3, and frankly I doubt either of the two remaining Muppets are going to survive this turn. 

Axon survives both the Life Save and the D12 roll, which honestly astonished me. He moves up to the control panel and attempts to flip some of the switches. With a Reaction stat of 3, he only has three dice and must get 6+ on each of them to succeed. He makes one, so at least there's that. 

Packman fails one Life Save and drops to one wound. He does pass the D12 roll with a 4, and legs it closer to the cooling hood. But he's still too far away to do anything yet. 

Turn 4 kicks off, with both Packman and Axon needing to roll successes on all four Life Save dice. Actually, never mind that, I've just realised it's impossible for Packman to shut off the hood so the room's going to blow up anyway. But for the hell of it, I rolled the dice. Axon failed his Life Roll and freezes in place in front of the control panel. Packman fails his and collapses to the ground and shortly after the room explodes. Great.

And now it's time to discover whether any of these Muppets make it out alive. On a roll of 2D12, DeeDee gets 7; she's dead and gone. Axon gets 17 and makes a full recovery, and Packman rolls 21 so not only recovers but ups a stat by 1. I increased his Reaction to 4. Two Muppets are left to face the dangers of Space Station Zero.

This level would be difficult with seven team members, and with three it's basically impossible. The Life Save roll upon activation is an invitation to disaster because you could lose characters from the first roll. Adding the D12 roll for the fire suppressant is the crowning turd on the nightmare, and the four-turn countdown to the explosion is just a side order of WTF. Given the most the minis can move in one turn is eight inches, it takes four turns just to get to the cooling hood and two to get to the control panel, which doesn't leave a lot of time to flip switches.

I have to admit, this level really annoyed me. I do know that people have stopped playing SSZ because of missions like this, where actual skill doesn't come into it and it's all down to the luck of the roll. I realise that all games of this type, whether it's me playing on my kitchen table or the Warhammer 40K world championships, can come down to dice rolls; your tactics and strategies might be solid, but if your Space Marines don't hit their target then it's all in vain. There's a great example of this in a Play On Tabletop video where the Death Guard player gets six shots with his Plagueburst Crawler and then rolls three ones and three twos. But this mission is utterly at the mercy of the dice, and I could have just played by flipping coins.

Oh well. So what's next for Axon and Packman? There are two possible exits, and I rolled a D12 to choose which one they'd take. Next up: The Greenhouse!