Trent,

Since Bryce and I are doing face-to-face gaming he thought that, in lieu of a gaming transcript, I should write up a brief report after each session to explain what happened and why my character did what she did. So here is report #1.

STARTING POINT
We began the campaign outside the Tombstone as Ellen (my character) and her crew headed to a sub-lab located in the NW Reaches. We had a map and some intel that gave us an exact location. After a few miles of trotting out, we had a few random encounters (one dog pack, one group of non-violent scavengers, both of whom scattered w/o confrontation). We found the location without trouble. The GM (Bryce) told us that previous raids on the sub-labs had been hit-or-miss, but that the intel we received said this was "likely" a two-storied lab with a typical layout and light defenses.

As if.

Turns out that the lab was much bigger than anticipated, twice the size in fact. We encountered some resistance on the first level, but after trading a little gunfire the attackers (or defenders, I guess) retreated down a level. We blew the hatch and threw in a bunch of grenades to clear the room and advanced. They put up a much stouter defense on this level and we did a LOT of rolling, both for Ellen and for my guards, but also the GM did a lot for the defenders. In fact, we had to speed things up because it was taking forever, but in the end my team had a few casualties and they had heavier losses. They retreated to a third level we didn't know they had, and we pursued.

Level three was just as bad, if not worse. We had definitely thinned out their ranks (I had some awesome rolls, including four 10s on one combo) but then they did the unthinkable and began to self-destruct the whole sub-lab. The walls literally started exploding and one of my guys was mutilated (per the health meter) by the blasts. Still, we were hammering them and they lost a half-dozen more defenders before they retreated AGAIN to a FOURTH sub-level. So much for the intel.

As the leader, I had a decision to make--do we continue on with a wounded squad, or do we back out? We talked about it briefly, but c'mon! Am I really going to back out? NO! So Ellen ordered the fourth door blown and we stormed in. A couple of grenades finished off the last of the defenders (more awesome rolling, thank goodness) and then there was yet another @$#@% door! Happily it was easily blown open and we wasted the very last attacker--they all chose to die instead of being captured. <sadface>

At the very end we found one survivor, a woman who claimed to be Delia Reichman, the runaway heiress. Bryce gave me the link to her entry. Very intriguing! But we had to stop there. We were planning to play for an hour (like everyone else) but it was almost three by the time we finished. Time literally flew by. Next week we will pick up from there. I will send a report.

Let me know if this was too long or what.

Cheers!
--Ellen