Sal had a bad feeling. She did not want to go, but it was important to make a good showing for Bartertown and a bunch of other folks were out on other missions. On the face of it, it was a simple mission, drive into Bartertown, with Mullet Boy - who we rescued from the warehouse. We had enough firepower to push through and two good vehicles.
From Mullet Boy, we knew that the path in was partially blocked to slow vehicles down. We also knew the guards would not interfere with things going on outside the fence. Seemed simple. JM decided we would take a shortcut across country, avoided a couple of bottle necks. We shortly saw why when we spotted a truck being looted by seven gangers. The leader immediately opened up with his shotgun and knocked down JP - at the wheel of the Ford. The leader's minions rounded the looted truck and opened up. Killing Mullet Boy and missing the others, Returned fire knocked down the immediate targets - with the first shot killing the Ganger leader. Our activation continued the string. Active fire cleared the immediate threat of the gangers, JP recovered from being knocked down - nice to have body armor, but the Ford was stuck in the mud. We shoved it onto the pavement with the tour bus - a nice roll on a -2 rep check. The gangers did not have the remaining firepower to defend from the zeds swarming after a fierce gunfight - they had opened up with three shotguns and an SMG and our return fire was as voluminous.
Now it was the Tourbus's turn to get stuck in the soft soil. A single ganger tossed a shotgun shot at the bus while the others fended off the zeds. He failed, and the return fire knocked him down. The zeds closed in on the downed gangers and started feasting. Other zeds worked on the tourbus, trying to get at the tasty humans inside, but were brushed back by the fire from inside. We got the bus unstuck and bounced forwards before a horde of zeds could close in.
Meanwhile the gangers took and opening to try to escape. They got charged and won one and lost one melee. They won the next activation and cleared the remaining zeds and hotfooted it off the table. Leon - the ganger that had lost melee was successfully revived and avoided infection.
The path to the gate seemed clear, the gangers had been neutralized and the zeds were focused on the downed gangers. A gimp charged the Ford wielding a meat hook and a chainsaw. He did little other than dent the hood before our next activation - when he took a shotgun blast and was obviously dead.
We made the gate and got in. The residents of Bartertown seemed immune to our attempts to recruit them but took our goods. We traded in a massive number of guns collected over the last adventures for three sets of body armor and two doses of the cure.
The path out seemed like the easy route. Rather than rick the choke point, just take the side road. The ford made the obstacle course easily and was on the edge of the table. He ran over some zed on the last corner, but it was only a 2d6 rep check with a rep 5 anything but boxcars. One, zed , two zeds down , last roll - boxcars. We flipped the van. Inside Jethro, JM,s minion, must have been thrown since he was dead, the others - just stunned. Zeds stormed forward and started peeling back the van. In the lead Ford, JP noticed the wreck - some discussion followed whether to return and they decided on the return. Back comes the Ford to the rescue.
Some zeds broke off the attempt to get into the tour bus and charged the Ford, causing IT to crash - another pair of boxcars. This time everyone was fine. Inside the tour bus the inhabitants recovered and started killing off zeds. On the zeds turn three charged each of the three in the bus - all three humans sensed the dire situation and passed the being charged test. I killed one zed with a pistol shot, while my minion offed one and JM's smoking hot babe did in two. She killed her remaining attacker, I barely saw off my two and Sal was wounded in hers.
The zeds seemed not to know how to deal with their success and failed to activate On the human actiavetion, we cleared the immediate zeds, stabilized the situation and transferred the bus's load to the Ford.
On checking each vehicle ( decided they were drivable on a 1 on a d6) the Ford was ok, but the bus was out of luck. We cleared out. We started with 9 and ended with 6 as Sal's premonition was right and she did not recover from her wounds. I lost both Mullet Boy and Sal, JM lost his minion Jethro. Both JM and Smokin Hot babe went up in rep.
Disturbing news, While hunting deer around our base, D and M found traces of other humans scouting the perimeter - maybe the gangers escaping in the last two events will bite us.
