End of Session 0 - Combat

Set up

Session 0 ended in a shootout. The party was ejected from the bar and into a riot on the streets. All sentient and sensible citizens fled when the heavily armed party arrived leaving only droids. Invasion of Theed comes with a great map and tokens. 

The adventure book is broken down into sections describing each encounter, complete with a mini-map to describe how the real map should be configured. In this encounter, droids are advancing and firing on the players. Each square is 2 meters and blasters have a range of 10 squares. Normally, ranges are straight meters.This is the one difference between the Star Wars core book and this boxed set. It's ok. 

Initial party formation.

The characters start off in a boxed in area, at the limits of blaster range. Since the party knows about the riot, they come out the door weapons drawn. They are able to see two speeders and 4 of five droids. Invasion of Theed has wonderful character sheets and rule recaps to assist the new player in running the game. While simplistic, the rule cover everything from movement to cover. The columns and walls block fire and allow a defensive bonus if one hides behind them. 

Lidda starts off on point with her huge blaster rifle. Nonin and Talhana have blaster pistols while Dex and Malta have lighter weapons. The main difference is range. 

In watching the movies and TV shows, the Droids have a rifle like weapon, but they have the same stats as a pistol. Make sense considering their size.  

Round 1 movement

In these basic rules, characters can move 10 SQUARES, not meters and shoot. If a character stays in place or takes a 2 meter step, they can use that move action to shoot twice.  

Because I allowed the players to generate their own characters and select their own equipment, they have some issues with the basic rules. Lidda has a rifle with a range of 40 units. Malta and Dex have a range of 4 and 8, while Talhana, Nonin and the droids have a range of 10. If you are counting squares, know that we goofed up the ranges by using squares for meters. 

Lidda, Nonin and Talhana get the first shots:

Round 2

The party downs two droids and damaged a third. Malta and Dex realize they are out of range, in either meters or squares. Oops. So they don't get to shoot, even though they were planning on it. 

In round two, Dex and Malta freeze. They have cover from Lidda, but Lidda is the droids primary target as she takes a knee and rips off two shots a round. 

More droids fall as the characters chew them up. The droids have a +2 to hit, but don't hit anyone. Again.

The event calls for 2 droids to remain hidden until the characters reach the speeder, but I decide that they investigate the gun fire in round three. Dex and Malta take cover by moving to the column in the middle of the map while everyone else stays in place. 

Round 3

 In round four, everyone gets a shot to devastating effect. 

The adventure book suggested a running battle, but because we weren't careful with ranges, the characters wiped the floor with the droids. Very often, it came down to having 2 shots per round and no movement vs. move then shoot. 

I will keep this in mind for the next encounter and change the event accordingly. 

This whole event was supposed to be in session 1, but it was over in just about 10 minutes, which is far shorter than it took to write this post. I will streamline my photos in the next post. For this first post on combat and movement, I think the maps and tokens were the star of the recap. I won't be posting a round by round synopsis in the future.