Zochel the loser's page

Well this is a pity. But life is what it is. I am sure some incarnation of Zochel will see light of play again. Please keep me in mind if/when you do start a new game Tark. Your games always bring a refreshing wave of darkness, pain and abuse to these boards. Be seeing you.

"...oh dear..."

They were, Zochel was planning on cheering from the sidelines and having a bad back.

hello?

"Morale building exercise or fratricide? It is a thin line in this man's army."

Leaving the violence to the better suited Zochel partakes is few shenanigansapart from loosing most of his pay packet in the eternal floating dice game run by the quartermaster's corps.

"It is all part of the system..."

hmmmm?

Porn stashes, destroyed by the internet along with capitalization. When will this madness end.

Glad your brother was able to save your tech. See you Saturday.

Sotto voce "I have a bad feeling about this.." mumbles Zochel as the group leaves the lone corpse.

He is thinking of invasive fungi, disease, mad psykers, and other things you can't shoot. The poor Loser wishes he were back home or at least still on the ship. The air may stink in the ship bowels or home in the old hab-plex, but at least that air is filtered. Standing on the roof he shades his eyes and watches a cloud of long tendrilled spores drift innocently by.

[b]"Better call in the sweep. See what the nobs want done next."[b]

{Good luck Mootz. Come back or not hope things go well.}

Jochel
"This is odd sarge.. He only took one shot and we see the results. Whatever threatened him, he never took a shot. No spent clips or anything."

"I know PDF's not up to Guard standards but what would they not shoot at?"

{Leaving the gun. Not trained.}

"... give me a minute sarge."

Zochel quickly examines the corpse and environs.

Only one bullet fired?
Any other gear of interest?

Other than the Melta-door any other weapon scarring about?

<squelch...squelch...squelch>

Zochel falls in behind Cormaeg and says smiling...

"It's a great life in the PBI. Even in office buildings you get to march through the mud."

<squelch...squelch...squelch>

"I think it's safe sarge, shall we proceed?"

"Either that or break out the wet weather gear."

"We gotta get you a another gun Mootz. This one makes everything wet." Zochel says as he sets up from the squelching carpet.

Retrieve the Lamp globe if it survived and check out the new room and the new corridor.

Fires spreading?

"I wonder why the servitors want to kill us? They are usually programmed better than this."

Zochel stretches. "Suppose we should take a look at the new corridor
corridor you made Mootz"

Hello... Is this on? I think we were about to be killed?

And the Full-auto attack rules on Page 245 as the Heavy Stubber only does 8 shot full auto. At least if I am reading the weapon table correctly.

We are so dead.

With a shout of "Grenade!" Zochel tosses a light globe through the shattered door.

Awareness+20-20untrained: 1d100 + 20 - 20 ⇒ (6) + 20 - 20 = 6 vs 40
Initiative: 1d10 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11

Whatever it is I think Zochel saw it.

Ouch, not fun. Plus what they said about rules.

Would you believe Neceons?

Played them in a tournament back in the day. Was up against a guard tank core. The other player took forever to set up. I was bringing my entire force on through hidden movement so I was dead bored. Turn one I loose my whole force to the warp. Round robin tournament. Round 2 vs orcs, same thing. Never even opened my miniatures case.

"Hey Sarge we found someo<CHOMP>"

So you thinking Tyrranids, Greenskins, or fungus zombies?

"Hey boss, either this equipment is broken or the planet has gone silent. I'm not even getting weather reports."

Tark: Are there automated systems? Landing/navigation beacons. Automated muzak stations....anything?
And would the Inquisitor we are backing up have one of those don't go missing transmitters?
Can Zochel identify the frequencies used by the former PDF? And if yes, would it be a violation of orders to send out a hello?

"Seems a lot of money to spend on flash....but that does jive with the empty tankyard down below. Pity we cant get into the armory, that would tell us something. Type of weapons, quality of maintenance, ammo levels, signs of use... I am liking this place less and less boss."

So this is also the communication center right? Do vehicles/units/soldiers have Friend or Foe transmitters? Can these be pinged for location? Same question for GPS. I am assuming simply transmitting on the missing folks frequencies has been tried?

Is there any civilian com traffic?

Comrade: Gender, odd male: 1d2 ⇒ 2, Name: 1d100 ⇒ 34, Demeanor: 1d100 ⇒ 10.

Introducing
Name: Faye.
Demeanor: Bilious.

She hates, in strict order, Zochel, the army, the world. She is more skilled than Zochel at 90% of the tasks he is assigbned and lets the world know this.

Added to Character sheet.

The 90% is pretty close to true. Assuming dead average stats will put Faye well ahead of Z at any Int based task and even with him at any agility task. Given that operators main tasks are Int and Ag based, and that Int tasks (repair and maintenance) predominate over Ag tasks (operation), she has grounds for complaint

... On a half thought he prods Zochel "Give the auspex a shake as well eh? - make sure there ain't nothing we're missing."

"On it"Auspex reading. Scrutiny, untrained: 1d100 + 20 ⇒ (4) + 20 = 24out of 40 for 2 degrees of success. hmmm must remember to train Scrutiny asap.

"hmmmm"

Zochel casts about for any recent printouts or data pads. Someone must have been in the middle of something if this went south as fast as it looks and that something will have a time-stamp.

I was thinking it was odd that an army game structurally blocks one of the major army film/story tropes. In a number of WWi and ii films at least a point is made of the fact that the soldiers are from everywhere. This allows the author(s) to use a squad or band as a microcosm of the larger culture. The regiment system which all but forces a mono-culture on the players actively fights against this mixing-pot trope.

But then I realized we were playing an English game, and that movies I was thinking of were American.

Cool.

awareness, untrained: 1d100 + 20 ⇒ (62) + 20 = 82

"Looks a bit like the toff's levels back home. Didn't get up there much. Had a mate who had a friend who knew one of the cleaning staff. Said it was like this...."

{Onward and Upward? I really doubt opening the armory is either feasible or wise, Cormaeg. Maybe if we had someone trained in Security it might be possible but I do not want to pit Zochel's untrained security skill against whatever alarms and excursions are attached to that door.

"It's only what, four floors? We got legs."

Zochel heads for the stairs assuming there is nothing more interesting than mops in the utility room.

Waiting for a response from command Hathin responds to Zochel with a shrug "No idea... I wouldn't stand in front of it though eh?"

Via bead to Sarge: [b]"Just thinking, but smoke means it was fired recently. No body means whatever it shot at is still here and isn't bothered much by bolters. Just thinking."

Zochel takes a firmer grip on his Las-gun as he heads for the light switches.

Common lore Tech: 1d100 ⇒ 69 nope.

Hustling back to Sarge after opening the door reading the note he presumably hands me.

Zochel reads the note aloud: "Return all tools at the end of your shift or Mr. Fix-It will get them off your bloody corpse."

"Looks like someone was annoyed. Wonder why folks were keeping tools?" As a citizen of an orderly hive/forge world the idea of taking specialized tools out of their place of use is just inefficient and wrong.

Unless stopped Zochel will head for the utility room and turn the lights on. "Lights coming up boss!"

As he hears the utility room Zochel has a wall moment. Via bead to Sarge: "Boss why is that bolter still smoking?"

Via micro-bead to Sarge:"The Chimera's been murdered. It would take two tech-priests and a ream of paperwork to get her going again. I'm going to see if the lights are still working."

Jochel moves back to the big door. His lamp wanders over the walls looking for a light switch, intercom, interior door controls etc.
He will torn on the lights if the control is found.

Returning to the motor pool.
"Well at least we appear to have a truck."

Jochel moves on to examining the truck. Operable? Batteries charged? Leather seats? Offensive sexualized mudflaps?

He's about 200yards off but you roll low enough it makes no real difference.

{200 yards away, in the dark!?! We are only seeing this because it blocks a window right? We are probably shooting a coat rack.}

"C'mon Cormaeg. I want a look at that ride."

On Sarge's word Zochel moves to and begins to examine the Chimera.

Your group of guardsman is the type that deathwatch players watch get horrifically killed just before they jump in to look awesome.

Note to self: When you see the Deathwatch folks behind you fall down and play dead.

As for your roll, in Only war, succeeding counts as one degree, so if it had been +10, then your roll would have been with two degrees of success.
...
I think...

I think you are correct. This is an odd system but it does feel right for Warhammer.

Cormaeg is a little taken aback at his attempts of subtlety is somewhat ruined by Zochels overt action.

Uh...maybe that was the right thing to do anyway...

Zotchel was exposed by the giant door opening. No way to hide that. By immediately speaking and shining a light Zochel drew all the attention to him leaving you lot with possible surprise and retreat options. It also got all the folks in the garage to look into the bright pouring through the open door into the very dark garage. Goodbye night vision.

Tark: Does the light reach? Anything to be seen?

{Go into the light: 1d100 + 10 ⇒ (16) + 10 = 26 vs Perception 40. So success w/1 degree? Right?}

"Contact!" Zochel manages to blurt as he fumbles with the combi tool and Las-gun.

If possible Zochel crouches behind the doorframe and directs the beam from a lamp pack towards where the figure should be.

To the figure in the dark: "Hello? We are from the army, we are here to help."

{Crap I thought I posted.... In any case I blew that roll.}

Trying the combi-tool on the panel tech use: 1d100 ⇒ 32 vs trained tech-use of 35. Hey what do you know! Assuming normal difficulty Zochel managed to do something!

The something likely involves alarms, automated heavy stubbers, and hordes of fungal zombies but it is still something!

"Right boss!

Zochel hustles across the kill zone to the big door.

"Hmmm I wounder if they left you locked?"

Zochel gives the panel a quick once over for anything that does not belong and then tries anything obvious to open the door. Failing to find a button marked 'open' the operator starts in on the control panel.

{Not sure how or what skills would apply so here are some rolls to ignore.
Scrutiny, untrained: 1d100 ⇒ 14 vs. Perception -20 or 20,
Security, untrained: 1d100 ⇒ 36 vs, Intelligence -20 or 5,
Tech Use, trained: 1d100 ⇒ 46 vs. Intelligence +10 or 35.
So Scrutiny succeeded but unless the door was unlocked or maintained by poorly trained gerbils we are likely taking the servants entrance.}

Question for Tark: could a Las-cutter get through the door? Just in case we felt like doing gratuitous property damage.

Zochel settles a tad more comfortably against the rock.

"Yup, everyone ran off to warp-knows-where. Until we know why I'd let the man be paranoid if it pleases him. Might keep us from joining them."

Done and done.

hmmm got access to a copy of only war. Looks like I can buy Literacy for only 100xp. I have 150xp just sitting around and it might be useful to have someone in the squad who can read.

Is it too late to do this now?

"Check boss. We're right behind you."

Zochel crouches low behind the barrier and tries to spot the security cameras.

Zochel falls into formation behind Sgt. De"Lark.

Thinking: Hmm....Garage, could be something useful there...

Question to Tark: Based on the map/image how many floors are we looking at? Less than 10 or is the command center big?

Ouch. Don't die.

Take the time you need boss.

Rakuen seems a nice enough place. Zochel opines as he scans through what scant information is available.

Could be fun.

I doubt anyone is missing. Likely the local PDF force only ever existed on paper. Whoever was pocketing the funds screwed up and ran once an inquisitor noticed. I mean seriously, there is nothing here what's the worst that could happen?

Poor Wandering One here Alias created.

Given the short life expectancy of these characters and the irony of dying with unspent XP can anyone suggest anything to do with that 150xp given Zochel's aptitudes?

Sorry to see you go ST. This was a strange trip.

If you are up to it I would be more than happy to move this game to a monthly or even every two months or so basis.

This is a rather low-key slow-placed game and this is one of the reasons I enjoy it. But if it needs to end then so be it.

I hope you all are well and have a great season.

We end as we begin, in solitude and silence. Farewell my loser, farewell.

"Is this really the time to assign blame? Help me up!

Is it ever time for blame my Loser?

And the dot fell off again. This must be a complex database to work on while it is running.

As the shark is pulled close and closer to the boat Zochel slides closer and closer to the waves. Climb 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (18) - 2 = 16. Somehow he scrabbles a purchase on the slick hull and holds on for dear life.
His reedy voice comes up from nearly sea level.

"Hey guys, the Halfling is not bait!"

Don't be so sure dear Zochel. Don't be so sure..

Zochel spins uncomfortably at the end of his rope wondering if this really as good an idea as it seemed.

The Loser's foot slips and he swings into the hull with a loud

BUMP