This is the first Battle report for Strange Aeons that I played with my group, with my Threshold team facing Pete's Lurkers. This was a standard 15BP start on both sides, with all minis and terrain painted/assembled by the fantastic Pete Ceretti. The mission was Fight with Pete going first. Special rules include 1 Action to open the Cemetery Gate and walls giving a Medium cover save. We didn't use Advanced Rules in this game. Since the game was over in 28 minutes and was mostly double moves until the shootout at the OK Corral, I thought a narrative start would be a good report while setting the stage for the story arc of future games. The condensed results are the picture captions.
15BP List
Lurker:
Maniac
Cult leader (.45 and knife)
Cultist (knife)
Cultist (.22)
Threshold:
Agent Connery (Character, Lucky,
Two Fisted, twin .45’s)
Agent Petri (Lucky, Tommy gun)
Civilian William Forsythe (.22)
Threshold Agent
Connery, Agent Petri and William Forsythe, PhD had spent the last five
minutes following the dull ruts of the overgrown carriage path through a twilight rain, where it emerged abruptly from the greyish-green bracken onto a
large field behind the dark, hazy church. Connery scanned the old grounds for
movement amidst the growing shadows and early Fall drizzle, deftly drawing his twin blued 45’s
and cocking their hammers, as one, in practiced silence. Petri had already
unslung his Thompson submachine gun back around the bend, him already having added a fresh drum
and charged the weapon, the noise buried beneath creaking tree limbs, chirping
cricket calls and the mounting hiss of rainfall on canopy. Petri looked out from
under his dripping fedora hat, to see if they were followed, though he already knew
they were not.
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| Top to Bottom: open grave, Connery, Petri, Forsythe |
Forsythe
could only start at every snap of twig, tik-tak of falling leaves or the crunch
of Summer-dried turf beneath his feet. He had done fieldwork as part of his
degree and had an eye for it but perhaps not so in this state of affairs. He
took in the scene. The wet hay of summer's grass smelled like warm tea as the rain bands came
in on a chilly wind. To their right was a freshly-erected tombstone that
glistened bone white with veins of green and a yawning, slimy grave, halfway
opened in the wounded old ground like the rictus maw of the dead. Forsythe held
his dad’s pistol out ahead of him as his father had taught, the cloying hint of
lubricant riding over the wet rot smell that wafted upon the cooler air of
the damp woods behind them.
His father
was dead now but he would not be buried here, if it was the last thing Forsythe
did; though he estimated it may very well be. In his trouser pocket clinked the
medal of St. Anthony which was attached to the key of his late father’s new
automobile, parked on the fire road back up on the hillside from where they had
started.
Agent Connery
nudged his elbow into Forsythe’s chest, gaining his attention. “There are no
rules here now, boy-o. You got us this far and we appreciate it. I’ll ask you
one more time to leave it to us. We believe what you say now but you are in the
same kind of danger that your dad was in this morning.” Forsythe felt Petri’s
large, affable hand on his shoulder. Connery continued, “So, if you stay you
listen to us and don’t do anything more stupid than coming with us to begin
with.” Forsythe didn’t reply so Connery reached over and pinned a deputy badge
on the breast of Forsythe’s jacket, uttering, “May as well make it legal, lad.”
As Forsythe
nodded, Petri hissed, “Look, behind the tool shed. Looks like your butler
Wannamaker has our scent. They must know now, he’s louder than a train wreck.” A
jangling shape crashed between the tall grasses in the field above the church,
assailing the sky with hoots and yells. Connery tisked, “They don’t know we’re
here. He’s running around their graveyard in a dervish, so they have to be
coming out for a look. Let’s use it to our advantage.” Petri smiled at that,
gently moving Forsythe’s absent-minded pistol out of his own face.
Petri
squinted and nodded towards the church, “The circus is back in town.” Men who
wore dark purple cowls of The Church of Dagon appeared from the right side of
the grounds, cautiously searching around and making for the graveyard between
them and the Threshold agents. Petri counted how many men were bearing arms.
They still had not spotted the agents but all were armed with something. One
yelled at Wannamaker and made a motion like he was shooing a dog. Connery
got up from his crouch and started sprinting to the low wall of the graveyard,
yelling back, “Last chance! No?!? Let’s go!!!!”
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| Threshold uses their actions to make for the cover of the graveyard |
 |
| Wannamaker looses it and tears towards the Threshold group |
They moved as
one, pacing off the slower Forsythe but made the wall just as Wannamaker howled
and started down the gentle rise from the tool shed, twigs and debris in the air
as he drove at them from the left, in full mania. Petri watched him come in
with one eye and yelled to Connery, “Best make the tombs in the graveyard!
Other side of the wall!” Petri flowed inside smoothly and Connery pulled
Forsythe around the slick rock wall into a row of large, pitted crypts
overgrown with weeds and ivy. The insane Wannamaker exploded down the
groundskeeper’s path like an emaciated gorilla, driving forward, waving a large
cleaver and hollering random nonsense words, “Caught! Catch! Squeeze! Spread!
Bleed! Father! Son! All or none!”
 |
| The maniacal Wannamaker uses both actions to run down his cowering prey |
Connery was
watching the cultists sprinting towards the main cemetery gates, their eyes
wide, unblinking and white through their hoods, their ritual knives glinting as
they ran. They had to be stopped, their dark rites could not reach fruition tonight
in the catacombs below.
Connery and
Petri started firing at the cultists, spall erupting along the grey stone walls
and pulpy holes popped in the evil, wormy tree trunk next to the graveyard
doors. Petri stood square with the door atop a tomb, trench coat hiked back
behind his holstered .45 and tommy gun chattering out steadily, walking “ropes”
of bullets around the walls and doors with great effect, eliciting howls from
the cultists who tried to hide from the onslaught but were caught surprised by
the storm of lead. Connery moved behind Petri, adding expert shots with both
pistols, each slide cycling off-time with Petri’s machine gun. It sounded like
a war as casings spattered through the rain to the muddy ground around them, their
gaze never wavering from the cultists.… with their backs to the closing maniac.
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| Connery and Petri pass their sanity check within 5" of the maniac and blaze at the closing Cultists across the wall but even with Connery's command, Forsythe goes Catatonic with fright |
Forsythe was
frozen in fear as Wannamaker, his father’s butler, bounded in slow motion up to
the other side of his wall, his face contorted in amygdala hijacking,
impossibly ugly, inhuman and swinging the meat cleaver that killed his father
that morning… and it was still stained with blood. William Forsythe’s pistol felt
miles away in his hand, tremors and vertigo seemed to shudder him on the spot
as the lunatic murderer started to scrabble up the wall, growling, “Meet! Meat!
Greet! Eat!” At that, Forsythe blacked out, falling onto the tomb as Connery
and Petri blazed their weapons at the cultists pushing on the mossy, oaken
doors of the entrance.
Petri saw that
Forsythe had collapsed as he looked over his shoulder, yelling, “Wannamaker!”
Connery spun and pumped his pistols at Wannamaker who yelped, then crumpled to
the lawn, alternating between mewling and roaring.
 |
| Wannamaker is wounded as Forsythe recovers from Catatonia |
Gaining his
feet, Forsythe stood, just as Wannamaker surged up at the same time, a large
swatch of his face removed by Connery’s .45 and dribbled the grey masonry of the wall with
blood. Forsythe didn’t so much aim as put his gun as close to Wannamaker as he dared, hesitating. He closed his eyes and heard his dad say, “… just squeeze”
as he fired. Connery saw Forsythe hesitating and fired at the same time as
Forsythe missed, putting one shot into the maniac’s skull with a loud thwack
and bloom of red, then turned to the cultists swarming through the open door.
 |
| Wannamaker dies just as the Cultists pay their Actions to open the gate and swarm in. Next turn saw Agents Connery and Petri use both of their Heroic skills at once, adding another action for shooting each. It made the difference between a clean win or dying horribly in a pincer trap. 3x double .45 shots and 9 dice of Tommy Gun is no joke at 15 points. |
Forsythe
opened his eyes and peered over the wall, seeing a blackish diamond of gore on the
ground, an awkwardly folded corpse in a dark butler’s suit. A sense of
vengeance swelled his pride as he turned and saw Connery take a knee next to
Petri who stood over his fellow agent, shooting into the charging cultists and
killing the screaming, stumbling pile with strafing strobes of fire and sound.
 |
| Even the dice were maniacs and refused to settle down but in the end, the cultists caught all of the Threshold bullets and the forces of good remained unscathed. |
Magazine
depleted, Petri set down his smoking Thompson, drew his .45 and stood still
waiting for new targets. Connery had already reloaded and policed the bodies,
including Wannamaker, retrieving the ancient map from the mad servant’s coat,
that which Forsythe had claimed stolen from his father. Forsythe started to
speak but Connery cut him off, speaking to the dead men at his feet, “He’s not
here. He’s not here.”
At that, a
motorcar tried to start in front of the church but wasn’t turning over in the
damp air. Petri was already pulling out the satchel charge as he legged it towards
the church, trench coat flapping out broadly, like an eagle taking off. Connery
started after him but Forsythe, renewed by Wannamaker’s death, grabbed his arm.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Connery, halted by the vitality in Forsythe’s
tone, answered, “We’ve got to stop them before they go. What do you have in
mind?” Forsythe’s brow furrowed under pressure and thought out loud, “They are
leaving… because they can. We could not have stopped whatever they are doing.
They were committed to this and so if they are running, it means they can, that
they have another option. If they did not they would be fighting to the death now,
right? It follows that Wannamaker didn’t have the only scroll. We need to let
them go so we can find their other option! I only knew of this coven, as did
you. We need to find the other one. There is only one route back to town they
would take which happens to run past the fire road on which we parked. We can
get to my dad’s auto and follow them!” Connery pursed his lips as the rain
pattered on his face and said, “You mean your auto.” He considered the lack of
counter-attack and the dark automobile now moving through the trees away from them.
“You may be right. Petri? Bring it down and let’s go.” Petri pulled the primer
cord and fell back to the graveyard walls, muttering a prayer in Italian,
clomping up to them with a stop just as the dynamite detonated behind him. The fieldstone
building tumbled down, filling the sub cellars in tons of rock, timber, fire
and dust. He exclaimed, “What the hell are we doing? Dissertation?” Connery
laughed and said, “Something like that. The professor here has a plan. I knew
we brought him with us for a reason. Petri, you’re driving. And Forsythe… nice shot back there.”
To Be
Continued!
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| The Threshold team discovers 1 map piece in the end phase... the trail is still hot! |
Give it up folks, for the Threshold and also to Pete for the amazing terrain and figs!
