Jeanne's Jägers II - Sundown Slashers

 Actually, I wanted this to be "just" a new mission for Jeanne's Jägers.

However, my creativity went wild and I ended up writing an entire scenario for Duel that can now be downloaded separately.

After having deciphered the writings on the standing stone, the clues written there led Jeanne and her Jägers deeper into the forest.

They were fully aware about the malevolent spirit waiting for them - yet, more mysteries waited to become unearthed. A ruin surrounded by standing stones was their destination. And on the stones  ancient inscriptions could be found...

System used: Duel

Optional rules: Sundown Slashers, normal difficulty.

Here we can see the cast:

In the front rows: Jeanne's Jägers, as in the previous mission.

In the back to the left, there are the standing stones - the mission markers. To the right there is the Slasher (the black miniature with the scythe) as well as some zombies.

Let's check the board's setup:

Lots of stuff going on here:

Blue circles: The standing stones, the mission markers.

Green circles: The jumpscare markers.

Red squares: The zombies.

The Slasher himself has yet to appear.

The Jägers advance, unleashing salves of gunfire onto the zombies nearby, dispatching both of them.

Almost half of the team needs to reload ...

The zombies move near - on the right flank a Jumpscare comes close!

What happens? The Jumpscare scares with a Scare Score of 2. Swallow - who activated - tries to resist on a 2 - which is not lower than 2, so 0 scare results have been resisted leading to ...

Suddenly! A wild slasher appears!

It's still Swallow's activation, so she coordinates her 2 followers in base to base contact to support her attack. Both Swallow and the Slasher attack on a 2 (the outer dice). Swallow receives a +2 per die rolled (+1 per supporter), the Slasher a +1 per die (hellbent). Swallow scores 2 hits, the Slasher scores 1. Swallow's Insanity raises to 2: 1 for the Slasher appearing, 1 for the wound she takes.

As soon as the Slasher is in play, he comes first to act once the current activation is over.

He attacks on a 3, scoring 3 hits - which is enough to finish swallow off. With the Slasher being well within 5" as soon as he kills a victim, the Estrella's (the base at the bottom of the foto) as well as the followers' Insanity raises by 1 each.

Estrella as well as Jeanne and her followers take care of more zombies.

Estrella makes good use of being "fast" and darts around the area, holding another zombie at bay. The slasher finishes off another follower.

As the last follower tries to dodge away, the Slasher can mow him down. This in turn allows him to rush onwards, towards Scotia.

Scotia tries to dodge away, but loses her 2 points of toughness this way.

Having the sniper in melee to the Slasher is not a good idea, so Jeanne activates - in vicinity to a Jumpscare. She, too, cannot resist the Jumpscare, so the Slasher is directly in base to base contact.

Jeanne does the same maneuver as Swallow with the followers and bot Jeanne and the Slasher hack at each other at the same time (3). Jeanne lands 2 hits, the Slasher lands 3, causing Jeanne to go down and catapulting her Insanity to 4!

The 2 followers try to get out of melee. While one of them is beaten down in that attempt, the other one can actually dodge away, opening fire at the Slasher - and hits the Slasher actually. Scotia takes a precision shot, landing 2 more hits on the Slasher, causing him to go down.

On the next turn though, the first follower falls prey to the scythe trying to dodge away. The second follower is assaulted and overrun by the slasher who continues his hellbent chase towards Scotia.

Scotia - having had the Slasher within 5" when he killed the follower - has an Insanity score of 3. She tries to activate, but is too scared to actually do anything.

Meanwhile Estrella wants to approach one of the standing stones. She activates near a Jumpscare. The Jumpscare scares on 3, Estrella resists on 2. She rolls 3 dice, resisting 1 scare result: The Slasher shows up anywhere within 4" - at full health, once again.

The Slasher charges Estrella - and botches his attack entirely. Estrella, in turn, lands some blows.

On the other side of the area, Scotia takes out the last zombie.

From now on it's only the Jägers against the Slasher.

Both Estrella and the Slasher go for a quick Jab. Estrella misses entirely, whereas the Slasher scores 2 hits, driving Estrella almost entirely insane!

With Estrella being next to useless, Scotia does not hesitate opening fire on the Slasher. Her shot hit the Slasher for 2 more damage.

To everyone's surprise, Estrella succeeds at he Insanity check and attacks the Slasher. Both go for quick Jabs at each other and while the Slasher botches, Estrella actually punches him down.

In the following turn, the Slasher gets back up mowing down Estrella mercilessly.

As he comes running towards Scotia, she blows out his last candle... For now...

There is still 1 Jumpscare moving around ...

Now follows a run-and-hide game: Scotia catches breath, then moves around the area, spending an interact action at 5 of 6 of the Investigation markers - the standing stones.

The Jumpscare moves around pretty randomly, but for some mysterious reason it won't leave the vicinity of the final standing stone.

At last Scotia gives up on the idea of the Jumpscare moving out of range and moves in.

The Slasher appears one last time and makes short work of her ...

Résumée:

What a close game!

On difficulty level "normal", this is what is to be expected.

Maybe doing this mission with a bunch of guys that are better at shooting than in melee is not exactly the smartest idea. Then again, Duel has been written as a game where models shoot it out initially. 

A gun toting slasher would be far too deadly, though.

Thanks for reading - I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing the scenario booklet as well as this battlereport!

Until we meet again,

Kai