Heroes of the End: Support and New Weaponry! Survival requires firepower!

The basic firearms and equipment are good at killing standard zombies and monsters. But as I scale back the Strategy Layer and focus on the tactical more, and as combat has been a lot of fun in this game, it’s been time to examine a few things. One: They don’t have a good way to kill Hulks and other heavy targets. Which is partly intentional, but eventually they’ll need something that does it. Two: Unlike normal CDDA, they work in a fireteam without crazy NPC behavior setting. There is nothing preventing them from having something that needs more than one person to work. One of their objectives for the Death Road to Boston is to acquire a suitable vehicle and it’s likely that will be some form of APC. They’ll need to defend it on the road anyway, so I wanted to model the equipment it might have. That led to realizing that there’s going to be a lot of remaining ‘heavy’ equipment throughout the world, if they can find it.

                A Support Weapon is a heavy weapon that’s designed to be used from a stationary position or mounted on a vehicle. While an astonishingly strong or large character (generally a mutant) could carry such a weapon and its ammunition by themselves, these weapons aren’t built to be hand fired. An M2 Browning, for instance, generally fires from a solenoid (the buttons on the two hand grips) rather than a trigger, doesn’t have a stock, and isn’t balanced to be carried. As John Browning was the World’s Deadliest Mormon and some kind of gun wizard, his work ought to be respected. The Support Weapon itself is a Burden, but so is its ammunition. Generally, one character will carry the gun, another the ammo. The weapon cannot be fired until it has used a Setup Action to become a stationary emplacement, and then a Reload action to load it. The Reload can be performed by the character carrying the ammunition, though, so with two characters they can set up, load, and then fire in one turn. Taking the weapon down to move it requires an action to Unload any remaining ammo and another to Pack Up the weapon.

Heavy Machine Gun: Mind+Speed+Shooting, Damage +5, Strike Very Long, Counter Medium, Ammo d10

                The M2 Browning is a legendary weapon that has continued to chop things up despite being designed in 1918. I can’t imagine it will go out of service by 2039. Combining the power of an AMR (It’s using the same bullets) and the ammo and countering ability of an LMG, this .50 caliber monstrosity was originally designed as an anti-tank cannon during the latter part of WWI. Tanks moved on, but an MG that chews through cover, engine blocks, and infantry remained useful. Now, with biological tanks running around, they aren’t ready to stop an HMG. Yet. Needing to carry the ammo and the weapon and set it up on a tripod makes this weapon awkward to deploy, but extremely lethal.

Minigun: Body+Speed+Shooting, Damage +3, Strike Long, Counter Medium, Sweep Medium, Ammo d6

                An alternative to the M2 Browning, the M134 Minigun fires 7.62x51mm NATO cartridges instead of the massive .50 BMG. Using rifle caliber ammunition means it ‘only’ does the damage of a standard rifle. The Ammo Die is misleading. It’s carrying an awful lot of bullets; the problem is the thing fires 2000-6000 RPM. Without Ammo Conservation there’s a very good chance the weapon just runs out of ammunition before it can sweep multiple targets. However, the Sweep rule lets it continue to attack enemies until it misses or has hit every target in range once; a lucky gunner with good ammo discipline can cut down an entire horde of light targets in a single turn.

Mortar: Mind+Shooting, Strike Very Long, Damage 6 Flat, Splash 5, One Shot, Must Be Aimed, Arcing, No LoS, High Scatter (d6+d4)

                The Mortar is a useful tool for firing behind cover or out of line of sight. Note it only uses the Mind die; a character firing the mortar is mostly hoping to get ‘close enough’, but the Mortar also fires at tiles, not enemies, like a grenade. This also means enemies who are exceptionally dodgy get to add their Evasion to their Soak against the Mortar but can’t outright dodge the projectile. The huge splash radius makes up for not outdamaging a grenade, as does the massive range. The Mortar must be aimed before it can be fired, though it still gets the Aim bonus. This also means it can’t be instantly set up, loaded, and fired on the same turn like some support weapons. It also needs someone to stay and load if the weapon is to be fired every turn. An ammo pack for the Mortar is 6 shells, but it has to be loaded with every shot.

                More to come as they run into Exodii weapons and things! But for now, those will be the three options they get for mounting on the APC/stealing when they acquire the thing during the next mission. There’s also a few new general weapons!

Grenade Launcher: Mind+Speed+Shooting, Strike Long, Damage +0, Shrapnel, Grenade, One Shot OR Four Shots, Arcing.

                Grenade Launchers and 40mm Grenades are one of those things that, as soon as they were invented, proliferated into every army on the planet. Eventually I’ll have multiple grenade types but for now, these are standard HE/frag. The capacity of the weapon depends on the model: Older M79s or police grenade launchers are often single-shot break-open weapons while the four shot pump action model is a lightened, newer version of the cool-as-hell China Lake. Yes, there should be six round revolver grenade launchers but I wanted a cool pump action even if it’s silly. Like a normal grenade, the damage listed there is for donking the target directly; it explodes on impact in an additional Flat 6 hit. Also, it explodes on impact! No waiting for it to go off like standard grenades.

Rivtech Flame Projector: Mind+Shooting, Strike Medium, Damage +2, Splash 2, Persistent, Burning, 3 shots.

                Rivtech’s lightened, ultra-modern flame projector is really just a very compact (impossibly so, honestly; it shouldn’t be possible to have a flamethrower with a single detachable cannister instead of a backpack, but it’s so common in fiction that here it is!) supersoaker-like device with an igniter. This is because jellied fuel that spreads liquid fire everywhere is still mean. Remember: Zombies have no idea what fire is and will keep walking right through it. Units take a damage 2 Flat hit every tile they traverse in a burning area and every turn they start in one. Units that are Burning suffer a Damage 2 Flat hit every turn until they soak all damage from it, going out. I might up the damage as the flamethrower has been less than impressive so far.

LAW: Body+Mind+Shooting, Strike Long, Damage +4 Penetrating, Splash 1, One Shot, Explosive

                Sometimes, you need a weapon that can blow through an APC. The Light Anti-Tank weapon is a disposable tube that fires an armor-penetrating rocket. While not as god-slayingly brutal as the LAW in normal CDDA (That thing can kill the stuff I based Archdemons on in a single shot easily) the Penetrating trait and explosive damage mean it’s absolutely brutal against enemies like Hulks. And anything else, really. Enemies with Invulnerable points get it reduced to d6 Armor Dice per point, enemies with standard Armor get it reduced to zip.

Stun Rod: Mind+Speed+Fighting, Strike/Counter Close, Damage +0 Shock, Good Hand

                The Stun Rod is a high-tech shock device invented to control mutants and aliens without killing them. While its damage is unimpressive, it deals Shock damage, meaning the damage is resisted by Will and doesn’t use Endurance or most physical armor and requires anti-shock Soaks. Note this weapon cannot kill an enemy, only down them, as per Shock, and they will get back up. However, a zombie can easily be downed with the Stun Rod and then finished with a different attack. Found in the Rivtech Innovation Campus dungeon, they only have one.

Disruptor Artefact: Mind+Will+Fighting, Damage Flat 1, #Warp, #Finishing, Vulnerable, Strike/Counter Near, Good Hand

                Unusually, the Disruptor Artefact uses rules from Myriad Song to reflect its bizarre and extradimensional nature. #Warp means it deals +2 damage to any target that is from outside this reality (Marauders, Portal Storm enemies). #Finishing means it deals +2 damage to any target that is Dazed or Vulnerable. Vulnerable means it inflicts the Vulnerable condition on an enemy, causing them to take +1 damage from all hits until they spend an action to recover from it. The weapon resembles a crystalline sword hilt, but when grasped and focused by the user’s mind, it projects a disruptive ‘blade’ that disorients and scorches enemies with spatial distortion. There is no discernable power source and the weapon’s reach is enormous for how light and handy it is, but its performance can be erratic. It works best when used to counter a foe and then follow up, and does far more damage to alien foes. Found after clearing the Rivtech Innovation Campus