The bank heist; A Clash on the Fringe AAR

Ever since I started seeing what other people were doing with the Clash on the Fringe rules, I've wanted to start a small campaign, in the vein of my 15mm Five Parsecs games.

So this is the first of what I hope will be many, an setting of the stage for my intended protagonist if you will.

The fringe, a wast strech of barely terraformed space, a place of fortune-seekers, adventurers and people looking to escape the crowded core worlds.

Churchill 7 is just such a world, a small planetoid in the middle of the fringe belt. A former brittish holding before the formation of Unity, the lumbering behemoth that encompasses all of human space. Outside of a few mineral deposits and crude oil, Churchill 7 holds little of value, with only handfull of companies fighting over oil and mineral rights. 

This early morning the local Unity peacekeeping force have gotten wind of a scheme to rob the local branch of the Unity bank, located in a small settlement on the rim of the wast desert sea of the planetoid.   

The settlement, soon to be a bloody battlefield.

The local bank, protected from the local wildlife by a Nielson force fence. 

A raiding party of the nomadic space pirates show up from the north.

"They must be the ones sarge" exclaims one of the Unity marines as they reach the southern part of the settlement. 

Both sides advance towards the bank, but with wholly different motives.

Start of turn 2.

Rushing forward, the pirates open fire on the marines..

The sergeant of the green squad takes the brunt of the fire, but his armor keeps him alive, even if a bit knocked around.

White squad moves up, but the pirates are ready for them! Shots fly left and right.

2 of the pirate goes down, out of the fight and one is heads down..

.. But the unlucky pointman of the white marine squad takes a few hits too, knocking him out of the fight as well!

A bit more wary, the remaining pirates drop a few smoke grenades, oscuring their path to the bank and protecting them from enemy fire.

The start of the 3rd turn.

Green squad pushes up towards the bank, firing as they go. 2 pirates are forced to go heads down from the incoming fire, as is one of their own, caught in the open!

Making a run for it, some of the pirates make it into the bank. Their comrade keeps a lookout from behind the forcefield.

More shots come flying at the exposed marine, further compromising his situation.

 Taking a hint from the rest of the crew, more smoke is dropped, and another firefight enues between pirates and the green squad.

Finally, a bullet finds its mark, and the lone marine goes down.

The marines isn't going to let the pirates escape unscathed though, and the leader of the second pirate squad is taken out.

Start of the 4th turn. One smoke cloud scatters to the wind while another drifts a few feet.

Suddenly, the low rumbling of an engine can be heard. A bullfrog pickup shows up at the edge of the settlement. What is it doing here?

The Unity marines barely have time to notice the pickup before it's speeding past them, heading for the bank.

Some of the pirates are looting precious minerals, while the rest puts down covering fire. 2 more marines fall, but one pirate is forced heads down as well.

Unity are closing the net on the pirate, soon they'll be boxed in!

Unable to shoot due to the smoke, one brave trooper charges into the smoke, intent on bringing the pirate low. He quickly realizes his mistake, but the heavily armored pirate knocks him out before he can turn around!

Beginning of the 5th turn.

As they see the pickup move closer, one group of pirate move out to intercept it. As it turns out, it's their getaway driver.. 2 of them engage the marine sergeant while the last one deposits his minerals in the bed of the truck.
As the smoke drifts to the side, one of the marines have a clear shot into the bank. Rather than giving the pirates the benefit of the good cover inside the building however, the tosses a grenade.. 

..It sails through the doors, bounces a few times, and then goes off. The shrapnel and debris make it hard to see anything, but the screams of the pirates as all but one of them gets turned into pincushions confirms the sucesssful attack. 

 Runing to the rescue of the sergeant, a marine takes a face-full of gel-rounds from one of the pirates.
The sergeant doesn't seem to need rescuing however, holding his own against the 2 pirates.

The pickup drives the last yards up to the bank, parking outside. Catching on to what he's up to, a Unity marine shoots at the vehicle to try and stop it. It starts burning as a external fueltank is hit.

Having exposed himself to throw the grenade, the Unity marine goes down as a pirate guns him down.

The pirates in melee with the green sergeant fares little better, as one of them is knocked out in the scuffle. But as you can see on the far right, the last surviving pirate from the bank manages to load up some more minerals into the burning pickup.

Start of the 7th and last turn.

All loaded up, the pickup speeds off with the loot, and the pirates start falling back, mission accomplished. Another marine goes down when he is hit by the parting shots from one of the pirates.

The pirates made it off with no less than 4 bundles of precious minerals, making it well worth their losses!

But the story isn't over just yet, later that same day:

After recovering, the Unity sergeants and the last unscathed marine have called for assistance from a former Unity ranger, known around these parts as Clarke.
"What's the job?" he asked the sergeant.
"The Unity bank behind us just got robbed, we need you to track down the criminals and bring back the minerals they stole." "We would pursue them ourselves, but we have too few men not laying in the medbay." he added, rather sheepishly.
"I'll take the job, my standard fee plus you pay any additional expenses."
And with that he turned away from the small group and started walking towards his parked vehicle, a plan already formin in his mind..

This is the start of a new adventure! 

Also, this is my 100th post on this blog!

Little over a year ago, when I started this blog, it was mostly to keep motivating myself to paint more, something that it has surely done!
I want to take this opportunity to thank everybody that has shown an interest in my projects, you have motivated me to keep going more than you know!

I have some more stuff to share with you soon, as I'm currently planning the builds necessary for the 1st real episode of Clarke's adventures on the fringe..

Til next time!