Eaten by kaiju again

I’ve been plating Ronin 47 by Jonathan Green for a few days now, as time permits. I dig the setting – I drive a Japanese-style battlemech and fight giant sea monsters on a quest for revenge. That’s awesome – and it’s only the second time I’ve seen anything like it, the other being Fighting Fantasy’s Robot Commando.

But it’s really not going well.

I always go with the reinforced hull upgrade (+1 armor and +5 integrity) and scanners (-1 enemy armor when fighting melee), plus a third one that I pick depending. So I know I have the best chances here.

Tonight’s first playthrough

I drop some charges on the giant starfish, and in its weakened state it goes down quickly, as I rip it with missiles and autocannons before it even gets close. Back to Ako Base for some sake and a memorial service for the soldier we lost today. Well, no – back to Ako Base to immediately get attacked by a veritable swarm of these monsters! I run to the labs to get some answers and guidance, but find everybody dead or dying. I make it back to the mech in time to fight a giant turtle monster that tears me down to 38 integrity (about 2/3). I then decide that cowardice is the better part of discretion, and to watch the battle from a different island about 500 miles away.

Having accepted that I am now unemployed and ronin (really, just because my base’s commander has died? there’s a chain of command, right?),  I decide to head to the weapons R&D facility known as The Vault. Obviously, I need all the help I can get! Fortunately, I had the spider boots repair my radio overnight so I’m able to just sign in to the base instead of fighting turrets and smashing my way through the door. I get a spiffy blazing sword like Voltron had, and awesome flying jets. I also take on six new spider mechs that increase my stats and also repair damage! Unfortunately I’m already damaged enough that I have to burn one of them before I even leave.

From here, my next stop is the satellite array so I can track down he traitor who set us up. That goes smoothly enough: the security mechs are awesome to look at, but aren’t too tough. I then sneak into the base and find the ruffians still trashing the computers, and kill them ninja style. An hour later, I’ve patched into the array and found my target, and I’m headed north toward Japan.

But en route I encounter not a kaiju, but TWO of them who attack me at the same time. Obviously I have zero chance, since either one could trash my mech even with the upgrades. Six combat rounds later, and there’s metal debris falling to the ocean floor while the two monsters eat the crunchy-chewy meat in the center. My adventure ends here.

Tonight’s second playthrough

The opening scene, the giant starfish tears me down from 55 integrity to 35. These dice just hate me, I guess, because every single roll for damage was a 4+ and therefore armor-piercing. Back to Ako Base, dodge some falling ceiling panels and get back to my mech to fight a turtle, and knocked down by another 16 – that leaves me 19. Yeah, I’m just now painting the name “Ronin” on my mech, and I’m already down to 1/3 health.

To The Vault or to the Gojira research vessel? I know the Vault is good from a prior playthrough, but I need to explore this path. I scan the waters and find the sunken ship, and though my scanners gave me initiative against the shark-monster, it wins all 3 combat rounds, and 10 of the 12 dice are 4+ so that’s 20 points. Kaboom! Glub glub glub! My adventure ends here, on the third fight.

Yeah, this one is rough. Any one of those critters could destroy the mech at full health, and there are just too many of them between here and there.