Star Patrol/ACP164 take on Five Parsecs encounter

 

I played out the same Five Parsecs encounter but using the ACP164 rules - with weapon tables from Star Patrol - the "generic" SF version of Buck Surdu's Combat Patrol rules (also the basis for ACP164), and which are available as a free download from Sally 4th (although you'll need to buy a set of cards).

Things got off to a reasonable start with Toki and Squirrel going left flanking again, and Toki getting into a good enfilade position as the warbots emerged form the trees. Paddy started getting damage on the warbots, but their +2 armour meant they were slow to kill. As the third bot emerged from the wood almost right beside Toki Squirrel raced over, got a double activation and emptied his shotgun into the bot - nice weapon at close range (3 shots at 3"). The combined fire of the crew took the other two bots out, but this time the Hakshan Investigator had got itself in a better position and after a brief exchange of fire delivered a knock out shot to Frenchie. Erma then leapt up onto the roof of a building to get a good shot while Bloody went right flanking. But as Squirrel moved along the wood edge to get behind the alien the Hakshan scored a headshot on Toki and she was down. Squirrel burst round the corner behind the Hakshan, let rip with his shotgun and the murderer was down.

So more bloody than the Five Parsecs version, but how much was down to rules and how much to a better position for the Hakshan it's hard to tell. All played nicely though and I think this is the way to go with Five Parsecs - particularly given that I barely need to think about the ACP rules nowadays.

The Hakshan is about to be surrounded

The typical ACP Endurance of 3 does make characters very vulnerable though, OK for NPCs/large skirmish games but less so for PCs in an RPG, so tempted to set them to 5 or many even 7. I note that the "personality" characters in the Star Wars supplement for Combat Patrol have these sorts of values, so the precedent in there - and its something I need to sort out for another ACP164 project I'm working on.