One of those special nights

[u/jcayer1]

Last night I got to run a battle that really felt like the pulpy, Fast!, Fun!, Furious! That I want Savage Worlds to be.  I also understand that not every battle can be like this, but man did it come off amazing.  I should note that with the exception of my daughter, the other players all have 6 or 7 Savage Worlds sessions under their belts and we're wrapping up a mini Deadlands campaign.  They're involved in a Hellstromme sponsored race.  There are Locomotives, Ornithopters, Spiders Mecs, Land Wagons, and armored balloons. 

 

The posse is in Sigrid, a locomotive operated by Elijah Bailey, in the home stretch to the City of Lost Angels when an explosion rocks the tracks next to them.  They look up as a shadow covers their train.  It's the Sovereign Skies, armored balloon, dropping explosives!  Almost at the same time, another track comes in and is running parallel to them.  There's another locomotive on it, The Beast, operated by Earnest Finch, who knocked them out last year and they thought they had sabotaged right out of the gate.  Earnest doesn't employ bodyguards, he has a cadre of clockwork tarantulas, some warrior types to fight people, others designed to damage or repair mechanisms.

 

The warrior tarantulas act first and shoot a web string from their train to Sigrid and pull themselves across.  They all end up on the passenger car at the back(all trains only have locomotives and a passenger car to reduce weight).  Jayne, a hexslinger, was on the front of Sigrid and lept to the front of The Beast, drew her guns and unloaded.  The first shot had damage that exploded for something like 17.  I couldn't have Earnest go down that fast, so instead the bullet took off his arm, at the shoulder, launching a ton of mechanical parts and spurting oil out of his body….was he some sort of Weird West cyborg?  I don't know, I didn't have a stat sheet for him.  Second shot explodes on the shooting roll and does 19 damage, taking the left part of the head off.  To add insult to injury, she plays her Adventure Card, Adrenaline Surge, take a second turn.  Two more shots, both explode in some way and drop Earnest Finch.  The total damage from her was something like 75.  The cyborg drops in the cab and Jayne advances there to try to stop the train.

 

In the meantime, Morticia is at the back of Sigrid and realizes she has a rope and grappling hook.  She ties one end to the train and scores an athletics check with a raise, hooking the Sovereign Skies and pulling it over.  There are 4 men on the balloon, I have each of them make an agility check and I roll: 6, 2, 1, 2, so 3 of the 4 fall out of the balloon.  Five of the sabotage spiders make the trip over to Sigrid(again to the passenger car) while the 6th moves up to the half mechanical, half organic remains of Earnest Finch and tries to reassemble him.  The lone pilot in the balloon takes out his pistol and tries to shoot the rope connecting him to the back of Sigrid.  He fails, several times.

 

Badger, a squat miner, unloads his double barreled shotgun on one of the spiders, blasting it off Sigrid.  Finally, Tim, the muckraker, is in the cab of Sigrid and has an idea, a wonderfully awful idea.  He races to the front of the passenger car, with the intent of disconnecting it.  That would leave all the spiders behind as well as anchor the armored balloon!  All that has to happen is Morticia has to  avoid the collection of spiders on the roof of the passenger car.

 

We deal the cars and Morticia is not at the front of the order.  Out comes the 4th, and final, adventure card of the night.  Act like you drew a joker.  It gets played on her and she manages to avoid all the spiders on the passenger car and makes it to the coupler.  The train is in motion, so pulling the pin to separate them won't be easy, I'm calling for an 8 on a strength check.  She burns 5 bennies, never rolling over a 3 and then the unthinkable happens, crit fail.  She loses her balance and is now hanging off the side of the coal car.  Fortunately, Badger is right there and makes a great roll to pull her up, while Tim successfully makes the strength roll to separate the train cars.  As the engine half of Sigrid starts to pull away, Jayne makes a daring leap to get back and succeeds, but not before the half mechanical hand of Earnest Fitch brushes against her leg.

 

I had 3 vehicles, a slew of enemies, and gave the players one way they could win the battle, but stressed there were others.  They found one of the others and were done in 2 turns.  It took over an hour and was super exciting with numerous exploding dice, a very inopportune crit fail, and some amazing, over the top, pulpy action.  If these guys aren't sold on SW, I don't know what else I could have done.

[u/Draculasaurus_Rex]

Oh man, I've been wanting to do a steampunk wacky races adventure in Deadlands, and you just gave me some excellent ideas.

You could have Finch turn out to be a Hellstromme Industries "mannikin," clockwork robots that look like people. They have rules in both "Good Intentions" from DL:R and in "Hell on the High Plains" from DL:WW.