PLAYTEST RECORD // SHOW YOUR WORK
FILED_FROM: WATERLOO WATER RELAY // SOUTHWARK
FILING_DATE: 2026-06-05
RESULT: OKAFOR EXTRACTED // T9
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BARCODE: SIG-BATREP-2026-06-05
救
OPERATOR TACTICS // RPG // RECONSTRUCTED
WALK HIM
OUT
RESCUE // DIRECT ACTION // 9-TURN CLOCK
OPERATOR TACTICS // RPGFIRST CONTACT // M1 THE LONG DRINKFLOODED LONDON // SOUTHWARKOKAFOR EXTRACTED // T9
// ROLL IN THE OPEN // COUNT THE DICE // BLAME THE TERRAIN // FILE THE REPORT //
// OPERATOR TACTICS // RPG
A five-operator splice squad hits a flooded London water relay to pull a maintenance chief off an EO contamination job. They got him, and the contamination logs, and the second hostage. They paid in blood, and the man on the catwalk walked away clean.
WALK HIM OUT
BY TIB MARLOW
GAME: OPERATOR TACTICS // RPG
FILED: WATERLOO WATER RELAY // SOUTHWARK // 2026-06-05
TELEMETRY: RECONSTRUCTED // THE DICE ARE ON RECORD.
// DESK NOTE // M. KOSE
First Contact's opening mission is built to teach the game, and it taught a hard lesson this time. The squad cleared every objective on the sheet and still walked out lighter than it walked in, which is the most honest thing a rescue can do.
// DEPLOYMENT
GAMEOperator Tactics RPG // squad mission, core D6 engine
SCENARIOFirst Contact, Mission 1 // The Long Drink (rescue / direct action)
ATTACKERSPLICE squad (5): CROSS (Commando), ROOK (Breacher), SHADE (Marksman), DOC (Medic), VEIL (Infiltrator)
DEFENDEREO CLEAN SWEEP detail // 8 line/heavy across 3 sectors + HVT Anvil + grunts
TABLEWaterloo Water Relay sub-level, 4 zones: Dock // Concourse // Server Room // Relay Chamber
OBJECTIVEPrimary: extract Davi Okafor. Secondary: pull the contamination logs. Optional: free Priya Deshmukh.
WIN CONDITIONGet Okafor out before Turn 10. Loss on squad-wipe or Okafor killed.
TURN CAP9 turns // EO reinforcements land at the north concourse on Turn 10
The water relay sits under what used to be Waterloo station, and the only quiet way in is off the dock at the southwest corner. The squad took it that way. VEIL went first under Ghost, and the dock never got the chance to be a fight. She put a blade through the elite dozing in the storage unit and through the first patrolling grunt. SHADE took the second grunt with one suppressed round. The radio came off the dead elite before the body finished settling, and with it the guard roster: Okafor in the server room, a second name, Deshmukh, in the relay chamber. Two minutes in and nobody upstream knew the operators existed.
The concourse ended the quiet. EO had built its post in the old ticket hall, three line elites and a heavy who ran the room, and there is no silent way through four guns and a comms terminal. The squad had banked all three of its noise allowances for exactly this, so it spent them. A flashbang into the elite pair, a frag dropped on top, SHADE's rifle on the loner. The room answered. The heavy put a round into CROSS, and the lone elite caught SHADE with a clean burst that took two of her three flesh boxes in a single hit.
That was the trade. The concourse fell over the next two turns, every elite down, the heavy last and hardest, and the noise carried the whole time. By the time the squad owned the room the man on the catwalk in the relay chamber had heard enough. Anvil pulled Okafor up onto the steel with him, fifteen feet of elevation and a railing for cover, and set himself to be the last man standing. He had been told he would be. He believed it.
SHE WALKED ONTO THE CATWALK AND WALKED THE HOSTAGE BACK OFF IT.
VEIL was already past them. While the concourse burned she had ghosted forward, cracked the contamination logs in the server room without a sound, and put a knife through the grunt asleep against the rack. By the time the rest of the squad bled its way to the relay chamber door she was inside it, and she had cut Deshmukh loose. The engineer paid her back with the one thing worth having, the northwest gap in the catwalk grating, the blind spot with no rail.
The chamber should have been the wall the operators broke on. Anvil at SHOOT 2+ on high steel is the only gun in the building that reliably bites armor, and he proved it. DOC dragged CROSS off his last mortal box with a field stabilize, and on the very next activation Anvil shot CROSS off his feet for good, two wounds from the catwalk, out of the fight. The same rifle would maul ROOK a turn later. For a few seconds it looked like the room would do its job and pin the squad in place until the clock ran out.
It did not, because VEIL was standing next to the win condition. She did not assault the catwalk. She walked onto it, cut Okafor's restraints, and started him toward the ladder, and the big rifle never registered the hostage was moving until the hostage was gone. After that it was a footrace. The squad poured back through the rooms it had already cleared. ROOK refused to leave CROSS and hauled him out under fire. SHADE took a mortal wound holding the lane. Okafor and Deshmukh made the boat on turn nine.
The four fresh EO elites reached the north concourse on turn ten and found blood, casings, and an empty dock. Anvil was still on his catwalk. He never took a wound. He got his last man standing after all, and it bought EO nothing.
// THE TAPE
T1Dock. Ops win priority 4/3. VEIL surprise-knifes the storage elite (3 +surprise) and lifts the radio, skipping the location clock. No alarm, Anvil awareness 0.
T2VEIL knifes grunt A (3). SHADE suppressed pistol rolls a nat 6 and drops grunt B. Dock cleared silent, zero loud shots fired.
T3Concourse. EO reads the comms silence as contact and goes alert. VEIL light override nat 1, fails. CROSS flashbangs the elite pair, ROOK frag nat 6 on Elite-1, SHADE wounds the loner. The heavy tags CROSS; the lone elite lands a nat 6 crit on SHADE (-2 FW). Three loud actions push awareness to 3 // Okafor goes up to the catwalk.
T4EO leads (1/4). CROSS carbine nat 6 kills Elite-1, ROOK shotgun nat 6 kills Elite-2, DOC SMG nat 6 cripples the loner. Triple sixes. The heavy wounds CROSS again. VEIL into the server room, suppressed shot nat 1.
T5Ops lead (2/1). CROSS wounds the Squad Leader (he calls support). ROOK whiffs. SHADE Steady Aim nat 1, wasted; the heavy puts SHADE on the edge. VEIL overrides the logs (4) and knifes the sleeper. Secondary objective done.
T6Ops lead (5/4). CROSS nat 6 and ROOK chew the heavy down; the Squad Leader answers with a nat 6 crit on CROSS, into his last mortal box. DOC nat 6 kills the loner. SHADE finishes the heavy (5). VEIL frees Deshmukh (4), blind spot marked.
T7Ops lead after a tie (4/1). VEIL ghost-snatch of Okafor: NAT 6, undetected. DOC field stabilize on CROSS: nat 6. CROSS carbine nat 6 on a floor elite. Anvil replies with a nat 6 crit // CROSS Out of Action.
T8EO leads (4/5). Anvil nat 6 crit on ROOK as he drags CROSS. Lead group clears to the server room. Every other shot, both sides, misses.
T9Ops lead after three ties (3/1). VEIL exfil dash 5 // Okafor and Deshmukh make the boat. ROOK nat 6 to disengage clean, hauls CROSS out under a pursuit nat 6 crit. SHADE takes her first mortal wound. Anvil last shot misses (2). Extracted on T9, one turn ahead of the trap.
// WORKBENCH
// HOW IT ACTUALLY PLAYED
This is the teaching mission, and the dice taught with a heavy hand. Both sides ran hot on the auto-success die and the game basically resolved on it. The operators cracked the entire concourse on a turn that produced three natural sixes in a row, and Anvil answered with sixes of his own, one to put CROSS out and one to maul ROOK from the catwalk. When a session swings this hard on natural sixes the underlying odds stop mattering and the table just rides the variance.
- The turn it swung: T7. VEIL rolled a natural six to ghost-snatch Okafor off the catwalk, which turned an unwinnable strongpoint into a walk-out. DOC rolled a natural six to stabilize CROSS the same turn, and Anvil rolled a natural six to undo it a heartbeat later. One turn, three sixes, the whole game.
- Balance read: with armor read as a to-hit modifier, an AR2 or AR3 operator is nearly immune to ordinary 4+ shooters, so the only EO gun that ever mattered was Anvil at SHOOT 2+. A single 2+ HVT becomes the entire threat against an armored squad and everything below it is texture.
- Dice curse of the week: SHADE's Steady Aim, the most reliable tool on the sheet, fumbled to natural ones twice and a suppress fire to a third. The marksman landed plenty of ordinary shots and never once cashed the buff.
- The awareness clock backfired: maxing Anvil's awareness moved Okafor up to the catwalk, which put the hostage right next to the one operator who could quietly take him. The escalation meant to punish loud play handed the operators their win lane.
One thing to try next: give the awareness max a real bite. Moving the hostage to the catwalk should come with a lockdown or an extra body on the ladder, otherwise the loud-play penalty reads as a reward.
Kit aside: build the catwalk as a real elevation piece with the northwest grating gap modeled, so the -2 cover and the blind spot are physical reads at the table instead of a note on a card.
// DISPOSITION
RESULTOperator marginal victory. All objectives met. Okafor extracted on Turn 9, one turn ahead of EO reinforcements.
CASUALTIES // OPSCROSS Out of Action (recovered by ROOK). SHADE into mortal wounds. ROOK badly mauled. DOC lightly wounded. VEIL untouched.
CASUALTIES // EODock element (3) and concourse element (4) wiped. Relay-chamber grunts and elites attrited. Anvil survives untouched.
MVPVEIL (Infiltrator). Two silent dock kills, the contamination logs, Deshmukh freed, the catwalk snatch, and the exfil dash.
DECISIVE MOMENTVEIL's natural-six ghost-snatch of Okafor off Anvil's catwalk, Turn 7.
OKAFOR NEVER TOUCHED A GUN. HE JUST NEEDED SOMEONE TO WALK HIM OUT.