PLAYTEST RECORD // SHOW YOUR WORK
FILED_FROM: GORODSKIE OUTER YARDS // RELAY GRID
FILING_DATE: 2026-06-06
RESULT: ASH CANTO 5-0 // T8
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BARCODE: SIG-BATREP-2026-06-06
詰
OPERATOR TACTICS // SKIRMISH // RECONSTRUCTED
FIVE TO NOTHING
ON SIX MISFIRES
CROSSFIRE // THREE RELAYS // NOBODY'S RIFLE WORKED
OPERATOR TACTICS // SKIRMISH
CROSSFIRE
ASH CANTO 5-0
DECIDED T5
8 ROUNDS
// ROLL IN THE OPEN // COUNT THE DICE // BLAME THE TERRAIN // FILE THE REPORT //
// OPERATOR TACTICS // SKIRMISH
Two splices walk into the same flank over three dead signal relays, and the night turns into a referendum on whether anybody's weapon will fire. Six jams, a Climax event that lands with nothing to trigger, and one salvo that finally works.
DRY FIRE
BY TIB MARLOW
GAME: OPERATOR TACTICS // SKIRMISH
FILED: GORODSKIE OUTER YARDS // RELAY GRID // 2026-06-06
TELEMETRY: RECONSTRUCTED // THE DICE ARE ON RECORD.
// DESK NOTE // M. KOSE
Two crews picked the same flank, then spent eight rounds learning the dice had opinions about their rifles. The breach token economy is the quiet star of this one, so watch what wounding a man earns the man who wounded him, and watch the Climax everybody worked toward arrive with nothing to do.
// DEPLOYMENT
GAMEOperator Tactics // Skirmish
SCENARIOCrossfire // three signal relays on the centerline, scored at the end of rounds 4, 6 and 8
SPLICE AASH CANTO // Marrow (Commando), Pika (Marksman), Sleet (Infiltrator), Quilt (Medic). 400 pts, north edge.
SPLICE BTHE NORTHING // Draym (Commando), Hod (Breacher, Heavy Plate), Vane (Tech), Stilt (Medic). 400 pts, south edge.
TABLE24 x 24 frozen freight interchange. Central building blocks line of sight through the middle relay. Light cover on both flanks.
OBJECTIVEControl relays at each check. Control = your model within 3", no enemy within 3".
WIN CONDITIONMost victory points at round 8. +1 per relay per check, +1 per enemy Out of Action.
TURN CAP8 rounds. Pressure Clock at 3 fires the Climax.
The yard had been dead since before either crew was born. Frost on the rolling stock, sleet coming sideways off the Gorodskie outer line, three pre-Upheaval signal relays still warm enough to sell. Ash Canto came in light from the north. The Northing came in heavy from the south. Both of them looked at the same flank, and both of them walked toward it.
That was the first mistake and it belonged to everyone. Marrow took the right-hand relay at a walk, rifle up, and found two of the Northing's heavies already in his face. Draym opened on him from cover. The first burst caught Marrow twice and put him on his heels, and then Draym's rifle locked solid on a round half-fed. Hod swung the shotgun onto the medic instead, and the shotgun did the same thing. Dead trigger. Nothing.
Marrow used the gap to get out. He gave up the relay and pulled back into the long range where his crew actually lived, and Quilt closed the wound while he moved. Across the yard Pika settled the long rifle on Draym, still hunched over a jammed action, and put a round through him that should have been the end of it.
THE FIGHT TURNED ON THE ONE GUN THAT WORKED.
It was not the end of it. The Northing had paid for those two hits on Marrow with tokens of their own, the kind you collect when you put holes in a man, and they spent them at exactly the right second. Marrow lit Draym up again, four rounds, and two of them were money. The Northing forced the rerolls, and watched both good hits fall apart in the cold. Draym stayed up on the last sliver of a wound he had no business keeping.
So it became a grind, and the grind was about hardware. Stilt could not make the dice work on Draym. Three times he tried to close the wounds and three times the body would not hold. Vane bet the whole left flank on a sprint into Sleet's relay, walked straight into a muzzle he never saw, and then could not answer it. Two shots into the infiltrator at arm's length, then two more on borrowed luck, every one of them wide or jammed. The clock everyone had been feeding finally tipped over. The big event landed, and it was the one result on the table that needed a man carrying something. Nobody was carrying anything. The yard held its breath for a payoff that never arrived.
The fight turned on the one gun that worked. Marrow put the rifle on Stilt, the Northing's medic, and for once the rounds went where they were sent. The medic went down and stayed down, and that was the war. Draym was bleeding from two mortal wounds with nobody left to close them. Vane was bleeding from one and could not clear his sidearm to save his life. Hod was untouched and immovable and completely alone, a wall around a relay that was only ever worth one third of the board.
Ash Canto did the simple thing after that. Sleet sat on the left relay the whole game and never had to fight for it. Marrow and Pika passed the middle back and forth and ended the night holding it. The Northing spent the back half of the match keeping Vane breathing out of pure spite, and they managed it, the one small win inside a five to nothing. The relays kept transmitting to whoever stood nearest. By the eighth round the nearest were all wearing Ash Canto's paint.
// THE TAPE
T1Priority A 3 / B 2. Pure maneuver, B's first activation capped to one action. Sleet ghosts onto the left relay. Marrow walks onto the right relay into Hod and Draym. Pressure 1.
T2Priority B 3 / A 2. Draym rapid-fires Marrow: 3 5 5 1 // two flesh wounds, then a nat-1 jam. Marrow retreats (1 action). Hod shotguns the medic: 1 3 // nat-1, jam. Pika answers on Draym: 6 // mortal wound. Quilt patches Marrow.
T3Priority B 6 / A 1. Stilt fails to stabilize Draym (3). Marrow rapid-fires Draym: 3 5 5 6 // the Northing spends both breach tokens to reroll the 6 and a 5, both crash to 3s. Draym lives on one wound. Quilt contests the right relay under smoke. Pressure 2. Drone misses Sleet (2).
T4Priority B 3 / A 2. Stilt fails Draym again (3 1). Marrow, capped to one action, rapid-fires Draym: 2 3 // miss. Draym breaks for cover. Pika tags Stilt (4) then jams (1). CHECK 1: Ash Canto holds the left relay. 1-0.
T5Priority B 3 / A 1. Vane sprints the left relay, the contest trips Pressure to 3. CLIMAX (4) Exfil Window // no carriers in Crossfire, no effect. Sleet's ambush hits Vane (3). Vane fires back 3 3, burns two edge on rerolls 1 2, jams. Marrow empties on Stilt: 6 6 4 5 // STILT OUT OF ACTION. 2-0.
T6Priority B 5 / A 3. Vane and Sleet trade point blank: 2 and 2, both miss. Marrow sprints the middle relay. CHECK 2: Ash Canto adds the center. 3-0.
T7Priority B 2 / A 1. Vane 1 1 // double nat-1, jam. Sleet hits (4), the wound escalates to mortal on a breach token. Vane on one wound, somehow still up.
T8Priority A 5 / B 1. Marrow swaps the middle for the left and rapid-fires Vane: 1 // nat-1 jam, nothing. Vane flees. Sleet chases: 3 2 // miss, Vane survives. Pika reclaims the middle. FINAL CHECK: Ash Canto holds left and center. 5-0.
// WORKBENCH
// HOW IT ACTUALLY PLAYED
The honest headline is the dice. Six natural-1 jams across eight rounds, three of them on the Northing's two guns in the first two rounds alone, and the one Climax everybody fed the Pressure Clock to reach turned out to be Exfil Window in a scenario with nothing to carry. If you ever wanted a control group for how much variance lives in this engine, here it is.
The decision that won it was older than any of those rolls. Both commanders read the same flank and committed to the right relay, so the game's entire mass piled onto one third of the table while Sleet sat on the left relay in stealth and scored it for free, every check, never firing a shot. An infiltrator parked on a flank objective is the most efficient model in Crossfire by a wide margin, and the only answer the Northing found was to throw their fragile tech across the whole board into a stealth ambush. That is not an answer. That is a donation.
- The turn it swung: round five. Marrow had whiffed or been capped for four rounds straight, then rolled 6 6 4 5 and deleted the medic. With no medic, Draym's two mortal wounds were permanent and the Northing had no way left to make points.
- Balance read: Heavy Plate is a brilliant anchor and a terrible plan. Hod never took a wound all night and never mattered, because MOBI 4 means he holds exactly one relay and the enemy simply scores the other two.
- The quiet star: the breach token economy. The Northing's two hits on Marrow in round two became the two rerolls that saved Draym from a natural-6 kill in round three. Hurting a man arms the man who hurt him. More of the game should lean on that loop.
- Try next time: give Crossfire its own short Climax result, or a one-line rule to reroll a Climax that cannot apply. The Pressure Clock is good drama right up until it pays out in nothing.
Terrain aside: the center building earned its place. It made the middle relay a knife-fight neither crew wanted, so for six rounds the center sat empty and got settled by a single late sprint. If you build this table, keep that block. An objective nobody can shoot across is the one that makes people move.
// DISPOSITION
RESULTASH CANTO 5 // THE NORTHING 0. Left and center relays held at the round 8 check, plus Stilt Out of Action. Decided on round 5.
CASUALTIES // AASH CANTO: none Out of Action. Marrow took 1 flesh wound in the opening burst, patched and back in the fight.
CASUALTIES // BTHE NORTHING: Stilt (Medic) Out of Action. Draym (Commando) on 2 mortal wounds with no medic left. Vane (Tech) on 1 mortal wound, survived. Hod (Breacher) untouched.
MVPMarrow (Ash Canto, Commando). Survived the opening alpha, then fired the round-5 salvo that took the medic and broke the game open.
RUN IT YOURSELF:
OT SKIRMISH // CROSSFIRE, 24 x 24, 400 POINTS A SIDE.
THE RELAYS KEPT TRANSMITTING TO WHOEVER STOOD NEAREST.