PLAYTEST RECORD // SHOW YOUR WORK
FILED_FROM: ALTO CITO EXPRESSWAY // THE BARRENS EXTRACTION
FILING_DATE: 2026-06-13
RESULT: GILT EXTRACTS // T4
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BARCODE: SIG-BATREP-2026-06-13
攫
OPERATOR TACTICS // RAID RACERS // RECONSTRUCTED
OPEN
HANDS
SONGBIRD TAKEN ALIVE // T4
RAID RACERS
THE BARRENS EXTRACTION
GILT EXTRACTS // T4
SONGBIRD ALIVE
PRESSURE 3 // 0
// ROLL IN THE OPEN // COUNT THE DICE // BLAME THE TERRAIN // FILE THE REPORT //
// OPERATOR TACTICS // RAID RACERS
Two crews chase the same detention convoy for the same living package, and the finesse team gets there first with both hands open. They roll snake-eyes one jump from the pod, and a brawler who could barely move grinds through three jams to lift the prize and swing her onto a moving car.
OPEN HANDS
BY QUILL ADAIR
GAME: OPERATOR TACTICS // RAID RACERS
FILED: ALTO CITO EXPRESSWAY // THE BARRENS EXTRACTION // 2026-06-13
TELEMETRY: RECONSTRUCTED // THE DICE ARE ON RECORD.
// DESK NOTE // M. KOSE
The crew that did everything right lost to the crew that could barely climb a fence, and it lost on a single die one jump from the prize. Watch how Salt Wake plays the back half // losing well is a skill, and they almost had it.
// DEPLOYMENT
GAMEOperator Tactics // Raid Racers
SCENARIOThe Barrens Extraction (Mission Seed) // snatch a person of interest off a moving NAF detention convoy, take her alive
CREW ASALT WAKE (independent, no-chip) // Bex Tallow, Jockey, the Undertow, front-engine, TACT Good. Mink, Jumper, capuchin stock, Flow 2+, FIGHT 4+, MOBI 8".
CREW BGILT CADENCE (patron-funded, Alto Cito) // Solano Reyes, Jockey, the Metronome, raptor stock, +1 all Race Rolls. Drava Oke, Jumper, FIGHT 2+, Flow 4+, MOBI 6".
THE BOARDAlto Cito elevated expressway // the armored transport sectioned into three zones, the locked holding pod at the far end
OBJECTIVEBoard the convoy, crack the pod, lift Songbird (Neve Caro) alive, carry her to your vehicle and break clear off the ramp
WIN CONDITIONFirst crew to extract Songbird alive. Loss at Security Pressure 6 (operators DETAINED) or the convoy reaching the detention gate.
TURN CAP7-round clock (convoy reaches the gate) // resolved on Round 4
The convoy came off the Alto Cito ramp at road speed with a person in a box, and two crews came off the same ramp behind it wanting that person. The box held Songbird // Neve Caro, signal pirate, informant, the kind of asset a client pays to receive breathing. Take her alive or do not take her at all. Two cars, two thieves, one locked pod riding the back of an armored transport, and a detention gate getting closer every second nobody wanted to count.
Salt Wake had the better start and knew it. Bex Tallow put the Undertow alongside the transport on her first move and held the lane. Mink went up the side of the convoy like the convoy was a suggestion. He is capuchin stock, built to move, and for one round he made the sport look easy // boarded, ran a clean section, sat one jump short of the pod with both hands open and nobody near him.
Across the lane, Gilt Cadence had the engine and the problem. Solano Reyes drives raptor stock, the fastest hands on the road, and he had the Metronome locked to the transport before he finished the thought. But the thief he had to put on the convoy was Drava Oke, a closer, a man who wins every fight for a package and moves through architecture like a fridge. Drava boarded and stuck on his first jump. Gilt ate the exposure and the round ended with their thief hung up at the rail, a full section behind a man who climbs walls for a living.
HE SAT ONE JUMP FROM HER WITH BOTH HANDS OPEN
Then the dice did the thing the dice do. Mink took his jump to the pod and rolled a one. The grate took his fingers, the convoy took the beat, and his momentum broke on the last surface between him and the prize. He spent the rest of the round just getting his feet back. One round earlier he was the fastest thing on the convoy. Now he was scraped and down a measure of grip, sitting exactly where he had started.
Drava used the opening the only way he knows how. He stuck again, and Gilt paid the toll again, and he forced through on a wild surge that put him level with Mink. The crew built around a thief who cannot move had bought its way back into the race one exposure tick at a time, and the smart money in the lane went quiet.
Salt Wake read it right and played it cold. With Drava parked on the pod, any grab Mink reached for became a fistfight, and a fistfight against Drava is a way to lose breathing. So Bex kept Mink off the pod on purpose, left the brawler to crack a locked box on a flat roll, and bet the whole run on him missing. It was the correct read. It needed a four.
Drava rolled the four. The pod opened, Songbird came out alive, and the closer did the one beautiful thing in his whole night // he caught the moving Metronome on a perfect swing and set her aboard like he was putting down a glass. Mink threw himself after the car and caught nothing but air, hung on by reflex, and watched Solano peel the whole thing off the ramp. Salt Wake never bled. Salt Wake never fought. Salt Wake went home with clean hands and an empty car, which in this sport is its own kind of obituary.
// THE TAPE
T1Priority Salt Wake 6 / Gilt 4. Both Jockeys lock to the transport (Bex Commit 3, Solano 3+1). Mink boards and runs a section clean (Latch 5, Flow 5), one jump from the pod. Drava boards (Latch 3) then jams his first Flow (2) // STUCK, no action left, Gilt +1 Pressure (1/6), brawler stuck at the rail.
T2Priority Salt Wake 3 / Gilt 1. Mink Flows for the pod and rolls a natural 1 // STUCK, GRIP 3 to 2, no advance, the window gone. Drava jams again (3), Gilt pays +1 Pressure (2/6) to force through and surges on a natural 6 up to level. Both Jumpers now tied one jump from the pod.
T3Priority Salt Wake 2 / Gilt 3 (Gilt's first). Drava jams once more (3), Gilt pays +1 Pressure (3/6) to force, then reaches the pod (5). Salt Wake keeps Mink off the pod to leave Drava a missable crack. Bex Blocks Solano, ties 3 to 3+1 // no change.
T4Priority Salt Wake 2 / Gilt 3. Drava cracks the locked pod (OPINT 4) // Songbird taken alive. He Latches her onto the Metronome on a natural 6. Mink throws himself after the car (Latch nat 1), misses, saves the fall (GUTS 4), left stranded. Solano break-clears off the ramp (Commit 4). Gilt extracts // T4.
// WORKBENCH
// HOW IT ACTUALLY PLAYED
This one was decided by the dice and almost rescued by the decisions, which is the most honest result a game can hand you. Salt Wake out-thought Gilt in three places and still lost, because the variance landed on the two rolls that mattered most and landed hard.
The turn it swung was Round 2. Mink was one Flow and one crack from lifting Songbird uncontested, the cleanest line on the board, and he rolled a natural one on the Flow. That single die turned a near-certain steal into nothing, and it cost grip on top, so every roll Mink made afterward carried a penalty. Gilt did not so much win Round 2 as Salt Wake handed it back.
- Dice luck: wildly lopsided at the hinge. Salt Wake's only two pod rolls of the game were both ones. Gilt's brawler answered with a natural six to force level and a natural six to stick the handoff. The crew with the worse position rolled the better dice exactly when the board demanded it.
- The decision that was right anyway: with Drava parked on the pod, Salt Wake kept Mink off it on purpose. Going adjacent would have upgraded Drava's lift from a missable crack on a four to a fistfight Mink loses on a five. Staying back left Gilt a real chance to whiff. Correct read. The four just landed.
- Balance read: the Pressure economy is doing its job. Gilt forced everything, three ticks getting a poor mover through the transport, won, and still finished at 3 of 6, one bad round from the danger zone. Salt Wake played clean, finished at zero, and lost. Theft beats violence on the clock, but only if your thief can actually move. Build your Jumper for the board you expect.
- One thing to try next: give the trailing crew a way to attack a parked rival at the objective without committing to a fight they lose. A Jockey-side lever that costs the rival thief a Pressure tick or a section would have given Salt Wake something to do in the back half. Right now a finesse Jumper who falls behind has no answer to a brawler sitting on the prize except hope.
Kit aside: run the convoy as a real second board, not set dressing. Sectioning the transport so the Jumpers physically race down it, with the pod at the far end, is the thing that made the brawler's movement problem matter at the table. Tape a strip of card, mark three zones, put the pod on the last one. The whole drama lives in who reaches the end first.
Five rulings went to the QA log this run // the convoy-snatch seed leans on corners the rules leave open. The big one: when a STUCK Jumper pays a Pressure tick to force through, can the freed action re-attempt the jump and advance, or only clear in place? I let it advance, which is the only reason Drava reached the pod at all. Also logged: carrying a living package as a movement penalty, the missing carry-it-back-and-extract procedure for a person target, the odd-minute clock conversion (15 minutes ran as 7 rounds), and the Block tie-break when both Jockeys hold equal LINE.
// DISPOSITION
RESULTGilt Cadence extracts Songbird alive // T4, break-clear off the Alto Cito ramp. Salt Wake never took the package.
CASUALTIES // SALT WAKENone. Mink missed the chase and was left stranded on the convoy (saved his fall, no wound), GRIP 2. Bex untouched, LINE 3. Pressure 0/6.
CASUALTIES // GILTNone. Drava GRIP 3, Solano LINE 3. Pressure 3/6 (Clean). A bloodless extraction.
MVPDrava Oke (Gilt Jumper) // a brawler who jammed three times and ate every one of his team's Pressure ticks, then forced through on a natural six, cracked the locked pod on the number, and stuck the handoff on a natural six. The wrong tool, used until it was the right one.
RUN IT YOURSELF:
OT RAID RACERS // The Barrens Extraction, in the Mission Seeds.
CLEAN HANDS // EMPTY CAR