PLAYTEST RECORD // SHOW YOUR WORK
FILED_FROM: THE RING ROAD // LOST ANGELES
FILING_DATE: 2026-06-27
RESULT: DUST CHOIR EXTRACTS // T5
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BARCODE: SIG-BATREP-2026-06-27
届
OPERATOR TACTICS // RAID RACERS // RECONSTRUCTED
OUT OF
REACH
RAID RACERS // THE ORBITAL LEDGER // T5
RAID RACERSTHE ORBITAL LEDGERDUST CHOIR EXTRACTS5 ROUNDS // ON THE LOCKPRESSURE CLEAN BOTH SIDES
// ROLL IN THE OPEN // COUNT THE DICE // BLAME THE TERRAIN // FILE THE REPORT //
// OPERATOR TACTICS // RAID RACERS
A no-chip Raze crew with the best thief on the board steals a pre-Upheaval artifact off the Ring Road and then spends four rounds trying not to drop it. The favored crew had the faster sled, the cleaner sheet, and a fighter who never once got her hands on the case.
OUT OF REACH
BY TIB MARLOW
GAME: OPERATOR TACTICS // RAID RACERS
FILED: THE RING ROAD // LOST ANGELES // 2026-06-27
TELEMETRY: RECONSTRUCTED // THE DICE ARE ON RECORD.
// DESK NOTE // M. KOSE
A textbook case of a crew doing everything right and losing to a single early die. Obsidian Comet owned the road from the first corner and never once held the prize. Watch the round-one fumble that quietly cost them the whole afternoon, three rounds before they knew it.
// DEPLOYMENT
GAMEOperator Tactics // Raid Racers
SCENARIOThe Orbital Ledger // package run on the Ring Road, Lost Angeles
CREW ADUST CHOIR (no-chip, the Raze) // Obe Tanner 'Backfire' jockey, front-engine 'Cinder Quill' // Pix Marlo jumper, capuchin-stock, MOBI 8
CREW BOBSIDIAN COMET (patron-funded, Center Point) // Vern Kast 'Glasscutter' jockey, wolf-stock, rear-engine 'Long Glass' // Senna Rue jumper, FIGHT Good
COURSEThe Ring Road, mostly Open straights (rear-engine +1), one Tight stretch at the East Span (front-engine +1), Monitor Central drones on the corridor
OBJECTIVELift the shielded pre-Upheaval artifact off the NAF recovery hauler 'the Antiquarian', rejoin your ride, break clear
WIN CONDITIONFirst crew to Lift + rejoin + break-clear. Package locks if the hauler reaches the gantry at end of round 5. Pressure 6 = blown
TURN CAP5 rounds (10-minute AI lockdown)
The Antiquarian came onto the Ring Road eastbound at full lockdown speed, an NAF recovery hauler running a sealed reliquary toward the Low Coast gantry, and two crews came onto it from opposite shoulders. Obsidian Comet had the better road and everyone on the feed knew it. Vern Kast drove a rear-engine sled on the spread's longest open straight, wolf-stock reflexes reading the lane the way most jockeys read a corner, and inside the first minute he was locked to the hull like the hauler owed him money. Dust Choir had the worse road and the better thief, and they were betting the whole run on that one fact.
The bet looked bad early. Senna Rue went for the hull, caught a bad edge, came off her line hard, and was working at a deficit before she ever reached the case. Obe Tanner opened with a misread of his own and handed the drones a tick of pressure for free. For one beat it read like the favorites would simply walk it.
Then Pix Marlo went up the hauler.
THE FAVORITES HAD THE ROAD. THE THIEF HAD THE CASE.
She was capuchin-stock and she moved like it, up the recovery rig's flank and across the spine to the reliquary while Senna was still clawing onto the deck behind her. The case was locked and Pix did not rush it. She read the seal, popped it clean, and came away holding a pre-Upheaval artifact that every faction on the board would have bled for. She did it without a fight, because the one fighter who could have taken it from her was a full body-length short and getting shorter.
That was the race. Everything after it was Dust Choir trying not to drop the thing they had already won. Senna Rue spent three straight rounds reaching for Pix and three straight rounds coming up one stride short, the early stumble still in her hands, every grab a half-beat too slow. Comet's plan had never been to out-run the climber. It had been to let her grab and then take the case off her with the better fists. The fists never arrived.
What kept it honest was the handoff. Twice Pix tried to swing the artifact back onto Cinder Quill and twice the case fought her, once a clean miss over open road and once a genuine disaster that left her dangling at speed with the whole event in one hand and her own grip in the other. She held both times. Obe held the sled steady under her, ate a Block from Vern that should have ended it, and shrugged it off on the kind of roll a Raze crew earns by surviving worse.
It came down to the last lap with the gantry lights already up. Pix latched on. Vern threw one more Block to deny the break, Obe broke it anyway, and Cinder Quill went through the gap as the lock came down. The favorites finished with the better road and a clean sheet. Their hands were empty. Dust Choir finished broke and battered, gone off the eastbound lip with the only thing on the board that mattered.
// THE TAPE
T1Priority Comet 4 v 1. Vern Line Read 5 then Commit 5 (Open +2): Chase to LOCKED IN clean. Senna Flow nat-1: STUCK, GRIP 3 to 2, cleared with 2nd action. Obe Line Read nat-1 in drone sight: Dust Pressure 0 to 1; Commit 5 (-1): LOCKED IN. Pix Flow 2: staged clean, GRIP 3.
T2Priority Dust 5 v 4. Pix Flow 3 to the case, then Lift 5 (OPINT, uncontested): ARTIFACT TAKEN CLEAN. Senna board-Flow 3 (needed 5+ at GRIP 2): STUCK, no reach, no strip. Obe Block Vern nat-6 v 4: Vern to Chase, LINE 3 to 2; Vern recover Commit 4 (+2) to LOCKED IN, Line Read banks +1.
T3EAST SPAN (tight: Obe +1, Vern -1). Priority Comet 5 v 4. Senna close-Flow 2 (needed 5+): STUCK, never reaches; the wasted grab dice were 6 v 6 (tie holds with carrier). Pix rejoin-Latch 3 (needed 5+, carry -1): MISS, GUTS 5 saves the fall, not aboard. Vern Block Obe 5 (+1 banked) v 3: Obe to Chase, LINE 3 to 2; Obe recover Commit to LOCKED IN. Vern Line Read banks +1.
T4OPEN. Priority Comet 6 v 2. Senna close-Flow 2: STUCK, third failed reach. Vern Block Obe (5 +2 +1 = 8) v 4: Obe to Chase, LINE 2 to 1. Pix rejoin-Latch nat-1: MISS, GUTS 5 saves the fall, not aboard. Obe break-clear Commit nat-6 // VOID (no carrier aboard).
T5OPEN. Priority Dust 3 v 1. Pix rejoin-Latch 5 (needed 5+): ABOARD with the artifact. Vern Block Obe (2 +2 = 4) v nat-6: Obe wins, lane clears, Vern to Chase. Obe BREAK-CLEAR Commit 4 (-1 = 3), needed 3+: EXTRACTED. Dust Choir wins on the lock.
// WORKBENCH
// HOW IT ACTUALLY PLAYED
Comet made the right call every round and lost on one die. Their plan was correct from the jump: own the open road, let the fast climber grab, then take the case off her with the better fighter. The round-one natural 1 that dropped Senna to GRIP 2 is what broke it. From then on every 'reach Pix' roll she made was an effective 5+, and she rolled 3, 2, 2 across three rounds. The decisions were Comet's. The dice were Dust Choir's.
The game swung on the T2 priority roll. Dust won it, activated Pix first, and the artifact came off the board clean and uncontested before Senna could even Check her. After that Comet was never holding the prize, only chasing it. The whole rest of the event was a 4-round attempt by Dust Choir to complete a fumble-prone rejoin (failed in T3, natural 1 in T4) before the clock locked the gantry.
Two natural sixes landed where they could do nothing, and that is the report in miniature. Senna rolled a 6 on a strip she could not reach (T3). Obe rolled a 6 on a break-clear with no passenger aboard (T4). The engine does not care how good the number is if the setup is wrong.
Balance read. The Vehicle Layout terrain rule did its job. Vern's rear-engine sled on the open straights was oppressive, an effective auto-success barring a natural 1, and it should be, because that is his entire build. But notice the open road never decided this game. The grab and the rejoin did, and those are Jumper rolls with no terrain modifier. A dominant Jockey build can own the road and still lose because the win lives in the thief's hands. That feels right for Raid Race.
One thing to try next. The carry penalty (-1 to the rejoin Latch) is a quiet killer. Pix needed a 5+ three separate times to get home and it nearly threw a won game away. Try a crew that runs a Jumper with FIGHT Good instead of leaning all-in on MOBI: that turns the carry-Latch into a 3+. Speed gets you the case. A stronger Latch gets you off the board.
Terrain aside. The East Span was supposed to be Dust Choir's payoff and the dice walked right past it. Obe got his +1 home stretch for exactly one Block and one recovery Commit, and the decisive break-clear happened back on the open road where he was at -1. Sometimes the terrain you built the whole plan around is just the place the dice did not stop.
Three rules questions surfaced in play. House rulings used so the game could finish, flagged for Jesse:
- Stripping a carried package. The Extraction text says the package can change hands right up to the break-clear, but Check only displaces (it is explicitly position and possession only) and no action is defined to take a carried package off a rival Jumper. Ruled it as a contested grab, FIGHT vs FIGHT, winner takes it, ties stay with the carrier (mirrors a contested Lift), no natural-6 mortal wound.
- Opposed-roll Pressure. Does losing an opposed Block count as a 'failed Race Roll' for the drone +1 Pressure? Ruled no: the Block's cost is the Zone and LINE loss; the drone tick is for failing your own driving roll, not for a rival simply rolling higher.
- Break-clear zone. Can the break-clear Commit be attempted from Chase, or must the Jockey be Locked In? Ruled it is a plain Commit attemptable from any zone with the carrier aboard; being Blocked back costs LINE and a Zone but does not bar the attempt. Decided the finish (Obe broke clear from Chase).
// DISPOSITION
RESULTDUST CHOIR extracts the artifact // T5, on the gantry lock. Obsidian Comet finishes with the better road and an empty hold.
CASUALTIES // DUST CHOIRNone. No wounds (Pix passed both GUTS saves on missed Latches), no DETAINED. Final Pressure 1/6 (Clean). LINE: Obe down to 1.
CASUALTIES // OBSIDIAN COMETNone. No wounds, no DETAINED. Final Pressure 0/6 (Clean). LINE: Vern down to 1. Senna stranded at GRIP 2, empty-handed.
MVPPIX MARLO (Dust Choir jumper). The clean Lift was the game. She held the artifact through three exposed rounds and two failed rejoins without dropping it or taking a hit, and latched home on the final lap.
THE BETTER ROAD MEANS NOTHING IF YOUR HANDS ARE EMPTY.