Rogue Star Wars: Bothawui Run

Planet Bothawui, where it gets cold only sometimes.

After the close call with the pirates, the Rebel station at the Bothawui polar region was to be evacuated.  They knew it was only a matter of time before the Imperials figured out what was going on and came out to investigate, so the teams quickly moved to evade any so-called 'entanglements'.  After procuring most of the sensitive equipment and data, only a few sections of the base remained to be dismantled.

Reeling from casualties sustained in the earlier skirmish, the band of rebels attempts to upload a cache of sensitive deployment data to courier ships waiting in orbit.  Already on the way, unbeknownst to the rebels, was a team of Imperial Stormtroopers led there by an independent contractor, an outer rim bounty hunter.  We open as both teams close in on the transmitter...

All the rebels have to do is establish the uplink and complete the transfer.  The Imperials are inspecting the ruins, and are soon alerted to their presence.  It's a simple thing, to complete the transfer...nought but a few keystrokes.

BATTLE REPORT
Rogue Stars by Osprey Publishing

Rogue Star Wars Campaign 
Bothawui Rebel Attack on Imperials; Hacking Mission

Setup
Rebel Tech-Partisans vs Imperial Hunter-Killer Team

No complications were used for this match, despite what we were explicitly told to do.  We simply forgot.

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Quickly and quietly, the Rebel team begins its advance back into the ruins...only vaguely aware of the precariousness of the situation.  Imperials weren't immediately expected, but little did they know that a mysterious bounty hunter had tailed the Buru brothers right to the ancient Jedi ruins.  By the time the Rebels had returned from the first phase of the evacuation, the contractor had returned with an Imperial patrol and were already sniffing around the site.

Let's just wait here and see if anyone shoots at them.

Imperials had the first activations, but were taking their time walking across the treacherous snow and avoiding those TN 8 Terrain rolls.  The Rebel Pathfinder and Bothan Commando took the first reactions to run as fast as they could toward the objective.  For a while, there were no targets in sight for either team.

This looks like a good spot to wait for someone to shoot.

It takes multiple actions to get anywhere.   At 2" each, you have to spend all 3 from 3 successful dice to get a 6" move.  It's kinda funny that it's more stressful to walk than run, but then I remembered they were walking in ankle deep snow slush over muddy ground.  Still, it's worth indicating that you should probably only walk where it's injurious to do otherwise.

After all, you could be shot.

Just take baby steps and you'll be ok.

The stormtroopers moved to cover the center area of the board, as if they could feel the rebel presence long before they could see it.  Scan-darts should be a thing...but it didn't matter anyway.  The Imperials had Heavy Firepower, and knew how to use it - concentrated on one area.

Remember to cover your squadmates during leap-frog advances.  It's just plain rude not to.

The Rebels made it to the edge of the ruin where the uplink was concealed within the Jedi Temple's architecture.  The advance stalled there when they tried to move more elements up to repel the Imperial fire that was about to pour on the comm-station.  However, the Rebel team was at a pretty strong disadvantage for one reason:  the Rogue Stars campaign system for survival is quite brutal, and the Rebel team was already down two members to four at the outset of the game.

That's not reinforcements but ok...

Get to the comm-link, spend two actions and make a roll of 15+ on a d20.  That's all they had to do.  Things were going pretty good for the first few rounds of the game...

Hey, let me just plug in this data-spike and we'll begin the upload...

However, the Imperials were already in key positions overlooking the transmitter.  They must have detected the encrypted signals coming from the transponders hidden in the ancient rock spires.  It was mere seconds before the Imperials sighted movement and began their attack.

PLA-KET-KETT!

Fire was exchanged in all directions, and second rank guns moved up to take the place of those that went down.

Dammit, Jenkins...get in that hole and press the button!

After a few harsh rounds of fire using several Imperial Heavy Firepower tokens, two rebels were out of action and a single stormtrooper was stunned.  The Rebel Commando finally got to the scene and immediately began First Aid, owing to how brutal the campaign system is on fighters that go out of action.  Mainly, you're dead most of the time even if you're somehow stabilized.

Uhh...it's not working, sir?  I think it's because Jenkins is dead.

The Imperials poured on the fire, using the Heavy Firepower discipline until it was gone.  Once the Rebel Pathfinder went down, it was clear this was going to be an uphill climb for the Rebel team.  Still, they pressed forward, determined to get the last datastore uploaded and away from their enemies.

Anyone that runs is a Rebel soldier.  Anyone who doesn't run is a well-disciplined Rebel soldier.

The last remaining rebels dove for cover but it was no use.  They'd have to take more of the guns out of play.  After weathering the Heavy Firepower, they were already out of position and undermanned, but if they couldn't take out more troopers quickly they'd have to roll the dice on the upload.  The last remaining rebel, the commander, moved up to work the uplink and finish the mission, despite almost 100% casualties.

Who needs maneuver when you've got firepower and armor?

The commander managed a return shot before he was knocked prone.  Several shots from the Imperial fireteam melted the snow where he was lying before he could get the uplink finished as they raked the area with their guns.  They piled on a huge amount of pin tokens during their frantic deluge of blaster fire, as well as 3 wounds.  However, he was successful and punched the code...only to fail to get the thing to truly upload.  With that...the game was over.  The Rebel Commander retreated, leaving the fallen where they were.

We found a large number of pin tokens and a few wounds among the survivors, sir.

The Imperial team calmly reloaded their weapons after running out of ammunition and resumed firing into the structure.  The structure funneled the rebels right into their fire solution.  They didn't advance until there was no more movement on scanners, and then began searching the ruins for evidence of rebel activity, capturing all of the Rebel team except the captain.