Arcane Tower

I'll be there and I don't work so I will try to be there early. I'll bring my new game and we can try to run through it. I've ready the rules, but I'm going to see if they have any youtube videos of someone playing the game to see the rules in action, as some of them were a little confusing.
 

So, will we change over or not?

http://paizo.com/pathfinderplaytest?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=Playtest%20Announcement
 

Corned beef and "bangers" for dinner. I'll cook a potato of some sort too. Could use carrots or a cabbage.
 

On with the show...
Scouting Ft. Hallow shows it to be under siege by a force of at least 20 Khadoran warjacks and fifty men including man-o-wars. There are three supply stations waiting to support them, one each two miles to the East, North and West. The North and West support points are guarded by a heavy warjack, two man-o-wars and two artillery teams, the East support point is guarded by a five-warjack team, five man-o-wars and a single artillery team.

Killina spots the southern scout team, and makes quick work of them before they can signal for help, then scouts out the rest of the area with Wyn. The Eastern support point doesn't look more important than the other support teams, other than the heavier guard. The point of biggest concern, however, is that the forces that are supposed to be holding up in Ft. Hallow, couldn't possibly have put up any resistance to a force of this size, and there are dozens of bloody corpses and destroyed 'jacks littering the battlefield around the Fort.
Your orders being to make sure the fort does not fall into enemy hands, you plan an attack against the sieging force. With all of the combat noise, sneaking up on them only requires that the scouts be spotted and killed before they can warn the others. Taking out the support points before anyone notices will be difficult, but not impossible, and engaging the other warjacks that are most isolated with carefully set up sniper points and a concentrated front of force, heavies attacking with lights guarding the rear with sniper support. Its a long battle with frightening sounds always coming from the other side of the tower, always just out of sight.

When half the Khadoran forces are down, the true horror presents itself. Dead human bodies litter the battlefield, mostly Khadoran, but many cygnaran and unidentifiable bodies as well. Worse, at least for the fate of Ft. Hallow, are the pieces of bodies melded to metal. As the battle with the Khadorans comes to a close, the wreckers that have been hiding while fighting come into view fighting Khadoran forces. As unlikely comrades, you slaughter the remaining Khadoran forces with the help of the remaining wreckers before finishing off the wreckers as well. The siege over, you get a good long look at the moonlit tower of Ft. Hallow; newly mounted artillery destroys the farm-keep visage it once had. A closer look shows the gunners are melded to the artillery, another sign of Cephalyx work noting that they must now be in control of Ft. Hallow.

Ft. Hallow is clearly taken over. Low on supplies, sleep and health, you needed a plan and to act quickly, before the new residents could “recover” from the battle (by making more troops). You also needed to see if there were any survivors. The mech-elevator was broken (stuck in the “up” position), but would be too noisy for sneaking in anyways. The group decided split up to get the job done, half would sneak through the front door, and the other half would attempt to repair the elevator and come down when they hear combat with the group's damaged 'jacks. The less noisy group took much longer and were much less stealthy than desired; starting with a fight with the door... literally. The Cephalyx enjoy the melding of man and metal, but using flesh to make an intelligent door opener was definitely going too far, and made a surprise attack impossible. The main hallway was a sterile-but-gruesome version of the horror outside. The three lesser hallways were blocked by wreckers with shoulder-mounted cannons. It looks like the Cephalyx like the idea too; it looks like everyone envies Khador's weapon engineers. The main hallway leading the the northern great-room was lined with something more horrifying than the wreckers; beside each door stood a drudge holding a felblade. This day was not going to be good.
 

None of the cephalyx moved after the death of the guard-door. Stepping in and looking around led to the next event... the main event, as it were. “Welcome my new friends. Good of you to finally join us. We've been waiting for you, your friends here have been holding out such exquisite hope for a rescue.” The voice is hard to distinguish from your own thoughts, heard more in the back of your head than by your ears, and clearly understood even though it clearly comes from all the way down the hallway, from the throne room. “Come towards my “voice” if you want to greet your old friends, they have been waiting so long for you to come visit.” You need to get to the throne room anyways, if you have any hope of destroying the important research and artifacts held here. The walk to the throne room is short, only 80 feet, but creepy the entire way, with drudge-berserkers wielding felblades guarding each door on the way, and voices of people once called allies calling out from the side rooms, warning of traps and begging for rescue or death. The throne room is, of course, a trap... maybe ambush is a better description. In addition to the berserkers lining the hall, there are four more chained to a golden throne and a large ceplalyx mastermind hovering cross-legged above it like he sitting on an invisible cushion. Two frightening monstrosities flank the cave entrance behind the throne; each a wrecker modified to hold khadoran shoulder-cannons. Hopefully that's the only thing he managed to copy. The east and west walls are decorated with the monster's current experiments and the drudges guarding them. The experiments are two dozen of the remnants of the personnel of the fort, all in the process of being “improved” by the gruesome technology of the cephalyx.

There was no talking you way out of this one; the monster was not sane, at least by iron kingdoms standards, but talking could amuse it to delay the fight until the team outside could get the elevator working. Unfortunately, it was going to take longer to get the elevator working than you were going to have. Fortunately, unorthodox solutions are your specialty. The fighting started with an artillery barrage at the monstrosity on the left in hopes of disabling it before it could enter combat so maybe someone would survive long enough for the cavalry to arrive. As with any story, things always get worse before getting better. Between the artillery you could bring with you and the monstrosities firing wildly all around you, things were looking bad. After sustaining heavy injuries, Killina noticed more explosions from the left that couldn't be the monstrosities... unless there were more of them.

It may have only been seconds, but that's all it takes for heavy artillery to take its toll on a human body, and it wasn't over yet. With the entire room filled with choking smoke and flying artillery, it is amazing anyone survived the arrival of the cavalry. Heavy warjacks rained down the elevator shaft, cushioned only by the remains of the elevator, two of them sacrificed to pad the landings of the more battle-worthy 'jacks. The cephalyx seemed to be immune to the attacks of the warjacks, however, with the other threats neutralized, a blessed pistol was brought to bear and able to pierce the mosnter's defenses. Time seemed to stop for a moment as he examined his wound. As time started moving slowly forward, the monster fled down the tunnel, seemingly unaffected by the sluggish time surrounding the rest of the complex. The slowed time did more to disable the remaining monstrosities and berserkers than it did the much quicker-witted cygnarans, and the heavy warjacks quickly turned the tide of the battle.
 

The cleanup was also gruesome and slow. While the strange time manipulation had worn off shortly after the battle, cleanup was still slow and difficult. Felblades littered the floor with the bodies of comrades turned into hybrid machine-creatures along with many khadoran bodies. The good news was that there were over two dozen survivors still alive. The bad news was that the place was a mess, and everyone was in desperate need of healing and repairs. Only two of the khadoran warjacks you wanted to retrieve had been left in tact, however, they were neatly spread out across the easter room... some assembly required. While you don't have any spare cortexes, you may be able to rebuild them faster than you could repair all of your other 'jacks. Lukily the cephalyx was a mechanik (of sorts) and had the pieces spread out in a sensible order and had tons of clean metal ready to use (although half of it is red).

It takes three days to heal yourselves and repair the 'jacks. When everyone looks ready to move, you set the explosives and get ready to head out to the unnamed village about a half day away where the surviving valkeries were supposed to stay until the fort was reclaimed or destroyed. You need to set the bomb to destroy Ft. Hallow and march off.

Note: Remember, each of you should have two jacks, the one you've had the whole campaign and the additional one issued to you for this mission. You don't have the time or parts to get all possible warjacks up and running, but can get two running for each of you (in addition to the two pulling carts). You have all of the parts to put together a Kodiak and Demolisher IF you put one of your cortexes in each of them, although arcanum-grade cortexes are the only ones that won't have a problem with the new bodies. You also have enough ammo littering the area to restock.
 

As mentioned last weekend, I have family stuff this weekend, so I won't be available. Have fun, guys!
 

Hey Guys, going to be unavailable this week and probably next week. Not sure about the 24th yet, should be back on the 31st. Been reading up on Pathfinder 2 playtest, still reserving judgement at this point. Have fun while I'm away.