For scenario details, be sure to check out the Prologue and Part 1!
Through the rear-view mirror, Kato regarded the Green Hornet as he checked his equipment.
“Hornet Gun: check,” said the Green Hornet. “Hornet Sting: check. Let’s roll, Kato.”
A few minutes later, Kato steered the Black Beauty up to MaClane’s Shipping Yard. The car was set for silent running. In the darkness, it made no more noise than the faintest whisper as it pulled up to the curb. The Green Hornet and Kato exchanged a quick glance in the mirror. Both men nodded, then quietly exited the car on opposite sides.
Time to go to work.
Turn 1: From their concealed positions, the Green Hornet and Kato split up, each making his way to one side of the shipping yard. Being Observant, the Green Hornet comes close enough to an encounter marker to possibly trigger it; but he fails his Brains test. He’ll have to get closer! Kato, meanwhile, sprints to another container. This gives the guard atop the container a chance to spot him; but Kato keeps to the shadows and the guard fails to do so. This brings Kato in contact with another encounter marker. Unfortunately, it’s bad luck for him! Kato startles a stray cat, which yowls loudly. This gives the guard another chance to spot Kato, but the guard fails miserably and doesn’t react at all. Since the alarm hasn’t been raised, only one guard gets to move. The guard stationed atop a shipping container overlooking the meeting moves to his right, along a makeshift bridge.
Turns 2-3: The Green Hornet begins to climb up the side of the shipping container, trying to get a better vantage point. Once atop it, he activates the encounter marker. He takes a moment to angle a long-range microphone towards the meeting. He lucks out! One of the lieutenants coughs loudly, which is enough to identify him as Louie the Lunger, enforcer for “Lemonface” Bucco, boss of the Bowery district! Meanwhile, Kato moves around his container, while the guard atop it ambles down its length, failing yet again to spot Kato, who begins his own climb up the side of the container. Finally, Another guard heads out towards the center of the yard, halfheartedly scanning the darkness.
Turn 4: The guard atop the container Kato is climbing does an about-face and returns to his original position, which means he walks right by Kato for a second time. The guard is oblivious; once again failing to spot the black-clad Kato clinging to the side of the container. Kato quickly climbs up and attacks the guard from behind, delivering a silent but highly-effective kung-fu chop to the guard’s neck. Down he goes! The Green Hornet drops silently from the top of his container, coming into contact with another encounter marker. It’s a restless guard. One of the guards gets the urge to stretch his legs, so he gets to move out of turn. The guard on the bridge continues in the same direction, scanning the darkness, seeing nothing.
Turn 5: The Green Hornet moves quietly around the side of a nearby car, taking aim at the driver with the Hornet gun. He fires off a gas canister and the driver quickly succumbs to the narcotic effects of the knockout gas! A nearby guard fails to see the driver slump to the ground, unconscious! (These guards are really terrible.)
Meanwhile, from his vantage point atop his own shipping container, Kato has a clear shot at another driver. Not one to miss an opportunity, Kato hurls one of his drugged Hornet-darts at the unsuspecting driver; who is quickly overcome by the knockout venom! The Green Hornet and Kato are like the two pieces of bread in a SANDWICH OF JUSTICE! The guard in the middle of the yard moves back to his position atop the metal platform overlooking the meeting. So far, the Green Hornet and Kato have avoided detection!
Turn 6: The guards seem to realize they’re too close together, so they separate to better keep watch over the yard.
Like flowing water, Kato slips down the side of the shipping container. No longer worried about attracting the driver’s attention, he moves closer to the car, trying to get a better look at the mob lieutenants. The Green Hornet makes a break from cover towards another encounter marker. For a brief moment, he is all too visible to the guard atop the metal platform; but the guard is distracted by something on his shoe, and fails to notice the Emerald Avenger as he gets close enough to note the identity of another mob lieutenant! It’s “Clean-Head Chang”, enforcer for the notorious Chinatown crime boss, Wise Uncle Wei!
Turn 7: The Green Hornet backtracks to his original position. Through his powers of Observation, he activates the encounter marker atop the shipping containers; but it’s a dud. Nothing happens. Kato moves closer to the meeting, for a brief moment fully exposed to two of the guards. Both fail their tests to spot him. (These guards are the WORST.)
Turn 8: One of the guards shifts his facing, giving him another chance to spot Kato. He does not. Kato moves towards another encounter marker, desperately trying to identify the last mob lieutenant; or even catch a glimpse of the mystery man. But before that can happen, the Green Hornet, trying to remain out of sight, moves around the back of the shipping container stack.
He activates an encounter marker. It’s the cops, led to the scene by crusading reporter Mike Axford!
Immediately, the mob lieutenants make a break for their cars, while the Mystery Man slinks away into the shadows. MEETING ADJOURNED!
Turn 9: Although Mike Axford is scanning the yard for the elusive Green Hornet, “Clean-Head” Chang runs out into the open in full view of the cops while making a break for his car, not knowing that his driver has been KO’ed by the Green Hornet’s gas gun. The cops fire, but fail to hit the Tong gangster. Meanwhile, Louie the Lunger runs for his car, also unaware that his driver is down for the count because of Kato’s dart. He comes face-to-face with Kato, and wastes no time pulling his gun and taking his shot. He hits! Kato takes a grazing shot along his rib cage!
In response, Kato screams his Battle Cry, leaping into hand-to-hand combat with Louie the Lunger. To his credit, the mobster doesn’t panic; but he does drop to the ground senseless on the receiving end of Kato’s vicious flying kick!
The Green Hornet tries to head off “Clean-Head” Chang, even going so far as to attack Chang’s car with the Hornet Sting in an attempt to disable it. Unfortunately, the device fails, and Chang’s car is unaffected. Chang reaches his car and speeds away, leaving behind his enforcer. The identity of the third mob lieutenant must remain a mystery, as he manages to reach his car and speed away, leaving his enforcer behind as well!
Turn 10: There are only two criminal models left on the table; these are the two goons left behind by the lieutenants as they made their escape. Mike Axford is obsessed with the Green Hornet and doesn’t care about these small fish. He’s desperately scanning the darkness, looking for the Hornet; but finds Kato instead. He hastily points him out the police, who open fire! Although most of the cops miss, Kato is struck again! He’s down to one wound! This serves to highlight his position to the goon atop the shipping container, who also opens fire at Kato with his tommy gun! Despite leaking like a sieve, Kato manages to leap and roll to safety, easily avoiding the hail of bullets! (Kato rolled two natural 10’s, which are Heroic Saves. The bullets never even came close.) The remaining mobster fires upon the Green Hornet, but only sprays the air as our hero vanishes into the concealing darkness!
Turn 11: Kato needs to get out of here, and fast. He sprints to the edge of the board to join the Green Hornet, spending Hero Points to gain extra movement. The heroes flee the scene with the identity of two of the three mob lieutenants, as the cops collar the remaining gangsters and Mike Axford wrings his hat in frustration. But questions persist: who was the third lieutenant, and who was the mystery man? What did they want?
Analysis: This game was a lot of fun, and it flew by pretty quickly. With two Grade 3 models, you would think the odds were stacked in favor of the heroes; and for a while, that was the case. Once the alarm sounded, though, all bets were off. The fact that the guards couldn’t spot snow in a blizzard helped; but Kato survived by sheer luck alone. I fully expected him to go down in a hail of gunfire from the cops, but they rolled like shit. Then, he pulled off a miraculous dodge when one of the gat men opened up with his tommy gun. Lucky!
I was really pleased with how the two heroes methodically took out the sentries while trying to discover as many clues as possible. The encounter markers weren’t going their way; but they did get seven full turns before the cops showed up, and the identities of 2 of the 3 lieutenants. The final VP tally: Heroes: 7, Gangsters: 1. A pretty decisive (though by no means complete) victory for the heroes!
Epilogue: The Next Day
Britt Reid paced the room, pounding his fist into his palm in frustration. “Blast it, Kato, why does Mike Axford have to be so darn good at his job?”
“Isn’t that what you pay him for?” asked Kato. He was propped up in bed, his ribs bandaged. Despite the pain, he was feeling fortunate that mobsters were such lousy shots.
“The Daily Sentinel is lucky to have a reporter so tenacious. The Green Hornet, not so much. Axford brought the cops down on us before we could find out what was really going on in that storage yard.”
“We know the identities of two of the lieutenants,” said Kato, ” Louie the Lunger and Clean-Head Chang. That’s something.”
“It would have been nice to be able to interrogate at least one of them, and find out the identitiy of the third,” said Reid, “not to mention the mystery man, and what they were doing in the first place. Chang got away, and Louie is cooling his heels in a cell downtown.” Reid sighed in exasperation. “D.A. Scanlon says he isn’t talking.”
“Sorry I got shot, boss,” said Kato.
“That’s ok, my friend,” deadpanned Reid. “Just try to do better next time.” The two men exchanged smiles. “So, what now?” asked Kato.
“Clean-Head Chang is top enforcer for Wise Uncle Wei,” said Reid. “I think it’s time Wei got a visit from the Green Hornet.”
Kato nodded, sliding out of bed; but Reid stopped him. “You need to stay here and rest up, Kato. I’ll handle this one alone.”
Kato shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You worry too much, Kato. I have done this before, you know.” Reid smiled. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
Kato sat back and watched as Britt Reid left. A few minutes later, he slid out of bed, wincing in pain. The Green Hornet needed Kato, and there was no way he wasn’t going to be there.
Nice work, read really well and very in the “pulp” style, a good result for the Hornet, but not too good as to blow the whole jig! The crime bosses must be paying peanuts though to have got monkeys like that as goons!
Looking forward to the next instalment.
Cheers Roger.
Thanks, Roger. The next installment should be here soon. Just need to play it first!
I’m lucky as I have the entire series on DVD. It’s a bootleg that I bought at a comic convention, as I’m pretty sure it wasn’t released officially in the US. It’s only one season, but it’s so much fun to re-watch. I’m not sure if there are any ways to watch in Britain, but you should check it out if you get a chance. You can watch any episode and jump right in; no need to watch from the beginning.
Excellent report Keith, the tension built as the episode progressed, just as it should. I think they hired the gunmen from Acme for all the good they did.
Good to see Kato not letting the Green Hornet go on his own, as we all know he would never surrvive without Kato.
Thanks, Dave. There’s much more Kato to come. I’m a big fan of the classic Green Hornet, but I also really liked the Seth Rogen movie; where the Hornet was Don Quixote and Kato was Sancho Panza, always having to pull the Hornet’s ass out of the fire. I’m hoping for a bit of both in these AARs.
This reminded me of a funny, supposedly true story: when they were planning a crossover between the Green Hornet and the Adam West Batman TV show, the two duos were supposed to fight and Kato was supposed to lose to Robin. Bruce Lee refused to do it, saying (correctly) that there was no way anyone would believe Burt Ward’s Robin would be able to take Bruce Lee’s Kato.
And yeah, the guards were really bad at their job.
Absolutely loved this, matey, and so happy to see a new — and as always excellent — AAR from you! I have to admit, I couldn’t stop laughing at the guards continually failing to spot anything. They’re about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike LOL! I also love how the Green Hornet buggers off and leaves a machine-gunned Kato to fend for himself! And Kato apologises for getting shot! Awesome stuff all round and I can’t wait for the next one.
Thanks to your AARs I’ve actually bought the No More Room in Hell rulebook and am hoping to run some games just as soon as I get my act together, build some more scenery and learn the rules. I might even write an AAR myself if I can get the hang of playing it.
Thanks, Matt. The guards were really terrible. Here is the Guard Duty mechanic from the game:
Make a deck of 20 black cards (both suits, Ace-10). This is the Guard Duty deck. Whenever a guard activates, draw a card. The card drawn indicates whether or not the guard has a chance to spot any of the Green Hornet or Kato, assuming they have line of sight and are within range:
Any clubs suit: No chance to spot
Ace-5, spades suit: chance to spot at Brains-1
6-10, spades suit: chance to spot at Brains +1
I actually gave these guys MORE of a chance to spot by drawing from the deck any time the Green Hornet or Kato entered their LOS, not just when they activated. They still failed.
The next scenario is already written. If I’m really lucky I may get a chance to play it this weekend. As far as No More Room in Hell goes, I like the game but I ran into a pretty big problem with it, but nothing that can’t be fixed with a house rule. I’ll email you about it soon!
Sidekicks these days….always getting shot. Fun game!
As I gaze into my crystal ball, I see more bullets in Kato’s future…