Operation Dragoon
Today the Germans are undertaking a mission in an infested and over-run facility, the name of which does not matter. Once the bugs have it, and the marines have left, the location is bombarded to the point that it no longer exists.
Operation Dragoon.
Priority 3. Three Objectives.
One survivor needs to be extracted, and the data from two terminals reclaimed.
Deployed forces consist of the "Black Snakes" squad, reinforced with a Flamethrower, and "Door Knocker" charges carried by all.
18th Platoon, "A" Squad, The "Black Snakes"
A1 - Josef Schiller, Rifleman
A2 - Bruno Klempner, Rifleman
A3 - Josef BuxBaum, Rifleman
A4 - Nils Klostermann, Medic
A5 - Sigmund Bonsch, Machine Gunner
A6 - Ferdinand Schiele, Flamethrower. TDY
Infiltration was held up slightly by the higher security on the door, but the team made entry and secured the hallway quickly.Mindful of their training, the marines didn't stray too far into separation.
Bonsch and Schiele moved to the room door. Schiele managed to get it open, it took all of his concentration, but he did it.
The aliens now cleared out, Klostermann moved in to contact the survivor. The guy checked out fine. Like always, the aliens had deliberately left him alone for whatever inexplicable reason.
Meanwhile, Schiller and Klempner take up back-to-back overwatch positions in the corridor area, trying to prevent surprises from the vents.
Surprised or not, the sudden flood of bugs from the vents was impressive. Overwatch fire from the ready marines thinned the masses only barely. This was followed by Panic Fire from all three riflemen.The arrival of Bonsch and his machine gun finished off the remaining bugs, leaving the way clear for Klostermann to lead the civilian out to the landing pad.
Assuming the bugs didn't see him as a priority over the marines, he should be perfectly safe out there.
More bugs, though fewer than before, dropped through the vents. The marines reacted with quick shots, but couldn't stop them all before they were in range. Schiller and Klempner suffered some pretty serious wounds before the bugs could be killed.
Klostermann returns from escorting the civilian and begins patching up the bleeding marines. Bonsch spins up his barrels again to deal with a few more bugs that have shown up in the hall. Schiele moves down toward the door at the far end of the hall, but not far enough that he's out of reach of the rest of his squad. A lone marine is a dead marine.
Bugs erupt from the vent at the end of the hall. But before they get to far, Schiele bathes the entire wall in flame. this kills the bugs, but effectively blocks the hall for a moment.Not that that matters, the other marines are once again under and avalanche of bugs pouring through the vent.
Bugs that quickly swarm the hapless marines.Reactionary Panic Fire and careful shots from the few not buried under the bugs eliminates the threat, though Klostermann has even more patching up to do.
At the other end, Schiele and Bonsch reach the door. Realizing that they don't have the time to fool around with the door mechanism, they slap a Door Knocker charge on it and decide to blow it open.It's faster, but has the obvious disadvantage of preventing them from closing it later.
With the door opened (permanently) by Schiele, Bonsch moves directly to the terminal objective and secures it. Whatever he needed to do, he did. That's two objectives completed.
That technically qualifies this as a successful mission, as long as everyone gets out, so there's a short but intense discussion on whether they should try for the third objective or not.
In the end, their sense of duty wins out over common sense, and they head for the final terminal they need to reach.
Schiele moves across the room and once again blows open the door they need to get through.The aliens are few in number for the moment, so they need to hurry to take advantage of that. No time to push buttons! Boom!
Klempner moves through the still smoldering door to reach the final objective, another computer terminal, and secures whatever it was he needed to.
Back at the first blasted door, more alien bugs have dropped fro the vents and are trying to push through the opening. Bonsch spins up and mows down quite a few. Buxbaum manages to shoot past his comrade and take out the few remainders.Again the aliens spew from the hall vent, and again the marines open up on them with overwatch fire, trying to clear out the hordes.
Objectives completed, the marines are now rushing for the exit at a flat out run. That makes a lot of noise, which makes the aliens run faster. The bugs are rushing down on the withdrawing soldiers, coming from every possible place.
With the bugs right on their heels the whole way, the marines actually manage to make it out to the landing pad. The door slams closed just in time.
Mission Success! Three objectives completed, no marines lost!
I'm loving the way the terrain works, it looks nice and functions really well.
The rules are working great.
I'm thinking I'll keep the German squad, and run them through a campaign. This will have been their first mission.
Recalling that I brought an extra guy along, the actual squad consists of only five members. So these are the guys I'll take through the Between Mission stuff.
I added the squad to a spreadsheet to keep track of them and their missions.
Since it was the first mission, besides the normal between mission things, I also rolled up their Origins. It seems that most of these guys are some fairly experienced veterans.
Anyway, I sent Buxbaum to a "Harsh Environment" training course. That gives him a 0.5 increase in Tech. He used 5XP to gain another 0.5 in Tech, so now he has [1] Re-roll when using his Tech skill.
(The photo above was taken before I did that, so it only shows the 0.5 for the training.)
Schiller was chosen randomly for a roll on the Event chart. He's been detached from the squad for Special Duty. That means he can't go on the next mission, he's off being special, but when he comes back he gets +2XP.
The randomly rolled name for the squad came up as the Black Snakes.
Since it was the first mission, besides the normal between mission things, I also rolled up their Origins. It seems that most of these guys are some fairly experienced veterans.
Anyway, I sent Buxbaum to a "Harsh Environment" training course. That gives him a 0.5 increase in Tech. He used 5XP to gain another 0.5 in Tech, so now he has [1] Re-roll when using his Tech skill.
(The photo above was taken before I did that, so it only shows the 0.5 for the training.)
Schiller was chosen randomly for a roll on the Event chart. He's been detached from the squad for Special Duty. That means he can't go on the next mission, he's off being special, but when he comes back he gets +2XP.
The randomly rolled name for the squad came up as the Black Snakes.
Since guys tend to die fairly often in DC5, I'm not adding them to the Scenario Page just yet.
I'll wait for them to get through a few more missions before I do that.
Comments