Warglory, Liberators II

[Shirocco]

Battle Rules

These will be expanded if needed. Each player is assumed to have some knowledge of their own weapon.

Combat turns represent about 3-4 seconds of combat. Most hand grenades detonate the turn after they are thrown, and shooting is done with one dice roll per shot. Melee actions take a full turn. Turns for all characters are resolved simultaneously; players state and roll for intended actions, I calculate and write up results when enough players have posted, dragging any slow players as NPCs.

Firearms

Exact bullet counts are not taken, it's approximated by turns spent firing how long you can go before reloading. Spare ammo is not counted and runs out when plot demands.

Most guns when fired at close range on a clear target work on a D3. A one misses, a two wounds, a three kills. This is because while most soldiers can hit targets consistently down a rifle range, accuracy drops by about a third in battle.

Most targets are not standing still in the open, and more difficult targets have higher dice rolls. For example, a D6 roll where a 5 wounds and a 6 kills is not uncommon. We work with real dice sizes with the addition of D3 & D2. I call out the base die, such as D20 or D8, and you apply modifiers to it.

For example, some guys at mid range firing back from good cover are a D20.

Fast shooting: Using a rifle automatically knocks a D20 down to D12. Sharpshooters knock it down an extra dice, taking it to a D10, then knock it back even further with their long rifle (making it D8). You roll your full number of attacks when Fast shooting.

Steady shooting: Doing this means whatever your gun you knock the dice back by another one. With automatics turn D20 into D12, riflemen turn their D12 to a D10, sharpshooters go all the way to D6. Everybody (rifles, MGs, the lot) fire 2 shots when firing Steady.

Common modifiers & trick shots

Most shot die modifiers stack, such as Prone & Bipod. It’s wise to calculate your total modifier for Fast & Steady shooting before combat and adjust it for temporary stuff like wounds and propping as needed.

Prone (lying down): -1shotdie, half turn to do
Bipod: -1shotdie, half turn to deploy
Propped gun (resting it on something): -1shotdie, half turn to do
Rifle: -1shotdie
Rifle, Full Length: -2shotdie
Sharpshooter: -1shotdie
Shooting Steady: -1shotdie
Shooting full auto: +2shotdie
Bjartr, Rada or Fjarri in daylight: +1shotdie, 200m range
Djupr in daylight: +3shotdie, 100m range
Wounded: varies
Firing on the move: +1 at <25m, +3 up to 100m, no shot beyond

Blind Fire is shooting what you can't see; around corners, over lips, through smoke and other concealment. Roll awareness D20, on a pass a shot die is given. You cannot add modifiers to improve your odds because aiming does no good when you can't see the target. Automatics and other reroll weapons spray areas with shot so they take the base die and rerolls, making it look easy (or at least possible). The rest take +2shotdie to attempt it. While an MG is ideal for this massed rifle fire from an entire section can often hit the target anyway.

Snap Shots are single shots at fleeting targets, such as men running between cover or at the last second of an enemy’s charge. Roll a D20 reflex check, then roll the shot at its base die. If reflex is passed the shot counts, if failed the character fires anyway but is too slow and misses. Weapon Size is critical for snapshots, it can be reduced by one for the snap shot if you pre-aim the gun where you expect the target to appear at least 1 turn prior.


Small arms

Small arms have 5 sizes. Sidearms (auto pass snap shots, drawn as free action), Light (+5 on snapshots), Common (Most rifles), Large (-5 on snapshots), and Heavy (Cannot take snap shots, can’t shoot around corners/overhead). Bigger weapons usually require setting up to fire. Many troops gain access to upgrades which reduce the effective size of a weapon; it’s important to note that weapons always take just as long to draw regardless of effective size changes.

With the exception of pistols, Kill results are universally fatal.
Heavy rounds: All hits kill
Rifle rounds: -4melee, -2shotdie for Wound
Shotgun rounds: All hits <10m kill, >10m as rifle round
Pistol rounds: -3melee, -1shotdie for Wound, 1 in 4 of a double wound for Kill result

*Dvergr take half penalty from wounds, rounding down.

Automatics can shoot three bursts or saw across 4 targets in full auto (+2shotdie), both generate heat (see Cookoff) while Full auto consumes standard magazines in one turn. Automatics gain a reroll on any shot equal to D10 or less.

Fast shooting of either type even in an enemy’s direction (even if you miss intentionally) counts as suppressive fire and forces the enemy to take a pinning test. A pinned enemy cannot move, shoot or take any action other than getting as low as they can to avoid being hit. Full auto is more convincing than bursts. Even if the enemy’s not pinned suppressive fire often reduces the effectiveness of return fire.

Machine pistol: Range 25m Sidearm, 1 turn box magazine, 2 heat, +1shotdie, jam prone, pistol rounds

SMG: Range 25m Light, 2turn box magazine, 5 heat
SMGs are overgrown pistols. They're lightweight automatics that use pistol cartridges, making them handy in close range fighting. Made cheap from pressed metal and as few moving parts as possible, they often suffer poor ergonomics and heat issues.

Dvergr LMG: range 1000m Heavy, 2turn box magazine, 10 heat, bipod, heavy rounds

Houten LMG: range 800m Large, 2turn box magazine, 10 heat, bipod, rifle rounds, rifle rounds

MMG: Range 1000m Heavy, belt feed, 20 head, rifle or heavy rounds

HMG: Range >1000m, belt feed, 20+ heat, water cooled, rifle or heavy rounds

Semi-Automatics can fire up to 4 shots per turn. When at close range it is possible to quickly squeeze off the entire magazine (represented with 5 shot rolls) on 1-2 targets but you must roll at the shot's base die regardless of the weapon's accuracy. This will empty the magazine.

Pistol: Range 25m Sidearm, 5-6 shot magazine, pistol rounds
Typically only officers carry pistols. Small and usually hip-holstered, able to be drawn between turns as a free action, they are a concealable self defence weapon. Most pistols are revolvers

Semi-Auto Carbine: Range 500m Light, 2 turn box magazine, jam prone, rifle rounds

Heavy Shotgun (auto): Range varies Common, 2 turn box magazine, heavy rounds
Dvergr assault troops commonly use a pump action of 6 or 8 gauge, though some carry the new (and bulky) semi auto in the even heavier 4 gauge calibre. Old hands prefer the pump.

Houten Anti-Tank Rifle: Range >1000m Heavy, 2turn strip clips, bipod, heavy rounds

Bolt action weapons rate of fire comes down to the skill of the operator. Unlike automatics the bolt is hand operated to draw rounds from a magazine. Fast shooting a bolt-action when trained yields 2 shots and (on a roll of D6 5+) you may get a third. Most reload with stripper clips, which takes one turn.

Rada Carbine: Range 500m Light, 2 turn strip clips, bayonet, heavy rounds

Nagaard Rifle: Range 800m Common, 6 turn strip clips x2, bayonet, heavy rounds

Nagaard Old Pattern: Range 1200m Large, 6 turn strip clips x2, bayonet, heavy rounds
Common dvergr rifles are short versions of an older pattern full length rifle. Sharpshooters use hand picked examples of the old type for -1shotdie.

“Alaca” Houten Rifle: Range 700m Common, 2 turn strip clips, bayonet, jam prone

“Alaca Kort” Houten Carbine: Range 500m Common, 2 turn strip clips, bayonet, jam prone

“Tokat” Nacarfi Free States rifle: Range 800m Common, 2 turn strip clips, bayonet

Pump & lever action can fire three times a round. On a D6 roll of 4+ the operator is very smooth and achieves a fourth shot that turn. See trench gun in Small Arms. Being large calibre weapons, most shotguns can fire a range of ammo.
Buckshot gains a reroll on any shot equal to D10 or less but has only 25m range.
Solid shot has 100m range and ignores armour but gets no reroll.

Trench gun: Range varies Light, D6 4+, 2 turn tube magazine, bayonet
Trench guns are civilian shotguns pressed into military service. Most have under barrel tubular magazines which are hand loaded, taking 2 turns. They are most widely carried by dvergr riflemen.

Heavy Shotgun: Range varies Light, D6 4+, 2 turn tube magazine, bayonet, heavy rounds

Lever Rifle: range 500m Light, D6 4+, 2 turn tube magazine

Breech load is most often seen on cannon but some shotguns and even rifles use this system. The breech is opened, shots are fed singly into the back of the barrel, the breech closed. For a double barrel shotgun or especially large rifle that’s a one turn action. With a field gun or light cannon it’s usually 1-3 turns. A rare exception are falling block rifles, which can be reloaded in half a turn by skilled hands.

Shotgun: Range varies Light, reload 2 shells per turn

Trapdoor Rifle: Range 200m Common, 1 shot, 2-3 turn reload, black powder

Falling Block Rifle: Range 500m Common, 1 shot, 1/2 or 1 turn reload, heavy rounds

Elephant gun: Range 800m Common, reload 2 shells per turn, heavy rounds
Originally intended for penetrating the thick skull of a charging bull elephant, large calibre hunting rifles are a common enough find on many worlds for killing anything that refuses to die from other small arms. Their stopping power has few equals.

Dvergr Anti-Tank Rifle: Range >1000m Heavy, 1 shot, 1 turn reload, cannon rounds, bipod


Cookoff
Automatics build up considerable heat as they fire and some are more tolerant than others; these rules only apply to automatics. Steady shooting builds 1 heat every 3 turns of continuous Steady fire. Fast shooting builds 1 heat each turn and full auto builds 2. 5 consecutive turns without shooting reduce heat level by 1.

SMG can withstand heat up to 5
LMG can withstand heat up to 10
MMG can withstand heat up to 20
HMG can withstand heat up to 20+, often water cooled

When a weapon has become hot you must roll a weapon failure check (D20) every turn, the DC is only 5 but it increases by 2 for every point of heat over the weapon’s limit. This leads to failures including jams, misfires and cookoff - where the gun is so hot it sets off bullets as fast as they feed without any help from the trigger. When a weapon fails this roll another D20 on this weapon failure table.

1 Weapon damaged. Parts required.
2-9 Jam, 5 turn repair action. See Gunner in Specialist Rules.
10-19 Cook off, counts as full auto and cannot stop firing.
20 Stops cooking off on it’s own, only costing you a burst.

*Water cooling (though heavy) prevents a weapon getting past it’s max heat level so long as water remains in the reservoir – so no weapon failure rolls. This is steadily boiled off. Most reservoirs absorb about 50 in excess heat before needing a refill.



Grenades

Anybody can throw a hand grenade, 1 per turn, and most detonate next turn. In rules terms you use the shot die GM provides as you would guns then apply any grenade modifiers you have instead of your gun modifiers. Clear targets (under D3) don’t even need a roll. Any other shot, like D4, you roll at +2shotdie for hand grenades which would take D4 to D8. With a D8, if it’s a hand grenade then a result of 6-7 is a shrapnel hit and an 8 is blast overpressure; these ranges increase by 1 with Medium blast weapons and increase by 2 with Heavy. If you miss roll for scatter, this always uses D6+5 for lateral and D10+5 for forward/back. Forward if target’s <25m or not far enough if >25m. This does vary with some grenade types but applies for standard fragmentation grenades.

Most hand grenades are time fuse and detonate next turn. They allow a reflex save to avoid (safer) or throw back (very dangerous). “Cooking” is starting the fuse and holding it, throwing it in the first half of next turn – this allows no save, but as natural 1 fumbles it treats you to an overpressure blast no save. Short fuse grenades are like a cooked grenade but throw as normal, detonating same turn. Impact detonators, as on rifle grenades, allow no save.

All targets in the shrapnel blast have the GM roll a D3 hit, just like being shot by a gun. Light blasts are treated like SMG hits, Medium blasts like rifle hits, Heavy blasts like AT rifle hits. Overpressure blasts are always treated one class higher and throw people around, stunning at the very least. If a grenade attack was a miss but the stray grenade gets targets in its blast area anyway the hits change to D4; it may have fallen in bad terrain or there’s something in the way.

Hand grenades (+2shotdie)
Frag: Light blast, 50m range, 10m shrapnel, 2m overpressure
Spiced Frag: Medium blast, 50m range, 15m shrapnel, 5m overpressure
Thermos Bomb: Heavy blast, 20m range, 50m shrapnel, 15m overpressure, triple slot
Demolition Charge: Heavy blast, 10m range, no shrapnel, 50m blast, 20m overpressure, detonate-by-wire
Smoke/gas: No blast, 50m range, 4 turns to full cloud
White Phosphor: Medium blast, 50m range, 15m area, ignore armour, 2 turns to full cloud

Rifle grenades are similar, but are mounted on a fixture at the end of a rifle barrel and launched by a bullet or the force of a blank cartridge. Most take 1 turn to mount. Firing is a half turn action, leaving the other half for normal shooting or a head start readying the next rifle grenade.

Rifle grenades (+1shotdie)
Frag: Medium blast, 300m range, 50m shrapnel, 10m overpressure
Shaped charge: AT blast, 100m range, similar power to light cannon AT round, tight blast cone projects from impact forward.
Smoke/gas: No blast, 300m range, 4 turns to full cloud (double size)
White Phosphor: Medium blast, 300m range, 30m area, ignore armour, 2 turns to full cloud (double size)
Star flare: No blast, 200m range, deploys parachute and burns bright enough to create daylight visibility.


Melee

Melee is worked with opposed D10 rolls and/or a violent imagination. Roll a D10 and your opponent does the same. An equal or win of 2 is a draw. A win of 6 or less wounds the opponent. A win of more than 7 renders them Out of Action. This goes both ways.

It is possible to avoid melee altogether; in the last 5m of a charge you can roll an opposed D20 reflex check. This counts as a Snap Shot, D3. If you fail your opponent forces you to roll D10 to defend yourself at a -5 penalty. They can still gain a charge bonus against you (10 point difference in modifiers), so while this can at times be useful it is risky.

Group fighting & Creative License

One opponent against a number of others. For example, a defender against 3 attackers. The attackers all roll D10, then take the highest result, add up the others and add half their result to the highest one. Defender must beat the combined result; at best the defender will drop one of them, chosen at random.

When you employ really clever fighting moves or use the environment & kit in a creative fashion I may forgo any need to roll. When your back is against it, like when you’ve got a shotgun slug in the belly and broken ribs floating about and a pair crack troops who’d more than equal you any day are trying to finish you off, I encourage you to have a shot at this before they kill you. Maybe kick dirt in their eyes and shoot one, maybe rush forward and tackle one over a ledge then use him for your landing, or throw bodies down a staircase at them. Have a go! If you come up with something good I’ll let it fly.


Modifiers

Improvised melee weapon gives +3

Decent melee weapon gives +5.

Any weapon which Need Room will be reduced to an improvised melee weapon if an opponent with something smaller wounds them, as they have pressed in too close for it to be used.

Sword gives +7, takes a win of 8+ to kill. Needs room.

Heavy melee weapon gives +5, reduces enemy armour bonus to +1 if they have any, and kills on a win of 4+. Needs room.

Bayonet is a decent melee weapon. It counters the bonus for a charge action. Bayonets inflict +1 shot die against targets >100m away. Needs room

Armour gives +4, or just +2 if against an unarmed opponent.

Shield gives +6, or just +3 if opponent presses in or has a Heavy melee weapon.

Charging gives +5. Counter charge or bayonet cancels.



Armour

Most soldiers did not have armour in the 1930s. Thus most don't have it here either, with only dvergr still taking armour seriously. It's simply too expensive and too often unhelpful for most armies. Below are the types that apply to this game.

Scavenged armour is put together out of odd bits of metal and assorted detritus. It offers extremely limited protection from gunfire (sometimes gets lucky) but in general only counts as armour in melee. Sometimes seen in trench warfare and thus now a rare sight, the better examples are counted as breastplates for rules purposes.

Breastplates are still found in some places. It's an idea being trialled at present by some nations on assault troops, and remains common on human heavy machine gun crews. Breastplates deny SMGs & trench guns any rerolls and ignore hits from such weapons on a D6 roll of 4+. They ignore rifle shots on a 6, or a 5+ when beyond 200 meters. Shrapnel has less effect against breastplate troops.

Dvergr battle armour is archaic. The core design is now centuries old featuring two piece breast & backplates with plated mail strung over the limbs and a heavy open-face helmet. This gives great resistance to shrapnel but also renders near immunity to pistols, SMGs and trench guns. Rifles penetrate the armour if within 200 meters on a D6 roll of 4+. Heavy rifles ignore the armour if within 200 meters, roll for it out to 500 meters. Through training and craft-skill, the armour does not rattle. Only wearable by Dvergr - if resized for other races they find it too heavy.


Magic

In general, powers can be ended at will and can also be used as often as desired.

Common Dvergr powers
There are three common powers dvergr develop around their first century of life. Whether it's determined by your ancestors, by parenting or by luck is a timeless debate with no clear answer but you only manifest one of them. Roll a D3 - a 1 gives Unseen, 2 gives Presence, 3 gives Fear. Djupr players should PM me for more options.

Unseen: When you don't want to be noticed you blend in. Like one of the crowd or a rock by a stream eyes just glance over you without really taking notice. To use this ability you must zone yourself out, totally emptying your mind of thought. Complex actions disrupt the stillness of mind and stop the power, but simple things like moving or dropping a live grenade are possible.

Can Hasten (-5 on roll) to achieve this with 1 turn, take 2 turns (no penalty), take 5 turns (+5 on roll) or spend a minute meditating out of combat to guarantee a 20. If the power runs strong they may not even hear you. Once achieved it lasts 5 turns, taking a DC10 check on the 5th to maintain the power for another 5 turns.

1-5 the power fails, inner stillness eludes you.
6-10 the power barely works. Those >100m away don’t see fast movement.
11-15 the power is strong. Those >25m away don’t see, don’t notice quiet.
16-19 the power is overwhelming. Those >2m away don’t see, don’t notice quiet.
20 the power is unstoppable. Only see you at <1m in front of them, don’t notice quiet.

Presence: You can affect how others perceive you. Like a scale you can affect how threatening you seem, appearing anywhere from terrifying to helplessly vulnerable with no physical difference in your appearance - it is as intangible as an aura, a power that lies to the brain. To use it you enter the mindset of something your target expects to find and play upon it, be that a foe of terror they cannot hope to defeat or a last survivor praying for your life.

Must be within 25m to affect targets, which is done with a D20. Can Hasten as a free action, -5 on the roll, or take a full turn, or take two turns to get +5. Adopting a presence that matches expectations gives +5, normally gives no bonus, doesn’t match gives -5. Fearsome appearances tend toward deer-in-headlights reactions (no shooting, beat any you normally could in melee etc), helpless may make them hold fire out of pity or rush in for the easy kill, etc. Can be skewed in other directions, with similarly varied results.

1-5 the power fails, you’re strangely obvious and all in LOS see you.
6-10 the power barely works. Opponents get a DC10 save, power lasts 1 turn.
11-15 the power is strong. Opponents get a DC15 save, power lasts 5 turns.
16-19 the power is overwhelming. Opponents get DC19 save, power lasts 5 turns.
20 the power is unstoppable. Range doubles and cannot be resisted, power lasts 10 turns.

Fear: You can influence the 6th sense of other people. That prickling of the neck, the eyes watching that are felt but unseen, the last second's reflex when someone approaches from behind. A trick that works twice but no more, you make people turn and look. Those who’ve fallen prey twice won’t be fooled again, no matter who uses this power.

You create the distracting figment of imagination on an object or bit of ground in LOS out to 100m. Can Hasten as a free action, -5 on the roll, or take a full turn, or take two turns to get +5. Works even better outside combat, granting +5 on the roll.

1-5 the power fails, you’re strangely obvious and all in LOS see you.
6-10 the power barely works. Those 25m from it get a DC10 save or look half turn.
11-15 the power is strong. Those 50m from it get a DC15 save or look full turn.
16-19 the power is overwhelming. Those 100m from it get DC19 save or look full turn. Half the affected waste ammo upon or flee the figment.
20 the power is unstoppable. Those 100m from it cannot resist looking for 2 turns. All affected waste ammo or flee from the figment.



Greater dvergr powers

Shapeless You move as a ghost. No sound, no sight, no smell, nothing. A vacuum. You act without thinking, like a waking dream. There is nothing an opponent can do to sense you; the only thing to threaten this state of empty presence is your own actions, leaving you completely undetectable even as bodies drop to the ground though blind fire may still kill you.

Entering this state can be Hastened as a free action, -5 on the roll and failure draws eyes to you. You can instead take a full turn, or take two turns to get +5. Once entered the state lasts 10 turns before requiring a focus check. Some actions will also test your focus, requiring a check. While it makes you and what you carry at time of casting shapeless, things you pick up later or interact with are not; neither gunshots nor grenade blasts nor things you bang against will be quietened fully but it’s usually enough for footsteps.

Casting
1-5 the power fails. You blur and sound odd for 2 turns before you can try again.
6-10 the power barely works. -10 on focus checks.
11-15 the power is strong. -5 on focus checks.
16-19 the power is overwhelming. No penalty on focus checks.
20 the power is unstoppable. +5 on focus checks.

Focus
DC5 Maintain Shapeless, taken every 10 turns
DC5 Kill noisily with melee or throw grenade
DC10 Kill quietly with melee
D15 Shoot a gun, only masks the sight and some of the report.

Form You can radically affect what others see when they look at you. A terrifying shape of their own imagining. A friend and comrade whose face and shape you wear like your own skin. Even things unalive, like a rock or a bag or a small pile of rubbish. When they look at you it is these things you can make them see.

To use this you must know the shape you’re taking quite well. If it’s simply a fearsome visage or other twist on your own appearance then there’s no problem, but if it’s the shape of someone or something else you’ll have to inspect the intended shape (awareness, +2 for each extra turn spent doing it). If the shape resembles you the D20 needs only a 5+, if not but still humanoid shape you need 15+, if it’s nothing like you it’s 25+. Failure means you cannot take the form, the power crumbles as you try and wastes two turns.

Totally different shape means, Can Hasten for full turn, -5 on the roll, or take a 2 turns, or take 3 turns to get +5. Shape resembling you (terrifying or unimportant) makes Hasten a halfturn action, -5 on the roll, can take full turn, or take 2 turns for +5.

1-5 the power fails. You distort weirdly for 2 turns before you can try again.
6-10 the power barely works. Maintain the shape for 3 turns before it crumbles.
11-15 the power is strong. Maintain the shape for 5 turns before it fades over a 6th turn.
16-19 the power is overwhelming. Maintain the shape for 10 turns, fades over 11-12.
20 the power is unstoppable. Shape lasts indefinitely, its appearance flawless.

Dream You can drive an opponent into a blinding dream. They hallucinate heavily under your influence, it's totally under your control what they experience. Men can be scared into cardiac arrest, driven blind or made to jump through windows to escape raging fires, even see their own allies as foes and turn their gun upon them.

Requires LOS to target. Can Hasten for half turn action -5 on the roll, or take full turn, or take 2 turns to get +5. Hallucinations last 2d6 turns and affect one person. Unlike other powers you can choose any effect equal to or below your dice roll.

1-5 the power fails. You lose all actions this turn, can try again after 2 turns.
6-10 the power barely works. Target has minor hallucination, -4shotdie, -5melee, -10 other rolls
11-15 the power is strong. Target has strong hallucination. Counts as pinned.
16-19 the power is overwhelming. Target has severe hallucination. Breaks and flees.
20 the power is unstoppable. Target has a chronic hallucination. Can shoot friendlies, run for the hills, call artillery where you want, anything. Suffers insanity check when power ends. Double duration.


Boons & Sorcery

The race of men learned long ago it has no magic at all, but that they can gain the magic of others through boons and sorcery. All races do this, and each has its own quirks. It is dangerous work, the prices often high and with its widespread condemnation in many cultures the risks are considerable. But with everything from the annihilation of one’s enemies to a second chance at life on offer, those who can gain such power may find it hard to resist…

Boons require bargaining and that requires contact, which is achieved at world roots, lesser roots (non-travel, sacred sites) and direct communication. To ask of a creature its power requires you have sufficient offering or something it considers better to be granted the boon; fae often ask for things of beauty, such as rare animals or children, whereas trolls demand mighty weapons or live sacrifices. Fae are not certain, with 1 in 3 of accepting inadequate payment and 1 in 3 of granting an additional (random) power for overpayment. Trolls are greedy, with 1 in 3 of demanding double payment. Dvergr boons work only at night, and they are the only race to offer boons before payment – at double the price. Failure to pay dvergr as agreed incurs curses and bounties that linger even through generations until the debt is settled. Anyone can tell if you’ve an overdue boon or cheated a deal; you come across as untrustworthy, shifty, a double-crosser. Boon offerers are always wary of this.

Any boon when given requires an initial D10 roll – on a 1-4 it leaves a permanent, identifiable mark on the body, the boon triggered by a thought. On 5-7 the mark fades in 1d3 months and the boon is triggered by a thought. On 8-10 a token is given, a small object significant to the boon giver which bears the power triggered by touch and the thought together. The thought becomes known when the power is given, forgotten when it is spent.

Actually giving a boon is a rare talent. Only some older members of a race can do it, though a sufficiently powerful enquirer may overrule this.

Boons typically last until used. Number of uses varies, usually 1.

Sorcery is the extraction of powers from energy (life) sources, be it the living, the recently dead or a world root. This involves a medium, the source, the intended caster and typically quite some time. Rituals are employed to aid concentration, individuals often adapting the rituals of others or creating their own from scratch. The source must be physically in contact and if alive powerful medium and opposed will check is needed to take a power. The dead must be recent, the remains losing usefulness after 2D3 uses – this is at best a taboo in most cultures. World roots are incredibly powerful and will fatally overpower most casters, but can be used to empower other sources or one’s own magic. Does not work on boons.

Mediums range from rare stones to inherited trinkets. They are intimate to the user, the more history and attachment they have with the medium the greater it’s power.

Fetishes last 2d3 uses. Every day counts as 1 use.
Stolen powers last D3 uses, +D3 per power source had. Every day counts as 1 use.

All acts of sorcery involve at least one D20 Sorcery check. Failure usually costs nothing but time, though sometimes the materials are wasted in the attempt.

Powers and casting thereof

Some use a lot more than their own powers, taking magic from everyone by ritual, body and boon. Rituals must be done before each mission to ready sorcerous abilities and this is something Djupr excel at, preparing them in half the time. Granted boons require no preparation, nor do one’s inborn powers.

Any power can be countered using an opposed Magic: Fae/Troll/Dvergr check depending on the origin of the power; this is easier if you’re watching for it, hardest if you try to stop one in motion. If either side possesses the power natively they’re assumed to pass it, if both do it’s a flat opposed D10 with +2 for every additional power they possess.

Casting a spell usually takes at least 1 turn. Ritual price is a spell cast from spiritually significant parts of a dead creature, the grim fetish must be carried. Takes a long preparation time and requires the body parts. Each use weakens the fetish, they last D3 castings and each day counts as a use.

Boons can be used a number of times which varies according to sacrifice quality and the mood of the creature you’re bargaining with, but it’s usually just one use.

Troll magic

Destructive, violent and hateful – there is no magic more directly hazardous to caster and target alike, or more widely condemned. Use of such magic regresses the caster’s spirit, weakening their personal magic if they have any until it kills them. Trolls are greedy, every boon is made more costly than the last and they never tell if too much is paid. Trolls are not concerned if you’ve killed their kind before, even for magic – they will still grant boons.

Troll fetishes & taken powers grant double uses, but lose 1 use every half day.


Murder = Troll eyes hung by vodyanoy intestine full of grass/fungus from a fairy ring or remains of boon.

Everything in a 45° cone extending out 20+D20 yards dies within 1d3 turns, takes one turn to cast. This includes men, animals, foliage… anything. The remains decompose in hours.


Crush = Troll hand knitted to domovoy spine, sylph wing & troll blood soaked diamond, boon.

Requires own blood on object and <100m range, double area of effect if unbroken trail of own blood leads from fetish to user. Boon always comes as a token & follows same rule. Draws all things to the fetish or token, compacting them into a dense ball around it. When the spell ends the ball of crushed matter bursts apart (force varies), leaving the fetish but destroying token. The spell is very random in length, roll D20 each turn – on a 10 it continues, difficulty increases by 2 each time. Each turn effected objects are pulled into the next range section closer compared to the one they started in. When they reach the 10m range they are crushed that turn.

At 100-200m Small objects (loose change, bullets, casings, twigs) are pulled in

At 50-100m Medium objects (guns, branches, anything under 30kg) are pulled in

At 30-50m Large objects (men, radios, furniture, anything under 100kg) are pulled in

At 10-30m Heavy objects (dvergr, 100-300kg stuff) are pulled in

At 10m Big objects (Vehicles, walls, weak buildings) are pulled in.


Gnaw = Troll teeth in dried troll stomach or boon.

Everything in a cone of random width and extending out 30m is riven with a criss-cross of thin energies, goes wider to affect as many living things as possible. Cuts men apart and rends light materials. Very random, though all will be hit it varies as to how hard. Must penetrate via LOS to affect – for instance must destroy a wall to kill anything inside it, but will gnaw anything caster can see through a window.

All targets in the cone suffer a D3 result. 1, wound – cuts, destroys weak wood. 2, kill – destroys up to medium wood. 3, rend – minces living targets, slices through up to 6mm of metal.


Strike = Ground troll bone & live dvergr eye or boon.

Lays a mighty blow across a 5m wide swathe. Target must be in LOS, blow angle can be adjusted but must be able to see intended point of impact on target.

<30m = Sends the splattered remains of men flying, blows in walls and smashes light vehicles. Damages tanks, renders crew unconscious.

30-50m = Lethal impact to human bodies, sends them skidding along the ground. Knocks doors/soft walls in easily and can cause moving vehicles to crash.

50-150m = edge of range. Knocks men down, stuns briefly. Dislodges things, like a really solid bump but not much more. Spell peters down to nothing quickly after 150m.


Thunder = Troll blood & a live dvergr’s eyes or boon.

Fills character with bloodlust for D4+2 turns, must charge into melee. Can choose enemies over friendlies if in LOS and within 100m, moves at double speed, searches for living targets to best of character’s abilities. Automatically kills 3 opponents each turn, roll D10 for each – fails still apply wounds and even kill results but they don’t affect character until 5 Out of Action/kill results have been suffered (Instantly fatal on 5th) or the spell expires. Leg damage still hinders.

If still <25m from a living target when spell ends, can continue… but needs a 15+ will check to end.




Fae Magic

Powers of creation, life and fertility. Fae magic is not consistant or particularly reliable but it’s actually healthy to use, allowing the spirit to grow and flower more quickly. Tends to renew life but clouds the mind over time, making the caster scattered and unable to focus. Eventually it becomes a drug they cannot live without, driving them mad. As with all the magics of other races Fae magic is best not overused.

Ardour = Satyr genitals and a woman’s beard or boon.

A wave of energy blasts through the caster, causing great strength, exceptional reflexes and double movement speed. Character becomes tireless but unable to concentrate as the mind skitters rapidly from one thought to the next, leaving them incoherent. Exhaustion kicks in when spell ends, incapacitating for 1d3 turns.

Gives +10 reflexes, double movement speed, tireless, +6 melee. -10 all other skills from lack of concentration and scarcely able to communicate. Lasts D20 turns.


Change = Foot of Afli or greater fae, rare moss and hair or hide of intended creature or boon

Your body changes. This isn’t just appearance, its real change – you become the creature of the hair/hide taken in body. Your mind changes too, costing your sense of self in no time as you lose the ability to think as you did and forget what it meant to be you, your sense of identity clouded by what you’ve changed into.

Change form. Stat changes vary wildly. Penalties apply the more you act out of character to the adopted form, and bonuses apply for sticking to it. 5+ will save to change back to original form, -1 modifier for every 5 turns spent in it. Attempts that fail apply a further -1 on the check.


Formless = Afli skin, sylph hair & dvergr ear or boon.

Become insubstantial. Skin glows like the sun, your weight vanishes and you are immaterial – able to drift through solid matter like it was but a cloud and fly about like a breath of air… which in turn means the wind can send you sailing off into the distance very easily.

Difficult to maintain. Lasts 10 turns, after which you turn fully solid over 2 seconds and the light fades from your skin. If in something solid at the time you’re bumped into an open space… or part of you is, sometimes cutting your body apart.


Quicken = Perchten brain and human heart, or boon

Speeds the body’s healing spectacularly. Causes wounds to close up, skin the grow over and the body to mend in accelerated natural healing – this brings people back from even the brink of death. Causes great hunger, excessive hair and nail growth and terrifying hallucinations, renders them pinned. Causes night terrors for months afterwards.

Duration 5 turns.


Ghost sight = Centaur’s eyes and a nymph’s hair, or boon

Removes all veils for as long as you can stand it. While in effect you see the spirit of people when you look upon them, seeing straight through walls and all other material barriers – making blindfire no longer blind, provided your weapon has the penetration for it. Limits your eyesight to 50 yards – all lifeless things are murky and vague, beyond 50 yards is black oblivion to your eyes. Should you stare at anyone for more than a turn you see their full nature and it can be as revealing as it is maddening to look upon the full picture of what makes up a person, spiralling through the endless alleys of memory and bent that make up their personality. Lastly, the spirits you see are not all those of the living… and unless you really look for a good few seconds, you can’t tell the difference.

Blindfire no longer is; seeing straight through walls you get clear shot die provided the gun has the penetration. You can inspect spirits for a turn or more to really see who they are; do it for more than a turn and you start rolling will checks to be able to stop looking. That way madness lies. However you can’t tell the dead from the living at a glance, so must Inspect for at least 1 turn to work that much out.

Duration 10 turns.





All troops have a decent melee weapon. Small and light is recommended. Some troops in WW1 would swear by trench knives and brass knuckles.

[Shirocco]

Character Creation


Character creation is simple. You take name, skills, job (includes kit), optional trait then race and magic. An example character can be provided, tweaked and used on request.

Pick a name, then a nickname (typically something everyone else lumped him with when he did something stupid like Slip, Wax or Stinky).
Coming up with a loose background is recommended. I don't need a novel, it's as much as you feel like writing. The game is more battlefield than social, so character personality needs to be the sort to show through there… which is where traits come in, keep reading.

Skills
Warglory uses a simplified version of the D20 skill system. Many skills get bundled together and some are simply absent. Base characters have 40 skill points, no more than 10 in any one thing. The only way to get more ranks is via perks and most skills can’t get anything further, so choose wisely.


Stealth = Hide, move silent, killing quietly

Awareness = Listen, spot, search, gauging enemy position for blind fire

Athletics = Jump, swim, running faster (when it matters)

Climbing = climb, use rope

Language = 5 ranks to be passable in a language, 10 for fluency.

Ruse = Bluff, intimidate, conceal/sleight of hand.

Discourse = Diplomacy, sense motive

History = Example, take History: Dvergr and every 5 ranks of it gives +2 on other histories

Heal = Assessing & treating wounds, assisting 1st aiders & medics

Military = Take Military: Houten and every 5 ranks of it gives +2 on knowledge of other militaries tactics, structure and equipment. Can allow characters to predict where the enemy is, how many there are and what they’ll do next.

Magic = Take Magic: Fae and know about Tir Na Nog and different Fae types, gives +2 on knowledge of other magic such as Trolls and World Roots. Magic: World Roots allows exchange of boons through them.

Profession = Radioman, assault pioneer, mortar man, gunner, mechanic etc. Every 2 ranks removes 1 turn from the time on 15+ turn Hurry tasks for that job, like unjamming machine guns or fixing radios. 5 ranks removes 1 turn from 5 turn Hurries.

Sorcery = Allows use of sorcery, see Boons & Sorcery

Craft = explosives, gunsmith, blacksmith (melee + armour), bowyer, pharmacist. Can spend entire R&R periods to do one task, such as forge a better close combat weapon, modify a gun or spice up/shorten fuses on hand grenades.


Specialist rules

Current job openings are listed in recruitment threads. Below are the jobs typical of a dvergr mech. Infantry platoon, including rules specific to each and in some cases kit options.

Rifleman

Riflemen are the bayonet strength of a unit. They do the bulk of the fighting, going between long range rifle fire and close range shotgun & bayonet work as easily as breathing. Whether leading the charge, blind firing shotguns into smoke or stopping trucks from nearly a mile with one shot to the engine block, dvergr riflemen can tackle anything.

Dvergr riflemen have 2 rifles to choose between. One is a Nagaard design (range 800m, Common, heavy rounds) using two stripper clips, affording a large capacity (6 turn) magazine which takes 2 turns to reload (1 if >half spent). The other is a shorter carbine of Rada make (500m, Light, heavy rounds) using a single stripper clip (2 turn) which takes 1 turn to reload.

Human riflemen have 2 rifles to choose from. One is the Nagaard bolt action (Counts as Large for men with 1 shot less every turn), the other is a Nacarfi Free States rifle (Range 800m Common, 2 turn stripper clip) which is of lighter, mannish calibre.

All dvergr riflemen take a dvergr bolt-action rifle, trench gun, 4 grenades, bayonet, dvergr battle armour and a decent melee weapon (trench knife, mallet, club, brass knuckles… small & light is best).

All human riflemen take a Nagaard or Nacarfi bolt-action rifle, 4 grenades, bayonet, breastplate and decent melee weapon.


Radioman

The platoon radioman is it's life blood. He's responsible for giving updates, receiving orders, calling in mortar and artillery targets, reaching the platoon's APC and requesting assistance of other company elements. As a secondary role he can attempt to listen in on enemy frequencies if he’s ordered to.

To do any of this he must roll a D20 Prof: Radioman check. Contacting company or contacting the platoon APC is an easy one in open country; understanding them might not be as it picks up a lot of white noise. Contacting anything else or listening to enemies is much harder as you don't have the presets for them. No matter how easy the job, on a 1 the radio dies and must be repaired.

Repairs

Standard repairs take 20 turns. Every turn you can roll a D20 hurry check to speed things up, the following will apply.

1 you cack up, add a turn.
2-5 you don't take a turn off
6-10 you make progress. Subtract a turn.
11-19 you save time. Subtract 2 turns.
20 you make really good time, subtract 3 turns.


The unit itself is a big valve & crystal "portable" radio that weighs a ton and works on AM frequency, powered by batteries that are charged by hand crank. All that's contained in the metal cased backpack he lugs around. When wireless fails he can roll out his wire instead, which although a pretty reliable connection (no roll) is prone to being cut and takes time to lay. Water's an absolute no-no for the wire. Artillery spotters often use wire; this can be used against them to track them down if you find one.

Kit: Dvergr bolt-action rifle, bayonet, 2 grenades, battle armour, radio pack

Human troop kit: Bolt action rifle (man calibre), bayonet, 2 grenades, breastplate, radio pack.


First Aider

The first aider is a rifleman with medical training. When friendlies are wounded they’re tasked with dragging them clear of the fire, assessing them, then continuing to fight if the wounded can wait or signalling for a stretcher if they can’t. First aiders only do any healing when combat’s over – according to their field manual. Truth is sometimes comrades can’t wait, and that’s when the following come into effect.

First aiders are required to have 10 ranks in Heal. Awareness is a good second, letting you check it's clear before trying to save someone.

First Aiders have a Heal skill bonus of +5. They are equipped with battle armour, dvergr bolt-action rifle, bayonet, medical supplies and either 4 grenades or a trench gun.

Before you can treat wounded you must assess them with a repeatable heal check (20+) before you can do any of the following.

Characters found Out of Action (not dead) in battle can be revived or dragged clear/sent away. Once assessed anyone can take wounded away but only First Aiders may revive them in combat - heal check 20+, this is a repeatable 5 turn action. Most dvergr troops will survive the Out of Action state, you're speeding recovery and ensuring they aren't finished off where they fall. Once out of combat reviving Out of Action dvergr characters is a no roll 5 turn for First Aiders, or a 5 turn DC15 heal check for anyone else.

First Aiders can reduce melee and shooting penalties from wounds on players and named NPCs by one with a Heal check 25+, this takes 5 turns and is repeatable until you succeed. Once you've succeeded you can't help any further until that character is wounded again.

Bandaging is a menace. It takes a long time but ignored bleeding will cripple and eventually kill characters. Applying bandages take a 1st aider 20 turns, which is why it’s usually done out of combat. Other characters will take 30 turns to do this.

Summary:

Revive Out of Action = 5 turns, ¾ odds in combat, always works out of combat.
Reduce wounds = 5 turns, ½ odds in combat
Bandaging = 20 turns, always succeeds

All long actions can be hurried every turn with a D20 hurry check just like the radioman.
1 you cack up, add a turn.
2-5 you don't take a turn off
6-10 you make progress. Subtract a turn.
11-19 you save time. Subtract 2 turns.
20 you make really good time, subtract 3 turns.


Sharpshooter

Sharpshooters are proven marksmen, fellows recognised as the best shots in their company. They operate at platoon level, being used to take hard targets and seeing good service in ambushes and counter sniping. .

Your weapon is of the Old Pattern, being full length with exceptional range and iron sights that slide out much further than you can really see. Hand picked for accuracy and carefully adjusted to suite the firer, it may not be fast but it is very accurate. There is no bayonet lug.

To make the grade you probably had a knack, lots of experience with guns, a damn good pair of eyes or all three. You are not to be confused with a Sniper. They operate outside company level, being assigned as specialists for one off jobs on occasion. You're there to take hard shots, not infiltrate and murder officers then get hunted down like a dog. Part of your duties is to kill snipers.

Full ranks in Stealth & Awareness are required for sharpshooters.

Kit includes: Dvergr Old Pattern rifle, sidearm, 4 grenades, dvergr battle armour and decent melee weapon.

Sharpshooters have -1shotdie with any gun.

Their rifle gives -2shotdie, as opposed to the -1 of the standard rifle.


Grenadiers

Anyone can throw grenades, but a hand grenade is only good to 50 meters. Grenadiers use a mount on the end of their rifles to launch mighty shells up to 300 meters with remarkable accuracy. Carrying these as a secondary weapon, it’s their eye for distances and skill with bombs that sees them through.

Craft: Explosives gives Grenadiers a poor social life but excellent bang for their buck.

Kit: Dvergr bolt-action rifle with RG muzzle end, 6 grenades, 4 rifle grenades, bayonet, battle armour.

-1shotdie on grenade throws and rifle grenade shots.
+5 awareness on uncalculated indirect fire attempts

Rifle grenades are consistent in trajectory. It is possible for a grenadier to calculate with good accuracy where they’ll go if you gauge wind, distances and height properly. This takes time and requires either LOS or a good map and means of calculating wind along flight path. Every turn spent calculating gives -5shotdie. If 4 turns are spent calculating the shot falls spot on automatically and so do following shots from there on the same point and others within 10m of it. Targets within half the distance of the first (and significant wind changes) require only 1 turn in corrections to get the same effect.


Assault

The hairy-chested assault troop is typically found on point with a big shotgun and a battleaxe. They’re unequalled in a trench snarl and can unload a punishing hail of shot at close range. Only dvergr are really suited to this suicidally dangerous position and if a platoon’s lucky to have 2 of them it’s even luckier to have any after their first battle. They specialize in trench fighting and room clearance.

Only the vicious and skilled become assault troops. Requires Killer's Eyes trait.

Assault troops carry buckshot and solid shot. Changing between ammo types is the same as reloading, or 1 turn slower if using a manual tube feed. Buckshot has 25m range with rerolls, solid has 100m range and ignores armour. You’re assumed to use buckshot unless otherwise stated.

Assault troops either take a semi-auto heavy shotgun or a pump action heavy shotgun. The semi auto has no bayonet lug but uses 1 turn reload box mags, eventually upgrading to drum mags and full auto. The pump action has 2 turn reloads and slower fire rate but is better at snap shots and has bayonet lug, upgrading to better accuracy and 100m range buckshot.

Assault troops carry a heavy shotgun, heavy melee weapon, 6 grenades, bayonet and dvergr battle armour.


Gunner

A gunner is the base of fire in an infantry section; a good section moves under his cover fire and they work hard to match it when he moves in turn. Their machine gun cuts swathes through tight groups of men, often working with another character who takes awareness checks to spot good targets for them during combat. Dvergr gunners carry most of their own ammo and do their own loading. Human infantry platoons are commonly built around 1 LMG; dvergr use more, carrying 2-3 to a platoon.

Dvergr LMG hits are kills. They come with a bipod as standard and 2 turn box magazines. Reloads are one turn. LMG are Heavy, they must depend on others to lead the way. When overheated it takes a 5 turn Hurry action to change the barrel; this resets heat. Gunners carry 2 barrels including the one fitted.

Dvergr machine gunners carry an LMG, 4 grenades, dvergr battle armour and decent melee weapon.

Humans can’t operate as gunners in a dvergr platoon.
Repairs

Machine guns are open bolt weapons. This makes it easy for dirt, mud and sand to get in a machine gun and jam it; the only recourse is to attempt to clean the ailing weapon. On top of that they can overheat and jam if fired heavily for too long. Full cleanout is 15 turns and can be hurried every turn by rolling a D20 hurry check.

1 you cack up, add a turn. If MG has overheated lose a finger instead.
2-5 you don't take a turn off
6-10 you make progress. Subtract a turn.
11-19 you save time. Subtract 2 turns.
20 you make really good time, subtract 3 turns.

This is not to be confused with a common jam from overheating or feed issue, like bad magazine or a mishandled belt. Those take 1d3 turns to clear and can’t be hurried further.




Playable Races

For race i suggest rolling a dvergr of the Nagaard people, as this is a Nagaard mercenary army and they’re the easiest to use. Other options are below, including dvergr of other tribes and even humans for the brave player. A when wounded a man will be out of the mission if hit again, but dvergr frequently fight on with multiple bullet wounds and remain dangerous despite them.

Of Men

There are many human nations, as men are now the most wide spread race across the known worlds. They are too short lived to learn their own magic but are quick learners, so work through ritual and bargains to cast the spells of others. Perhaps because they do not fear them, all other races are prepared to speak with at least some men. The following are involved directly or indirectly in this war.

Because men are viewed as weak among dvergr any who make the grade to join their mercenary armies (apart from being men of rare quality to begin with) are treated harshly and trained very hard. Truth is everyone gets that, but when men survive it they come out particularly hardened.

Human characters gain +4 in melee and have breastplates. They run much faster than dvergr and their long arms give +2 on throwing weapons. Men cannot use standard dvergr kit, Heavy stat is removed and secondary weapons cannot be carried.

Nacarfi: The battle is taking place in one of their colonies. Nacarfi are a people of a border state between the more temperate north and arid south in the core human world; they have a long history of mixing with all human nations and an eclectic culture results. They are deceptively wide spread, with colonies on many worlds - though not originally by their choice, as they were regularly taken as slaves in times past. Most of the colonies became independant years ago, but some of the home land still find themselves far abroad, where their love of dance, music and spices can make them easy friends. They are sometimes viewed as thieves, especially by their Houten neighbours.

Strevoy: Men of a more northern climb, the Strevoy were for the longest time planesmen. Long called Svaad by the dvergr, they were united less than two centuries ago into a vast empire are in the throws of revolution all across their vast and diverse land. They can be fatalistic people but are hardy survivors, the northern end of their lands forever buried in snow. Strevoy are more wary of the fae than most men for they have great trouble with them in their home land. Most fear fairies, some bargain with them. They have an uneasy truce with the fae because of their ancient fear that without them the world roots - the ways between worlds - would close up, and the Strevoy homeland has several of the manworld's majoy roots in it's borders. With revolution rocking their empire, many have fled as refugees to the far colonies and into other nations. For the time being, mercenaries make good money with the Strevoy.

Houten: A small mountain-locked homeland belies the great trade empire that are (or was) the Houten. They are politically a strange animal, having an elected leadership with three heads. Religiously open minded and militarily a bit dislocated, the Houten lost much in the Great War of ten years ago. They now hold a core of high value worlds and seek an ally with Strevoy to reclaim what they lost, and have ended up embroiled in it's civil war. There is talk of conflict within the Houten's own ranks, and it would hardly be their first revolution if it proves true. A faction arises there that calls for strong leadership behind one man, but it is largely unknown beyond the Houten's own borders. In peace they are a highly individual people, considering identity important and bickering over petty things, but are likeable and rich in personality.


Of Dvergr

Dvergr dwell in the world of Harthglome; a barren globe of air and cyclone with walls and sky of rock. It is a harsh place of bitter cold, all weather turning on a point in the centre that glows brilliantly after the Great Storm's climax when the wind stops and blizzards settle, letting a brief thaw before dimming and starting the slow build to crescendo again.

Dvergr, like most life in Harthglome, dwell for the most part below ground. They farm and hunt and survive often with no direct contact with their world's attempt at a sun. They are a grim people, aggressive and stubborn. It's no surprise to anyone who has seen Harthglome that dvergr range so far from it through the world roots. As a people, they are known for three things: Craft, war, and will to live. Dvergr are tougher than 10 men, strong as four, and born to the magic of illusion. Most dvergr start developing a skill for it by their first century, and by old age can be exceedingly powerful in this art. Sunlight utterly ruins illusion magic and wracks dvergr with pain, slowly turning their skin to dust and eventually they become stone. They are as near to blind daylight as men are at night, but have flawless (and near colourless) night sight.

All dvergr troops get +2 melee from intensive training, prior experience or great personal drive, this stacks with the following. All dvergr take half penalty from wounds.

Nagaard melee +6 at night, no magic. No penalty in day.

Others melee +6 at night, illusion magic. Melee +1 in day, -1 shot die, -2 skills, shoot up to Mid range.

Djupr melee +6 at night, illusion magic. Melee -4 in day, -5 skills, +3 shot die, shoot up to Short range. Djupr have may take ranks in Sorcery.

Nagaard: Nagaarn is the dvergr war-god, a merciless deity who accepts no compromise. The Nagaard are his people. In ancient times they were exiled to the surface and suffered terribly with each passing of the year, when the world was bathed in light. This changed them. They gained day sight, lost their fear of the light and became the hardiest survivors of the dvergr. The light exposure has stunted their magic, Nagaard have a weak grip on illusion by old age if they're lucky. Even today their society is nomadic, with few holdfasts populated year round. Their place on the surface and inevitable poverty made them mercenaries, able to deny passage of other tribes across the surface. Their eventual sun tolerance made spreading across other worlds easy, made them ideal as fighters to beat or hold opponents in the day so their fellows of other tribes could end it in the night.

If there's one thing Nagaard know, it is how to fight! They have been involved in every war brought upon the dvergr and most of the ones they started. This is a Nagaard mercenary army, and though they use archaic weapons and outdated machines they fight with a ferocity that can give pause to trolls... and love it every step of the way.

Bjartr: Dvergr of the hammer-crafts. Dvergr have a reputation as the finest craftsmen across all the worlds; amoung them, Bjartr are the great. They call the central mountains home, have strong trade and military ties with all the others, have colonies off world that never fell in the Rise of Men and are the leading political force of Harthglome. Their money buys the power of the others, the craft puts the tools in their hands, and their wisdom provides the leaders they need. They are philosopher warriors at heart and have been ruled for more than a two thousand years by the one titled Sindri in his golden hall.

Bjartr craft is highly prised. The finest weapons and armour come from their factories and their workshops. The best of all are made in Song Hall, an ancient place of smith-monks where things of legend are made to the song of hammer blows. You will find few of them in this mercenary army, but while most of them are clever and generous enough to make friends a few seem to forever be the butt of jokes amoung Nagaard.

Bjartr characters gain one Common dvergr power. They may choose Unseen or roll a D3 to see which one.

Djupr: Bjartr philosophy is for the most part common sense; the Djupr, or "Deep" people have a different view on things. They dwell furthest from the surface of any Dvergr tribe, far down in the deep rock where a world root forms in their oldest city. They have less sun tolerance than most dvergr but are extremely sensitive to magic; a Djupr can expect to develop the Canny, their illusion skill, by their first half-century. Religiously they are occult; secretive and hidden, they study the magics of other races. Djupr are said to bargain with trolls, forbidden by the Bjartr since ancient times, but they deny such things and discredit accusers. They make their money through trade in the rare gems and ores that turn up in their deep mines, along with other wonders that defy explanation.

Djupr are hired as specialists in this mercenary army. There are very few of them. They must forever walk about completely covered up for fear of the sun, and on this world they curse the brightness of moons at night. Not even a cellar or inside a building are they free of this effect.

Djupr characters start with 5 ranks in Sorcery, they may use skill points to take more. Djupr gain all three Common dvergr powers and may choose one Greater.

Rada: Known as the set, Rada were once many tribes but now are a nation. They work with other dvergr in many colonies off world, but the spiritual heart of their people remains in Harthglome. Their homelands are the western end of the great sphere, where ore is still rich despite millennia of mining. The Rada are slow to anger for dvergr, and highly organised. They are accused by others of making procedures for everything but nobody calls them unreligious; they are the people of Starfa, god of trades and cunning. The Rada have a natural distrust of men, especially Nacarfi, and they hate fae more than most because they understand them not at all.

Rada characters gain one Common dvergr power. They may choose Presence or roll a D3 to see which one.

Fjarri: Dwelling far from the other dvergr of Harthglome and in colonies elsewhere, the Fjarri are as much benefactors as they are victims of geography. A lot of Harthglome's water runs through their tunnel-maze in the Thaw and it affords them an abundance of life rich underground lakes and the Hverth-Blatr sea. They have more food than most and it allows the Fjarri to be many. There are three tribes within their people who still bicker to this day, but are ruled by a fragile council of elders. The Fjarri are not technically a soverign state but they are hard to control, so pay a light tithe and apart from occasional assertion of Bjartr authority they largely keep to themselves. Fjarri place great importance on etiquette and good manners, as it's the only way to keep blood feuds breaking out at a moment's notice. As unruly and unstable as the Fjarri territories are, Fjarri themselves appear polite and well mannered; however they love a good fight and a good meal even more.

Fjarri characters gain one Common dvergr power. They may choose Fear or roll a D3 to see which one.



Lastly, traits. These are intended to reflect character personality in game rules by applying bonuses and penalties in equal measure. I suggest only one, you can take more if you're game or none if you aren’t.


Killer’s eyes (+2 for melee attempts. Must always attempt to melee if enemy is within 5 meters. A convincing war face gives +5 intimidate; can roll intimidate to cause a deer-in-headlights reaction to your charge, allowing auto-success first turn in melee.)

Purposeful (Always does Steady shooting, but shot die is reduced by 2 rather than 1)

Victim of Bureaucracy (He’s from the artillery. Sure enough he doesn’t hear too well (-5 awareness, trouble hearing orders) but knows his way around mortars, field guns, and other heavy weapons (+10 on checks related to their use).

Alcoholic (Even for dvergr you drink heavily, slipping spirits in your water canteen and bottles in your bergen. All skills and saves suffer a -2 penalty except stealth. Near constant disciplinary action from one officer or another means you find things in the APC in half the time (you packed it), your weapon is excessively maintained (+5 on misfire rolls). You’ve also become very shifty (+2 on stealth checks) and rather good at getting things you weren’t meant to have (+4 on scrounging).

Snake Charmer (You’ve acquired a good set of reflexes the hard way, giving +4 on reflex checks. Lingering effects from injuries (reputedly snake bites) have made you half blind, limiting your eyesight to 300m range.)

Sorcerer (Shunned by your own people, you practice the black arts of sorcery. Grants access to ranks in Sorcery. Must not use powers in sight of friendlies besides own unit, risk being found out between missions.)

Thick Skull (You’re a tough one to knock out – others often say your head’s solid bone! You aren’t subject to stun effects such as from explosions and ignore the first -2 in melee penalties from wounds. However you’ve never been the quickest on the uptake, getting just 20 skill points and a max of 5 points in any one skill.)

Joined the Circus (As a kid you ran off and joined the circus. Your resulting skills with Climb, Jump and Balance are well honed giving 15 skill in each, but you didn’t learn much else so have only 10 points to use in other skills. You cannot take Knowledge or extra languages. Excellent co-ordination gives -1shotdie with hand grenades.)

Educated (Long years of exclusive schooling afford you an extra 10 skill points, but classroom scuffles and instructions in pugilism don’t compare with the hard edge of back alley brawls and tough manual labour to ready you for proper violence. -2 melee.)

Penniless (Never a wealthy individual, you had to steal, scrape together and lie to get in this regiment. Must be rifleman; trench gun replaced with double barrel shotgun, rifle is an Old Pattern Rifle with worn barrel (-5 reflex on snapshots, only gives -1shotdie instead of -2). Your skill at scraping a living from nothing gives +5 Stealth & Awareness along with rerolls on scrounging.

Superstitious (follows superstitions by carrying charms and other odd behaviour, giving +2 on all saving throws & a pre-game +5 roll with the tattooist. Is also obsessive/compulsive, making him a time waster – most actions take %50 longer. Will check suspends for one turn or action.)








Pockets of smoke and mustard gas linger in the trenches atop the plateu. Gunfire and the thunder of artillery are within a mile or so at present, but in the crumbling stone buildings it is safe enough. As dvergr regulars and everything from tanks and mobile arty to scout bikes and light cars rumbles up the hillside road cleared mere hours ago, head past the smoldering trenches and spread into the city, a hardy group of veterans move about the makeshift camp enjoying the pleasures afforded those pulled recently from the front lines.



The sun is getting low. It's late afternoon and a rain squal is brewing. There's troops playing cards, dice, wrestling, a tatooist has set up shop, harlots have been brought forward to ply their trade and the usual unsavory types can be found selling smokes, weapons, modifications, banned or expensive munitions under the table and drinks to those who shouldn't be drinking - along with other smuggled goods. It's a quite a camp, all of it either sandbagged or set up in the captured Houten trenches.



You've been let loose with your paychecks! Gods forbid. Now's a chance to meet & greet. Bullets are pulled and wounds sewn by company surgeons for the first couple hours, but with that done you've got time to spend on three of the following. You can take them multiple times instead if you prefer.

Tatooist - Ever part of a Nagaard army, tatooists are the writers of Marks and more decorative tatoos. With a bit of cash and some time you can have a small tatoo drawn, these boys are rough tempered but good at what they do.

*Characters from the opening stages of the Battle of Somek have been acknowledged for both leading the assault under heavy fire and disabling two enemy tanks on foot, capturing one of them. These characters are granted a Mark. It's a small rune tatoooed wherever you like, but these are hard to get.

Gambling - Dice, cards, betting on the wrestlers; you name it! Roll 3d6, i'll make an opposed roll. Those who were around to loot last game move up or down the loot table accordingly, newcomers may get a roll on the loot table with a modifier if they win.

Wrestling - Always a popular sport amoung dvergr and doubly so amoung Nagaard. Vets from the recent battle are a bit sore for this but can take part anyway if someone similarly battered and crazy enough joins in. Roll a D10. No modifiers, you're matched against someone just as tough and ugly as you.

Harlots - Ladies of conveniantly loose morals, roll a D20. You might catch something, but that does little to dissuade their clientelle.

Smugglers - a short list of smuggled goods from dealers trying to undercut the authorised suppliers; some of this stuff is banned by treaty from military use. Roll a D20 to see what you find available... or if you're caught, whereupon the goods are confiscated and your R&R is cut short.

Socialize - There's always beer! D20 social check, never know what'll happen - except being in the most toasted platoon of a frontline company you get a +2 modifier, with another +2 for each mission you've been in this campaign.

[Greyen]

Stinky

((Sorry just spent 18hours on a plane))

Stinky goes about limpingly looting and scrounging for stuff. scrounge [roll0]

He will (if time permits) visit the quartermaster and get a hook installed and his armor patched up.

He will then proceed to the medics to make sure he is patched up all the way before going out.

-let R&R Begin-

First stop is the tattooist. He starts with the Rune high in the center of his forehead, after he shaves himself bald again. After that he gets a smoking grenade done on the back of his head. Once he is freshly inked he moves down into the smugglers area.



Looking for satchel charges and silk undergarmets (easier buller removal!) [roll1] as evening comes, would use of his magic give him a boost with the smugglers? If so he'll use it.

[pingcode20]

(1d20)[20]

EDIT: Sweet.

Doc Turtlemurdered has a +9 Scrounge mod, if that changes anything

Looting check from last thread. Obviously the roll is written in, but you can click the arrow to be taken to the post.

EDIT: Heh. Looks like the Doc decided to just have a plain old good neutral time.

"I have no strong feelings with regards to my enjoyment at this time."

Doc Turtlemurdered

Ordinarily, the good Doc wouldn't have had much of an issue with visiting the Smugglers - He'd learned in boot camp that the smugglers were usually a good source for

But he'd just made Platoon Stretcher Bearer, and getting caught dealing with a smuggler would probably jeopardise that - and he wasn't about to bet his nice new stretcher on some extra death-dealing widgetry.

For a similar reason he decided against gambling; he'd managed to get himself a veritable haul of loot when picks came around (His hard work during the advance certainly paid off there), and he really only stood to lose at this point.

Well, a Mark wasn't anything to pass up, so like the slightly unbalanced Grenadier, he stopped by the Tattooists (once he'd taken the time with Other Doc to get all the bullets removed and properly fixed up) to get his Mark. The forehead didn't really appeal to him, so he had his tattooed onto his right shoulder.

"It'll be something to show the kids, that's for sure." he said to himself. He fully intended to leave the company in one piece, and be among those Nagaard who actually managed to survive war and settle down.

The rest of the time he spent celebrating with the other troops. He just got promoted, and damned if he wasn't going to enjoy it.

[roll0]
[roll1]

[Britter]

Poetry



I rolled a whopping fat 1 for my looting roll :(, just fyi.




Another battle survived, another set of scars, and another day to prepare for the next fight. Those were Poetry's thoughts as he headed over to the tatooist, getting the mark the denoted him as a survivor of the Battle of Somek. The mark adorned his right forearm, and he felt no small amount of pride that he was among the survivors of the battle, as well as having played a pivotal role in the victory.

Passing by his felloe soldiers as they played at wrestling, Poetry almost paused to join in, until the pain of hsi minor injuries and the dull ache of his cracked pate reminded him that he had been badly hurt not that long ago. With a sad smile he optwed to pass by. Maybe next time he would have a chance to give it a go.

Luck had not been with him during the scrounge, so instead of wrestling he decided to risk his pay and effort on cards. Heading over to where he fellows were drinking and carousing, he found a group of like-minded dverger and a pack of cards, and tried his skills at coming out ahead in the game. At the same time he enjoyed the company of the troops, sharing drinks and toasting the fallen, making the sort of flowery speeches and declarations that had earned him his nickname.

Gambling: [roll0]
Socialize: [roll1]

[RandomLunatic]

Once released by the doctors, Slip's first move is to voluntarily subjecy himself to needles again, this time to get the hard-won Mark placed on the back of his right hand. His injuries had dampened his enthusiasm for wrestling; besides, everybody wanted to hear the story. He would stand by the use of Manfear to evacuate the occupants without hurting the tank. After that... well, if you could not come up with a few good uses for a captured tank, you needed to find another line of work, aye?

Information, of course, always goes both ways. Slip manages to acquire a really hot tip...

((Looting (1d20=14) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1800381/)
Socilizing/Smugglers (1d20+8=17, 1d20=20) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1800482/)))

[Lycan 01]

((Woo! :smallbiggrin: This has been a ton of fun...

I got a 14 on my Loot check. Woohoo!

Lets see... Here's my plan of what I want to do.

First of all, I want to get a Mark tattoed over my heart. If its on a limb or something, I might lose it. But if its over my heart, I get to wear it with pride, and enjoy the fact that if I ever lose it, I'll be going with it. :smallamused:

I'm also going to try and Socialize. Let me see... +2 for being in this company, and another +2 for having been on one mission. However, I want to tell my stories about how I shot a dude through 2 floors of a building, and how I jumped the barricade, blew a dude's head off, and rode his shoulders to the ground like a skateboard or something. What sort of modifier will that get me? :smallamused:

If I do really good on my Socialize check, would that get me a discount and/or modifier with the Harlots? :smallbiggrin:

If not, I'll go see what the Smuggler has for sale...))

[Shirocco]

((Scrounge certainly does apply on loot rolls, but past 20 it no longer helps much. Greyen, you already rolled in the old thread - a 9, i'm useing that roll. And Lycan, glad you're enjoying it.))

Doc finds himself a Lucky Charm. Auto critical success one dice roll per battle, be it a shot, save or skill check - it's like a natural 20 on demand!

Rooting through an officer's quarters Stinky finds a mirror, good for emergency beard trimming and peeking around corners.

Poet limps about and finds... nothin’. Obviously, you’re just not trying.

Slip rifles about and his search proves successful... hand-rolled cigars, these look expensive.

Frenis is similarly fortunate. Must have been something of a smoking club up here, he also finds hand-rolled cigars.


...just waiting on Tyrson and the recruits, upgrades post will come in shortly.

[Shirocco]

Smugglers

Smugglers options are as follows. You may choose an option equal to or less than your dice roll.

0-5 – Caught! You find something good but you’re spotted making the deal; goods confiscated, all other R&R choices cancelled.

6-7 – Cigars & gas lighter. Great taste, lighter never fails.

8 – Quality stout. A fine ale, too good for common troops; this crate was “acquired” from the battalion commander’s tent.

9-10 – Heavy Sawnoff Shotgun, 6 gauge. Treats wound results as kills, only buckshot available in this gauge.

11-12 – Short Fuse Grenades (SF Gren). Detonate same turn they’re thrown, allowing no reflex save… including if you fumble.

13-14 – Deadly poisons. Requires edged weapon. Any melee hit – wound or kill – renders target OOA by end of next turn. Even if opponent wounds you they are still knicked and rendered OOA by end of next turn. Only works first turn in melee, then must be reapplied (one turn action).

15-16 – Dogin ‘458 Revolver. Long barrelled, magnum rounds, good finish. 100m range, Heavy shots, 6 round cylinder, +5 snapshots sidearm (not autopass) 2 turn reload. D6 5+ to reload in one turn. Counts as a rifle against armour, max 3 shots per turn.

17-18 – Sub Machine Gun. A somewhat bulky Rada model of SMG, loaded with banned hollow point ammo. First two rounds are thoughtfully loaded with ball point so as to pass inspection, no effect on performance – wound results are kills, useless against armour.

19-20 – Fjarri Machine pistol, comes with illegal hollow point rounds. Wound results are kills but fails against armour.


Stinky gets his hook put on as requested. This doesn't get as many odd looks as you'd think, there's been a few similar requests lately. The visit to the smugglers goes well...

Doc has a good time. He gets a bit drunk but he's an expert at hiding it and rather than being caught he enjoys himself. Hearing news off some recon troops on R&R it turns out there are indeed a few night fighter units operating in the city; djupr no less, with everything from crossbows to lightweight LMGs. Turns out your assault was the first one to break through, too.

Poet started gambling with his paycheck and ended without it. Ouch. His socializing efforts are hampered, knocking him down a lot. Still, there's plenty of folks happy to shout a him a drink based on last mission's efforts so he has a great time.

Slip doesn't try real hard at socializing. He doesn't have to. Just by shouting someone a drink and telling others his stories he earns the favor of the company mortars - when next he calls for their support it will arrive in half the time. Smuggling goes even better! Despite being an officer now he finds the smugglers, and perhaps useing that as leverage he gets access to everything they've got on offer. Worth noting - as an officer he's been issued a sidearm already, a standard revolver.



If Frenis does really well on the socialize check he might not need the harlots... i'll give him an extra +2 for the ridiculous things he pulled off, though it's no guarantee anyone will believe him.

[Lycan 01]

((Well then, Frenis will get the tattoo as I said, Socialize a bit, and then go see what the Smuggler has in store for him. :smallbiggrin:))


Socialize: [roll0]

Smuggler: [roll1]


Edit: Frenis never was that lucky outside of combat... :smallfrown:

Edit 2: Anything I can do to fix the Smuggler roll? Perhaps a Reflex save to duck behind something before the head honcho's catch me? :smallbiggrin:

Oh! Can I do a Stealth roll with a DC of 20 to see if I can sneak away or something? Pleeeeeease? :smalltongue:

[Greyen]

Stinky

Stinky takes his stuff and ink going back to the temp quarters available. He checks his ink over with the mirror and grins to himself. He reloads and spends some of his time cleaning and checking his gear. Never the most social of Bjartr anyway.

-Awaiting next mish-

[String]

Tyrson gets his Mark etched on a slightly unorthadox spot: his eyelid. The effect of having his rune show when he closes one eye to sight his rifle is just the sort of thing Tyrson finds amusing.


Tyrson also finds whores amusing. Or at least fun. [roll0]


Also, Tyrson loves beer. [roll1]

[mainiac]

Twitch wanders towards the more social parts of the camp, still a bit awed at being in a proper fighting outfit instead of a ragtag militia. Entering one of the many dens of gambling iniquity he's stunned for a moment by the loot and trophies that the boisterious crowd bandy's about. Asked if he's planning to gawk or get the hell outta the doorway, Twitch quickly takes an empty seat at a nearby cardgame, "hey, fellas, name's Twitch" he states by introduction as he lays out some of his meager cash. He'd always been on of the better players back home, now to see how that would stack up here...

Gamble [roll0]

Richer or poorer for his troubles, Twitch went to do some honest drinking, not wanting to risk anything but his money today.

Socialize twice [roll0][roll1]

[Britter]

Poetry


Luck was not with Poetry, either at the card tables or in social endeavors. "Ah well, a fool and his money are soon parted" he says with some small resignation, and spends the rest of the night drinking and trying to forget the troublesome emptiness of his wallet. "After all, I still have my health."

[Shirocco]

Tyrson finds some bully beef tins. They contain well-preserved processed meat. Tastes slightly salty; there's no way to tell what animal that used to be. The harlots are a lot less mysterious and he has a good time with one of them for a while, he's fairly confident he hasn't caught anything. When he hits the beer things get better - he gives someone warning at the right moment and saves their hide, one of the gunners in the platoon APC now owes him a favor.

Twitch comes out a whole lot poorer for his efforts - that's some just downright unfortunate luck! It costs him his paycheck, seriously hampering his social efforts. Unable to buy a beer he ends up asking the wrong person to shout him one... it gets him in a fight. He cops a beating but gives as good as he gets before others from his platoon get him out. Then all of a sudden things look up - perhaps it's sympathy, or maybe his buckus charm. He meets a charming young dvergr officer's daughter and gets lucky.

[mainiac]

Name: Twitch
Race: Bjartr
Background: A colonist in a wartorn region, Twitch traveled a bit in his youth to flee conflict, enjoying some times of peace but always expecting more strife to come. As an adult he decided to flee no longer and became part of the militia.
Traits: none
Skills: Stealth 10, Awareness 10, Craft (gunsmith) 8, Repair 5, Heal 4, Climb 3
Role: Rifleman
Melee weapon: trench knife

grenades, 2 smoke, 1 frag, 1 incendiary
gear: hand tooled bolt
perk: close shot


Officers daughter...:smallbiggrin:

[Shirocco]

The gains of surviving are not solely recreational... players may choose from the following upgrades.

Universal changes

All characters now have a maximum of 4 hand grenades. This includes frag, special, smoke cans - anything. They're all grenades.

Grenadiers (stinky) are the exception, taking 6 hand grenades and 6 rifle grenades.

All players will need to keep count of their own grenade supply! When you throw a grenade, saying you're at 2/4 or 1/4 remaining is all i'll need. Otherwise i'm liable to just turn around and say you're out of them. Resupply is, as always, possible at the APC.

All characters now have access to smoke cans. Taking a smoke can replaces a hand grenade. More conventional than phosphor, a standard smoke can starts releasing gas the turn after it's thrown and takes 2 turns to produce a 10m cloud, 4 turns to reach full size with a 25m cloud. It eventually disperses, but the time it lasts is dependant on terrain and wind.

Special grenades remain the same. Still one per character. Options remain Mustard gas, manfear, incendiary, and phosphor for NCOs and leftenant.

Assault characters have a free upgrade. From here on, assault characters start with a semi-auto heavy shotgun that feeds from box magazines. One turn reload, 2 turn magazine. This upgrade applies for free to Poet.



Equipment

Slip

Sickle mags (Half again the size of your factory mags, these afford 8-9 bursts for the LMG. With the mechanically enforced burst consistency of Slip’s LMG this winds out to 10.)

Quick change barrels & fire selector (Quick change barrels and a selector to allow full auto or burst fire, takes a free action between turns. Barrel change takes one turn, resets heat. Full auto for high ROF weapons affords up to 6 shot rolls (+3shotdie) spread between 1-2 targets but just 4 when aimed at more. Empties magazine in one turn.)

Bolt closing handle (Modifies feed system to be capable of closed bolt firing, a handle switches between closed and open bolt fire. Closed bolt gives -1shotdie but doubles heat buildup. Open bolt loses the accuracy but expels heat better. Switching between is a half turn action.)

Assault
*free upgrade to semi-auto mag feed

Rifling (Cut down rifled barrel from an autocannon to replace the smoothbore barrel of the heavy shotgun, comes with bullets and canister. Range with bullets 300m, hit like slug rounds. Canister rounds function like spiced up buckshot shells, striking so hard they roll to pierce armour like a rifle round. Canister shells reduce barrel life.)

Drum Magazines (Big, circular drum magazines – rare and hard to get for shotguns. They’re so heavy you take -5 on Snap Shot attempts and can only carry three magazines – one loaded, 2 spare. Mags last 10 turns of Fast shooting, 20 of Steady.)

Mighty Weapon (With a kinsman’s death you inherit a mighty weapon of steel & silver, a thing of the old days. +9 melee (replaces +5) ignores armour and is effective against fae, trolls and spirits. You also inherit an enemy; your kin’s slayer. Counts as a heavy melee weapon.)

Riflemen

Hand Tooled Bolt (Made by a private gunsmith, this bolt carrier allows very smooth very fast bolt operation for the skilled rifleman. Fast shooting extra shot roll DC -1 (5+ to 4+, or 3+ to 2+). If you have Steady Hands it allows an extra shot roll when Steady shooting (D6 5+), and if you can do it you get one on Mad Minute actions (D6 5+) to score up to 4 shots in one turn.)

Spring Bayonet (A spring-loaded bayonet of the finest metal rests in a sheath under the rifle barrel. Deploys bayonet as a free action, sheathing afterwards takes one turn. The blade itself is exceptional, cutting through bone like it were cardboard. Counts as a +8 (standard is +5) Decent Melee Weapon.)

Bolt-on Trench Gun (A short trench gun is bolted under the barrel of your rifle. Changing between these weapons becomes a free action between turns; frees up your back. Options include a semi-auto bolted on trenchgun (1 turn tube magazine, 1 turn reload) or a heavy melee weapon slung over your back. Through an offset lug you can still fix bayonet.)

Grenadiers

Chemical shells (Through your combat record and bribing Curly with a week’s ale rations you gain special rifle grenades; you still carry 6 RG, as many of these as you like can be mustard gas, one may be Manfear or Incendiary. You can still take standard frag, smoke & shaped shells for these spots.)

AT Bombs (Your hand grenades are replaced with larger, spicier bombs. Blast area 50m, throwing range becomes 20m – use from cover advised. Can be thrown or left on the ground as a vehicle mine triggered by pressure. You carry up to two of these at a time.)

Reinforced Armour (This armour’s not clever, it’s thick. Improves armour save to 3+ but bulk and weight apply -1 melee and -5 reflex. Comes with shrapnel visor and gauntlets; you’re even less effected by grenade blasts than before and can use the gauntlets as Decent Melee Weapons, much like brass knuckles.)

Sharpshooters

Scope (-2 shot die at or beyond medium range (100-200m). Shot die against targets <25 meters increased by one, as the scope obstructs your view of close targets; also obstructs access to the magazine. No longer able to use stripper clips – bullets must be loaded singly, causing 3 turn reload.)

Bipod (Must go prone to deploy, takes 1 turn. Once deployed all shots past Close range (25m) have -1 shot die.)

Anti-tank rifle (30mm, technically a light cannon. Single shot breech load - Fast shooting delivers one shot per turn, Steady shooting delivers one shot every other turn. Effective against light tanks at <500m. May damage heavy tanks at <200m. Hits against men always kill, improves shot die by one increment vs trolls and other large creatures. Snap shots impossible. Comes with armour piercing & canister shells.)

First Aiders

Blood thickener (A powerful version of a centuries old dvergr drug, Blood Thickener causes wounds to clot up and stop bleeding very quickly on their own. Bandages become redundant, Blood Thickener can be applied in one turn. Those treated become drowsy, causing -2 awareness.)

Nerve killer (A more modern drug that deadens nerves. Wound penalties replaced with -2 melee & affects trigger control (+1 shot die). Limp penalty replaced with roll a D6 3+ to avoid tripping when moving. Takes one turn to administer. Further wounds do not alter these penalties, Bleeding still kills eventually as do more wounds.)

Knockout drugs (One dose of this keeps men unconscious for hours, even days. Must be injected – opponent must be restrained so you can find a major vein or artery. Takes one turn to apply, kicks in next turn, comes with the antidote. Takes 2D6 turns to work on dvergr, second dose halves. Overdose can be fatal.)



Perks

Slip

Savagery (+2 melee, on a win of 5+ you savage an enemy making a bloody example for the others. Applies -1 melee to all enemies in Close range, this stacks up to -5. Gives you +2 melee for one turn. Half the time it consumes ammo, expires when combat ends or you fall.)

Wolf Eyes (You gain +5 awareness and can take 10 on awareness when blind firing – be it around corners, through doors, wooden walls or concealment.)

Brutally scarred (You’ve survived wounds that killed others, the horrid scars prove you’re very hard to kill! You ignore up to -4 in wound penalties while in melee and gain +5 on intimidate checks. When rendered Out of Action, roll a D6 each turn for the next 3 turns – on a 6 you can get up.)


Assault

Nonchalance (Your weapon has become so familiar to you that reloading takes no thought at all; you can do it without looking. Reloads take half as long, reducing tube mag reloads to one turn and box mag reloads to half a turn. You can also field strip the weapon in half the time, greatly speeding repairs.)

Snap throw (when an enemy attempts to shoot you before you can melee or responding to a charge and your melee weapon is drawn, apply +5 on the reflex check. On success you throw the melee weapon midstride, counts as a D2 shot. Becomes instant kill when done with heavy melee weapon, fixed bayonets cannot be thrown. This may also be used against fleeing enemies, 25m range. At any other time a throw uses the base shooting die, range 25m.)

War Spirit (A mighty war spirit fills you in melee. +4 melee, when you beat opponents by 5 or more you kill them with one stroke and may roll melee check against another opponent within 2 meters of you. This perk only applies to the first kill each turn, must use Heavy melee weapon.)

Riflemen

Steady hands (Improves extra shot rolls with rifles to a 3+, and with trench guns to a 2+. Can perform a Mad Minute – 3 shots no extra shot roll, +1 shot die, otherwise counts as Fast shooting.)

Close Shot (At Close range you turn D3 shots into D2 (can’t miss) every time, even if it’s only a D3 because of modifiers. When attempting to shoot an opponent before they can melee you, you get +2 reflex on the attempt and take no penalty if you are melee’d anyway, such as by a 2nd opponent.)

Dog of War (An uncaring and tough mercenary, you get +2 in melee. You ignore the first -2 melee penalty & +1 shot die in wound penalties. When rendered Out of Action roll a D6 – on a 6 you get up next turn.)

Grenadier

Two bangs (Through economy of movement your rate of fire is increased. When firing rifle grenades for 2 turns in a row or more you fire off two every 2nd turn.

Throwing arm (You gain a reroll when throwing hand grenades and +5 on reflex saves vs grenades.)

Survival instincts (When your unit takes losses you have a knack for being among the living. +5 on all saves, +5 awareness. You’re rather good at playing dead, getting a reroll on stealth to attempt it.)

Sharpshooter

Slow Shot (Your patience, smooth squeeze and steady grip show the makings of a sniper. You can now Slow Shot to reduce shot die by one when Steady shooting, reduces number of shots to one. D3 shots become D2 when taking a Slow Shot.)

Iron Shoulder (Between strong collar bone, thick shoulder and a reload motion like a well-oiled machine you can Steady shoot a dvergr anti-tank rifle and still reload it the same turn. Fast shooting becomes impossible with AT rifle.)

Bloodhound (You gain +5 on Awareness and can Track, taking rerolls when seeking out a sniper or locating the source of enemy fire. Also gives +5 on Stealth checks. Killing an enemy quietly requires only one stealth check, not 2.)


First Aiders

Seen It Before (Assessments become a free action that you can do once per turn in addition to other actions; you can still do one turn assessments, effectively allowing 2 in one turn when needed. You can take 10 on assessments, even when under fire.)

Stop Complaining (First Aid on the walking wounded now halves their wound penalties when successful and may be used repeatedly. Every 2 failures in a row make things worse.)

You’ve Got Another Leg (You can sometimes restore Critically injured to fighting level, they retain significant wound penalties. Heal check, 30+, takes 2D10 +10 turns, may only attempt once per patient. Others can add +2 to the roll by helping, or add their heal modifier if they have one. 2 helpers max.)

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered
The Doc wore the lucky charm on a bit of string around his neck - no telling when he would need it.

Then, he just relaxed. Well, until Twitch got himself punched in the face.

That was always a pain. He put down his half-empty flagon slowly and headed down to the scene. Give everyone a moment to feel as though they've gotten a couple of punches in, so he doesn't just look like some uptight twit.

"Hoy! Come on, break it up, guys." he shouted, as the rest of the platoon moved in to break up the fight. He always wore his armband, so it wasn't much of a problem.

He knelt down and checked the two participants.

"Okay, good, no harm done." he said, as the combatants stood, and the initiator departed.

He held out a hand to Twitch and helped him up.

"Found yourself an enemy fast, didn't you? You're one of the new guys, right? Doc Turtlemurdered - I'm the stretcher bearer."

Ooh, shinies!

Choices... I'm going to take...

2 Standard Grenades, 1 Smoke, Phosphor: Can't be too safe, and the smoke may give him that needed edge when caught out of cover. Besides, if you can get phosphor, you damn well take phosphor.
Blood Thickener: Because the amount of bandages needed last mission was great indeed.
Stop Complaining: This one was a toughie. I assume I can still make 'Standard' penalty reduction checks? Either way, this one seems like it'll come in handy.

[mainiac]

"Whoa, there." Twitch moves a little unsteadily towards a chair, shaking his head to try and get the ringing to stop. "Thanks for the help, doc. Nice to meetcha, my gang calls me Twitch, cause o' my uncanny knack for avoidin' trouble, believe it or not!" Twitch laughs uproariously at his own joke, pounding the table for good measure.
"Hey there," he calls out towards a fetching lass nearby who was among the gawkers. "The face t'aint much to look at, but I don't suppose ya care to have a seat and brighten my miserable day wit the pleasure a your company?"
Twitch leans back in his chair and whispers to Doc. "Hey, friend, don't suppose you'd lend me enough for a pair o' drinks? I think I can feel my luck finally startin' to change here."

[Shirocco]

((Bad news loverboy, i won't be RPing that little dice roll out any further. Best pick your upgrades and say what 'nades you'll be carrying, keep RPing with the others.))

[Greyen]

Stinky Reposted and updated and fixed

Name:Bjorn Erikkson "Stinky"
Class: Grenadier Anyone can throw grenades, but a hand grenade is only good to 50 meters. Grenadiers use a mount on the end of their rifles to launch baby mortar rounds up to 100 meters with remarkable accuracy.

Kit: Battle armour, rifle with RG muzzle end, grenades, rifle grenades, special grenade, bayonet.

+5 on grenade throws and rifle grenade shots.

Rifle grenades are issued in three kinds. First are Fragmentation, which have a blast radius of some 15 yards of shrapnel and 2.5 yards of sheer blast overpressure. Armour only helps against shrapnel. Second are Shaped Charge, which are effective against light tanks and large creatures but only affect what they hit directly. Last are smoke shells, which have a time delay and then take 2d2 turns to create a worthwhile smoke cloud.
Skills:
Stealth 4
Awareness 5 (mostly sniffing fer gas)
Knowledge: Geography 5
Survival: 5
Craft: Chemistry 5
Craft: Explosives 5
Scrounge 6
Intimidate 5
Trait: Victim of the beauracracy,& Perk Survival instinctsSurvival instincts - (When your unit takes losses you have a knack for being among the living. +5 on all saves, +5 awareness. You’re rather good at playing dead, getting a reroll on stealth to attempt it.)
Victim of the Bureacracy -Victim of Bureaucracy (He’s from the artillery. Sure enough he doesn’t hear too well (-5 awareness, trouble hearing orders) but knows his way around mortars, field guns, and other heavy weapons (+10 on checks related to their use) and has a better than average grasp of angles (+2 on grenade throwing)
Race: BjartrDuring the day your magic fails utterly, your shooting suffers by two increments (one if wearing eye protection), awareness is at -4 or -2 respectively, all other skills take a -2 and saving throws are -2. It's assumed you're wearing a full uniform, leaving no exposed skin. Should your skin become exposed it's bad news for you but takes hours to become fatal.

During the night all of those penaulties vanish and your spirit comes to life. You are one with the darkness, getting +3 on stealth and +2 on awareness. Your occult power wakens and may be used at will.
Power: PresencePresence: You can affect how others perceive you. Like a scale you can affect how threatening you seem, appearing anywhere from terrifying to helplessly vulnerable with no physical difference in your appearance - it is as intangible as an aura, a power that lies to the brain. To use it you enter the mindset of something your target expects to find and play upon it, be that a foe of terror they cannot hope to defeat or a last survivor praying for your life. Those who see you have a D20 check to ignor this effect or fall victim to it and it only works at short range (<100 meters). A terrifying perception can break enemies in close combat very fast, while a vulnerable one can bait them into traps or holding longer in battle than they should.

When active you are a hard one not to notice, a -4 penaulty applies on stealth. The more far removed you make your Presence to what the target expects the more likely they are to see through it - to terrify a squad of draftees faltering in a melee is easy compared with frightening those same men after they've gunned down several of your squadmates and are standing strong behind cover.
Equipment:
-Standard Rifle w/ RG adapter
-Reinforced Armour (This armour’s not clever, it’s thick. Improves armour save to 3+ but bulk and weight apply -1 melee and -5 reflex. Comes with shrapnel visor and gauntlets; you’re even less effected by grenade blasts than before and can use the gauntlets as Decent Melee Weapons, much like brass knuckles.)
-Grenades
SF Hand - 3 frag, 1 manfear, 1 incendiary, 1 smoke can
Rifle -4 frag, 2 shaped
-Hand Mirror
-Bayonnette

Collected Mods-
+7 on grenade throws
+5 rifle grenade shots
+5 fort & will saves
+10 field gun/heavy weapon use
3+ armor saves
-1 melee

Day mods (w/goggles)
shot mods -1 dice type
-2 all skills and saves

Nght mods
+2 awareness
+3 stealth
+magic

[mainiac]

((Bad news loverboy, i won't be RPing that little dice roll out any further. Best pick your upgrades and say what 'nades you'll be carrying, keep RPing with the others.))

Gotcha, edited the post to include the 'nades. Is it one equipment and one perk or one equipment or one perk?

[Lycan 01]

Ooooooohh..... I can't decide between the Scope and the AT Rifle. :smallbiggrin: What would you guys suggest? The scope is cool and all, but... c'mon! Its a frickin' AT Rifle! XD

Also, I think I might take the Bloodhound perk...


Shirocco, what would you suggest?

[Shirocco]

You get one kit, one perk. Greyen will want to add a perk to his revised character sheet... speaking of which, posting your updated character sheets is a brilliant idea. Please do so when you're settled on perk and kit upgrade.

Lycan, if you're going the heavy gun way i suggest iron shoulder + AT rifle. You will lose flexibility. If you're more of a man hunter then bipod/bloodhound or scope/slowshot make a lot of sense... just consider that most combat has been at ranges where a scope would be unhelpful so far. Bipod at least doesn't hinder you up close. Tyrson will perhaps get the most out of IS/AT or scope/SS because he already shoots Steady all the time (purposeful), for diversity's sake it may be worth Frenis being a different type of sharpshooter. That's all up to you.


*Forgot to say earlier, D3 moves straight to D2 now if you have the modifiers. That part of the old system was confusing and pointless for new players, this just makes it easier.

[Savant]

Jorgmund “Snake” Bergensson
Nagaard Rifleman

Craft: Gunsmith (10)
Stealth (10)
Awareness (10)
Jump (5)
Language: Houten (5)

Traits:
Killer’s Eyes

Perks:
Steady Hands

Equipment:
Hand Tooled Bolt

Kit: Dvergr Heavy Bolt Action Rifle
Trench Gun
Trench Knife
Grenades (4/4)
Bayonet

Snake has been around the Army a long time; everything he does is with a cool, calculated patience of a pit viper. His eyes burn with an intensity that only comes from experience; and should an enemy draw too close, he moves to strike like a serpent, dispatching his opponent and moving on before anyone should suspect. To look into his steely green eyes, is to know the cold hunger of one who has seen much, fought in many battles, and killed too many times.


Snake waves his hand in a absentminded salute as the transport he hitched a ride on dropped him off in the midst of the camp. Holding transfer orders in his left hand with his gear and his rifle slung over his back, he mumbles around a almost gone cigar in his mouth.

"Ya think they'd learn to write these in a ledgible way.." He squints at the paper one more time, before looking around with the paper held high.

"Anyone 'er expecting a new transfer?" "Or can read these chuffin' dispatches?"

[RandomLunatic]

Name: Negvar
Nickname: Slip
Trait: Killer's Eyes
Perks: Nonchalance, Assault Gunner, Savagery
Upgrades: ROF kit + Fire Selector, Bayonet, Quick-Change barrel

Skills:
Awareness 9
Climb 6
Heal 3
Jump 5
Knowledge (Geography) 3
Knowledge (Military) 5
Stealth 9

Kit:
LMG
Sidearm
Brass Knuckles
Trench Knife
Battle Armor
Grenadier's Boot Knife

Grenades: 1x Phosphor, 3x SF Frag

[Blockhead]

Name: Krurum Redgrill (Kru-rum Red-grill)
Nickname: Speak-Easy
Race: Human - Nacarfi (+4 Melee, breatplate, +2 Throwing)
Trait: Purposeful (Always steady shot, but shot die reduced 2, not 1)
Position: Radioman (+1 Language)
Skills:
Diplomacy: 8 points
Intimidate: 7 Points
Athletics: 5 points
History: 4 points
Insight: 4 points
Awareness: 2 points
+2 Languages - 10 Points
Languages: Fluent in Houten, Nacarfi and High Fae (and the 'normal' language that everybody else speaks)
Background: His home was under attack and his family fled the warzone. Krurum was a very talented speaker and could sway the tone of conversation one way or the other. After enlisting to join the forces against the ones that attacked his home, he trained as a radio man and picked up a few languages from being educated.
Gear: Bolt-action rifle (with bayonet lug), Bayonet (doubles as a long knife), 2 frag grenades, a breastplate and a portable radio.

(I have no idea what radiomen get, since they weren't detailed, so you'll have to point out what's available for me. And yes, I'm playing a human (le gasp!))

Speak-Easy

The fresh recruit decided he had better prove he wasn't a complete softy and marched up to the wrestling area and signed up for a match, laughs and quiet insults thrown at him as he did. Wrestling: [roll0]

After the wrestling, Speak-Easy decided it was probably a good idea to get to know some people fighting the same war as him. (No modifiers for him I guess, since he's new)
Social:
[roll1]
[roll2]

[String]

Name: Tyrson
Race: Dvergr
Trait: Purposeful (Always steady shot, but shot die reduced 2, not 1)
Position: Sharpshooter
Skills:
Awareness- 10
Stealth-10
Gear: Dvergr bolt-action rifle (with SCOPE). Knife, 4 frag grenades, side-arm
Perks: Slow Shot

[Shirocco]

Speak-Easy does not start well. Humans always get a rough time in dvergr military circles, being viewed as weaklings and cowards. He's pretty game to join in the wrestling but a suitable opponent is found... and she beats the living daylights out of him. He's quick on his feet but ultimately gets outclassed by a young dvergr lass. It's embarrassing but that's life, she seems to take a liking to him at least... which only leads downhill when he hits the drink, getting him in two fights before the lass disappears. Blast! So, minus a few teeth and already bruised & battered he is finally rescued by Curly, taken to the docs to be put in order.

((Just waiting on Poet. I'm drawing up battle plan and sorting things out with some of you anyway, RP amoungst yourselves a bit if you like.))

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered
"Haha, alright, but you'll owe." replied the Doc, lending him the money. "Word of advice - don't gamble away your paycheck next time."

Giving him a final slap on the back, the Doc returned to the rest of the Crew.

Couldn't find the old sheet, so I'm going to post a new one here.

Name: Athel "Doc" Turtlemurdered
Rank: Platoon Stretcher Bearer (First Aider)
Trait: Alcoholic
Skills:
Heal - 10 Points
Scrounge - 7 Points
Stealth - 10 Points
Tumble - 3 Points
Know(Magic) - 10 Points
Bonus Kit: Phosphor Grenade Access, Blood Thickener
Perks: Stop Complaining

[Britter]

Poetry


Name: Braggi "Poetry" Sigmundson
Race: Nagaard
Class: Assualt
Perk: Nonchalance
Skills:
Jump: 3
Climb: 3
Stealth: 5
Awareness: 5
Survival: 4
Heal: 4
Profession: Armorer: 8
Craft: Firearms: 8
Gear: Semi-auto magazine fed Heavy trench gun, battle axe,
3 grenades, 1 manfear canister, Mighty Weapon (Axe) +9 melee


Picking himself up from the table, Poetry headed off to his tent, where he proceeded to check his kit and prepare for the next bit of action. He spent some time familiarizing himself with his new semi-auto trench gun, making sure he knew it's workings inside and out and that it was not going to fail at some incredibly inconvenient time.

As he worked, a private showed up, with a package delivery. Opening it, Poetry was startled to see the ancestral blade of his family, a mighty broad axe that had been, as far as Poetry knew, in the possession of his father. there was no note or explanation enclosed, but Poetry did not hesitate to replace his old axe with this mighty weapon. He dashed off a quick letter to home, asking for an explanation if they could give hm one, and then settled into an uneasy sleep.

((sorry, was out of town today, apologize for delay in posting. ))

[Shirocco]

You're R&R is not more than half an hour done when news comes over the radio that the push into the city has halted on the left flank. As you've heard, the overall plan is drive around both sides of the city to encircle it's centre, cutting off the bulk of Houten forces from retreat or reinforcement. The right flank is moving steadily but with the left come to grief Scrub company is hustled.

Curly gets to Slip first. "We gotta hustle, sa', regulars have come to grief and we leave in 2 minutes. Lets get the lads together, things are getting outta control round left flank and we're picked to put the fire out - lets go!"

Curly and Slip set to rounding you up, sending you to the APC. There's heavy mortar fire comming in, dirt and shrapnel goes up in great clouds. The baggage train of smugglers, harlots and the rest run for cover.

[Britter]

Poetry


Roused from sleep by the call to action, Poetry was moderately put out that he didn't get to completely recover from his last round with the Houten. However, the prospect of mixing it up with the enemy was always sure to be interesting, and he had fought battles short on sleep before. In the trenches, you get used to sleeping when you can and fighting when you must. Or you die. As he assembled in the mustering area with the rest of Scrub Company, he smiles and say "So, once again we find that there is no rest for the wicked, right lads?"

[Savant]

Snake eyes the incoming mortars with annoyance, then slaps his helmet on and gathers up his rifle.

He proceeds to the muster zone, double time, and goes through a quick check of his gear with the efficiency of a task done many times before.

"Pvt. Snake reporting, Sa."

[mainiac]

Twitch shows up pissed and shirtless. Grabbing his pack and his his gear he storms his way into the APC. He fumes silently to himself as he dons his other shirt then snatches up his rifle and grips it like a vice. "Let's make these bastards pay!"

[Shirocco]

"Hustle up, come on! Markog tighten that chestplate, Three Pegs get your helmet strapped, Jinks tie your **** laces and lets move!" shouts Curly, waving you all into the APC.

Dvergr Mechanized Armour

This APC is actually a stripped tank. The Hargnut (this mercenary army) use rebuilt and ageing Great War tanks, bought off men and other dvergr then reworking them from the ground up. The two versions you'll be seeing the most of are the tank version, similar to below

http://www.fototime.com/0DFB71FB00D759F/orig.jpg

The sponsons and turret gun are missing in the above, this just gives you an idea of the shape (rhomboid). The dvegr one is much wider and marginally longer in shape, with heavy armour and two large engines. The APC is the same vehicle with the turret stripped off, leaving more room in the rear for troop transport. About 24 fully loaded mech. infantry can be carried in the rear, more like 30 if you shoehorn. This is important, because it limits the size of infantry sections (7 troops each) and your platoon (21 + radio, LT & 2IC). These are infantry tanks at heart - big, slow, thick armour, very heavy. They're often too heavy for bridges. The underpowered guns are still present in many though the Hargnut view them as a work in progress.

APC armaments are sponson guns (Cannon or HMG), forward hull HMG, rear HMG. Yours has been modified with four firing ports in the troop compartment side walls, 2 each side. Rear door is of the dropdown ramp variety, powered. Alternate exits via engine room are in rear of sponsons. They are blind in their rear left & right flanks, a weakpoint you have to protect it from when working in close support. You guys can use the fire ports to cover this but only when on board.

Tank armaments are much the same, with addition of a turret carrying a cannon which varies in calibre. Some have 75mm fortress guns, many have smaller 57mm guns, and a couple (named Bethany and Josie) have 150mm howitzers. Tanks can still carry infantry, just less of it - about 10 troops. That compartment is typically full of spare fuel & ammo though so don't count on tanks for unscheduled transport.

For the uninitiated, some Rhomboid tank images:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Allied_Mark_VIII_(Liberty)_Tank.jpg
Mark VIII, supposedly carry up to 20 infantry. None saw combat.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/British_Mark_IV_Tadpole_tank.jpg
Mark IV, 1,220 were built in WW1. Two drivers and two gearsmen just to move it around. No radio, used a pair of carrier pidgeons.

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/france/Fra-MarkVStar-2.jpg
Mark V, a Mark IV as originally intended - more power, better steering and only 1 driver. When it finally did go into production it was rebadged Mark IV anyway.

I recommend reading up on the early British Mark series tanks, and others like the less succesful French heavies if you're keen. They're some of the most profoundly awful vehicles imaginable. They show very clearly the original intent of the tank and the sort of conditions they were built under. You're riding in a late version of these metal monsters; while you enjoy such things as a seperate engine room, a rear door, a radio and armour that doesn't spark on you when hit - spare a thought for the poor bastards who crewed the originals.


With everyone in and tightening their armour, checking their hastily equipped gear, the ramp hauls up & shut with a resounding clang. Curly bangs on the engine bay door to give the all clear; there's a great roar of diesel and the APC grudgingly lurches forward, rumbling over the dirt on it's unsprung tracks toward the rest of the company. Slip is called forward to the commander's seat for a chat with the APC's officer, leaving you lot in Curly's tender company. He grunts.

"Some 'ah you done city fights before. That's good. Keep tagetha. We've got lotsa support 'n ol' Hout's on the back foot here. He's got his howitzers in place and we'll be hearing from them soon, 'less i miss me guess. Speak-Ezy, shake off those love taps an' be ready to call mortars & arty on leftenant's orders - your radio in order?" asks Curly

After the answer he continues.

"We're headin' inta the slums, lads. I know the buildings you've seen so far looked the part but that ain't their worst effort. We're talkin' rickety tin & dodgy wood here. Mind y'don't kick some dumb bastard's shed over by accident, only take a nudge or a strong wind. It'll be a right rat warren but we ain't going into all of it, just need the road clear and strongpoints set up to complete the encirclement of city centre. Expect close action with regular infantry, ours will be in support. Also tanks ahead. Leave those to ours, they'll sort 'em out." says Curly. He pauses for a second, glancing over his shoulder then speaks a bit quieter.

"This ain't official, don't worry where i hear'd it. Funny business afoot wit' the fae, or maybe trolls, i dunno. Somethin's up. Keep ya eyes open. Ya think a shadow moved, ya might be right so let us know, aye? See somethin' funny don't keep it to yasself. Could save a hide."

[Savant]

"Why ya think those fae be helpin' a bunch of humans?"

Snake chirps up, throwing a quick glance at the skinny human manning the radio. He didn't know what to think about a human being in his squad, but as long as he kept his gun pointed the other way Snake would leave him alone.

[Shirocco]

Curly gives Snake a wry look. It's Three Pegs who pipes up "Who says they're helpin'?". Curly nods in agreement. "We've no idea, lads. Watch out. If it's fae they won't have a plan, if it's trolls we could be in for a fun night."

[RandomLunatic]

After some time, Slip reappears at the head of the APC's passenger compartment. Walking with the assitance of the overhead rail, he briefs the troops, yelling over the growl of the engines.

We''ve got three lines of resistance ta breach. First one's simple enough-line of sandbags in a slum district. Few HMG nests, heavy mortar section, maybe a few field guns. Biggest risk is from runnin' afoul one o' tha bombs command thinks they got set up, so be careful. We're ta clear a few houses runnin' along tha road.

It's critical ta make sure ya know what yer shootin' at. Intel says thar's civvies all over, and we're ta avoid non-combatant casaulties. We've got regulars, Nacarfi an' dvergr, followin' behind us-shoudn't hafta worry about them unless we really ^&*~ things up. Finally, resistance groups are runnin' around-they're supposed ta be wearin' red armbands so we can tell 'em from tha Houts. If ya come under fire from some, take cover an' invoke tha name of Abdul-Samid.

Samid's a major rebel leader who's recently gone missing-all units are ta keep an eye out fer 'im. He's a changeling-kinda looks like a bipedal bull. Orders are ta recapture 'im.

Any questions?

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc nodded, remaining silent about much of the discussion about fey.

"If I may, sir, I know a fair bit about how the fey operate. If there are Fey involved, I'd like to speak with them if we encounter any."

[RandomLunatic]

Slip gives the doc an odd look before finally saying Nae promises.

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

"If we get a chance to avoid having to watch our backs for fae, I guess." shrugged the Doc.

[mainiac]

"What's the about?" Twitch muttered to himself but loud enough that Doc could hear him. Then he spoke to Doc directly in a clearer tone. "Thanks for tha cash, mate, I'll remember it. Now, jus' keep me alive ta pay it back!" Twitch gives a wry grin before focusing on his piece again. His spirits are a little better though he still looks bitter.

[Shirocco]

Gunfire. Rifle cracks and MG chatter are getting louder. The APC bucks suddenly as it drives straight through a crater, settling down with a bone-crunching crash. That hurt, you're all shaken for a few seconds. A voice crackles over the compartment radio. "Disembarking in 30 seconds, friendlys in contact ahead, enemy north." says the voice. There's a great boom from a '75 and a few loud bangs of '57 as forward column elements make contact. Curly speaks up. "Ramble, Lifter, Twitch, Snake - open fire ports! Everyone else, ready arms!"

Curly looks at Slip. "Sections, sa?"

[Savant]

" 'Bout bloody time for some action." Snake grins, before turning to the nearest firing port.

He works the action once to load a round and then goes cold as his focus shifts to an an intensive survey of his firing arc.

[RandomLunatic]

Slip has to holler over the crash of gunfire and the protesting roar of the APC's engines as they strain to pull the overweight vehicle out of the crater. Command section's me, Curly, Doc, an' Speak Easy! Poetry's headin' up First, wit Frenis, Snake, Crash, Face, Three Pegs, an' Doc! pointing at one of the medics lounging at the rear of the infantry compartment.

Second's got Stinky, wit Ramble, Tyrson, Twitch, Jinks, Tiny, annnn... Doc... trailing off as he points at another medic. Damnit, Doc, why do yas have ta do this ta me? he snarls at Turtlemurdered.

If I haven't called ya yet, yer in third wit Hooky.

Elevating his voice to full yell, he continues

It's time ta show all those pansies out thar how we do it in the Hargnut! It is time ta show them that WE! ARE! NAGGARN'S! CHOSEN! Tha Naggard do not defeat their enemies-we crush them; we shatter them; we annihilate them! I want tha last thing every Hout out thar sees tonight is yer face-tha face o' death itself!

Hu- he punches the air as the cry is taken up by a half-dozen throats. -ZZAH!

[Blockhead]

(OOC: Sorry about the delay, I won't be able to post Tuesday either, but hopefully daily after that)

Speak-Easy


"Speak-Ezy, shake off those love taps an' be ready to call mortars & arty on leftenant's orders - your radio in order?" asks Curly.

The radio was newly issued and showed no signs of damage or misfunction. Speak-Easy gave a quick twist to a few knobs and spoke some quiet words into the receiver. A quiet, slightly static reply was the answer and Speak-Easy nodded. "Aye sir! Radio in full working order, sir! Am I to monitor enemy transmission sir? I can speak the language quite fluently sir." It was not hard to notice the obvious difference between human and dvergr accents and Speak-Easy was a prime example.


"Why ya think those fae be helpin' a bunch of humans?"

Snake chirps up, throwing a quick glance at the skinny human manning the radio. He didn't know what to think about a human being in his squad, but as long as he kept his gun pointed the other way Snake would leave him alone.

Speak-Easy shrugged. "I don't know, but I can speak Fae, as well, should the need arise."


Command section's me, Curly, Doc, an' Speak Easy! Poetry's headin' up First, wit Frenis, Snake, Crash, Face, Three Pegs, an' Doc!

"Aye sir." Speak-Easy replies.

[String]

Tyrson readied his rifle and attached his scope before nodding to Slip.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

Random's chart. I've edited for clarity; pretty sure we got everybody.

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio)
Doc (Stretcher)

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp)
Snake (Rifle)
Crash (gren)
1st Aider
Rifleman #1 (Fingers)
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp)
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
1st Aider
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
1st Aider
x3 Riflemen


Looking out the slits Snake & Twitch see a lot of shacks. Even as they look they see a handful of civilians - tired, fearful wretches in rags with nowhere else to go. The shacks are every bit as bad as Curly said, most being single story and the really frail looking ones have a 2nd story, like a single tiny 2x2m room. They're all built from leftover building materials and sheet metal, some corrigated iron. None are more than 5x5m, huddled together like the shivering masses who call them home.

The APC rumbles on for a few more moments then slows down, the forward hull HMG rattling off a long burst, and comes to a halt with the rear door falling open. "Dismount! Standard formation - 1st section right, 2nd left, 3rd on rearguard move out!"


Outside you'll find yourselves in the armoured column of Scrub company stretched out indian file along the dirt road that snakes it's way through the Slums. More APCs and tanks are behind you, two tanks before you. The road takes a long left turn before you and you can hear fighting just around that turn, shacks are right aganst the road all the way. A gap in the wall of dodgy tin shacks is found every 20 yards. Even as you watch a dvergr regular (unarmoured but for a helmet) pops up on the roof of a shack on the right (outside) of the bend, firing at targets you can't see somewhere up the road.

Further away looking around you see the Slums are in bowl, their southwestern face looking out into the lowlands beyond Somek and everywhere else they stretch some of the way up 100m of mountainside (50m high) before it plateus above you with the rest of Somek beyond.

Regulars

Dvergr regulars are just regular infantry. They have no armour, use the same rifle as you (though more than half have the older long pattern rifles), no secondary weapon, an entrenching tool, bayonet and on average 2 grenades. Typically one LMG to a platoon. Their uniform for the Somek campaign is dusty brown & yellow.

Dvergr regulars are professional mercenaries like yourselves, making up the bulk of the Hargnut. They did not make the cut or have the money to join a mechanized or heavy infantry unit but can be counted on to hold their ground with tenacity.

[String]

Tyrson burst from the APC and went right with the rest of his section, and tried to figure out about how far up the street the Houts were from the way the Regular was shooting.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Just for RP purposes, are we part of Scrub company? Mechanised Infantry right? Also, when the time comes for artillery strikes, I'll probably make up a set of co-ordinates.

Speak-Easy waited until the rest of the squads had dismounted, then properly set up his radio equipment, turning up the speaker so that orders and battlefield reports could be heard. He turned a few dials and spoke into the receiver. "This is Scrub 1st platoon command, we have made it to the drop off area, no friendly casualties as of yet. The rest of the company is splitting off into teams and will most probably take different routes into the city. Call sign is leaky bucket. Over."

[Shirocco]

Military Organisation For You Lot

Smallest unit is a team, like Slip & friends or half a section. At this point in history moving about in small groups is a new idea so they haven't formalised it, most teams will be ad-hoc.

Next and proper is a section (Or squad if you're American). That's normally 10 guys but in your company it's just 7. Each gets led by a corporal.

There are three sections to a platoon, normally 30 guys all up but of course here that's 24. Lead by a leftenant (most junior officer rank) who's assisted by a sergeant (NCO above corporal). Here platoon leaders have authority over the APC.

There are anywhere from 2-4 platoons in a company, which roughly winds out to 100 troops. Company level holds the HMGs, that sort of thing and assigns them as needed. Company level is where your circle of well-known faces reaches to, like an extended family. There are plenty of levels beyond this but they lose relevance to you in a hurry.

Therefore Tyrson went right with his Section, not his entire platoon (which would be all of you), and Speak-Ezy is part of 1st platoon command, not company command.


((To use the radio, roll a D20 Prof: Radioman check. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself.))

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered
The Doc looked at Slip.

"Well, when you're ready." he said.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy


"This is Scrub 1st platoon command, we have made it to the drop off area, no friendly casualties as of yet. The rest of the company is splitting off into teams and will most probably take different routes into the city. Call sign is leaky bucket. Over."

Alright, call sign (at least for 1st platoon command) is leaky bucket. Here comes the roll: [roll0]

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

"Say, Houten, the little light on your radio is off - that a good thing?" asked the Doc, as he saw Speak-Easy talking.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Speak-Easy looked at the unlit bulb and slapped a hand against his head. "Thanks for noticing that, that could of been very embarrasing. My name's Krurum Redgrill, but most people call me Speak-Easy, Speak-Ezy or Speasy. And I'm not Houten by the way, I'm Narcarfi, but I can speak both languages and High Fae." He said as he flipped a switch on the back of the radio, causing the bulb to spark into life.

Speak-Easy repeated his last radio message in the hopes that this one would get through. (Grr... roll below)

[Blockhead]

Messed up the roll coding in the last post, here's the roll: [roll0]

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc nodded. "Good to meet you, Speak-Easy. Doctor Athel Turtlemurdered. Doc for short." replied the Doc, shaking Speak-Easy's hand. "Hope we all make it out alive this time."

[RandomLunatic]

Slip calls out over the din First, Second, move northwest. Third, yer reserve-stick wit tha tracks fer now. Fixing bayonet, Slip moves with the two sections until either the sounds of enemy acton move to the right, or enemy contact is made.

[Shirocco]

There's no responce for the radio. After a moment or two he realises the battery needs charging. Nothing else for it, he winds the crank like a madman. Soon enough he's got a line to the Captains signaller - that's company HQ far as Speazy's concerned.


((Ah, yes, bearings. North is the general direction of the advance through the slums. You're facing northeast right now, road takes a long turn in front of you around to the northwest. Northwest is sound of enemy rifles, northeast is sound of heavy mortars a kilometer or two away (not your problem).

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Speak-Easy shook Doc's hand. "As do I, I expect you see a lot of death out there...." He began, then shook his head and tried to see if he could tune into the enemy frequencies.

[roll0]

[String]

Tyrson began to move northwest with his section.

[Britter]

Poetry


Acknowledging Slips orders, Poetry took point and moved forward.

[Shirocco]

((When Speazy is tuning frequencies he cannot hear orders over the company frequency. That is poor fieldcraft and against your battle drill. Are you sure you want to do this?))

((While i'm at it, acting NCOs Stinky and Poet can and will be assumed to take point but are best off assigning the job to someone else sooner or later.))


Before Speazy (maybe?) changes frequencies there's a reply from company HQ. Voice is crackly but not too bad. "Confirmed Leaky Bucket, ad...*crackle* ...nd clear out left of road, say again advance and clear out le... *crackle* ...oad, over."

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy


((When Speazy is tuning frequencies he cannot hear orders over the company frequency. That is poor fieldcraft and against your battle drill. Are you sure you want to do this?))

((While i'm at it, acting NCOs Stinky and Poet can adn will be assumed to take point but are best off assigning the job to someone else sooner or later.))


Before Speazy (maybe?) changes frequencies there's a reply from company HQ. Voice is crackly but not too bad. "Confirmed Leaky Bucket, ad...*crackle* ...nd clear out left of road, say again advance and clear out le... *crackle* ...oad, over."

((Ah, I wasn't sure, you didn't post a reply over the radio when you last posted, so I assumed that they just acknowledged and let me go about internal communications, in that case, I'll try and tune into the enemies frequencies after that, but obviously I failed miserably, only barely avoiding a radio break))

"Understood. Leaky Bucket over and out." Said Speak-Easy, putting down the receiver. He turned to no-one in particular and said: "I'm going to need a runner or two to relay orders and information to the various teams and sections. Any volunteers?"

[Shirocco]

There's a chorus of grunts in reply to Slip's orders. Third section take position behind the APC while 1st and 2nd advance around the corner with the road. Curly gives Squeezy a nudge. "Pick anyone when you have to mate. Come on we're moving."

((You can pick anybody for messenger duties. Riflemen are the usual choice. If anyone argues Sgt. Curly will back you.))

Before you reach the end of the bend you see a bullet-ridden dvergr truck on the right (outside of the turn), and 10 yards past that the smouldering ruin of a dvergr armoured scout car. Poet sees a rundown 3 storey tavern with boarded up windows 50m down the straight after the turn and sandbags 100m down the street but before he can get a good look at them... Poet, Awareness check.

[mainiac]

"Come on, Doc, let's not be dwadlin' now." Acting on his own words, Twitch hurries northeast to catch up with Stinky. He slows his step momentarily along side him, "who's on point?"

[Shirocco]

*Direction shift after PM from Random, rewinding to where Poet sees the shotup truck.

Smoke rises just a bit further round, Poet holds up while Slip directs Stinky's section into the rat warren of shacks. With Stinky leading (?) he sees lots of directions to go in. First juncture is a + and if you go straight ahead there's a T 10 yards after that. These alleys are running amoung rickety shacks, only room for 2 abrest (confined, can only use small melee weapons side by side or bayonets at -2). You see ragged flaps of cloth for doors, 4 of those before the + and another 6 before the T. Any shack could contain enemies - a D20 awareness check each turn to see if you pick up on enemies as you pass or before you enter shacks.

With Slip's (and higher up) orders to head northish you'll have to take a right at the interesections, whichever one you take. Good idea to check shacks as you go.

[String]

Tyrson stepped cautiously forward, his eyes briefly seeking the 'okay' from his section head before sweeping around the street, looking for any indication of Houten.

[roll0]

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

"Hah. Keep your eyes on the enemy, not on me, Twitch. I'm here to make sure you don't bleed out when you get yourself shot." replied the Doc, keeping with Slip in the command squad.

He unscrewed his hip flask and had a bit of a sip from it. He'd refilled them last night, and it seemed a waste not to have some while he was still in good enough condition to enjoy it.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

Random's chart. I've edited for clarity; pretty sure we got everybody.

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio)
Doc (Stretcher)

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp)
Snake (Rifle)
Crash (gren)
1st Aider
Rifleman #1 (Fingers)
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp)
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
1st Aider
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
1st Aider
x3 Riflemen


((Greyson's home on leave this week so he probably won't show. i'll drag him.))

Stinky gives Tyr the nod and lets him pass, taking point through the alley (not to be confused with the main street!). There's movement in the 2nd left shack... doesn't sound like an enemy. Quick look confirms it, a small family in rags huddled inside peer out at him. The other 3 shacks have yet to be checked, other characters in 2nd section are closest.

Poet, sitting put outside on the left (inside) of the main street bend, watches the dvergr regular you spotted initially fire again... there is a hail of HMG fire from up the street that walks quickly through ground toward him, the regular curses and dives out of sight as his concealment is ripped apart like the rickety shack of tin & stolen wood that it is. That's on the other side of the street, outside edge of the turn, so Poet & 1st section are well clear of it... they just have a great view.

Back at Squezy & Slip's end of the world the Company frequency chirps to life. "2nd platoon reporting as Foxhound, dismounted and ready over." There's a burst of crackle and Company HQ (CHQ)'s signaller chirps in. "Copy Foxhound, advance northeast around right side of road, friendlies ahead over." "Confirmed Sparks, moving - Leaky, where is that Hout HMG? Over."

[mainiac]

Twitch kneels down a few feet from the first door on the left as he fixes his bayonet. Then he slowly walks forward, takes position just to the right of the door frame and uses his gun's barrel to push the cloth door aside so he can peer in, checking the corner. Assuming it's clear, he rapidly steps through the door and checks the other corner.

If no one else beats him to it, Twitch will repeat the process until all houses are clear.

[Savant]

Snake takes a moment to compose himself; no matter how many times he goes into combat, he always took a minute to make sure he was ready. A simple slip could easily be fatal, and Snake was quite aptly aware of that. He shoulders his rifle and pulls out his trench gun, nothing but business now.

Sneaking up to the closest of the 3 shacks, Snake pauses for a minute, his own breath quiet as he listens for any telltale signs of hostiles, before he flattens against the wall of the shack and yanks the cloth door open, trench at the ready.

Roll(1d20)+10:[24]

how do you roll with the forum system?

[Britter]

Poetry

Awareness: [roll0]

"By the numbers lads, check yer targets and know what yer shootin' at. Make sure to give these shacks a good lookin' over as we advance" Poetry tells his section as they descend into the rats warren of shacks and debris. "Snake, take point, rifle is less likely to indiscriminately kill civvies then this thing" he orders, gesturing at his trenchgun for emphasis.

[Shirocco]

((I'll be away for work tommorow, no posts during day austime. Following day i may be a bit slower too. What with the fun around the corner i'll drag most of you slackers right now. Take a double turn.))

The other 3 shacks all come up empty, Tyr was on the money. Creeping forward he glances left then looks right down the +... and pulls back. He's scarcely begun to turn around and say something when LMG fire rips through the late afternoon air, shredding through tin and the odd civilian to reach you.

All those in 2nd section are exposed to full auto blindfire straight through the shacks from an LMG position Close north, it sounds like it's right in your ear! Reflex checks to hit the deck in a hurry. Other sections can get down if they want but the fire doesn't go near them the entire turn as only 2nd is in the alley. Next turn it ceases fire, you hear a Houten say something. ((PMing the Hout speakers)) If you go forward and take a right at the + you'll see it's 30 yards of alley that way with a 2 floor wood shack at the end, a window on the 2nd floor looking down the alley at you has cloth still flapping from the wind of the LMG. While you do this Ramble will spit, raise his LMG and proceed to blindfire back at the Houten.

Blindfire Change

Blindfire's shooting at what you can't see. Like around corners, over lips, through smoke and weak cover, that sort of thing. It takes an awareness check and then a tough shot die to do accurately.

Shooting modifers don't work when blind firing! Take the base die. Automatics can often get rerolls, in the above situation Ramble is taking D8 dice and rerolling them... if he passes Awareness that is. I never used to allow rifles to do this but hell, why not. Now you can - they're just bad at it. Roll awareness, DC25. If you pass it base is D8, add +2shotdie (taking to D12) if you are useing a rifle. Trench guns lack the penetration to punch through all these shacks.

Grenades can also be tried, D20, two a turn. Remember to count them down as you use them!

Oh, note for the new guys. If you do pass the awareness check you'll be rolling 2 D12 shots, then a D6 for a third shot on a 5+ result. You could even try standing there shooting while that LMG pounds into you on turn 1... not healthy but possible.

Free hint. Don't attack MG positions head on; a head on assault from you is what they spend all night dreaming of. So while you might rush past the + toward the T, thus keeping your risk relatively low, stopping in the + to fire directly is a bad idea. D4 if you're suicidally game to try.


While this happens 1st section & PHQ (Platoon HQ - Slip, Curly, Doc, Speazy) hear things liven up with automatic, trench gun and rifle fire on the east side slums past the road. 3rd section's nowhere near that, being back with the APC, but from what came in over the radio 2nd platoon is probably hitting something in there too.

[Greyen]

Stinky

2nd Section Breakdown
CPL Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp)
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
1st Aider
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)


Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy
Hitting the ground with a clank, the heavily armored Bjartr grunts. Ref [roll0]
Popping a smoke grenade into the line of LMG fire he barks orders at his section. Wait for the smoke then break across line of fire as they pause! We'll move to flank! Stinky creeps forward to signal to go.

[mainiac]

(I'm assuming we don't have to act in rounds yet since we're under cover...)

At the sound of fire, Twitch pressed himself against the thin shack wall next to him. But then he realized the location of the danger and started creping towards Tyr. He pulled out a smoke grenade and jogged closer. "Smoke if ya got 'em fellas!" he called before throwing the grenade in an arc over the shack roofs to land in the road.

((What to roll?))

((1 frag, 1 smoke, 1 thermite remaining))

[Greyen]

Stinky spins on the private NO MORE SMOKE! I give the orders in this section. UNDERSTAND!? He bellows as the second smoke goes over.

As the smoke starts to rise he says Go, go go! Following last across the breach himself.

[String]

Tyrson hit the deck and then groaned at the overzealous private.

[roll0]

As Stinky began to move, Tyrson popped up and moved with him, blinking the smoke from his eyes. "Anyone know what the Houts are saying?" he asked.

[Lycan 01]

((Sorry guys! I was out of town, and I've totally fallen behind. Anybody want to fill me in on what I've missed and where Frenis is?

Also, I took the Bipod and Bloodhound trait...

Name: Frenis
Class: Sharpshooter (-1 sht dif)
Kit: standard (full rifle, sidearm, B. armour, grenades, knife) + 30 yards rope
Bipod (-1 shot die/1 round to set up)
Skills:
Awareness 15
Stealth 15
Climb 10
Use Rope 10
Track

Trait: Superstitious

Perk: Bloodhound))

[Shirocco]

OK, time for a quick one before i shoot through for the day. Double turn

((Mainiac, we are acting in turns as you're in combat. These shacks are not cover, they are concealment. The difference is they can be shot through.

With Smoke it's the 3rd turn after you've thrown it before that amounts to anything, but hell i'll let the extra turn go. In these tight conditions even the 10yard cloud from that short a time will be enough.))

The Houten MG paused for about half a turn then blazed away again, cutting through tin and sheet metal like butter. Tyrson and one of the rifles feels a richochet glance off his armour but it hardly leaves a dent, the bullets are flying wildly through the shacks.

When 2nd section gets up and racing they reach the T and looking left & right see no enemies. Right would take you north, the direction of the advance. When you move down there Awareness check 15+ to see the little bell hanging up high on your right, connected to a thin wire strung along the ground but easily avoided. On no pass from the players the NPCs have failed it already so you blunder into it, sounding the bell and causing a grenade to be thrown out the door of a shack toward you, reflex save, followed by that Hout reg (20m) and three at the end of the alley (30m) leaning around corners and whatnot to shoot you with a trenchgun and three rifles. D4 base die to reply.


With 2nd section getting in there 1st section will be able to move forward into the alleys.

[RandomLunatic]

Slip calls forward Hooky and 3rd to roughly parallel 1st's advance through the shacks.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy


"Pick anyone when you have to mate. Come on we're moving."

Speak-Easy picks out 1 rifleman from each of the teams (except the command team, generic riflemen, not players, if possible) and assigns them to be message runners. With the messagers picked, Speak-Easy hauls the hulking radio onto his back and begins walking behind the command team, rifle in hand.


Back at Squezy & Slip's end of the world the Company frequency chirps to life. "2nd platoon reporting as Foxhound, dismounted and ready over." There's a burst of crackle and Company HQ (CHQ)'s signaller chirps in. "Copy Foxhound, advance northeast around right side of road, friendlies ahead over." "Confirmed Sparks, moving - Leaky, where is that Hout HMG? Over."

Rolling to reply - [roll0]

"Leaky Bucket here, no clear line of sight, but definetly overlooking the right side of the road. Friendlies have engaged, but no casualties confirmed either side. The shacks may provide concealment, but not cover." He said into the receiver, dangling from his heavy radio. Speak-Easy then turned to his comrades. "Anybody see it clearly? Orders? He called out.


((PMing the Hout speakers))

((I speak Houten))

[mainiac]

Twitch takes Stinks shouting passively and quickly moves on, taking point to put maximum distance between the two of them. Safely out of earshot, he mutters a string of profanities to himself as he charges through the danger zone towards the cover on the other side.

Awareness...
[roll0]

Twitch snaps his hand up in the halt signal as he spots the wire, then turns to face everyone for a moment as he points the wire out. He carefully steps over and prepares to continue the charge.

[Britter]

Poetry


Poetry moves his squad into the alleys, keeping good order and ready for action.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis follows behind Poetry, awaiting action and/or orders.

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc nodded to the three first aiders to keep their heads down and avoid taking risks unless they had to. A first aider was more valuable than a rifleman - if a rifleman got himself shot, the first aider might be able to save them. Not so the other way around.

Fragrantstein seemed okay after the last battle, but there were two newcomers - A belligerent fellow fresh from the rifles who went by the nickname 'Ripper', and a slightly more reserved one by the name of 'Herbwest'.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Stinky clanks to a halt next to Twitch. He nods approval and redirects the troop with hand signals, Patting Twitch on the shoulder for 'good job'.

Edit- Good not goof...damn fat fingers...:smallbiggrin:

[String]

Tyrson smirked and followed Stinky's lead.
[roll0]

[RandomLunatic]

OOC

Patting Twitch on the shoulder for 'goof job'.

I find this typo quite hilarious.:smallbiggrin:

[mainiac]

OOC
As do I.

Twitch nearly jumps out of his skin at the unexpected contact, snapping his head around and then freezing as he realizes what's going on. There's an awkward pause and then Twitch clears his throat and hurries off to peer around the corner.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio)
Doc (Stretcher)

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp)
Snake (Rifle)
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers)
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp)
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



*Note on above, Britter you can replicate Stink's formation chart to reduce confusion.

((Shoulda taken Stealth checks to creep forward. You're new so i'll pass that off and roll it, next time you forget you'll just go in loud. Likewise awareness while you're in the alleys.))

Before Twitch reaches the end of the bell alley he notices a slight shape through a curtain door... it moves, there's a gun! Houten at point blank, he can D20 reflex to shoot first or even try bayonetting him. The man shouts warning and even as Twitch moves to act two more lean around the corners at the end of the alley (10 yards ahead north) and a third steps into sight, raising a rifle. D3 on the guy who stepped out, D4 on all others.


1st Section under Poet promptly get their share of blindfire from that LMG. Keeping low would be sensible. The gunner can't see you he's firing wild, shots saw through the weak tin and scrap wood like it was nothing. There's another pause in the fire, someone speaks in Houten again.

[mainiac]

Twitch drops to one knee and opens fire on the bogie through the door, sending two rounds his way, not even noticing the other two.

reflex to fire first w/ bonus from close shot perk
[roll0]
two shots, w/ bonus from close shot perk
[roll1][roll2]

[Savant]

Snake follows with 1st Section, keeping low to the ground and mindful of his IC's position.

[Britter]

Poetry


"Bellies in the dirt lads" Poetry calls as the fire begins to hit his section. Keeping low, they continue to advance.

((I will do a section chart today. Going to use the same formations as Greyen, I will simply plug and play my guys into them))

[Lycan 01]

"Ack!" Frenis growls, diving to the ground. "We just can't catch a break, can we? Hah hah hah!" he laughs.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Stinky raises his rifle to snap off a round at the head peeking around the corner.

Reflex [roll0]
Firing [roll1]

[RandomLunatic]

Slip hits the dirt with the rest. He is about to return fire when the enemy gun goes silent, replaced by voices. What're they sayin'? he asks his radioman. While wating for a translation, he flicks his gun over to full auto. If the enemy gunner opened fire again, he would rapidly find himself on the short end of a very big stick.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio)
Doc (Stretcher)

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp)
Snake (Rifle)
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers)
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp)
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



((Can't work out why you took D6, Stink. Situation calls for Fast shots - that'd be 2 d3 + extra on a D6 5+ for you. I rolled it as such for you.))

Twitch is quick but the Houten's quicker. A shot bangs off his chestplate as he takes aim, his reply blowing an angry red hole in the man that drives him to the ground. He dies fast, his only noise a grunt. As he does Tiny & Ramble drop to prone instictively while Stinky is able to shoot over their heads from a crouch, missing completely. Delayed by going prone Tiny & Ramble can't fire initially while Tyrson gets a risky shot and takes it, the man leaning on the right is beheaded by the old full-length rifle.

The Houten troops are mightily surprised at their own misfortune in facing full-armoured dvergr. That's bought you a second and they panic fire, shots whiz past as both remaining men miss. Tiny gets his trenchgun up as the left leaner pulls away leaving his friend in the middle working his bolt... Tiny's shot is a bit off, blowing a knee away instead of a torso, but nobody notices in the fussilade of MG and rifle fire that takes the man apart right after it.

You can rush forward with the initiative yours (and possibly get a shot on that MG nest right high before they can react), take Awareness to check shacks but costs time, and/or take Stealth to do it slow and quiet but lose the initiative.


1st Section remains under suppressive (and blind) fire from the LMG position. The damn thing hardly stops for breath, it's a wonder they can keep this rate of fire going. An LMG usually takes a few seconds to reload but he's doing it faster than that, if at all! Fingers is clocked in the helmet but either he's thick or it is because he's not fazed by it. Snake is less fortunate, a lucky LMG round smashes through 6 layers of tin, a wood post, and a civilian's arm to lodge in his side - right above an armoured plate that would have stopped it. He's wounded (-2melee, needs assessing)!


Speak-Ezy hears as things liven up on the company channel. "Foxhound requesting m... *crackle*...3, mortar quick bombardment on 68-63, ov... *crackle, silence*" - Sqeazy should update command that his platoon's made contact, D20 Radio check

[String]

Tyrson takes advantage of the initiative to take the hard shot. He rushes forward to take aim at the MG nest high to the right. As his target comes into tfew, Tyrson's world seems to slow down as he lines it up in his sights.

"And Lo, did I see a man."

((Difficulty? I knock it down...sharpshooter,purposeful,rifle for -3, Slow Shot for -1, and I'm not sure if the scope comes into play. Without it it's a -4 shot die, with it's either -3 or -6. Gimme a shot Die for the Mg nest, please?))

[mainiac]

Not wanting to leave it to chance after a close call like that, Twitch checks the house to see if there's any more baddies hiding in there.

Awareness
[roll0]

[RandomLunatic]

Unable to get an accurate fix on the gunner's postion, Slip simply fires blindly back up towards where the bullets came from. Freed from the oppressive yoke of the trigger disengager, Slip's hot-rod machine gun finally gets to show off its true capabilites-converting an entire magazine into a lethal cloud of high-velocity metal in the space of two heartbeats.

((Awareness for blindfire (1d20+9=16) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1807821/)
So we will jut do suppressive fire then.))

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc looked at Snake. He was hurt, but there didn't seem to be any good way of getting to him.

Instead, he leaned over to Speak-Easy.

"You've studied Nagaard, right? Do you have any idea why half of us speak with an overblown accent in our own language?" he whispered.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Tyr, Ramble, Tiny, lets take out that nest. Twitch, Fragen, Jinks clear the hovels. Stinky steps to the corner spinning a rifle grenade onto the barrel. Checking the range he takes aim.


As for the last round Stinky has a 1 die size upgrade on all shots during the day. I thought a D4 was the correct, upgraded to D6.

If the LMG nest is out of range he'll jut fire rifle, if in range frag RG.

Awareness [roll0]

Grenade [roll1] Roll the rifle shot if out of RG range please.

[Shirocco]

((Ah, that dratted Bjartr tribe of yours. Of course. Still, between your day penalty and rifle bonus you'd end up back at the base die, rolling D4.))

The MG nest is a oneoff affair in a tiny 2nd floor room of a 6yard long shack, some 10 yards ahead. It's just one of the shacks that make up the left side of the alley, looking along it's face from this angle you have a poor shot but with an RG it'll probably be enough. Tyrson gets there first of course, he can take Awareness 10+ now to guage where that MG gunner probably is then roll D8 (+2shotdie for rifle, so D12 Tyrson) to shoot him through the walls. Nothing he does helps with that roll because it's blind. Stinky on the other hand doesn't need such precision, a single D20 roll on the grenade to shell that floor will do. Even as you watch flames lick out and the window cloth billows as LMG fire chatters out at 1st section.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Speak-Easy, remaining behind the bulk of the group, takes a knee.


What're they sayin'? he asks his radioman.

"I don't know sir, I can't hear them clearly enough." He shouts over the noise.


"Foxhound requesting m... *crackle*...3, mortar quick bombardment on 68-63, ov... *crackle, silence*"

Speak-Easy immediatly tries to contact command and request mortar assistance. [roll0] "Command, this is Leaky Bucket. We have enemy contact, repeat, enemy contact. We are engaging at will. Foxhound is requesting a mortar quick bombardment, co-ordinates 68-63, repeat, mortar quick bombardment, co-ordinates 68-63. Over.".


"You've studied Nagaard, right? Do you have any idea why half of us speak with an overblown accent in our own language?" he whispered.

While waiting for a reply over the radio, Speak-Easy whispered back: "I have no idea to be honest, it must be the way in which they were schooled and trained."

[Britter]

Poetry

"Keep steady lads" Poetry calls out, keeping his belly in the dust and doing his best imitation of something not worth shooting at. Hopefully the rest of his platoon would be able to do something to relieve them from the lmg fire.

[Savant]

Snake grimaces as the bullet strikes him in the side.

"Off all the bloody luck..." Snake mutters to himself, rolling over onto his back. He looks back and spots the doc, and can tell by the look that he's in a bad position if he wants it to get looked at.

"Poet, I'm gonna get this look at, Sa.."

He rolls painfully back onto his stomach and crawls back to the Doc.

[Shirocco]

Tyrson fires through the shacks at where he thinks that MG is with no effect. Then Stinky's RG thacks out of the cup and the tiny 2nd floor shack position is loudly filled with shrapnel... sheet metal flys into the air, onto the street and every which way as the rickety structure and those immidiately beside it collapse from overpressue. Stinky and Tyrson feel shrapnel and debri fragments bounce off their armour, that was a close blast.


Once you've given the all-clear you can persue the retreating Houten section at full pace (pointmen will need reflex & D4 snapshots ready), steady & checking shacks as you go (awareness all), or slow and quiet (awareness + stealth). Available paths are left alley ╚, through middle (the RG breech ╦) or right alley ╝. Middle is noisey with all the wreckage & loose sheets of tin but it leads to a ╩ wherein you could go north (takes you through a tight (indian file) alley) or keep heading left (west) links up with left alley (initially was ╚, you'd join at a ╠).

This place is a garbage heap. The sheet metal houses are in places rusty, muckbuckets are usually emptied in the alleys, ragged clothes hang from scavenged wire in an attempt at drying them, buildings with no business being more than one floor are sometimes 2 or 3 high. The smell is pervasive and frankly awful, so like a big open sewer full of muck of sweat and the smell of too many people that even a day or two with most of them away from this part of it does little to help.

Sample

http://lebbeuswoods.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/slum-mumbai1.jpg

[Lycan 01]

Frenis follows Poetry's lead.



Awareness: [roll0]
Stealth: [roll1] if required.

[mainiac]

((Guessing by the lack of response that Twitch has found nothing so far.))

The explosion convinces Twitch that clearing the houses isn't such a priority after all. He ducks back outside and runs to catch up with Stinky.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

((I take it I wasn't successful in my attempt to call in a mortar strike? My rolls are doing extremely poorly thus far, here's hoping things pick up!))

There is no response or confirmation over the radio and Speak-Easy tries to relay the information again. "Command, this is Leaky Bucket. We have enemy contact, repeat, enemy contact. We are engaging at will. Foxhound is requesting a mortar quick bombardment, co-ordinates 68-63, repeat, mortar quick bombardment, co-ordinates 68-63. Over.".

(Roll - Mortar Strike call-in [roll0])

[Shirocco]

((Ah, you of course. Oh and as to Ping being a goose... you ever heard the British speak English? Spoken is not dictionary language.))

edit: ...who says i'm being touchy?! lol


"Copy on your update, Leaky Bucket. We heard Foxhound the first time, HQ out."

[RandomLunatic]

Second up tha left alley, First up tha right-Third'll be right behind ya. HOOKY! GET UP HERE! I'll be with Second. Slow an' steady does it, we've got ta clear this whole slum anyway. An' Stinky; we're tryin' not ta kill civilians.

Slip reloads and moves out with 2nd Section.

((Awareness/Stealth (1d20+9=26, 1d20+9=19) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1808830/)))

[String]

Tyrson nods and then mumbles to the rifleman beside him. "Watch my back for a minute. Damn scope gets in the way of the stripper clips..." He then begins the arduous proccess of reloading (three rounds. On the off chance that i still get awareness checks)

1d20+10
1d20+10

[String]

[roll0]
[roll1]

[Shirocco]

((There is an upside to the manual reload. Because you're loading shots singly, if you only fired <4 shots the reload takes 1 turn, and if <8 it takes just 2. You probably have a belt of these seperate bullets on you but i'll leave that side to you.))

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio)
Doc (Stretcher)

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp)
Snake (Rifle)
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers)
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp)
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



*I'm assuming Poet on point again. Really could use the marching orders, Brit.

"Aye aye, sa!" comes the call from back down the road. A chorus of grunts answers Slip from the rest as you move out. 1st section is lead by Poet on a weave through the rotting heaps that pass for homes in the slums. Often you find knots of people huddled inside, they throw their arms up and cry for mercy at just one look from you. They are afraid, and as thunder booms from within the city you learn another reason why.

A resounding boom shakes the ground south of you, and close at that. Then another, and three more, and another after that. Howitzers are shelling Scrub company's armour and not with much care, shells fall amoung the shacks and send twisted metal up into the darkening sky. There's screams... so much screaming, people everywhere screaming. The Houten shells fall carelessly and as a shot falls from the heavens toward 1st company they get a moment to dive or die. D20 Reflex save.

Hooky's delayed. 2nd company can continue advancing or get low themselves, there is no good cover anywhere in sight as shacks and scrap wood add to the shrapnel.

[RandomLunatic]

((Reflex vs incoming (1d20=20) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1809170/)))

[pingcode20]

@Slip: I thought we were with 2nd?

At any rate - sorry, had an exam today and yesterday.

Doc Turtlemurdered
Earlier

Doc Turtlemurdered looked over Snake quickly - he had to keep up with command.

"Mmm... looks superficial... Best left in, the medic can get it after."

He gave Snake a once over, and poured a bit of iodine over the wounds.

[roll0] (Mitigate Injuries, Standard)

---

"Ah. That'd explain that then. Suppose it's because I went to a university." replied the Doc, keeping up with Slip.

He followed his lead - there wasn't much he could do, what with the shells falling and all, since he had to watch for sudden changes in the weather.

[String]

[roll0]Reflex!

[Greyen]

Stinky

As the man said, let move. He pushes his squad forward into the alley way as directed.

As the arty falls he hits the dirt -Reflex [roll0]-

[pingcode20]

Well, okay.

[roll0]

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio)
Doc (Stretcher)

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp)
Snake (Rifle) -1mel
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers)
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp)
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



((Nice flank action from 2nd section. Now advancing 2nd & command while we wait for Snake, Frenis & Poet to roll reflex - suffice to say they're pinned whether they pass it or not for a short time.))

The shells rain down and horrid in intention as the arty is some of it is frag shells; like time delayed canister, frag shells are a relatively recent invention. They are fuse delayed to detonate above their target, showering it with shrapnel. The effect is a most brilliant set of fireworks that pains the ears with thunder and gives flame and spark for the eyes. 2nd section are fortunate, the Houten lack the guns to make a proper barrage and though a torn shred of sheetmetal some meters in size crashes before them into the dirt no shells fall upon them after some half-minute or so of unhalting fire. Each shell howls down like a freight train, the ground shudders constantly and people go on screaming until their voices go horse.

2nd can remain low; units that keep low during bombardments on average suffer 1/3 the casualties of mobile ones. But the Houten are sureing up defences ahead of you and the longer you delay the harder they may be to break. After all, to those who fought the Great War this barage is a shadow of the real thing. There is the option of advancing under fire.

[Savant]

reflex: [20] (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1809516/)

Snake hits the dirt, after having had doc treat his wound, as soon as it's safe, he crawls back to his company.

[Britter]

Poetry


Reflex: [roll0]

((apologies re" no chart yet, been super busy irl, will attempt to get everything locked down today))

[RandomLunatic]

After watching the fall of shells for few moments, Slip says We're just on tha edge of tha bombardment! FORWARD! Pulling Tiny aside, he tells him, Go tell First an' Third ta do tha same.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis dives for cover.

Reflex: [roll0] to dive for cover

[Shirocco]

"Oye oye, sur!" burrs the Fjarri. Tiny sets off at a run.

The shell falls toward 1st section and it's a close thing. Fingers and Snake are both sent flying, but while Snake hits dirt and tumbles Fingers cops a helping of splinters, nails and shredded tin as he flops through the air before crashing into and leveling a shack with his body. Ridiculously, he gets up and walks out of it a few moments later - nails and wood sticking out of him. Tiny turns up and passes word to advance. "Oye op, edvunce luds! Curn't stoy 'ere, LT's orders!" he says in nearly unintelligible Fjarri slurr. Without further explanation he hurries off to find 3rd section, shells falling where they may.


2nd section soon reach a ╝, 10 yards ahead is a festy creek - shallow, some 5 yards across, strewn with rubbish, muck and worse it stinks like an open sewer. The shacks cling hungrily to it on both sides, only 2 yards of shore - a 9 yard gap all up to follow the path through this to continue. The alley is oddly straight for some 250m, detritus scattered through it the only cover on offer. There's intersections every 10-30 yards and you begin appreciate what a rat warren this place really is. Left and right of you are 4 doors before the festy creek, the shacks 2 and 3 floors high respectively before the water.


There is a great rumbling of engines, boom and rattle of cannon & gun. The armour is not staying put in the bombardment area and they aren't retreating - they're attacking, whether it's clear or not. The radio warbles on Speak-Ezy's back. "HQ to Leaky bucket, we need your cover on the road - can you see the creek, over?"

[Greyen]

Stinky

Breaking the men into their clearing teams he advances on the corner. Lets clear the corner and advance from there. Taking the external corner he keeps an outside watch for runners and snipers.

@2nd Section
Partner teams as follows:
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Fragenstein
Stinky C&C/back-up as necessary
Every PC has an NPC buddy if possible.

5/6 RG remain, all other ammo at full

[RandomLunatic]

Hold position at tha creek! Slip calls after Stinky while waiting to find out what HQ wants.

Greyen, your pairings have a problem: Tiny is not here ATM.

[Greyen]

Stinky will pair with Twitch until Tiny returns.

[Blockhead]

"The radio warbles on Speak-Ezy's back. "HQ to Leaky bucket, we need your cover on the road - can you see the creek, over?"

Speak-Easy

Speak-Easy grabs the mic and replies, making sure that Slip can hear: "Leaky Bucket here, we are holding position at the creek, we've got it covered, over." [roll0]

[Shirocco]

"Leaky bucket, armour has advanced; find a position with sight of armour on the road and cover it against infantry. That creek leads to the road, over." says the radio with minimul crackle.

No sooner is that said than a whole section of Houten infantry rise from cover in the long, straight alley past the creek and even more stick guns out windows of 2nd and 3rd floor buildings to either side of them. Someone shouts and they open fire.

These targets are 2nd section and Command only. Nobody else has LOS on this.

Short range targets (25-100m) are 2 riflemen behind tyres in alley (D4), 1 grenadier (D6) with mounted RG running from a side alley at 50m who'll jump into prone and shoot. There are 4 men (D4) in windows of a 2nd floor large shack on the right at 40m, three of them have elephant guns!

Mid range targets (100-200m) are 4 men (D8) behind a pile of wood, rock & sheet metal debri at 120m including an LMG. Leaning from a high alley-facing window on the left is a carbineer (D6), no helmet.

Long range targets (200-400m) are a pair of what's probably riflemen (D12) moving to take prone position on an overpass walkway made of sheet metal and flimsey wood struts at 240m, right before the turn. You can't tell at this range who they are, Stinky can't even see them in this daylight.


Your cover amounts to a pile of debri 5 yards from the creek (partial cover for one), useing door frames for concealment (not real cover, 4 of these) and storming into the shacks left and right of you to find ways up to their 2nd or 3rd floors for firing positions. Or just go prone... only room for 3 abrest like that here, helps marginally against incomming fire.


1st section still shaking off the arty barrage (no rolls yet), they'll have to really move it to catch up and as of last orders they heard they're still advancing.

[RandomLunatic]

$#!+! Slip exclaims as he dives into the questionable safety of a nearby doorframe. Rolling out far enough to shoot, he multilates the upper floor of the wooden shack, trying to take out the deadly Elephant guns before their armor-cracking rounds are discharged.

((Shootng up the shack (1d4=3, 1d4=2, 1d4=2, 1d4=4) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1810866/)
Re-rolls (1d4=3, 1d4=4) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1810870/)))

[Britter]

Poetry

"Ya heard the man lads, keep moving up," Poetry orders his command forward as instructed by Slip.

[String]

Tyrson swivels his gun to aim at a rifleman, muttering "And lo"

[roll0]

[Greyen]

Stinky

Swearing violently Stinky slams himself into a doorframe. Leaning out he takes aim at the rifle grenadier.

d8's (up dice for daylight) [roll0]
Reload [roll1]

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Speak-Easy hits the deck.


"Leaky bucket, armour has advanced; find a position with sight of armour on the road and cover it against infantry. That creek leads to the road, over."

"This is Leaky Bucket, we've been ambushed in the creek! About a dozen contacts coming from the alley leading off from the creek, we are pinned down and engaging. Over." [roll0]

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc, thinking fast, follows Slip's lead and fires at the elephant gunners, hoping to kill them quickly.

He didn't like it, but given the cover, there was more chance of killing the elephant gunners than there was of finding suitable cover.

Then he went for the safety of a door frame.

[roll0]

[Shirocco]

((Greyen, Stinky's rifle bonus and daylight penalty cancel each other out. When Fast shooting, take the base die. I rolled for you and it came up better than your D8 attempts.))

Standing in the ally rather than taking cover is a dangerously risky endevour. Tyrson, Speazy and Doc are the only ones not to head straight into the shacks and most of the shots that come in are aimed at them. Shots fly in, Speazy's shoulder bands deflect a hit while Doc his struck hard in the chest twice, one shot a rifle that winds him and the other an elephant gun round that blows a hole in him. Doc has Fallen. More shots come flying in from the mid range shooters, Tyrson's struck no less than five times across belly, chest and left arm - three of which penetrate, dropping him in a hail of fire. Tyrson has Fallen. As fire from the LMG pours down Speazy is lucky, very lucky, to be alive. Four shots just glance off his armour, a bunch more thud into the dirt around him. He better get moving while he still can! The radio's warbling but he can't hear it now.

The return fire from Slip, Stinky and Fragranstein goes some way to making up for it while Jinks and Ramble look for a way up, hidden for the moment inside the shacks. Slip chews through the elephant guns and their rifleman friend, dropping them with four quick bursts. Stinky's opening shot snatches the grenadier regular midstride, spinning him like a top the RG goes off and sails away to the left, detonating somewhere far away. He works bolt and fires on a rifleman behind tyres but the 2nd shot is just off, no good. Fragranstein gives fire from a doorway at the Houten LMG, he fires slow and carefully but battle stress gets to him and he misses both times.

Short range targets (25-100m) are 2 riflemen behind tyres in alley (D4) firing on Speazy. All other short range are dead or dieing.

Mid range targets (100-200m) are 4 men (D8) behind a pile of wood, rock & sheet metal debri at 120m including an LMG. Leaning from a high alley-facing window on the left is a carbineer (D6), no helmet.

Long range targets (200-400m) are a pair of what's probably riflemen (D12) firing from prone position on an overpass walkway made of sheet metal and flimsey wood struts at 240m, right before the turn. Stinky can't see them.


1st section hear the gunfire ahead as Poet gets them moving forward. The large-calibre bang of dvergr rifles is unmistakeable and you're pretty sure you can hear the distinctive cloth-tearing rapid report of Slip's LMG amoungst it.

Moving forward 1st section soon get in sight of the creek, rounding a corner it's 10 yards ahead of them. They could take a right and follow the creek to 2nd section, or they could cross it and keep heading north taking a right at the 30 yard or 40 yards distant + intersections before being forced to head right by a ╔ at 60 yards. No targets in sight yet.

[pingcode20]

Damn it. I take it I'm dead then?

Pity I forgot that shooting is resolved simultaneously.

[Shirocco]

((Not yet.))

[pingcode20]

Off with ya! Dead I am!
Dude... Duude... Wake up, Dude!

Doc's eyes opened. Everything around his was darkness. Darkness and smoke. Darkness, smoke, and him bleeding slowly to death.

"Great Uncle Stonesmoker?"

You got me. So, little cat, do you know why you're here?

"Ah..."

Come on, little cat. You're not losing blood that quickly.

"I... tried to fight again?"

Bingo, little cat. Remember what I told you about karma, little cat.

"I know, I know, bad karma begets bad karma. But this quickly?"

Yep, little cat. You shoot a couple of bullets, Bam! it comes right back atcha.

"Isn't karma supposed to be one of those delayed irony things?"

Nope. Had a gypsy curse put on you when you were little. Instant Karma, little cat.

"You what?"

Whoops, gotta go, little cat. Catch you later.

"Damn Great Uncle Stonesmoker." muttered Doc. That explained a lot.

((I love being non-fatally shot.))

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Seeing his squad mates fall around him, Speak-Easy stands up and sprints to the nearest decent available cover, be it a shack or clump of debris, ignoring the weight of his radio for the brief burst of speed.

[Britter]

Poetry



Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2



Decision time. Poetry listens to the fire coming from what can only be the rest of the unit. This rat warren of shacks and alleys could have hidden any number of foes set on destroying the platoon piecemeal, and his section had been delayed by the heavy fire they had recieved. 2nd and Command could be cut off, underfire and destroyed in detail.

"Can't leave the rest of the guys out here on their own. After all, an army divided amongst itself can not stand, as they say. Lets head towards 2nd squad. Keep your eyes peeled and your head on a swivel. Check targets, we don't want any civvie deaths or friendly fire if we can avoid it. Move out!"

1st section heads down the creek, with Poetry in the lead, doing his level best to grow eyes in the back of hsi head.

Awareness: [roll0]

[RandomLunatic]

Slip covers Speasy, emptying his magazine at the two closest Riflemen. Even as he does so, he yells Everyone in! Smoke tha alley! His MG clicks empty and he rolls deeper into the house, out of line of sight, if not fire. Lying on his back, he reloads and yells at nobody in particular Damnit! Why!?

((Shooting riflemen (1d4=1, 1d4=2) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1811402/)
Re-rolls (1d4=2, 1d4=1) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1811403/)))

[Greyen]

Stinky

You heard him boys! Smoke out! Trusting his heavier armor to protect him he dashes out and scoops up Doc tossing into the building Fragenstein do you work here first!

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Fallen
Doc (Stretcher) - Fallen

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) - Fallen
Snake (Rifle) -1mel
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers)
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp) - Fallen
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny) - away
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



The recoil from a high ROF weapon is crazy, and though Slip's got plenty of practice with the heavy gun the recoil gets the better of him. Fragranstein keeps up the fire, Steadily blasting the pair of men behind car tyres limp from limb right until Doc thuds onto the ground beside him. They both grunt. He looks at Stinky, standing in the line of fire with armour ringing like a tank hull and stares in amazement... then grabs Doc to pull him inside and get to work.

Stinky just made himself a target along with the radioman and the riflemen gun for them. Speak-Ezy's humanity and relatively thin breastplate give him no leeway; these are rifle rounds, they fly are unbelievable speed and can turn organs to jelly while displacing a man's weight in earth where they fall. So when he's struck in the leg and under the sternum his armour utterly fails to save him and he collapses near the door. Jinks sees him then, grabs Speazy by the arms and pulls him inside. "Gotcha!" Speak-Ezy has Fallen while Stinky takes his helping of rifle fire and shrugs it off, if feels like standing in a hailstorm thanks to the extra metal of his armour.


Back with 1st section, a leader taking point is not something the enemy expects; theirs are usually 2nd or 3rd from the front or toward the rear. So when a rifle cracks from a totally new direction it's Frenis who takes the hit and goes down face first in the muck. Frenis has Fallen. Awareness checks to guage where that came from; sounded like a long way off.

[Britter]

Poetry

With a curse, Poetry hits the dirt and scrambles for cover, trying to find the sniper and direct fire onto him. "Get Frenis under cover and see to him!" he barks out. "And find me that damn sniper and kill 'im."

Awareness: [roll0]

[Savant]

[awareness:] 1d20+10 = (17+10) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1811809/) = 27

"Man down!"

Snake gets down immediately and scans around, trying to pin point the location of the shot. If he managed to catch a glimpse of the shooter he returns fire immediately.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Being dragged inside, Speak-Easy's vision blurred and sounds became muffled. He glanced at his leg and groaned at the sight of it. The lower half his right leg is covered in blood from a huge hole just below his knee. "I'm... sorry... sir.... They... got... me... sir...." Wheezed Speak-Easy, his vision beginning to fade as the precious loss of blood in his system began taking it's toll.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Fallen
Doc (Stretcher) - Fallen

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) - Fallen
Snake (Rifle) -1mel
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) - Fallen
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky
Tyrson (Sharp) - Fallen
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny) - away
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



1st section can't tell where the heck that came from. Next thing Frenis knows is Fingers and Herbwest hauling him out of the muck, utterly vile water dribbling from his mouth. Seconds of frantic searching, Herbwest saying something about iodine and then crack! Fingers falls in the dirt of the shoreline.

There are doors every 5-10 yards for the shacks on either side of this horrible excuse of a watersource, many of the shacks have windows cut in the tin and scrap wood. As cover goes there's nothing else on offer, roll Awareness.


...still waiting on 2nd section + command, but 1st were behind so that's not a problem.

[Britter]

Poetry


Keep out of sight and keep moving. Use these shacks for cover. With any luck we can get out of his range." PoetryKeeps his section organized and together, positioning them to take as much advantage of the cover as possible while still moving forward, unless someone spots the sniper. If they find the devil, he is going to die. "Herbwest, I need my sharpshooter, get him back on his feet."

Awareness: [roll0]

[Greyen]

Stinky

Taking a moment to shout Smoke and manfear out if ya got them. Stinky grabs the smoke grenades off of Doc and his own manfear, tossing them haphazardly out into the roadway.

SF Hand - 3 frag, 1 manfear, 1 incendiary, 1 smoke can
Rifle -3 frag, 2 shaped

[mainiac]

((Guess this means I'm still hiding in the doorway then?))

Hearing Stinky's orders, Twitch kicks himself that he hadn't thrown the smoke right away. Quickly he whips out his second smoke grenade and tosses it towards the nearest enemies.


1 frag, 1 incendiary remain

[RandomLunatic]

Belay that! Slip shouts. How much smoke do ya think we need? He takes a quick peek out into the building smoke to get an accurate eye on the position of the debris that shields the enemy LM gunner, then ducks inside before soem Houten rises to the challenge and caps him. When that stuff thickens up, Twitch goes ta grab Tyr and drag 'im over ta Fragranstein. I'll provide cover fire. When that's done, we'll go through tha walls of these things down ta tha creekbed, move over ta tha right side and keep up tha house-ta-house.

Once the smoke is sufficiently dense, Slip clicks over to full auto and shouts Twitch, NOW!, spraying the Houten with suppressive fire.

[mainiac]

"Aye, Aye, sir!" When the first gunshot springs, Twitch leaps to it, running towards Tyr with his head down and a prayer on his lips. Twitch slings the downed soldier over his shoulder while uttering what reassurance he can. "Hey, Tyr, I got ya now. We'll get this 'squito bite patched up in no time." Leg's straining under the weight, Twitch hot foots it back to cover. He heads down the pathway they came in, wanting to get Tyr entirely out of the fight.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Fallen
Doc (Stretcher) - Fallen

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) - Fallen
Snake (Rifle) -1mel
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) - Fallen
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) - Fallen
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny) - away
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



((Right, here's the turns up until Twitch can do his thing.))

Fragranstein gets a look at Doc. Massive impact, lucky the armour absorbed good deal of it before the elephant gun round forced it's way through regardless. He loosens the armour enough to get at the wound with a pair of pliers. "Not too bad, sa - i'll have Doc up right quick." he calls out to Stinky.

Moving into the shack to get Doc's smoke cans Stinky is hit twice more and one of those shots finds his largely unarmoured sides, lodging a bullet deep in his torso. It hurts plenty but he's dvergr; he keeps going. (-2melee) Grabbing Doc's smoke can he doesn't realise that was a phosphor until a brilliant white chemical bloom explodes out all over the shacks, alley and boils furiously into the water. As he throws it more shots come in, Slip feels one glance off a bracer while Twitch and Stinky are similarly saved by their armour. Three Pegs grabs a gap of tin, rips it wider and pokes his rifle through it as Slip's side of the road receives bursts from the Houten LMG as it riddles the shacks there with holes... Three Pegs takes a shot at it and misses, cursing.

Short range targets (25-100m) are all dead or dieing.

Mid range targets (100-200m) are 4 men (D8) behind a pile of wood, rock & sheet metal debri at 120m including an LMG. Leaning from a high alley-facing window on the left is a carbineer (D6), no helmet.

Long range targets (200-400m) are a pair of what's probably riflemen (D12) firing from prone position on an overpass walkway made of sheet metal and flimsey wood struts at 240m, right before the turn. Stinky can't see them.

Then return fire becomes nigh impossible to aim as the phosphor cloud of clean white smoke forms in seconds, just starting to dirty as Twitch's last smoke can pops and starts adding to it. Slip sends out a fearsome hail of suppressive toward the enemy, his mag clicks empty in under 2 seconds. The Houten LMG shifts fire, you see tracers fly through the smoke cloud... for Twitch it's now or nothing!


Eastwards in the creek 1st section scramble for the relative safety of the shacks, most of them not really listening to whatever Poet's rambling on about. Through doors or windows they all get to cover, Herbwest struggles in with Frenis while Fingers can be heard groaning outside in the dirt. Herb gets a good look at Frenis and is appalled at the muck in that wound as much as the size of it. "Big wound sa, needs a clean right quick and bandages." says Herbest, he talks as he works. "I can get him on his feet in a few moments or do it properly in about a minute... what'll it be?" he asks Poet.

Poet & Snake still need awareness checks to be rolled to find the sniper.


*edit target options. Note that through smoke you cannot see any of them, blindfire is just suppressive.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Grunting heavily at the new wound. Stinky clutches his side. Shaking his head a moment he points to the wall indicated by Slip. This way? Without waiting for much of an answer he charges headlong into the thin panel of wall.

Str check [roll0] + mods for dvergr, charging and extra weight for heavy armor.

[Britter]

Poetry


"Do it right"

Awareness: [roll0]

[Savant]

Awareness: [d20+10]=11 (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1813620/)

Snake keeps searching from cover, trying to find at least a direction the shots are coming from.

[Lycan 01]

A small smirk tugs at the corners of Frenis' mouth. Heh... Heh... A sniper... A sniper got me... I can live with that...

[RandomLunatic]

Slip quickly reloads and blindfires another magazine down the alley.

If 'this way' is towards tha enemy, then aye! he answers Stinky, jamming another fresh magazine in before shouldering his way through the wall, causing his hours-old stab and gunshto wounds to make the presence felt. Mental note: Use other shoulder. And he does out to the gulley.

[Shirocco]

Shots fly all around Twitch as he runs to and grabs Tyrson. What a heavy bugger he is! Twitch is pretty strong but an armoured dvergr in full battle dress is quite a load, he hauls him back with a fair bit of grunting while Slip's LMG hoses bullets past him and the Houten hose back in turn. A shot glances off Twitch's chestplate to no result and Slip has time for another spray of shots before Twitch finally gets Tyrson to Fragrenstein... who has just pulled the heavy bullet out of Doc's torso. He gives Doc a dose of adrenaline that makes him well and truely awake. Doc is back, bleeding with -4 melee -1 shot die. Fragrenstein then sets to work on Tyrson as more bullets punch holes in the tin shack.

Stinky rams through the wall like it was cardboard, trips and picks himself up... to find himself in another shack. There's a door on his left (north), another flimsey wall straight ahead. He could shove through that too, then veer left to start advancing on the enemy.

((Random, you on the same side of the street? Or cross it to go with Stinky, bringing the rest with you? What about Frag healing Tyr?))


1st section are starting to twig that sniper. He's somewhere west (downstream) of their position. You can peek and look... if you're game. (awareness if you do, you got nothing if you don't.) Otherwise they can hold up until Herbwest's done with Frenis, move out through the shacks knocking down walls where they have to or taking the alleys...

((gotta go guys, back in a couple hours))

[Blockhead]

Just a reminder, Speak-Easy is dying at the moment and he's the only capable radio-man.

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc slowly sat up, and looked down at his bleeding. Slowly, with practiced movements, he opened his bag and prepared a needle with blood thickener.

Closing his eyes and biting his lip to keep from passing out from the pain, he jabbed himself with the needle, the bleeding slowing to a halt.

"Remind me never to fire my rifle again." he muttered, as he worked on readjusting his armour to compensate for his injuries.

[roll0] (Standard, No 'Stop Complaining')

Then he hurried to help Fragrantstein with getting Tyr back up.

[roll1]

[Britter]

Poetry


"Once Frenis is back up, we make our way towards 2nd by going through the shacks, keeping under cover best as we can."

[RandomLunatic]

((Same side of the street. The crossing can be accomplished in the gulley, out of the line of fire.

Frag and Doc can be left to put the injured back together.))

[Shirocco]

((What gulley? Suggest useing smoke to cross road while it's still there.))

[RandomLunatic]

((The one the stream runs through?))

[Shirocco]

((The creek's little more than a water ford here. I'll find an example...


http://blogs.bootsnall.com/rob/archives/man%20swimming%20by%20slum.jpg

http://lebbeuswoods.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/slum-mumbai1.jpg
*2nd is a better pic, had it in a broken link 3 pages back

Yours is dirty and less than a foot deep, it's nearly stagnant and not fast flowing here. The alley meets and crosses it with a muddy ford that's overflowing at the moment.))

[Shirocco]

Tyr's not so bad as it first looked but he's still not a well dvergr. Doc & Fragranstein get him on his feet. Tyrson is back with -6 melee, -2 shot die and bleeding, Doc can greatly improve his condition if he takes another turn on it... but right then Jinks finishes dragging Speak-Ezy over the road to reach them and plops the fading radioman down. He's bleeding out, you can already tell his odds are poor. Blood thickener is too powerful for the human body, it would kill him - you must bandage him the old fashioned way if he's to have a chance.

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc looked at Tyrson and then at Speak-Easy.

"Fragrantstein, you get to bandaging Speak-Easy - I'll get Tyrson out of here."

He quickly patched up Tyrson so he was able to rejoin the group, while Fragrantstein got to bandaging the radioman.

Blood Thickener on Tyrson: No Bleeding Penalties, -2 Awareness
[roll0]: Stop Complaining!

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Fallen
Doc (Stretcher) -3mel, -2aware

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) - receiving bandages
Snake (Rifle) -1mel
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) - Fallen
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) -3mel, -1shotdie, -2aware
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny) - away
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



It is sometimes said that the true school of medicine is the battlefield, and Doc is an example of this. With practiced eyes he spots exactly what the problem is and attacks it efficiently, injecting the right medicine in the right places as he goes. Tyrson is at -3mel, -1shotdie, -2aware while Fragrenstein gets moving on trying to save Speak-Ezy.

While this goes on Stinky and Slip both ram their bodies like battering rams through the shacks, no more than a grunt and a curse from them as they go. It's actually kind of fun, the others following in their wake. Tyrson now up and alive is able to follow, it certainly isn't hard to see where they went. The Houten continue to spray LMG fire through the huts, Doc feels a shot bang off the back of his helmet where he sits.

Emerging from the huts you set to fording the creek... looking left you notice a fallen dvergr some 50-60 yards down stream on the shoreline... and is that a... awareness checks!


Poet watches helplessly as Frenis is treated. Crash is trying to assist. Outside, Fingers groans - he's bleeding badly in the dirt. "We've got to help him, sa!" says Three Pegs, glancing out the window at Fingers.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Awareness [roll0]

Keep rolling through sir? THen flank the buggers or hold to retrieve the fallen?

[Savant]

"Once I find ye little pig sticker I'm gonna gut ya like a fish.." Snake mutters, before glancing over at fingers, who is still groaning in the dirt.

"Of all the foolish things... GIVE ME SOME COVER FIRE!"

Snake yells, waiting a second or two before dashing out and hauling Fingers into cover.

[pingcode20]

Doc Turtlemurdered

Tyrson being good to go, the Doc turns his attentions to Speak-Easy, positioning himself behind cover as best he could while helping Fragrantstein to bandage the fallen rookie.

[roll0]

[Britter]

Poetry


"Cover Snake, he's going for Fingers"

Awareness: [roll0]

[RandomLunatic]

((Then cross on the street, I guess.

Awareness (1d20+9=13) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1814587/)))

[Greyen]

((Hunh!?! I do not understand your funny talking. Are we continuing through the shack walls, or do we pause to collect the fallen dvergr?))

[mainiac]

Twitch goes to collect more of the wounded.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis stares at the bright light at the end of the tunnel. Hmmm... Thats really pretty. I wonder if I should go see what it is? Wait... this is a tunnel... And there's a light at the end of it... That... That means...

OH MY GOSH, THERE'S A TRAIN HEADING TOWARDS ME!! AAAAHH!!!!

[String]

Tyrson followed after his section, shaking the pain away after thanking Doc profusely. "We get home, drinks are on me, Doc."[roll0]

[Shirocco]

((2nd section look pretty confused. That's ok, because i woke up this morning and realised i forgot the smoke cloud.

NOW! lets clear it up. You were at the alley ambush, busted through shack walls heading right (east). I had been asking Stinky how far he'd planned on going but no longer care, it's not important. You go far enough. Thus when you emerge facing the creek you're about 20-30 yards east of where you were ambushed, and i assumed you'd ford the creek.

Now i was asking an awareness check as you crossed it, but i'm changing that by assuming the smoke at least somewhat conceals you from the sniper who's picking off 1st section. So skip the awareness check. I'll let you reach the north side of the creek thus getting closer to the enemy for free. You're comming up on their flank if you enter the shacks here and look for a north door in the shacks you enter (there will be one). At that point, you'll need awareness checks.

Alternately you can just NOT cross the creek, sitting on your hands while the docs have a go at saving Speazy. Who by the way need about 5 heal checks for the turns you've spent.))


Back with 1st section...

Snake does the brave thing. Nothing like running onto ground where another has fallen, knowing full well the enemy is liable to do the same to you. Three pegs does the only thing he can do... he leans out and watches for the flash. Crack, echoes across the afternoon sky. Wet crunch, snap, Snake crashes to the ground. "Gotcha you bastard..." snarls Three Pegs and fires once in reply.

Next thing Snake knows he's looking at Herbwest's ugly face. Three Pegs and Poet dragged both him and Fingers inside, now nearly everyone's trying to help Herbwest. "Need the stretcher, sa..." says Three Pegs as an aside to Poet. He means call the stretcher bearer (Doc) - who if he can't fix 'em will drag 'em to someone who can.

[Britter]

Poetry


Grabbing a rifleman, Poetry sends him off towards 2nd section. "Keep low and stay under cover, and get the Doc over here." Turning to the rest of thwe section, he continues. "We'll hold here till the stretcher-bearer can arive and tend to Snake. Keep your eyes peeled, and check for snipers."

[pingcode20]

Heads up: I'm going to be gone for about a week from tomorrow. Please don't autokill Doc.

Doc Turtlemurdered

The Doc continued to bandage as fast as he could.

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]

[RandomLunatic]

Slip gestures for 2nd to cross the stream and move into the shacks. If they worked quickly, the Houten could be mopped up by the time the meds got Speasy back on his feet, and then they could go cover the road...

((Awareness (1d20+9=25) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1815226/)))

[Savant]

"Aye, if I'm ta die today, let it be looking at a mug a sight prettier than you.." Snake jokes, Trying painfully not to move.

"How bad is the damage? Did we get the bugger?"

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Critically wounded
Doc (Stretcher) -3mel, -2aware

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) -5 melee, -1shotdie
Snake (Rifle) -1mel
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) - Critically wounded
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) -3mel, -1shotdie, -2aware
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy




((No worries Ping, thanks for the notice.))

It's as 2nd section cross the stream and enter the shacks that 3rd section shows up... they're all covered in dirt and one or two are limping but everyone's accounted for. Naturally the blunder into the same ambush as 2nd section but with the smoke still hanging in the air they're only subjected to blindfire, Tiny makes contact with Doc.

Meanwhile 2nd move into the shacks. They can hear LMG fire as they enter a weaving warren of alleys behind the creek shingles, stumbling over beggars and starving kids hiding here and there, some slinking away from the area as quick as they can. Heading north 2nd section come upon a ╣ where LMG fire echoes from the left, looks like it'll link up with the alley you saw the ambushers in. With the racket that LMG's making it should be easy to sneak up, there were 2 more riflemen some 100m north of them last you saw.


Doc works quick on Speak-Ezy. He's near halfway done wrapping bandages when he realises Speazy's stopped breathing... heck, his heart's stopped too! Things get interesting. He's forced to inject stimulants directly into the man's heart, bringing Speazy around with a cough and a roar. Speazy hasn't felt pain like this since training, boy-o was that a memory and a half! Doc gets Fragrenstein to hold him steady. "Sit still, we got you!"


Poet finds Three-Pegs is the only rifleman in a fit state so he heads off cursing under his breath. "Stuipid, stuipid me... open my big mouth..." he mutters and sets off to find Doc. Herbwest has finished on Frenis, he moves on to Fingers only to find the poor fellow is one foot in the grave already. Looking at Snake he sees who has the better chances, leaving Crash to try bandaging Fingers he starts on Snake.

"Yeah, think so. But don't give up hope - ya might still get to knife him by my guess - don' tell Three Pegs i said it but he's a bloody bad shot."

*Frenis, check platoon status for your wounds.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis slowly sits up, and growls: "WHAT THE !@&# HAPPPENED?"

Awareness: [roll0]

[Greyen]

Stinky

Stinky looks around and glances at Slip I'll take two this way and you take the other two a bit north to then hit them?

If he agrees Stinky points at Twitch and Ramble, C'mon and heads to the left.

Awareness 1d20+3[

[Greyen]

Awareness try number 2 [roll0]

[RandomLunatic]

Slip gestures for somebody to check the alley, and, if clear, to sneak down it.

((Stealth (1d20+9=16) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1816338/)))

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Critically wounded
Doc (Stretcher) -3mel, -2aware

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) -5 melee, -1shotdie
Snake (Rifle) -1mel
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) - Critically wounded
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) -3mel, -1shotdie, -2aware
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



Doc and Fragranstein are working furiously to keep Speak-ezy alive when Three-Pegs shows up and tells them about 1st section. Doc curses. At least 3rd section has arrived. Hooky walks in then and Doc waves him after 2nd section but commandeers a couple riflemen as Fragranstein ties off the bandages. "You two, take this man that way *pointing upstream* to company ambulance then come back and head that way *pointing north* to catch up with your section. Careful with him!" says Doc. The pair grunt, make jokes at Speazy's expense and when it's clear he can't walk they pick him up in a carry. It probably hurts like hell but Speazy blacks out before long. Meanwhile, Fragrantstein heads forward toward his section and Doc is lead by Three Pegs toward 1st.


Back at 2nd, Jinks is just silly enough to volunteer for Slip's point duty. He readies a trenchgun and looks down the left alley. Seeing nothing he stalks down the alley... and sees something 2nd floor in the ambush alley ahead. Not before it sees him though, a shot's fired that bangs off his armour and his trench gun bellows in reply. "Movement ahead left sa!" shouts Jinks, dropping to a crouch.

Stink leads the rest of 2nd north, no contact yet.

[RandomLunatic]

Jinks, left side, go! Ya guys, move up through tha shacks-I'll be along shortly, peering around the corner to give Jinks coverign fire if he needs it.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Critically wounded
Doc (Stretcher) -3mel, -2aware

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) -5 melee, -1shotdie
Snake (Rifle) -4mel, -1shotdie
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) - Critically wounded
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) -3mel, -1shotdie, -2aware
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



((Ah, heck. Didn't catch what Greyen typed the first time! Jinks is in the wrong place. Hell with that i'm saying he went straight ahead (north) not left but he did shoot someone. Stinky can handle left as he said he would.))

Not 20 yards north of the intersection a grenade bounces off tin wall to land right in front of Jinks. He swears and kicks it away before shouldering his way through the wall of the shack to his left. You hear a shotgun blast, shouting, a scuffle.

Meanwhile Stinky leads left and promptly nears a ╠ where his alley meets the ambush alley. Very switched on today, Stinky's in front when he sees the carbineer up in a 2nd floor window on his right. He saw him first and will be able to shoot first or shift back to be hard against the right wall (out of LOS, thus maybe not detected yet). On his left he can see the pile of rubble with 4 men useing it as cover against the position you were ambushed at, one has an LMG the rest are rifles. Those four are unaware of him. The LMG is still laying suppressive fire at your old position.


Poet is finally greeted by Doc as Three Pegs leads him back. Doc promptly gets Herbwest to tie off the bandages half done on Snake as Doc injects Blood Thickener, then does some good 1st aid. He takes one look at Fingers. "He's gonna have to be carried out. You," says Doc pointing at Crash "...grab the other end of this. We're moving him now." finishes Doc as he unfolds his stretcher. 2nd section is good to move, while Snake is at -4 melee, -1shotdie.

[Britter]

Poetry


"Alrighrt lads, lets move up. Watch for snipers. We are going to go through the shacks."

Using his axe, Poetry clears a path through the shacks as he leads his unit towards command and the other section. His intent is to travel under concealment by cutting through the flimsy dwellings and staying out of the open streets.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis staggers to his feet, raises his rifle, and nods to Poetry. "Right o'! Lead the way, Sir..."



Awareness: [roll0]
Stealth: [roll1]

Didn't I have an ability to sense Snipers or something like that? I'll have to go back and check... I don't want to get caught off guard again. >.>

[Shirocco]

You mean this?

Bloodhound (You gain +5 on Awareness and can Track, taking rerolls when seeking out a sniper or locating the source of enemy fire. Also gives +5 on Stealth checks. Killing an enemy quietly requires only one stealth check, not 2.)


...sorry, you were his first target. I rolled a die on that and he thought you were the section lead. Once i finished laughing i posted the writeup.

[Lycan 01]

Where did I get shot, anyway? :smallconfused:

So basically, if I'm doing an Awareness check to find a sniper or other sort of shooter, I can reroll it if I fail? Is there any other sort of roll I can do, like: "Think Like a Sniper" to think of where one might try to hide, or "Mark of the Sniper" to think who might be the most tempting target out of our group or where a target zone might be set up?

I could probably think of a few more screwy ideas. :smallbiggrin:

[Greyen]

Stinky

Pointing at the caribeener to the rifleman with him, he points Ramble at the nest while tossing a SF Frag into its center.


SF Frag Grenade [roll0]

SF Hand - 2 frag, 1 incendiary,
Rifle -3 frag, 2 shaped.

[Savant]

"I'm going to enjoy sticking it to that houten bastard.." As he slowly makes his way to his feet, Snake checks his rifle for any damage or cleaning.

[RandomLunatic]

Slip rushes inside the shack and starts smashing through walls up towards Jinks, bayonet ready for anybody standing in his way.

[Shirocco]

((Dragging Twitch))

While Stinky is giving orders the carbineer looks his way... Twitch promptly takes aim as the man shouts warning, fires... the blighter ducked before he could shoot! Stinky tosses his SF grenade as ramble comes forward, the men in the nest all turn about and open fire. Stinky's armour bangs shots away twice before the SF grenade blows them apart... then a Houten gas can sails out the window toward Stinky & his lads.

Slip hears a final shout of pain, there's a moment's pause and Jinks emerges from the shack he shoulder charged into, wiping blood from a trenchknife. "Clear, sa!"


Meanwhile Poet makes good time plowing through the shacks. He comes across a terrified family who back away shouting in fear. There's gunfire straight ahead through one more shack... then the loud thud of a grenade blast.

[Lycan 01]

((Whats the callsign to see if somebody is on our team? Maybe we should yell it out, to see if the shooters near us are allies? Although, methinks the boom means we're right behind the Houten MG that just got 'naded...))

Frenis follows along, paying mind to the family in the hut. There could be a chance of them pulling weapons out, especially with the luck he'd been having today...


Awareness: [roll0]

Is there a roll I can make to spot a weapon or something? Lemme take a crack at it, just in case...

Spot Weapon: [roll1] to see if one of the family members might have a weapon or something
Sense Motive: [roll2] to sense that one of them might be about to attack or something

[Shirocco]

((As stated earlier....

Challenge is "Cloud", correct reply is "Dust"

Water is under a foot deep,

awareness will do for keeping an eye on the civvies))

[RandomLunatic]

Slip directs the team to advance through the shacks towards the ambush alley-using the alleys themsleves was clearly not working very well for him today.

[Britter]

Poetry



Readying himself for action if the gunfire was coming from the enemy, Poetry called out "Cloud!"

[Shirocco]

Stinky, Twitch and the others with them hear Poet's challenge.

Slip is a bit short handed, but Jinks cheerfully barges his way into a shack again as 3rd section come into sight behind them.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Dust! Stinky responds to the challenge and promptly yells "GAS, GAS, GAS !!" as he drops his helmet dragging his gasmask on.

[Britter]

Poetry


The momentary relief of knowing he had found the rest of the squad was immediately banished by the call of GAS! "Masks on lads, gas!" Poetry ordered, as he donned his own gasmask.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis quickly scrambles to get his mask on.

Awareness: [roll0]

[Savant]

Snake throws his gasmask on, keeping an alert look on his surroundings.

Awareness: 1d20+10 → [20,10] = (30)

[Britter]

Poetry


Awareness: [roll0]

[Shirocco]

The can pops as you drag masks from your belts, spewing mustard gas into the midst of 2nd section. That's horrid stuff, itching and coughing and boils to look forward to... as you pull the masks on and tie them in place the masks filter out the gas even as you cough traces of it from your lungs. Within moments you're just itchy.

Twitch moves forward and takes a look. "Nest's dead... can't see the guy from that window... ah heck they've all split now. We're clear." says Twitch. Gunfire and rumbling engines can be heard from the road, east of all sections.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis awaits further orders.



Awareness: [roll0]

I might be able to get online once or twice this weekend, but don't expect much from me guys. Sorry! :smalleek:

[RandomLunatic]

Docs stay here ta tend tha fallen. Everyone else up tha creek-3rd on tha west bank, 1st on tha east, and 2nd lags behind fer fire support. Let's go help tha treadheads.

[Britter]

Poetry

"All together now lads, lets move!" Poetry forms his squad up, moving towards the east as ordered.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Standard Wedge, close up the holes. We're in this to back up Worst and Turd sections. Lets go. Stinky double checks his reloads and ammo and moves out with his troops.

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) - Critically wounded
Doc (Stretcher) -3mel, -2aware

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) -5 melee, -1shotdie
Snake (Rifle) -4mel, -1shotdie
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) - Critically wounded
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) -3mel, -1shotdie, -2aware
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



((Ha ha, where'd you get those names from??))

Following the creek east the sound of HMG fire and cannon booms becomes steadily louder. Counter battery fire echoes through the sky, the enemy howitzers gone silent in the face of it. Engines rumble in idle, men and dvergr shout and fight. 2nd section comes upon the road first, Twitch on point gets the first good look.

The armoured column is strung out along the road. APCs and tanks - indistinguishable save for the presence or absence of turrets - fire intermittantly into the shacks at targets you can't see. The closest two are a pair of tanks, further back south you can see the ambulance; an APC come triage centre. Further forward you think you can see your own APC hidden behind a '75 tank.

Twitch sees smoke cans thrown 30 yards left of his position, there's a dispersing cloud back at the turn 100 yards right. A flattened sandbag barrier and smouldering houten tank lie 10 yards right, the tank gutted by your own and the sandbags driven straight over. There's a 3 floor tavern 30 yards to your right, opposite side of the road which is being pounded with HE shells, dvergr armour appears to be leveling it. You catch a glimpse of dvergr regulars left nearly 50 yards north but Houten smoke quickly obscures them. Then not just Twitch but all of 2nd section see a couple men throw smoke straight ahead on the opposite side of the road, you see them throught he gap between the two closest tanks.

[RandomLunatic]

Frags on tha far side of tha tanks! Move up to tha lee sides-after they go off, we're rootin' out what's left! Slip dashes forward, waving his right hand to let any tankers that took a moment to look before firign that he was no a threat.

[Shirocco]

As you advance the closest tank on the right booms a canister shot into the forming smoke ahead of you with a sponson, bringing it's turret around it does the same again when you reach it... the canister blasts make the shacks there crumble and fall apart in 30 yard deep swathes. The tank to your left angles a sponson rear MG about and liberally hoses that area.

"Enemy north by northwest, MG suppressive fire... get down!" shouts Curly as the tank right behind 2nd section angles it's left sponson around to fire over your heads. Looking where he's indicated there's shapes running out through the smoke... awareness 10+ to pick 'em, D8 shots... D12 for rifles. Tracer fire is flying through the smoke from the other side, dvergr regulars must have the same idea.

[RandomLunatic]

Slip hits the ground, clicks over to full auto and riddles the smoke with tracer fire.

((Awareness (1d20+9=25) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1821578/) (I figure the suppression will be more effective if I can see them).))

[Greyen]

Stinky

Stinky hits the dirt and begins to volley into the smoked area.

Awareness [roll0]
To hit [roll1]

Not firing for speed or anything just yet,just the usual.

[Shirocco]

2nd section all hit the deck and fire at the smoke. It makes a heck of a racket! Then the sponson gun booms over your heads, sending a cloud of canister shot into the smoke... you actually see the smoke ripple as the shot enters. Now deaf you can't hear the racket or whether Slip called a cease fire... his LMG stops firing as the entire mag spat out in about a second.

You can't see anyone in the smoke, shot rolls denied. You can fire anyway as it's still suppressive fire. 1st section emerging from the creek wence you came sees 2nd down and firing along with the destruction being wrought by tanks on the shacks directly opposite this side of the road, even as smoke gathers there.


*What the hell, i'll drag you all a bit to get it moving

Maintaining fire with no clear targets in the smoke, you're rewarded in knowing the tank closest to that point hasn't fallen to demolition charges. Your hearing is just starting to return when the cannon behind you booms again, a big low velocity HE round whips through the air to blast in the midst of the smoke. Not long after that, hearing once again on the return and the LMGs all starting to steam with the whole platoon now on the road, dvergr regulars move up and take position here. "We got it here lads, you're wanted further up." says their LT. He's putting two squads watching the road and another in guarding the creek approach, you see more units moving up behind them.

[Lycan 01]

Frenis follows Poetry, as usual.

Awareness: [roll0]

[RandomLunatic]

Swapping magazines and barrels, Slip asks the other LT Kin I borrow yer radio fer a sec? Mine froze an' got hisself all shot. If yes, he, by proxy, identifies himself and requests an update.

[Greyen]

Stinky

WHAT!? Stinky wring his finger in his ear for a moment, and clears his mask from his face (only if the others have no masks on) CAN'T HEAR, USE HAND SIGNALS SIR! The deafened Bjartr says to the LT.

[Shirocco]

The regulars oblige Slip. Their radioman checks, giving the update as Slip provides it. "Yessah. Leftenant, we've been getting attacked by infantry with demo charges & heavy mortars. Heavy mortars are being ranged by our own, captain wants your platoon up 50 yards to get ready to board your APC. We're all advancing shortly - keep an eye out for troublemakers on your way."

All of which has to be repeated, twice, before Slip is sure he heard it. Hearing is slowly returned and he gets the idea.

*three awareness rolls for the walk up to your APC, everyone.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Time of day?

Awareness
[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

[RandomLunatic]

((Awareness checks (1d20+9=21, 1d20+9=12, 1d20+9=29) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1822895/)

*Sings*Two outta three, ain't bad...))

[Lycan 01]

Awareness rolls:

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) -4 melee, -1shotdie
Doc (Stretcher) -3mel, -2aware

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) -5 melee, -1shotdie
Snake (Rifle) -4mel, -1shotdie
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) -1 melee
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) -3mel, -1shotdie, -2aware
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



As you advance the battle slows it's pace around you. This Houten line has failed and it seems they're at last admitting they won't get it back. Here and there you hear gunfire but the big guns are silent; for the first time in a long while even the howitzers are quiet. So it is as dusk begins to settle, darkness flooding into the bowl of Somek's mountain that you hear a rumble. Not a loud thing, not an obvious thing... far deeper than the engines, deep like the earth itself, shaking it's way up through the ground and the shacks to such a low and powerful beat that men's ears can't hear it... like the great snake Corpseripper clearing it's throat in Harthglome's deepest roots.

"Steady, lads... keep moving." says Curly, the sun just starting it's final descent. Poet half sees something big up on the ridge about a mile east, then it is gone before he can make out what it was.

You reach the APC intact. There’s bodies piled up beside the road here, the bodies of men with their blood still fresh on the dirt. A small and battered section of dvergr regulars greet you, they’re none too cheery; “’bout time.” is all they say. You take up position here and wait for a few minutes. Speak-Ezy and Fingers come back up the line to you during this wait, bullets pulled and in surprisingly good health – the company medic knows his stuff.

Speazy can’t be improved further, the human body is fragile. He needs rest but can operate the radio just fine and fight if he has to.

Fingers is as good as he can be.

Doc and his first aiders have time to improve the others back to -1 melee, Doc can take 10 instead of rolling.

((You’ve got a few hours to RP before I move your advance onto the next (2/3) line.))

[Lycan 01]

Frenis walks over to Speak-Easy, wincing as his adrenaline fades and his body starts to feel the pain of his injuries. He pats the man on the shoulder, and grins. "Congratulations, human. You've earned my respect. If you can survive injuries like that, you're worth fighting alongside us. In my opinion, at least! Hah hah!"

He really did respect the human. The fact that he'd stayed in one piece, let alone remained alive after a hit like that, proved that he was tough enough to fight alongside Dvergr.

[String]

Tyrson takes a breather, coming out of his shock and back to his surroundings.

[Blockhead]

Speak-Easy

Speak-Easy smiled under the pain. "Thanks, I'm just glad my radio didn't break." He said. He hobbled along to the APC and sat down, drawing a long sigh. He wiped the mud of his radio and decided to check on the progress of the assault, as well make sure the radio was actually working.

Just for RP purposes and to see if the radio still works. [roll0] - Radio Check

[Britter]

Poetry


Poetry walks over to Slip and quietly says "Sir, I saw somethin' big out there. Not sure quite what, but it was no Houten and that's a fact. Might be we have us some trolls or maybe ogres somewhere out there."

[Lycan 01]

Frenis' ears perk up at the mention of trolls. He moseys over to Poetry and Slip, not wanting to be left in the dark about something that important. HE clears his throat, and keeping his voice low, says: "Beggin' your pardon, sir, but I couldn't help but overhear your mentioning of... certain things. In the event we do run into something of the sort, what tactics would you recommend? Would normal bullets stand a chance, or would we need something bigger? Wait... would K Rounds fit the bill?"



((Do I still have those K Rounds? I think I should have 3 left, IIRC... :smallconfused:))

[Shirocco]

((Curly relieved you of those post mission. He'll have 2 mags of them as usual.))

[RandomLunatic]

Slip lowers the spare barrel he had been checking for dirt and mud and looks pensive for a moment before answering. Last time I came up this way, we had ta fight past a bunch o' trolls-bagged half a dozen of tha bastards meself, I did. But that shaman got away-took leftenant Api wit 'im too. Maybe he's back... Slip says, stroking his beard pensively. More likely it's something ta do wit that blasted shrine I took 20mm fire fer.

Frenis, yer regular rounds'll take anything up ta a troll. Just aim about here on 'em, clapping a fist to his breast.

[Lycan 01]

"Will do..." Frenis smirks. "But what are their tactics? How do they fight? What formations should we take?"


((Am I supposed to know all this? :smallconfused: If so, lets just say poor Frenis has taken too many stray bullets to the helmet. XD))

[Shirocco]

Platoon chart

(First name is section leader)
Command:
Slip
Curly (2ic)
Speak-Easy (Radio) -4 melee, -1shotdie
Doc (Stretcher) -1mel, -2aware

First:
Poetry
Frenis (Sharp) -1 melee
Snake (Rifle) -1melee
Crash (gren)
Herbwest (1st Aider)
Rifleman #1 (Fingers) -1 melee
Rifleman #2 (3 Pegs)

Second:
Stinky -2mel
Tyrson (Sharp) -1melee, -2aware
Twitch (Rifle)
Ramble (LMG)
Fragranstein (1st Aider)
Rifleman #3 (Tiny)
Rifleman #4 (Jinks)

Third:
Hooky
Lifter (LMG)
Bang (Gren)
Ripper (1st Aider)
x3 Riflemen

1st Section formation

Section marching order:

Poetry on Point
Snake
Frenis
Crash
Rifleman #1
Herbwest
Rifleman #2


2nd section formation

Standard Wedge formation (basic diagram below for open area movement)

___________(point - Twitch)___________
----------Tiny-------------Ramble-------
------Tyrson------Stinky-------Jinks------
----------------1st Aid (Reddy)----------

Files for long tight areas
--------Twitch
Tiny----------
--------Ramble
Tyrson--------
--------Stinky
Reddy--------
--------Jinks

Battle Buddy pairs for Clearing the shanty town
Tyrson & Jinks
Twitch & Tiny
Ramble & Jinks
Stinky & Reddy



Dragged doc... Frenis knows basics against trolls. Double spacing, shoot from as far as possible at the heart. Beyond that's down to what old vets tell you.

All dvergr wounds reduced to -1 melee, along with awareness for those with blood thickener in them. You have resupplied - grenade counts reset.



Curly grumbles under his breath. "Inherited silver. Don' need to hit heart then." he says, looking pointedly at Poet. "Need distraction, luck. Trolls 'r bad news. Better to keep distance."

You hear the crew officer of the APC then call from his view slits. "We're movin' lads, mount up. Hands on the guns." As he speaks the ramp creeks and lowers, you see other mech. infantry of this company boarding up and down the line. No sooner than you've boarded the whole column starts to move, the ramp rising. It closes with a tombstone's clunk.

((next combat begins tonight, a good few hours away yet.))

[Lycan 01]

((This casual conversation is a nice change of pace... I don't think we've had much character interaction outside of "I won't let ya die, buddy!" and "Gimme some cover fire!" :smalltongue:))


"So... They're weak to silver, keep your distance, aim for the heart, and try to distract them?" Frenis arches an eyebrow. "I'll keep that in mind. Anything else? Sorry, but I seem to have forgotten a lot of the basics. I think I've been KOed a few times too many... Heh heh!" the stout Dvergr laughs at his own plight.

[Shirocco]

"Inherited silver, you earsling. More it means to ya the better it works. Not everyone's lucky enough to have that, so iron to the heart will have to do." says Curly



Edited

[Lycan 01]

((I'm going to assume that you're talking about an inherited silver weapon or something... :smallconfused:

Sorry, but I know more about WWI and stuff than I do Dvergr and Trolls and whatnot. :smallfrown:))

[Shirocco]

((That's Curly having a go at you, not me you goose lol))

[RandomLunatic]

Slip extinguishes his burning cigarette stub against the hull of the APC, which stoicly bears the indignity, and climbs aboard.

Hope yer all warmed up, 'cuz playtime's over. Second line's in Old Town, which is built ta last. Solid stone buildin's, built right inta tha hills-eight inch shell won't move 'em. Many of 'em are built two floors aboveground an' three or four below. We're going ta be clearing a few along tha road. More HMGs, mortars, an' field pieces.

Rebs reported a heavy howitzer in tha area as of four hours ago-no way of knowin' if it's still thar, though I 'spect we'll find out soon enough.

Thar's also s'posed ta be some of our night-fighters holed up somewhere ta tha West-they may have intel.

[Greyen]

Stinky

Stinky clanks up to the APC and double checks his squad. Good work lads. Rekit and check you rifles. See iff'n you can grab a flare, we may need to blind some of the buggers.

He strip off his googles and hood and stows them as night falls. His bald head shines in the light and the rune tattooed on his head is dark against the pale skin. His eyes are wild in the night. Ahhh, that's a relief. No more of that blasted big orge ball of flame in the sky. Now its time to play. He looks even more insane than before, he seems to expand a little as he lights one of his signature smelly cheap cigars.

As the APC rolls out and the word Troll is bantered about he smiles and swaps out some of his 'nades. [taking another incendiary instead of a mustard]

[Shirocco]

((Since the conversation's going along better than usual i'll let it go a bit longer. We're set to go at the drop of a hat, so no hurry.))

While Curly scowls at and educates Frenis some of the relative newcomers to the unit stare at Slip in disbelief. "You really killed trolls? Six trolls?" asks Lifter doubtfully. Hooky gives him a nudge. "I'll vouch for it. He used a machine gun. We all kept the ugly sods busy... Curly, you still got your trophy?" says Hooky. Curly grunts, turning to him. "Sold most of it." he replies. Glancing at Slip he grunts again. "Your kills, you can tell the story." and leans back against the hull, the APC rumbling steadily along.