New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 4 of 10 FirstFirst 12345678910 LastLast
Results 91 to 120 of 275
  1. - Top - End - #91
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Pvt. 'Sal' Malachinni makes his rush from cover, throws down the lever, and follows it to the ground. As he does so, two things happen.

    The first is that the railcar full of stunned Vult recruits sharply goes from whizzing along at high speed to breaking from high speed. Some unseen circuit - voltage in the roof rails, or perhaps a magical trigger - causes the runners on the I-beams to shriek and throw fans of fat orange sparks to either side, and the passengers are thrown forward into each other; a mass of uniformed soldiery, crushed up against the rail and each other while the car rocks to a stop.

    The other thing that happens is that Xilo's Psychos open up; and the outcome is much as expected. This is a nightmare position for the enemy, and a near ideal ambush for the Amcarans. Rifles, submachine guns and pistols all bark and blaze away at the trapped Kreigers, and they suffer terribly. The blond korporal takes a bullet that snaps his head back; and with the forward rock of the braking car, he goes tumbling over the rail in a ragdoll cartwheel. Another towards the rear of the cart is shot through the chest and he sags limply over the rear rail. But four others are also killed, and a fifth gutshot, and in the press there is nowhere for them to go; their bodies crowd and burden the three soldiers so far unstruck by rounds as they desperately try to bring their weapons to bear, and howl their panic and desperation, futilely, to each other.

    Spoiler: Surprise Round Resolution!
    Show
    These are very green soldiers, and you've caught them in a very compromising position. Cavir, you're right that most attacks will hit them - the magic number is 12, for these poor schmoes. Enough rounds go past and bang off the wall behind so that someone like Doc can convince himself he missed and didn't contribute to the massacre. But strictly speaking, of the ten soldiers:

    Soldier 1 - Iced by Wolf
    Soldier 2 - wounded Wolf,
    Soldier 3 - Iced by Doc
    Soldier 4 - Iced by Ginger
    Soldier 5 - Iced by Xilo
    Soldier 6 - Iced by Xilo
    Soldier 7 - Iced by K’Ral
    Soldier 8 - Unharmed
    Soldier 9 - Unharmed
    Soldier 10 - Unharmed.

    Time to Roll Initiative. The enemy's initiative is (1d20+1)[16]. Now that this ambush round is over, the fight proper has begun, though you stand a good chance of wiping them out before they act. If you beat their initiative roll, feel free to act immediately. If you don't, they'll get a chance to act before your next action; so hang tight.
    Last edited by MrAbdiel; 2022-09-25 at 01:18 AM.

  2. - Top - End - #92
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Pvt. K'Ral Burnfaire is a hunter by lineage; from a long line of eladrin whose grand pursuits tracked strange and fantastical creatures to the depths of the feywild. In war, there had been similar glories - like the monstrous dragons whose summoning they were here to sabotage, or the mechanical monsters manufactured by the wild minds of men. This... was not that. This wasn't even execution. It was like firing into a pen of braying goats, or caged birds. It demanded no skill. It was deeply inglorious. And it presented no suitable alternative. But he was not a hunter, anymore. Hunters go on hunts. Soldiers go to war.

    With a flash of elven dexterity that would be admirable to anyone who could afford to observe it, and who was not a recipient of its effects, he racked the bolt on his father's rifle and squeezed off another round before the spent brass had completed a full revolution in the air.

    Spoiler: Bang!
    Show
    Roll is in the Roll thread. K'ral hits and ices another soldier! Two fresh, one wounded, seven dead now.


    The round strikes one of the Kreigers in the throat, forcing him to drop the body of a colleague he had been holding by the armpits - perhaps as a shield, perhaps as a futile effort to save the dead man. The throat-shot warrior, a human with the faintest whispers of chin fluff, leans against the rail with wide eyes, clutching at his neck. He is dead - just seven or eight seconds away from confronting the fact.

  3. - Top - End - #93
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    With no alternative but doomed defiance, the remaining soldiers return fire. They crouch as best they can, but they are trained well enough that their response is to attack rather than leap to the rocky pit at the bottom of the tunnel. Their fire discipline is fair, too - the bloodied soldier lets out a gurgling, gut shot howl and opens fire at the concrete corner where Pvt Gabriel hunkers, and his two able companions loose chattering volleys at the same target - but all shots tickle off the cover, as Gabe’s reflex to duck back preserves him once again.

    Spoiler: Enemy Turn Complete!
    Show
    Well, only the NPC K’Ral beat the enemies, so that was silly. All three randomly targeted Ginger, but none got higher than a 13. That’s a big oof.

    Player Turns! Time to finish them, Psychos. All conditions the same - the enemy is still tragically exposed to your fire.

  4. - Top - End - #94
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Xilo squeezes the trigger twice more, carefully aiming one shot each at any enemy firing back.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    They are still packed together, some dead some not, so rolling advantage in case it still holds.
    Shot 1: (1d20+10)[23] or (1d20+10)[18]
    Dmg: (1d8+5)[12]

    Shot 2: (1d20+10)[22] or (1d20+10)[30]
    Dmg: (1d8+5)[8]
    Spoiler: Games
    Show
    Keston Tornok for GF's AoW
    Loradralsornux for GF's Savage Tide
    Avakuss for kinem's Planescape: Center of All
    Sgt Ladaran Xiloscient for MrAbdiel's D&D-Day: The Ballad of Echo Company (WW2 with D&D Rules)
    Ganzak for Toliudar's Coming Unstuck

    Extended Signature - More detailed game/character notes

  5. - Top - End - #95
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    SamuraiGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Location
    Montana
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Wolf grits his teeth and continues firing at the cage, trying to put the few remaining soldiers down before they can hit Ginger.

    Spoiler: Rolls
    Show
    First attack to hit: (1d20+9)[27] or (1d20+9)[28]
    damage: (1d10+4)[10]
    Second attack to hit:(1d20+9)[10] or (1d20+9)[23]
    damage: (1d10+4)[6]

  6. - Top - End - #96
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    UK
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Salamir forgoes firing, instead getting back to his feet and raising his gun in a bayonet charge against the cart position, meaning to put any survivng soldiers to flight. He knew well how shaking an enemy soldier sprinting directly for you could be, and further his engineering mind knew the danger of shooting volitile arcane incendiary hellfire rounds near delicate equipment that you meant to take intact. And for the boys that stood before them forcing their surrender was better than forcing their deaths.

    Spoiler: Rolls
    Show
    Intimidation: (1d20+5)[11]
    Last edited by JbeJ275; 2022-09-27 at 08:27 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by RadarMonkey1 View Post
    I suddenly feel that my character is not as optimized as it could be...

    Oh well, it should still be fun.

  7. - Top - End - #97
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2021

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Doc follows behind Sal, hoping that it might be possible to save someone or at least ensure that they don't suffer. As they get closer he finds it hard to focus, looking at each face in turn trying to remember in the blur which poor soul he had shot.

  8. - Top - End - #98
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    The hail of allied fire continues; and it's too much for the trapped grenzsoldaten. Sal and Doc rush in, prepared to engage the enemy in melee or drive them to flight; but by the time they have closed the gap to the edge of the platform, and the short hop it would take to board the railcar, it's over. One man lies twisted and dead on the rocket train-tunnel floor, having tumbled after his riddling the five feet of clearance between the bottom of the railcar and the ground. The other nine lie, riddled with bulletholes and partially mutilated by the intensity of the gunfire, folded and tangled with one another in the car itself. Somewhere in the mass, one can be heard wheezing and gurgling; a sound that competes with the creak of the rocking metal, the shuttling click-click of K'ral repopulating his weapon's magazine with rounds, and the irregular drizzling of blood, scattering like raindrops to the tunnel floor from the ends of the car at each of the diminishing ends of its pendulum swing. A few seconds later, and the wheezing stops too. The men were caught in an ambush; Sal's intuition prevented them from whizzing onto their destination with only partial casualties, and they were unable to produce any effective retaliation. The assault had been perfect; the enemy stood no chance.

    A quick search of the bodies reveals nothing thrilling. Kreiger weapons, mostly unfired. Clean, sharp, oiled bayonets in their sheathes. Personal tokens. In the corporal's pocket, the crumpled remnant of a circular token of cardboard torn in half - the halves, placed together, feature the word "Sprechen". It's reasonably to conclude this is the spent remnant of some kind of communication item.

    Spoiler: Decisions
    Show
    A 'glorious' victory, gents. The obvious questions outstanding:

    These soldiers were going somewhere during what you have been assured is an evactuation.
    You can try to go in the direction they were going, or the way they came from, using either the tunnel, or the train car.

    And if you intend to use the car, what of the bodies of the enemy? Not a powerful mechanical decision; just a pragmatic and thematic one. Kick them off, to the tunnel floor? Something more time consuming and respectful?

  9. - Top - End - #99
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    SamuraiGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Location
    Montana
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    "All right, guys, night ain't getting any younger," Wolf announces to the squad. "We need to find whatever we can and get out of here before this whole place comes down around us. What do you think, Lieutenant, if these guys were on their way out, we should go the other way?" Wolf points down the tunnel in the direction the cage came from.

  10. - Top - End - #100
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2021

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Doc

    Doc listens to Wolf but can't tear his eyes away from the pile of bodies in the train car.

    Heading back the way they came sounds like a good way to find trouble. No way to know how far we're going but at least the thing's fast. Surprisingly quiet. We'll have to shift these...shift the bodies if we're going to fit on though.

  11. - Top - End - #101
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Xilo thinks for a moment. "May not have a choice in direction. Sal, is that lever just stop and go or does it set direction too? This whole thing may be a one way loop."

    He slings his weapon and moves to the car. "K'ral, keep watch to the left tunnel. Doc, to the right. Let's get the bodies off the car, quickly." The LT helped pulling the bodies from the car while waiting on Sal's response, just far enough to be out of the way of the car moving in either direction. It gave him a little time to consider which direction to go.

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    Thinking back from being outside above ground, into the manor, into the elevator, through the corridor, into the station... which ways were left and right tunnels going? Either headed towards the town below or away from it?
    Survival (1d20+5)[25]
    Spoiler: Games
    Show
    Keston Tornok for GF's AoW
    Loradralsornux for GF's Savage Tide
    Avakuss for kinem's Planescape: Center of All
    Sgt Ladaran Xiloscient for MrAbdiel's D&D-Day: The Ballad of Echo Company (WW2 with D&D Rules)
    Ganzak for Toliudar's Coming Unstuck

    Extended Signature - More detailed game/character notes

  12. - Top - End - #102
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    UK
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Sal takes a moment to examine the mechanism on the rail, trying to determine the extent to which it could be properly steered or controlled, and checking to see if there existed an ability to override the controls from somewhere else.

    Spoiler: Rolls
    Show

    Artificer Tools: (1d20+11)[28]
    Quote Originally Posted by RadarMonkey1 View Post
    I suddenly feel that my character is not as optimized as it could be...

    Oh well, it should still be fun.

  13. - Top - End - #103
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    It's quick work; if grim. Working together, the squad dumps the perforated bodies off the cart and into the base of the tunnel below. Neither K'ral nor Doc spots more trouble; and with no word from 4th Squad in the complex rooms above, 5th Squad can only assume their comrades are searching this area, directly beneath the manor, for matter pertaining to the objective. 5th's mission, then, is unchanged - explore further, searching particularly for the artificers and facility behind the manufacture of the brass spheres. But the presence of this rail system suggests the complex is larger considerably that the building above. How big is this place? What are they doing down here? And will it be possible to fulfil that objective, before the Vult labcoats complete their evacuation? A bloodslick chariot awaits, to convey you, perhaps, to some answers.

    Spoiler: 2nd Lt. Xiloscient....
    Show
    The manor is at the extreme North-West of the village. The train car was coming in from the east. Recalling the map to your mind, if the east passage curves toward the south, it will quickly be travelling under the rest of the village. If that is the case, it would suggest those soldiers were coming from some other station in the village - perhaps, corresponding to another element of the facility. They definitely seemed to be content to race on by to the west. It would have to turn fairly sharply if it was staying within the confines of the village proper; but the alternative would suggest the tunnel continued to the west, perhaps behind the allied lines of operation. That would be a clever manoeuvre - but not one you, as an officer, would send a fistful of green recruits on.

    In short, the tunnel to the east would need a less drastic turn to head toward the interior of the village; but without more information, it's impossible to tell how these tunnels change after this boarding station, which seems to be oriented almost perfectly East-West. The only clue you have, alas, is that this group of grenzsoldaten were heading from the east, toward the west.

    That, and quiet instinct in the part of your mind that has been prepared to be a leader of soldiers in operations of life and death, that if you were evacuating a high priority facility in the face of enemy advances, you would not be sending soldiers away in orderly squads. They would be escorting non combatants, carrying materiel, on their way to do one of the form, or else the very last squad to leave the facility.


    Spoiler: Pvt. Salamir
    Show
    At a guess - and your technical guess are pretty good - one of these rails is intended for traffic in one direction, the other for traffic in the other direction.

    ...But then, there would need to be a platform on the other side. Or else some kind of deployable bridge from the far track to the single platform, but even then, what would stop a second car coming down the track and nailing that bridge and any poor schmuck crossing on it? And now that you're looking at it, the furthest rail has considerably less wear on it than the closer one. The only conclusion is that the close track is used for traversal both ways (or one way on a loop), and the second track serves a different purpose - maybe, heavy hauling cars requiring two runner mechanisms, and a function for cars to bypass each other, and perhaps turn around.

    Futzing with the cart and the lever a little longer, removing a panel at the lever's base, you gain some validation of your instincts. There are additional controls near the footing of the lever concealed for use by trained operators. There's no 'turn around' button here; but there are some intuitive enough artificer enchantments that perform the function. It's remarkable, really; the platform sends a message to the next platforms in the sequence forward and back, which in turn halt any incoming traffic or divert them to the secondary track for the next stretch of their journey. It's a sophisticated system of signals built into the platforms which... seems overengineering, when you could just have built a second platform. But such is the nature of some technical minds given free reign - overengineering spills out of the protoyping. Still, you think you can 'tell' the car to turn around, such that when you board it it will proceed to whatever reversal mechanism exists in the tunnels between the stations, then turn around and head back the other way.

    This, however, will necessarily 'warn' the platforms that your cart is turning around and coming back the other way. It's possible that the chaos of the current situation in this base may cause this to mean nothing; or it might alert some attentive platform operator that something is amiss. But to change the West bearing to East, that seems to be the intractable price.

  14. - Top - End - #104
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2021

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    DOC

    Doc is greatful to the LT's mercy in assigning him to watch duty. He strains his senses looking for further threats whilst trying to block out the noise of the grim work happening on the carriage.

  15. - Top - End - #105
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    UK
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Sal looks up from his work in the gears and announces his findings to the LT.

    ”Well, I can get us going again they way they were no trouble, but if we want to turn around they’ll be able to see us do it, the rail mechanism allows turning not anything in the track. Of course we could physically turn it around but that’s take longer than we got.”

    “On the other hand, if we do take this to the end station I might be able to turn off the signals and safeties. Leave this hurtling the other way to crash into anyone trying to catch up to us through these. Wouldn’t be pretty but it could work.”
    Quote Originally Posted by RadarMonkey1 View Post
    I suddenly feel that my character is not as optimized as it could be...

    Oh well, it should still be fun.

  16. - Top - End - #106
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    "If they were leaving for good they'd have more gear with them. We'll see where they were heading to. I like that backup plan to send the car back if we won't need it. There's fewer of us so we won't be so packed in. We'll also be ready to jump off and deal with what's there. Reload, check your gear, and let's go." Xilo reloads a fresh magazine. In the car he'll be up front, M1 at the ready, and eyes peeled.
    Spoiler: Games
    Show
    Keston Tornok for GF's AoW
    Loradralsornux for GF's Savage Tide
    Avakuss for kinem's Planescape: Center of All
    Sgt Ladaran Xiloscient for MrAbdiel's D&D-Day: The Ballad of Echo Company (WW2 with D&D Rules)
    Ganzak for Toliudar's Coming Unstuck

    Extended Signature - More detailed game/character notes

  17. - Top - End - #107
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Grim work done and decisions made, 5th squad piles into the rail car, and gets underway. The tunnel is not pitch dark; cold, sterile white electric lamps whip by on the walls, too distant from each other to provide consistent illumination. It turns the journey into a strobing, unpleasant rush through stuttering darkness and light as the car zooms west; and quickly slows to take a sharp corner to the south. It's quieter than it should be; no big rumbling engine, but the muted hissing of the bearings and a straining electric motor above you. And it's hard not to remain aware that the last people in your position, standing in this car, were coming up blind on their next station not expecting an ambush either. But when you come up on the next station, and the railcar slows to a halt for you to disembark, there is no hail of gunfire. There is no reception at all; just another empty boarding platform, another lever and embedded control box, another row of empty benches. Distinct from the last platform, there is a fork from the ceiling mounted rail-beams that pulls over to one side of the playform, and three unused rail cars sitting unused; presumably waiting an engineer to task them and deploy them to the rail. There's also a pair larger appertati; two great steel brackets with clamps, and each with a pair of runner-systems like those on the rail-car you came on - some kind of bulk hauling unit, meant to carry something heavy enough that it needs to occupy both rails at once. These, too, are untasked; even a little dusty.

    Aside from that rail depot to one side of the platform, the exit from this platform to the complex behind is a huge archway - thirty feet high, and wide, with a closed mechanical shutter operable with clearly marked, up and down buttons. And with that, a narrow iron staircase leads to a more standard sized door mounted in the wall above the main shutter. The arrangement and construction of these entries suggests that they both lead to the same warehouse, or hangar behind; with the upper door likely leading to some kind of catwalk or mezzanine. And beyond both doors, clearly audible, is the irregular stutter and whine of actively operated machinery, and the foggy sounds of people trying to conduct a conversation in Kreigspiel above the din.

    Spoiler: Prepare for breach!
    Show
    ...Or don't. You've definitely arrived at some kind of active part of the facility, now. If your gut tells you to get back on the cart and move on to the next station, you can try that too. Otherwise, you ought to decide what disposition of forces are going to try entry through the big main shutter, or the upper gantry entrance. And if Salamir wants to try something tricky with the railcars - turning it around and firing it back the other way, or what not - let me know what you're trying to do, and I'll give you a DC!

  18. - Top - End - #108
    Bugbear in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2021

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Doc

    Doc peers up at the huge doorway and then at the smaller one.

    Looks hard to sneak in quietly through the big one. Risk of getting caught in a bottle neck if we get spotted at the little one though.

    The diminutive medic pauses for a moment.

    I could open the big one as a distraction? They might not notice me in a doorway so big. What do you say, LT?

  19. - Top - End - #109
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2015

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Pvt Gaberiel Ginger
    Heads up the iron stair case, and considers the small door.
    Spoiler: OOC
    Show

    Is it locked or trapped?

    Perception (1d20+8)[15]
    Stealth (1d20+10)[16]

  20. - Top - End - #110
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Pvt. Ginger gives the gantry door a once over, and concludes without too much trouble that it's not trapped - but it is, apparently, locked with an unusual key design he's never seen before.

    Spoiler: OOC!
    Show
    The big shutter's not locked, but the big sneaky-sneak door is! Expect a higher than usual DC for its lock.

  21. - Top - End - #111
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Location
    UK
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Salamir focuses on disabling the safeties on the track, then pushing the cart they arrived on back before the arrival station, he’ll wait until he’s called upon to help at the other doors but is known to have some skill with opening doors quietly.
    Quote Originally Posted by RadarMonkey1 View Post
    I suddenly feel that my character is not as optimized as it could be...

    Oh well, it should still be fun.

  22. - Top - End - #112
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2015

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Pvt Gabriel Ginger
    Its times like this that I wish I could just will the pins into the correct position. Here goes
    Spoiler: OOC
    Show

    Thieves Tools: (1d20+10)[14]

  23. - Top - End - #113
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    With diligence and pluck, Pvt. Ginger tries his tools on the lock - but it doesn’t budge. The lock has an outlandish, counter-rotating secondary barrel that feels impossible to manage with a torque wrench. The upper door may require alternate encourage - or be forsaken entirely.

  24. - Top - End - #114
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Quote Originally Posted by Waistcoatwill View Post
    Doc
    I could open the big one as a distraction? They might not notice me in a doorway so big. What do you say, LT?
    Quote Originally Posted by MrAbdiel View Post
    With diligence and pluck, Pvt. Ginger tries his tools on the lock - but it doesn’t budge.
    LT
    "Not yet at least. I want us looking down at them, not the other way around. Sal, see if you and Ginger can work together on that lock? The machinery can help cover your work.
    Spoiler: Games
    Show
    Keston Tornok for GF's AoW
    Loradralsornux for GF's Savage Tide
    Avakuss for kinem's Planescape: Center of All
    Sgt Ladaran Xiloscient for MrAbdiel's D&D-Day: The Ballad of Echo Company (WW2 with D&D Rules)
    Ganzak for Toliudar's Coming Unstuck

    Extended Signature - More detailed game/character notes

  25. - Top - End - #115
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    SamuraiGuy

    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Location
    Montana
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Wolf watches the others at the doors for a little and grunts. "K'ral, why don't you and I go up and cover the guys working on that upper door. Watch the hallway, but be ready to rush in if the door opens. I'll do the same." Wolf nods to Xilo on his way up.
    Last edited by Continental Op; 2022-10-15 at 10:43 AM.

  26. - Top - End - #116
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2015

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Pvt Gabriel Ginger
    This is like nothing I have ever seen, do you want me to blow the door?

  27. - Top - End - #117
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    With a few moments of fast-tracked tinkering in the panel by the lever of this station, the bloodied car the squad came in on shudders... then begins sliding backward on the rail the way it came, picking up speed before it vanishes into the dark of the tunnel. A little blinking light with the word "Achtung!" printed under it makes a nuisance of itself inside the panel - if there are any engineers monitoring the network, they'll know something is wrong here. But then, the squad is about to burst into action in the next room - that might not have been much of a secret to keep.

    But the service door at the top of the iron stairs proves elusive, even for Sal's tools. Cutting through the hinges would take prohibitively long; and destroying the lock mechanism will only make it impossible to retract the bolts in the frame. Ginger is right - if the squad is going to breach from two entries, they're going to need to go in the loud way.

    K'ral, having fallen into step with the sergeant at the command given, grimaces a little at the predicament. "Don't like loud," he confesses. "Maybe we blow it, and all rush the lower door. Use the upper as a phantom breach? Or breach it then wait twenty seconds before skulking through. Wait for the team on the floor to draw eyes and ears."

    Spoiler: Decision Time.
    Show
    IC, it's the LT's call to make or delegate to his NCO; but everyone's welcome to speculate in the OOC. The door can't be quietly opened, it seems. It could be blown open, but that will likely draw attention to that breach, which was not the initial hope.

  28. - Top - End - #118
    Firbolg in the Playground
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    LT Xilo

    The LT listened to what the voices on the other side of the door were saying. It might give some hint of what is going on in there. He wished they had better options. The train car had already been sent along its way back they way they came. If the enemy back that way wasn't aware of them, that would change soon enough.

    "Surprising these doors are so locked without the alert sounded. Too few of us to spread out so much. We'll blow the lower door and rush through. Two left, two center, two right. Push forward hard covering for each other and adjust to what we find. I'll take center. Sgt, assign positions. Remember, prisoners if we can."

    Spoiler: OOC
    Show
    Perception to make out what is being said on the other side of the door with lesser Kreigspiel. If it would change things let's adjust from there. (1d20+5)[17]

    Sorry for the long delay.
    Spoiler: Games
    Show
    Keston Tornok for GF's AoW
    Loradralsornux for GF's Savage Tide
    Avakuss for kinem's Planescape: Center of All
    Sgt Ladaran Xiloscient for MrAbdiel's D&D-Day: The Ballad of Echo Company (WW2 with D&D Rules)
    Ganzak for Toliudar's Coming Unstuck

    Extended Signature - More detailed game/character notes

  29. - Top - End - #119
    Ogre in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2015

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    Pvt Gabriel Ginger

    Plants the explosives generously donated by Doc on the upper entry. Grinning madly, he waits for the signal.

  30. - Top - End - #120
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Devil

    Join Date
    Aug 2021
    Location
    Brisbane, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

    The blast echoes in the tunnels like the end of the world, hurling the maintenance door inward to clatter on the interior gantry. A clatter of reflexive gunfire peppers that smoke-haloed doorway; but no soldiers are there to receive it. Instead, 5th Squad slips under the rattling shutter and into the huge Vult workshop beyond. It's no trouble rushing to cover from the door - there are pallets of cast steel parts stacked and spaced by the door, one with a pallet jack still stuck in its side; an orderly person's attempt to force clutter to the extremes of the room, incidentally providing cover for enemies advancing by that vector. Not a defensive layout; an auteur's spread.

    Past this wide entrance, flanked by the rough hewn stone calls of the carved cavern, the room opens up into a vast, wide, tall complex; a hangar as much as a workshop, with the stone walls patched in places where structure is concerned, but otherwise left raw. There are benches and tables to support many artificers working here, though most have been stripped of tools and projects and abandoned in the flight of the occupants. But not all; not nearly all. Dominating the room, a hundred feet in from where 5th squad moves into cover, a cluster of eight Kreiger technikers peer up from where they have hunkered at the sound of the explosion; rattleguns in hand from their mechanical work, bewildered and variously fumbling for holstered pistols or gazing dumbly at the plumes of smoke. Two squads of the same clean-faced young recruits in uniform caps and unstained greys reel in response, too; two of them have started blazing away blindly at the burst maintenance door, their korporals shouting at them to cease fire. And just beyond them, quivering with fear and rage, is a shorter man in a white coat, with a hard-working comb-over, circular spectacles, and a lined face suggesting a life spend in consternation and focus: the very stereotype of a german lab coat.

    "Verzögert sie, ihr Idioten! Verzögern Sie sie! Wir können den Angreifer nicht zurücklassen!"

    Spoiler: Kreigspeil Speakers
    Show
    "Delay them, you idiots! Delay them! We cannot leave the Assailant behind!"


    The Angreifer, it seems, is the machine to his left, upon which the teknikers have paused operations. A huge, bipedal machine of cast steel and exposed cabling; twenty feet tall and broad at its greatest dimentions, easilly. Retrograde legs lead up to a bulky, soft-edged core with a loose coffin shape that, coupled with the huge legs, gives it at first a sort of froglike sihuoette. But off to the left and right of the core are welded hardpoints, that beg the imagination to suggest what powerful weaponry might be intended to mount there. As it is, only a pair of guns visably exist on it - two chin-mounted heavy machine guns, fixed to a limited swivel. Incomplete, it looms huge and terrible as a spectre of what you might have needed to fight on Naphto beach, if the operation had been delayed just a little longer.

    The twenty startled Grenzsoldat animated at the incensed command, charging toward the intervening space and throwing themselves behind chunks of abandoned machinery where they can, toppling desks for cover where they can't. The technikers, appropriately harangued, get back to whatever assembly or disassembly they were performing on the Angreifer, trying hard not to focus on the storm of death happening behind them.

    Spoiler: Alarm! Alarm! Schnell, Schnell! OOC
    Show
    Breach successful. You've earned a surprise round. Right now, you're facing down twenty active enemies - the same kind you ambushed on the tram. They're moving to take
    cover in the field of desks and artificer goods occupying the hundred feet between you and them; but your surprise round occurs before they get into any kind of cover, and they are loosely clustered. A grenade or similar blast into the area will catch 1d4+1 enemies.

    There are also eight technicians working on the machine, and one classic, furious scientist half-oblivious to the mortal danger.

    The enemy's initiative is 11. So give me an initiative roll in the OOC. If you beat or meet an 11, you can act twice, on account of preceding the enemy in initiative and them spending their first turn surprised.

    You begin this round in hard (+5) cover. After that, there's about 40ft of open space, and the best cover you can get from that point on is soft (+2), behind whatever desk/stack of steel elbow brackets/whatever you care to describe.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •