We managed to get the first section of the three part scenario played on the 11th as planned & it all went pretty well. This is intended as an introduction to the cast of characters & had a 'fewer library use rolls & more unreasoning violence' approach than our standard CoC games. We justified this with the reasoning that it was set for serving soldiers during wartime where wandering off for a bit of research would've amounted to going AWOL.
This first episode brings the characters, a group of skilled British trench raiders performing what they assume is a standard bit of reconnaisance: it's early November & the war is (unknown to them) all but over - here's the intro handout for the PC's giving the state of play at the scenario's beginning:
"SUMMARY
It’s November 1918 and the tide of the German’s most recent (and last as it turns out) offensive, OPERATION MICHEAL has receded, with a demoralised German army retreating in disorder. The influx of fresh troops, in the form of a million Americans, coupled with more effective allied tactics and the continued hardships experienced by the German civilian population has effectively broken German resistance across the Western Front. Allied forces are now advancing across all areas of the front, in the teeth of terrible weather, cold and heavy rain making life more than usually miserable.
After the town of Courtrai was taken, it would be necessary to secure crossing points for the nearby Schelde river, just beyond the town of Audenarde some 15 miles to the east of Courtrai – conducting reconnaissance in the area surrounding the villages of Eyne and Eename would be essential to secure the advance.
Our protagonists, part of the 30th Division of the X Corps under Lt. General Reginald Stephens (part of General Herbert Plumer's 2nd Army) are a squad who’ve carved a niche as trench raiders. They’re soldiers whose bravery, suicidal insanity or terrible luck (depending on whom you ask), has found them always at the forefront of the conflict, reconnoitring enemy positions and, when required, mounting small scale assaults in order to gather intelligence, including the capture of prisoners where possible. "
Of course this being CoC, nothing is that simple & as our plucky protagonists discover, necromancy means never having to say goodbye...