Fletcher looked at the map they had recovered from the bandits. It seemed that, with the bandits gone, every stalker of note had been to their area of operations to see what loot they could find. However, there was one potential stash that may still be viable, as it was in an unfashionable part of the yellow zone, that had a reputation for being overrun by hostiles. Not ideal, but they had been lucky with the previous two bandit stashes and this was their last chance. According to the map, the bandit stash was secured somewhere amongst the houses on the outskirts of the village of Troutbridge. If they could get in and quickly search the area they should hopefully be able to get home without too much hassle.
With Heslop having joined them, Fletcher's crew now numbered six men, meaning that they could search a large number of locations much more quickly than before. He just hoped that young Godber would keep his nerve and Heslop would live up to his reputation as a good man in a fight.
I ran this game at TL2 with an 8 turn duration. The team size had increased to 13K with the addition of Heslop.
Board Setup. There are 9 POIs (6 buildings, the van and trees in the foreground and the trees at the far side of the board).
The team immediately split into two. Fletcher sent Godber and Heslop ahead while he used his own actions to give McLaren, Bunny Warren and Lukewarm additional movement actions to be able to quickly investigate the van. McLaren inspected the van and quickly ascertained that it was gutted and completely overgrown (no salvage), but some hobgoblins were on the far side of the van (completely out of angle for any of the crew to fire).
McLaren still had an action in hand, plus a free action from his critical success rolling to inspect the van. He therefore ran around the van and threw a hand grenade at the hobgoblins. A direct hit and all failed their saves!
With no salvage at the van, McLaren did a bolt toss at the pile of packs under the trees. No hostiles emerged, so he sent Bunny to investigate the packs, while he and Lukewarm went to cross the river. In the following turn Bunny's Scrounger skill came into good use and he picked up some useful gear, including a Scope and a Chest Rig.
Meanwhile Fletcher investigated the first house over the bridge. An old zone witch popped her head out of the window and asked "got any ciggies son?". In exchange for a handful of Rothmans she said that there was a pack of feral dogs in the pub and that some bandits were waiting to ambush the stalkers amongst the trees on the other side of the road.
Warned over his walkie-talkie about the dogs in the pub, McLaren did a very noisy bolt toss (or in this case a brick toss through a window) to alert the dogs, which he subsequently heard barking inside the building. Going onto Alert, McLaren and Lukewarm waited for the dogs.
As expected the dogs poured out of the pub, to be met by a well thrown satchel charge from Lukewarm. Two of the dogs were killed, while one was pinned and another two remained unscathed, only to be disposed of by McLaren's SLR.
The following turn McLaren disposed of the pinned dog and took positions with Bunny opposite the pub's garage. Meanwhile Lukewarm entered the pub to see what he could salvage.
Fletcher decided to make the most of having the jump on the bandits, so his team took up firing positions in the house. The following turn they all opened up on the bandits. Godber hit two, but both were saved by their flak jackets (although one was pinned). Heslop's shotgun did good work on the two nearest the telephone box, killing one. The second was killed by a hail of shot from Heslop's second action. Fletcher used his SMG to engage the two bandits that had survived Godber's fire. Three hits (one of them critical) from hot load ammunition dealt with the bandits.
With his remaining actions, Fletcher crossed the road to search the bandit's car hidden beyond the trees.
Having directed Godber and Heslop to start making their way back, Fletcher looked for salvage but found only slim pickings in salvage and no useful gear.
The garage door was ajar, so McLaren couldn't see what was in it. With time running out, he decided that the best course of action was to kick the door open and rely on Bunny to cover him. As soon as he kicked the door he regretted it, being met with a foul stench. What was worse was that directly the other side of the door were two revenants that he would have to fight immediately. Fortunately they both missed, while his new machete decapitated one. With his next action McLaren needed to make his escape. Continuing his lucky streak, the revenant missed Mclaren and he was able to get to a safe enough distance to be able to hurl his satchel charge into the garage doorway.
The garage exploded spectacularly, but out of the dust two unscathed revenants appeared. Bunny opened fire with his shotgun but missed them.
With the garage destroyed and no chance of salvaging anything, McLaren and Bunny decided to abandon the surviving revenants and join the others in leaving the village. As they passed the pub Lukewarm joined them, clutching a good haul of salvage from the building, which included a load Load Bearing Harness.
Once again the team got to their exit point. All unscathed and with a reasonable haul of loot.
Epilogue:
Fletcher was pleased. Although the salvage haul wasn't as good as previous runs, Lukewarm's haul more than made up for the amount of explosives and ammunition the team had expended. They had also picked up some very useful gear.
The crew had worked well too. All of the original members were now old hands at this work and could be considered veterans of the Zone. Heslop had proved himself on his first zone run with the crew and even young Godber was starting to find his feet.
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December 19, 2017, 12:07:16 PM