Thanks for your patience everyone.
I have made a couple minor changes to the rules that came up in the current game. Instead of giving saving throws for passive defensive gear such as vests, I instead just increase the toughness of whoever is wearing them. Saving throws are saved for more advanced defenses.
New Campaign, Week six - Ambushed
Notes from a Stalker's diary
We decided to swing north of the twin cabins instead of going straight towards them, and try to cross the path of the mobile anomaly. Then we would simply follow the trail to see were it led. Hopefully it would lead us directly to the rest of the artifacts. We felt prepared, Dalila and I had the corp armour, Max had the vest and Dalila, Artur and I each had 1 med kit (the friendly Doc had left 2 new ones with us when he checked out King). Everyone had their favourite weapons, except the Kid. We still hadn't had time to fix his. We were also carrying plenty of food and water so we were in no rush.
We spent the morning moving at a steady pace, along an old walking trail without any problems. In fact Artur commended that it seemed unusually quiet.
At about noon we came upon a old shack with a pile of crates out front. They'd been out in the rain for some time and looked completely wrecked, anything they contained was long ago ruined. But I was thinking of calling a rest and this was as good a place as any.
King and Max starting searching the crates and I was wondering what might be in the shack when Artur suddenly shouted "Movement" and jumped over the fence towards cover. I never realized just how fast he could move. I looked where he had pointed.
They were deployed in the rocks and looked like Enforcers. That was bad. Usually this meant government involvement but corp interests used them as well. Dalila and I exchanged nods. Perhaps we'd finally find out just who was after us. If Artur hadn't spotted them we'd have walked right into their trap. They opened fire.
We scattered and grabbed whatever cover we could. Max ran towards some thick bushes in an attempt to get closer with his shotgun. We fired back but without hitting any of them.
They began to advance but one of them didn't realize that Artur had moved up and flanked them. Artur fired, staggering him but he remained upright. They were wearing vests.
Artur continued to move up in an attempt to get a better shot.
And he found one. He fired. The Enforcer went down. The rest spread out and advanced towards Max.
Their fire kept Max pinned down but they made the mistake of only focusing on him. Dalila nailed a second one. Artur shouted "watch out, more of them". I looked and thought - Oh! It figures.
The mystery was solved. We didn't have two rival groups hunting us, we had THREE. They must have been chasing us since we met at the inspection station. This must be their idea of payback. Only, who was paying them? Not the government surely?
While we were distracted, the Kid was hit and went down. I quickly used my med kit to patch him up.
Max took this opportunity to step out from behind the bush and gave one of the Enforcers both barrels. He went down hard. At this point the lieutenant retreated from the field. (a mistake on my part, lieutenants are immune to panic tests - I should have retreated the shotgun armed man instead).
The other Enforcer, the only one with a shotgun, also stepped out and quickly fired. But he had rushed his shot, and in spite of the close range, completely missed Max. Now it was a race to see who could reload quickest.
A race that Max won.
Agents Grey and Black advanced, and catching Artur out of position, easily took him down. Dalila's return fire struck the lead agent twice, staggering him. Dalila was becoming quite a marksman. However the agent didn't go down, he was amazingly tough.
They stopped advancing and checked out the odds against them.
The rest of us were sweeping around to flank them and would soon be in range.
They took a final shot at Dalila, hitting her dead center, but her armour protected her. Then they turned and melted back into the trees and rocks.
After they had gone, Dalila limped over to Artur and applied our second to last med kit. It would be nice to just visit the local black market and stock up on these things, but they are reserved for official usage only and very hard to find.
We decided to call it a day.
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December 06, 2023, 08:42:08 PM
February 20, 2014, 03:28:05 PM
