Zona Alfa - Winter Campaign - Part 2

The team have secured the ship just in the nick of time...

Mission 2: Hold the Ship Against Counter-Attack

Narrative:  "The sound of gunshots echoes off the hard steel surface of the ship, fading to a deathly silence.

Alphonse pulls out the radio and dials in the frequency he has been given. He notifies the voice on the other end that the ships is clear. He stashes the radio and informs the others, "There's a team inbound."

Back from the shoreline the low murmuring of the undead reach the silent vessel. Obviously their little battle had awoken them from their stupor.

A bullet spangs off the gunwale next to Bob, "F&(# you!" he spits, spinning and raising his weapon. Back in the tree line they see bandits manoeuvring toward the ship."

Specs:  The mission objective is to hold the ship for 8 turns, stopping hostiles from boarding the ship. If 4 or more hostiles make it on board the mission is lost. Hostiles generate at the start of every turn along the backline (start positions rolled at random) and are either bandits (4) or zombies (4) only.

Starting on the back deck the team rushes to find decent positions to defend from [there are surprisingly few]. Bob scurries up into the superstructure though there are few places with both cover and good line of sight. Alphonse and Charles head down to the dock hoping to control the area in front of the ship rather than allowing the hostiles to get too close too soon.

Bandits scoot down the top edge of the map and Charles sneaks around the heavy vegetation to engage them (successfully). Bob takes care of the zombies lumbering forward from his high vantage point. 

About halfway into the game Alphonse gets into a melee, and while he has a pistol in a knife fight, the bandit has two machetes. He collects two wounds and collapses.

Charles manages to move toward him hoping to medkit him back into the fight but there are now multiple groups getting closer and closer to the ship. Even if Alphonse was back on his feet he'd be susceptible to immediate attacks and unable to do anything about it.

With a sizable portion of activations unavailable Bob and Charles retreat back onto the ship and concentrate their attacks at the entrance to the dock. 

In the distance they hear the sound of a fast moving boat approaching, reinforcements! For them!!

At the start end of turn 8 there are some zombies and bandits starting to wander across the dock, but the team has held out for a win.

I decided to play out one more turn [just too see what would happen, as is sometimes fun] and a grenade took out some of the hostiles on the dock and Charles had a blinder taking out the rest with multiple bonus crit rolls. If only they'd managed that a little earlier in the game (but then again the hostiles weren't all bunched up like they were along the dock).

A special forces zodiac bumps against the ship and several operators stream on board taking up defensive positions and confirming that the ship is clear.

Bob and Charles quickly go in search of Alphonse, finding him unconscious in a muddy pool.

As he finished the mission with 2 wounds I rolled twice on the battlefield scars table - 1 and 3 - both flesh wounds, and extremely lucky.

The special forces lieutenant acknowledge the team's effort and suggest they pop into the base for a reward when next they're in the area. In the mean time they bring forward a soaked looking stalker who they'd fished out of the water along the way - perhaps he can be of use to you they suggest.

"Ok, we'll take it from here," the lieutenant say, aka 'get the f%(# of my ship.'

Between their own battle and the special forces gunning down any straggles wandering into the area the immediate zone looks relatively clear. The team jumps down onto the dock.

- - -

Mowing down incoming hostiles doesn't make for a particularly fun mission, but it's ok to mix things up I guess. Although it sounds fairly easy if you lose a body and 1/3 of your activations for multiple turns things can swing against you quickly and dramatically. There was 'enough' cover on the board to give hostiles some chance of getting closer but the dock really was a danger zone for anyone on there, with little to no cover.

Overall it was a successful game, in so far as it continued the story even if it wasn't super exhilarating to play. It could have been harder, adding more hostiles per turn but I think i.e. double the incoming hostiles would have swamped the team pretty quickly.

I do have a table somewhere that could have added at random 1 or 2 from multiple locations. It's an options for next time.

As it was, I forgot about the hostiles that arrived in turn 8 entirely [to be fair I don't think they would have got close enough to have much of an effect on the result] and would have forgotten the turn 5 group except someone drew my attention to them. Whoops - all part of the random.

Until next time...