Zona Alfa - Winter Campaign - Part 1

So I'm away in Canberra again for a week or two, or three, who knows.

I decided to bring down my full ZA terrain box rather than naff around with the paper terrain.

I also had in mind that I could run an extended narrative (solo) campaign reusing the maps, one mission leads to the next etc. All for fun, all for the story as it unfolds.

Yesterday I set up a couple of sheets of 6mm mdf as a solid base (3'x4') and laid out the first map.

Mission 1: Clear the Ship of Bandits

Narrative:  "The military misplaced one of their ships during the chaos of the last couple of years in the zone. Your team discovered the location of the ship and observe that some bandits had been using it as a camp. You radio the military advising them of the location and they respond that they will be there 'soon'. In the meantime they have suggested that if you want to clear the ship then there might be a bonus in it for you."

Specs:  The team infils at the APC. There are 4 optional hotspots of the map. The mission objective is to trigger and clear Mission Objective points on the ship's bridge and on the ship's back deck. There are 9 turns (5+d5), and at the end of turn 6 onward additional bandits may spawn at MO1 or MO2 (with an increasing likelihood per turn).

The map is largely trees, swamp with very few buildings and structures; only the ship and the little resupply depo.

This is the roster. Just a 3 person team, all veterans with reasonable abilities and weapon loadouts, but without an extras like kevlar armour or packs or whatnot. 

The team sets off.

The team decides straight away that the hotspots are going to have to be bypassed in order to be able to secure the ship within the time limit. The threat of extra bandits popping out on the ship is reasonable significant.

The team skirts along the bottom edge of the board triggering an unavoidable hotspot in the swamp near the dock. Rats, which are dispatched without bother. 

The bridge is inspected then triggered with a bolt throw, and 4 bandits pop out [the hostile type on the ships is limited to just bandits for narrative purposes]. The bandits scatter and (using my AI chart) generally are hidden from sight, taking away the team's ability to immediately overwatch them.

There is a bit of a battle during which Bob the marksman takes a hit, but the other bandits are eliminated. Alphonse (bone doc) patches Bob up, bringing him back into the action while Charles boots up and secures MO1. 

Turn 6 ticks over and and I immediately roll a 1... bonus hostiles appear at MO2... eeeek.

We battle back and forth, including fumbling a grenade horribly at some stage (not only did it miss, but it scattered back onto Charles who threw it - thank goodness for successful armour saves!) but Charles takes on the majority of the bandits head on, rolling multiple crits (no, not cascading the results, which would be incorrect, but on multiple actions spent). Alphonse gets into the fray as well but takes a bullet from somewhere during the last turn (fortunately being leader he has 2 wounds).

[The team made a lot of successful armour saves, notably so.]

Bob, now recovered from his wound, rushes onto the ship using his hustle ability to get the extra 2" he needs to get to MO2, and uses the very last action of turn 9 to secure the objective.

I had thought that he was just shy of the location but remembered (thankfully) that he had hustle. Mission successful... just.

- - -

And that was that. If it hadn't been successful I might have started the next mission with a band of hostiles emerging from the ship or something.

There was precious little salvaging done, but the main Mission Objectives were in an opposite direction, so to speak.

Given their success I'll give Alphonse his wound back and they can start afresh.

I've already plotted out next mission, actually the next couple:

Mission 2: hold the ship against a counter attack.

Mission 3: get back to the apc, do a bit of exploring.

I will be reusing the map.

Until next time...