Crates: Discovery; All things Zombie; Batrep; AAR

Prologue

Hamilton Square and Conway park have left the cordon line and ventured down into Donkey Drive. Their mission is to locate some of the crates that were shed a passing train, information gleaned from Jim Bob Joe (Domestic Dispute) before his sectioning. Squatting in number 31 until daylight the two agents venture into the backwoods of Purgatory Shanty Town. Three PEF's created Rep I in zones 1 & 3. Rep 4; zone 6.




Field of Play; from the left flank



Turn One (4-2)

"Got a plan Hamilton?"
"Yes. We'll check out the still first, Jim Bob Joe may have left something there. Then straight into the bush, find those damn crates. Seize the manifest and get the hell out of here."
"Simple and effective," said Conway Park, with a grin as he headed for the still complex.
"Christ!" he exploded as a figure burst from behind the apparatus, a revolver in hand.
Hamilton, swung up his Mauser and loosed a double tap. The threat dropped.
Conway made his way over to the body and retrieved the pistol, "some gangster's moll, Hamilton."
"Conway, shape up man! Not being alert is the quickest way to the grave in this game."
Conway, realising his error, nodded in acknowledgement, "yes Major."
Conway pulled a small flask from the woman's bag and sniffed the contents. All was not lost he thought as he pocketed the spirit.

Surprise!



One Dead Gangster's Moll

I chose to treat any base as a room for an R&R card. Revealed one ganger and a food token.

Turn Two (1-3)

Something is moving in the bushes

Hamilton and Conway push their way through the underbrush. Suddenly, Hamilton stops, raises his cane above his head and squats. Conway Park does likewise. Indicating to the bushes Hamilton and Conway  strain to hear any sound of danger.

PEF's only pass 1d6 and all move towards the nearest PEF which is in zone 2.


Turn 3 (1-6)

Bush noises.

Warily Hamilton crept forward, automatic at the read, wishing that he'd attached the stock to the broom-handle of his weapon. Conway gently pulled back the slide on his Thompson.

No move for the players but the PEF's get 6/6;2/2;1/3. The Rep 4 moves towards the humans and finishes behind the large bush to their front.

Turn Four (4-4)(4-3)

Sweat dripped from Conway's brow as he watched his comrade move carefully towards the sound. As if with a mind of its own the cocking mechanism slipped from his grip and loosed a round into the bush.
"What the hell man!" hissed Hamilton to his companion but had no more time as a figure burst from the underbrush. Hamilton put pay to the assault with a 9mm parabellum bullet to the chest.

Arggggghhh

'Sorted'

"Christ Conway. Are you OK?"
"Yes, Hamilton, I'm sorry. I'm having one of those days."
"One of those days. We can't afford 'one of those days'. Listen if you're not up to it get back to the cabin and I'll pick you up on the way back.
"No Hamilton, it won't happen again."
"See it doesn't."

The double 4 created a random event, the firing at shadows. the rep 4 PEF resolved to be an unarmed but hostile civilian. HS had no bother passing 2d6 'in sight' and putting him down with one shot. The other two PEFs did not move. Zero zeds.

Turn 5 (1-3)

Hamilton used the end of his cane to move away the ground detritus as Conway checked the body. Broken earth and snapped twigs revealed a small track.
"We'll go this way, they don't like difficult terrain so we may be on to something."
Conway rose from his corporal inspection and followed Square.
Peering hard into the bush Conway thought he spied something. Clicking his fingers he brought Hamilton to a halt, his colleague turned and faced him. Conway placed his free hand to his face, index and second fingers to his eyes. He extended them into the brush. Straining hard both men could make the outline of discarded crates. Hamilton raised his thumb and the two agents made their way towards the goal.

On the Forest Trail

Conway had not been to good so far. I therefore gave him a trial and see if he could see the crates hidden in the bush. He passed 2d6 and located them. Partially making up for his previous faux pas'. The PEF's passed 1d6 and moved into the same zone. Menacingly behind the crates to which our heros' are headed.

Turn Six (1-4)

Entering the small clearing Hamilton and Conway spied the reason for their mission. Two large black crates, identical to those they had encounter on Pier 13, rested at the far end of the gap. Weapons at the ready the men moved into the clearing.
"OK boys, you've gone far enough," a voice sounded from behind the crates.
Hamilton and Conway lowered their weapons.
"We mean you no harm, we're just interested in these crates," Hamilton hailed.
"So are we," the voice morphed into five men clambering over and around the giant crates.
Hamilton cast a wary eye over them, the two in front of him had an air of confidence that the sub-machine gun gripped in the left hand person's arms gave them. The other three were armed with baseball bats and were far less sure of themselves.
"Gentlemen," started Hamilton, "we're just interested in the paperwork. My colleague and I are from the insurance company and have no interested in what has happened to the contents," he lied.
"Just the paperwork?" asked the 'Tommygun' man.
Hamilton nodded.
"OK, you got five minutes and we'll be back. Anything gone and we'll hunt you down before you make it to Jim Bob Joe's place."
"Obliged," said Hamilton as the men backed away into the forest.

Confrontation.

I struggled with this bit. The PEF's were resolved as two gangers and three civilians. I went a bit awry here. The various rolls showed up that they engage in chit-chat and do as requested by HS. I was expecting a draw down. But then again I treated all five as one group and I think I should have treated them as being individual groups and therefore provide more tension.



They disappear into the forest as Conway is surprised.



Turn Seven (3-2)

"Check out that crate will you Conway?" asked Hamilton as he made his way to the left hand box.

Finding his box open Hamilton threw open the lid and stepped back, the box was empty apart from a document pouch. Snatching the bag Hamilton searched through the paperwork and let out a shout of glee as he located the manifest and recipient information.

Only paying half attention to his task, Conway swung open  the lid of his crate, now on its side. He staggered back as the odour of rotting flesh assailed his nostrils. A scream tore from the box and a dark haired zed burst from the containers darkness and fell upon the black agent.

Conway snapped up his Thompson and squeezed the trigger, a cold ball of fear hit the base of his stomach as the firing pin jambed. He staggered back under the impact of the creatures blow. He swung the useless weapon at the beast forcing her from him, he followed up with a strike to the head with the wooden butt.

The undead sidestepped the blow and clawed at the black agent's legs.

Conway gasped as he felt the flesh from his thigh shred.

Hamilton swung on the balls of his feet and tried to draw a bead on his friend's assailant.

Conway ducked from the snapping jaws and meet a knee on its way up. The lights went out in Park's world.

Hamilton squeezed the trigger and the Bolo Mauser did its job.

A Zed

The fight goes on!

Conway Goes OOF

Each character was given a task. HS passed 2d6 and found what he was looking for. CP passed id6 and got a Risk & Reward Card (revealing 1 zed. A 2d6 failure would have resulted in a 1d6(-1) zed assault. Passing his insight test he snap fires but throws 3 x 1's. Out of ammo. The melee continued; 2254/1124:16/246;1/3;2/5. CP out of fight, HS has no problem dispatching the zed.

Turn Eight (2-6)

Hamilton ran to his colleague. Dropping to his knees he checked out Conway. Unconscious but alive. The laceration of his thigh looked serious. Hamilton knew the dangers of such a wound, he ripped the cloth from Conway's thigh and pulling the flask of moonshine from his friend's jacket pocket he said to the unconscious man, "thought I didn't see that hey old man?"
Conway groaned.
Hamilton grabbed a stick and pushed it, crosswise, into Conway's mouth, "brace yourself." He poured the illegal hooch onto the wound. He struck a Lucifer and dropped it into Conway's leg, the alcohol flared, Conway woke but thankfully passed straight out again. Hamilton extinguished the flames.
"I hope you'll be OK matey. Come on lets get you back."
Hamilton hefted his colleague in a 'firemans' lift' and started back to the cordon at the other end of Purgatory.

I gave HS a chance to save his pal with a Rep roll. Scoring 2d6 give + 2 on 'Harry you OK' ;1d6 +1; 0d6 no benefit. HS rolled a 1d6 pass. Now all that was left was his HYO roll. a 4! 4 + Rep 4 + 1=9. CP survives. I'm pleased as I like the character. I won't field him for a while as he needs to recover and I'll drop him a Rep point.

Epilogue

Conway survives. Hamilton has his evidence and that will lead him into the 'Giving up the Goat' scenario and hopefully link the Haven police tales to the military scenarios. 'Riot' next as this was just an inter-rimmer episode.


Thoughts
A game that lends itself to the whole idea of THW. It took 2 hours. Great! The table needs enlarging, it's a story in itself. But as a put together tale I liked it. I need to get a grip of the PEF resolution, I was not happy with the way things turned out. Other then that I enjoyed the expedition.

Thanks for all your blogs on 'Salute' I enjoyed them immensely. I'll finish off the Buddha statue project this week and get stuck into the Haven scenarios again.

Take care out there.