Sunday 30 October 2022

A Walk in the Light Green 9: Eliminate the threat

This Warfighter campaign uses the Warfighter Modern Australian pack as the player side and African Warlords packs 1 and 2 for the adversaries and missions. This is the ninth game in the campaign. Click here to read the previous game.

Well, this has taken long enough to write up. I played this game over a month ago, but have since had a lot of family stuff to sort out, so it has languished in note form until now. Hopefully, I shall get the next scenario played and written up over the next week or so, now that things are returning back to whatever passes for normal these days.

"Time to take it to the poachers, Gray. I'm chucking all the resources at you for this, so don't fuck it up."

Gray looked over the mission brief. He had drone support, an attack helicopter and the whole squad for this one. It was going to be a hefty hike into the brush, but he reckoned they would be alright as long as they could dodge the damn hippos that were everywhere out here. If the poachers had gone for hippos instead of elephants, he was sure that his team would not have been deployed here in the first place because everyone seemed heartily sick of the damn things.

Still, even with all that support, he could not afford to relax. The team moved out and quickly encountered hostiles in Tempey village near the base. A brief firefight ensued and the hostiles were neutralised. Moving on through a local goat farm to a village by the river and then on to a smaller village and some rural housing on the other side, the team worked slowly and methodically to elimate the poachers as they went. It was a job that required them to stay focused as they moved through the various built-up areas.

The open plains beyond the housing were dangerous, but the air support helped a lot and the team were able to keep moving despite Reid taking a bullet in the leg that slowed him down. Then they navigated their way through a maze of huts that was also the feeding grounds of a bunch of hippos. I mean, what kind of person would make their home where hippos roamed?

Then it was on to the parched and baked plains beyond. The heat took its toll, but Gray kept the team motivated and they were able to move out quickly as a unit to their objective: the poachers' main camp. The team moved in. A combination of drone strikes, air support and grenades soon neutralised the whole camp, and the team were able to return home quickly with the sense of satisfaction that a job well done gives.

This time it was Reid that got wounded, but not too seriously. The team retained initiative throughout the mission, which made it easier to avoid getting shot at, and I rolled well for the heat, so they were not slowed down too much by that. Reid's wound can be attributed to too many soldiers suffering from the heat on one turn, but other than that, it was all good.

There is one more mission in the campaign. I hope that Gray can keep his shit together long enough to finish that final mission and go home for some well-deserved R&R.

  • + 10 VPs = 54 VPs. This is currently a strategic victory. As long as Gray does not die next scenario, I reckon I can count this as won and the poachers driven out of the area.
  • + 10 Mission Points. With 2 left over from last time, Gray has 12 MPs to spend. I buy him Hydrated, which means he can spend XPs to retain Hardy tokens, representing his better management of his fluid intake. I justify it to myself by noting that he is almost at the end of a tour of duty in a hot environment and must have learnt something along the way. I also buy Zeroed, which improves his chances of hitting and killing hostiles. After all, he is now a highly experienced combat veteran.

Mission Adjustments:

  1. -1 Mission Time. I get one turn fewer in which to accomplish my goals again. That means the final mission will be 2 turns shorter.
  2. +2 Locations.
  3. +3 Skill Cost
  4. -2 Loadout