The eldritch glow of purple fires streaming up and down the tower at Outfield Mound was not the worst part of this patrol. Nor was it slogging up the hill towards the tower. No. The worst part was not knowing what kind of twisted, reality-warping shit they would find at the top. Tiger Troop were all grim-faced as the bears they were riding slogged up the hill in the dawn light and the early morning rain. The night before, Pan had briefed them. Friendly locals had asked for their help in eliminating a key inhabitant of the tower and retrieving items of value that had been stolen. The L.T. had added a requirement to investigate the area too and had got Deadeye Vigrestad on standby to support them. Deadeye was the platoon's best sniper. However, while A Team and Pan were going to make the assault, B Team would be patrolling the other side of the hill to distract the occupants. Clearly, there were some serious bad guys here and the platoon probably did not have the resources to take them all out in one go, hence the diversion. Still, they had bears to ride to the ops zone. It made a nice change not walking in through the mud and had caused some hilarity when Mary fell off her bear several times. Private Smith was clearly not someone well suited to riding.
Pan and A Team dismounted near the base of the hill, and moved into the forest. Despite the near constant rain, the forest floor was not too muddy.
They pushed forward hard until they could see the outer buildings around the tower. A large wooden hall dominated a rise, and a fountain sprayed lilac energy, not water. The rest of the ops area was covered in brush and trees, undulating ground and large boulders. Ahead they could make out the hostiles.
"Sarge," Wigbert queried, "Are we in a Sinbad movie?"
"What are you talking about Wigbert?"
"Well, those hostiles ahead look like skeletons!"
Pan cursed the vagaries of whatever quantum state had landed them here. Yes, dammit, they were skeletons, but her team would have to destroy them and finish their patrol.
 |
| A Team at bottom right of the picture. Hostiles at middle and top. |
Pan wondered when her internal monologue had become male.
Pushing forward, A Team began the process of fire and manoeuvre that they had practised and used for so long. As they launched grenades and bullets at the hostiles, several of them disintegrated in clouds of dry bone and a zap of lilac energy. However, many more seemed to just soak up the bullets.
"Sarge, how are we supposed to kill these hostiles if a double tap to the heart just passes through them?"
"Just shoot them more and hit the bits that are there," snarled Pan.
A Team did as instructed and the closest mob of undead was soon reduced to just a few individuals. However, two more mobs were shambling forward to the fray.
Suddenly, Pan had an intuition. She called on the voice in her head. Even as she stood up and pointed, a blast of ice erupted from the ground near one of the groups of skeletons. Brittle, dry bones shattered in the eruption of energy. Pan heard curses of wonder over comms as the others realised what she had done. Despite the astounding happenings, they still continued to reduce the skeletons to powder.
With only a few of the undead remaining, A Team prepared to move out onto the objective. Suddenly, there were crackles of lilac energy all across the battlefield and the remaining skeletons collapsed to the ground. A Team breathed a sigh of relief, only to be horrified as even more of the skeletons appeared ahead of them.
"Move out!" ordered Pan, "We can take the objectives and get back out, if we are quick. Those things are not exactly fast."
She checked the two groups.
"Wigbert, Tarquin, the main target is with the group advancing towards you. Take it out!"
Wigbert took up position by the large hall as Tarquin dropped a grenade onto the advancing horde. It still kept coming, but there were half as many of them remaining.
Pan blasted the other advancing horde with more ice and it too disintegrated. As Wigbert and Tarquin tried to take out the skeletons coming towards them, the others were able to disintegrate the remains of the other horde, and Justice was able to scout the area as ordered and to advance to the hall, where she recovered the pig that they had been sent for. Mack the Hoe had said it was a golden pig, but it just looked grubby brown and hairy to Justice. Still, it did not seem to mind being stuffed into her pack for the ride home and grunted happily in her ear.
As the last of the skeletons charged towards Wigbert, he fumbled his reload. Tarquin was also slow. The skeletons reached him and Wigbert was knocked out of the fight in the furious melee. Seeing what had happened, Mary pointed her TSW at the group of three undead and scythed them down in a furious rain of copper-jacketed lead that emptied her magazine.
"Target down." Mary's unsmiling voice reported the result over comms.
"Very good. All objectives complete. Grab Wigbert and pull back."
Even as Pan gave the order, the L.T came onto comms.
"We have a new target registered. See if you can take it out, but not assess the risk first."
Pan acknowledged the order and told her team to pull back. Whatever the L.T. said, she could see no targets anywhere near her and she was going to get her team out of here. They pulled back in good order and were soon riding their bears home again.
Wigbert had a headache, having taken a bad dunt to the head, but his environment suit had saved him from a worse injury. Having ascertained Wigbert's survival, Pan was free to go for debrief and to report the success of the mission. Mack was so pleased with getting his pig back that he gave Pan a magical hammer.
Conclusion
This was my first special mission and I was not sure how it would work out, because you generate three objectives and have to complete two to win. As usual, the dice set up the story nicely, so there was that. They also decided to play silly beggars. I cannot recall rolling so many 1s in a row before... ever! Good job quantity has a quality all of its own. The sheer number of dice I rolled really helped there.
As usual, I did myself no favours by forgetting that I had support until half way through the game. Never mind. Maybe I shall remember next time. Overall, this mission was a stonking success, even though I was not able to achieve the extra objective due to a lack of enemies on the table. They arrived just as the game ended.
This was the first game where I have used magic. It worked nicely, but costs you the initiative, so Pan will need the rest of her troop to ward her if she is going to use it a lot in the future.
