0830 13 AUG 2000, Dobrodzień, Poland
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"The scene was a mess A lot of lead had been exchanged and some of the Soviets had come out on the wrong side of the exchange. I am sure this was not what they used to mean when they spoke about 'blood & guts'. It has become the meaning now. The war is still going on, even in our heads.
One soul made it through though. Macron beaned him with a rifle butt and he was bleedin' a bit but Logan says he will make it. Now what to do with him, that was the big question."
Time to police up the brass and give the remains of the convoy the once over. The haul looks like:
- Class I - Rations
- 2x Field Rations
- 2x Bags of Grain
- 1x Ration of Grain
- 6x Ration of Water
- Class II - Clothing And Equipment
- 1x FN FAL (Reliability F) with 1 Magazine (7.62x51mm N)
- 1x AK 4 (Reliability C) with 2 Magazines (7.62x51mmN )
- 1x FN-FNC (Reliability A) with 2 Magazines (5.56x45mm N)
- 1x M16A1 (Reliability: A ) with 1 Magazine (5.56x45mm N)
- 1x PM-84 (Reliability: B) with 1 Magazine (9x18mm M)
- 1x UZI (Reliability D) with 1 Magazine (9x19mm P)
- 1x Colt Police Positive (Reliability D) with 12 individual rounds .38 Special
- 1 Zip Gun (Reliability C) with 2 rounds of 9x19mm P
- 2x Spiked Bat
- 2x Club
- 1x Knife
- 1x White Phosphorous Grenade
- 1x Antitank Grenade
- 1x Flashlight
- 1x Plate Vest
- 1x Flak Jacket
- 1x Fatigues
- 1x Small Tent
- Class III - POL - Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants (POL) (package and bulk)
- 307l of alcohol fuel in two bulk tanks in two wagons
- Class IV - Construction materials
- --
- Class V - Ammunition of all types
- 9 Cases of 5.45mm B (5.45x39mm) with 280 rounds per case
- 6 Cases of 9mm M (9x18mm Makarov) with 1500 rounds per case
- Class VI - Personal demand items
- 1x Small Battery
- Class VII - Major end items
- 1x FGM-148 Javelin (Reliability: A) with 2 Missiles
- 1x KSP 58B (Reliability: F ) with two belts of ammunition (7.62x51mm N)
- 3x Wagons (Reliability: F )
- 11x Horses
- 5x Riding Saddles
- 1x Radiacmeter
- 1x Chemical Agent Detector
- Class VIII - Medical material
- 1x Personal Medkit
- Class IX - Repair parts
- --
- Class X - Material to support nonmilitary programs
- --
I know a lot will start screaming that that is just too much loot. My reasoning is this: these guys are transporting something through post-apocalyptic war torn Poland so there has to be something valuable, otherwise why risk the troops? They are going to be well armed, like the characters and the means a lot is going to be found on the KIA and POWs. It is not enough to throw the game out of tilt but it does at least give the players a good feeling for once. Now that they have it, they are going to need to consider what to do with it. It a lot of material to be transported. If they try to take it all, they will certainly fail. Alone the attempt to move that many horses will quickly bring major logistical problems. They simply do not have enough feed.
The easiest solution would be to contact the cav troopers and have someone come out to recover the material. This will involve some time, however, and we can assume that the items not kept by the characters will quickly disappear into the nothingness that are the quartermasters supply rooms. A lot of things go in but the bare minimum seems to come back out. On the positive side, they usually have what you need when you REALLY need it.
The second possibility would be to cache the materials they want to keep for later, hoping to return with a larger vehicle. This would allow the characters to maintain more equipment under their direct control but also opens up the possibility that the cache will have been found by someone else and looted. This is more of the "nice to have" solution and should probably not be used for material that the team is dependent on.
The group will probably keep some for themselves, cache a bit for later and turn over the rest to the cav. On the keep list are:
- 2x Field Rations
- 2x Bags of Grain
- 1x Ration of Grain
- 6x Ration of Water
- 1x M16A1 (Reliability: A ) with 1 Magazine (5.56x45mm N)
- 1x FGM-148 Javelin (Reliability: A) with 2 Missiles
- 1x KSP 58B (Reliability: F ) with two belts of ammunition (7.62x51mm N)
This is enough to effectively help the team on their current mission and giving up the food or the Javelin is something no one would want to do in this situation. You never know where your next meal is coming from. Keeping the M16 is a good idea because it is compatible with most of the weapons the teams has and it is in very good condition. Keeping the KSP 58B makes sense because they can use it for parts to repair their L7s and the ammunition is compatible with Griff's M40.
They will cache the following material:
- 2 Cases of 5.45mm B (5.45x39mm) with 280 rounds per case
- 1 Case of 9mm M (9x18mm Makarov) with 1500 rounds per case
- 1x Small Tent
These are things that may be useful but their loss won't severely impact the group. The rest can be picked up by the cav troopers, as Klasha has a radio. They team will need to secure the sight until then, which will take the rest of the shift.
Now comes the matter of the POW. The team captured a trooper. Here are his stats:
Soldier ID: #1-2
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Template: Soldier
Faction: Soviet
STR: B (D10)
Close Combat: C (D8)
AGL: B (D10)
Driving: C (D8)
Ranged Combat: C (D8)
INT: C (D8)
Recon: C (D8)
EMP: C (D8)
Hit Capacity: 5 (Currently 3)
Macron and him had a brief scuffle, but that is the duty of soldiers. Nothing personal. We can make a full-fledged NPC out of him with a few additions. First of all, a name. A random generator (https://blog.reedsy.com/character-name-generator/language/russian/) can help us here. We will call him Iov Pushkin. I usually see the second NPC in a group to be an NCO, so we can just roll randomly (using the table from the v2.2 rules, roll randomly 1-5) and determine his rank to be Serzhant.
Another missing from the v4 rules is the NPC motivations. I have come to love the system and use it for both my T2K games and Traveller: TNE. This adds depth to an NPC and allow referees to better understand what the goals are of an NPC and how they will react.
Drawing two cards randomly (from https://www.random.org/playing-cards/), we get the five of Hearts and the seven of diamonds. Ioy's primary motivation is "Moderately sociable" and his secondary is "Moderately greedy". The definitions of both are:
- A "moderately sociable" NPC will have a strong sense of duty and loyalty to the group he belongs to.
- A "moderately greedy" NPC will probably only accept gold or will strike vary hard bargains in barter. This sort of character is very easy to bribe.
So, Ioy is loyal to the group that he is with but he is also in it for the money. Good to know. Now, for his culminated stats:
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Template: Soldier
Faction: Soviet
Primary Motivation: Moderately sociable - A "moderately sociable" NPC will have a strong sense of duty and loyalty to the group he belongs to.
Secondary Motivation: Moderately greedy - A "moderately greedy" NPC will probably only accept gold or will strike vary hard bargains in barter. This sort of character is very easy to bribe.
STR: B (D10)
Close Combat: C (D8)
AGL: B (D10)
Driving: C (D8)
Ranged Combat: C (D8)
INT: C (D8)
Recon: C (D8)
EMP: C (D8)
Hit Capacity: 5 (Currently 3)
This could be an interesting NPC. We will keep him around. A little back story would help. To add to the backstory, I will do to things. I will generate one Life Event using the Solo solitaire rules and an action and a subject from the Game Master Emulator random event table. Both will be combined to add a back story for Ioy.
The life event for Ioy is "Got married. Today you are (1-2) divorced, (3-4) widowed or (5-6) still happy!". Another roll helps us determine that Ioy is divorced. From the GME, we have the action "46. Develop" and the subject "66. Fears".
Now, for the back story:
Ioy found the small farming community he grew up in to be, in the best of times, to be oppressive. The best of times, however, were very infrequent. The only bright spot in the dismal life he was born into was Veronika Vinogradova. Both had been close their entire life. Ioy wanted that relationship to continue and dropped to a knee on his last day of school, hoping desperately that she would say yes. She did and both were wed quickly.
The honeymoon was cut short when Ioy was pulled into his compulsory military service and he was carted off to East Germany. There he served as a quartermaster and came to love making the numbers add up. The service also gave him ample opportunity to learn how the real deals are made in the background and both he and Veronika lived a comfortable life. Ioy stayed in the army after his mandatory service and rose slowly through the ranks, eventually becoming an NCO.
When the war came Veronika went. She told Ioy she could not live alone, dreaming every night of him dying on some nameless battlefield and spending her days looking out the window, longing for his return. Her solution was to divorce Ioy and return to that gray farming community. Ioy had no choice but to let her go but recently he has begun to have nightmares about her, dreaming of all the things that this terrible world may have visited upon her. The dreams grow stronger every night and sometime haunt his waking thoughts.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Serzhant Iov Pushkin.
