Warfighter: Into the Frying Pan

Castle Frankenstein Mission 2

Sgt Charlie McD listened as the mission brief droned on. The documents he’d retrieved with the Maquis’ help had been decoded and translated. Jerry had been working on some strange crap in the Fortress. Something called the Thule Society were the main honchos behind Jerry’s activity.

Some tightly wound OSS Major was ordering us out on another raid. At least this time he’d have some Joes with him for support. Of course the resistance dame Rika wanted back in too. Her country I guess...

Charlie’s attention drifted to the new tin man suit he was getting for the mission. Supposedly even better than his last one. He hoped it burned less fuel! He feared being busted back to Private if he lost this one.

Charlie’s attention snapped back when he heard the Major yell “Move your ass! NOW!”

The Brass was not happy that we failed to clear out the Fortress, and ordered us back in to complete the job.

We made our way to the jump off point. No surprise to us, Jerry had funneled in reinforcements. Elite bastards too. Getting off the dime was a tough row.

Charlie tested out his new rocket launcher. A nice touch, but a tad underwhelming too. He’d hoped for a bigger blast zone than it packed.

Charlie and Rika used their prior experiences to hold of the enemy while the newbies began pushing deeper into the complex.

A stray round punched a hole in a drum above Pvt Scott. Whatever the hell was in there poured on Scott. Terror gripped the newcomers as the skin melted from his face. Fortunately death quickly claimed him (failed Chemical roll)(hmmm 1 health troopers may have been a poor choice).

Charlie used his braced MG to wear down the enemy. Progress is slow.

Charlie’s firepower was making him the target of choice. It was all that permitted the squad to make any progress. It’s cost was that Jerry had effectively cornered the main threat to the jump off point. 

He used his rockets to prevent harassing forces and an enemy machine guns from pressuring the clock.

Rika used her lone grenade on a rifle team. The forward element lacked sufficient firepower to make consistent progress towards the objective. This accelerated the clock countdown. 

A wrong turn saw Rika lead the team into a laboratory. Loaded with bad men. Very bad men. A savage burst hit Pvt G Orwell. 2 wounds and he went down. (Even a 3 wound Squad soldier couldn’t make it in Frankenstein’s Fortress)

With time against them, Rika began to fallback towards Firebase Charlie. Sapphire took a burst on her way out. She was able to lash out with 3 EKIAs before succumbing to her wounds. ( her Sacrifice  skill was the biggest contribution made during the mission).

With only one turn remaining, Charlie and Rika exited the mission. Major Fail.

AAR
Charlie and the Mech gobble up a ton of the available RPs. Trying to mix in some Maquis for flavor and shifting to all Elite Hostiles was too much. This team really had no chance at succeeding.

Next, the three of us will move onto a different Objective. Probably keep Rika on the team, but with a weapon having range 1 capabilities. We ran lite on cards to as most needed discards to support movement. On this mission, every turn a location wasn’t played advanced the turn marker. Add that to a lack of firepower and a stream of harassing forces occasionally costing a turn marker advance, and the hole we dug got deeper and deeper.

Since we enjoy connecting missions, we decide to save what we could. Being Rika and Charlie.

Next time we’ll look for maybe having 3 player Soldiers with some better gear. And helmets. And candy bars. And canteens. Did we mention grenades. Lots of grenades.

Enjoy your games fellow WarFighters!

First Patrol South Vietnam 1967

Tour of Duty - Late December 1967

I’m Pvt Cage and I am right out of Parris Island. I’ve been assigned to the 3rd Marine Div North of Hue. Our mission is to checkout a local hamlet that has been friendly but very quiet lately. 

Even though 1sr Squad had only six active men, we went out unreinforced 

Taylor raised a closed fist and everyone quickly got low and halted. I was told Taylor was the best point man in the platoon and jeez he had just volunteered for a second tour. Taylor rose up and we began moving again. It must’ve been the wind or an animal. 

The single shot rang out! In a blink, I hit the ground looking for the source.   

Jones was down but I see he’s still moving. Anderson squeezes off a burst toward the patty and we all see the sniper sprawled over the patty wall.

“Taylor Cage move to the edge of the hamlet”, directed Sgt Anderson

The NVA spot us at the same time and like the regulars they are get off the first shots. 

Taylor tucks in by the wall but I’m able to put some fire on the NVA. 

I’m glad the old timer told me to take the M14 when offered even though it was largely phased out. It fired true and hard. Three NVA down!

The remaining NVA withdrew. We advanced into the hamlet finding it fully abandoned. SGT Anderson said it looked like our old foe the NVA 324 Division was back. I felt like I had just earned all $102 Uncle Sam was paying me this month!

Wrap Up

I am using Two Hour Wargames FNG with the goal of playing Cage’s entire tour. 

It has a great built in campaign and advancement system. I was amazed Cage scored three hits and three out of fight results. I’ve started him as a Rep 3. Based on how things play out over the month your Rep can go up, down, or stay the same. 

FNG is perfect for solo, coop, or face to face so as the campaign goes on a different mission could be played in any of those ways. I used the oxen to represent the possible enemy forces in FNG. The first one I rolled was a none result but that ups the chance the next one is real. 

Into the Unknown

Warfighter - Into the Unknown

The local Maquis have reported strange activities around an old fortress on the town’s outskirts. This along with reports of elite enemy troop movements, and the occasional bizarre sightings of odd looking soldiers is what have earned Sgt Charlie McD his special assignment. Since this assignment included playing with some secret OSS gear, he was happy to accept.

The mission was a simple get in and get out Raid. Grab some intel and get back in time for chow. Two Partisans offered to lead Charlie into the compound.

As they edged around the compound, a squad of Stragglers came up behind them. This drew the attention of another character laying in Ambush. Add that to the sounds from inside the compound and Charlie felt this mission was a Platoon short of a full hand....

Charlie ordered he team to clean off the jump off site before entering the compound. His M2 MMG doled out some “how do you do” fun to the stragglers. Taking advantage of the commotion, Rika slipped into the Shadows, and ambushed the ambusher with for trusty steel toothpick.

Seeing the carnage, Titania could not keep up her charade any longer. The Turncoat began yelling “For the Fatherland” as she sprang at Rika.

But Rika, having suspected as much and purposefully asking Titania to join the foray, shived her up close and personal like. Charlie emptied a belt of MMG ammo. clearing the Generator room as the two prepared for a fast exit from the noxious fumes coming from the Generator.

Rika led the way out of the Generator Room into the Vats Chamber. Unfamiliar with the fighting intricacies of his MechSuit, Charlie continued burning thru fuel and ammo supplies covering the Maquis’ advance. A pair of cockamamie looking axe Men proved to be tough hombres. And a half squad of riflemen just made things even more interesting. Rika lobbed a grenade at the axmen hoping to discourage their assault.

Having mowed down the Rifle team, Charlie drew return fire from a Jerry MG42 that popped up. “Hitler’s Buzzsaw” rattled several rounds off the mech suit’s armor.

The pair agreed, the joint was getting too hot to loiter around any longer.  Bashing in the final door immediately looked like a meatball maneuver. Jerrys leapt out from every crack and crevice. Only three soldiers were in the Objective. While the Vats had guards and stragglers galore. Not to mention, some crazed hog looking critters. 

In order to blow this joint, they’d need to hose all these low lifes.

Rika Advanced in and used her last grenade.

Charlie followed. The two worked hard trying to maneuver the enemy into favorable fire zones but ammo and time was working against them. Rika was down to her last magazine. 

Time to go. Charlie’s suit was running on fumes. Juking past the Guard Hog Dogs they needed to still deal with the last axman. Charlie opened up. Shots rang off Vats. He burned extra fuel and unloaded his MGs again. More Vats were punctured, but the axman appeared undaunted.

Charlie was out of fuel, grabbed his grease gun and ditched his machine, kicking it into a vat hoping to keep it from misuse.

The two hasted for the exit. Realizing that eliminating any witnesses was not going to happen, saving their necks and reporting back became the priority.

Aftermath.
The two made it back to friendly lines. The mission was a “gamer”-qualified success. A traitor was eliminated. Charlie learned the strengths of his power suit. Tho’ he was already missing it.

In this mission, having the Turncoat flip on turn one cost the team a lot of actions. This made for a much harder slog. We did more shooting and scooting than usual. We wanted a tougher run, feeling like our plays weren’t challenging enough. Adding Elite Hostiles, and the FrankenStiles having high cover ratings were exactly what we needed.

We were less dependent on action cards, which was also different and enjoyable. To help keep the expansion fresh longer, we merged random FrankenHostiles with normal Hostiles, and randomly drew just a few locations. This, plus grabbing the Maquis for help, was good. Hand to hand indoors was great!

As we dive deeper, we’ll become more dependent on the FrankenDeck. The Maquis Turncoat mechanic was cool. Keeping the trait “secret” from the other two players made it better. Too bad it isn’t always an unknown when wielding the Maquis. It can be a fun surprise twist.

Great Mission. Great Fun. Great Game!