The Dastardly Regular Opponent and I live roughly 45 minutes away from each other – a little too far for a school night game but perfect for me to nip over on a Saturday evening. We’re aiming for at least one game day a month which so far we’ve managed to hit. When I gave him the options for this session, he moved rather quickly to sign up for another game of What An Operator – in part because we both enjoy ultramodern stuff but also because he’s fresh off running a few games of What A Cowboy derivatives (mostly underhive gangers) for his scout group. Now knowing a game just enough to get yourself into trouble, I began roughly planning out what the mission would be.
All it needed was me to quickly get some terrain together…
Last time we followed the adventures of Commando Global Solutions, they had just captured special forces working for a foreign nation inside the borders of Shyluz. Luckily for CGS, nothing bad has come from this (yet) and so the team are free to continue their contract working for the Shyluz Ministry Of Interior. Which means they are taking a trip up north.
While in Southern Shyluz most of the rebel groups are related to the Bazi Empire, the North sees an underlying tension with the Tsardom, especially among isolated communities that see themselves more closely linked culturally with their former rulers rather than the government to the south. There is a background level of support for Tsarist insurgent groups, with the wooded valleys providing ideal locations for training and hideaways before attacking symbols of the “godless illegitimate regime” as online recordings of such attacks refer to them.
Imagery from Rettung’s Mimir satellite observation system (for which Shyluz pays for access) allows for easy monitoring of the large-scale picture in the region, letting the ministry gather large. However, the intelligence recovered can only act as the first step to reacting – actually confirming the presence of rebels and their equipment at these locations means the Ministry must rely on contractors and local law enforcement to perform inspections and gather on-the-ground intelligence where possible before committing to direct raids (which are unpopular with the population).
Commando Global Solutions has been hired to perform one of these intelligence missions in the far north of Shyluz close to the border with the Tsardom. The farm has seen an unexpected level of activity, with multiple satellite passes showing an unusual amount of goods being moved to and from the barn as well as the root cellar under the property. CGS are to perform a touch reconnaissance – enter the property under the cover of night, and check the outbuildings for evidence. ROE is only to engage in self-defence – this is supposed to be a recce, not a raid.
After the briefing of the task, I let the Dastardly Regular Opponent decide how he was to perform this recce. He settled on a four-person team, who would have parked up a valley or two over and trekked in on foot to perform his operation at night. Out of the four, one would sit just out of the play area providing overwatch (limited in his actions but harder to hit due to being so far away) armed with a sniper rifle with an NVG optic. The setting of ChargeReal has a much wider tech level, so we decided that CGS (being a PMC with a limited funding base) is rolling relatively low tech – no NVGs but weapon lights.
However, both teams get to have some say in how the mission will go. Although CGS entered the area relatively covertly (arriving in a single vehicle with only a single team), the presence of an unknown SUV in the hills quickly spread among the communities, reaching the ear of the rebels. Different strong points in the surrounding area react differently but the target of the recce decides to pack up and move key assets out of the farm before they are discovered. This means when the CGS team reaches the area, personnel are hard at work, with limited illumination, moving objects from the barn to the vehicles.
Before the first turn started, I shifted a few things around to represent the information that CGS had received being slightly out of date. It was mostly a few subtle things, such as moving vehicles around and shifting the piles of construction material.
As you can see, the farm comprises two structures, a small barn and a farmhouse. An outside toilet and the root cellar entrance filled out the rest of the points-of-interest, while an under-construction structure sat at the edge of the woods. We assumed all terrain outside of the groups of trees was dense woodland, preventing easy line of sight. My opponent was aiming to recce the barn and the root cellar by simply moving into contact with them, while avoiding being spotted.
Also yep, apologies for not getting the root cellar and toilet entrance painted up, I ended up spending a chunk of time getting the newly printed buildings and ran out of time on the other pieces. I’ll get them painted for the next time.
The team began their infiltration from the woods, taking advantage of the in-construction shed to hopefully break line of sight and stop themselves from being spotted in the darkness. They managed to get a little bit of movement before suddenly, the pair of guards outside the barn looked into the darkness and managed to activate with 4 spotting dice, letting them peek into the gloom and realise they had guests. A pistol shot rang out and suddenly we were action on.
As a quick side note, for sneaking around at night we had to add some nightfighting rule. We decided to keep it simple – spotting at night requires an additional spotting dice to be spent. This rule is nullified if the character has NVGs (in this scenario, no one does), NVG/thermal optics (only the CGS sniper does), a torch is used (by either the shooter or the target) or if the target has been firing. This means that most targets will need at least one spotting dice to engage now, but actually shooting has the potential to set off a chain of shots that make spotting the force even easier. We also added radio comms, which let you use wild die and spotting die to share information around the team.
Now technically at this point the team could have backed away and reported in but circumstantial evidence isn’t evidence. While two operators found cover and started returning fire at the pair behind the truck, one of the more cover operators headed to flank around, keeping to the forest surrounding the farm to get a better angle and approach from the rear.
Out front, while the marksman was busy keeping the pair of gunmen by the outside toilet busy, the main pair found themselves stuck in the construction yard, popping off shots at the pair with pistols as things started to go away from the plan.
The appearance of a gunman with a PKM from the barn was definitely a cause for concern – the first burst sent the team leader sprawling in the dirt after a successful dodge while the second was only prevented by a well-timed bonanza token to interrupt. The gunner finished his activation by diving behind cover.
Moments after spotting the machine gunner frantically reload, the flanking element spotted the root cellar door opening to reveal more enemies joining the fight. Interestingly, this fighter was not dressed as a civilian, with Rettung pattern web gear and helmet breaking up his outline. Worried about the possibility of being overrun, the flanking element snapped off an ambushing shot with a bonanza token, forcing his target to dive back into cover.
Unable to get the angle on the remaining CGS operative from the truck, the machine gunner started looking for where best to shift to get a good firing arc. Unfortunately, the dice were against me this turn – only one movement dice and I almost rolled snake eyes on it. However, it did give them a reasonable position, setting him up with a narrow-angle just in case the final CGS operator on this side decided to advance.
The team leader, after having been shot at by a machine gun somewhere in the darkness directly in front of him, decided to shift around the barn to attempt to get a better angle and to maintain momentum rounding the corner, he spotted a shadow at the far end so, bringing his rifle up and thumbing the switch on the weapon light, he illuminated the rebel lurking there. One quick burst saw the enemy fighter injured, unable to dodge the sudden attack.
Of course, all this gunfire attracted the attention of the machine gunner. Stumbling through the darkness towards the source, he rounded the corner to see the CGS leader standing against the barn, rifle still low at the man he’s shot at. Bracing the weapon against the metalwork on the cellar entrance, it looked like it was going to be a very painful burst of fire when…
The flanking operative spent a bonanza token to interrupt. Rolling very well on the activation dice, he managed to get enough movement to sneak up behind the machine gunner before dropping multiple shoot and wild dice to deliver a good old round of brawlin. The end result was a critical hit, closely followed by a roll on the crit table that delivered… instantly dead. It’s easy to visualise, just a pair of hands emerging from the gloom, the knife shining in one as it embeds itself in the gunner’s neck before he can get a shot off – and then the professional nod between the two operators.
We were getting into the late stages and unfortunately it was only at this point I got to deploy the rest of the rebels hiding in the root cellar. This pair, armed with the Rettung G36 and wearing Shyluz Army web gear came busting up the stairs and managed to put some shock down before nipping into cover. However, man of the game, fresh off murdering the machine gunner, decided to pitch a grenade over the bunker top – a grenade that landed perfectly, didn’t scatter and then delivered multiple critical hits to both the new arrivals and the rebel leader, taking them both out of action. This guy will be receiving the bonus for this operation.
Not pictured throughout this entire game was what was going on over on the far side. The CGS marksman off-board managed to get some shots on the pair of goons with AKs behind the white SUV, killing one and forcing the other to attempt a risky crossing across the open to take part in the fighting, whereupon he got taken out. There was also a rebel marksman hiding in the bushes who was entirely useless, not able to get a good angle on any opponents and failing to even get off the board once the time ran out. Overall, a disappointing result for the rebels!
In the post-game, I revealed to the Dastardly Regular Opponent that a quick scan of the area revealed that the barn was stacked with fuel drums, and not the usual stuff for your truck or tractor – we’re talking aviation gas. The root cellar also revealed a stockpile of arms and equipment, including body armour and rifles still wrapped in plastic and bearing the markings of a freshly imported package complete with paperwork detailing the unit of Shyluz Airmobile Infantry it was destined for; obviously signs that the rebels are up to something. Having captured the last squirter, the CGS team was able to stop the exact details of what went down getting out, although the gunfire echoing down the valleys may put some of the surrounding settlements on high alert. We’ll have to see what the next game is going to be…
Overall, a very fun game for a Saturday night – exciting narrative action and some absolutely glorious/disgraceful dice rolls for both parties involved. Our little tweaks are still fun to play even as we add more, with basic stealth and night fighting helping to make it feel a little less Wild West and a bit more Call of Duty 4. That said, I think I might be going a little too easy on the heroes – time to up the ante!
On a personal note, one thing I have noticed recently is that I am out of practice with writing battle report – well more accurately, I’m out of practice remembering to get all the photos! Usually, I’m able to reconstruct battle reports purely from the photos but the last few have been a touch harder. For the next game I’m going to try and get as many photos as possible soI guess I’ll just need to get some more painted terrain on the board!