RPG Forums - Red Star Lone Star Diary

I've begun running Red Star Lone Star for one of my sons and I'd thought I'd share a general log plus my observations.

Background: I run a T2030 campaign based on a conflict between revanchist Russia and NATO that started in late 2026 (you all can probably see what I did there). PCs have been my sons and we started when they were in middle school (now in college, one studying engineering and the other an ROTC cadet).

Began the campaign with Zvedza and Memoir 44 miniatures and terrain using a hybrid of V.1, V.2, and homebrew rules. PCs started in Iran, came back to US for pre-TDM OPS, then deployed to Europe just prior to TDM.

Time jumped to Kalisz - Son #1 PC (LTC Smith, West Pointer and Combat Engineer) is BN (more like Company) CDR, Son #2 has two PCs, one an Irish American NCO and former boxer (Murphy), the other a Russian deserter, BTR driver, mechanic, and former NHL player (Krevchenko) who got drafted when he visited home at the wrong time.

With the advent of Team Yankee minis and our previous experience playing Memoir 44 the combat focused more on squad/plt/company level engagements with a lot of V1 combined with homebrew but used V1 and V2 for traditional character driven role playing.

Played Kalisz almost exclusively for what seemed like forever (with one of my real life deployments thrown in the middle). The PCs and their troops wreaked havoc on the Reds, then rescued, revived, and retrained the POWs and ended up absorbing the members of the 116th ACR that wanted to go home (led by 1SG Blue Elk, an NPC who sadly perished in the ruins of Berlin). They also helped a DIA team recover Reset (which I portrayed as a quantum computer a la the show Revolutions). The LTC Smith was given a back up of Reset on a thumb drive (contained in a real life penguin key chain) just in case.

Tried to get them involved in the Black Madonna but by this time both lead PCs had become obsessed with getting their troops home (which I thought was pretty cool, both as a referee and a dad!). They also really wanted to see what happened to the US.

So, they received the Omega OPORD (late, of course) and I ran Going Home with a heavy dose of https://kaliszweb.wordpress.com/ thrown in (thank you Wayne's Books! sir you are a genius!). Trip home was way too easy due to die rolls (other than the aforementioned Berlin bandit engagement) so I threw a late curveball (German and UK Army would not allow any more Americans to pass through their lines due to bad behavior) - this was my attempt to force them through Freiborderbund territory. LTC Smith instead chose to instead share RESET with the Brits and the Germans, which got them to Bremerhaven on time but got him removed from command and awaiting court martial along with his second most senior NCO, SFC Murphy (or so they think).

So, with that background, I'll next post what Son #2 and I are calling "The Book of Krevchenko" (the first Russian Western, if you will...)