An after-game report! T2k 1.0

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Rules: Twilight:2000 v.1

Dramatis Persone:

The Major
Captain Deadshot
El-Tee
Sarge

It was an off week from our ongoing Call of Cthulhu game, and the birthday of one of the players. He'd been very keen to play T2k since I discussed the premise some months back, so I wrote up a simple one-off game for his Birthday celebration. As he was the birthday boy he ran The Major. Interestingly, El-Tee was played by one of the two women who game with us (who was only playing so we'd have a lot of players; my wife doesn't care for T2k's premise) but by the end of the night she was seriously interested in playing again.

All four characters were pre-gens.

The situation:

Vth Div. had jumped off and was steadily gaining ground. The team (Savoy 5 & 6) was a cavalry scout company that consisted of a Humvee and M113. They'd been deployed to the flank near a critical crossroad to watch for any breakouts. The first part of the day was quiet enough.

Later in the afternoon, things started to go wrong. They got one coded radio call on a secure channel from Savoy Actual: Joe's drunk and rain is coming - stay indoors and send him home. Three-zero minutes, say again, three zero minutes, Savoy Actual out. Then the net went dead.

They knew enough to expect trouble.

They took the 30 minutes to shift to a wooded area outside of the ruined village (bad tactics on their part; the road lead through the village and was a natural choke point, but more on that later). They parked their vehicles just inside the wood, about 50m apart, to cover the road to the south with the M113's .50 and dug some fighting positions inside the treeline. What they did have to their advantage was a Tankbreaker launcher, three rounds, and a 60mm mortar and a whopping 120 rounds for it.

Once they were in position they didn't have long to wait. A Soviet motor rifle company rolled into the town, then started down the road to the west.

In the first round, Sarge fired the Tankbreaker at the T72 - and rolled a 99! He hadn't gotten a clean lock with the Tankbreaker's CLU and the round went awry.

The Major dropped a mortar round on the T72 hoping for a lucky hit. While the hit was successful, it didn't faze the tank.

No-one else was in range (they were about 1 click outside of town, the road about 750m south of the woods) except the tank. The T72 returned fire but missed as well.

In the next round, Sarge fired the Tankbreaker again and this time scored big. HS:C (Sarge had aimed for the side rather than a top attack) for a whopping 440 points of damage. The main gun ammo was hit and the T72 detonated in a fireball.

In the same round, a BTR70 pulled up to the edge of the village between two buildings and stopped. The party could see troops debarking and heading for the ruined buildings as cover. No-one else was in range.

Round 3 saw the BTR start towards the woods. It spent its entire round moving, and by the end was close enough to the M113 that they could fire the .50 at it. Captain Deadshot tried to prang it with a grenade but was unsuccessful. The Major lobbed a mortar round at it but missed.

In round four, El-Tee opened up on the BTR with her .50 and chewed up the turret, deadlining the main gun; the PK missed with its shot. Troops from town started to advance on the woods. The Major tried again to drop a mortar round on the BTR but missed cleanly. Captain Deadshot nailed a lone Soviet soldier with a burst from his M16.

By round five, the party was firming up although a second BTR-70 hove into view on the western edge of the town (but was stopped there). El-Tee kept making the approaching BTR's life hell and again nailed it in the turret, this time silencing the PK gun. The Major dropped a mortar round on the squads coming up behind the BTR and nailed a couple. They noted that a pair of soldiers had stopped behind the main advance but were unsure why (everyone blew their RCN:STD roll).

At the beginning of round six, mortar fire began to rain on the party's position in the woods, although it was long. A third BTR came into view, coming from the south, using the burning T72 as partial cover. Sarge took aim with the last Tankbreaker round, waiting a round to perform Careful Aim.

The Major dropped another mortar round but missed.

A trooper coming in from the east got a lucky hit on Capt. Deadshot, but his body armor took the brunt of it. Unfortunately he was stunned - cracked and bruised ribs.

Mortar fire started to pick up around the party's positions.

In round seven, Sarge let go with his third and final Tankbreaker round. The blast passed harmlessly through the thin skin of the vehicle until it hit the fuel cells. The vehicle was engulfed in flames. The BTR near the group's fighting positions continued to move closer; El-Tee hosed it with the .50 but to no effect. Realizing that they were on the verge of being overrun with infantry and the remnants of the MRCs armor, the party elected to retreat. Unfortunately, another pair of mortar rounds struck - one landed close enough to the Humvee to blow two right-side tires out. The other struck on top of the M113 as El-Tee was dragging Capt. Deadshot back in. Her armor took the brunt of the concussion and she stayed on her feet, bundling the captain into the back and preparing to make good her escape.

The Humvee was slowed; however, with one BTR rendered weaponless and the other well away in town the party had time to pitch the mortar and spare rounds into the back of the M113 and escape in good order. The Soviets, having lost their MRC's heavy armor and one APC with another seriously damaged, instead elected to consolidate in town, continuing to harass the party with mortar fire as they escaped.

...

This was basically a precursor to a full-blown T2k game, leading up to and entailing some of the events surrounding the destruction of the Vth Div.