Combat Action from my Play by Post

[Haven]

Jim stays at the wheel of the truck while Sam provides overwatch in the back of the Truck while Jim, Carter, and You siphon.

This is repeated 6 times with no incidence when you pull up to the last car that is abandoned in front of the street that leads to 313. So far you’re at 85 out of 95 gallons capacity – you found three 5 gallon emergency containers in the back of a couple of the cars.

You unload and bend over the tank to start siphoning the gas out of the car.

“Freeze right now mother f**ker or you die!” Sam’ shout scares the hell out of you and you spin to see who he is talking too.

You see a man about 72 years old with wispy remains of grey hair on his head, and a kid about 15 years old next to him holding his right arm with a hasty bandage over his forearm who is looking down at the ground.

“Police? Right? We need some help…” you can’t help but think about the POLICE that is bold and yellow on your vest. Apparently it has its advantages (no one has bothered you yet even while they watched you siphon gas) and disadvantages…..

“We might be police what do you want?” Says Sam.

“Well, look, this kid here”, as the old man beckons the boy forward, “lives in that house there.” And the old man points to a house about 150m up and to the right.

“His name is Chris Roberts, and he says that some gunmen, terrorist probably the way he describes it, have taken his family hostage and are holed up in Chris’s house.

Chris was able to run out the back when they burst in but they shot and wounded him in the arm. He came to my house because he knows me and Mable.

I…I think they killed his pop, but he says his mom and 3 siblings are still in there. But I told Chris that yall were the police and would be able to help him, right?” The old man asks with a pleading face.

The boy chances a look up into your eyes and quickly looks back down to the ground.

PC:
"Shit....How many of them, and you'd better start pointing us towards your house.... I need to know everything that you know kid, that way we can deal with these guys are get your family back, ok? What kind of guns did they have? Guns like ours (hold up AK) or.. pistols and shotguns?

How about your house? 1 or 2 Story, and how many rooms?"


I want to do all this talking while we're moving.... whenever he lets us know which house, I want to make sure we all stay out of sight until we get some sort of plan together.

GM:
Chris looks up, "There were like 3 or 4 of them. They were wearing some sorta headband like you'd see on the news. We got a two story house, and I think they had AK looking weapons like you guys but I don't really know. I was out in the yard getting some firewood when they busted in our house. After hearing a couple of gunshots I tried to get closer when one of the guys came out the back door and I ran and he shot me in the arm."

"Tell them about your house, Chris" says the old me refocusing the kid.

"We have a front door that leads up to the stairs and the back door in the kitchen. We have the living room and dinning room down stairs and upstairs is all the bed rooms. You want me to draw it out or something?" says Chris.

Ok.. so 3 or 4 with probably Assault rifles... How many of your family is inside Chris?

Yeah, draw it out if you can... the more we know, the better chance we can get your family out of there."

"My Mom and my two sisters and my younger brother. All the other kids are younger than me."
He looks around for a second and grabs a stick and starts drawing a layout in the mud.

Map Inc....

First Floor
Second Floor

Is there any way I can get closer to the house, to see if I can see any movement in the windows, but without being seen?

You can try a fieldcraft check against their AWA or something, if you want to get closer.

"Ok... Sam, drop the vest and give it to Carter.

Me and Sam are gonna stay out front... I'll try and take pot shots at anyone in the windows. Sam is going to provide suppressive fire via the RPK.

This is how its gonna go... Joey, Jim, Carter... y'all are going to press around the house to the backdoor. Once me and Sam think we've given you enough time to get to the back; we're gonna start laying some suppressive fire thru the windows to keep their heads down. Once you hear that plow thru the door and go room to room... remember, it's gonna be tight. Keep yourselves as light as possible.. bring only what you need in there.

Me and Sam will provide overwatch from outside and will start leap frogging to the front door... clear the downstairs first, then we'll move upstairs.

Once the downstairs is clear... signal to us outside the window and we'll start throwing rounds upstairs, and you go press up during a break in the fusillade (spelling)....everyone got it?

Stack order for y'all at the backdoor is Jim, Joey, Carter... slice the pie, watch those corners... lets get everyone out of there OK."


Me and Sam are going to take up positions in front of the house, behind any available trees that we can... approx 100m from the house, both prone with as much of our bodies behind trees as possible. We're going to give Carter, Jim and Joey a little time before we open up on the front of the house.. Sam needs to lay about 20 rnds on the downstairs; rake them across the windows, then put about 10 upstairs.. I want to watch for any hostile movement and take any potshots I can (mainly adding to the suppressive fire).

Sam starts to take off the vest.

Jim chimes in, “What about your vest James? You’re sending us in and you’re gonna hold on to the vest? Aight whatever.”

Joey kinda just gives you a neutral look. But also looks to Jim too.

Sam chimes in, “Look it’s not going to matter. I am gonna hose them with the RPK anyways. You guys are just going in to mop up. Hell you think I’d let my brother (Carter) go in too if I thought it was f*cked to begin with?”

That seems to put doubts to rest but you can still pick up on Sam’s body language that he is nervous.

Carter slips on the tactical vest and adjusts some of the straps on the side and next area, then gives you a nod.

Joey chimes in again, “Look I’ve got the shorter gun so I’ll go first.” <M4 costs less ticks to shoot in a CQB situation>

With that you begin to split up. You tell the old man and Chris to stay next to the truck.

You and Sam start approaching the front of the house. You take your time as does the assault group and get bonuses to your field craft rolls for taking a slower pace. You quietly and deliberately move between pine trees not to fast as to attract the eye but quickly enough to minimize your exposure to the house.

[Haven]

You slowly get into position and so far it appears that nothing has been noticed in the target house. You’ve found a nice little dip in the Lanes right behind a line of pine trees that are growing closer together than the majority of the ones around you. You start to settle in and Sam finds a good pine to brace the RPK against. You slide down another 7 meters or so to the right of Sam and find another solid pine to brace your AK against.

You wait another 5 minutes before you think that Joey, Jim, and Carter are in position.

The sweat from moving into position is cooling and drying and it gives you a chill as the adrenaline starts to pick up knowing that this is about to get ‘real’.

You look to Sam and say in an intense whisper “Light the f**ker up!”.

Sam shoulders brace against the buttstock of the RPK one more time then takes a sharp breath in.
*RACK-ACK-ACK!*

Sam lets out about a long burst though the nearest window before walking the tracers of the RPK though one window down to the next and hovers for 5 or 6 rounds and then walks them to the next window and continues this until he’s put about 40 rounds into the house’s windows before stopping to scan for movement.

You notice something in the window closest to where the living room should be and think you see the barrel of a gun. You beat Sam to it and throw about 7 rounds though the window. *RACK-ACK-ACK!*

Whatever was there before is gone now. Moments pass…

*POP!* *POP!*
*RACK-ACK-ACK!*
Muffled gun shots come from the house. Then silence again.

You think you hear something that sounds like a woman scream but it’s so muffled and your ears are still ringing from Sam’ machine gun fire.

Then a flurry of gun shots AR’s and AK’s sudden and then over in a half a second.

Another 30 seconds pass with no sound.

*Crack-BOOOMM!!*
The part of the roof of the house on the second story master bed room corner flies upward by some large explosion inside. Smoke starts pouring out of a gapping whole that used to be the area of the master bedroom. The house is rocked on its frame and part of the roof collapses where the bedroom was before. The first floor wall sags under the weight of the debris.

“Holy shit!” Sam comments. He gets up and starts trotting towards the house.

“Not yet SAM! Not yet!” you say, but he isn’t listening.

Aww hell, you think and get up and follow.

Roofing tiles and small pieces of Lane start falling to the ground around you as you approach. Paper and shards of drywall paper and dust still flitter in the air at random. The smoke from the vaporized drywall is choking the air and cutting your vision down as you approach about 30m from the house.

Out of the swirling smoke and trash you see Joey appear hacking and coughing trying to clear the dust out of his lungs.
Your reflexes are keyed up you damn near shot him.

Jim then appears also hacking and coughing.
They are both covered in dust and soot. They look like they’ve been dusted.

Finally you hear a familiar voice, “Last f**king bastard blew himself up. Took the wife and kids with him. They were all huddled around him with blind folds and he was all wired up.” And you see Carter appear out of the smoke, he bends over and hacks a couple times himself before finishing. “I guess when most people would go for a gun, this asshole went for his C4 vest. How do you fight that?” then he continues to cough and pat himself down trying to get rid of the dust.

Joey sits down and starts ripping at his pants on his left thigh which you see has a 2 inch diameter red spot.
“I think it is just a graze. Guy on the second floor almost got us all. He was shooting his AK with his left hand only so he wasn’t very accurate after the first shot.” As Joey gestures to his left thigh. “That saved us. I think yall might have wounded him in the initial burst. Good shooting.”

Carter and Jim start patching up Joey’s leg with a piece of ripped clothing they get from the rest of Joey’s pant leg. It is just a graze. Enough to cause a limp around the house but not noticeable when the adrenaline is pumping. “I don’t know what you’ll find in the house but maybe it is still worth checking.”

“Got it.” Sam jumps in and starts searching though the house.

He comes back 5 min later with a half filled garbage bag slung over his right shoulder and a AKSU slung over his left shoulder.

“Three bad guys killed, counting the guy who blew himself up. Chris’s dad was stuffed in the closet with a head shot to the back of the head. No big pieces of the rest of the family. Chris is now an orphan.”

He pauses a second before continuing. “Cleared out the pantry of some of the less perishable stuff but it looks like the bad guys got most of it.”

You've got the truck to get back to 313 to deal with. And Chris and the old man to deal with.

Plus whatever you want to do here at the Roberts' former residence.

<Actions?>

[Brother in Arms]

Wow! That CQB didn't go very well for Chris's family....

I can see Chris becoming a formidable NPC, like Robert in red dawn! 15 is old enough for a young man avenge the death of his parents. I think the members of the team should give him the AK-74SU its the perfect gun for a kid, Light weight and short low recoil and great for CQB. Chris would be an interesting Angle and a awesome NPC.

Sounds like his family's would be saviors where kind of bumbling with there siege of the house.
I Hope they learned something. Maybe Chris won't fault them for there ineptitude.

Brother in Arms

[kcdusk]

yeah, um. Two things

1) good write up/action. Not as good as the road block, but top marks for putting pen to paper.

2) what the??? i was surprised the PCs chose the spray and pray technicque "to keep heads down" by firing through windows when they knew there was a family inside. I would have thought the chance of friendly fire hitting a family member was high (note to everyone; friendly fire, isnt).

No pressure, but if you posted more encounters, i'd read em.

[Haven]

Yeah... i really wanted to say something before they took down the house about their 'plan'...

but .. i'm just the GM.

If i was really evil i would have killed off an NPC for that sort of 'plan' but its so early I really want to save them for something later.

So they came away with a botched hostage rescue and a wounded NPC and only one weapon out of the whole deal.





I do think that Chris will be a reoccuring NPC ... even if they don't know it yet.

Haven't decided yet if he will be reoccuring in the 'Young brilliant guerrilla commander' or in the............ "I'm going to kill all of the PCs" npc yet.






Edit:

I'll keep posting on this thread about what happens in my campaign as sort of my website update thread.
Its a good way for me as GM to explain all the neat cool things in the campaign that you can't share with PCs

[Brother in Arms]

I actually was Amused by the the cavalier approach when taking out the house. But that is more the sort of thing Id do in Poland, when you don't know if there are innocent people inside or not and you just cross your finger and throw frags.

Wow I just realized that I advocated a child soldier as an NPC.

on the other hand having a 15 year old bent on killing the entire party would be pretty amusing.

Brother in Arms