Weird War Two at ToonCon 2012

Instead of running my regular Saturday night game last night I dragged my WWW2 stuff out to ToonCon 2012. I’d originally said I could run it for four, but planned to take up to five or six. When I arrived they told EIGHT had registered – I had enough stuff with me that I potentially COULD have run a game with eight… but with that many players it could very easily bog down and have players getting bored and wandering off. Luckily a few didn’t show up and I ran a game with five.

One player was a friend of mine from Calgary that came out for the convention (which is organized by a mutual friend). There was another participant names Amy, who I think is from Saskatoon, and three enthusiastic young fellows (I will call them The Three Amigos!) … I didn’t catch where they were from… One was named Jared and another Ethan… and I can’t remember other their friend’s name… or tell you which was which… (sorry guys...).

It was a fairly busy convention in a relatively small space and I found the room very LOUD. I had to shout – almost non-stop for the three and a half hours it took to play the game. So my throat hurts now... and my ears are buzzing. I also had to run around the table and stand next to anyone that was asking a question or saying something just to hear them. And it was a bit warm… Other than that thought, I think everybody had a pretty good time.

SITUATION

Stalingrad 1942. A senior Psionik with the BPO had detected the presence of a Nazi Blood Mage in Stalingrad. A team was sent to deal with him and hopefully capture the Blood Mage for interrogation and vivisection. When they arrived in Stalingrad the Blood Mages work was apparent – Zombies roamed about the streets.

SCENARIO

Locate and Kill and/or Capture the Blood Mage.

There is an NKVD MG team at the start line that will fire at any Russians that retreat!

FORCES

Leytnant Pyotr Iliyavisch Putin - Wild Card Platoon Commander – played by one of the Three Amigos

Ag d6, Sm d8, Sp d8, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d8, Notice d8, Stealth d6,

Edges: Command, Combat Reflexes

Gear: Pistol (Range: 6/12/24, ROF 1, Damage: 2d6)

Serzhant Alexi Timurvich Stanislav – Wild Card Platoon Sergeant - played by one of the Three Amigos

Ag d6, Sm d6, Sp d6, St d8, Vg d8,

Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 8

Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d8, Notice d6, Stealth d6, Intimidate d8,

Edges: NCO, Rock’n’Roll

Gear: Ppsh SMG(Range: 12/24/48, ROF, Damage: , AP: )

Ryadovoy Sergey Vasilovich Kruschev - Wild Card Machine-Gunner – played by one of the Three Amigos

Ag d8, Sm d6, Sp d6, St d8, Vg d8,

Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 7

Skills: Fighting d6, Shooting d6, Notice d6, Stealth d6,

Edges: Brawny, Rock’n’Roll

Gear: DP LMG (Range: 30/60/90, ROF 3, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2, Bipod, Snapfire)

Borys Pavelvish Trotsky - Wild Card BPO Psionik – played by Shawn

Ag d6, Sm d10, Sp d8, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d4, Shooting d4, Notice d8, Stealth d4, Psionics d10

Edges: Arcane Background: Psionics,

Powers: Detect Arcana, Mental Bolt

Gear: Pistol (Range: 6/12/24, ROF 1, Damage: 2d6)

Ryadovoy Nadya Petyanova Gorbachev - Wild Card Sniper – played by Amy

Ag d8, Sm d8, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d4, Shooting d10, Notice d8, Stealth d8,

Edges: Marksman

Gear: Mosin-Nagant Sniper Rifle (Range: 24/48/96, ROF1, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2, Scope, Snapfire)

There were also Three Soviet Rifle Squads one started the game commanded by the platoon commander – the other two could be diced for whenever the Soviets drew a joker.

Soviet Riflemen (6)

Ag d6, Sm d4, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d6, Shooting d6, Notice d4, Stealth d4

Gear: 5x Mosin-Nagant Rifle (Range: 24/48/96, ROF1, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2),

1x Ppsh SMG(Range: 12/24/48, ROF, Damage: , AP: )

Germans

Nazi Blood Mage – Wild Card Wizard

Ag d6, Sm d8, Sp d10, St d6, Vg d8,

Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 6

Skills: Fighting d6, Shooting d6, Notice d8, Stealth d6, Spellcasting d10,

Edges: Arcance Background: Magik, Alertness, Command, Combat Reflexes, Rank,

Hindrances: Bloodthirsty, Fanatic, Overconfident

Powers: Zombie, Puppet, Fear

Gear: Luger (Range: 6/12/24, ROF 1, Damage: 2d6)

German Protection Detail

Ag d6, Sm d6, Sp d8, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d8, Shooting d8, Notice d8, Stealth d6, Intimidate d6,

Edges: Rock’n’Roll, Combat Reflexes

Hindrances: Loyal, Bloodthirsty

Gear: MP40 SMGs (Range: 12/24/48, ROF3, Damage: 2d6)

German Sniper- Wild Card Sniper Ag d8, Sm d8, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5

Skills: Fighting d4, Shooting d10, Notice d8, Stealth d8,

Edges: Marksman

Gear: KAR98K Sniper Rifle (Range: 24/48/96, ROF1, Damage: 2d8, AP: 2, Scope, Snapfire)

Zombies

Ag d4, Sm d4, Sp d6, St d6, Vg d6,

Pace 4, Parry 5, Toughness 7

Skills: Fighting d6

Edges: Undead

Gear: Bite/Claw Str+d6

Note: there wwere three or four Zombie Bombs – Zombies with bombs strapped to them and a crude triggering device attached to their chest – when they charged into close combat they could with a successful Fighting roll trigger the bomb. The Zombie would sustain 6D6 damage, the target (and anyone else in base contact) would get 5D6 damage, and anyone else within 2” got 4D6 damage. The bombs could be targeted with shooting which could detonate the bomb.

THE GAME

No one had played the game before so after shouting a bit of an explanation of how the game works and the mission for the team, I handed out some characters and had them set up at one end of the table.

Unfortunately it was very dark in the hall as well, so most of the few pictures I took turned out very, very out of focus. As I was trying to keep the game going, I also didn’t end up taking all that many…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The players stared at the bottom edge of the table. A few Zombies could be seen roaming the streets.

The Platoon Commander, Sergeant, Machine-Gunner and squad of extras headed up the one side, while the Sniper and BPO Psionik headed up the other.

The Platoon Commander, Sergeant, Machine-Gunner and squad of extras beat on some zombies and sprinted past the survivors. One soviet riflemen was lost to a zombie bite, another to a sniper shot.

The players pulled many, many jokers and the reinforcement squads showed up fairly early. The second was taken over by the Sergeant, the third which showed up a turn or two later was taken over by Shawn.

In the middle of the pic is the sniper having a sniper duel with the German sniper (in the top left of the picture). BPO Psionik wandering about in the open after having just exploded a few zombie heads.

Dead German sniper. I can’t remember if it was the Soviet Sniper that took him out or the BPO Psionik… I think they both had a go at him and caused wounds…

Feeling a little cocky, the BPO Psionk wandered into a building that turned out to be full of zombies. It did not go well for him… Luckily Shawn still had the reinforcement squad to play!

You can see one of the zombie bombs milling about in the back. After this crowd ate the Psionik they came shambling out to meet the second reinforcement Squad – lead by the zombie bomb which detonated and took out the whole soviet squad (and a few zombied too!)

One of the other zombie bombs had been detonated by the Machine-Gunner, which also took out a few zombies. A third, encountered later, was detonated by the Sniper – taking a few more zombies with it. Everyone thought this was great fun.

Amy, with Shawn hiding behind her and two of the Amigos sitting. About half way through the game. The Amigos characters (and supporting extras had just over run a machine-gun team that had been hiding in the same building the sniper had been in.

Shawn’s reinforcement team mopping up Zombies.

The Blood Mage was finally located and the Three Amigos characters (and supporting extras) charged in!

The Blood Mage was actually taken out by his own minders – who were under orders to, under no circumstances, to allow him to fall into enemy hands alive. When three of the Protection Detail had been taken out, the remaining two riddled the Blood Mage at point blank range on their next activation.

(It was also getting late... I was getting tired...) 

The Sniper took out the last of the Protection Detail with a pretty awesome shot through a window…

Started at 7:30, ended around 11PM – three and a half hours of non-stop, action-packed fun…. Thanks to all that participated and thanks to John Burt for organizing the event. 

Operation Uranus

Back at it – I thought I’d run some Savage Worlds Skirmishy games over the summer. I’m sure the East Front campaign will pop up now and again…

North West of Stalingrad, 19 November 1942

SITUATION

BPO Psykiks have detected the presence of strong supernatural energies to the North West of Staligrad behind the Italian lines. A diversionary attack has been arranged early in the day to the east so resistance should be minimal. The Team had the option of going during daylight or waiting until night. They chose to go during daylight hours and scary things always happen at NIGHT! So the small BPO team basically executed a frontal assault on dug in Italians…

FORCES

Soviet Forces

Leytnant Lennady Stepanoff (Christian)  - Platoon Commander

5x Soviet Scouts

Serzhant Boris Trotsky (Dave) – Second in Commmand

8x Soviet Riflemen

Efreytor Androv Virgilovski (Rick) – BPO Rifleman (part of Trotsky’s Squad)

Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski  (Patrick) - BPO Sniper

Axis Forces

Cpl. Spagetti

9x Italian Bersaglieri Riflemen

10x Veteran SS Troopers

(plus others that weren’t encountered)

THE GAME

 (Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Things could have (SHOULD have) gone very, very badly for our heroes – advancing in the open, in broad daylight, against an entrenched enemy…

A clever combination of extremely lucky shots aided and abetted by a number of Jokers (Trotsky’s squad got TWO in the first four turns or so!?)

They were effectively able neutralize opposition at their end of the trenchline by severly wounding the caporal (with a submachinegun, rocknroll, and a shooting of d8 – which in concert couldhave messed them up!) and the MG team (which also could have messed them up!)

Ths others also got some extremely lucky shots in – taking out Italians in the trenches while shooting at them on the run!? (had to use german casualty figures as I don’t have any dead/wounded Italians…)

The Scout section wasn’t so lucky…

They were shot up pretty good… but the wildcard characters were able to make it to the trench relatively unscathed… (though short a few bennies!)

Trotsky’s DP gunner continued to fire while his loader was shaken and rolled three ones – jamming the gun! They weren’t able to unjam it for a number of turns…

The Soviet BPO team made it to the Italins trenchline and the few remaining Italians surrendered – it was at that point that they started taking fire from the woods beyond!

Unfortunately it was at that point that I stopped taking pictures apparently….

Anyway, there was a veteran squad of SS troopers there that covered the escape of… well.. whatever dark and mysterious evil was lurking  within the woods… MWA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa….  

Stepanoff’s Scout team suffered four (of five!) casualties, one was killed in action, the other three were lightly wounded and will return to play after missing one game. Trotsky’s squad suffered two casualties – one seriously wounded, the other lightly wounded. The seriously wounded rifleman will join the two previously seriously wounded riflemen – who remained in grave condition and will miss further games…

Cpl. Spagetti was seriously wounded when he surrendered, two others of his squad surrendered. Of the rest four were killed in action, two suffered serious wounds, and one was only lightly wounded. The Italian POWs were unable to tell the BPO anything about what was going on in the woods. They said the SS didn’t allow them anywhere near it – they’d even shot one of their squad mates who’d wandered over to the edge of the woods to piss a couple days earlier.

Three of the SS were killed in action, three were seriously wounded and in no condition to talk so they were summarily executed. Whowever else had been there had packed up quickly and scarpered. All that remained in the woods was an alter of some sort. The BPO team thought that looked like some sort of sacrificial alter, but there was no trace of blood or any other indication that it had been used as such…

Risk was pretty excited as this was the first character he ever had that made it to Veteran.

Coming Soon to Savage Timmy’s Playhouse:

More game reports, hopefully...  

The Ruins of Kundurq

For a few weeks now we’ve had to cancel our Savage Saturday Session for one reason or another (and the Friday kids game too…). This week I was able to run something and Rick, Dave, Patrick and Curtis were able to make it out… unfortunately I didn’t have the next adventure ready for our Dragonlance Campaign, so I quickly throw out a scenario for our Weird War Two East Front Campaign…

 Kundurq, Afghanistan, November 1942

 SITUATION

 Our heroes have been pulled from the Stalingrad front to attend to a more pressing problem. The BPO has learned that the infamous Nazi Orientalist Occultist Colonel Dr. Dietrich Von Ravenhoff is leading an expedition to a remote ruin of Kundurq in Afghanistan. What the colonel Doctor is looking for is anybody’s guess – but it likely has something to do with nazi occult research and must be stopped! 

FORCES

Soviet Forces
Serzhant Boris Trotsky – Team Leader
Efreytor Androv Virgilovski – Second in Commmand
Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski - BPO Sniper
Rayadovoy Jorgi Markov – BPO Scout
6x Soviet Riflemen

German Forces

Colonel Dr. Dietrich Von Ravenhoff
Heidi Von Ravenhoff
Obergefrieter Johann Meuller
16x German Riflemen (two squads of two teams; MG team and Rifle team)

 THE GAME

 (Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

First Greamn Squad approaches the ruins of Kundurq

The Soviet BPO team approaches from the other side… The opposing sides spotted each other from atop hills on opposing sides of the valley – so it was just a race to see who could get to the prize first. Or so the Germans though – for once overestimating the Russians and assuming they knew what the Germans were there for.

The Germans reach the edge of the ruin.

Serzhant Trotsky leading his troops from the front (for once).

Inside the ruins – a German is shot while dashing from one bit of cover to a doorway.

As the firing starts the second German squad picks up the pace to find a defendable position!

From a position in cover Serzhant Trotsky sends his fodder…er… troops… forward.

Dizaleski and Markov sneaking around the backside of the compound.

Obergefrieter Johann Meuller shoots up Trotsky’s Squad as they make a dash into the compound.

The German second squad exchanged fire with Serzhant Trotsky – Trotsky was obliged to abandon this position as it was rather exposed, and made for the compund with the rest of his troops.

Part of the first German squad made it up onto a roof and shot down on the exposed BPO tean in the street below.

The soviets took another casualty and scampered for cover.

Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski - BPO Sniper – finds himself a nice position in a doorway and starts taking down Germans….

The Russians, having taken cover in a crumbled building, exchange fire with the Germans on the rooftop.

Having more or less suppressed the Germans on the rooftop, Trotsky’s squad moved out into the street – they gave the Sarge the all clear and he ran for on of the compounds gates – taking shots from some not-so-cleared-out-and-on-hold Germans around the corner – he shrugged off the bullets, made it into the compound, and shot up the remaining German in the courtyard.

The Germans on the rooftop taking worse than they are dishing out!?

Serzhant Trotsky pushed into the building and located Colonel Dr. Dietrich Von Ravenhoff who was apparently searching for something… Trotsky fired one last burst… and then ran out of ammo!?

POW! Dizaleski takes down Obergefrieter Johann Meuller.

 The neat thing about the high-walled tight compound in the middle of the table was it was sometimes hard to keep track of where everyone was… and sometimes people forgot where people were – much like I imagine a close-quarter firefight in a labarynthine compound would be like. (I sometimes forgot where my OWN guys were – as I was having to take care of so many…?) And so sometime did silly things like run for a doorway – only to discover that there was a occupied by someone they’d forgotten about…

… like when Heidi Von Ravenhoff stormed into the courtyard of this compound only to discover the Soviet BPO squad was lingering there…

 They shot her up pretty good…

Serzhant Trotsky overcame Colonel Dr. Von Ravenhoff – with the help of the rest of his squad who stormed in after shooting the colonel’s daughter…

The colonel and his severely injured daughter were captured.

Of the rest of the Germans; three were killed in action or died of wounds shortly thereafter. Three others (including Obergefrieter Johann Meuller) were serverely wounded and captured. Four others were also captured – two of whom were lightly injured. The remaining seven managed to get away (two of whom were lightly injured). Four were captured and killed by Afghan tribesmen, the other three were never heard from again and presumed to have died of starvation and exposure out in the desert somewhere…

The Soviets suffered only two casualties – however both were severely injured and will be out of the line for some time.

Coming Soon to Savage Timmy’s Playhouse:

Hopefully at SOME point we’ll get back to some Dragonlance action… I think I may have missed some updates… but both campaigns have sort of stalled for the moment.

Zombies in Stalingrad

Once again we did not have quorum for our regular ongoing Dragonlance Campaign so I quickly set up another East Front WWW2 game.

Stalingrad, October 1942

SITUATION

A few weeks after our heroes Last Mission a report came to the BPO Stalingrad HQ that a unit of Russians had been attacked by another unit of Russians which had advanced out of the German lines – they did not carry weapons and all attempts to communicate with them were ignored – they fell upon the soviets holding the line and savaged them in brutal hand to hand fighting. Pandemonium ensued. An entire regiment of artillery was tasked to level the area just to get the situation under control. The BPO commander suspected paranormal involvement and the team to the front to investigate.

There they waited a few days until they got a report that a forward observation post had spotted what seemed to be a large number of Russians gathering just beyond the german lines.

The team moved to the front….



FORCES

Soviet Forces

Leytenant Anya Putyatin – BPO Psionik
Serzhant Boris Trotsky
Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski - BPO Sniper

7x Soviet Riflemen
3x Soviet HMG crew (with Maxim HMG)


German Forces

1x SS Bloodmage
4xVeteran SS Minders
27 x Reanimated Russians

THE GAME
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


Amanda (Leytenant Anya Putyatin) and Dave (Serzhant Boris Trotsky)


Patrick (Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski) brought his own hat.


Soviets preparing to hold the line…


Darkness fell….

…and out of the darkness loomed…


The Zombie Horde!!


Slowly they shambled towards the soviet line. The soviets fired buckets of bullets at them – but with very little effect!?

(at this point the players were getting VERY nervous and making comments about how they’d really enjoyed playing these characters and that I wasn’t being very nice….)


During the five or so turns to advance to the Soviet lines the two machineguns, six riflemen, sniper rifle, submachinegun and BPO Psionik only managed to drop three zombies.


The HMG team was the first to be overrun – despite hundreds of bullets being shot downrange they hadn’t caused a single casualty with their fire. On their first turn of close combat the team leader bashed in one of the zombies head with the butt end of his SMG and it reeled back and crumpled to the ground.

In following turns the two gunners would beat a number of them to death with their bare hands!?


Zombies continue to shamble forward – and who is that skulking behind them?! An SS Blood Mage and his minders (bodyguards, yes, but also there to kill him if it seemed capture was immanent).


These two riflemen beat one zombie down with the butt ends of their rifles and were feeling so confident they rushed out to beat on some others that were separated from another group before they could converge and overwhelm them.


Rayadovoy Ioseph Dizaleski had started dropping zombies like crazy when they came out of the shadows and tried to cross the street in front of the building, but eventually his position was overrun… well with one zombie. After the first one got through, BPO Psionik Anya Putyatin turned her attention there and started melting zombie brains with her mind…


AT the other end of the line one zombie had stumbled into the wire and became entangled, but others behind him simply crawled over top of him…


The MG team holding the gap in the wall, holding off the three or four times their number.


The pile of zombies outside Dizaleski’s hide. There was some debate as to who was responsible for the pile. Dizaleski claims he shot them all point blank as they rushed out of the shadows and across the street. Trotsky, however, had also spend turns (and entire drums of ammo!) blazing away down that street and thus claimed he was responsible for the majority of them. Truthfully had they been examined more closely a number of them would have had no sign of gunshot wounds at all but rather looked like their heads exploded from within or had simple melted…


Another pile of corpses mounts in front of the MG position – mostly due to the gunners fists!

I missed getting a shot of him while he was down – but the team leader of the MG team was wounded and knocked down, but Leynant Putyatin rushed to his aid and got him back on his feet and into the game again! (lets hear if for the Combat Medic edge! HIP! HIP….!?)

(bah, my first kill of the game and I didn’t even get to reanimate it! Fie! FIIIIIEEEE!)


A Zombie crawling over the other zombie caught in the wire finally gets over and attacks the rifleman beyond.


The riflemen who had earlier rushed out from their position being overwhelmed as the SS Blood Mage strolls on by – expecting there to be a number of fresh Russian corpses to animate at this position soon enough.


More of a mess in the center.


Another Russian is finally overwhelmed – his comrade fled and leapt over the wall!


The Blood Mages first victim – REANIMATED! Unfortunately no one else was around to witness is so no guts checks…


His comrade didn’t last long… From his position behind that wall he tried to fire on the Blood Mage – but the minders were on hold and interrupted. They tied their opposed agility rolls and thus went simultaneously. The Russian went down in a hail of submachinegun fire…


…but not before he shot one of the SS minders!


Another zombie over the wire while four flank through the building to the side.


Trotsky decided to run and help out his sniper (not having any more zombies to shoot out in the street). The two of them finally beat down the last two remaining zombies at their end of the line.


Mopping up in the middle.


The SS saw that it was lost and scarpered, but not before…


… they raised one last zombie and sent it on it’s merry way towards the soviet lines. It almost made it to Anya Putyatin – who had advanced a little too far into the “no man’s land” beyond the soviet lines.

Wow… from certain doom to total victory. The Soviet only lost two dead – another had been only slightly wounded and returned to the fight with the aid of Anya Putyatin. The SS lost one of their minders – who turned out to be only wounded and was captured by the BPO. The Germans had started with 27 zombies (and animated two more Russians along the way) and they were all beaten down – mostly with fists and rifle butts…

Afterwards, Serzhant Boris Trotsky successfully persuaded his superiors to have the riflemen holding this position to be transferred to the BPO (and replace the rifle squad he’d lost in his last action….).

Fun times!

Coming Soon to Savage Timmy’s Playhouse:

Well, with any luck, next week we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled Dragonlance Campaign… Assuming we can get quorum!?