DAY 5 – APRIL 22nd 2000
PRASZKA, POLAND – MORNING
LED is waiting by the door, his blood-soaked hand steady on the brass handle. A few steps behind him is NASCAR, gripping the M1911A1 with both hands, the pistol already raised as high as his chest so that it requires just one final, small adjustment.
As the conversation between ALEX and the LEADER proceeds, LED has to tune out his heart’s pounding, ready for the signal.
“… Mexico” says ALEX’s voice from the other side of the door.
LED pulls the handle down and pulls the door towards him as fast as possible while moving out of the way.
NASCAR’s field of view over the corridor starts and widens in a second, he sees the enemy LEADER, his stiff jaw under the dark steel helmet. The enemy is looking at NASCAR, his eyes widening but his expression resolute. He grins and pulls the trigger.
A burst slashes the hostage’s head and neck, blood stains the tiled floor and the door frame as the inanimate body starts precipitating to the ground.
NASCAR doesn’t’ see it, his target and his sight are lined up. He squeezes the trigger firing a single shot.
NASCAR’S ROLL [click to expand]
NASCAR is in close quarters with a pistol, so he gets a -1. He’s also making a called shot (aiming for the LEADER’s head) and suffers another -2. He fires a single round, so he rolls no ammo dice.
NASCAR rolls:
- RANGED COMBAT [D8+D6] = 1 SUCCESS (rolled 8 and 4)
NASCAR is all-in on this one, so he pushes the roll:
- RANGED COMBAT [D6] = 2 SUCCESSES (rolled a 6 on the D6 die!!!)
NASCAR deals 2 base damage points, +1 for the extra success for a total of 3 damage points. The LEADER’s helmet absorbs 1 +1 for the M1911A1’s modifier, so he suffers 1 damage point. NASCAR fires a single round with LED’s M1911A1.
The LEADER’s helmet may lose its efficacy: roll[D6] = 3, it still grants 1 armor level of protection.
At this point the LEADER has earned a CUF roll for suppression as a major NPC (he has CUF C):
- Enemy LEADER rolls CUF [D8] = 2 -> he fails
The LEADER goes down and is suppressed.
NASCAR’s shot grazes the LEADER’s skull and the enemy is brought to the floor.
[At this point, the LEADER is down and suppressed: he’s lost his battle. I’ll resolve the situation narratively]
ALEX, MARKO, and another soldier rush to the bathroom and immobilize the enemy LEADER, who’s then gagged, stripped of his weapons and gears, and dragged out of the bathroom to the main entrance, suffering a couple of ‘falls’ along the way.
The second hostage is found tied to one of the sink’s drain pipes; he’s badly beaten and DONNA offers to triage him.
The entire school is searched again by MARKO’s men and finally declared clear.
MARKO, ALEX, LED and NASCAR stand in a semi-circle over the dead hostage. Their silence is worth an entire conversation.
Later the body is collected by the local soldiers, brought outside, and lined up with the other dead defenders. A soldier covers the corpse with an old table cloth.
[LED, NASCAR and ALEX suffer 1 stress point (house-ruled)]
NASCAR looks at the enemy LEADER, gagged and now blindfolded, as he’s seated against the perimeter fence guarded by two soldiers. He has a bloody lip and the wound on his temple has been badly bandaged, leaving a trail of blood running down to his neck. For a moment NASCAR wonders what will happen to him, but quickly realizes that he doesn’t actually care. ALEX retrieves the lockpick set from the door and LED’s AK-74 from where he dropped it, and LED gets his forearm bandaged.
WITH the EYES of the REFEREE [click to expand]
According to the Player’s Manual (page 73) “if you suffer 1 point of damage or more from an external attack, you risk infection. Unless you are treated with a MEDICAL AID roll within a shift after taking damage, you must make an infection roll to resist falling ill. […] You can treat yourself, unless you’re incapacitated”
DONNA rolls for MEDICAL AID [D10+D10] = 0 SUCCESSES (rolled 2 and 3)
She pushes the roll [D10+D10] = 0 SUCCESSES (rolled 4 and 4)
DONNA has too many patients and can’t treat LED properly, he now has to make a STAMINA roll:
LED rolls for STAMINA [D10+D8] = 1 SUCCESS
LED won’t develop an infection.
More Prazka’s soldier arrive bringing medical supplies. After DONNA has finished treating LED’s forearm and patching up the assault team, she sees the prisoner and his head wound. She takes a roll of bandages, and reaches MARKO, who’s staring at the prisoner with a blank expression.
DONNA taps him on the shoulder, then shows the bandage roll and points at the prisoner, “is it okay with you?”
MARKO looks around, then grabs a gray-stained piece of cloth on the ground, spits on it and hands it to DONNA. “Use this”
DONNA looks at the piece of cloth, then the line of corpses placed in the yard. She pockets the bandage roll, takes the cloth and sighs “all right. Not the worst thing that’s gonna happen to him today”
Praszka’s soldiers are taking inventory of everything useful in the school when CJA arrives with his bodyguard and two more soldiers who are pushing a small wooden cart. They load two of the corpses on the cart and start pushing it towards the town.
ALEX approaches CJA “please tell me the town is now safe”
CJA nods seriously “it is, but with today’s losses, I’m afraid tomorrow we will be less safe”
“I guess you know what happened here”
“My men briefed me, yes” CJA looks around and sees MARKO in conversation with LED. He points at LED “tell me, is he the leader of your group?”
ALEX turns “he is”
“And is he a good leader?”
“Most of the times, yes”
“And how about the rest of the times?” asks CJA.
“He can fake it really well”
End of the battle of Wanda Chotomska school
POST FACTO OBSERVATIONS
Well, that was rough. The battle of Wanda Chotomska School was more difficult – and more tense – than I expected. The players were at a disadvantage until they achieved local numerical superiority (i.e. 2 players per single enemy fighter), and the enemies starting already dispersed in the North wing also helped.
I had my first critical injury suffered by a player (LED) who had enough luck left to roll a 1 on the critical injuries table (it goes from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most serious injury, if not instant death, and 1 being the least threatening), though I changed it to the 2nd on the table as it made more sense in context. I admit I was concerned when I was rolling the dice, as rolling a 10 on the arms’ critical injury table means losing an arm…
LED has pretty much exhausted himself in the battle of Praszka: he’s now at 2 hit points left and 1 stress point away from his cap, he’s sleep deprived and has suffered a critical injury. DONNA has suffered 1 damage point, ALEX and NASCAR are unharmed, but have suffered 1 stress point each.
The players had a few mishaps. Most noticeably NASCAR had his M249 jam and had to spend a slow action unjamming it. That translated in 1 round (if the roll to unjam fails it can be more) without being able to fire. Luckily, his target at the time had to reload and ‘lost’ the round as well.
The attack plan, while an improvement on MARKO’s original full-frontal assault, was in hindsight (or already at round 02) flawed. More on that in the observations below.
The fight was accompanied by a higher degree of narration, which I thought it could benefit from, plus a number of house-ruled calls. The finale was especially narration-heavy, but I had to build up to the final showdown in a somewhat credible progression, and then condense everything into dice rolls and reasonable ways to tip the odds one way or the other.
The tone was darker, to some extent grim. The Sheperd’s Flock is described in the Referee’s Manual and sounded to me like a group of fighters out of a Mad Max movie. The group that attacked Praszka was a small fringe army of the Flock, tasked with taking the city as a starting point for more ambitious goals. The Flock had a higher appeal than ‘regular’ bandits and marauders, so I went for it. Though I then had to stick to its methods and reasons, and that’s where the execution of the first hostage right at the beginning came from, followed by enemies who all fought to the very end, and the final showdown.
After reading back the report from the battle I made some notes for myself:
- NO PLAN SURVIVES FIRST CONTACT: it became very quickly clear that the idea of lockpicking the door while under enemy fire was not a winning strategy. It would have been much better just to bash a couple of windows and get inside. And here’s an even better strategy: starting the approach from direct North using the blind side of the school, with only a small chance of being seen by the enemies in the main building, move silently to the door and open it without being seen, then signaling the assault group and enter the school at the same time. Live and learn, I guess. No plan survives first contact, but a good plan might last beyond round 02…
- PICK YOUR FIGHT: from a strictly players’ point of view, I’m not sure this fight was worth it. LED suffered a critical injury, everybody risked the same at one point or another, they won’t collect loot as they’ve agreed that everything belongs to the town, they’ve spent ammo (and precious/awesome grenades) and as a player I would be skeptical to hear that being admitted into a barely surviving post-apocalyptic town was worth the trouble. I liked role-playing this battle, but Twilight 2000 can be unforgiving if the wrong number is rolled at the wrong time; so keep in mind that a firefight should always be your last resort.
- ARMOR AND COVER: enemy cover and armor came into play in multiple occasions. Aside from potential future modules, the game doesn’t contemplate personal armor for arms and legs, but torso and head alone proved to be enough to prolong the fight as enemies could sustain multiple hits before going down. Also, this Flock folks are fanatic enough not to surrender even when nearing death. DONNA and NASCAR have Kevlar helmets and flak jackets, I need to bring ALEX and LED up to standard.
- SWITCHING WEAPONS: I couldn’t find a section on the Player’s Manual detailing how to manage switching weapons. Given that drawing an item from your combat gear is considered a fast action (see table on page 56), I house-ruled that switching is a fast action unless you switch to a heavy weapon. Therefore, switching from an assault rifle to a pistol or knife is a fast action, or you could just drop the rifle (free action) and get the pistol or knife (fast action).
- ERRORS: in round 05 ENEMY 3 fires on NASCAR and gets 2 successes on his roll for a total of 3 damage points, two of which are absorbed by the brick wall and the last one by NASCAR’s flak jacket. So far everything is correct, but I then forgot to roll CUF for NASCAR to see if he’s suppressed as a result of getting hit. In round 07 ALEX attacks ENEMY 4 with a knife after having switched from his assault rifle to the knife and having entered the classroom by the window, meaning he had already consumed both his action. Practice makes perfect.
- NITPICKING: at the very beginning of the fight the players have vaulted over the perimetral fence and sprinted across the yard to get to the school. Vaulting over a barrier is a fast action, and I treated it as such, but (Player’s Manual, page 59) it should be accompanied by a successful MOBILITY roll.
- WANDA CHOTOMSKA: I’ve been informed by Wikipedia that Wanda Chotomska (1929-2017), whom the school is named after, was a Polish children’s writer, screenwriter and poet. And, interestingly, she could still be alive in my campaign’s timeline.
- MEXICO: that last roll had me on the edge of my seat, and I actually stood up for the pushed roll. Also, I just made a quick calculation, and if NASCAR had used his M249, he would’ve still rolled a D8 and a D6 on his final shot. Though that wouldn’t have been quite as cinematographic.
The battle was complex to organize, but very satisfying to play. It took a dark(er) turn at the end, with the killing of the hostage, but I find it fitting with the world of TW2K (check A note about THEMES to know more).