{"id":1366,"date":"2025-09-06T09:44:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T14:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2025-09-11T07:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:09:19","slug":"i-used-to-be-a-soldier-like-you-09-october-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/?p=1366","title":{"rendered":"I Used to Be a Soldier Like You (09 October 2000)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Back at the eastern approach to the hilltop village, the combined group of the PCs and the Rawa Mazowiecka militia circles up about four kilometers away. Their first move is to send in a trio of motorcycle scouts. Through their binoculars, they can see the point, about 700 to 800 meters away, at which the three riders start losing cohesion, then all sense of direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group waits for the riders to regain their sense of direction and return. Then Arkadi and Alexei move in on foot. The probe confirms Arkadi’s theory of the previous day: whatever is interfering with vehicles and other machinery isn’t having a noticeable effect on the ability of personnel on foot to move and navigate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red, Leks, and Arkadi confer with Captain Majewski. The PCs will mount the initial assault on the village, augmented by three of Majewski’s troops. Sergeant Jablonski and two of his cousins volunteer for the detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The team closes about half the distance to the village. Miko and Magda, on point, crest a small rise and discover a terrain feature that wasn’t on the map: a small river, swollen by the recent rain. The road bridge is intact, albeit clogged by a tangle of burned-out cars near its western side. It’s a chokepoint, but there’s no other crossing point in sight. On the far side of the river, a small cluster of buildings stands at an intersection. Several of them are rubbled. From one of the ruined structures, a trace of smoke or steam rises – possibly the remains of a campfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The overall encounter map. I’ve used this one before. It’s one of Twilight Maps’ old Patreon products, before he became Free League’s contract artist for cartography on later T2k 4e expansions. This is actually one quarter of a huge<\/strong><\/em> battlemap that I have yet to deploy in its full awesomeness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The team moves up, expecting an ambush. They aren’t disappointed, but they are surprised. As Leks is shifting north of the road to set up on the high ground, the cluster of dense foliage he intends to occupy spits two arrows at him. One misses – but the other slams into his knee joint [shattered knee crit – Mobility -2 and can’t run, healing time 9 days]<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minka dashes out, grabs a profanity-spewing Leks by the back of his flak vest, and hauls him into cover. Red, egregiously violating the rule of “never put the doctor on point,” moves west and takes cover behind the bridge railing. He tosses a fragmentation grenade at the point where the incoming arrows are originating, but it goes wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miko unlimbers his machete and charges into the foliage. As he pushes through the greenery, a metallic scrape next to him alerts him to a man in a ghillie suit rising from a crouch and drawing a sword. Miko cackles with unhinged delight and parries the first slash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magda takes cover south of the road, spots the other shooter, and starts raking his position with Tantal fire. She catches him with a grazing hit, then ducks as an arrow comes back at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other half of the ambush becomes apparent as an arrow hisses past Red. He turns to his left to see two horribly emaciated dogs, skin stretched taut over their skulls, charging toward him from the far side of the bridge. Beyond them, two more archers are firing from the cover of the barricade of wrecked cars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here’s the (reconstructed) tactical situation at this point in the fight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another pair of dogs lunges from the undergrowth, snapping at Miko. Alexei dashes to his aid, brandishing Mister Morgenstern and screaming a war cry in German.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Kneel before Zod!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Red has already had two terrifying close encounters with dog packs – once when exploring an abandoned town near Ponikla in early July<\/a>, then again a few weeks later while rescuing the trainyard kids from slavers<\/a>. His response to this new canid threat is not quite<\/em> disproportionate as he pulls his Glock 18 and sprays wildly at them. One goes down – but the machine pistol jams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leks steadies his MG3 and walks a burst dangerously close to Red. The other dog comes apart under the impact of multiple rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arkadi maneuvers north, swinging wide behind Leks in perhaps justifiable concern that the Estonian’s hatred of Russians would lead him to be less than careful if the former KGB operator moved in front of his position. He steadies his AKS-74U. His fire and Magda’s converge on the active sniper and the man drops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red flattens on the bridge as Magda, Minka, and Leks shift their sights to the archers behind the wrecked cars. The men duck behind cover as a hail of rifle rounds rattles off the rusted steel. Leks steadies the MG3 on its bipod and rips through the rest of his ammo belt, chewing <\/em>through the wreckage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dense foliage on the small hill to the north thrashes as Alexei and Miko trade blows and bites with the swordsman and dogs. Miko deals one dog a lethal slash. Alexei crushes the other’s skull with a scream of “good doggie<\/strong>!” Both teenagers turn on the swordsman, who somehow holds them both off while still threatening Miko. Arkadi unlimbers his tomahawk and joins the fray. The swordsman turns to face the new threat and Alexei brings his enhanced baseball bat down in a shattering two-handed swing.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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I am a capricious but generous GM, and I like giving my PCs equipment with flavor. Arkadi came by this honestly. I’s something of a symbol for his personal pursuit of, if not redemption, at least solace. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Miko claims his opponent’s saber and brandishes it with a triumphant war cry. Alexei picks up another and examines it a bit more critically. “Maybe we should show this to the people in the village, see if they know anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n

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Ho ho ho. Now I have a sword too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Arkadi looks down at the bodies at his feet. “That… is not normal.” He points with the toe of his boot to where the wounds from his tomahawk and Alexei’s bat are blackening and putrefying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexei rummages in his pockets and comes up with a piece of scrap iron. He presses it to one of the archers’ bodies and the skin begins slowly blackening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red, overhearing this on his way to Leks, nods. It’s not the first time he’s seen uncanny opponents’ bodies react to ferrous metal this way<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrow in Leks’ knee is easy enough to extract, but it’s coated in some sort of filth. Without opening up the wound and doing even more damage, Red can’t be confident he’s gotten all of the foreign matter out of the Estonian’s leg. It’s up to Leks’ sturdy constitution to fend off infection. [The attempt to clean and treat this wound was the first of three or four double-1 rolls Red got over the course of this session.]<\/em> He splints Leks’ leg, but now the team’s tactical leader is all but immobilized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Magda and Arkadi covering them, Alexei and Miko cross the bridge and check the rest of the area. It’s deserted. They cautiously move up to the rubbled building where Miko and Magda spotted the smoke traces earlier. Inside the tumbled walls, they find the remains of a large campfire – and a horse and a man. Both bodies are hacked apart, heads discarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The duo returns to the main body to report their findings. Alexei looks at Minka. “It’s not Wiegel,” he reassures her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red suppresses a sigh. “I’d better take a look.” He glances at Minka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The equestrienne shakes her head. “I don’t need to see that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red moves up with an armed escort and assesses the scene at length. The severed heads match the description of one of Majewski’s missing troops and his mount, and there are enough uniform scraps to support that. There’s also sufficient other evidence to confirm the team’s worst suspicions. “We can’t count on them not having guns,” he reports when he returns. “They did take his equipment. And I don’t think they’re gonna ask for it, but… no quarter on these guys.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Did you see something?” Arkadi asks. His expression suggests he already knows the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Dogs weren’t the only ones that were hungry.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jablonski’s cousins come back from their own survey of the ruins, grinning ear to ear and pushing a wobbly handcart. “A tachanka<\/a><\/em> for you!” they call to Leks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leks matches their expressions with his own feral smile and locks a fresh belt into his MG3. “Fuck yes. Minka, help me up. Let’s go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back at the eastern approach to the hilltop village, the combined group of the PCs and the Rawa Mazowiecka militia circles up about four kilometers away. Their first move is to send in a trio of motorcycle scouts. Through their binoculars, they can see the point, about 700 to 800 meters away, at which the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kaserne-on-the-borderlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1377,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions\/1377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}