Assault on Complex Alpha

It's a bank holiday, Claire is hiding under a duvet, ill, and I have a clear dining table. What could be a better opportunity to give Strange Aeons it's first spin? As I'm still terrain-less I decided to give the Achtung! Cthulhu tiles a spin instead.

The mission...
 For a while there have been strange rumours floating around of a Russian complex, codenamed Альфа, or Alpha.What is happening in here is anyone's guess, but locals and prisoners of war have been seen going in, but never coming out. The Russians may currently be allies, but our mystics tell us that there is definitely something powerful happening within the underground bunker and it cannot be good for anyone. Captain Harris and his small team have been dropped up the coastline a bit and are tasked with getting into the complex and stopping whatever is happening in there.

In order to get some equipment for my commandos I had to go up to 16 points, which still ony gives me three soldiers to send on their daring raid...

Additional mission rules:
Guard patrol. Guards on patrol do not get to be moved via any specific orders, but will remain on watch throughout their turn. IF they are alerted to the enemy's presence they will open fire and raise the alarm. Each turn, roll a scatter dice to determine their facing. Each turn the guards may attempt to notice a sneaking enemy by rolling above the distance to the enemy on a D6 if they are within their side arcs; if in the rear arc there is a -1 penalty to the check. IF they are facing an enemy who is either in the open, or less than 10" away, they will automatically spot them.

Sneaking. Threshold team members may attempt to sneak. By sneaking they halve their movement rate, but gain +2 to distance checks to be discovered (e.g. if they are 2" from a guard, they would count as 4" away; 3" = 5" etc. If they manage to make base contact with a guard undetected then they cound as charging and gain a bonus of +1CC for the first round. IF this succeeds, the enemy doesn't get to fight back this turn as they have been surprised. IF the attack fails, the defender has noticed them out of the corner of their eye and raises the alarm, releasing everyone from their Patrol state.


MI57 Forces:
Captain Harris (9 points)

Knife, .45 handgun, Thompson, Armoured vest

M	Dex	Con	A	W	Res	Skills
5/4	3+	6/7	3	2	3+	Command

Sergeant Jones (3 points)

Knife, .45 handgun, Bolt action rifle

M	Dex	Con	A	W	Res	Skills
5	4+	6	2	1	4+

Sergeant Smith (3 points)

Knife, .45 handgun, Bolt action rifle

M	Dex	Con	A	W	Res	Skills
5	5+	6	2	1	4+	Accurate

Lurker forces:
The Russian guard detail is led by Serzhánt Anatol (cult leader with Thompson) and 6 soldiers with bolt action rifles. They seriously outnumber the commandos (and slightly out-point them), but they are on guard duty so cannot move to attack yet.


Setting up.
Anatol starts in his command tent with two guards outside. One guard is on the boat, two guard the bunker entrance and one guards the weapon stores. The remaining two are asleep in the bunk house

Harris and his team manage to scale the side of the boat and now need to work out the best way of approaching the bunker...

In typical sneaky commando fashion, they opt to try and sneak along the side of the boat to take out the guard on watch from the raised deck. Smith decides to duck through the wheel house as the guard is looking int he wrong direction. He has to hope that the guard doesn't turn in the wrong direction and spot him... After some careful maneuvering, Smith managed to get behind the guard and successfully took him out without a sound. 1 Guard down.


One of the guards on Anatol's tent seemed to have some inbuilt compass as to where the team was on the ship as he was staring straight at them for quite a while. If it wasn't for the fact that they were sneaking and on the ship, they would have been scuppered. Quietly they dropped from the side of the ship as soon as his back was turned and prayed that he wouldn't turn back and spot them now they were in the open.

Luck was with them and they made it to behind the command tent without being detected. They still needed to sneak down here though as Anatol was asleep on just the other side of the thin canvas wall... just as they duck into cover behind the barrels next to the text, something must have awakened Anatol as he spotted them; maybe something brushed against the wall or a twig snapped... who knows, but he is now awake and aware that something is wrong. He rushes out of the tent and alerts his guards... the game is afoot!

With the alarm raised, the commandos opened fire on the guards by the bunker door. In their haste and darkness, failed to do anything.

The Russian guards rounded the edge of the tent and opened up on the commandos, taking Sergeant Jones out of the mission with a lucky burst from the thompson. The return fire from the remaining commandos took out two of the guards.

Ducking behind cover, Anatol opened fire again with his thompson and dropped Captain Harris, leaving  Smith all on his own ineffectively firing from behind a barrel. Unfortunately barrels aren't all that great at stopping automatic fire, so he wasn't too far behind Captain Harris in meeting his doom...

It looks like the Russians get to keep their secrets for another day and the valiant agents of MI57 slowly bleed out in the snow...
 

After game actions

Recorded MI57 Kills:
Harris: 2
Smith: 1

Captain Harris now has Teratophobia (fear of all Lurkers!)
Sergeant Smith makes a full recovery
Sergeant Jones is now Hemaphobic

This isnt going well for their first outing!

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That was Really Tense^TM while the commandos were sneaking around... and then the firefight began and everyone died... very quickly! I suspect that I need to try that again with a monster or two instead of a mob of angry Russian guards