Revisiting My Hobby Plan for Future Gaming (The 10-Plan)

Back in September of last year, I presented a plan to narrow my hobby focus a little, to ten of the thirty-some periods and settings in which I do or would like to game.  The process of executing that plan started on November 4th, and since then, I've done a fairly good job of staying on target.

Over the eight months that have elapsed since the acting on the plan, I have worked in some capacity on eight of the periods, and only blatantly strayed one time.  Additionally, as I recently posted, I've done some research on some Star trek gaming, outside of my original plan, but given that I don't really have any research to do otherwise, the time invested would have simply been down time, so I really don't feel too guilty about that.

Here's where I stand on the "10-Plan"

1/3788 Star Trek/Star Fleet Battles -  The only planned actively has been to acquire three USS Reliant models, which will be used as SFB New Light Cruisers for the Federation.  I've also done a little research regarding miniatures to fill in gaps for the Klingon and Romulan fleets.  I expected to pick up work on this late in the year, so progress is about as expected.

6mm 1950s Cold War - I've completed painting railroad tracks, a bunch of buildings, and a mix of vehicles as needed.  A few aircraft are awaiting decals and will then be complete.  I've also done design or early stages of construction for a few terrain bits still needed.  This project is as close to "done" as anything I've ever worked on and is about where I expected.

6mm WWII East Front Barbarossa - I've acquired all of the miniatures that I need, painted almost all of them, and completed all of the campaign set-up and paper work required to start the campaign.  I need to finish up refreshing a bunch of terrain (in proccess), make some additional buildings, and paint some more aircraft.  This is almost ready to go, and is well ahead of schedule (I don't say that very often).

15mm WWII East Front Barbarossa - I've purchased some of the tanks/vehicles and aircraft, and am in the middle of refreshing some terrain for this. I still need to add more vehicles, paint everything, add some new terrain tiles, and come up with some buildings.  All of the campaign research and paperwork is done.   Progress is probably a little ahead of schedule right now.

15mm France.  I've done some work setting up a "bathtub" campaign, but still need to add some terrain and miniatures. I'mi ahead of plan on campaign set-up and probably a little behind on the miniatures side.  All things considered, I've made about the amount of progress that I should have, by this point.  Note that the progress on my Barbarossa campaign has changed the priority on this a little, as I now plan to start Barbarossa before France 1940.

15mm Cold War 1950s - I've added some vehicles and finished the British infantry.  A couple of planes are awaiting decals.  I have a BTR50 master almost done, and will need to cast up some of those. One thing that I overlooked previously, was the need for buildings, and I've done some research and design work for those, I also will need a make a few city terrain tiles, and cut some blank tiles last week, so this is well on its way.  Given the oversite regarding buildings, this is about where I'd expect.

15mm 1970s Cold War - Other than making a few simple fighting positions, I've done nothing on this, and to be honest, I'm feeling very little mojo for it for much of the year thus far.  I am clearly behind on this project.  I am considering trading the period out for 15mm imagi-Africa, since I have an ongoing campaign there, and now realize that I really need more buildings for it.

15mm Soviet-Afghan War -  I have done research and design work for walls, ruins, gardens, wells, and more buildings, and have a couple more Soviet aircraft models ready to build.  I just finish cutting the foam stock that I will use to build most of this stuff, and as I expected this to be a late year project, am actually ahead of where I expected to be it.

20mm Vietnam - I've completed some work on aircraft, got a new platoon of PAVN infantry to paint, and done more research on building and bunkers.  I still need to decide on a setting for a mini- campaign.  Overall, I am about where I expected to be on this period.

28mm Post Apocalypse - I've made some additional terrain and played a few games recently.  I've got several buildings and new terrain pieces designed, awaiting construction, and have another building complex started.  I'm a little behind on the construction side for post apoc, but have made a conscious choice to hold off on new construction temporarily, as I want to play some games, and post apoc construction is likely to tie up my big table to two months or more.  So I am happy with where this is currently at.

Outside of the "10 Plan" I completed some imagi-Africa campaign buildings to facilitate playing the next battle in the campaign, and in the downtime imposed by the wait for a tool delivery, I've completed a bunch of research for two possible expansion to my Star Fleet Battles gaming.  Not too great a deviation from the plan overall.

My "10 Plan" status after eight months:

        On target: 7 periods

Ahead of plan: 2 periods

           Behind:  1 period

Overall, I'm fairly happy with how this has worked out.  By year's end, I look to complete two periods, and maybe a third.  If I do the trade out of 15mm 1970s Cold War for 15mm 1980s African imagi-nations, it is possible that I could have four "new projects" on the list next year.

To Go Where No Game Has Gone Before

Well, on my game table, anyway.

As regular readers might know, I am still fan of Star Fleet Battles, a game inspired by the original Star Trek and animated series.  If you look around the internet, you'll most likely find comments relating to the game being complex or having a huge rulebook.

I learned the game over 40 years ago from the 21 page of rules in the original boxed edition of the game, not the 288 pages in the Commanders edition rules or however many hundred pages in the current rulebooks.  And, I really enjoy the game.

The rules are big, but the game isn't really that complex; I can have have you running a starship in 15-20 minutes.  There is just a lot of detail; info about races, ships, and scenarios make up most of it.  More about the current version of the rules can be found here.  The original boxed version is usually available on Ebay.

I've always preferred the idea of gaming in Captain Kirk's universe of the 1960s or even in earlier Trek periods.  Most gamers seem to prefer the time of Next Generation or later, but I find the capital ships too big and overpowering, generally less interesting.

The series, Star Trek Enterprise, had the perfect setting for me; I even preferred the cast and characters to most other Trek series, too bad the writers weren't up to the task.  In any event, the idea of the smaller, technologically unbalanced ships with archaic weapons was just more captivating to me.

Some years back I discovered Prelude to Axanar, and more recently I watched Strange New Worlds (in many ways the Star Trek series that I waited my whole life for).  In the last couple of weeks, I bumped into The Romulan War on Youtube, which sems to have finally pushed me over the edge on this early Star Trek trek.

My hobby options have been somewhat limited over the last week, as I await the arrival of my band saw blade (see last post).  So over the last few days, on a whim, I decided to look into what was available to create a Star Fleet Battles version of the ships for The Romulan War (TRW) and for the Four Years War (FYW) dealing with Axanar and the Klingons.

Given the information that I've found, I will need to overlap both canon and non-canon info and fill in some blanks to create the ship diagrams and weapon tables for a my own version of Star Fleet battles in these earlier periods.

I've been chasing info about ship classes mentioned in material addressing the two conflicts about the ships, propulsion, and weapons (among other things) to produce the ship diagrams, called SSDs in SFB, that allow a player to run ships in the game system.

The Four Years War (FYW) with the Klingons isn't a problem to bring into SFB, the basic game starts just shortly after that period.  The Romulan War is roughly a hundred years earlier, and the ships are a lot more primitive.  I don't know if there is enough granularity to the weapons tables in SFB to accomodate the weapons and defensive systems without re-scaling the game system.

Where I currently stand is that bringing the Federation to life for the FYW isn't much of a problem at all.  The Klingons are a little tougher, finding more ambiguity in ship classes and descriptions, and there is generally less diversity with respect to ship size and class.

With respect to Axanar/FASA, I will have to do some picking and choosing. I quite like the Axanar fan film perspective, and was never a big fan of FASA's ship designs (particularly the Klingons). So I will mostly be going with the Axanar fan film's direction regarding ships, which can be readily adapted to the SFB game system.

With respect to The Romulan War, again the Federations ships seem more easy to produce, though qualifying and quantifying the relative value of armor and polarized plating of the ship hulls instead of the later shields is a bit abstract, and trying to do it, such that there is a direct linear progression from the time of the TRW, through FYW, and the TOS may be tricky.

Aditionally, defining the weapons of that earlier period, spatial and photonic torpedoes, and the various pulse and beam weapons looks to be less than strait forward, and they all look to cause very minimal damage by comparison to even the worst weapons of Captain Kirk's era.

I haven't really gotten into the meat of the Romulan ships yet, having seen what's presented in the fan films, and just scattered bits otherwise.  Leaning on TOS info and my own notions, somewhat derived from SFB, this may prove the toughest part of the adventure.

Another avenue that I've gone down over these last few days, is availability of models for these two conflicts in or close to the 1/3788 scale of the old Gamescience and SFB game miniatures.  

A lot of the Federation ships are available for FYW, as are some Klingon, though at the moment, scale may be an issue for some of the Klingon ships.  For the earlier period of the Romulan War, I have a lot less to work with thus far, and suspect that I might have to start scratch-building and casting fleets for those.  Though there are quite a number of model ships available in the Romulan Warbird configuration that might work as proxies.

I could play both periods with counters, but would really prefer and better enjoy the games if they included miniatures.  Ultimately, I don't really know if this will go anywhere, and beyond the research stage, it may just sit on a shelf for quite some time before manifesting on the table top.   Last year, I shared a plan to focus on 10 gaming periods, and was doing pretty well with this since November.  Star fleet Battles - The Early Years wasn't on that list.

Anyway, this is the more interesting part of what I've been doing while waiting for my band saw blade to arive for my foam cutting project.  I'll plan to continue to research the ships and build a timeline of events for the two conflicts, and make up at least a few SSDs for some of the ships to get a feel for what they look like in the game.  Hopefully I'll have something to share in a future post from all of this.

That's all I have for now, be safe out there.

Ever Notice How Things Never Seem to Go As Planned?

My next game is going to be a WWIII-1958 battle, but I need to make a single terrain tile for a small town with the right road layout to connect to the rest of my modular terrain, a fairly simple little project.

By chance, I am out of 12" square foam tiles, so need to cut one.  No problem, I have enough foam on hand to cut 6-7 tiles, so figured I just do that, and reduce the amount of space taken up by the foam a little.  

And then, it occurred to me that I have notable footprint of uncut 1 inch foam slabs sitting on shelves that have been taking up space since early 2019.  It hasn't been used, as it was for a terrain project, but the green 1 inch foam from Lowes was manufactured poorly, such that the thickness varied between .81 and 1.06 inches, making it really hard to use with 1" thick modular terrain.  So, I figured that I'd eventually cut it up into slabs of varying thickness for making buildings and whatnot.

This process involved cutting the foam into 1"x 7"x24" pieces, cutting off the glazed face, and then splitting them vertically into "slabs" having thickness ranging from .75" down to .06" for making walls and whatnot.  A lot simpler than it sounds, but very messy.  The process would take maybe 4 hours, and generate 45-60 gallons of foam waste and an equivalent amount of newly freed space in the basement.  Plus, there was enough foam that I may never have to do this messy job again.

A box of half inch to 3/4 inch slabs.  When 

finished I'll have two more boxes of thinner slabs.

So I grab all of the foam, sort it out, and start cutting it down on the band saw.  Going good, filled the first box and then some with slabs of stock.  Then "floink".  The blade breaks; the cutting stops.  Not a big surprise really, the blade has probably been on there for 15 years.  

An inconvenience, but not a big deal.  Got to go get cleaned up, get all of the green (and a little pink and blue dust off of me and go to the store.  Get a new blade, maybe $12-15.

Now even 7-8 years ago, there were three stores within four miles of my house, that carried as many as eight different blades for my saw, having different combinations of blade thickness and teeth per inch.  

Now, there were none.  There used to be easily, a dozen places located between my house and place of work that carried the blades.  Guess what?  Now, there are none.  

Two days and 7 hours of searching later, I found one place that will custom make the blades for $69.00.  And, I fond one store that offers one size/type of blade that will fit, but they don't carry it in stock.  The saw is a Craftsman, and that name, after bankruptcy and resurrection by a new owner, no longer offers any parts for any of my home or work floor or benchtop power tools.

So I ordered a couple of blades, which should outlast me, and they will be here in a week.  So my four hour project to save space has my whole gaming and work area filled with stacks of foam and dust for a week, Seven, ten, twenty, thirty years ago, it would have been a 25 minute inconvenience.  Progress confuses me.

So much for my brilliant plan.  First contact with the enemy, I mean saw, and it all goes to poo.

Sorry, I just had to whine a bit.

AAR-39: Hunting the Lion (African Imagi-Nations)

They called him "Simba", "The Lion", maybe because of his full beard which framed his face as if it were a mane, or maybe because of his wisdom and tenacity in fighting the French in his younger days.  Likely the most powerful and respected leader left in the ULF, he wasn't sure of what the future would might for his cause.  Working to sort out the situation that the ULF now found itself in, he was trying to figure out his next move.  

As he pondered the situation, he noticed the increased chatter on the radio in the far corner of the room.  "Simba, lookouts are reporting that something is happening.  To the east...and from the west...  Russians!"  

The Lion had expected as much, it was mostly a matter of "when".  And "when" was apparently now.

The Border region between Uwanda an Mugabia, 

the battle takes place at objective B-19, 

a little blow and right of center above.

The Lion's stronghold was located in the town known as objective B-19 on Uwanda's maps.  He had a significant force of dedicated fighters and several vehicles including a couple of old French armored cars.  The Soviets had moved to surround and isolate the Lion in his den, incorporating both Motor Rifle and Airborne troops in the assault.

The Soviets had decided not to be heavy handed in this operation and to rely on various infantry and support from their fighting vehicles for the fight in the city.  

ULF Forces

The Lion and personal guard of 10 men.

5x 10 man sections, plus (4d10) additional fighters from the surrounding town

2x Technicals with HMG

2x Panhard AML60

1x cargo truck

1x GAZ69

1x Pickup truck

ULF Forces.

Soviet Forces

2x Motor Infantry pltn and HQ (6 squads in 7 BMP-1s)

2x Airborne pltn (6x Squads and HQ in trucks)

3x BMD-1

Soviet forces.

The Soviet plan was simple, the primary attack would be from the east by the infantry and their BMPs, pushing the ULF west into the waiting paratroops.  Victory would be achieved, when the body of "The Lion" could be identified.

The center of town, a ULF stronghold.

The Soviet infantry commander lead the way into the fight, driving down the main road, with infantry platoons fanned out to either side.  He wanted to get as close the target as possible, before deploying infantry, on making contact with the enemy.

The Soviet infantry advancing in their BMP1s from the east.

Meanwhile, the Paratroop commander would establish a blocking force along the western edge of the city.

The Soviet paras deploy along the west edge of town.

The noise from the IFVs quickly gained the attention of the ULFs watching eyes, and The Lion was alerted well before shooting started.  When shooting did start, among the first to die was the infantry commander and his BMP. 

The Soviet infantry commander and most of he CHQ 

died when his BMP was hit early in the battle.

This left a void in communications and leadership, with the infantry platoons advancing into a swarm of RPG fire, meanwhile, the paratroops, sparred at range with ULF fighters to the west, while their trucks were steadily picked off by those pesky RPGs.

Soviet paras advancing, while their trucks have an allergic 

reaction to RPGs.

The infantry platoon leaders pushed their troops to advance despite the loss of more BMPs, and they began to inflict notable casualties on the ULF.

The Soviets continue to advance from the east.

On the west side of town, the paratroop platoon to the south, dismounted and engaged a small number of ULF fighters ULF fighters, both taking and inflicting significant casualties.

Paratroops engaging UF fighters to the southwest of town.

As fate would have it, there were a larger number of ULF fighters than intelligence reports had suggested, and they offered tougher resistance than expected.  Additionally, the ULF had been just plain lucky, getting far more hits with their RPGs than anyone could have expected.

Despite the loss of the infantry commander at the start of the fight, both Soviet platoons pushed on with leaders on both sides somehow maintaining control of their forces.  The paratroop commander had hesitated, not knowing what had happened to to the overall infantry command, and missed opportunity to advance and gain greater advantage, choosing instead to follow his last order.

The northern Soviet infantry platoon advancing west

 (towards top above).

And the southern platoon advancing west (left above).

The paratroops to the northwest had advanced to gain better cover, but contnuing to take casualties, started to withdraw, and they seemed to face greater forces, despite inflicting many casualties as the battle progressed.

More ULF fighters resist the paratroops tot he northwest...

...While the paratroops begin to fall back.

The ULF had spent their last surprise, sending two AML 60 armored cars and two technicals, pick-up trucks with heavy machine guns, into the fray.  Initially the AMLs had little effect, while the technicals each got off a single, if lethal burst, before their gunners were hit.

One of the ULF technicals joining the fight.

To the east, the ULF was in a bad way, having lost a significant number of fighters, while, the Russians slowly advanced.  The paratroopers to the northwest were dropping back, and those to the southwest held their ground, waiting to catch the fleeing ULF fighters, which to this point, did not appear.

Many ULF and some Soviet infantry lie wounded or dead in 

the streets.

On the east side of town, Soviet infantry continued to advance, dishing out more casualties, than they incurred.  The Para commander, finally got a a response from someone up the command chain, found that he wasn't the only one not talking to the operation commander, and was told to continue to follow his last order.

One of the AML armored cars had been tracked in a position that permitted it to continue firing against the paras to the northwest, who were continuing to withdraw.  The other AML60 circled around the most northerly BMP and enguaged it with its 60mm, crippling, but not killing it.  

After missing a couple of shots, the BMP finally hit and destroyed the AML60, but shortly afterword, received a ht from an RPG that penetrated the engine compartment, and at which point the crew abandoned the BMP.

The BMP (left) and thee AML60 (under the cloud of smoke 

to the right).

The crew included the infantry PHQ, who issued an order to withdraw.  The southern Soviet PHQ could see this happen and also ordered a withdraw for the last advancing Soviet unit. 

With all but the Southwestern group of paras withdrawing (and the heavy casualties taken by he ULF), the firing diminished, and after a few minutes, the paratroop commander also ordered a withdrawal.

Soviet paratroops withdrawing to their trucks.

The ULF had taken terrible casualties, and Simba's personal guards had grown concerned, so they were in the process of abandoning their compound, and working their way north, but the Soviet withdrawal came before Simba had been able to escape town.

The Soviets had failed to catch or kill Simba, but had functionally destroyed his immediate ability to fight.

His guards hurried him to his jeep, as the driver accelerated, the old Lion noticed that the shooting had subsided. "Stop! STOP!", he yell to the driver.  "They are beaten, they are leaving, we shall stay, for now."  But the old man, rubbing his beard, knew that they couldn't stay for long.

_______________________________________ 

Casualties were high on both sides:

ULF:

1x truck

1x AML60

53x KIA

4x WIA

(14x survivors including Simba)

Soviets:

5x BMP

2x BMD

4x Gaz 66 truck

1x UAZ 469

35x KIA

9x WIA

I can't explain the high KIA to WIA ratio.  The ULF should have had a high number of KIA, but should have had  less than they ended up with.  The Soviets should have had about two thirds of their wounded survive.  The dice were just evil today.

This was also true for RPG shots.  Something like 11 of the first 13 RPGs hit targets even with chances to hit often under 20 percent.  

The game ended up being a mess, with ULF fighters being released at different times, and having no central communication.  And with the Soviet overall commander being killed in the first turn of fire, the Soviets had no cohesion until they had already started to withdraw.

Platoon leaders did an exceptional job of keeping their forces under control for quite some time (as did ULF leaders), but for the most part didn't or couldn't communicate with each other, and had little situational awareness.

It ended up just being a really bloody, really weird fight, with crazy good dice for shooting, and really horrible dice for effect of wounds.

And on a side note, I now realize that I still need a lot more buildings.

Future Games: Africa and WWIII-1958

Over the last four weeks, my hobby has consisted only of gaming on weekends and writing up game reports for my blog.  I haven't lifted a finger for research, painting, or building.  With games on the table, I don't have much room for building, though I have a separate painting table, and research is mostly done upstairs on yet another (more or less dedicated) table.  

I don't have a reason for the lethargic approach to the the hobby beyond the gaming, which I'm really quite enjoying.  I just haven't felt like working on anything.  A little of that can probably be attributed to increased time working outside and around the house, but whatever the reason, right now it feels good just playing games.

Currently, I've got three more games planned.  The next one will be the first Soviet response to the Uwanda Liberation Front (ULF) betrayal in imagi-Africa.  I'll be setting that up Saturday, though suspect that I won't be able to finish playing the game until the weekend after.

In this battle, the Soviets will be attacking a known ULF stronghold in one of the southern Mugabian cities.  It should be a little more balanced than the last Soviet/ULF encounter.  

The other two scenarios that I have ready to go are WWIII 1958 battles.  A follow-on to the Soviet advance against the Brits, and the first Soviet encounter against the West Germans to the North of the attack v. the British.

The British armored formations involved this time, don't have Conqueror heavy tanks (just Centurion IIIs), and it is still raining with reduced visibility and lack of air support, so I'm curious to see how differently this battle plays out from the last.

After that, I will play out the West German battle.  The Germans are equipped with M47s and unarmored Borgward 2000 infantry carriers, so I am very interested to see what can be accomplished with those.  Initially, I had feared that the M47s would be utterly outclassed by T54/T55 types, but after an analysis of the M47s 90mm gun v. their Soviet counterparts, it isn't as hopeless as it might seem; at least until the T10s show up.

I think that I have some understanding of German tactics once the Leopards and armored infantry carriers were in service, but have seen nothing specifically addressing tactics for the first iteration of German formations in the late 1950s.  I'm not sure that later German tactics can be successfully employed with the older equipment, so the game will very much be an experiment for me.  Hopefully not too costly for the Germans.

Both of the WWIII battles are quite large and involved, and I may still need to build a couple terrain tiles for the battles.  Setup will take a day or two for each, and I'm guessing that fighting out the battles will take at least three days each, so my gaming time (and table) could reasonably be tied up for the next six weeks, including the Africa game.

Not sure where things will go after that in either campaign.  By then, I may be back in full "build and paint" mode, or maybe I'll piece together some more battles for the tabletop. 

That's what's happening on my front.  Stay safe out there.

The Comms Station: The Journey Home (part 3)

The next morning, the situation kind of hit us.  Three days home just turned into weeks, on foot, across the wastes.  We had maybe three days supplies, didn't know the land real well, and had three guys that were in no shape to travel, really.  And, we suspected that we were being watched or tracked.

Everybody was still wonderin' what happened to our rides, but Sarge said it didn't matter, our job was to get home, and we needed to focus on that.

I coudn't help but feel that we was just so screwed.  A couple of the grunts started to come apart.  Panky was havin' none of it.  Grabbed the one dude by the throat, told him to shut-up or she'd shoot him herself.  He settled down, Sergeant Hand smiled a little.  I don't think Panky would have done it, shot the grunt.

So the Sergeant, and Panky, who was second in command now, got everybody squared away, and we moved out.  The day was long, dusty, and hot.  By the end we was tired, thirsting, hungry, hurt, but nobody tried to shoot us, so it was 'bout as good as could be hoped for.  

This went on for a couple of days, and then we happened on a village.  This was still well north of the Confederation, so  we was strangers in a strange land, and nobody trusted anybody.  The local militia greeted us, mostly armed with spears, clubs, and farm tools.

Even in as bad a shape as we were, we musta looked pretty scary, with our armor and army rifles and weapons and all.  And to be honest, Sergeant Hand having a metal hand and half a metal head never looked too friendly, so Panky took the lead, dropped her weapons and armor, and approached the strangers.

Maybe the weirdest thing to happen on this mission yet, Panky seemed nice.  She talked to their leader, laughed, smiled, like a normal person.  I ain't never seen that before.  When she came back, she said that they would let us stay the night in a barn on the edge of the village, and she traded a medkit for some salted goat meat and water. 

We rested in the shade, tended to our wounds and equipment, and a few of the villagers came and talked with us.  They talked about the problems they have, about seeing big green men in the wastes a couple of times, about what sounded like the blockhouse soldiers, gangs, and about  the "missions" from something called the "California Republic".

That night, the villagers built a big fire and they sang with us and shared their food and drink.  It was like a festival back home, just smaller. Later we posted watches, rested up, and early in the morning, before it got hot, we moved out.

At this point, Sarge had rationed out about ten days worth of food. Well, maybe enough to keep us going, but wasn't like normal rations, but our real worry was water.  We only carried maybe 4-5 days worth.  Maybe.

We didn't find nothin' for the next three days, except for a couple of small lizards, which made for crappy eating, even though we was so hungry.

About noon on the forth day, we ran into some greenies.  Only us on the recce team and Sarge had ever seen one before, and the guys was caught between scared and kind of in awe. 

We watched them for quite awhile, trying to figure out what they was doing, and formed a plan.   They had some kind of equipment set up, and this big truck.   There was a small stream, and they seemed to be collecting dirt in these little jars or cans, and they was cutting leaves from plants growing along the river. 

The situation from the Confederation side of the table...

...and from the Greenie side.

Then one of them stood up, sniffed the air real hard like and yelled, "I smell plague!"  They all stopped what they was doing, and started looking around. All three of us on the recon team fired, and then, so did everyone else.

Charlie, Panky, and Sam advance onto the table.

The geenies initial deployment and movement was all

 dictated by die roll.

Troopers spread out over the high ground north of 

the stream.

The Techies were told to hang back with one

 trooper to protect them.

Sam surveys the situation just before the shooting starts.

Luck wasn't with us, and I was the only one that got a hit at first.  The greenies was all over the place, and was shooting back wild like.

The shooting starts.

Right off, Panky got hit pretty bad, and I ran over to help her.  Sam got hit twice, and another trooper went down.  The only thing that went right was Lew took a greenie out with a long burst from her gatling.

Lew kills the first grennie with her gatling.

I was shooting again, and saw a grenade fly up and bounce off a rock, somebody must have got hit, I heard a scream.  Lew kept mowing them down, and Torch, who had that name before he carried the flame gun, got two more of the greenies.

Exchanging fire.

A different vantage point.

We were whittling them down, but they was getting us too.  At some point, one of those wild grenade throws caught Lew and the LT, who also went down.  We didn't know it at the time, but Wells got hit a bunch of times.  He didn't make it.

Casualties mounting.

Sergeant Hand was running from casualty to casualty trying to stabilize guys who got hit, make sure they was gonna be okay.

Lew finally got the greenie throwing the grenades.  She thought she was going to be toast, 'cause the greenie came out from behind a boulder right in front of her, but then missed her, and she let him have it.

The greenie wih the grenades, he wounded the LT 

and Lew.

The last greenie was across the stream, behind a big rock; we hit him a bunch of times before he finally went down.  Fortunately, he couldn't shoot for crap, cause he was shootin' like crazy, and never did seem to hit anybody.

One greenie in a stand-off with six Confederation troopers.

Sergeant Hand rushed that last Greenie and got to him, just as he fell.  I don't know what Sergeant Hand was going to do to that thing, but my money was on the Sarge.

Afterward, we rounded everybody up, that's when we found Wells.  We had five others wounded, three pretty serious.  We needed to get them back home, so they could get better treatment. Sam and the LT could walk; Panky, and two of the other guys had to be carried.

Confederation troops gather around the captured

 greenie truck.

Panky didn't even fight being carried, I was really worried about her.  Sam was hurting too, but wasn't in danger.

Anyway, like I said, we rounded everyone up, gathered the greenie jars and equipment, treated our wounded, and were in a hurry to get movin'.

Getting ready to head home.

That's when one of the grunts, who was lookin' real close at one of the dead greenies, asked about why their insides was so different than ours.  Sergeant Hand said they was some kind of plant people or something.  That's when the grunt looked at The Sarge, and says, "Sarge, can we eat the greenies?"

Sergeant Hands eyes got real big, and he spun around, smacked the guy across the top of his head so hard, that I though Sarge mighta killed 'em.  Sarge screamed, " We don't effing eat our enemies!!!  Greenies eat their enemies!!  We're not like them!!!" 

And then Panky, laying there half dead, said kinda under her breath, "...and they're green."  The Sarge spun around, eyes still bulging, looked at Panky briefly, and stomped off.

A couple of guys snickered, somebody helped the Sarge's victim back to his feet, and after a little while, he even remembered his name again.

Maybe the most important thing was that the Greenies had that truck.  A big ugly armored truck, with a cannon.  Thank God there hadn't been a greenie in the turret, when the shooting started.  If so, I wouldn't be talkin' to you right now.

The truck smelled bad, but it ran.  Sam rigged it up so that she could fit in the seat and drive, and we were on our way home.

The remainder of our trip was pretty boring, but went pretty fast.  Took two days to get home.  Command was pretty upset about losing the two APCs, and at not knowing what happened to them.  The Greenie truck and equipment offset that a little.  But the colonel still laid into our wounded LT.  

The Colonel's office door was open, and Sergeant hand just walked in and closed the door.  As the door closed, I heard the Colonel angrily say, "What do YOU want", to the Sergeant.  Then I swear that I could hear the Sarge yelling at the colonel.  There was more yelling, and then Sergeant Hand walked out of the office, smiled slightly as he walked by me with a nod, and went out the door.

Apparently, the comms building with the big antenna still works somehow.  It is getting and sending messages to places in the wastes, and to these things called sadde lights, that go around the planet?  I guess its a pretty big deal, we're gonna go back real soon.

Oh, and after we got back, when the medics were tending to Panky, Sergeant Hand went over an talked to her.  And she smiled again.  That's two smiles in four days.  Strange times.