Deadlands!

[theweaselking]

"See, I knew he was dead all along!"

Our Intrepid Heroes, having shot the despicable bandit Rattlesnake Jake dead (again) at the end of last session, dragged his body back into town and strung it up at the crossroads. And then stood around it with guns drawn, expectantly. In a town full of (and terrorised by) bandits from Jake's gang. Where Jake's (crooked) brother Sam also goes by the name "Sheriff Roberts".

"I'm painting on the board: Rattlesnake Jake. Murder. Kidnapping. Extortion."
"You spelled Extortion wrong!"
"Quiet, you. I'd spell better if I didn't have YOUR BULLET in MY HEAD."
"At least take out the C!"
"This is paint! We can't just erase things!"
"I'll add a line and turn it into a K. That's better, right?"
"Oh, great. A sign that says
Rattlesnake Jake:
Murder,
Kidnapping,
Ecks
Eksto
Extro
Stealin' Stuff
So, they do this.

Ignoring the scurrying townsfolk as they close their shops, lock their doors, and press themselves up against the windows to watch.

Ignoring the people running straight to the Sheriff to tell him that those annoying strangers have killed his brother and are doing ignominious things to the body in town square.

Waiting, doing nothing, in plain sight, expecting the Sheriff to come gunning for them.

While still suffering some pretty severe wound penalties because Jake himself was a tough motherfucker with a bad habit of not being where he last shot you from.

And they still looked surprised and betrayed when the Sheriff came, in force, with heavy weapons, having deputised all those well-armed gang members, to arrest them for his brother's murder. After all, they announced themselves and their intentions, stayed in the same spot, and gave him *as much time as he wanted* to prepare.

And when the Sheriff didn't himself surrender to be arrested on unspecified charges related to letting Jake's gang run pretty wild around here, they seemed, uh, shocked that these well-armed folks who'd taken the time to surround them from the other buildings opened fire.

Many chips were spent avoiding damage, as the posse (two rifles, one shotgun, one Huckster playing "innocent bystander" with Phantom Fingers doing her best to make the bandits miss and shoot at each other) traded fire with the Sheriff and his 3 "normal" deputies (4 double-barreled shotguns, loaded with slugs for the first exchange) and the 5 "gang recruits" (3 gatling pistols, 2 rifles, in elevated positions to provide enfilading fire). Oh, and the "bad guys" are all wearing bulletproof vests, and Our Heroes are wearing... uh... jury rigged bulletproof vests whose reliability is going down with every shot they stop.

"I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid. Or the other way around. Or something. Either way, there's one of them that I'm not, I'm sure of it."

This goes... pretty much as you might expect.

The lady (who is, from her manner, apparently raised by Scientifically Minded Wolves) dove for cover inside the post office and started firing her rifle out the window.

The giant Irishman is a terrible shot, and wasn't aiming, and so didn't do a whole lot of damage - but they keep shooting him, with slugs, into the middle of his chest, and he just wasn't going down. Even with a bulletproof vest, that's gotta count for something.

The suicidal, homicidal, genocidal Undead Texas Ranger took cover behind the hanging body and a post, returning fire when he could to decent but not terrifying effect. When his shotgun ran out of shells, he dropped it, drew his Peacemakers... and charged to short range, in the open, against the men armed with shotguns.

And traded shots with the Sheriff at point-blank range, delivering some pretty good hits.

And promptly caught a slug to the brainpan in return.

"What's the plan?"
"I'm going to hole up here and shoot everybody until Lefty gets back up. It worked last time."

The Giant Irishman took off out the back, brightly realising that he's shit with a rifle at this range against guys in cover, and started going around the back to take them from behind in an old-fashioned "Here. Hold the rifle like this, and use it as a club!" Maneuver. This left our Manners Of One Who Was Raised By Wolves lady pointing her gun out a window, and not suspecting that she was being flanked until a shotgun was pointed at her from about a meter away, accompanied by a demand to surrender.

The Giant Irishman kicked the crap out of one guy, tossing him all the way across the street from the second floor and bouncing him off the far building. Mumble mumble something Strength Of 10 Because His Heart Is Pure mumble something. Unfortunately, when he came back down (intending to reposition and get another one - hit and run, smart) he found himself right in front of the Sheriff with a shotgun pointed at him.

To his, uh, "credit" he tried to grab the gun, thinking (correctly) that he could kick the living crap out of the Sheriff if the gun wasn't involved. He wasn't quite that fast. To the bulletproof vest's credit, it stood up to that one last slug pretty well, and left the Irishman down, winded, helpless, and not bleeding to death.

The Huckster, still playing Innocent Bystander but knowing that, well, the Sheriff and his deputies *do* know what she looks like and that she came in with those guys, takes a runner.

And that was the *start* of the session.

I really didn't expect them to pick a fight and then let their enemy set *all* the terms of it. Really. I had planned for the eventuality, but that was mostly as a "Oh, they CAN'T make THAT mistake" kind of contingency planning.

After realising that they were so outnumbered, outpositioned, and outgunned, I didn't expect 'em to stand and fight, but I was prepared for it.

I REALLY wasn't expecting The Undead Guy to charge out into the open at short range against guys armed with shotguns - but, hey, if you're saving your shot for a better target, there really are few better targets than a guy running up to short range in the wide open.

So. One of Our Heroes is pushing up daisies. Two more are thrown in jail. The third is hiding from the law in the best place she knows - the town doctor's office! Of course, then the Sheriff and his deputies come in for a patchup job.

To her credit, she just ninjes (yes, that IS how you conjugate "To Ninja") and lets them go by, and sneaks out to the jail after dark.

A brief conversation later, and with the timely (and unnecessary, as it turned out) intervention of of a pair of mysterious strangers, the Giant Irishman busts a hole in the wall of the jail cell[1], pulls out the bars on the lady (Sioux name: Manners-Of-Wolves)'s cell, breaks open the dead guy's cell to bring him along ("He's been dead before! He'll get up ANY minute now!"), and tosses the unconscious guard into the fourth cell - in the process freeing the fourth prisoner, who now exists because Dead Guy's player has had time to make a new character and this seemed like a good idea to him.

"Don't you have the Curious flaw?"
"Yes, but I'm pretty sure the street address of the Sheriff's office is NOT a mystery I need to solve after breaking out of jail!"

Three of them hightail it. The last wants her confiscated stuff back. She breaks into the back room of the Sheriff's office, completely botches her one-round Search roll, and instead of getting her own pack with her notebook, camera, samples (including the classic Vial O' Beef Juice), she gets somebody else's pack with a notebook, cheap whiskey, a couple of changes of men's clothing, and some frilly women's underpants.

"You find women's underwear."
"Frilly? Lacy? Like it's from France?"
"Yes."
"I smell it."
[everyone else in a chorus:] "Gaaah!"

And on that note, I quit for the day and went for dinner and beer.

[1]: It's scary what happens when you've got a 3d10 Strength, the Smite miracle (to raise your strength to 3d12+6), and then a Huckster with Corporeal Tweak (to up that to 3d12+16). For those of you who don't know Deadlands: A giant demon-cow (read: Gorgon) has a 3d12+8 Strength. A sea serpent has 5d12+6.

Comments

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

Ummm... ow.

There's a word for that somewhere, a compound word, using the letters c------f---. It's like hangman. Or ""insert-comical-ethnicity" fire brigade."

I think the idea was that truth and justice would prevail.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

They did, kinda. Well. No. Not really.

He even left out the bit about how some poor lost traveller[1] stumbled upon our camp and begged for help as we were waiting for Winona to join up with us, and we promptly blew his guts out.

(I really need to get Velvet some more non-obvious hexes, or better shootin' skills. Trying to aim a Gatling pistol that's being held by someone twenty-five feet away is... awkward.)
---
[1] Brainthirsty zombie. Really.

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

Wow. The tactics, they amaze me.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Me too.

Believe me.

[harald387.livejournal.com]

It's fucking called drama. It's my mistake, really, for thinking like a Western movie instead of reality.

-K

[zenten.livejournal.com]

That was completely untrue. There was no beer involved.

And I thought that Lefty had a plan. I really did. The moment he wakes up he's going to get a stern word or two.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

I was about to respond to aimisdirty and now I'm just sitting here cracking up.

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

Is it /fucking/ called drama? Or is it called /fucking/ drama?

Or is it just called silly gaming fun?

[torrain.livejournal.com]

*clears throat*

For an itinerant gambler who's likely to get hanged if she does something really useful, a religious and generally rather non-aggressive Catholic, a cryptozoologist under contract to the Texas Rangers, and a Texas Ranger with a hole in his head and a helluva lot of overconfidence, I think we did quite well.

Mind you, there is a reason such a group is perhaps not the first choice of those who are familiar with tactical reasoning.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I had beer.

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

If I was being seriously critical of your tactics, I would have pointed out the lack of bounding overwatch, covering fire, mutually interlocking fields of fire, and use of cohesive fire teams.

Lighten up.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

(Dammit, I knew I should have left the smiley in there... :) I'm light. Honestly.) What's bounding overwatch? It sounds like something we may have had.

Uhm. As to the rest, I'm pretty sure they were present during the firefight (except *possibly* the use of cohesive fire teams).

Just not on our side. {:)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

"c. Bounding Overwatch. Bounding overwatch is used when contact is expected. It is the most secure, but slowest, movement technique. The purpose of bounding overwatch is to deploy prior to contact, giving the unit the ability to protect a bounding element by immediately suppressing an enemy force. In all types of bounding, the overwatch element is assigned sectors to scan while the bounding element uses terrain to achieve cover and concealment. The bounding element should avoid masking the fires of the overwatch element; it must never move beyond the range at which the overwatch element can effectively suppress likely or suspected enemy positions. The company can employ either of two bounding methods, alternate bounds or successive bounds, which are discussed in the following paragraphs. Figure 3-7 and Figure 3-8, show the technique of bounding overwatch utilizing the MGS platoon, dismounted and mounted."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-21-11/c03.htm

Basically, Bounding Overwatch means having one set of people covering the others while they move, and then, when the moving guys stop and set THEMSELVES up as overwatch, the previous overwatch guys now start moving. It's so that as soon as an enemy is detected, the overwatch guys can pin him down and let the moving guys set themselves up.

They kinda had that - when the shotgun guys went to cross the street and get close, the rifle-and-gatling guys were set to shoot Kerry and Josh as soon as they popped their heads out the front door.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. (I would've Googled, but *really* had to get out the door.) Kind of an "advance by cover and fire" thing, without the guarantee of fire being necessary.

Not sure if that would have done us much good; we weren't really advancing anywhere, and didn't plan for a retreat.

(Which, in and of itself, was an oversight.)

[thathatedguy.livejournal.com]

I will own the new Deadlands Thursday. I am geeking over this fact, ever so slightly.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

New Deadlands is neat, but very strange. It's got some kludges I don't like, and some things I relaly, really love and mean to steal.

[benarian.livejournal.com]

That's another reason to just love role-playing games. Even the Officiator doesn't know exactly what is going to happen.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

And he *still* planned for it.

John scares me sometimes.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

But I had a plan in case it did.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

It is possibly the single most beautiful RPG I have seen in three years. (That is a purely aesthetic assessment of the book, mind you. And aaronace has just made the fourht piece in this post available.)

I have not read the book yet. Am hoping to go through it later.

[thathatedguy.livejournal.com]

I hope to actually meet Aaron in the flesh this weekend at Origins, after knowing him online for the past few months.
Yes, those images are great. The railroad one is now my wallpaper.

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I read some defensiveness in that. ;-)

[torrain.livejournal.com]

*grin* Have fun. I'm ordering it as a print. I *really* need to start hanging things.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

It's all good. ;)

It still strikes me as funny, though. Thinking of the posse in terms of organized tactics... well...

...have you ever seen the project management commercial where they have a bunch of cowboys talking about their work herding cats?

(If not, it's here and it's funny. To me, at least.)

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

Yup. Bounding itself is also used in section attacks. Using an eight man (any time I say 'man' ref: military tactics, it means both genders) section as an example:

An enemy position in a forward open trench system begins firing on an advancing infantry section. The infantry section has two C9 Machine gunners, and the remaining soldiers have C7 rifles. The immediate action drill is conducted, which involves everyone firing two shots (or a short burst) in the direction of the fire, while sprinting forward a couple of steps and then diving to the ground.

The section is divided into two assault groups (AG), designated AG 1, and AG 2 - each composed of four people. Normally the first advance on an enemy position using bounding is done using assault groups, in order to close the distance more quickly.

In an extended line (IE, the opposite of single file), with the C9 gunners at either end of the section, the section IC yells out 'Group, Group, Group!'. AG 2 continues to provide effective and continuous fire on the enemy position. AG 1 usually starts it off, moving 3 - 5 feet before going prone. AG 1 starts to fire, and AG 2 does the same movement past them.

Once you close within about 75-50 feet of the enemy position (depending on the terrain and other considerations), the IC will yell out 'Team, Team, Team!'. Fire teams, as previously stated, are composed of two soldiers - with each fireteam using one of the phonetic letters of the alphabet in sequence - Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta - in the case of our 8 man section.

Now the fire teams start to bound. So if Alpha and Bravo compose assault group 1, then Alpha will move while Bravo covers. At the same time, Charlie will move, while Delta covers.

This goes on until they are at close range with the enemy position. The fire team in the best position for the assault is designated - 'Alpha, clear the trench!' - or something similar.

The rest of the section provides heavy fire a safe distance away from Alpha, as Alpha moves up and tosses a grenade into the trench. While Alpha one covers, Alpha two rolls onto the edge of the trench with bayonet fixed, and sweeps the trench on fully automatic. He yells 'trench clear!', and the section moves 30 feet /past/ the objective, in case the enemy is waiting just behind the trench line to counter-attack.

Obviously, there is more to it - but those are the basics. Hopefully, it wasn't too confusing.

Heh. My personal favourite (it isn't legal anymore, but we still do it), is the aussie peelback.

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

Okay, that was hilarious.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Simple enough tactics, really.

What's an aussie peelback, and how can an infantry maneuver be "illegal"?

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

Simple, until you do it for real. It can get ridiculously complex, especially when you add in mitigating factors like fatigue, terrain, weapon jams/reloads, etc.

An aussie peelback is where you are in extended line, firing on a target. The individual at one end stands up, and with the rest of the section kneeling or crouched, the first person starts firing (rapidly, or in bursts) over their heads as he runs behind them to the other end of the line. As he passes the person immediately beside him when he starts, he taps that persons shoulder. The next person gets up and does the same. It is used to break contact, and keep up an extremely high volume of fire while doing so.

The WOGs in charge of things made it against the rules to do it, because it was ruled to be too dangerous for training.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Simple *tactics*. I didn't mean to imply that it was easy to do.

[aimisdirty.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Almost all good tactics look easy on paper.