Fields of Fire Chapter 1.1: A Dusty Road - 1st LT Diaz
Welcome to the first actual Chapter of Fields of Fire! We will be jumping straight into the action so get ready folks.
Check out character creation here if you want to know the background and how these three got thrown together.
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| It was just an ordinary dusty road. Photo by Bianca Maria on Unsplash |
“Drive!” I shout to the young woman in the front. I shoot a glance at the Polish soldier who saved us and jumped into the car. He has special forces patches and looks older. He’s looking behind us when he yells in heavily accented English, “Another car coming!”
I look back and see a Warsaw Pact-style utility truck coming up the road and gaining on us. “Faster!” I yell.
“This is as fast as this piece of shit goes army boy,” the woman yells back with a German accent. I quickly determine it won’t be fast enough. I spot a farmhouse off a side road and point, “Turn here, right here.”
The woman yanks on the wheel and sends us barreling down the side road. “It’s a dead-end army man,” the woman says with a panicky voice. The Polish veteran sees this too but quickly his eyes light up with recognition.
“No, it is a good place for an ambush,” he says.
“Pull the car around the back of the building and get ready to start shooting,” I say, trying to be as calm as normal. I taste the metallic taste of adrenaline as I check my pistol.
The car skids to a stop, and we pile out, getting behind the wrecked husk of a couple of farm buildings. The truck chasing us brakes hard as it notices we’ve stopped, and four ragged people in Soviet uniforms pile out and form into two groups.
Round 1:
The soldiers jump out of their truck and immediately start shooting at us behind the farmhouse. I’m winged slightly as a bullet grazes my chest. That Polish Special Forces guy returns fire with deadly accuracy and hits one of those soldiers. One goes down, and I see blood spurt out immediately.
That German woman fires using an old hunting rifle, and I shoot my pistol. I don’t think she hit anything.
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| Start of the fight. |
Round 2:
With one of the enemy groups forced down by the Polish guy’s rifle, the other group advances on me, firing wildly. Luckily, they hit nothing this time. Noticing the group is now in perfect range, a burst from a Polish AK knocks both of that group down.
Now a bit closer, I line up a shot with my M9, and I see one of them go down after I fire. The two remaining enemies run back to their truck. The Pole strides forward, ready to kill again, but I wave him off. They are no risk to us. At least I hope not.
Dust billows out as they drive off down the road. I notice the sun is starting to finally go down. This is probably my chance to introduce myself to these new people. Coming out of cover, I wave to them, “Hello. I’m 1st Lt. Joe Diaz from the 5th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. Not like any of that matters anymore. Thanks for saving me back there, both of you.”
The woman speaks first; her English is pretty good, which is a relief. I do speak some Russian and Polish but no German. “Hello, I’m Sonja. Formerly a university student. Now I’m just trying to survive in a world full of you brutish soldiers.”
The Pole scoffs, “I am Master Sergeant Eryk Gawlik, of the Polish Special Forces. I don’t know if there are any of us left out here, but any chance to kill these invaders, I’ll take.” His accent is thick but understandable.
“Well look. Seems we all have the same goal of surviving, and for now, maybe that means we need to stick together. But this little pea shooter pistol isn’t going to do much good against a squad of Russians, and if it weren’t for you two, I’d be toast. Let’s see if these two KIAs have anything on them.”
Now let’s see what they find. Since both these soldiers had AK-74s, we know they have them. I’ll roll a D6. On a 1, the weapon is broken. A 2-5 will determine its reliability rating, and if I roll a 6, it has something special. A 5 and a 6! Good rolls. One AK-74 is in near-perfect condition, and one has a GP-25, a grenade launcher.
Now for ammo. I’ll roll a D3, and that is the amount of ammo. A 3 and a 1. Since they will be loaded, that’s 2 fully loaded rifles and 2 mags. OK, do they have anything else useful on them? I’ll roll a D6, 4 and over, and they do. A 5 and a 5. Lucky so far.
Alright, a 1-2 is water, 3-4 rations, a 5 is an extra weapon of some sort, and a 6 is a grenade. A 1 and a 3, one water, and one ration. Not a bad haul. Diaz will take the rifle without the grenade launcher (they have no ammo for it).
“Sonja, do you want this other rifle?” Sonja looks it over but shakes her head.
“I don’t know how to use that thing. Best I stick to my rifle.” I nod, understanding the sentiment. I’m not a fan of using a Russian weapon, but it’s better than my pistol, that’s for sure.
“Ok, everyone. It’s getting dark, and travel will be risky at night. Let’s see if we can bunk up here.”
“You don’t believe the enemy will return at night?” Eryk asks me.
“Possibly. But they look like a band of deserted soldiers. I don’t think they want a proper fight, and they won’t attack a position that is strongly defended.” The old soldier nods.
“Do any of you know where we are? I know we are in Poland. But after being separated from my unit and marching and marching for days, I lost track.”
Eryk sighs and pulls out an old beat-up map of Poland.
Ok, where to start this campaign? Everyone was converging on the Western Polish village of Kalisz. I’ll roll a D10 to see how far from Kalisz they are and another D10 to let it point which direction. I get a 7, and the dice points North East. They are just North East of Lodz.
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| The squad's location in Poland, North East of Lodz. |
He points to a location to the North East of Lodz, a region dominated by farms and nothing else.
“Well, that’s easy enough. Tomorrow we’ll head West, and with any luck, we will find a NATO patrol, and that will be that.” I nod, feeling sure of my assessment.
The grizzled soldier shakes his head. “No, this will not work. I just came from the West, and whatever is left of the Soviet Army has the location staked out. We can go North or South, but not West. Not yet.”
I massage my temples. Of course, it was never going to be that easy. “Alright fine. Let’s rest, check on our equipment, and decide where to go.”
Evening - July 10th, 2000
As they’ve just had a pretty crazy event, I won’t roll for a random encounter. Each player has to do something per shift. They can make camp, rest, sleep, scavenge, etc. Let’s see what they do.
All three consume one ration and one water to stay fed and hydrated. I’ll mark those off. And they will load fresh mags in their weapons. Now it’s evening, so they all need to pick an activity.
1st Lt. Diaz will make camp, which is a survival roll. That’s a miss with 2 - twos. I’ll push it for sure. A success! They have made camp. And he will try to hide them being there, which is a Recon roll. Two successes! That’s great on a single d10! Ok, it’s well hidden.
Sonja will scrounge, looking for things of use. A 3, let’s push it, I think. A 2 on a D10. No luck.
Eryk will sleep; he’s exhausted from the effort today. Let’s see how the squad reacts.
I survey the farmhouses we just used as cover. Most of their roof is left, so sleeping undercover won’t be hard. I look through them and find a relatively dry and clean room that will work well for sleep. I go back out to the car and pile some old branches and scattered scrap wood. Taking a step back, it looks like an abandoned car. Good.
I see Sonja looking through the houses. “Find anything useful?” I ask her, but she just shakes her head.
Heading back into the house, I find Eryk asleep in the room I picked out. Just like an old soldier, he sleeps as soon as he can. Hopefully, he wakes up if he needs to. The sun slowly sets in the distance; it’s quite beautiful. I’m told it’s because of the nuclear fallout. But still, it’s nice.
Night - July 10th, 2000
OK, it’s dark now. I think Diaz and Sonja will sleep, and Eryk will stay awake on watch. Now, let’s draw a card and see if anything sneaks up on them at night. Twilight 2000 has cards for encounters, 52 in total. Generally, one card is drawn per shift, and there are four shifts a day. I may not draw a card per shift depending on how I want the action to go. Let’s do it!
Well, this is lucky, it’s the 9 of Diamonds, which I won’t read out. Some cards don’t affect squads if they are stationary, and this is one of them. The party sleeps well tonight, and since everyone got some sleep the past day, they aren’t tired tomorrow.
Eryk wakes and declares he will stand watch at night. I’m forced to trust him; I need to sleep. Sonja crashes on the cleaner of the two couches, and I sleep on the other. The night passes quietly.
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That's the first session. Lots of action but now the squad needs to figure out what to do next and where to go. In Twilight 2000, staying in one place is never a good idea.
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Check out Queenless today - Bee the hero you always were meant to be.
I liked the included maps.
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