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When a piece of hi-tech equipment appears fortuitously in the badlands, word gets round surprisingly quickly.
My Combat Zone campaign is set in "eastern Europe". The exact location (the Combat Zone) is deliberately vague but it is an anarchic no-man's land with corrupt dictatorships all round it except to the west where it is bounded by the formidable frontier of the western power, the EuroUnion. This is a highly centralised, rich, powerful state made up largely of the old EC countries.
Like the other powers bordering it, EuroUnion conspires to keep the Combat Zone in a state of perpetual turmoil. It's useful for everyone to have an outlaw area where unofficial contacts can be made, deals done, and smuggling conducted, so the Combat Zone attracts a volatile mixture of criminals, agents, adventurers and every kind of social misfit. There aren't many tourists.
Scenario Background
When a piece of hi-tech western equipment appears fortuitously in the eastern badlands, word gets round surprisingly quickly. Whatever caused the supposedly invulnerable spy-drone to crash is not clear; what is clear is the value of the surveillance equipment salvaged from the wreckage.
From their extensive HUMINT resources in the east, the EuroUnion authorities soon find out that their precious equipment is intact and in the hands of an enterprising warlord. He is now conducting negotiations with representatives of several of the petty eastern dictatorships with a view to securing the best price for the equipment which has so unexpectedly come his way.
Petty these states may be. Vicious and corrupt they certainly are. Stupid they are not. Their citizens may be ground down by poverty but funds have always been available to create technical facilities which are more than capable of plumbing the secrets of the most advanced western equipment and making use of it. The west will go to any length short of total war to prevent this.
The western military know which warlord has the equipment but have been unable to find where it is hidden. With time running out, a decision has been made to snatch one of his lieutenants and persuade him to reveal the location of the stolen equipment. The west has covert special forces squads permanently based in the east and the nearest one to the target is primed for the mission.That's the simple part.
The target is in an isolated farm, waiting to meet various other gang leaders to discuss business. The team assigned to grab him will be in and away by chopper very fast and easy. The ones with the difficult jobs are the teams assigned as blocks; tasked to prevent any help reaching the target either from members of his own gang or the gangs he is planning to meet. This scenario features a blocking squad of troopers defending against one or more gangs.
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Forces
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All Combat Zone rules apply unless stated otherwise.
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Troopers:
The trooper player must make up a force of 400 points value from the Combat Zone rules. Either the leader or sub-leader must be elite; the quality of the rest is up to the player. The force must only have 1 squad and a maximum of 1 hero.
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Gangers:
The ganger player must make up a force of 600 points value from the Combat Zone rules. There can be up to 4 gangs. There must be no more than 1 hero for every two gangs. Only one gang can have comm units - if this option is chosen, all members of that gang must be so equipped. Gangers may not have combat suits.
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Playing Area
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A small area is fine for this game - I used a board of 40" x 30" (75cm x 100cm). Play is along the length of the board, the two shorter edges represent the respective baselines of the two forces. The trooper player deploys first anywhere in the half of the board from his baseline to the centreline (note: the troopers initially deploy counters, not miniatures, see below); the ganger player can deploy in a zone up to 4" (10cm) from his baseline.
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Terrain
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This mainly depends on what you have available but ideally the board represents a very urban, built up area with plenty of ruins, walls and assorted cover giving limited line-of-site and lots of movement obstruction. It should be difficult for the gangers to move swiftly and there should be lots of opportunities for the troopers to conduct ambushes.
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Scenario Specific Rule: Hidden Deployment
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a) Standard. The troopers have the advantage of concealing their initial deployment to some extent. The player needs to provide himself with tokens to represent the miniatures - half inch card squares would be fine. The tokens should be identical to each other but numbered on the back. There should be twice as many tokens as miniatures. On the Roster sheet, give numbers to each miniature so that each miniature has a token to represent it. The extra tokens are dummies, designed to confuse the enemy! The trooper player deploys first by placing all his tokens on the board (see "Playing Area" below, for deployment limitations). Tokens remain on the board until:
* An enemy miniature establishes a line-of sight to a token.
* The trooper player wishes to fire or move a token.
In either of the above circumstances, the token is replaced by the figure it represents: If a dummy, it is removed from play. Once revealed, a token cannot be used again.
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b) Solo play. The token system can be used to add an extra dimension to solo play, although in this situation, instead of numbering the tokens, leave them blank. The trooper player deploys the tokens without knowing what each one represents. When it becomes necessary to discover if the token represents a miniature or not (see above), the player rolls a D6. A score of 1,2, or 3 means that the token is a dummy - remove it from play. A 4, 5 or 6 means the token represents a miniature. Take the first figure from the roster sheet and deploy it place of the token. As it becomes necessary to deploy a figure, simply take the next one down from the roster sheet until the whole force is deployed.
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Objectives
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The gangers are trying to move down the board and exit as many miniatures as they can via the troopers' baseline within 12 turns. The troopers are trying to prevent them. After both sides have had 12 turns, the game ends and victory points totalled.
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Victory Conditions
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The trooper gets 3 points for every ganger removed from play due to wounds and 1 point for each ganger left on the board after 12 turns.
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The ganger gets 3 points for each ganger figure exited from the board via the troopers' baseline after 12 turns and 1 point for each trooper removed from play due to wounds.
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