Flak Emplacement E405 TOE
Bruce, Chuck and Chris destroy the normal plan by heading off to see Pirates of the Caribbean before gaming. They get back in time to prevent Mike from dying of heat exhaustion in his car. Paul and Tim avoid a shrivelled death through the simple expedient of showing up at the very edge of on time.
The death of the doughty former Sergeant Major Henri LeGuerrier didn't make it into the last session summary. He was gunned down by an MG34. The other members of the Resistance cell pause for a moment of silence in his memory.
It is 1943 and the weather is cold. Appropriately, the characters' Resistance group is burdened by thirty freed English bomber pilots, many of whom need to be taken back to England. The characters interview them, and find out that a half-dozen of them can speak French and would like to stay behind to help. The characters immediately oblige their requests and hide them out at a rural farmhouse.
The characters have three possible courses of action. They could spend their time and efforts on:
To make the selection process interesting, the Gestapo is currently cracking down upon Resistance activity. One of the three missions is doomed. The characters divide themselves up as below:
| Mission | Player | Characters |
|---|---|---|
| Flak Base | Bruce | Robert Frenay, Jean-Pierre Foretnoire, Jacques "Le Troll" Griveau |
| Flak Base | Chris | Charles Moulin, Hobert "Le Engine" Grunner |
| Flak Base | Chuck | Jack "Saucy Jack" Ripley, Tom Flynn |
| Flak Base | Mike | Maurice Pierre, Jacques Levy |
| Flak Base | Paul | Poul-Edouard "Stalker" Matisse, Alain "Apparition" Brissard |
| English Airmen | Bruce | Emile "Le Messager" Bonhomme |
| English Airmen | Chris | Vincent Mayer |
| English Airmen | Chuck | Jacques Taureau, Andre LaRoux |
| English Airmen | Mike | Ralph Lundgren, Brother Timothy |
| English Airmen | Paul | Steven "Alchemist" Seltzer |
| Negotiators | Bruce | Loren "Liar" Longwillow, Marelle Lechance |
| Negotiators | Chris | Maurice Vilde |
| Negotiators | Chuck | Pepe "Sewer Rat" Le Main |
| Negotiators | Mike | Jean LeClerk, Leon |
| Negotiators | Paul | Jeanne Verney, Marcel-Marie Loussaint |
The Communists have been infiltrated. Forewarned, the Gestapo is easily able to apprehend every last one of the negotiators. They are aided in this by a new Uberkraut named Engel, a winged talent who can inspire terror in all those who see him. The Germans are eager to find a use for him, as he isn't fast enough to be able to disrupt aircraft. It turns out he does just fine at herding scared Resistance members into a dragnet.
The toll among the characters is heavy. Maurice Vilde, the criminal Leon and the society wife Jeanne Verney all die, either killed in the raid or in captivity later on. The survivors gain a free dot in Torture. The other characters rather freely assume that the restaurant Chateau de Maurice is now thoroughly compromised.
The characters' central problem in getting the English airmen back to England is the Uberkraut Wolken. Given that he can't avoid scenting Englishmen over a wide area, he is definitely going to be able sense what is going on. The characters know that in addition to the sense of smell Wolken is really big and very strong. To match him, the exfiltration group includes only Le Messager and the Alchemist.
The characters' plan is to send off the English pilots in small boats, two and three at a time, under cover of fog. Andre LaRoux is able to scrounge up seven rowboats, each of them able to carry two people. Police inspector Vincent Mayer arranges for clothing for the escapees by stealing it from a laundry during a "raid".
In the meantime, the characters do their best to avoid detection by Wolken by leaving the English pilots at pig farms. This plan works well enough to get three groups of Englishmen back home. The fourth group gets caught.
The exfiltration group is driving for the coast when they realize that they are being followed by two trucks full of Germans. They strongly suspect that Wolken is in one of them. Emile Bonhomme hits the accelerator and does his best to lose them. He is much better at negotiating French roads than the Germans are, and finds he is able to control the chase without much trouble. While he keeps the Germans distracted, the Alchemist glances back and changes the lead truck into water, spilling four confused Germans out onto the road. One of them is hit by the second truck. The others just act very confused and upset.
The second truck ignores the fate of their compatriots and pull up right behind the characters' truck. Jacques Taureau and Henri Villon start trading shots with the Heer troops until the Alchemist deals with the problem by turning the second truck into hydrochloric acid. The chase ends very abruptly. They hear giant-sized howling behind them. Curious in spite of themselves, the characters stop the truck to check the situation out.
Wolken steps out of the acidic mist, his clothes tattered. He looks giant-sized angry. Suddenly, the fog changes back. Small spheres of metal roll everywhere. There are three badly-burned soldiers on the ground, and a large hole in a hedgerow. Wolken runs for it.
Suddenly realizing the potential disaster they are facing, the characters send Emile Bonhomme, the truck, and the English fliers along on their way. Everyone else dismounts from the truck to hunt for Wolken. They eventually determine that Wolken is trying to flank them and steal their truck. Discovered, he rushes among the characters. The Alchemist tries to turn him into wood, but loses the Contest of Will. Wolken rampages towards Ralph Lundgren, who hits him twice with a Sten gun. Jacques Taureau decides that with no fear of death he might as well engage Wolken in a fistfight. Ralph Lundquist pulls out a knife and joins in, stabbing Wolken in the torso. Jacques Taureau and Wolken slam into each other with bone-crushing force. This proves to be too much for the Uberkraut, who shrinks down to a 4'11" middle-aged man. The dwarf exclaims in horror, "You killed Wolken!". He goes down in a hail of bullets. The characters give each other high-fives.
Flak Emplacement E405 has become a special torment for the English. The emplacement has three 88mm Flak 42 guns, plus a radar installation. But even the radar does not explain the amazing success rate the installation has had at shooting down returning bombers and surveillance planes. The English have passed along a message indicating that they would be very happy to see the place destroyed. They think that the Germans have a Talent with Hyperskill in Ack-Ack manning the guns there.
Flak Emplacement E405 TOE
The characters decide to follow the standard plan: show up and pretend to be the supply shipment. Robert Frenay has a reasonable ability to bluff and can speak German, so he will be up front riding shotgun. The most recent truck to have come the characters' way includes a pintle-mount for a machine gun up on the top of the cab. They decide to take advantage of it with one of the MG34's taken from the Gestapo Castle. Once bluffing has run its course, Frenay will move up and man the machinegun. The American commando Tom Flynn will drive.
The rest of the plan involves having the two strongmen, the Apparition, the Zed and the six English airmen in the back of the truck. They move into the bunker as soon as the truck stops. The plan really assumes that the characters will be able to talk their way into the base because if that part doesn't work the whole thing will turn into a horrible stoats-in-a-barrel slaughter.
The characters think about stoats, and then come up with a slightly different plan. The new plan is to fake a truck breakdown on the side of the road, conveniently in the path of the base's normal supply truck. Hijack the supply truck, torture the driver for information, and then use it to infiltrate the base.
This turns out to be quite a good plan. With lots of highly-violent characters available to provide suitable intimidation, the crew of the supply truck surrenders quickly. The driver tells the characters that the installation is protected by two MG34 nests facing the coastline, placed on tripods so the gunners can see each other. The entire encampment is surrounded by barricades made up of hedgerows. One officer is usually on duty, probably in the bunker. There are also three Talents in the area. One of them can fly. Another is very strong and usually helps unload supplies from the truck. The third wears a gas mask all the time and wheezes when he walks. He is not at the base all the time, but his mechanical fighting walker is parked in the motor pool. The driver has a low opinion of the thing: when the gas-masked Talent is around the walker can stomp around and shoot at things with two heavy machine guns, but when he leaves to visit another installation the thing swiftly quits working. The driver doesn't know anything about Hyperaccurate gunners, possibly because the base commander doesn't think he needs to know. The base is on constant alert because the Germans fear that the Allies might try to land infiltrators on the beach.
The characters drive up to the installation in the canvas-sided supply truck. In addition to the one MG34 mounted in the cab, the characters put a second MG34 on a tripod mount in the back of the truck to deal with the strong Uberkraut. The dispositions of the characters are:
Flynn drives the truck up to the gate. A Heer officer approaches the truck. He looks like he's only about 21 years old, barely old enough for his job. He demands, "Papiren!" Frenay obliges. The officer seems convinced and allows the truck to pass through the gate. While Flynn pulls up, the officer calls back into the encampment for Herakles. The characters watch as a miserable shrimp of a German approaches the truck. He rather casually moves an engine block aside on his way over.
While the characters do their best to not gape at Herakles, the officer asks Frenay, "What happened to the regular driver?" Frenay explains, "Sick. He has the squirts. Too much French... food." The officer chuckles knowingly.
Herakles moves around to the back of the truck. Charles Moulin opens fire with the MG34. The characters discover that he might have been strong, but he isn't bulletproof. He goes down with a startled look on his face.
The Officer opens fire on Flynn, who responds with his Sten gun. There is a lot of noise, but not much actual effect: the officer takes a wound, but Flynn remains unhurt.
Characters and British airmen pile out of the back of the truck. Heer soldiers, recovering from their shock with admirable speed, open fire upon them. A British airman goes down almost instantly, shot through the head. Le Troll, Le Engine and Saucy Jack head towards the bunker while Robert Frenay blazes away at the crew of the central Flak 42 with the MG34. The Englishmen pile out to take control of the courtyard.
Things start to look a bit dicey when an Uberkraut flies into the air from behind a hedgerow and aims an unusual-looking rifle down at the characters. The Zed Maurice Pierre swiftly zaps the Uberkraut and knocks him out of the air.
By this time, the German defenders have turned their two MG34 tripods around and are wreaking devastating havoc among the English airmen. Charles Moulin tries to help the situation by shooting an MG34 gunner, but another German steps up to take the man's place.
Saucy Jack, Le Troll and Le Engine tear apart the German technicians in the bunker, though Le Troll takes a bullet to the helmet and falls down unconscious. The Stalker teleports into hiding behind a hedgerow out in front of the encampment and prepares to ambush the defenders from behind.
By the time Saucy Jack has slaughtered the final bunker defender, yet another MG34 gunner has stepped up and sent a bullet clear through Jacques Levy's arm, shattering the bone and practically tearing it from his body. The gunner doesn't last long, as Robert Frenay cripples him in turn. His triumph does not last long, as the flying Uberkraut re-emerges and shoots Frenay twice in the chest, killing him instantly. Jean-Pierre Foretnoire climbs up into the cab to replace him, but very quickly takes a shot to the right arm that cripples him. He sags to the bottom of the truck cab.
The gas-masked Uberkraut steps up from beside the central Flak 42, ready to blaze away at the characters with a specially-articulated MG42, but he doesn't last long: he takes a hit to the head from a Sten gun, knocking off half of his mask and sending him to the ground. Uncontrolled tracer fire sprays into the sky from his fancy gun.
The characters discover that the Artillerist Uberkraut is hiding in one of the gun pits, armed with an antitank rifle. Unwilling to let him get a shot off, both Tom Flynn and Charles Moulin fire upon him. Flynn's shot spoils the Talent's aim and Moulin's shot kills him dead.
Jacques Levy takes a pistol shot to the torso that knocks him out, but leaves him alive to fight again another day. While the other characters spray about wildly with machine guns, Le Engine and Apparition hurl enough grenades into the gun pits to incapacitate all the remaining Germans.
The characters find a variety of interesting materiel in the bunker, including a large supply of ammunition and two panzerfausts. They have a bit of trouble consolidating their gains because one of the few surviving Germans was an Uberkraut with Fade and Dead Ringer. He disguises himself as one of the dead English airmen and manages to destroy one truck with a grenade before the characters figure out the mystery and kill him. Other significant items the characters are able to carry away include:
The casualty totals on the characters' side include:
This session ends the winter of 1943. Each character gains one experience point, and each Talent gains one Base Will point. Each player may assign one additional experience point to the character they feel most deserves it, and one additional Base Will point to the Talent they feel most deserves it.