Saturday, January 12, 2013

The Hidden Battles of MR-4/76


Today I had a very good game of 5150 Star Army -- enough to make me start a little new campaign based on it. The plan is to run seven games or win/lose due to campaign morale, whichever comes first.

The Star Army are contesting MR-4/76 an uninhabited world in the fourth ring, which contains valuable mineral deposits. The Hishen have sent a military occupation force to the planet and are defending it. Obviously, this conflict happens hidden from the citizens of Gaea Prime...
My Star Army squad consists of Alec (star, rep 5), Barry, Charles, Doug, Edward (ASL, rep 3), Frank, Gary and Henry. All the grunts are rep 5 and equipped with laser rifles; Alec uses a rapid-fire laser and Edward carries a grenade launcher.

This first mission was a patrol. The objective was to confirm the position of what seemed to be a camouflaged base in aerial recon data. [I got aerial recon for this mission, as well as an investment level of 3 and intel level of 3. These gave me a "good intel" result and thus, I was able to determine the enemy's investment level at the start: 4.]


Just as the squad entered the mission area, they observed a Hishen squad out in the distance and opened fire. Half of the enemy squad was defeated and the rest ducked down or ran for cover. [The enemy activated first, and one of the PEFs was already in sight so I resolved it.]
As the Star Army advanced, firing at the rest of the squad, one Hishen armed with a rocket launcher popped up from a "spider hole" behind them and attacked the squad leader. Luckily the explosion was absorbed by his armor, while Barry was stunned and Charles was taken out of fight. The Hishen ambusher fired another rocket but missed, and Alec shot him down. [This was the first random event!]
The Star Army squad rushed towards a large rock formation, bringing the stunned and wounded troopers with them. While they regrouped and decided on a course of action, another Hishen squad appeared in a passage between the rocks. Alec and his fire team defeated five of them and the others ducked behind cover.
It was decided that Edward, Frank and Gary would advance to continue the patrol while the rest of the squad would set up a safe point for the wounded. They managed to take out the rest of the first Hishen squad. However, Frank was killed and the other two were taken out of fight during a firefight with the other enemy squad.
Alec and two grunts moved around the rock formation and took out the three remaining Hishen, as they had been distracted by the other fire team. Then they moved over to pick up Edward and Gary, and continued the patrol. Eventually another Star Army squad arrived, possibly sent in due to the reports of enemy fire. [I finally got reinforcements... a little late.]
The patrol was almost over when Alec stepped on an anti-personal mine. While the explosion didn't hurt him (bless this hard body armor!) it stunned a trooper and took another one out of the fight. One fire team from the second squad moved to assist them with the wounded. As they moved back, two Hishen popped up from another "spider hole" but this time a Star Army soldier was ready and killed one of them. The other Hishen ran away instead of fighting. [Yes, those were two random events... and I was lucky not to have new PEFs deployed due to enemy reinforcement rolls.]
The soldiers moved back to the insertion point without any further incidents and left the mission area.

Conclusion

This mission was successful, with one casualty that will not be replaced [I did not get a good roll.] The wounded troopers recovered well. Fourteen Hishen were taken out of the fight and four were killed during the mission. [Alec won one fame point for this mission.]

While the patrol mission was completed, the enemy base was not found. It is possible that the Hishen moved to another position and left some forces to ambush the Star Army. [The mission did not alter the campaign morale of either side and the next mission will be another patrol.]

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