Planet Exploration

The beauty of THW's Chain Reaction games.  A quick game in the morning before work and school.

Sgt. Cyrus is a veteran of a thousand actions.  During the drop to planet ZZ723 he was thinking about how raw the recruits were getting.  The countless wars and expansions are taking a toll on the Empires forces.  Never mind, let the new boys have a taste.  Those that survive will be strong.  Today he leads his green scout squad on another planet exploration and scouting mission to study the resources that the planet might provide.  They debark in a mixed wooded and grassland portion of the planet.  Right away Sgt. Cyrus is impressed with the potential of this rock.  It will be a very valuable addition to the Empire.  Now to see who might be here.

His well trained scouts quickly move through the woods.  His squad is equipped mainly with sniper rifles for long range observation today.  Of course they have a launcher for heavy support also..  just in case.

As they approach the edge of the forest they see buildings ahead in the distance.  Then they can make out a launch pad with some sort of flyer on the pad.  A quick check of the database reveals that this flyer is unkown to the empire.

There are sentries posted around the compound.

A couple of the guards notice Sgt. Cyrus appearing at the woods edge and they open fire with some sort of energy blasters.  Wielding a sniper rifle he is outgunned and must duck back.

The rest of the scouts open fire with their sniper rifles and take down one of the sentries.  The rest of the surprised sentries head for cover.

Some duck back while some are shaken and hunker down.

The pilots are pinned down as well.

A direct hit from the launcher takes out one of the buildings.

With all the shooting, more of these unidentified troops come barreling out of the remaining building.  The scouts open fire taking one down.

More prepared now, the alien troops start to fight back and take down a scout!  Their higher rate of fire is keeping the single shot armed scouts to a minimum of effectiveness as they are outgunned.

An enemy trooper firing from the concealment of the smoke from the devastated building.

The scouts are severely outgunned in their rate of fire and are having a devil of a time returning fire.  Sgt. Cyrus is beginning to understand that he has made a bad mistake for the first time in ages.

The enemy officer starts leading his section toward the pad to rally his troops.  All the while they are laying down heavy covering fire.

The scout rocket launcher goes back into action and takes out a couple more of the troopers.

Sgt. Cyrus is pinned and isolated from his squad and receives a hail of fire each time he pokes his head up.  This is another mistake he made today.  What was he thinking?

Now two scouts are down.  One is OD, the other is OOF.

 Sgt. Cyrus is stunned!

The enemy officer has not been idle.  He made it to the launch pad and rallied his troops who are now laying down such heavy fire that the scouts are unable to match.

The scouts are hopelessly pinned.  This is a job for marines, not scouts.

Even more enemy troopers are in action now.

There is no longer any choice.  The scouts must risk it and make a break for it.

Two of the scouts make it out of the fire zone and escape.

But Sgt. Cyrus does not make it.  His luck has finally run out.  Well sort of, as he goes OOF and is not dead.

The scouts lost one man dead, and two wounded and now POW's against this unknown foe.  Two scouts have escaped to tell their tale.  I'm guessing that this set back will not go unanswered!