JUNGLE PATROL

[quoted original message omitted]

[quoted original message omitted]

[quoted original message omitted]

played an interesting small 40K game this week thaat i think would make
an interest -ing SGII scenario, if y'all happen to hav  the figures  for
it.

the setting was on a newly discovered planet that had once been home to a high
tech civilization that had, appparently, been blasted out of existence about
30,000 years ago. todate no survivors of the humanoid race have been
discovered.

the humans are exploring the ruins that dot the surface, and have established
numerous base camps on the surface. THERE IS NO SHIP IN ORBIT, as the planet
is visited by a chartered civilian supply ship 5 times each Earth year.

the battle is fought between a routine jungle patrol operating in the vicinity
of the ruins of massive, jungle covered city

------------------------------------------------------

THE PATROL;

basically, 4 veterans and 17 plain joes/jolenes in light  body
armor/helmets with short range tactical comms and vision enhancement
gear. smallarms, pistols, grenades,  and knife-bayonets, with one
machete for every 4 ttroopers.
one SAW for each 9 bods. the patrol has one LR comm-link that is carried
by a plain joe/jolene RTO.

the 4 veterans are the sergeant patrol leader, 2 corporals squad leaders, and
the medic.

the 40K scenario used vet IG profiles for the 4 vets, and normal IG
profiles for the plain joes/jolenes of the patrol. and the basic IG
armor save of 5+ was increased to 4+ vs primitive  weapons. the  weapons
used were IG lasguns, laspistols, and 4 light plasma guns.

naturally, LOL, i used some of my belovd IG miniatures to represent the
patrol.

------------------------------------------------------

THE STONE AGE SAVAGES;

these were the nifty Neanderthals from  REAPER MINIATUREs-some of BOBBY
JACKSON's best works. in addition to the out of the  bin  cave-dewds,
there were many, many conversions (hair, animal skins, extra
flint-tipped  weapons, coup de splat clubs , etc.)  made from the 6
basic Neanderthal's that REAPER makes.

NO BOWS, ARROWS, SLINGS, OR SLINGSTONES, just spears, axes, knives,
one- and -two handed clubs.
NO ARMOR or SHIELDS of any type, just filthy animals skins, dirty hair, dirty
skin and offensive breath.

the savages used the WHFB feral ork profile for the boyz and the bozzez.

the savages  were organized in warbands of 10-20 bods, but could  detach
smaller  scouting parties of 2-6 bods at will.

------------------------------------------------------

THE TABLE;

the table for the game was 10 ft long by 5 ft wide, covered with jungle
terrain. there several gullies and jungle streams on the table (location
mapped by the native player, BUT NOT ACTUALLY PLACED ON THE TABLE UNLESS THE
PATROL ENCOUNTERED THESE).

if and when, a jungle stream was encountered by the patrol, dice were tossed
to find out if it was fordable or not. (1D6 for each 6" of
stream length that   soldiers were actually in contact	with, and on 1
toss er section! score 1 thru 4= fordable, 5 or 6=not fordable!)

if and when a gully was encountered by the patrol, 1D6 was tossed again to
determine if the patrol could cross it or had to travel parallel with it until
a crossing point was found.

------------------------------------------------------

THE GAME;

the object of the game was for the patrol to enter the table at one narrow
end, and march across the table, exiting from the other narrow end. patrol
cannot exit from a wide edge!

all patrol movement began at the table edge with the patrol pointman, and the
rest of the troopers following in a single file.

the patrol MUST  REMAIN in plain view through out the battle-strangers
in a strange land and always under observation kinda thang!

the savages use 1" round counters marked "real" or "dummy" to make movements
on the table. counter is replaced with a miniature immediately when the patrol
has LOS, or gets a sensor scan, is shot by a soldier (reconn by fire) or the
savages throw their weapons at the soldiers or move into HTH combat.

soldiers  move at reduced  speed through the jungle-savages move at
normal speed through the jungle.

soldiers move every turn until the savages declare and ambush, then normal
movement sequencing is used.

the savages can preposition (on a map) up to 4 different ambush sites, and may
have up to 6 roving warbands.

once contact is made, the savages are assumed to move directly toward the
patrol as fast as possible!

(these cave-dewds communicate by ESP!)

------------------------------------------------------

THE RESULTS OF MY GAME;

in our game the IG patrol lost 13 bods to the savages in a running fight that
started halfwy across the table, and inflicted 60 fatalities
on the cave-dewds.

in the	end  5 walking	WIA and 2   healthy troopers  escaped off the
narrow end of the table after 4 or 5 firefigihts.

IF the IG armor had not been increased to a 4+ save vs primitive
weapons, it might have ended at the initial ambush site under the shitstorm of
thrown weapons; 12 IG were hit, but only 2 KIA. in the berserker rush to HTH
that followed, another 2 troopers were KIA, 5 were WIA (1 litter case, 4
walking wounded), and 1 trooper carried off! half the patrol KIA, WIA or MIA
for 13 KIA savages, and the survivoring cave dewds routed off.

i forgot to use the frag grenades (they are no longer thrown weapons, but a
HTH factor) repeatedly in my close combats.

i could have gotten away with more of the patrol intact, but, i refused to
leave any WIA behind that could not move under their own power, or to abandon
the slower moving WIA troopers to the natives.

i left my dead where they fell, but took all weapons, ammo, food, water, meds,
and ID off the bods before i moved on.

and i made sure that an cave-dewds that were shot down, stayed  dead!

overall, it was a fun and nerve racking game, and i think that it ought to
work with SG II even better than it did with 40K.

DAWGFACE47@webtv.net schrieb:
> played an interesting small 40K game this week thaat i

Could equally well be played with lizardmen or other primitives.

> the setting was on a newly discovered planet that had

Nice scenario. And seems you had a nice game.

However, in terms of realism I have a bit of a problem with it. Given
reasonable technology (say, available today or within a few years), how
likely is it that no trace of a stone-age population would be found in
a world-wide search ? If ruins have been found, we can be sure a
thorough search would happen.

Certainly, if the primitives have fire, that would stand out on
thermal/IR scanners carried by UAVs or satellites. Without fire, things
might be a bit more iffy.

> the battle is fought between a routine jungle patrol

If no potential enemy has been found, what is a full-scale military
patrol doing out there? Some kind of exploring party or possibly hunters might
be more plausible.

Greetings

On 24-Jun-02 at 10:52, KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
(KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de)
wrote:

> Nice scenario. And seems you had a nice game.

It all depends on how many are left. If the population has deteriorated to a
few thousand left and they have lost fire they could be lost in the forest.
Just think, your patrol may be the final straw in the loss of an intelligent
race.:)

Victory conditions for the human:  + for every human across the table
                                   - for every native killed

                           Native: + for every demon destroyed

Dawgie, you're too kind hearted. You tell your player "Scout survey shows
early stone age natives in dispersed villages across the continent. Analysis
of survey data indicates a possible thorium deposit in the area of
OBJECTIVE:ZULU. We do not have specific data on the tribe (or tribes) in that
area.
Different tribes will probably have different tactics--skirmish, ambush,
massed charge. Your mission: proceed to OBJ:ZULU; take mineral samples; avoid
interaction with natives if possible, otherwise defend your party as
expedient."

But it turns out that those fires and shelters across MOST of the
continent do indeed belong to stone age natives--but in THIS area, they
belong to a KV scout team, going after the same minerals you are. Oops!

> --- KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:

> Certainly, if the primitives have fire, that would

Are you sure??

Given a hunter-gatherer society (with the usual low
population density), there probably wouldn't be any traces that were not
indistinguishable from wildfires and other natural sources. I can easily
imagine
(especially as humans havn't, in the GZG-verse, run
across any non-spacefaring non-human settlements) that
standard procedure will be to listen for radio signals and do an orbital
survey that looks for major identifiable signatures like concentrated
settlements (ie cities), irrigation networks, and road networks.

After all, with an impact of d4 and the limited effective range of self bows,
they aren't that much of
a threat to fully-armored or power-armored troops.

> At 9:53 PM +0200 6/23/02, K.H.Ranitzsch wrote:

Likely they will be under cover or in natural caves if the
environment is hostile at all. They'll also be likely be in/under
temporary shelters that the stone age types would construct.

> Right, for a 'normal' planet. There might also be searches for changes

Like vulcanism, swamp out gassing, animal flatulence, etc. A primitive society
will have a hard time making any significant mark over a short period of time
on a planet's ecosphere.

> Right, for a 'normal' planet. There might also be searches for changes

This is partly true. The impact of stone age life on the atmosphere is nothing
compared to the impact of 'life' in general, which tends to keep an atmosphere
out of chemical equilibrium. It's only with the onset of industrialisation
that the atmosphere will show any major changes.

However, nomadic movements may wreck havoc on animal life (mass extinction as
primitive peoples headed South from the Alaskan Land Bridge, anyone?),
but that is way out of the topic now.... ;-)

> On 24-Jun-02 at 16:12, K.H.Ranitzsch (KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de) wrote:

You are assuming the natives use fire...

GOOD AFTERNOON KARL!

this was set in the 40K Universe, where the human technology is
failling and being operated by what  i would call techno- barbarians at
best, the ADEPTUS MECHANICUS apparently did not see fit to placed satellites
in orbit, or if they did, they did not bother to share the findings beyond
THOSE WITH A NEED TO KNOW....

LOL, as far as discovering a stone age culture on a whole planet, with today's
tech or even next week's tech, might not be sooo easy, or the info so
reliable.

boots on the ground will nearly always find something that technoogy above
does not.

i am not even sure the natives use fire, so thermal sensors in orbit will not
be worth much.

but judging by orbital pix i have seen, finding significant ruins, and massive
impact craters from orbit seems to be fairly easy to do.

IN FACT, the actual population of the alien savages, has not even ben
determined. maybe these are the remnant of a population that has been steadily
declining in numbers since the big blowup, or maybe these are an entirely
different species that is on its way up the evolutionary ladder, and still
lacks a world wide population base?

as far as the soldiers on jungle patrol with "live" weapons goes, there are
several reasons i can think of that make this seem logical, very probable.

1. dangerous wildlife.

2. live fire training operations.

3. normal security sweep in the area around the newly discovered ruins.

4. make work for those idle hands that would otherwise be laying about the
barracks eating, drinking, screwing around and generally getting into trouble.
AND THIS WOULD ESPECIALLY BE TRUE UNDER A CIVILIAN OPERATIONAL COMAND (been
there, done that!).

5. the 40K universe is full of hostile aliens, and human degerates who do not
support the EMPIRE OF MAN.

i am sure others (including you) that have been soldiers can come up with
other ideas for THE REASON WHY THE PATROL WAS OUT THERE.

hey, i am sure that the folks who have not been in the military can come up
with some other reasons too.

anyway, it was a fun game,!

and yes you could have done it with lizard men, feral orks, feral goblins,
etc. that art would be up to whoever!

we just have some nice Neanderthats that needed a workout!

DAWGIE

LOL, now you are gonna have me stricken with an attack of conscious for
sending a previously unknown alien race into oblivion!

sure, point s could be assigned for every trooper who got off the table alive.

and for every "demon" killed by the natives.

but we just did not do it. it was hair raising enough to do hat we did.

GM had me figured out well enough to know that i was NOT GONNA LEAVE WIAs to
the tender mercies of the wotzitz!

and LOL, he and the native got quite a chuckle out of my reluctance to leave
the dead behind too! but they were surprised when i did so, because, i, like
most of the soldiers in my war, made every effort to
avoid leaving my dead  behind-they counted on me carrying them out and
being slowed down even more.

it also came as a crude surprise, to the native commander when i elected to
make a last stand at the river ford with all of my fit men (all 5 of them!) to
buy time for the 5 walking WIAs to reach the edge of the table and escape!

they thought i was in full haul ass mode!

surprise! surprise!

as it was, the rear guard managed to get 2 out of the 5 troopers off table
after breaking the last native threat!

DAWGIE

> --- "K.H.Ranitzsch" <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de> wrote:

> > Given a hunter-gatherer society (with the usual

What resolution are you doing your survey in? You've got millions of square km
to cover and if you do it all in 2m resolution you're going to take forever to
collect the data, analyze the data, and it will take huge damn computers to
just store the data.

And believe me, satellite analysis is NOT very easy. I've seen some imagery of
resolution good enough to distinguish machine gun nests and there were some
things on there I had no idea what they were.

> Right, for a 'normal' planet. There might also be

Like what?

> But note that the original - non GZG-verse- scenario

In MY universe, locating ruins would call for a series of responses, starting
with an Imperial Naval quarantine of the planet to keep other claim jumpers
off. Then a far more detailed satellite survey, and a decent guard detachment
when we do land explorers.

> > After all, with an impact of d4 and the limited

Depends on the archeologist.

I believe the quintessential statement on the superiority of firearms vs.
swords was made by one Dr.
Jones. . .   :)

> - --- KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:

> Certainly, if the primitives have fire, that would

depends if the surveying ship takes the time for such a detailed scan of the
entire planetary surface or just the area surrounding the points of interest
at the time.

which is another idea for a scenario....

a survey report leaves out important tidbits, and a small military listening
outpost lands and sets up not knowing that carnivorous plants feed at
dawn/dusk.  or xenophobic unga-bungas mercilessly kill anyone who sets
foot on their "holy ground", etc.

Dave

On Sun, 23 Jun 2002 21:53:50 +0200 KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
> (K.H.Ranitzsch) writes:
<snip>
> Campfires would be small, locally contained and usually only lit at

Depends on whether the normal is "Star Trek" efficiency or "Real World" stabs
at same...

> I can easily imagine (especially as humans havn't, in the

Who pays for the involved survey? Arch Corps? The Military? The Space Forces?
Most glitches come because some agency decides "..good
enough..."

> After all, with an impact of d4 and the limited effective range of

Good thought.

> Greetings

Gracias,

> DAWGFACE47@webtv.net schrieb:

> the setting was on a newly discovered planet

From: ~ On Behalf Of KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
Sent: 24 June 2002 15:52
Subject: Re: JUNGLE PATROL

> Certainly, if the primitives have fire, that

How well will a small cookfire show up under multiple forest canopy layers?

Possibly the team consist mainly of scientists who have spotted something
unusual from orbit. Remember the prospectors who went looking for oil and
instead discovered the flatulence of Kong!

-- ===========================================