First blood on Charity

Following the recent change of government on the agricultural world of Charity, the so-called "Charity Freedom League" have suspended all food shipments to the neighbouring worlds of Faith and Hope.  Unwilling to use their troops against their own people, the triplanetary government has requested a peacekeeing force of Neo Colonial Commonwealth marines to safeguard their few remaining food collection centres on Charity.  These centres are located in the more marginal areas of Charity, mainly the equatorial desert regions.  The CFL has not yet taken these areas, concentrating instead on cementing their control of the more productive northern and southern agri-belts.  They have wasted no time in forming a citizens militia known as the "Armed Forces of the Charity Freedom League", of AFCFA for short.  Though very well equipped, they are poorly trained.

A squad of NCC troops has been assigned to each food station to watch the food stocks until transport ships from Faith and Hope arrive.  At one isolated outpost, Sergeant Inglis notices that the local civilians have suddenly disappeared, leading him to suspect that trouble is brewing...

Sergeant Inglis deploys his troops.

As the Marine fireteams took position in the strong points of their base compound, green-armoured figures could be seen closing in from several directions.  It didn't look good and sure enough, a burst of fire soon spattered the wall around the forward fireteam.  They returned fire at their attackers, but were hit by incoming fire from another direction and one of the team slumped to the ground.

AFCFA troops overlook the compound.

As more and more enemy units appeared on the rooftops around them, the second NCC fireteam took over, returning as good as they got from all sides.  Bullets and missiles burst repeatedly against the walls in front and behind them but miraculously they took no causalities, despite receiving fire from at least five different AFCFA positions.

Some of the many AFCFA troops.

As suddenly as it had begun, the attack stopped and the green-armoured AFCFA troopers vanished from the rooftops and streets around the compound.  It had been a brief but bloody action.  Private Ngoutu from first fireteam had only been stunned by the bullet and was ready for action once more.  After waiting a few minutes, there was no further evidence of enemy forces outside the compound.  A quick search of the area revealed blood trails leading from at least  four enemy positions and one very large blood pool which probably indicated a kill.  Shell casings and other battle debris meant that the marines were able to estimate an enemy strength of over 30, outnumbering their squad around 4 to 1.

Marines prepare to defend the entrance to the compound.

Why had the enemy vanished after such a short engagement?  Perhaps they were just testing the NCC Marines' willingness to fight?  Time would tell...

This was a very quick Tomorrow's War game to fill in half an hour at the end of our Scout wargames day.  Only time for a single turn in the end but it was a chance to try out some extra background I've been working on, using 8 teams of well-equipped troops (+2D hard armour) who are poorly trained (D6 quality) against 2 teams of regular troops (D8 quality) with more basic equipment (+1D light armour).  Due to some very lucky die rolling the marines caused 7 or 8 casualties in the attacking force and only lost a single casualty themselves.