Playtest 5: Once a Soldier

Introduction
The test begins with the group, all Ottomar veterans, talking in a bar. Roberto (A), Otis (C), and Sal (G) are veterans of the previous war. Otto (Jay) is a washed-up old man from yet earlier conflicts. When the barkeep asks what they'd like, Otto recalls the war against Ress and asks for sandwiches, and in deference to the old man they are procured. Roberto and Otto scuffle Otto refuses to share them.

Shortly thereafter Tactican soldiers enter the bar and begin taking drinks without paying. Though this riles the others up, Otto is oblivious and complains to the soldiers that he's been assaulted. When they learn the squabble is over sandwiches, the Tactican soldiers promptly take those too. The group leaves the bar in disgust.

The Alleyway
Once outside, the group hears a woman calling for help. They investigate and find a group of three Tactican soldiers in an alley. One is behind a dumpster and in the process of raping a local woman. Sal immediately tries to help and is knocked unconscious. The others try to be craftier but generally fail, and Otis is knocked unconscious shortly thereafter. Roberto ends up in a drunken scuffle with a Tactican at the alley's mouth while Otto, shouting that the first Tactican can surely deal with a lone drunk, prevents another Tactican from coming to help from near the dumpster. When this second Tactican tells Otto to move on, Otto attacks the Tactican with his cane. This is tolerated until Otto reveals that the cane hides a sword and slices the second Tactican's cheek. Otto's face is then smashed in with a baton and Otto falls unconscious.

In the meantime, Otis has recovered and, as the first two Tacticans are distracted, he stabs and kills the rapist. He then takes the rapist's sidearm and kills the other two Tacticans. Sal recovers, and Otto and the girl are both helped to Otto's house, where the party spends the night.

The Resistance
In the morning, Otis questions the woman. At first she claims to have just been attacked for no reason, but she is soon persuaded that she's in good company and reveals that she's a member of the local Ottomar resistance with information to deliver to her cell. As a gesture of goodwill, she brings the group of veterans with her.

With the woman vouching for them, the group is allowed in. Otto is given medical assistance for his ruined face. The whole group is given drinks, and when they hear that the woman they helped has information on a convoy carrying medical supplies, they volunteer to help the resistance cell take those supplies for the people.

The Ambush
The group meets with the resistance on the appointed day. Otto is nearly healed and is dressed in his old combat fatigues. They get weapons from the resistance, and each equip themselves for their old war specialties: Sal takes a rifle, Roberto takes a light machine gun and pistol, Otis takes a submachine gun, and Otto takes a rocket launcher and rifle.

The convoy is supposed to be four trucks. The lead and rear vehicles contain a squad of infantry between them, while the middle two trucks contain the supplies. Based on their knowledge of the convoy's route, the ambushers decide to catch the convoy as they make a turn near a church. As the middle vehicles go through the turn, the ambushers will engage the front and rear vehicles simultaneously, blocking the supply vehicles in.

Sal, Otto, and Otis take up positions in an alleyway that proceeds directly off the first road, before the turn, to give Otto a shot at the rear vehicle. Some resistance members accompany them. Roberto sets up his machine gun in a corner of the church overlooking the turn.

The plan immediately goes to hell, though, as the lead vehicle notes the (apparently insufficiently disguised) group in the first alleyway. It stops before the turn and engages the ambushers with its mounted machine gun, killing the resistance members but not the veterans. The veterans return fire, immediately killing the lead truck's gunner and damaging it with a rocket. As the remainder of the trucks try to reverse back down the road the machine gun hoses down the rear truck's cab and forces it to stop. After a grenade and another rocket forces the Tactican infantry away from the lead truck, Sal and Otis advance to take cover there and press the engagement.

The crew of the center trucks ineffectually attempt to engage the machine gun nest while the infantry in the rear truck dismount. Otis and Sal trade shots with the Tacticans while Otto moves to an adjacent alley past the turn. In the interim Otis takes a burst of machine gun fire across his legs and goes down. The exertion from crawling back into cover pushes him over the edge into unconsciousness. Sal moves to cover and assist.

Otto gets into position in the next alley and fires a rocket into the rear truck, flipping it and scattering the soldiers there. They quickly fall victim to machine gun fire, and the crews of the supply trucks are overwhelmed as the resistance moves in to take their cargo. As they make off with it, though, the group's contact notices that Otis is down and breaks open one of the crates. Inside is a huge syringe, bearing pictorial instructions and the words "APPLY TO TRAUMA SITE".

Never one to turn down pictorial instructions, Otto stabs his friend in the legs with the mystery needle. For the next several minutes, Otis convulses and speaks nonsense. But he soon wakes, then — miraculously — stands, on repaired legs. As the group leaves the ambush site, Otis runs with inhuman speed and even leaps a car.

After the engagement each of the veterans is given one of the same syringe to use as they see fit.