Playtest 1: Death and Taxes

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Ottomar militia, along with Pat, an androgynous exchange soldier that no one really understands, is deployed to help unpaid taxes get collected from a logging community. Shortly after the first door is knocked on and the first lumberjack tells the tax man to go fuck himself, armed insurrectionists emerge from nearby woods and engage the militia detachment. When the militia returns fire, the locals, fearing that THE GUBMENT'S COME FOR THEIR JERBS, take up arms as well. When small arms fire comes from the lumberjack's house, the militia responds with rifle grenades and jeep-mounted machine guns, and shit officially gets real.

With the situation degenerating, the militia leader calls for a retreat. The column of four jeeps, carrying machine guns on the lead and rear vehicles, attempts to speed away from the engagement. As the intensity of engagement increases, though, one of the unarmed jeeps leaves the road and crashes into a tree.

The column stops to attempt to recover the soldiers from that jeep. Pat, the androgynous exchange soldier, stands and appears to be the only survivor of the crash. As soldiers from the colmn approach to extract Pat, civilians fire on all of them. Pat attempts to return fire with a bolt action rifle, but the rifle promptly explodes in Pat's face and puts Pat on the ground. Horrified at the spectacle, and afraid for their own lives, the soldiers return to the column of jeeps and continue their flight.

At the crash site, an old woman arrives to finish the unconscious Pat off. BrianPC regains consciousness near the jeep and sees his jeepmate in peril and so attempts to help, but is unable to stand. Undaunted, he assumes the prone firing stance, takes aim, and fires a shot with his sidearm, instantly killing the old woman and leaving Pat unharmed. Though dazed and now blind in one eye, Pat manages to go to BrianPC's aid and the two of them begin a tactical retreat toward the local lumber mill, the column's designated rally point.

The column meets a truck attempting to act as a roadblock during the retreat but the soldiers are having none of that shit. Angered by the apparent loss of their friends, they concentrate fire on the truck, killing the insurrectionists aboard, then speed around it. After clearing that, they meet a loop road south of the town. Knowing that their rally point is the lumber mill, where there should be an additional column of jeeps, the soldiers curse, steel themselves, and speed back into the hornet's nest.

As the column approaches the lumber mill ever more signs of battle appear. Fires are breaking out. Gunshots and occasional explosions sound from the logging village, countryside, and nearby town. On arriving at the rally point, the soldiers see the other column of jeeps engaged with a truck full of heavily-armed insurrectionists, along with a dismounted crowd at the mill itself. As before, the truck is thoroughly shot to hell in short order.

The two columns merge into one and begin to move away north, to the town, when they spy Pat and BrianPC limping over from the east. The column immediately moves to pick them up and their spirits are greatly bolstered as they recover at least some of their friends.

Things are even worse in the town. The column moves into city hall but is greatly hampered by constant harassment from every building and numerous road blocks where insurrectionists have set up machine guns and occasionally cart-mounted anti-tank guns. After the deaths of many good soldiers and the tax assessor who the militia was there to protect, the jeeps are ditched and the soldiers begin to wind through alleyways toward city hall. They come under fire from rooftops and find new threats around every corner, but bloodily persevere to meet besieged miltia forces at the city hall.

The scenario ends with the militia forces holding against rioters and insurrectionists while awaiting reinforcements to assist in a general retreat from the town.