5C Sandbox Campaign - the Collapse Mission 3

Command acknowledged the Squad's report and appreciated the displayed reluctance to give in to baseless rumors. After interrogating the apprehended brigands from last mission, the newest facts are thus: Apparently there is an epidemic, alright: Western agents secretly spread drugs among the unsuspecting populace, which turn upstanding citizens into disoriented and violent madmen. This threat needs to be contained and dealt with. 

Our Squad is therefore tasked with enforcing the blockade of the area, lest the western agents and their helpers escape. Noone is allowed to enter or leave. Of course a situation like this is hard to keep secret - even in the USSR - so we are ordered to act tactfully and not just open fire on what mostly will be frightened civilians.

I'll be using the framework if the repell-mission but instead if just having the enemy assault the checkpoint, there will be the usual encounter-markers with the chart of the presence-patrol being used. This means it'll mostly be civilians in need of persuasion to turn around - thankfully FiveCore contains rules for persuasion, so no need for house ruling.

Needless to say, the infected might be already among the fleeing...

The roadblock:

I set myself the following rules:

-absolutely no shooting at civilians, unless they breach the line of 2/3 towards my table edge. This includes no shooting trajectories passing within 1" of civilians

-Civilians crossing the first barrier are allowed to be subdued with brawling.

-At the end of each turn, I rolled a D6 for every civilian and every wounded Squaddie with a 6 meaning he'd succumb to the rage virus

-every turn, an encounter would enter the opposite table edge with me using the Encounter-table for presence-patrols, meaning it'll be largely civilians. 

The beginning was calm, until the first civilians started to act...  weird...

Without a clear shot, Sarge tried to subdue the raving madman...

...but got his arm horribly chewed up. With a critical wound, there was no other option but to evacuate him - for that, the surrounding had to be free of hostiles.

Pictured: Moskvich hostile-delivery-system.

The driver decided to really kick her in the guts and made a run for the barricade. I figured these to be special circumstances, allowing the use of firearms to stop it. As the people inside spilled out, it became obvious, what had freaked them out: Two of them had turned! 

Fortunately the rest of the passengers would have none of that zombie-crap and thus allowed Sarge to be evacuated. Probably a really dumb idea, considering his bite wounds...

The pressure kept increasing with civilians getting further and further towards my table edge and more and more Zombies appearing.

One of the rare instances of my persuasion-rolls working. I guess having a machine gun helps with the conversation.

Usually the attempt to persuade them ended with the civs showing me the finger and all my attempts to grapple them ended with my lads getting their butts kicked by some housewife.

"Stop looking at me like that, Vladko!"

-"But suddenly you look so squishy and tasty!"

Meanwhile one by one, my men were bitten and turned... I should have played the civilians, as they consistently rolled way better than my guys.

Of course they also provided lots if zombie recruitment-potential.

Shooting that civilian, who made a run for it was rather stupid, as he quickly turned!

And killed my backup! 

"This is hopeless! We gotta get outta here!"

With only 2 men of my original Squad remaining, I decided to make a run for it.

The crew of the BTR gave covering fire.

And together they managed to clear the way towards the BTR.

We even saved some civilians - felt like the right thing to do, especially as it's not like that will be the problem with this quarantine. Thankfully they didn't turn on the way.

"They're coming! Go! Go! Go!"

That was close - I almost didn't make it out. The civilians trying to reach my table edge combined with the possibility of turning really could lead to suddenly being encircled. The element of uncertainty added through this was quite fun. I'll have to think about where to go from here, as my squad is virtually wiped out.