In Poland, the US 5th Infantry Division is pushed back and then crushed at Kalisz, the survivors fleeing into the woods. The final order from HQ is short and to the
point: “Good luck. You’re on your own now.”

There PCs will be among the survivors in the woods (i believe to the south of Kaliz) in the days following the defeat of NATO forces. The things that i anticipate happening here are as follows:
1. the PCs form a group of survivors
2. the PCs get equipped as a group
3. the PCs establish a survival strategy for the group
4. the PCs establish a few NPC connections relating their survival strategy
5. the PCs come with their personal goals and determine how they all know one another
6. the campaign moves forward w/ the GM inflicting devious plots against the party

Kaliz, Poland is 205 miles east and about 20 miles south of Berlin, Germany. The game begins in April. The weather is still quite cool, upper 40s by day, often down into the teens at night. The weather tends to be windy with rain and occasional spats of snow about 1 in 3 days.

The party will be starting out in a small camp of survivors of the battle of Kaliz and refugees from the city. It will be a temporary home to around a hundred people that include military and civilian, old and young, healthy and injured, sane and mentally broken, etc.

Your gear and supplies are reason enough to hunt you down and finish you off. Not to mention the fear of organized resistance. Take a moment to hash out an idea of what the PCs feel is important.

The fires were dug in the fashion that the American soldiers called Dakota holes. They gave of a lot of heat, little light, and light smoke. And they burned a lot of wood fast. That was fine, it gave the boys of the camp plenty to keep them out of trouble.

The retreat had been particularly hard on the troops of H platoon. They had first attempted to ambush the Russian unit they had been following. Knowing full well that it was a sham, a nomenclature given to cover the movements of nearly one hundred fifty veteran Soviet Spetsnaz special operations troops.

The Soviets had been armed with an unexpected number of RPGs and PKMs. They traveled in older BRT 70 armored cars armed with a mix of KPV and DSHK-38 heavy machine guns, AGS-17 grenade launchers, and at least two had been outfitted with Konkurs anti-tank guided missile launchers. It had been a noble effort.

What followed was a night of rolling engagements as the Spetsnaz troops kept pursuing and reengaging H platoon. More personnel were killed, many went missing. Despite the thought of deserters, many preferred to think of their friends as such instead of the more likely reality. That those missing in action had been captured by the Spetsnaz to be tortured for information.

The HMMWVs had been pulled in close with a series of tarps strung together them to form a tent of sorts between wide enough for a person to lay down and rest. The low branches of nearby spruce trees helped conceal the monstrosity of tarps and trucks. inside the last men and women of the platoons composite military support and intelligence personnel. And its last two vehicles.

They could hear the sounds of fighting in several directions during the night. Some of the refugees had told tales of fighting in other locations that had forced them to flee. Once they had received the message that the 5th had been defeated, that it was every man, or woman, for themselves, they began to truly grasp the severity of the situation.

They took stock. Of everything. Every bullet. Every meal. Every drop of water and fuel. Now all that remained was to decide what to actually do. There were NATO forces 60 kilometers away to the southwest, and nearly 150 kilometers due west.

Listening to the last transmissions as flee NATO forces, the remainder of the 5th infantry, the news was a bitter pill to swallow.

"...moving south along supply route four." A radioman was saying. "Rear guard elements have gone radio silent."

"Baker six-one, Baker six-actual, over." A stern voice said. No response followed.

"...Chappie, four bandits to three o'clock at six seven zero meters." A woman was saying. "swing your Bradley about to our nine and fine a hole to hide in. Don't engage before they cross eight zero zero meters. Buy us some time."

And on it went. They even intercepted a Soviet transmission.

"....Zultan, the Major is on my back again." And deep voice said tiredly, "Get those cannon cockers to dial in their barrages or I'll come down there and shoot several of them."

Sleep. The sort of dreamless, unreachable unconsciousness that was the result of complete mental and physical exhaustion. There were stories about men in World War 2 sleeping straight through artillery barrages or sleeping as they marched, and now, Sean Cave believed them.

He awoke wrapped in his sleeping bag, his poncho folded beneath his head like a pillow. And even before he got his bearings in terrain he had not seen by daylight, the incredible weight of all that had transpired the day before settled on him like a physical thing.

The Colonel was dead, along with well over half the Platoon. That was the rough figure he had settled on before he had collapsed the night before.

The chain of command was broken, the plans they had poured over for long hours together now largely worthless.

They were possibly surrounded, or at least under threat of being carried behind the enemy lines in the coming days.

As at least nominally, he was in charge.

He took a deep breath, fought of the urge to fall back asleep, and forced his eyes open. Forced himself to get up.

His legs protested, as did his back from where he had been sleeping on the forest floor. He smelled the faint combination of gunpowder, his own natural odor and a tinge of blood that wafted up from the bag.

A few were already stirring in camp, the majority still fast asleep. Huddled figures against the morning chill. He would let them sleep, they would need it.

But for himself, he needed breakfast, a warm drink in his belly...and he needed to start planning his briefing. Through his drowsy haze he recognized the importance of getting this new day started on the right foot. Of having a plan despite their recent defeat, and of the importance of utilizing the available experience on hand to formulate and then to execute that plan.

All of their lives might depend on it, and despite the shock of yesterdays rout, it was his good fortune to still have some eminently qualified individuals left among the survivors of H Platoon.

Fedor squatted nearby and watched Captain Cave struggle to wake up. There were those who held the man in low esteem. Most of them were dead. Anyone who could survive last night was warrior enough for the big Russian.

He ate from a steaming MRE pack that smelled vaguely of actual food.

"He is awake Ogienya."

His voice was flat, sort of quiet and emotionless, and loaded with a ton of "Moose and Squirrel" inflection. A lot like the enemies that they had fought all night.

The name was a nickname for Cecylia Wojcik, a play on the Polish word for Fire, and he was clearly speaking to her. The woman was a long time friend and fairly constant companion since their involvement in the war.

Mike scratched at his chin and then spat on the ground, hacking up a big lump of something horrible. He looked and felt tired, having stayed awake on sentry duty while the others slept. Someone had to do it and as the senior NCO left in the remnants of the Platoon he had taken it upon himself to keep watch. Could you even call it a Platoon any more though? That seemed to be rather overstating their numbers somewhat.

Others were starting to wake up around their hastily set up camp and he spotted the Captain moving so he hefted his rifle over his shoulder on its sling and made his way over to him. He wasn't certain that he was the best person to be using an M203 grenade launcher but grabbing Christopherson's rifle instead of his own had been the right thing to do. It was too valuable a weapon to leave behind and Christopherson, unfortunately, had had no further use for it. Mike didn't have much more than familiarization training on the M203 though so he was going to have to learn on the job as such. There was a lot of that going around these days.

"Morning Sir," he said to Sean as he crouched down beside the Officer, trying to sound as positive as possible despite their rather fraught situation and the chill in the air. "Hell of a mess with them Spetsnaz buggers but we're gonna have to make the best of it now. At least no one here has any injuries more serious than a few scrapes and bruises. And maybe some of our stragglers will turn up and stop being MIA, you never know." That was probably a rather forlorn hope however. Continuing he pulled a notebook from a jacket pocket and showed a page to Sean. "I did an ammo count last night before anyone crashed out so that's where we're at. I'll do the same with rations and other gear once everyone's awake. You got any thoughts on what to do now? Escape and evasion but fully armed and in HMMWVs."

Noticing that Sean was getting himself a warm drink, Mike then added, "If there's a brew going Sir then I'm in for one before I do another lap of the perimeter."

"Morning Mike" Sean greeted the senior NCO warmly, breath fogging in the frigid air. He could not manage a smile, not after the thrashing they had taken the day before, but his voice still carried some strength.

He listened to the brief report, well aware that the Sergeant was likely almost dead on his feet from having stood post for a good part of the evening. He addressed the question about the coffee first, and poured the lions share of his precious, recently  mixed instant coffee packet into Mike's canteen. The life giving substance shooting forth a jet of steam as it was transferred. "First things first..." he said in a low tone as they shared out the beverage.

"I appreciate it...We'll brief within the hour, then you can hopefully nap for a bit while everyone else preps." he began. He knew Mike was one of those hardened souls that seemed to be able to fall asleep anywhere at any time. Sean used to joke that it was part of his "special police training"

"We'll get the input from the spooks, but I think we're gonna' be here for a little while longer..." he admitted with a sigh and took a sip. "Some are gonna' want to go right back out and start getting payback for last night, and others will probably want to pull up stakes first thing and make a bee line for the nearest friendly's, whatever the risk." he mused to his sole confidant. The privileged relationship between an Officer and his most senior non-com. ​

He cradled the warm canteen in both hands. "But either way we need intel. So recon is probably going to be a priority for the day." he glanced behind him at some of the others still stirring. Fedor crouched by the fire like a foraging bear. Cecylia not far off.

"Thanks Sir," replied Mike with gratitude in his voice as he accepted the coffee. He poured a little back into Sean's cup so that it was a more even split. "You need it as much as I do," he muttered in explanation before taking a sip. "It's probably unpatriotic of me to say it," he continued with a grin, "but I'm starting to prefer coffee to tea. I used to think that nothing would ever beat a good brew of tea but when I first had coffee in the States it totally opened my eyes. I would never have said that before I first went to the States but what I've come to realise is that coffee isn't a shit drink, it's just that coffee in England is a shit drink. Every place you go in the States has coffee way better than you can buy in England. I was in Fort Bragg one time, sat in a First Sergeant's office, and his coffee was just amazing. Making it was like a ritual to him. And then there is this diner in Crete where I was a Cop that always had incredible coffee so we always made sure that we went there at some point during our shift. Apparently cops and coffee and doughnuts is a Canadian thing not an American one but I was happy to make it part of my routine. Simple pleasures back then." Wistfully he took another sip of the coffee Sean had made and then looked at the contents of the mug. "This ain't as good as that but it's still a hell of a lot better than English coffee."

Conscious that he had been talking a lot, and slight embarrassed as a result, Mike glanced at Sean. "Sorry, I'm rabbiting on. Some recon of the immediate area sounds like a good idea. I'm pretty sure that we still have some neighbours in these woods. Either refugees fleeing from the sporadic firefights that we could hear last night after we stopped or other stragglers trying to decide what to do next. We need to keep an eye on our gear as people are going to start trying to steal stuff from us if we're not careful."

Not far from where Sean and Mike were talking, Gretchen was just coming to after a cat-nap. She was used to working on very little sleep, and had learned a long time ago the trick of falling asleep whenever and wherever possible, so she felt... if not rested, at least not exhausted. Not physically, anyway.

Emotionally, she was spent, but emotions hardly mattered any more. She was a survivor at heart, and would survive to feel another day.

Standing, she took a quick inventory of her possessions. Once she was satisfied that everything was present and in place, she stood straight, shoulders back and head high, and turned slightly to face Sean. He would notice her when he was done with his NCO. Until then, she would wait.

Thomas woke up as he started to hear movement around him. On auto pilot, he got out of his sleeping bag and immediately stowed it away, visually checking his gear was ready to move if needed. He put on his webbing and helmet, grabbed his weapon and moved over to Mike and the Captain. He flashed a grin at Mike and said "Glad your still with us" before turning to the Captain. "Sir, I had a quick run around here, and there are no serious injuries I found. Most likely anyone seriously hit was left where they fell, over night..." He trailed off, looking back in the direction they had come from before adding "I'll need.... We'll need to go back and account for them. Some of them might still be saveable."

For the briefest of moments, she forgot about the where and why. She woke to the smell of wood chips and pine, with a cold soothing breeze blowing across her face. She enjoyed the moment, however brief and fleeting it was, curling up inside the wool cover she didn't remember wrapping herself in. Nearby, she felt a presence, something heavy and quiet; something safe. Cecylia sighed, then made something between a yawn and a grunt as she stretched her sore body. Even with the mat and the poncho, sleeping in her clothes on the forest's floor hadn't done a miracle on her muscles. She sat up, with some difficulty and looked around her, eyes small and puffy, peaking between long curls of fiery red hair.



She yawned again, smiling at Fedor. All night, he had been by her side, putting a reassuring hand on her every time she jumped at the sound of distant gunfire. He had done it, like a mother with her babe, until she had fallen asleep, and had he not been there, Cecylia knew she wouldn't have caught any rest. With the blanket still around her shoulders, she wrapped an arm around his and leaned her head, resting it on his shoulder. Although affectionate, the gesture didn't feel romantic in any way.

“Yea, me too...,” she said in Russian. She closed her eyes and almost falling asleep again.

When she finally opened them again, she released Fedor and started tucking red curls away from her face. She glanced at the opened pouch of food the big Russian was shoveling into his mouth.

“You sure that's food?” she asked with a smirk as her nose wrinkled itself at the thing's smell. She sniffed a few times, finally hooking her collar and sniffing herself. “Oh god... I think that might be me... I might have to save my coffee packets for soap.”

Nearby, Sean, Mike, and Thomas were talking, with Gretchen standing idly a few feet away. She couldn't really hear them, but they looked like a mix of tired and tense. And maybe a little bit thankful.

“I dreamt last night,” she said, her soft voice sounding distant. “We got to the Cote d'Azur. The water was so blue. We had this little bar right on the beach. You were making cocktails with little umbrellas.”

She looked at Fedor and smiled broadly, chuckling at the idea. “I'm sure you'd look dashing in a floral shirt.”

Stretching once more, she finally rose to her feet, the wool blanket still wrapped around her. She was fully aware that “breakfast” should have been her first order of business, but she had never been one to rise and eat. She did feel like tea.

“If you don't have any daiquiris ready, I might make us some tea.”

Seamus Murphy awoke at around the same time. For a few seconds he forgot about what had happened to his tank. Then he remembered and it wasn't pleasant. A hit by an anti-tank missile that had somehow gotten through the armour. The bailing out and the machine gun that opened fire... then jammed. It was only by the fact that the weapon had jammed that he was still alive. The others weren't.

He looked around for whoever was in charge. There hadn't been a lot of time for introductions the previous night when he had stumbled in and been allocated a sleeping spot.

Identifying Sean, he walked over to him and placed himself conspicuously in his eyeline, waiting for the Captain to identify him. A trick he had used at many a pub over the relatively short time he'd been in the British Army.

But with this war, those few years felt much longer...

He smiled his twisted and scarred smile. It was not unheard of for Fedor to pass an entire day without speaking but with Cece he was, sometimes, downright loquacious.

"Tea is good. Wery civilized."

"Was going to share. Is supposed to be Bigos. Is not Bigos. I will protect Poland by eating this all myself. If I meet man who wrote "bigos" on package I will stab him."

He finished whatever was in the little bag and buried the bag in a shallow scrape.

All the while he never moved his eyes from the rising Captain's gathering.

Sean smiled softly at the anecdote about Mike warming up the coffee in America. It was nice to remember that things were different back home, and that in no small way Mike was representative of that. Home and the special relationship between the U.S and the U.K.

He acknowledged the other three with a nod each as they queued up.

"I hear you on securing our current inventory. The Humvees are obviously not going to hold everything and we are dealing with all sorts of unknowns. Some of which might get desperate soon." It was handy to have a police officer in the ranks. They thought about these things.

"Brainstorm some ideas for getting things secured, I'll do the same, and we can touch base later tonight."



"Well likewise Tom, you holding up alright?" He asked in return, and listened to the status update on their wounded. He flashed Gretchen a patient look, knowing she had been there first, but he nodded to Tom. "Well at least everyone left is mobile then, that's something. I'm hoping to brief here within the hour, and once that's done we should be able to send some people back the way we came. If that happens I'll make sure your among them, in the case anybody managed to hang on out there. Good work." he punctuated his complement with a nod to the medic.

He looked back to Gretchen and Seamus, but first to Gretchen. "Morning Miss Cole, you get any sleep?" he asked her as a sort of invitation to step up and speak her mind.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:22, Wed 11 Aug 2021.

Filling up part of her mess kit with water from her canteen, Cecylia put in a few tea bags she had saved from her past rations. By themselves, they tended to make a weak cup, but if she “skipped” a few full meals, she usually found she could brew a decent few cups.

“At this point, I feel being civilized is all we have left,” she said, watching the water boil over slowly.

She looked around her slowly, peering down into the woods, finding it hard to believe things were this calm. Through the night, they'd listen to the near-constant staccato of gunfire, punctuated by explosions and booming of rockets. And now, nothing. The snapping of twigs and hushed conversations was all the soundtrack they had. Cecylia wondered briefly if the birds had been scared away by all the fighting, or if they, like the rest of them, were just too shell-shocked to sing.



“Very altruistic of you,” she said, slowly turning the teabags around the boiling water with a spoon.

Across from them, she saw a young man in a British uniform walking over to Sean. She had briefly glimpsed him last night as he had wandered into their group; almost getting shot for it. He looked so incredibly... young.

“Looks like we picked up a stray puppy,” she said to Fedor, jerking her chin in Seamus' direction. “He's so young,” she added after watching him for a time.

She kept stirring the tea. “They're all so young...”

Smiling softly at Fedor, she poured him some tea.

Fedor's smile disappeared and he turned to face the new voice from outside the camp, AKM in hand.

"Someone comes."

A well camouflaged man knelt in the low spruce pines. He was meant to be visible from the side opening of the shelter. He was holding a shrouded M16 and slowly, almost casually, waved a soft cap with Airborne and Ranger tabs sewn over the bill as a form of friendly recognition.

It took only a moment to make out the forms of two other men, equally well camouflaged, behind him. The other two where situated to look outward in opposing directions creating a 360 degree field of view for the trio. They seemed calm and taciturn, despite last nights battles.

"CENTCOM NATO (NATO central command) has established a collection point. It is located outside of a town, Krosnice, some sixty klicks southwest of here. They will be there for," he checked his watch, "about nineteen hours or so before they will have to pull back. There is a line infantry battalion, a transport company, and a heavy maintenance company assembled and waiting. All NATO forces are order to make all due haste to make the retrieval."

The man didn't wait for any form of response, or even a formal acknowledgement, before he signaled the others. The trio simply slipped off into the forest and quickly disappeared into the depths of the shadows and trees. Their direction of travel made it obvious they were heading towards another encampment a few klicks away in the forest.

It was just an odd occurrence in a war full of them, but it was disconcerting to realize that all the help that they could receive was couples hours drive through unknown terrain with the enemy at their heels.

The sudden arrival of the Ranger's, their message, and their sudden departure in the wake of all the other events of the previous 24 hours just seemed to add to the chaos.

In the thirty of so minutes that he had been awake the intel had suddenly shifted again. Now instead of taking stock and getting a handle on their current situation...they were faced with a sudden decision. A serious shifting of gears.

"Alright, let's rally up." he called out conversationally to those who had not already approached him, their meeting point between the two HMMWVs. The piney scent of fresh cut vegetation still lingered in the air from when the camouflage materials were hacked from the trees the evening before.

There were only eight of them left, so this would not take long.

And while Fedor, Cecylia and Aleksy finished up whatever they were doing, Gretchen and the young man behind her still held Sean's attention.

Kicking himself for not getting someone else to replace him on sentry duty while he spoke to the Captain, thereby allowing three heavily armed soldiers to approach their small campsite, Mike pondered the information that the leader of the scout patrol had imparted. Luckily they had been allies but it still made Mike feel old. War is for the young, he'd once read, though he had no idea who had actually written it. He rubbed his face, trying to alleviate a little of the tiredness there.

The collection point at Krosnice sounded promising but the journey there didn't. Sixty kilometres across unknown terrain in nineteen hours was going to be a push unless they just got onto the main road network and drove like they were on a Sunday school outing, ignoring the risk of ambushes and other hazards. The whole area had been a mess of sporadic firefights the previous night, with only West and South West remaining quiet. That was several hours ago now though and there was every chance that Soviet units were actively patrolling around, trying to scoop up stragglers like the remnants of H Platoon.

"I'll talk to the new guy," Mike said to Sean with a nod at Seamus as he moved over to him to engage him in a conversation, leaving the Captain to talk to Gretchen.

Approaching Seamus he gave the young man a smile as he started speaking. "OK, looks like we've got a spare seat in a vehicle for you but give me a quick summary of who you are and what unit you were with so we can work out the best spot for you? Name, rank and so on."

Tom was as surprised by the Rangers as everyone else. He realised that was their skill set, and he tried not to think about what enemy forces might still have that skill set.

AS he waited, leaning on one of the Humvees, for the briefing, he pondered the information. 60 Kays in 19 hours, didn't seem impossible, until you figured in the likely tactical speed of the Humvees, which added up to - not much time to go back and check for survivors. He hoped the brief was quick as they need to start that ASAP

Gretchen was just about to speak to Sean when the men delivered their message. Suddenly, making the offer to scout the area seemed less important. She shook her head just enough to communicate to Sean that she had nothing to add, but didn't move. Whatever happened next, she wanted a front row seat to the decision making process.

Fedor lowered his rifle, letting it fall on it's sling, and accepted the tea.

"Spaseebo."

His face remained hard and he sipped the boiling hot liquid without a perceptible reaction.

"It is excellent."

Like most, Cecylia was briefly startled by the event. Where most around her reached for weapons, she simply stood rooted in her spot, half decent brewed tea in hand. As far as she was concerned, if this was it, this was it.

She felt her heart start beating again when the soldiers left.



“Thank you,” she said softly, eyes still looking towards the retreating silhouette. She hoped they would be alright.

She picked her pack up and, still holding her tea, walked over towards Sean.

“Well,” she said with a nervous chuckle “that almost give me attack of heart,” she added, her Polish accent dripping heavily on the English words. “We should move soon. Krosnice is not far, if we take road, but roads are probably very dangerous.”

Cecylia looked around her, glancing up at the trees hovering above them. “This is nice place. Maybe we come back some day. Have camping trip, yes?” she said, smiling earnestly at Sean.

“There is much farmland between here and Krosnice. Twenty kilometres South, terrain is more woods. More cover. Little backwoods roads. Probably not maintained but drive-able,” she continued, shrugging at her own words. “Hopefully drive-able.”

“I still have photos with me. Outdated positions. Not best but better than blind, yes?”

"Way better..." Sean replied in a somewhat distracted way, agreeing with her sentiments about returning some day under better circumstances while he unfolded a topographic map along with a copy of their recent operations plan.

He glanced up again as he took stock of who was nearest at hand. "Alright...let's brief real quick and then we have some choices to make" he said loudly enough for everyone in the camp to hear As he marked their approximate current position and that of Krosnice with pins for easy reference.

"Good morning." He told them all with an obvious weariness that they all shared. A sort of gratitude for still being "switched on" after the previous days events.

"We all heard the Rangers, and as you can see on the topo, trying to make it to Krosnice within the 19 hour window is potentially viable." he said as he traced the distance between the two on the map with his fingers.

"But in order to close this distance without lingering on the nail roads for very long, we would need to prioritize speed over any kind of recovery efforts where we are. This would include rescue efforts, salvage, or any kind of rest period...among other things."

He looked back at the assembled. "So with these things in mind, I'd like to hear from each of you, and your professional opinion, on if you would feel it more prudent to dig in here, recover, and to wait for another window...or if you feel the risk in trying to reach Krosnice if worth the gamble of an an immediate push."

He gestured to Cecylia. "Miss Wojcik has some fairly recent Intel of the area, and we are going to be taking that into consideration. But I would like to get some general opinions before we move forward."

With that he looked around, an invitation for anybody to speak their mind.