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Pre-Trip T-1 Day

Today, I’ll tell you about the timing of my trip.  Since there are different time zones in play here, I thought a little chart might be handy to know the times both local and here at home (Easter Time Zone).

Local EST Location Notes
2/22/13   1:05 PM 2/22/13 1:05 PM Indianapolis 1 hour 16 min flight time
2/22/13   2:21 AM 2/22/13 2:21 PM Detroit 4 hour wait
2/22/13   6:25 PM 2/22/13 6:25 PM Detroit 8 hour 25 min flight time
2/23/13   8:50 AM 2/23/13 2:50 AM Frankfurt 4 hour wait
2/23/13   1:00 PM 2/23/13 7:00 AM Frankfurt 8 hour 30 min flight time
2/24/13   2:00 AM 2/23/13 3:30 PM Bangalore
2/28/13   5:40 PM 2/28/13 7:10 AM Bangalore 50 min flight time
2/28/13   6:30 PM 2/28/13 8:00 AM Chennai
3/6/13   8:30 AM 3/5/13 10:00 PM Chennai 2 hour 45 min flight time
3/6/13   11:15 AM 3/6/13 12:45 AM New Delhi
3/9/13   10:50 PM 3/9/13 12:20 AM New Delhi 16 hour 30 min flight time
3/10/13   4:50 AM 3/10/13 4:50 AM Newark 4.5 hour wait
3/10/13   9:29 AM 3/10/13 9:29 AM Newark 2 hour 17 min flight time
3/10/13   11:46 AM 3/10/13 11:46 AM Indianapolis

It will be interesting to see how I deal with the jet lag…I’m hoping it’s much like Con on the Cob…5 days of no sleep?  No problem!  :)

Pre-Trip T-2 Days

So today I start my Malaria drugs. The history of treatment medication for Malaria is very interesting. The side effects of the medication were sometimes worse than the disease itself! However, for those with a weakened immune system or very young or elderly, the disease is deadly. Lucky for me, today’s medications have far fewer side effects. I basically have to start taking the pills now and will stop 7 days after I leave the “danger zone” which for my trip is Bangalore, the first city I visit.

Speaking of where I’m going, I created a little map to show where I’m going. Unfortunately, I’m only spending time at the Frankfurt airport, and not getting to go around town. I would have liked to spend some time in Germany. Maybe next time, if there is one.

Airline Map

More details tomorrow!

Pre-Trip T-3 Days

For those of you who don’t know, I’ll be heading to India on Friday for 17 days (4 in transit!). I plan to post frequently about the trip here on Harrowed Halls (for my friends without Facebook) but I’ll cross post the link for my FB friends and family too.

My preparation to go on this trip thus far has been:

  • Vaccinations (Flu, Hepatitus A and B, Polio, Tuburculosis, Diptheria, and Tetanus)
  • Anti-biotics (Malaria and Food Born)
  • Mosquito Repellent
  • Motion Sickness Treatments

I’ll post details about my travel on Friday since I’ll have 8 hours of layovers to figure out what to say! Hopefully I don’t have to pay for Wi-Fi at the airports (although I probably will have to).

Feel free to post comments on Facebook, only those with an account can post here on Harrowed Halls. I’m looking forward to sharing my trip with you all!

Ghost Stories with Black Secret Expansion

ghost  black secret
This week we played an old favorite, Ghost Stories. It’s a cooperative game where the players are Taoist monks trying to prevent a village from being overrun by ghosts. This week’s game had a completely different spin on it because we added the Black Secret expansion. With this expansion one of the players controls a variety of ghosts, demons, and curses. The best evil man for this job was Mike. Not just because he had read the rules, but mostly because he is evil to begin with. In the game Mike is called Wu-Feng.   The expansion also added a few other twists to the game too. Another board, called the catacombs, represented the area under the village. Wu-Feng can summon demons into the catacombs. There they searched for the three urns with which the Shadow of Wu-Feng can be summoned. If this happens, we are in really deep ghost poo. The monks can travel to the catacombs and confront the demons hopefully sending them back to hell where Mike lives.  Mike can also cast curses on us and he gets to determine where the ghosts come into the village. All in all we thought we were doomed from the start. One thing in our favor was that when we lose Qi (our life force) instead of going back to a pool of Qi, it goes onto a mantra of our choice. These mantras, once fueled with enough Qi, are powerful spells we can use against the demons and ghosts.

In our game, my monk had the power to reroll dice. Owen’s monk could take two actions and Ben’s monk got an extra colored bean at the beginning of his turn. (Yes, I know they’re not called colored beans, but I can’t remember what they are called.) We also had a fourth monk, sort of a non-playing monk, that we could use his power of special movement if we needed to.

Our game began…

To exorcise a ghost, you have to roll dice equal to the ghost’s color or have enough colored beans to fill in for any dice that failed to roll that color. With this in mind, Owen’s monk was an unstoppable exorcising machine and regularly could kill two ghosts with one roll. Ben and I were another story completely.

Ben rolled three dice and only needed black (or the “wild” color of white) on any die. He failed.

Steve rolled SIX dice and only needed one black…and failed.

Ben later redeemed his suck-i-ness. He needed three black and rolled a black and two wild dice!

As the game progressed we were holding our own and Mike’s demons where having trouble finding the third urn needed to summon the Shadow of Wu-Feng. My monk was in the catacombs trying to kill demons when one of them found the third urn. The Shadow of Wu-Feng was summoned.

On his turn, the Shadow of Wu-Feng can take one of three actions: Attack a monk, move, or haunt a village tile. (If four village tiles are haunted, the monks lose.) Things quickly got desperate. Soon we had three village tiles haunted. Then the Incarnation of Wu-Feng appeared. Fortunately the incarnation was right where Owen could immediately attack it. And it was a relatively easy one to kill. Owen rolls his first attack. He had three dice and needed two yellows—not a single yellow showed up. Owen tried his second attack with the same result. Owen’s dice rolling had gone cold just when we needed it most. Fortunately I could attack the incarnation too. With my reroll ability I basically got to roll six dice looking for two yellows. I failed miserably.  The Shadow of Wu-Feng haunted the fourth village tile and we lost.

We moved to a different village.

Chaos Steve

Some Pics:
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Descent: Journeys in the Dark (second edition)

pic1180640_t
Widow Targa, Rune Master (Steve)
Grisham the Thirsty (Evil Mike. The dwarf looks like a Santa dwarf)
Ashrian Spiritspeaker, Berserker (Owen)
Avric Albright, Disciple (Ben)

Mike Byrd ran us through a couple of games of Descent 2nd Edition. We had played the first edition many times. We found a lot of things had changed in second edition. For one, the game seemed to move faster, which we liked. One thing we didn’t like was that we hardly got any treasure or items.

Our first scenario was simple. Kill the Ettin leader before too many of his goblin cohorts got off the board. The game starts. Ben goes first and immediately cheats. We love Ben. Part of the fun is catching him doing these cheats that he is hardly aware of. Evil Mike and I take a bunch of damage from goblin archers. We blame Ben and his cheats. Owen gets first blood by killing one of the many, many goblins.

Ben gets riddled with arrows. (There is some justice in the world after all.) Mike’s dwarf is like a tank and keeps the big monsters busy while we chew into the goblins. The big Ettin tried to pick up Evil Mike’s dwarf and throw him. His dwarf was way too strong…or too stubborn, I forget which.

Turn 6. Ben discovers his character has “Reach’. Had his character not had reach, Ben would have tried to use it sooner.

I was able to get the final damage on the big Ettin leader and stop the goblin horde. Yeah, I’m a hero!

Our second game was not so glamorous. We simply had to stop the goblins from destroying some crops. (Is this what heroes do?) To make it more challenging a band of Barghests blocked our way to the fields. We punched a hole in the line of Barghests. Ben tells Owen to run ahead to the crops. Owen listens to Ben and his character goes down under a hail of goblin arrows. (Why did Owen listen to Ben?) Later when the rest of us arrive at Owen’s nearly dead body, Ben heals 2 of the 10 damage. (Go Ben.) My healing potion heals the rest. Owen turns around and takes another fist full of arrows for 8 more damage. Good thing we had Owen to stop all those arrows or one of the rest of us could have been hurt.

Owen recovers his wounds. He and I hold off the remaining goblins while Evil Mike and Ben grab the crops and store the crops for winter. Yeah, we’re farmers!

Mike is going to continue our adventure in two weeks. Looks like we might not stay farmer heroes for long.

Chaos Steve

2013-02-05 18.59.17 2013-02-05 19.00.18 2013-02-05 19.38.54

The Legend of Drizzt…Again

D&D
We sat down and played Legend of Drizzt again. This time we tried adventure #4. Although I can’t tell you the backstory, I can tell you that our destination was a tile containing a Drow glyph. Once that appeared, a random evil villain (probably someone like Mike) would appear.

After only a few rounds we were battling a Drow Duelist (whom we all hate), a Drider, and a Hunting Drake. Ben actually rolled a 20 while battling one of the creatures. This meant he could level up if we had 5 XP in our defeated creature stack. We didn’t. Later in the game, once we had killed a few more creatures, Owen rolled a 20 and his character leveled-up. He was the first to do so in the three games we had played.

We reached the Drow Glyph tile and the evil assassin appeared surrounded by a plethora of creatures. Ben used one of his powers and killed five of the creatures in one blow. Owen’s character finished off the Assassin.

Our second game, Adventure #10, was something quite different. We were trying to escape the catacombs. Instead of drawing event cards we would draw “end” tiles that plugged up the exits on tiles. This game seemed more exciting. At one point we were down to just two available exits. Luckily the next tile we drew had three exits! We continued through the catacombs battling creatures all the way.

We had one exit left when we drew the broken door tile that signaled our way out of the catacombs. We easily fought our way to freedom after that.

Chaos Steve

Some pictures from the game…
Legend of Drizzt (5)  Legend of Drizzt (7) Legend of Drizzt (8)

World War II: Mission 5, Top Secret Plans

War Master (Owen): Yes, a great War Master Indeed.

Lambert’s Losers Lt. Dick Dan (Lt. Dan): Our fearless squad leader, Distinguished Service Cross.
Private (E-2) Destry Lambert (Evil Winters): Our commando medic.
Private (E-2) Charlie Winters (Winters): Not sure what he does, Distinguished Service Cross.
Private (E-3) Hector Goldman, Bronze Star

In this journal entry I’ve had to change the names to protect the innocent…or because I couldn’t remember the names…or because I couldn’t spell the names.

Major Stalwart gave us our new orders. We were to infiltrate a French town (Le Pewy) behind enemy lines. Once there our primary objective was to recover a set of secret plans. Our secondary objective was to transport an allied spy back to safety. The spy’s name was Frederick Himmler—codename Pineapple.

Infiltrating behind enemy lines turned out to be a piece of cake. We just parachuted in under the cover of night. Winters and I made perfect landings. After two tries, Lt. Dan also landed, but not perfectly. Lambert missed the landing spot by a bit, but landed safety as well.

Sneaking into the French town turned out to be harder than it looked. Mostly due to the leadership of Lt. Dan who critically failed his stealth roll and stepped on a land mine. He was Shaken by the resulting explosion—the same explosion that alerted the Germans to our presence. That started what would later be called The Dance of the Land Mines. We had to move through the mine field all-the-while being shot at by the Germans. Lambert stepped on a mine too and soaked the resulting wound. I stepped on a mine and soaked the resulting 3 wounds. Yes, I’m that good. Eventually even Winters steps on a mine; just as he was stepping onto the safety of the road.

Later during the firefight, Lt Dan rolled another critical failure throwing a grenade. I took a wound from the blast. Later, in a moment of respite, Lambert healed the wound.

We make it to Frederick’s house just in time to see him being taken away as a German prisoner. After the Germans leave, Winters and Lambert watch to street as Lt. Dan and I search Frederick’s house. We find a cryptic clue:

“if lost drain pineapple”

Lt. Dan orders me to search in the sewer drain behind the house. I was tired from the fight, so I took a break instead. I told Lt. Dan I didn’t find anything. Fortunately the others decide to search the drain in the street in front of the house. Winters critically failed his Agility roll climbing down the ladder into the drain. Then he critically failed his Vigor roll. He falls; landing on his head. Disoriented from the fall he swallows a bunch of sewer crap.

Lt. Dan joins him in the sewer and together they search for a sign from Pineapple. They find a hidden nook with the plans we were looking for. Now we must decide whether to leave with the plans or try to save Frederick.

We’ll miss Frederick.

Lt. Dan signs the papers that put us all in for medals. Lambert gets a citation. Winters gets a Bronze Star and I get a Silver Star.

I heard that we all may be getting transferred to a nice soft job back at the states. If this is true, this will be my last journal entry.

Corporal Goldman. (That’s right, I got a promotion!)

Dungeons & Dragons: Legend of Drizzt Board Game

D&D
As usual I’m way behind in getting our games updated on the web site. This game actually took place a week ago Wednesday. We played the Dungeons & Dragons: Legend of Drizzt Board Game. It’s a cooperative game for 1-5 players. In it, each player picks a character, a scenario is decided upon, and then you pretty much start playing. I’m simplifying the set up a little, but not by much. There are lots of cards and chits and things to remind the players what powers and abilities their characters have. Play is pretty easy too: players move about the games tiles, sometimes revealing new tiles, sometimes fighting monsters, all the while waiting for the special tile to be revealed that announces the climatic final room.

Here’s how our games went.

Game One Goal: Find the evil assassin and claim the Crown of something or other <insert a suitable cool name for the crown. Let’s call it the Crown of Ultimate Power!>

This first game was a cakewalk for us. The monsters were easily defeated and at no time were we really in trouble.

“Let’s play a harder scenario!” someone said. “Yeah, something with a dragon!”

Game Two Goal: Find and kill the shadow dragon. Let’s call him Mike—Mike the evil shadow dragon. Not to be confused with Mike, who was playing the game as a player.

Since I went last on during the first game AND I killed the evil assassin—I think his name was Mike—I got to go first. It was disastrous. I ended up drawing double monsters that did damage to everyone. Plus a volcanic vent did damage to everyone. Now everyone was wounded and blaming me. I mentioned how it will all be worth it when we killed Mike, the evil shadow dragon.

Ben went next. A dreaded drow duelist appeared. (One appeared on my turn too.) Now they BOTH get to attack doing even more damage…again…to several characters. Somehow everyone says this is my fault.

On Mike’s turn he kills both drow duelist! And there was much rejoicing.
Legend of Drizzt
Later, on another one of my gloriously bad turns, I roll two 1’s in a row (on a d20) trying to kill the drow wizard. In this game, just like in D&D, rolling high is good. Rolling low is not so good. Monster birds attack both Owen and I. This is followed right up by another drow wizard that hits us both again for more wounds. I’m at zero health. This is not good.

Thankfully by my next turn, Owen had healed some of my wounds. So I did what any self-respecting hero would do—I ran. My encounter card was to draw a monster and then I’d be moved to the start tile. We considered canceling it but Mike said he could take on the single monster that would appear by him. My monster card was to draw 2 monster cards. I drew a goblin archer and a huge feral troll! I died on the start tile.

Next turn the dragon tile was drawn. We’re doomed!

The dragon attacked Ben four separate times and missed each time. I can’t explain it either.

During the game, you earn experience points. If you roll a 20 when attacking a monster you level up, but it costs 5 XP. You can also spend XP to cancel encounter cards. After spending untold points to cancel encounters, Owen finally rolls a 20 during a battle (the first 20) but we don’t have enough XP for him to level up.

I had a chance to kill the dragon and be the hero again. I missed the dragon, but I did kill the drider beside him. This gave me a treasure card which was “Fortune Follow Thru”. This allowed me to do an automatic wound to the dragon—and kill it! Die Mike, the evil shadow dragon!

Yes, once again I was the hero. I’d like to thank all of the little people, my minions, who helped, in a small way, to make me the hero I am today.

Chaos Steve

Necessary Evil Episode 4: The Wretched Hive

Evil Mike as the GM. He’s Evil.

The Scum of the Earth:

Ben as Hobo Jack: (I’m sure he has super powers. I just haven’t seen them.)
Lee as Mal “Hex” Hexington: can go insubstantial and packs a powerful punch when substantial.
Shawn as Viridian: Greatest Atlantean scientist ever! (Just ask him.)
Steve as Strike: Produces and controls lightening at will.
Mike as Arclight: A super sorcerer and a handy guy to have around.
Owen as Professor Moriarty: Able to animate inanimate objects with just a thought.

Our monthly Necessary Evil game continued this week. Owen joined us for the first time as Professor Moriarty. Ben’s new character, after the timely death of his last one, showed up as well. What didn’t show up were the figures we used for our supers. Evil Mike forgot to bring them. We were all able to find replacements, but next month we’ll be completely confused trying to remember who is who on the map. There was much talk about all of the new upgrades for our new lair aptly named “The Wretched Hive”. (We each gave one or two power points to get these upgrades.) Evil Mike informed us that the lair does not have these upgrades yet. They are all sitting in crates waiting to be installed. That means our lair is currently just a big dank hole in a bridge support near Star City. I guess we’re called the Scum of the Earth for a reason.

We are still trying to get back in Dr. Destruction’s good graces after some previous “unforeseen circumstances”. Since we were on our way back from Aruba, Dr. Destruction had a new super villain, called Professor Moriarty, watch over The Wretched Hive. Apparently it was immediately overrun and taken over by a K’tharen warlord named Surgot. (Thanks Professor.) The professor did escaped with his life. (So much for giving his all for the team like what’s-his-name did.) This warlord seemed to be a K’tharen traitor. Per Dr. Destruction, it’s now our job to convince him to join the resistance and to get him the heck out of our lair. Let’s see how that goes…

There was much discussion on how to approach Warlord Surgot without killing him or being killed ourselves. Had our upgrades been installed we could have just overridden the Evolving Mind-Like Computer Core (or EVIL MIKE for short) and take control of the lair back. As it was, we went with a plan from Hobo Jack. We should have known better.

Hobo Jack entered the tube lift that leads to our lair. He carried a com-link that had Viridian on the other end ready to plead our case and win Warlord Surgot over to our cause. Warlord Surgot is not impressed by this tactic and had his men attack Hobo Jack. Arclight goes in to smooth things over while Hex tries moving through the floor insubstantially.

All attempts at negotiation fail.

Our team “Negotiating”.

Our team “Negotiating”.

Hobo Jack takes two wounds from the failed negotiation attempts. Arclight is able to soak his two wounds. Professor Moriarty shows up and animates a crate that attacks a K’tharen. Strike has had enough of the nonlethal approach. He steps in the room, fries a K’tharen and Shakes four others.

Hobo Jack runs and hides.

Arclight, still thinking we’re negotiating, merely ensnares a group of K’tharen. Finally Viridian shows up and mind controls the warlord. Viridian has him order his men to stand down.

To get the warlord on our side, one of us must fight him. We all point at Hex who we know packs a powerful punch. Hex agrees to fight. In the meantime we discover some K’tharen war spheres. We think these are Surgot’s ace in the hole if things go badly for him.

The fight begins. Surgot acts first and misses Hex. Evil Mike spends a benny and he still misses Hex. Hex pounds the crap out of the warlord resulting in two wounds. Surgot responds by giving Hex two wounds of his own. Hex gets off Shaken an attempts to intimidate Surgot. He fails on the first attempt…and second attempt.   Next round Hex gets to act first. He attempts to intimidate once again and scores a raise! Warlord Surgot concedes and agrees to join the Resistance. He will also give us back our lair in exchange for the one we cleared out in Aruba. Being a shrewd negotiator, Warlord Surgot also gets one of our lair upgrades.

Dr. Destruction is quite pleased with our results and we’re back as one of his go-to teams!

Can’t wait to see where Hobo Jack next time! Or what nefarious plans Dr. Destruction has for us.

Chaos Steve

World War II: Mission 4, Holding the Bridge

War Master (Owen): Yes, a great War Master Indeed.

Lambert’s Losers
Lt. Dick Dan (Ben): Our fearless squad leader, Distinguished Service Cross.
Private (E-2) Destry Lambert (Evil Mike): Our commando medic.
Private (E-2) Charlie Winters (Mike): Not sure what he does, Distinguished Service Cross.
Private (E-3) Hector Goldman (Steve): Armored Vehicle Crewman, bronze metal.

We’d had a long hiatus from our Savage World War II game. I think we were all ready to see just how well we could hold the bridge against the German onslaught. Some of us were less than prepared. I brought an old character sheet and Ben’s character was still written on a small yellow piece of paper. Oh well. (Later, I did find my latest character sheet tucked away in my Weird War II book.)

Since it’s been awhile, I’ll recap our mission. Hold the bridge until reinforcements arrive. If we can’t hold the bridge, we’re to destroy it.

Lt. Dan and Goldman check the buildings on the German side of the bridge. The buildings are clear. Winters and Lambert do a dramatic task to set the demolition charges under the bridge. On the first round they get a club and Winters needs a 7 (after all of the penalties) for a success. Lambert’s help gives him a +1 and together Winters ends up with exactly a 7! …using his d4 demolition skill. One success down and four more to go. Things didn’t go well after that. On the fourth round they still need three successes to get the charges set. They managed a single success for the round. Now they needed two on the last round. Winters critically fails his demolition roll…BOOM! The damage is rolled. Lowest damage ever—only 6 points. This Shakes Winters and Lambert. That could have gone much worse. Thankfully they are lousy at demolition.

A German truck followed by a Panzer IV appear at the edge of town and are heading towards the bridge. Lt. Dan and Goldman open fire. About that same time a French women with a baby carriage is also heading along the banks of the canal towards the bridge. She loses her grip on the carriage and it rolls into the water. “Epargner mon bébé !” she cries. (Translation: Save my baby!)

Winters rolls another critically failure while trying to climb around under the bridge. He falls into the canal. He can’t swim.

Lt. Dan fires the bazooka at the German truck and rolls 8 points of damage. I point out that he’s rolling the wrong dice for the damage. He rolls the correct dice and gets 13 points of damage—still not enough to stop the truck. (Loser.)

The French woman jumps in the canal to save her baby. She doesn’t appear to know how to swim. Lambert skillfully does a somersault dive off of the canal bank into the water. He plans on saving the baby and the women. Winters splashes to the canal’s steep bank. (At least he didn’t drown.)

As the truck turns down a side street near Goldman, he throw a potato masher into the open window of the truck. Goldman doesn’t have a throwing skill and its medium range and it’s a difficult shot. A -6 penalty. Goldman rolls an eleven and makes it! The explosion kills the driver and the truck hits the building Lt. Dan is in. The Panzer IV shoots at Lt. Dan’s position in the building and misses. The shot goes wide and hits the building across the street where Goldman is. The building partially collapses, but Goldman is unharmed. Lt. Dan jumps out of a second story window onto the truck and rolls a critical failure! He takes 18 points of damage. Lt. Dan soaks it all. (That’s our leader!)

Write-up note: My notes from my iPad says “Winters doors a German.” I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, so I’m going with “Winters shoots a German.”

Winters shoots a German. He was one of two German officers that were heading along the canal banks apparently searching for the French woman. Lambert is able to grab the baby.

Now the battle with the Germans is in full swing. Goldman is having a continual firefight with Germans who are continually outflanking him, but he is holding his own. Lambert now has the baby and the French woman and is heading for the Allied side of the canal to get them to safety. Winters has scrambled out of the canal and moves towards the action to help Lt. Dan and Goldman. (Write-up note: it occurs to me that for this entire time Lt. Dan and Goldman have been holding off a truck full of German soldiers and a Panzer. Yeah, that’s the stuff we’re made of.)

Lt. Dan drives the truck out of sight of the panzer. A German throws a potato masher through the window of the truck. Lt. Dan takes a wound but soaks it. The truck takes a wound (its door is blown off and the steering is affected. The truck can’t turn left.) Another German notices the truck but not Lt. Dan. He assumes a German is driving the truck and jumps in beside Lt. Dan. Lt. Dan draws his pistol and shoots the German besides him. This is the beginning off a short, up-close gun battle between the two. It ends badly for the German.

We sight more Germans entering the town—a tiger tank and halftrack. The allies are coming towards the town from the other direction, but we can see they are woefully outgunned by the Panzer and Tiger tanks. Lt Dan calls for us to blow the bridge. Unfortunately the bazooka is laying in the road. Only Goldman has a chance to grab it, but he’s doing a fighting retreat against a squad of Germans. . Lambert, the baby, and the French woman all make it out of the canal and head for cover.

As I said earlier, the gun battle in the truck ends badly for the German. Lt. Dan Kills him then throws the truck into reverse to get the back to the bazooka.

The panzer destroys the oncoming Allied Sherman tank.

Goldman runs across the street and grabs the bazooka.

Lambert and girl run towards the Americans.

Winters and Goldman jump into the truck.

Another German Tiger tank shows up.

Lt. Dan backs the truck out from behind the building and heads towards the bridge…in reverse. Somehow Goldman and Lt. Dan switch positions in the truck. Goldman’s now driving and Lt. Dan has the bazooka in the back of the truck. Winters grabs the bazooka from Lt. Dan and shoots the panzer IV for no effect.

Us escaping backwards in the truck trying to cross the bridge and escape the advancing Germans.

Us escaping backwards in the truck trying to cross the bridge and escape the advancing Germans.

Goldman crashes the truck (intentionally) on the Allied end of the bridge and bails out. Knowing the Panzer will shoot the truck next, the smart move would be to jump into the canal. Goldman has a phobia of water so he instead jumps to the nearby shore—well within the burst radius of the panzers shot. Winters and Lt. Dan are still in the truck.

The panzers shot misses the truck and hits the bridge! The bridge collapses. The truck falls into the canal. Winters and Lt. Dan jump free.

A perfect ending for us! The bridge is destroyed. We’re all safe. And by the looks of it, we followed our orders perfectly.

Lt. Dan gets the Distinguished Service Cross for acts of heroism. Goldman and Winters get nominated for metals, but only Winters gets one—the Distinguished Service Cross! Unfortunately Goldman’s goldbricking past still haunts him when it comes to medals and such.

Write-up note: I know the guys (especially Mike B.) will read this and catch that the account for Winters is a little off towards the end. That’s because my notes conflicted about just where he was during the end of the battle. So I went with something I made up.

Oh, and image you just read this as an entry in the journal of Pvt. Goldman. I forgot to write it that way, but I’m sure you have a good imagination.

Pvt. Goldman, E-3