Well, when the last campaign died (thank you btechunits
) there were still a lot of unanswered questions about what was happening to the unit on the planet Farwell. I don't want to type up everything I had planned, but I realized I still had some notes that might explain some it, so I'll copy those into this thread:
The players:
Frank Valentine: MIIO agent, on assignment on Farwell has discovered multiple breaches of Ares Conventions by the Farwell government. Is working to liberate/protect the populace but has been stuck on-planet for over a year with no outside communications.
Jason Miller: Leader of the Texas Tornados. Unit wiped out by treachery of Harvey White.
Colonel Harvey White: Current Regimental leader of Farwell Planetary Militia (FPM).
Planetary Governor Ryan Whitfeld: Short, balding, always seems nervous.
Adept Gina Relato: ComStar rep on Farwell. Has accepted bribes to carefully filter all outgoing and incoming messages.
Farwell: Small planet with a single continent. Varied terrain ,including mountains, lush tropical jungles.
Mission: The Flip: Ambush on insurgents. Insurgents are attempting to liberate civvies . Their commando team needs 2 minutes (-1d6) to infiltrate town, and move teh civvies out. On turn 2, the DS receive a static transmission from the Mercutio "<static>...under attack...commandos...<static>" -
This was the opening mission, when the Dark Shadows broke contract and flipped sides, not that they didn't have good reason. 
Upcoming missions:
Mission: Cut off the Head: Raid on Governor's estate, secure the planetary leader. Find out the governor is only the figurehead. The real power on-planet is Harvey White. He's been holding Gov Whitfeld's family hostage to ensure his cooperation.
Mission: Mercutio Rising: Raid on spaceport to permit Mercutio to escape. The OpFor believes Dark Shadows are attempting to escape and moves to prevent that from happening with onsite forces. Dark Shadows are staging a diversionary raid to allow the Dropship enough to time to warm up engines and lift off.
Anyway, that's all I had on paper, the rest was in my head and mostly flushed out, other than details.
Basic idea is that Frank Valentine was an MIIO agent assigned to Farwell as part of Operation Flush. Before he's able to do much with that assignment, the planet gets locked down as Harvey White rises to control of the Farwell Planetary Militia. Civil rights continue to by taken away, with the planet steadily moving towards de facto martial law. Frank works to organize a resistance, find out who is behind this, and eventually raid the HPG and get a message out.
Harvey White is a deep-cover Maskirovka agent who's long-term mission is to use Farwell as a staging point for raids in the Capellan March. He's risen to power within the FPM through brutal tactics, bribery, and blackmail. By the time Frank Valentine arrives on the planet, he's taken control of Farwell through the abduction of the planetary governor's family. While he's worked to steadily purge the FPM of any who object to his tactics, he's also started to bring in some Capellan troops disguised as FedCom transfers to the FPM. Additionally, he's got a single lance of Death Commando mechwarriors at his disposal, though he wouldn't make the mistake of claiming he's "in command" of them.
The Dark Shadows and other loyal Farwell forces were probably still 2 to 3 missions away from discovering any CapCom connections, at which time Colonel White would've made a major push to completely crush the insurgents along with any evidence, finally calling in the assistance of the Death Commandos. Defeating these elite pilots as well as the rest of the FPM would've seemed like an impossible task, and it would've appeared that it was time for the last stand of the Dark Shadows... until MIIO agent Dennis Haster (remember him?) and his lance (Wolverine, Shootist, Flashman, Rifleman) hot-drops onto the scene and turns the tables.
In case you've forgotten, Haster contracted the Dark Shadows over a year ago for an op. He and Frank Valentine are old friends, and while he wasn't too worried about the fact that Valentine hadn't made a report in awhile, when he found out that Valentine's last assignment had him on the same planet where his favorite merc company had also disappeared, he knew it wasn't a coincidence.
While the Feddies were grateful for the assistance of the Dark Shadows, they still weren't about to honor the falsified contract. Sadly, salvage belonged to the FPM and was sorely needed to rebuild a unit that had been decimated. There was a little matter of some missing Death Commando salvage, but both MIIO agents neglected to include that in their official reports. No doubt, it was just an administrative oversight.
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Topic: Dark Shadows Campaign - Planet Farwell - random notes (Read 3803 times)