User avatar
cjcafiero
Topic Author
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat 02 May 2020, 06:30
Location: Las Vegas, NV

Marauder Base Camp

Sat 17 Sep 2022, 23:35

I'm going to need to create a basecamp for a significant marauder group located generally 10km north of Wielun.

I'd be interested in any ideas on the size, composition, and equipment in a "significantly" sized marauder group as I design it out...

Any thoughts welcome,

Thanks!
"The sweetest sound in the world is a bullet that misses"
 
pfarland
Posts: 47
Joined: Thu 11 Feb 2021, 07:40
Contact:

Re: Marauder Base Camp

Mon 19 Sep 2022, 01:35

Since most marauders that large will be former military units gone rogue. Decide on a casualty rate and then apply it to everything including vehicles.
"Load up, strap in, lock and load, and save the last bullet for yourself."
 
User avatar
Tegyrius
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat 13 Jun 2020, 03:20
Contact:

Re: Marauder Base Camp

Mon 19 Sep 2022, 15:45

1e canon places the former Soviet 9th Tank Division in that area - "former" because the unit stopped responding to orders after losing its HQ in late 1999. Intelligence suggests that it's gone marauder. Reported total strength is 1,000 with two tanks (specified in 2e source material as T-72s), but that's likely the sum of several smaller remnant groups rather than a single cohesive unit. The 9th TD was a Category A unit stationed in East Germany, so it had pretty good equipment.

With that in mind, let's say your marauder force is one of the larger elements of the ex-9th TD, formed around the survivors of the division's engineer battalion. Total strength is 125 troops, though they aren't all present in their base camp at any one time. Marauding is a lot of work, and they've placed squad-sized garrisons in several villages around Wielun for "protection" and similar tasks. About half of the force strength is engineer survivors; the rest are a mix of personnel from across the division, mainly other combat support elements (artillery, ADA, chemical defense, communications). Most are Soviets; perhaps 10% are East German or Czechoslovakian stragglers. There are few Poles among their ranks because the band's leader doesn't want to recruit people who might be sympathetic to the civilians he's exploiting.

Rolling on my expanded encounter generator, using the debug controls to force a "Military Convoy (Engineering)" result and re-rolling until we get a larger unit, gives us this for their leader and largest element:

Image

The 5-ton wrecker and fuel tanker are likely on Ural-375 chassis. We'll say the bulldozer is a captured US Army Caterpillar D-7. The ARV is a BREM-1, in keeping with the division's former T-72 equippage. The grenade launcher (AGS-17) and machine gun (DShK) are emplaced in bunkers covering the most likely assault approaches to the camp. In keeping with the marauders' engineer roots, the camp has a berm with firing positions, razor wire, and minefields, making a frontal assault problematic for most PCs.

Behind the Name tells us the leader (don't call him a "commander") is Oleg Sokolovsky. He was formerly a senior lieutenant, but claims no military rank now, fancying himself a "first among equals" pirate captain. A natural liar with an immaculate poker face, he conceals an acquisitive and amoral temperament behind a genial and helpful facade. Sokolovsky was once a good officer, loyal to his men, but seeing those men chewed up in meatgrinder assault after assault led him to resent and loathe the Soviet system and the division's senior officers. When he saw a chance to slip his leash, he took it. He's realistic enough to know that marauding has little long-term future and intends to use his engineering education, and that of his inner circle, to establish the band as pocket warlords, rebuilding just enough local infrastructure to make the local Poles indebted to him and comfortable enough that they'll prefer his rule to the other available alternatives.

The rest of the marauders are spread out across the band's area of control. One of these smaller units will likely be the PCs' first encounter with the band, and that encounter may or may not yield intel about the rest of the band's size, capabilities, and intentions. Some will be in motion, either patrolling or raiding, and others will be garrisoning the villages that furnish the band's food and entertainment. We can generate them as needed with more random rolls on the encounter generator, using either the "Military Convoy (Engineering)" or "Marauders" debug functions as desired.

- C.
Clayton A. Oliver

Find my free Twilight: 2000 material and links to my published sourcebooks at http://www.de-fenestra.com/t2k/.

If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more.
- General Eric Shinseki
 
Heffe
Posts: 65
Joined: Fri 14 Aug 2020, 19:32

Re: Marauder Base Camp

Mon 19 Sep 2022, 18:26

Tegyrius already nailed it, but I just wanted to add that 4e canon has the Soviet 9th TD around that area as well, with a listed strength of 2650 personnel and 88 combat vehicles. While 4e doesn't have the entire unit going marauder like the earlier version, I think it would absolutely make sense for a forward element to have turned. Here's the Order of Battle for the 9th TD in 1990:

1st Guards Tank Regiment (Zeithain, East Germany)
70th Guards Tank Regiment (Zeithain, East Germany)
302nd Motorised Rifle Regiment (Riesa, East Germany)
1321st Motorised Rifle Regiment (Jüterbog, East Germany)
96th Artillery Regiment (Borna, East Germany)
216th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment (Zeithain, East Germany)
13th independent Reconnaissance Battalion (Zeithain, East Germany)
109th independent Engineer-Sapper Battalion (Oschatz, East Germany)
696th independent Communications Battalion (Riesa, East Germany)
68th independent Equipment Maintenance and Recovery Battalion (Zeithain, East Germany)
112th independent Chemical Defence Battalion (Riesa, East Germany)
200th independent Medical Battalion (Riesa, East Germany)
1071st independent Material Supply Battalion (Oschatz, East Germany)

Keeping with the numbers Tegyrius pulled along with the recommendation for engineers, the 109th independent Engineer-Sapper Battalion might fit the bill really nicely.
 
User avatar
omnipus
Posts: 742
Joined: Mon 22 Jun 2020, 20:58

Re: Marauder Base Camp

Fri 23 Sep 2022, 00:55

1e canon places the former Soviet 9th Tank Division in that area - "former" because the unit stopped responding to orders after losing its HQ in late 1999.

For a bonus bit of context, this unit was of majority-Ukrainian ethnicity, and decided to stop following Soviet (Russian) orders.
Author, Central Poland Sourcebook -- now available on DriveThruRPG
 
User avatar
FatherJ_ct
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed 21 Sep 2022, 07:38

Re: Marauder Base Camp

Sat 15 Oct 2022, 02:07

The scenario site generator in the ref manual starting pg 99 has faction population table roll for the number of people at site...from 1 to "colony/unit" which is d100+20.

I agree with tegyrius etc about utilizing rogue/marauder former military units for significant unit/zone of control.

Though if ref manual's site generator is saying the most you would run into is d100+20 at a site enounter...and the book talks about most divisions are lucky to field 2000. And the factions/forces listed range from 500-3000.

I would think significant would fall between the two numbers (d100+20 and 2000), offhand I would suggest 500. Depends on how much power/rampaging etc you want them to have.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests