Defend the town!

[molten_dragon]

My wife and I are playing in a Darwin's World campaign (a post-apocalyptic game based on d20 modern rules). We're 5th level, and have spent most of the game up until now chasing down the parts to a nuclear-tipped cruise missile. We've put the thing back together, only to find out that a massive band of savage raiders wants to steal it, and is willing to wipe the towns out to do it.

The DM has explained that it is up to us to determine which of the three towns we want to put it in and how we want to defend it.

One of the towns was a fairly obvious choice, since it is already designed for defense.

We're attempting to convince the members of the other towns to abandon them and travel to the more defensible town for the battle. I don't know yet whether it will work or not.

The town we're defending sits atop a small mesa with flat ground around it for miles. There are two walls surrounding the town, and inner one and an outer one. Each is circular with a single gate allowing access inside. The gates are positioned 180 degrees from each other. The only way up the mesa is a ramp that follows around the outside of it near the outer wall. Both walls are ringed with shuttered arrow slits that can be fired out of.

Our biggest problem at the moment is that we don't know exactly what we're facing from the raiders. We don't know how many or exactly what sorts of arms and armor they have. At a bare minimum, we know they have at least 20 fighters, a handful of working vehicles (trucks and ATVs) and some mounted heavy machine guns and the like.

Our party consists of:
Me, a level 5 soldier type, proficient with fierarms. I'm armed with a modern assault rifle, a good pistol, and have a good bulletproof vest. I also have some mutations that give me DR and let me heal faster (though the healing isn't fast enough to come into play in combat) I have ranks in knowledge tactics and demolitions, which could come into play.
My wife, a mad scientist type. Lowest hit points and AC in the party, okay shot with her pistol and M-16, she excels at crafting stuff, especially chemicals, drugs, explosives, and poisons.
A scavenger/mechanic type. She lies somewhere between my wife and I in terms of how tough she is and how useful in a fight. She's got a good pistol, and a semiautomatic assault shotgun. She can also craft mechanical and electrical devices.

The town we're fortifying has some resources we can use as well. They've got 16 level 1 fighters with axes and leather armor, 4 level 3 fighters with the same gear, 2 level 5 captains and a level 8 warlord who is in charge of the town. They've also got a pretty decent stock of scrap metal and chemical salvage that we can craft stuff with.

Our biggest downfall at the moment is that we have no fighters (besides party members) that are proficient in firearms usage, and we don't know what we're facing. We're taking steps to remedy both of those things if we can, but don't know how it'll turn out yet.

We have 7 days to prepare before the raiders attack.

Right now, our rough plan for defending the town is this:
Have the mechanic build tank traps for the ramp, to keep the raiders' vehicles away from the gates.
Make caltrops, coat them in mild poison that my wife can make, and put them all over the ramp as well. This will slow down and weaken any troops trying to come up the ramp.
Make a few anti-personnel mines to bury on the ramp to take out troops trying to come up.
Craft grenades to hand out to the town troops, since they don't need a feat to use them.
Have the townsfolk make sandbag fortifications around the gates.
When troops get to the gate, have the melee fighters use it as a choke point to do as much damage as they can.
Make sandbag fortifications at various places in the ring between the two walls so that the melee troops have places to retreat to if they need them.
Put remote-detonated explosives at the gate, so as the raiders press through, we can blow them up.
Make similar fortifications at the inner gate if we need a place for a final stand.

So what else would you do to protect the town? Any other cool ideas? Or on the flip side, how would you assault a fortified town, to try and give me ideas on what to look out for.

[Greenish]

Spare the towns, give the nuke to the savage raiders. Because if they can wipe the villages without it, they probably aren't going to aim it at those.

Besides, nuke is a really impractical weapon, so they wouldn't use it anyhow.

[molten_dragon]

Spare the towns, give the nuke to the savage raiders. Because if they can wipe the villages without it, they probably aren't going to aim it at those.

Besides, nuke is a really impractical weapon, so they wouldn't use it anyhow.

The couple times we've run into these raiders, they haven't really seemed to be the reasonable, rational type. They come off more like Firefly's reapers. I can almost assure you that if they got the nuke, they would set it off eventually.

[Greenish]

The couple times we've run into these raiders, they haven't really seemed to be the reasonable, rational type. They come off more like Firefly's reapers. I can almost assure you that if they got the nuke, they would set it off eventually.So? The apocalypse has happened already. Just hope they don't aim at you.

Alternatively, take the nuke and run with it. And let the reavers know. If you're such goody-twoshoes, you wouldn't let the innocent townfolk to suffer because you thought it'd be amusing to put together a nuke.

[Yora]

First thing: Go and watch "The Seven Samurai". This movie is all about defending an isolated village against a horde of brutal raiders with just a hand full of experienced warriors and untrained civilians. It will possibly give you a lot of great ideas.

Is it possible that they have access to air transport? Because if they do, you have to protect the town in all directions. If not, that makes things a lot easier.

While for the sake of dramatic naration you probably won't be able to keep them from getting at least through the outer wall (I know, it's metagaming, so what? :smallbiggrin: ), you should still use the ramp to inflict as much damage as you can. You said your character has some experience with demolitions, so you probably have at least some explosives at hand. If they try to get up the ramp, you know exactly which way they are comming, use that to your advantage.
Since you're probably short on suply, you might not want to use your explosives directly against the attackers, but rather to trigger prepared traps. Since you are on top of the mesa and the attackers are at the base, gravity is on your side. Some well placed charges and you can have huge chunks of rock falling on their heads. Make them big enough and you can take out armoed trucks and even tanks.
"And that is why Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest-son-of-a-bitch-in-space!!"

In this battle, it will be all about terrain, and you have a huge advantage in this situation. The attackers won't be able to get trhough with knives and rifles alone, so they have to rely on some sort of heavy equipment, be it armored trucks, explosives, or rocket launchers. These should be your primary targets. If you can prevent them from making use of these things, there's not really much they can do to the village. The best way would be to have some snipers with large calibre rifles to take out anyone who looks like he's carrying explosives, but you don't seem to have any such thing at hand.
Here's where Seven Samurai comes in. This is a spoiler for the movie: :smallbiggrin:

1: When there's an opportunity, make your own secret raids against the attackers. Sneak out of the village and assassinate an leaders or demolition experts. Steal some of their closes and you can inflict a great amount of damage before they realize what's going on.
2: Steal their weapons! In the movie, the attackers have a small number of very effective muskets. When they are stolen, they can no longer be used in the attack, but they can also be used in the defense! If they have a rocket launcher, steal it! There's no better weapon to deal with anything that could be a threat to your walls. You can destroy or disable armored vehicles, and if you hit someone carrying explosives or rockets, they can't be picked up and used by someone else, they are permanently out of the game.

[jebob]

All you need is some sticks, some stones, and some ewoks...

I would say your biggest risk with that plan is the bandits attacking from a side. They could use an RPG/explosives to cause a landslide on one side of the mesa, providing a ramp and possibly taking out part of the wall (how close is the wall to the cliff face? And how small is a small mesa?). Any such ramp created would be steep and difficult to climb however, especially if they are under fire.

What are your plans for a siege situation? If the bandits are as irrational as you say, they won't think of this but it pays to be prepared.

[Dragon Elite]

If they have aircraft, you're dead.

If not, then create dummies and pout real clothes on them. The enemy snipers will waste their time on them, and spare some of the real soldiers. Next, make the whole place look deserted, and find a good ambush spot. If the fighters can close, you are much more likely to win. Next, have remote-detonated explosives on the ramp. If the ramp is straight, you can roll boulders down it.

Actually, you may want to destroy the ramp. Then, you can have planned landslides burying the raiders. Also, watch the Seven Samurai.

[mcl01]

Any reason you can't use it yourself and nuke them while they're coming? :)

[Coidzor]

Well, either you use the nuke or you destroy it such that it can't be used again.

Got any upstart evil empires?

[Yora]

Actually, you may want to destroy the ramp.
No, keep the ramp. That way you know exactly where their troops will be going. :smallbiggrin:

[blackjack217]

No, keep the ramp. That way you know exactly where their troops will be going. :smallbiggrin:

mines one approach right?

[Tvtyrant]

Set up charges on the ramp and blow it when it looks they are going to overwhelm you. If you can't do that, build a bunch of cheap wooden wagons, set them on fire and roll them down the ramp at the enemies coming up. Wagons are big, the pick up speed, and the enemy can't get out of the way because there are lots of them.

Firewalls are extremely effective, make a wall of hay bails and set it on fire near the bottom. Have a bunch of caltrops on either side of it so that their attempts to get past fail and they have to put it out slowly. Then when they are pouring up the ramp, wagon time!

Land mines are good, but you want them to be near the bottom so they don't hurt your own team. Say, a little past the fire wall. After poison caltrops, firewalls land mines and wagons they will be paranoid and so less likely to charge up and overwhelm you.

If you have lots of wood, make two sets of wagons. Instead of setting the second set on fire hold them in reserve for when you have driven off an attack. When the enemy start fleeing ride the wagons to victory!

[Kallisti]

Set some of the villagers to digging trenches to foil vehicles and setting up small holes full of punji spikes for the foot traffic. Remember to remind them to tell you where they put the holes full of punji spikes; they'd be a pain to blunder in to.

[Radar]

(...) she excels at crafting stuff, especially chemicals, drugs, explosives, and poisons. (...)
Say... could she produce some airborne halucinogenic drug? This things can wreck havock among enemy troops. You can build small mines that would spread the drug instead of exploading - if you make the substance strong enough, they might shoot each other out by themselves.

At any rate, weapon-grade gases are immensly powerful, but you have to watch for the wind. Chlorium is the easiest to produce (through electrolysis of molten salt) and quite deadly.

[Scarey Nerd]

Can anyone in the party build Pulse charges of some kind to knock out their heavy machine guns etc? I can see them mowing down citizens like there's no tomorrow. Which there won't be.

Agreed that, whilst you should heavily fortify the ramp, there's nothing stopping them inducing a landslide and creating their own ramp. Therefore you should plan accordingly all around the town, perhaps put proximity mines near the base of the mesa, and that should stop "useful" landslides, if my physics works.

The decoy idea is good, if you can rig charges with remotes and then hide in buildings with dummies outside, they can soak up some of their ammo and they don't know where you are.

[FelixG]

Well, one simple thing you could do is dig slopes into random areas of the pathway up to the dune, cover them with supports hearty enough to support humans but when a vehicle rolls over it it collapses and dumps the vehicle sideways off the ramp letting it become a ruin at the base of the mesa.

One option could be to collapse portions of it down to thin enough areas that a vehicle trying to traverse it would fall off or become high centered.

The tank traps are decent ideas but ultimately pointless if they have a vehicle or team that can clear them.

The defenses you really want are the ones that can take care of the enemy without presenting risks to your own troops. So pit falls, slides, spikes, and mines are your best bet, then just mop up those that reach the top

Edit:



Agreed that, whilst you should heavily fortify the ramp, there's nothing stopping them inducing a landslide and creating their own ramp. Therefore you should plan accordingly all around the town, perhaps put proximity mines near the base of the mesa, and that should stop "useful" landslides, if my physics works.

In all honesty the idea of them creating a landslide ramp thats viable for attack is close to 0%

They would have to have a way to bring down TONS of rock in a controlled fashion and it would take even more planning of people that rate a little bit higher than any band of "reaver like raiders" can pump out. They surely wont have the ranged firepower to spend on doing this kind of endeavor so more practical would be a simple sniper to pop any engineers who seem to be giving directions.

[Zieu]

It's been mentioned a few times in above posts, but I'd like to reiterate that the ramp is far more of an advantage for the bandits than it is for you: either destroy a large section of it (preventing use by vehicles and slowing down bandit troops significantly), or trap it. In fact, why not do both?

Lay mines on a lower section of the ramp, destroy a large, closer section, then lay out caltrops in the rubble of that hole so foot troops encounter those. Finally, lay out the rest of your traps (didn't see what all of them are) after that. The choke point at the gate + rigging the outer gate are also great ideas.

[FelixG]

It's been mentioned a few times in above posts, but I'd like to reiterate that the ramp is far more of an advantage for the bandits than it is for you: either destroy a large section of it (preventing use by vehicles and slowing down bandit troops significantly), or trap it. In fact, why not do both?

Lay mines on a lower section of the ramp, destroy a large, closer section, then lay out caltrops in the rubble of that hole so foot troops encounter those. Finally, lay out the rest of your traps (didn't see what all of them are) after that. The choke point at the gate + rigging the outer gate are also great ideas.

Hmmm this brings up an interesting idea, have your tinkerer people rig up some remote detonators, let the enemy commit their force to the ramp then blow the whole thing....

that does leave the issue of getting down after everything is blown up, so use at your own risk!

[Kallisti]

That does leave the issue of getting down after everything is blown up, so use at your own risk!

We don't want to get down, though--we want to stay in our nice, fortified village.

I second this plan. Rig the ramp. Assuming the raiders don't build a new one or otherwise create a way up onto the mesa, you can always build one yourself once they're gone.

[Yora]

That's why you have to not destroy it before they are there. If the thing still stands when their first scouts arrive, they will not be prepared to build a new one, which means more time for the defenders.

[DragonOfUndeath]

That's why you have to not destroy it before they are there. If the thing still stands when their first scouts arrive, they will not be prepared to build a new one, which means more time for the defenders.

more time for what? to sweat in a semi-siege type thing as 1/2 the raiders leave to get what they need to build a ramp while the other 1/2 stay and prevent us from resupplying? all they have to do is stop us from leaving while they have all the food and water the can drink/eat

[Yora]

Every moment they spend working on something else than attacking is in favor for the defenders. :smallbiggrin:
Also, no plan surives contact with the enemy. The defenders don't know exactly what they are up against. When you have breaks in the battle, you can use that time to adjust your defences to the current situation. Building a static line of defense and hoping the original plan will work exactly as hoped for is a certain way to lose. You have to constantly reassess the situation and adjust your strategy accordingly.
And though there's no guarantee the gm will consider this in the game, the attackers will get tired and hungry from diong heavy construction work, while the defenders can take a nap and will probably have a lot more food supplies in stock.
I would treat this as a siege, and in most cases a siege ends when the ataccking force exhausts its strength and supplies. While being cramped in a fortress with bland food isn't fun, you at least have a roof over your head and protection from the weather. While rain and snow probably won't be a factor, you don't have to defeat the entire attacking force, you just have to get them miserable enough they turn around and leave.

[Zieu]

more time for what? to sweat in a semi-siege type thing as 1/2 the raiders leave to get what they need to build a ramp while the other 1/2 stay and prevent us from resupplying? all they have to do is stop us from leaving while they have all the food and water the can drink/eat

Saving the ramp until the bandits arrive also gives the defenders an element of surprise, which is a rare commodity for them in a siege situation.

[DragonOfUndeath]

if your delaying blowing the ramp up until the raiders get there why not wait until the second wave are on the ramp and the first one are being killed by your defences? the first wave, thinking it has the second wave coming to help would be in a very bad position when the second wave are blown to smithereens and their only safe way of retreating just BLEW UP!!! (Panic checks all round for the wave) depending on the size of the force and how much they commit in the first and second waves you could wipe out half their army, put some remote-activated mines in a semi-circle 50 feet away from the ramp and goodbye to most of the vehicles, the rest of the guys can be taken out with snipers and grenades and no guys=no one aiming the guns. :smalltongue:

[molten_dragon]

What are your plans for a siege situation? If the bandits are as irrational as you say, they won't think of this but it pays to be prepared.

This is my biggest fear. If it turns into a protracted siege, we're screwed. The town is in the desert, and doesn't have much in the way of reserves of food or water.


If they have aircraft, you're dead.

I'm not so worried about this one. I don't expect them to have any, and if they do, it's going to be something like a crop duster or a little Cessna most likely. At worst it means we may get some grenades dropped on us, and I could probably shoot it down if necessary.


Set up charges on the ramp and blow it when it looks they are going to overwhelm you. If you can't do that, build a bunch of cheap wooden wagons, set them on fire and roll them down the ramp at the enemies coming up. Wagons are big, the pick up speed, and the enemy can't get out of the way because there are lots of them.

I'd love to be able to blow up the ramp on them, but I'm not sure we can make enough explosives for that. It's part of the mesa and made of stone, wide enough for a car or wagon to travel on safely. I'm not sure we even have enough material to make enough explosives to do that, and I'm not sure we'd want to use them all on that single tactic even if we did.

The wagons are a cool idea, but the ramp is curved, so they'd probably just go off the edge. I suppose we could try to make some kind of rail that would keep them on it though.


Say... could she produce some airborne halucinogenic drug? This things can wreck havock among enemy troops. You can build small mines that would spread the drug instead of exploading - if you make the substance strong enough, they might shoot each other out by themselves.

At any rate, weapon-grade gases are immensly powerful, but you have to watch for the wind. Chlorium is the easiest to produce (through electrolysis of molten salt) and quite deadly.

There's not any rules for hallucinogenic drugs (she mostly makes medical drugs), but maybe we could work something out with the DM.

She does have some options for airbourne toxins though. Cyanogen, mustard gas, paris green, and tear gas are all things she can produce automatically by taking 10. Sarin's a possibility, but she'd need a 12 to pull it off, and if she failed, it would waste 2 days of prep time and about 15% of our raw chemical stocks.

[FelixG]

Teargas is probobly your best bet, its non fatal so if you have a canister go off in your area you can recover quickly!

If the ramp is as narrow as you say then hitting the drivers of vehicles with a canister should be enough to make the pilot FREAK and take his vehicle off the edge of the ramp to get away!

But one thing you should consider is adding a few traps to at least collapse part of the ramp to make it uneven, the drop off the edge will probably be one of your greatest weapons. Even some oil to make the going more tough on vehicles (can also be lit on fire!) would be preferable to nothing at all.

[elpollo]

Remove the warhead/arming thingy from the cruise missile. Replace with conventional explosives with a remote/timed detonator. Hand over missile. Laugh.

It's not like you're going to be able to launch the sucker anyway.

[Zieu]

Remove the warhead/arming thingy from the cruise missile. Replace with conventional explosives with a remote/timed detonator. Hand over missile. Laugh.

It's not like you're going to be able to launch the sucker anyway.

I actually really like this idea. Don't tell the DM, just make it a surprise.

[Godskook]

Any time you don't tell the DM something, you should write it down and have the date verified by some method or other. Preferably, you should also make the DM aware that you have jumped the shark on him(i.e., he's not being told everything).