Modern Warfare: Alien Invasion, Chapter 1

After-Action Report
D+23, 2143 Hours
SGT Ray Parsons
A Company, 1st Battalion, 138th Infantry Regiment
Missouri Army Reserve National Guard

We got lucky, I guess.  We went out to a roadblock that the county had set up before things got real bad.  One of the sheriff's deputies had gone out to an intersection out at the edge of friendly territory.  We'd relieved the guy after he'd been out there for a shift - he left his vehicle out in the intersection so that folks wouldn't head out into no-mans land - and the company had kept a squad out there ever since.

Our position - a fire team on the roof of the store, another out at the police SUV with the squad leader.

The lucky part is when the attack happened.  We were in the process of changing shifts, so we had two full squads on site when the attack came.  It was a good thing.  I was in the parking lot outside the store that we were using as an overwatch position along with the rest of 3rd squad.  That's when one of the guys on the roof started yelling that we had some of those lizard men approaching the position, and fast.

Shift change in the parking lot, interrupted.

So I got my fire team shooting at the things approaching the roadblock, and Staff Sergeant Johnson and the guys out in the intersection started banging away, too.

We've got company!

We laid a lot of fire into those things, and I swear that I saw them jerk a bit when they got hit, but they kept on coming.

Grenade launcher scores a hit on the approaching aliens.  Didn't stop them.

About to have a close encounter.

Up on the roof, the rest of 1st squad was pouring it on while my squad leader, Staff Sergeant Kovach, ran around the back of the store to protect our flank.  Good thing he did - more on that later.

The boys of 1st squad spot the enemy.

Those things kept coming, in spite of a hail of gunfire.

We finally got some lucky hits with the aliens charging the intersection, dropping two of the three lizard men coming from that direction.  The third ran back to the trees to find some cover.  The fire from their guns hadn't been effective up to that point.

The roadblock position finally scores some good hits.

Then, Specialist O'Reilly out at the roadblock got nailed.

Specialist O'Reilly gets hit.

Some of the other aliens - the ones that wear suits and have the bigger guns - showed up in the woods down the road.

More aliens show up.

At this point things got hot on the right flank.  The three lizard aliens got closer to the shop we had garrisoned.  Good thing Staff Sergeant Kovach and the rest of the squad went over to secure that side of the building.

Staff Sergeant Kovach rounds the corner just in time.

Midway through the fight.

We started to get lucky with our fire here.  The M203 gunners kept dropping rounds on both the lizard aliens and the ones in the armor suits.

Grenade launcher drops one on the alien position.

We kept up the fire on the right, too, hoping to keep the lizard aliens from getting on top of us.  We knew that if they reached our position it was going to be a bad day.

Fire from two US positions lays wounds on the lizard men approaching the American right.

At this point, the guys at the roadblock grabbed O'Reilly and moved back to the building as we provided covering fire.

Carrying O'Reilly back to the parking lot for MEDEVAC.

At this point, things shifted.  Someone scored a lucky hit on one of the aliens in the woodline, dropping him.  The other two armored guys picked him up and carried him off.

Parallel alien MEDEVAC.

Around this time, the guys on the roof and the other side of the building really picked up their fire.  They had three of the big lizard aliens approaching fast through a copse of trees.

Aliens break through the woodline.

As the aliens got close, though, they were exposed to two full fire teams' worth of firepower, right up close.

The US right fends off the alien advance.

So we fought 'em off on both flanks.  Shame that O'Reilly didn't make it, but at least we held.  The company commander increased the detail at that intersection to two full squads after that.

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This is my new campaign (campaign page to follow) - modern warfare against an alien invasion.  I'm writing the rules for this as I go (working title is Heroes, Heavies, and Hordes, and is intended to allow mixing modern forces up to platoon size with superheroes, aliens and the like), so the first game focused on infantry alone.  More posts to follow.