6-6-09  Jump to Destiny, Randle, WA

2-27-09  Black Company hosted Op: Masher Vietnam period event held in Port Livingston, LA

11-7-08   Balkan Hammer - Mercy attended as a staff advisor for the Russian side.

8-15-08   Recondo 2008

7-12-08   Junior GI Day

Black Company hosted an event geared towards 12-15 year old players which taught them individual and squad tactics with military and police instructors.

5-23-08    Jump To Destiny  AAR written as a letter home from a British Para.

AAR – Mercy
Jump to Destiny
23-25 May 2008
Randle, WA

This letter will reach you after the invasion has started and so likely won’t be censored. I’ll try to give you a feel for the training and preparation we received so that you will know that we are well prepared and will be alright. I hope this letter finds you all well.

We arrived at camp CENSORED, one of over CENSORED Allied camps all over Britain to begin training for the big day only to see a chap in German uniform manning the gate! We slowed to decide whether or not we should “capture” him but thought better of it as we could literally hear the voice of the CG ringing in our ears slagging us off.

We presented our orders and were directed to the appropriate area for receiving. No. 6 Troop were detached and working as part of an American Division, by golly those fellows had plenty of food, beer, cigarettes and even sweets. Things we’d not seen in a long time, and were very generous with it, it was very like Christmas!



We settled in to camp and made our kit ready for an early stand-to, just in case a Sergeant Major was lurking about. Turns out we were seconded at the Division level and I was brevetted to Lieutenant so there was no RSM within miles, this caused an outbreak of morale.

Five AM the next morning rolled around and found us having a brew and oatmeal for breakfast after a 15 minute battle to get those wretched anklets and the rest of our clobber back on. Watching those Yanks eat stew and hash for breakfast made me glad His Majesty’s Army knows the difference between dinner and breakfast; though we remain stunned at how much meat the American’s have available with each meal.



The day started off in the parade square with formation and drill and rapidly progressed to small unit tactics. Things like military map symbols, patrol formations, react to contact, break contact, etc. were covered to remind everyone what we were preparing for. Though I doubt any of us needed reminding; we were to be the vanguard for Op: Neptune the airbourne portion of the D-Day landings. Our little group of Brits was attached to the American Pathfinders for this block of training and we thought certainly we’d have Pathfinder duties during the invasion; this was not to be so. Additionally, the Staff had brought in SOE agents in German uniforms for us to practice against, they were very convincing.



We were allowed a quick lunch then moved on to our parachute refreshers which included a short class on the equipment and then PLF training from the height of a foot-locker then finally from the door of our C-47.


The Yanks had us jumping with our rifles, which seemed a bit odd to me since all British Regiments locate and retrieve their weapons from drop cases on the dropping zones. Though, I was a believer once we hit the ground in France, I can tell you. It was a great comfort to be immediately armed on that dark field with Jerries prowling about!

After parachute training Platoon and Troop leaders were called to individual briefings where we were given our missions and some time to formulate a plan and write our operations orders. These orders would be presented as part of the overall invasion plan so that every unit would know all of the missions to be accomplished.



No. 6 Scout Troop was to parachute into France in the early morning lifts with the Pathfinders and link-up with some members of the French Resistance to conduct a raid on a wireless tower that was apparently vital to German Command and Control and then move out to locate some Artillery positions, and generally harass the Germans until relieved.

The whole operation was briefed and our parachute landings were just a small part of an enormously complex plan that has millions of soldiers, sailors and airmen in on the invasion we’ve all been waiting for. The scale is mind boggling though I expect you’ve heard by now what is happening here, it is a sight to see.



After all the briefings and a first aide class by the Medics we had dinner and there was a mail call. I had high hopes of getting a letter from you, but then remembered that all our post was being held at Regimental HQ and not forwarded through to our temporary duty station. I received all the mail once we got back to our unit yesterday; thank you for the molasses, but you shouldn’t worry about us we’re being well fed.

Our stand-to for the invasion was 0230 hours at our designated aircraft. I never thought I would be able to get my head down but I slept well until 0130 hours and then woke up and reviewed my mission orders again as I would not be able to take them with me into France, and I didn’t want to muck it up.

Our little troop marched down to the airstrip in frosty weather with plenty of rain and awaited our turn to rig up our static lines and board the plane. I brought a few personal photos and the like, and had my pack filled with spare food, ammunitions, rain cape and loads of other stuff we were likely to need. I thought it was fairly heavy but it was nothing compared to the parachute itself.

We loaded onto the plane and took off for France. It was so loud that we could barely hear the jumpmaster, but he used hand-signals so that we would all know what was coming. My chalk was the first out of the plane and I was the first out of my chalk, they say jumping is as easy as walking, and they are right. It’s the landing that’s the tricky bit, if I wasn’t soaked before I was well soaked after I landed. We landed in our correct Dropping Zone and as I found out later were very lucky to have done so.  Good show for he RAF! Many of the parachute drops were dropped far off course, it was jolly good luck that everyone knew all the missions required of the parachute divisions.

As previously mentioned we dropped with our weapons and upon landing I immediately cambered a round in my trusty Enfield and began the link-up with the rest of the Troop. We found each other in short order and quickly got orientated with a compass and moved out to the South and East, en route to our first objective, which was a wireless tower Jerry would need to use to call for reinforcements to try to halt the landings at Normandy.

We passed very near to a large Chateau which luckily for us had no dogs to alert any nearby Germans. We then came to a small irrigation trench with a fence on the far side. I was rear guard and Elmo was just a head of me. Upon seeing him fall into the trench I hopped in as well, I had it in my head that he had injured himself, but he was just cursing having fallen into the trench in the first place. The trench had a bit of water in it but it’s not as if it mattered with the rain we were soaked through any way. After being half dragged and clambering out of the trench we hopped a fence, which I dearly hoped wouldn’t collapse under Elmo’s weight as it would make quite a bit of noise…you know what with the cursing and laughing and all! We could hear the planes overhead conducting drops and sporadic gunfire. It was nothing like I thought it would be with Germans crawling over every inch of the dropping zones, I think we really surprised them. I’m certain that the later drops encountered far more Germans, it was very tough on them.

We trekked across some more open fields (not a nice feeling) and eventually met up with three members of the French Resistance who were to guide us on to the radio tower. While moving toward the tower the Germans shot parachute flares over the nearby dropping zones, I advised everyone to not look at them to save our night vision, plus nothing shows up quite as nicely as a face turned up towards a flare!

The intelligence was actually quite good on the location of the Command facility; it was exactly located where the map said it should be. We had moved very stealthily up to the tower and detected no sentries in the area; though Elmo was certain he heard movement to the South of our route of march we had no contact. Just at BMNT (approx 0510h) we rushed onto the target site with guns at the ready and quickly moved into a security perimeter while our Demolitions Expert L/Cpl Kosmos set his charges on the tower.

Kosmos took no more than a minute to place his charges and set them for detonation. I counted everyone off of the objective and we headed out of the area as fast and quietly as we could. I happened to look back over my shoulder just as the two charges were going off, they were spectacularly orange and bright in the pre-dawn light and the tower crashed to the ground and was certainly out of action.

The French Resistance fighters one of whom was an SOE man consisted of two men and one woman and they had obviously been fighting and working together for many years. The man and woman said they would like to stay and fight with us for this day of days but that the other member of their team had other duties to attend to. Of course I was more than happy to add two seasoned fighters to our little group. They knew the area and could help us to locate the guns which were our next objective of the day.

We set off to the North at rather a rapid clip. I was very nervous with the speed we were covering ground as it made us easy targets but we were assured that the area was unlikely to have many Germans as they were all apparently off trying to over-run the DZs. Who was I to argue, these Resistance fighters had been battling the Germans for years in this very area so we moved on.

Some while later we searched the area the guns were said to be in and located several bunkers, a mortar emplacement and a large artillery piece. Part of the Troop was left in a defensive perimeter and we conducted a leader’s recon on the site. It was apparently lightly defended and we withdrew to find some Americans. Our briefing had the Americans moving to their daylight Assembly Areas, but we saw no one there and started to move North to find some Germans to harass.

Just after sunrise a kubelwagen came barreling down the road we were following, and we dived into the tall grass just as it went past. We considered ambushing it, but were reluctant to do so with so few personnel (administratively we were told not to attack the vehicles). Well that was that, there was a heavy amount of traffic on the road and we suddenly heard gunfire to the South. We reversed our direction and moved to the sound of the guns. We came up right behind some Germans in a small ditch line and counting on the Americans to advance when they saw our small troop rush the German position. We began shooting and advancing over open ground until we were almost on top of the German position, all for the glory of the Regiment, (not just mental, RegiMental) plus we’d accepted the King’s Shilling.



The Americans left us to our fate, until it was quite too late. Everyone in the troop was either wounded or killed out right. They finally finished off the Germans just as our position was over-run. I was lucky to escape with a light wound and a German parachute soldier who was about to finish me was killed by a Yank paratrooper. Gorblimey! I'm not much for god bothering, but I bent his ear a bit on that one.

They provided a medic and patched us up quite well enough to continue the fight. I advised their Lt. Colonel that we had located the German artillery which didn’t seem to be heavily defended but, as we were leaving the area it appeared that elements of the 12th SS were moving into the position. He advised me that we were to move into their daylight assembly area and brief the Captain who was to lead the assault. Seems we’d just been a little early in checking out their daylight AA, we had missed them the first time. We started heading for the wood line when we came upon a Yank Colonel with a bottle of some sort of captured champaign. He seemed very happy and gladly shared a sip with us, he said the invasion was going well. This was good news as we’d not heard anything from any one and our first real brush with the Germans had left us hurting.

I reported to the Colonel the destruction of the wireless tower and our success in locating the guns. He said he was really glad to hear that, as they hadn’t heard from our element since we dropped. I didn’t bother to mention that the radio got somewhat soggy and wasn’t working. He also told us to standby as the Company was assembled.



We started to move off into the wood line to get out of the open field when we were called back to help stave off a light assault by a German squad. We got on line to sweep the area and I called some paratroopers who were moving through the field to sweep right with us and move onto the daylight AA. Once we got onto the daylight AA those lads were called back to their squad and we gathered up to wait for the Company to be ready to move. I quickly briefed a Captain on the location of the German artillery and showed him its location on the map then went back and had a sit down with the Troop. One of the Resistance chaps brought us a bottle of captured champaign and some type of waffle cookies. We tore into the cookies but avoided the alcohol as there seemed a lot of fighting yet to do.

The rain had not let up since we dropped into France and until we’d stopped to await the assembly of the paratrooper Company I’d not been unduly uncomfortable. During this wait I surely could have done with a brew up but was unsure how long we would be and didn’t want to start a cup only to have to throw it out before it was done, so we slowly started to feel the damp and the cold creeping up on us. It was all fine once we got into action again however.

After about 20 minutes, a paratrooper with a .30 cal machine gun and his assistant gunner joined us for the impending assault. We were to move right into the teeth of the bunker complex and engage it as best we could as a sort of decoy. The main force would move to the right flank of the bunkers and hit them with everything they had.

In due course we moved up to the bunker complex and immediately began to take fire. We moved the .30 cal as close as possible to provide covering fire while Sgt. Schmitty and L/Cpl Kosmos began flanking out to the left of the complex, as the Americans began the main assault. Once the .30 cal was in place I moved off to the left to follow-on the assault with Elmo. I was just starting to move in that direction when I saw a rifle grenade pass between Schmitty and Kosmos and land at Elmo’s feet. Poor chap he was blown to bits.



I moved on to catch up with Schmitty and Kosmos just as they reached the nearest bunker, and the paratroopers were also sweeping over the objective. It was a tough fight but the Germans were heavily outnumbered. The paratroopers then set up a defensive perimeter around the area and began the work of destroying the enemy mortars and guns. Our little troop conducted a patrol from a Pathfinder’s road check point to the South and West of the new defensive perimeter to ensure there were no Germans trying to counter-attack from that direction. As we got back to the road check point the Germans launched a counter-attack from the North.

The Troop dashed across the road and started a flanking maneuver to the right. We moved rapidly through the trees and came upon a dead German and a wounded American. We were deep into the woods off the road and a figure was just along the edge of the wood line and was in silhouette. I couldn’t tell if he was a German or an American. I raised my rifle and took aim at him, and was just taking a breath to issue a challenge when a paratrooper Sgt who had seen us enter the right side yelled out to me that there was a German even with the gun emplacement. Here I was looking right down my rifle at someone even with the gun emplacement! This Jerry had some English apparently because he started to spin around to find me but I let my shot go and hit him before he could turn all the way around. He did fire off a shot as he fell and it whizzed off above my head. We gathered up the wounded GI and since it was just a sprain sent him on his way.



There was another quick briefing, detailing our leaving of the position to pursue the Germans to the North. Whilst the briefing was going on we heard sounds of a battle to the South. The Lt. Colonel advised us that the firing was the American 4th Infantry Division and that we should move out and finish off some more Germans before those infantry types tried to hog all the glory!

We moved off in search of more Germans and didn’t have long to wait I can tell you. We’d stumbled onto a rather large bunker complex and it had more than enough Germans in it to keep us busy. Our troop moved out to a flank and began pushing forward. A Yank next to me was hit but there was nothing I could do for him as just at that moment a large group of Germans rushed out of their fighting positions like wild men. All of us were shooting madly, I was grazed lightly and could continue and so moved forward with Schmitty to dig out some of the last resistance. The Americans moved rapidly into the main complex and cleared it out. I heard later that the Lt. Colonel was badly wounded leading the assault.

Just as we were clearing out the last of the bunkers a call went up that an SS man had gotten into our casualty collection area and having killed the medic was executing the wounded. I bolted up the trail with an American paratrooper just ahead of me, and we turned the corner right into a full blast of MP40 fire. I’d been lucky so far but this wound had me shot in the hand. My rifle dropped to the ground and I went with it to get clear of the hail of SMG fire. I think the paratrooper next to me was killed out right, poor sod, he’d gotten the full brunt of the fire. I called for a medic and said where I’d seen the German to anyone who could hear me. The German was quickly dealt with and I moved off to the newly established casualty collection point.



It was at that point that the 4th Infantry Division linked-up with us and we were relieved and sent to the base camp areas to refit, and have a break. Which is where I am now, healing up and waiting for the next mission which is supposed to be somewhere in the South of CENSORED. Rote Teufel!


All the best,
Mercy

_________________
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Ruthless Ba*@ards

1-6-2008  Op: NOOb Day

1-27-07    Airsoft Challenge Op: Balkan Hammer

10-06-07   Op: Broadsword

08-17-07   Recondo School 2007

05-26-07   Op: Viper

03-03-06   We're in serious need of a new annalist...does it show?

2006           Lionclaws V, Black Fox, Recondo, Irene IV, Mercury

2005           Lionclaws IV, Irene III

2004           UN: Eviction, Irene II

2003          The Factory, Wounded Bear, Irene I and Hostile Intent

01-18-02    Man wasn't meant to live like this. It's cold, and wet and raining. When it's not raining, it's snowing or sleeting. I begin to wonder what we're even doing here, halfway across Russia and very far from home. Although this company of misfits is all the home most of us have.
It's been almost four years since we've taken up this commission and it seems to be getting steadily worse. The Captain says that we can't break our commission, but we all want to leave. Fighting for this long and over so many fronts takes it's toll. The Company has seen action in Austria, Poland, Belgium, France, and most recently Russia. There's certainly nothing as lovely as a Russian winter, especially when it's accented by the sound of artillery and machine-gun fire. Along with the Germans, we've made a tough push through Russia almost all the way to Stalingrad. Right now we're holed up in a small village near Stalingrad, but the Russian army is closing on us fast. We're low on ammunition, food and supplies, and there is a definite lack of winter clothing. Riverwalker, the Company surgeon has treated more cases of frostbite than he cares to count. There are a lot of our guys out there who can't count to ten on their fingers anymore.
Everyone is dug in here in Thorntunskil, waiting for the Russian attack. Word is the we might be called on to make some raids and harass the enemy prior to them reaching the strong point. The joys of missions when it's 0 degrees outside, snowing, and you're outnumbered ten to one. We've followed the Captain into worse though.
 

Elmo is growling at the troops to get up and get ready for the battle at hand. We're attacking the Russian garrison at Thortunskil at first light. We've been attached to a German Falshcrimjaeger company for this hellish campaign. The regulars we're here with don't want to be here either. They're dropping like flies. Outnumbered, poorly equipped for the weather, supply lines getting longer everyday, but they still keep going. Innocent young boys, being forced out here in this wasteland, all for the whims of one man. As for us, well, we're hardly innocent. Our group has been blooded in almost every major war for some time now. Our origins are not known to me, some of the early Annals are missing, but I do know that the Black Company has marched with Caesar, fought with Napoleon and bled with General Grant. The Company has always had an Annalist to record its history. I am that man, and I am in charge of these records.
 

Our group is almost ready for battle. We're spearheading this attack today. Word is that the Russians plan to assault our Observation Post today. Well, we're going to get to them before they get to us. As the Captain is fond of saying, "Attack, attack, attack." The Russians have us outnumbered nearly two to one, at least the weather is on our side. It's cold, and rainy, which means the Russian garrison is almost as miserable as we are, maybe more so. Perhaps they'll be inclined to stay inside today.  It's almost time to go now. The troops are getting their final orders from the Captain. It's time for me to put down my pen and pick up my rifle. Hopefully I'll make it back to record the results of this battle.

 

02-08-01   Four of the Company (Mercy, Elmo, Riverwalker and Slink) made the incredibly long drive to Tampa for Op: Rolling Thunder. The rain tried to do in the event, unfortunately. However we had a really excellent couple of days of game play and found the facility to be very well laid out. Joachim was attached to BC for a good beating at the hands of the weather and FA. The first game consisted of the opposing team having to take out 4 or 5 objectives; our mission though was only to hold the bridge. So we set up on the ridge running along the water the bridge crossed. For the most part the objectives other than the bridge received no more than a token defense before the defenders pulled back to the ridge. I believe that at least two of the objectives where blow by FA although I was busy trying to make my POS MP work :) One lagger was left behind for the inevitable attempt to sweep the M60 to the rear. With the heavy gun shut down for a bit the opposing force bogged down long enough for the time limit to run out. The next game had us set up in a town with the M60 attached to us...unfortunately the game ended up being called due to rain. There was tons of rain that weekend:(  The next mission was locating the key to the battle wagon...that mission was doomed to fail. Thanks for getting triple A out for us guys, it would have been a long walk home!
        The mission following the rain had us attacking the town to locate a box. Two snipers were placed on towers (a misunderstanding that there were not two separate towers for each sniper lead us to think that the actual single tower was in fact held by one sniper, theirs). The referee for the match took us the long way around to the back of the field. The M60 was waiting in a house for us. They put their medic to good use inside the fortified positions, lol we forgot we had one. Elmo managed to take the M60 out when he went on the move and was getting ready to mop up the security element but was called out of bounds...shortly we found out there was in fact no out of bounds however by that time the game had been called. Needless to say the box was located just about under the Sniper's nest...and they were untouchable/invulnerable. It would have been interesting to try to get into that building I can tell you!  A night game was played among some of FA inside the city...but feeling like we weren't familiar enough with the area to play in the dark safely we opted out, after losing the war wagon key then knowing we'd have to dig it out of the wet soft sand it was parked in we weren't feeling lucky enough to keep from impaling ourselves on nails, sticks or other sharp pointy things. We went back to the hotel for a evenings adventure at the Rusty Pelican (you'll all hear about that one later..lol).
     The second day promised to be just as rainy as the first and since we and Joachim had a long drive ahead we played a couple of quick games before heading out. The first had us attacking the ridge we had defended the previous day. Our unfamiliarity with the field told quickly...our line was oriented to the incorrect direction when we ran into the ridge. Instead of being at our front it was at our left...lol. Unfortunately a regrouping never occurred...we'd left our radios thinking it would be a straight forward attack. It was sort of, for the defending team :) We then played a defend the town scenario. It actually went quite well for us until 3 of our 6 guns just flat stopped working. After which the defense of the innocent town crumbled like a wet cracker. A shot in the bridge of the nose from an upgraded M16 at about 6 feet had me seeing stars so I can't report much else after that except that the ER Doctor in Gulf Breeze informed me that there was no permanent damage...
     In all we had a good time and learned that if we want to use standard capacity magazines we'd have to get a squad weapon...the suppression capability is just too heavy to fight with standards. I would like to thank to FA for having us down and letting us play in the rain with them, we had a good time and hope you guys can make the trip to a SWAT competition we hope to set up within the next year.

"Darkness always comes."  Mercy.

10-11-00    A always a good time was had.  We always enjoy our trips to skirmish with the guys in Pensacola.  Unfortunately we had to detach our newest member, Goblin, to the other team since they were a little short.  The first day was spent playing a couple of games during the day, then a brief attempt at some night games.  It was however a bit too dark to play safely so that was scrubbed in favor of going to dinner!  The second day saw most of the local players stay home thus missing what has traditionally been the best day of gaming...the swirling killing grounds of the "city".   Many thanks to SpyderSniper for setting up the game and we were sorry to hear that J68 couldn't make it.  The following debrief is taken from SpyderSniper's website, thanks Spyder...

Operation: Special Reaction ended on Dec 10th with the Navy Seals recovering the stolen documents, and rendering Wang's Electronics useless. With cunning skill and a long day, the end finally came with a large explosion to the secret nuclear laboratory.

A few lessons were learned during this Operation.
1. Never shoot the medic on your own team.
2. All games should have a 30 minute maximum time limit.
3. When you see enemy troops waving through your scope, look for the velociraptor in the bushes beside you.
4. Tracers work best when they are tracers.
5. Bring more money for the tailgate arms deals.
6. Batteries work best when charged.
7. TEAMWORK, TEAMWORK, TEAMWORK!!!

All things said this weekend's games went rather smoothly. The excellent assault training from The Black Company on Sunday was well received, and needed. Two Man team assaults on a defended base were very interesting, and worked surprisingly well.
 

08-14-00   Much time has passed since I've had time to work on these Annals. Company business had taken me far away into the mountains for several weeks on a mission whose nature cannot be revealed at this time. Upon my return, I was informed that the Company was going to battle the next day. Being on leave from my previous company mission, I decided to sit this mission out. I'm getting accounts of the battle from the brothers that were there and they will be recorded as soon as I make sense of them.  

07-13-00   Mercy, Elmo and I (Walleye) were called up on short notice for a long-range mission to Houston recently (Op: Sunrise). The company rose before the sun and began its trek to the land of the Astros. Arriving early, we took the some time to rest and asses our situation. As our opponents began to arrive, we agreed it was time to make ourselves known. After cursory introductions and the like, we decided it was time to gear up. As we strolled in heavy, we made quite an impression. Soon, the games were to begin.
 

The Company was attached to another group, the Silent Knights. With them, we scouted the terrain, and soon after began the first game. Mercy and I flanked the enemy and snuck up behind them, much to their surprise. I removed one member of the opposing team while Mercy moved up. As I was moving up to cover Mercy, I ran right up on someone, and not knowing what team he was on, I hesitated, and ended up dead because of it. Mercy finished him though, and then moved on to get 3 surrenders. Our team won the match.
 

The second round was played on the same field. This game was marked by friendly fire incidents. Mercy, Elmo and I decided to set up an ambush for the opposing force. An opfor member walked right by my position without knowing it and quickly cowed to the sight of the end of my barrel in his face and a demand for his surrender. The Company moved up and Elmo accidentally shot a member of our team after Mercy pointed him out. I covered Mercy as she moved up and encountered a storm of fire as she got into position. She was killed (a FF incident too), and I advanced toward the rear to link up with Elmo. We got back into ambush position as 2 opfor members walked up onto a trail near us. As me & Elmo waited to light them up, a member of our team slipped up from behind and killed both of them. He promptly turned his gun on Elmo and outed him. He then came up to join me and as we were discussing what to do, someone walked up and blindsided me from the left, removing me from the battle. I did my best to be a pellet shield and removed myself once the shooting stopped. The game wound down to a slow 3 on 1 match which our team eventually won.
 

The third game was a scenario game. The company and its cohorts were tasked with retrieving a box and returning it to a defended enemy position. The Company moved quickly and found the box. Mercy was leading the contingent and I was tasked to rear security. We moved the box out of the immediate danger zone, dropped it off with a guard and advanced to clear the defenders out. Elmo advanced up the middle and took out several members until he was cut down. Myself, Mercy and the rest of the crew were advancing under cover and taking the enemy down as we moved. We advanced past the buildings and to a small wooded area. I covered the rear and flanks while the rest of the squad advanced. Unfortunately, they neglected to tell me when the last one of them passed. I was left with a big area to cover and I didn't know where my teammates were. Not being too keen on moving without cover or knowledge of where my team and the enemy were, I held my position for quite some time in the hot sun. Eventually, I heard some movement ahead and decided it was time to investigate. I moved up and collected another one of my teammates. We were joined by Mercy soon who had fallen back to get some help. We advanced, cutting down 2 enemy defenders and clearing the path for the box. We were much relieved when the box finally completed it's journey to El Gringo. It was tortuously hot outside, and the weather had begun to take it's effects on me. Mercy and I decided to sit the next game out because we had been out in the heat so long.
 

The final game the company participated in was a general run scenario. Elmo was the personal bodyguard of the VIP and personally masterminded the operation. He sent a diversionary force to one flank of the enemy's territory, while he and the general advanced toward the objective. The operation was a huge success and the general made it to the objective unscathed.
 

The Black Company had a great time in Houston, and was a very efficient force-multiplier for our team. We look forward to playing with these groups again. Well, I'm off for some much needed R&R, check back soon for the latest installment...