CS tactics to eradicate Vampires

[darthauthor]

I have been doing a lot of reading from the Vampire books.


Setting up an adventure for CS heroes. They are in Mexico vampire hunting hoping to kill them at the source.

The CS plan of attack.

So their CS Military leadership are acting like the Empire from starwars.

Top 5 bad guy ideas to hunt vampires. Can you think of any others?

1. Wait in ambush for vampires and/or their minions. Eradicate.

2. Tag vampire minions and use to follow to vampire lair. Eradicate during daylight.

3. Follow vampires back to their lair. Eradicate during daylight.

4. Bait a trap in vampire hunting grounds with "volunteer human prey" who is been made to bleed (vampires smell blood) to attract vampires. Allow the vampire to bite and/or abduct the human prey/bait. Follow to their lair. Eradicate in daylight.

5. Stake out vampire food sources. Remove sources of blood. Starve vampires.

6. "Rescue" a vampire minion. Use psychic to mind bond to discover the location of their master.

7. Video vampire during attack. Use video image and psionic power remote viewing to locate the vampire's lair during the day. Question. What the psychics vision (via remote viewing) be enough to find the vampire's lair?

8. Can a piece of clothing from a vampire or thier minion be enough for a Dog Boy or Psi-stalker to track by smell? Does vampire mist smell?

9. Is it easy for a necromancer to find a vampire lair via "Divining: Tombs & Graves"?

10. Exhaustive search using Dog Boys and/or Psi-Stalker sensing for supernatural beings, during daylight, in sectors of land where vampire attacks occur.

[glitterboy2098]

worth noting that the CS probably does not have a lot of experience with vampires, so you might want to mix in some stuff that won't actually work, but fits "common knowledge" (aka film and movie vampire lore)

[darthauthor]

True enough Glitterboy2098

I think it depends upon the players.

A lot of them have already read the books. So roleplaying they have to pretend not to know what they know.

If they are some what intelligent they would do some research, ask a credible human vampire hunter, etc.

A vampire's worst fear is being caught in their grave during the day.

By night, escape is incredibly easy via turning into mist. Not even water works at hurting them.
Regardless of what damages them, if they escape, they quickly regenerate.
So they make great escapes and can recover from any damage. Turn to mist and the silver bullets and wooden stakes fall out of them.

They can just retreat for a few minutes, regenerate and come back fighting.

They are also easy to defend against their direct melee attacks. A flashlight, a cross and garlic can keep them at bay. Although, technically they can throw rocks at the heroes all night long its really a question of range and damage. In theory, the vampire should win unless they run out of distance weapons because the heroes run out of ISP / PPE / and lasers don't hurt vampires. Heroes need a sniper with a long range rifles and silver bullets but they will still run out of ammo unless they do "enough" damage before the vampire can turn to mist and escape. Master Vampire have like a 100 hit points. Wood arrows, silver bullets and squirt guns do like 2d6 a shot (average 7 hp). If they hit, it takes the vampire 2 attacks to go mist form. So if all 4 heroes "hit" they would average around 28 in the first strike. I'm the vampre, I go mist form and retreat. Assuming all 4 heroes hit again, I'm looking at 56 more damage (84 total). Then I fly away. 3 minutes later, I, the vampire, am back to full health. And the night is young. The heroes could run out of "ammo" (water and silver) before the vampire runs out of night-time.

Honestly, I would probably summon a fog, use my natural heatless state and prowl up on one of the adventurers to sneak attack a slow kill bite to suck their blood. Then mist away into the night fog.

Heroes need to hide from vampires at night. Just like vampires need to hid from heroes by daylight. Except Vampire have to feed on blood or they go crazy.

[Grazzik]

How it might play out...

Spoiler:

IF the CS were able to consult experts and dedicate the resources, it could take the form of a coordinated daytime strike that could offer a number of scenarios for heroes to have their moment in the sun (pun intended).

Before anything happens, perhaps heroes might be needed to protect plans from intelligence leaks or obfuscate the build up of resources to deflect the attention of vamp forces. Heroes might also be needed to find the best targets.

Assuming that they find a town or city infested with a large number of master vampires or even an intelligence, it is doubtful the CS would care about the residents. Those few that are of interest could be extracted by heroes. There might also be other assets or information to be retrieved. However, any extraction would be under a time constraint.

In the build up to any assault, the CS could conduct a wholesale scorched earth policy to "food stock", causing the city to call for resources to be brought from outlying regions to support city vamps. Heroes might feel the need to escort humans out of the region rather than leave them to be slaughtered.

When the assault is launched, a large force could be deployed by air to build a series of canals or aqueducts from a local water source to surround the city. This thinly spread force would have to be protected from attacks by non-vampire protectors. Also, the source of water would have to be secured. Likely already heavily defended by vampire forces.

At the same time, a cordon of leaf-blower touting troops and vehicles would have to surround the city, which would also require heroes to protect against vampire defenders. (Not sure of the environmental impact of tens of thousands of leaf blowers... ) This might not even be needed if the vamps had been adequately starved ahead of time causing them to fall into a blood rage, preventing them from even considering misting due to the need to feed.

Air coverage would be required to complete the cordon. Heroes in flying PA or aircraft, anyone? This could double with the release of silver iodide at altitude to seed clouds for rain. Even when the rain evaporates, it would deposit the silver iodide behind to react to sunlight leaving a lasting film of minute silver metal particles across the region. This may or may not be meaningful depending on concentrations used. Heroes might have been needed to secure adequate supplies of silver iodide in the first place.

A heavy missile barrage (perhaps tactical nuclear strike?) would then flatten the city exposing the vampires to daylight. The barrage would create a massive city-sized crater that could be then filled with water from the canal to get to any vamps that escaped underground via water seepage. Until the new artificial lake was filled, the water would still be running, but even a still lake would cause buried vamps damage from seepage over the long term if exposed. Heroes could then be sent down under the new artificial lake to drill down into the crater bed to confirm no underground structures survived the barrage.

If there was a pyramid with a vampire intelligence, the destruction of the pyramid may cause it to d-jump away from Earth, or a wave of heroic dogboys, psistalkers and skelebots with silver weapons could wash over it before the crater is flooded. Heroes might be needed to rescue dogboys or psistalkers caught in the flooding.

Any delay may lead to night fighting against vampires posted outside the city, which might be too difficult to withstand depending on resources allocated. Also, heroes might need to have an eye out for avatars and deal with X factors, such as other forces (vampire or otherwise) taking advantage of the situation for personal gain or revenge against the vamps being attacked.

Crazy? Sure, but perhaps worth the cost if a vampire intelligence is involved.

Familiar? Sure sounds like the attack on Tolkeen, but without a siege. Heroes who are CS vets from the Tolkeen War may have ample opportunity for roleplaying. Players of CS vets might also be able to avoid metagaming as the tactics on the ground against non-vampire protectors would be familiar. Though they would still need to feign ignorance of vampire specific info unless part of an unit trained on anti-vamp tactics as part of Operation Nightowl.

Could it be pulled off? Let the heroes be the deciding factor.

[NMI]

Not all vamps are in Mexico. Some are in Rifts: Arzno

[Mack]

This would violate CS doctrine as we know it, but they should use combined Dog Boy and Skelebots for hunting vampires. Something like 4 Dog Boys in command of a platoon of Skelebots. The Dog Boys detect and track the vampires, then vector the Skelebots in for the kill. The Skelebots' programming would have to be updated for killing a vampire, but that's pretty straightforward. And with hovercars / Sky Cycles, the Dog Boys could sweep a large area.

And keep in mind that wild vampires (the majority) "are crazed predators that are more animal than human," (Vampire Kingdoms, original, p15) with an IQ of 2D6+1. They will put up a direct fight without much cunning or escape plans.

[jaymz]

Didn't Doc Reid send out a detailed report in the updated Vampire materials? Pretty sure the CS would have likeky gotten that info one way or another so at least CS Intelligence would have some in depth information on the creatures etc. Anyone being tasked specifically for this would be briefed accordingly.

[Sambot]

The Coalition States has launched Operation Nightowl to deal with Vampires in Mexico. Dog boys are also natural vampire hunters, so I would say that the CS does have the knowledge and capability to fight vampires. It's just not that high a priority because of which a lot of Dog boys and other CS troops have gone on their own to deal with the Vampires.

[darthauthor]

Sambot, I forgot, which book has operation nightowl in it?

I agree with jaymz about the sharing of information on vampires like the CS does with those giant insect Xiticix?

What can be debated is, how much does the CS trust the information? I imagine they would believe what they already know to be true. The rest they would test.

If I were a CS officer / scientist I would want to capture all the vampire types and as many of their mind slaves as I could to experiment on. I figure the biggest thing is to find out the easiest ways to detect vampires and their slaves.

IF I were the Vanguard I would totally study them to find out how to prevent and detect mind slaves / mind control. The rest of the time it feels like Dog Boys can find vampires as long as they can search a large enough area in a short enough time. Vampires are smart. They go 70 or 100 miles or something to drink blood. The use non-vampires to kidnap people to drink the first time. Then they "have" them.

The CS and the Vanguard don't know what they don't know. As bad as it sounds they need to see a vampire feed and what happens to their victim all the way to conversion to mind slave or vampire-hood.

[Grazzik]

CS Operations vis a vis Vampires:

Operation Nightowl - WB01 revised, pg. 184

Operation Holy House - WB 28, pg. 11

[Grazzik]

There is also Coalition Outpost Chatarra (Vampire Sourcebook, pg. 103-104) where Veracruz used to be, who are conducting assessments of the vampire threat.

[Sambot]

Sambot, I forgot, which book has operation nightowl in it?

What Grazzik said.

I agree with jaymz about the sharing of information on vampires like the CS does with those giant insect Xiticix?

What can be debated is, how much does the CS trust the information? I imagine they would believe what they already know to be true. The rest they would test.

Enough that some have pushed for anti-vampire operations in Mexico but not enough that it's a major operation.

If I were a CS officer / scientist I would want to capture all the vampire types and as many of their mind slaves as I could to experiment on. I figure the biggest thing is to find out the easiest ways to detect vampires and their slaves.

IF I were the Vanguard I would totally study them to find out how to prevent and detect mind slaves / mind control. The rest of the time it feels like Dog Boys can find vampires as long as they can search a large enough area in a short enough time. Vampires are smart. They go 70 or 100 miles or something to drink blood. The use non-vampires to kidnap people to drink the first time. Then they "have" them.

The CS and the Vanguard don't know what they don't know. As bad as it sounds they need to see a vampire feed and what happens to their victim all the way to conversion to mind slave or vampire-hood.

The CS does know those things. They have been fighting vampires for a while. Most just don't believe the vampires are as big a threat that they are. I can see scientists wanting to experiment on vampires to see if they can be cured, how to detect them, and how to block their abilities. Capturing one would be dangerous though. Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers and other Psychics would be their best troops against vampires. The Vanguard could be useful but they'd be on their own.

[Mack]

And after some back of the envelope math, the CS's C-200 Rail Gun (issued to Skelebots) loaded with wooden rounds would inflict 2D4x10 HP to Vampires. It would take two to three hits to reliably put down a Wild Vampire. You could easily send large groups of Skelebots on sweeps through the bad lands with instructions to shoot any Vampires, bats, or wolves in the area, and to call in a disposal team when needed.

Dog Boys automatically sense Vampires at a range of 100ft per level. So a team of Dog Boys could fly line abreast on Sky Cycles and sweep a pretty large area during the day to find any Vampire lairs. Eight Dog Boys, each level three, at 400ft intervals (which overlaps their coverage some) could sweep an area 3,400ft wide. At a leisurely 60mph, such a group would sweep just over 300 square miles in 8 hours. Twenty squads could cover all of the state of New Mexico in 21 days.

(I've put more thought into this than I should have.)

[darthauthor]

Mack you Rock!

Love the Math.

I relate to putting too much thought into things.

A couple of things would interfer with the time table and successful detection.

1. Ley lines will interfer with Dog Boy senses.

2. Mexico does not only have a problem with Vampires but other supernatural and magic users who would be considered a threat by the CS. Necromancers (good ones or at least vampire hunters)
I don't remember if Vampires registered differently on a Dog Boys radar.

3. After a week or so word would get around about the CS sweeps. Vampires would think to attack them or maneuver around them to areas they have already searched.

4. Vampires have mind slaves and minions who will serve them faithfully during daylight. They would shoot at the Dog Boys. So the CS battalian would have to follow them to execate and kill off resistance. Then dig up the vampires graves/lairs in daylight.

5. Time would be lost with every ping and investigation by the Dog Boys. They would have to circle around and narrow down the location of the vampires grave.

6. I would slow the speed down to 15 miles per hour and use a platoon of Dog Boys with Psi-Stalkers NCOs. They will gain experience and improve their performance and range. Still with the right numbers the area of search could, in theory, be covered.

7. The towns and cities would ping with magical or supernatural activity which they could not distinguish without boots on the ground. The CS would have to go in. Maybe send in spies. Maybe raise the whole city. Without taking out the city vampires they would make more who would move into former areas where vampires were before.

8. A vampire intelligence could just make more "offers" making more Master Vampires. Assuming they accept the offer.

Still I find your strategy sound and no better and faster alternative. If I were CS leadership I would give you command of the operation and test the method in designated sectors to test the perfromance and results. Both in Mexico and throughout the CS territories.

"Operation: Clean Sweep or Sword of Damocles" or something cooler if I could think of it.

[hup7]

Don't underestimate the Vampire Intelligence's ability to know when it is under threat...
Magic Powers: All Vampire Intelligences know the same limited and specific range of spell magic. All Ley Line Magic spells, all summoning spells, Anti-Magic Cloud (140), Calm Storms (200), Close Rift (200+), Create Magic Scroll (100), Dimensional Portal (1,000), Dispel Magic Barrier (20), Mystic Portal (60), Negate Magic (30), Re-Open Gateway (180), Restoration (650), Teleport: Superior (600), Time Hole (210).

They can send specifically targeted groups to take care of premeditated attacks:
You arm skelebots with wood - they summon some demons and the skelebots are toast. Keep in mind skelebot with either armament have limited payloads - telling them to shoot bats? Umm "For example, there are some 50 million Mexican Free Tail Bats in the north of the country." Good luck with that. One species of bat - 50 million.
They can easily create ley line storms and other ley line disturbances to totally mess up dog boy senses.

Don't underestimate an intelligence possibly thousands of years old, that has been fighting much tougher opponents than the Coalition most of it's life. The master vampires are it's eyes / ears on the ground ... even underground. Mist vampires can wreck a resting Coalition squad.

[darthauthor]

Hup 7

I never knew how much vampire intelligences got involved.

Have to re-read the vampire books. I forgot if there was a Vampire Intelligence in Mexico or just South America.

I can totally see how "it" would work towards its survival and preservation of its kingdom. "IF" it is in Mexico and the CS came across it, the CS would have a fight on its hands. NOT as bad as the Xitic or Tolkeen but the intelligence would not go gently back to its home dimension. It would flee it escape its distruction but it would start over offering deals to mortals. Its a never ending battle with human temptation. As long as the Rifts exist then the Vampire Intelligences can tempt