003: Empasse

Steve and I discussing our opening moves.

Jimmy's Diary
5th of September, 2000

First impressions mean a lot, and we're in a bit of a disagreement as to what ours should be. Personally, I want us to go after Walt Williams and his henchmen:

We start slow, with acts of sabotage, harassment and petty vandalism. This will give us some idea of how they react to opposition. We ramp up our attacks, working our way up to ambushes, bombings and assassinations.

Steve doesn't like this idea. He says that we're not ready for a protracted struggle, and we need to be better armed before trying it. Besides, a bold assault against enemy assets would gain us far more credibility than juvenile shenanigans. He wants to hit the trains:


Tons of military supplies ranging from pistols to artillery roll up and down Rails Valley each day, and it wouldn't be hard for us to find some help and relieve the UN of some of that stuff. Properly armed, we'd have far more choices as to what our subsequent actions could be, and it would give us more anonymity (as the perpetrators a train heist could be either partisans or criminals who may or may not be from Pincher County, whereas only Pincher County partisans would have anything against Pincher County deputies.)

I disputed him on that last point, and also pointed out that hitting a train would almost certainly require the help of a third party (Doug Henderson and his people, probably) who may or may not be trustworthy. Also, where attacks on local cops may bring outside attention, attacks on UN soldiers almost certainly will. He brings up Ethan Allen at Fort Ticonderoga, but I'm more reminded of Daniel Shays at the Springfield Armory.

Either way, Caleb and I are going to be busy in the next few days with our home workshop/munitions plant. I told him he could use the M-1 Carbine if he can convert it to full-auto, and we're thinking of suppressing our pistols and maybe some of the other weapons, just in case we ever need silent death with more reach than our bayonets. We're going to vote on our course of action tomorrow, and if they choose to hit the rails we'll need to work on grenades too.

[GM note: seems we're going with the train heist. Fair enough; it may be more risky, but it's also more thematic and probably more exciting than my War of the Flea strategy]