Surrounded by Idiots: A Silent Storm AAR

[Hottentot]

NOTE 25/11/12: As with the previous Oblivion AAR, Imgur is bugged and some of the pictures are vanishing from the AAR. Therefore texts and pictures don't always correlate perfectly. This is nothing I can help and a problem that at least last time fixed itself in a short time. Please be patient.

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Well, bloody finally! I've been meaning to do this for ages, and been constantly so swamped with everything that I haven't had time to even play, let alone write about anything. I have started a few attempts, but the only thing I got from those were yet another and another game written on my "use for an AAR" list.

But that's hopefully going to change now! Therefore: welcome back to the Hottentot Channel. It's time to dive behind the curtains of World War 2. Did you ever wonder where the worst morons of each given nations went to do their service? Have you ever thought what would happen if someone mistakenly formed a squad out of them? Do you think it's possible these hapless fools could accidentally save the world, but not without wrecking most of it in process?

Well, wonder no more, for now we are going to explore their exploits! In Silent Storm, the tactical squad game once hailed for its many innovations, the six worst idiots the combined might of different militaries could find, are going to bumble and crash their way through the European countryside, leaving behind lots of work for the reconstruction crews after the war. Squad Hottentot: We Work, So You Could Work!

Special thanks to Dowly who for a while ago suggested this game as AAR material.

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CHAPTER 1: IT WAS CLEAR AND STARRY NIGHT...


Hello everyone. My name is Don Tuna. Stop laughing, it's obviously not my real name! I have to keep it secret because of my job. You know, because I don't want to kill you.

Mind you, it wasn't always like this. You maybe won't believe it, but there was a time when I was just an ordinary guy like you, and not a squad leader of a service so secret that it barely knows it exists itself. There was a time when I wasn't leading a bunch of sorry losers on deadly missions, which in fact weren't that deadly, but were made that way because the said losers were likely the saddest excuses for soldiers ever. My job was mostly to stop them maiming each other or me. Technically I was also in charge of them not maiming themselves, but if they did, I considered it a bonus.

It all started in the early 1940s. You know, those crazy times when that guy with a moustache was competing with the other guy with a moustache of which one managed to get more young men and women needlessly killed in a painful way. Meanwhile there was this guy with a hat waving his fingers at them and stuff. I wasn't so worried about that, to be honest. I managed to avoid the draft and was living a carefree life of a charming bachelor (that's what I told all the ladies, anyway). This story begins from one of those carefree nights that didn't turn out to be such carefree at all.

So there I am, like, happily walking down the street to a costume party my friend is throwing, thinking of all the free booze and the way it tends to loosen the moral principles of the opposite sex. I had decided to wear one of those army surplus officer uniforms you could get cheap back then. We thought it would be hilarious. I put on all sorts of other stuff too to make it even better and learned a great army accent too.

But then I suddenly realize I have almost no money in my wallet. Can you imagine?! Thinking I might need to hand out some bribes to the said opposite sex just in case, I decide to pay a late visit to the bank. It will be just a little delay for me. After all...



The hour is so late that there won't be almost any other customers in there...




Perhaps the aged guard Hans still dutifully standing on his post, but Hans and I are old drinking buddies, you see, so he'd understand. Maybe I'd promise him a bottle or two for his trouble.




He'd open that huge safe for me, if all the clerks were already gone. I had seen it a few times myself. You'd need loads of TNT to blow it up. What could go wrong?




Well, except for a random civilian suddenly running to me and frantically yelling how the bank was getting robbed and they shot poor Hans...




...And then running away, leaving me with a fabulous WTF look on my face. Yeah, I suppose that could go wrong.




I mean, anyone care to tell me what the heck am I supposed to do here? Point my toy gun at them and hope they die from laughter when they see my costume?




Not having a better plan and seeing two armed robbers approaching me, that's exactly what I decide to do. I shout "Bang" too to spook them.




It didn't exactly help. And their guns don't need onomatopoetic sound effects to make a dent, which I quickly find out in a painful way.




Realizing that they are not going to surrender, no matter how heroic pose I take in this dramatic spaghetti Western life or death duel...




I decide to...uh...tactically relocate.