Red Legion – Saragus / Bunker Hill Campaign

Saragus – Bunker Hill Campaign

This campaign took place from about Level 50-60 and was intermingled by a number of settlement construction phases. The basic idea was thus: get the Castle, build artillery FOBs, and push toward the city of Boston. The first step was to do the Minuteman quests, which posed no challenge. I then took the Castle and started building.

Just as construction began (original design; since scrapped) the BoS siege event triggered. About half a dozen legendary Paladins, two Vertibirds and hell knows how many BoS mooks spawned and went after the barely defended bastion. Thankfully I had the walls patched up but the resulting fight was intense. We got them pinned outside the gates and I blew twenty stims and ten psychojet in the resulting firefight. I’ve never had such a frantic battle; all the laser, minigun, and rocket fire kept my screen permanently obscured. I could barely see what was happening or who I was shooting at. We won. Barely.

Subsequently I set about building the Castle into a military base. Except Preston kept jabbering on about being kind to Wastelanders and it got to me. So, when I realized my original construction plan would not work, I scrapped it all and built…

Castle City

Home to the recently reformed Minutemen and garrisoned by a detachment of soldiers loyal to the Legion, Castle City is a major economic and military hub in the Wasteland. The city was built under the leadership of Colonel Preston, financed by the Cabot family, and soon became a neutral ground for negotiations between the Legion, their Communes, and the rest of the diplomatically inclined Wasteland. Today, Castle City boasts a thriving trade sector, a vibrant night life, and considerable military presence despite its primarily civilian function.

Castle City seen from above with a Vertibird on the pad

View just after passing the Gate

Vertipad as seen from just within the Gates

Around the corner; tribute to City’s financiers

This is actually an interesting story. I can’t remember why I did the Cabot quests at the time (bobblehead maybe) but I did. Since I wasn’t fast traveling in this RP, time didn’t skip ahead and John Cabot got a little… lost en route to the final part; ended up in a fight at a Railroad checkpoint. Went to ‘rescue’ him and found him trotting away with a gauss gun. He then proceeded to nuke the Asylum he supposedly couldn’t retake alone all on his lonesome. I spent the mission running after him, looting guns and junk to fuel the Castle construction, and later decided to integrate that into the roleplay.

Bar & Recreational Area

Commune Trade House

Workshop beneath the Trade House

Minutemen Quarters in the original Walls

The Castle was a major Roleplay and settlement building achievement. First, I’d managed to secure artillery support from the minutemen, which would allow me to actually launch this campaign. And second, I built something very complex and yet fully functional. Castle City was… an effort to say the least.

It’s built on three seperate (and non-matching) foundations with the walls patched up and pathways to link between the ruined areas. Then there’s the vertipad and adjacent buildings, and a pathway over the top of that. The inner courtyard is almost entirely built over and several of the original areas have been walled off; all the important areas are still reachable though. There’s barely an inch left to cram anything into and just fitting the vertipad in took a lot of fiddling. I’ve gone over the build limit a dozen times. It still runs on Xbox with minor hiccups and the AI still works…. usually

Also, the city is realistically dependant on outside supplies provided by my communes. It runs one of the largest scavenging hubs in my game world (on the lower level, under the bar, are six scavenging posts) and, at least in the visitable areas, is well fleshed out with decorations and lighting. It was a real joy (and frustration) to build, but more importantly allowed me to create…

Firebase Slog

Concurrent to the establishment of Castle City, the Legion purged the Ghoul community at the Slog and soon after established an artillery FOB, intent on securing the Saragus Ironworks to supply their campaign with raw materials. After a successful test of this new field artillery on the Dunwich Quarry, the Legion assaulted the Ironworks – in vain.

Artillery and Laser Nest at the Slog

Though only held by a handful of raiders, the Saragus works proved tenacious, forging a temporary alliance with a nearby Gunner compound to hold the ground against the Legion. It was eventually determined that continued assaults would not bear fruit, so the Legion diverted their forces southwards through Country Crossing, continually pushing toward their intended objective of Bunker hill.

Though the Forged didn’t play much of a role here and I really didn’t build up this settlement much, the initial artillery test on Dunwhich Borers was… well, AWESOME! Cready and I were standing on the top of the quarry, waiting until the artillery hit… splat in the center. We started assaulting down the steps, firing all the way.

The Quary lit up like a Christmas tree. Raiders fired back with every gun in the book and, in the background, artillery was raining down, killing anything that tried to cross the base of the quarry for a better shot. I now think it was pure luck I got such a perfect grenade throw down but it was great fun and cemented the idea of artillery FOBs in my mind. I then took Country Crossing and built a small artillery base there; not worth showing. And went westwards toward…

Firebase Taffington

The final stepping stone to Bunker Hill, Firebase Taffington would be the first and only time the Legion employed concrete works in the construction of a forward operating base. Today it is best known as a layover point for traders venturing through Legion territory to the Castle and for the persistent swarm of bloodbugs which plague the defenses.

Legion command staff inspect Firebase Taffington

Not much to say here; I experimented with concrete foundations after my success at the Castle but soon abandoned the pursuit. Taffington was mostly about getting the damned artillery up and establishing a supply route to Bunker Hill. I never did much and had grown weary of the campaign (as it was going nowhere). The enemies around here were too low a level to be any fun so I decided to RP the campaign into a deadlock and instead focused on the southern Wastelands.

Red Legion continues in Part III: Murkwater / Hangman Campaign