Hunter Brigade

Hunter Brigade
The Hunter Brigade (officially: Special Auxiliary Patrol, Reconnaisance, Overwatch) is an auxiliary organization within the NCD Army. Members of the Hunter Brigade are unsurprisingly called "hunters", whose main work is to control zombie population levels within and/or around the districts. They also serve as early warning operators to alert the districts of any incoming sizeable hordes. Hunters have also been called upon on more than one occassion as a rapid response force or as skirmishers against an advancing horde.

Hunters are reputed for their coolness under-fire and indomitable spirit to survive. They are led by Dominic Wallace.

History
The Hunter Brigade was formed by Director-6 in response to dissatisfaction amongst then-Outpost 6 residents, who are used to fighting to the brink everyday. The Hunter Brigade was viewed by the general population as a security taskforce, to the hunters' dismay. This all changed at the Battle of Outpost 6, where Director-6 and 327 hunters beat back a horde, estimated to number 13,000+, in continuous, unrelenting fighting that lasted for almost 4 hours.

The Hunter Brigade historically brought their own weapons, armour, food, water, medicine, and other equipment to their stations, located far off from their home outposts, often not coming back for weeks on end. It is relatively common for hunters to be mistakenly presumed as K.I.A. because of their common and long-lasting disappearances, prompting the issuance of a code.

At its founding, 174 registrations were garnered within the first 48 hours, including all 57 residents from Outpost 6 and 117 from all the other districts.

Organization and Chain-of-Command
There is no strict organization within the brigade's ranks, and as such, individualism predominates its combat culture. A special exception to this would be Dominic Wallace, the leader personally appointed by Director-6. Should the Brigade's commander cease his/her function, the current District 6 director is to personally appoint another hunter to replace him/her. The leader him/herself serves no special purpose other than the coordination of all hunters, and as such, the leader is required to memorize the sections within each operating area.

A hunter, when newly-registered, is assigned a section to work in within an operating area. This usually entails an area equivalent to 2-4 city blocks. The initial batch of hunters was fairly small, and so it was common to have seen hunters working alone. With the surge of registrations, hunters working in packs are becoming more and more common. These packs work in the same sections in an O.A. (operating area).

Because of the nature of hunter area assignment, the brigade's leader usually uses the section as the basic unit to identify hunters, regardless of whether the section is actually composed of 4 hunters, or just one.

Aside from the Brigade's commander, all hunters answer to the directors.

Hunters are required to check in once every 2 weeks at a nearby outpost in order to validate their status as not K.I.A. Every on-time check-in is rewarded with 30 rounds free of whatever ammunition one chooses (although .50 BMG and up is an exception). Registering late (i.e. past the 2-week period) will get you nothing.

Registration and combat outfit
Becoming a hunter is voluntary, and registration is straightforward. One goes to an outpost and looks for the hunter registration desk. A registration form is filled out. A receive number will be given which must be presented 2 days after registration in order to validate your identity as the form holder.

Listed in the registration form are queries for what kind of combat outfit you want to be assigned to, i.e. if you want to receive training for sniping, street-to-street, CQC or special (in order of least to most dangerous). The kind of combat outfit you choose will dictate where you will be assigned to and generally the kind of training which you'll get (which also dictates where they'll send you to get trained). In all outfits, hunters are trained on how to deal with O.P.'s and other mutated strains, but the "special" outfit is reputed to teach willing volunteers on how to kill anything upwards of an O.P., and rumored to maybe even teach how to kill darklords and darkangels.

Hunters are given the worst possible equipment for training in order to psychologically prepare them for possible adverse conditions (like having to knife a darklord to death), although for actual assignments, they are to bring their own weapons, equipment, and consumables at their own expense. Hunters who have afforded and brought radios with them are instructed to use UHF frequencies from channels 10 through 39, with channel 40 being the emergency broadcast channel.

Hunter's Lotto
The Hunter's Lotto is a lottery game attributed to Corsy Wells. It is played by chipping in ammunition with your name on it, scrambling it by any means necessary (the rotary implements are preferred over shaking the ammunition in a drum, which is known to produce dramatic results, a good example of which is the Outpost 5 lotto incident, with 14 injuries), then taking a single bullet out without looking. The owner of the bullet gets all the ammunition.

Due to the recent appearance of alternative ammunition, only conventional ammunition (i.e. projectile, cartridge and primer) is allowed to be used as "game chips".

Stats
As of writing (2016), the Hunter Brigade has seen 2,104 registrations, 567 casualties, 216 resignations and 34 retirements. It is reported to have inflicted an estimated total of 31,000+ casualties on the infected, as well as 386 confirmed killed hostile human combatants.