Area 06 · Act 2 · The Goldfields Push
The Fremantle Wharf Affair
Fremantle Harbour at the Swan River mouth — finger wharves, wool stores, crane gantries and rail sidings, with the limestone Round House on the headland. Tight lanes between cargo stacks replace open paddocks.
DAY 68: THE PORT OF FREMANTLE REPORTS AN UNSCHEDULED ARRIVAL OF SIX HUNDRED PASSENGERS, NO LUGGAGE.
The history behind it
Fremantle was WA's great export port; the 1932 wheat actually shipped from wharves like these. The newsreel reports the emus have come 'to inspect the grain they were denied' — and the wharfies, mid-industrial-dispute, conspicuously decline to help the army ('not our award, mate').
Outposts (4)
Take all of them and the area is yours. Retreat halfway through and the ones you already hold stay held.
Wool Store No. 4
Supply depot · Defence tier 2
Cavernous wool store stacked with bales — soft cover the swarm can hide behind. A Rifleman Line patrols the loading doors; wharfies lean on rails and watch, pointedly neutral.
Victoria Quay Gun-Post
Gun post · Defence tier 3
Lewis Gun Post atop a crane gantry with a long sweeping cone down the wharf, backed by Barbed Wire coils that funnel the mob along the quay edge. Rush during pan-fumble reloads or route through the bale lanes.
Grain Elevator Siding
Rail siding · Defence tier 3
Rail siding under the grain elevator — the food motherlode of the area. Defended by a Truck-Mounted Lewis and a Sandbag Officer among the hopper cars; capturing it showers the wharf in wheat.
Round House Battery
Gun post · Defence tier 3
The old limestone Round House pressed back into service: elevated Rifleman Line plus the region's first Searchlight Tower for the dusk approach. Break line of sight behind the tunnel arch, or one satisfying rock to the lamp.