[Tue] 01 Jan 2013 (Happy New Gear)

[audiox]

Foxhound
Bravo 2 FTL
B2 : Walter, Funnymutant, rubbershotgun
So, yeah, arund here we only use choppers to kill ourselves, not the other team. Granted, anything else would be a weeee bit unbalanced.
The first helicopter crash was amusing, in its way. But for heavens sake, when we touched down at Charlie dropoff and the chopper got stuck in some shrubbery the choice was clear. I've seen choppers glitch over less, so i did not want to endure another "death to helicopter" for me and my team. We jumped out (xcept funnymutant, who made a heroic run in order to catch back up with us later!) and the chopper took off, not daring another landing. (Yay comms!)

Some people got pretty pissed that B2 wasn't where they were supposed to, but i couldn't be expected to sit in the chopper when it was that screwy.

So anyway, stuck at Charlie and with a SL w/o CC. Happy days. (Thanks for stepping up though MFToast, more people need to dare some SL'ing, and it takes time getting used to, so keep it up!) This caused general confusion, and B2 just sort of stuck to Charlies flank and moved from building to.....getting shot in the face. Good stuff.
BTW, i've never played with any of you guys in my team before, you stood valiantly by a confused and blubbering FTL, so thanks for that. (It's kinda tricky with no team voicecomms, but we made the best of it..). And epic running skills Funnymutant!

no negotiation
Bravo 1 FTL
B1 : rubbershotgun, Issus, Funnymutant
This mission is really fun to play, or has been for my two sessions at least. Have we ever tried to just set up control points on both roads to the airfield and then use a force to take the airfield proper instead of going into the forest of death NE of Cherno?
Anyway, the truck ride was a big yawn, but sets the mood since stuff gets intense pretty fast @cherno. Once again Funnymutant ended up a completely different place (his game crashed when we were supposed to get off the truck..... So he wins the medal for most running this tuesday at least!)
The rest of the team followed Bodges orders and advanced slowly. Having an experienced SL is pretty great, it makes everything much easier to relate to......until they.....die. Whereafter i forgot i was B1, since i was B2 last time, and then CC seemed to be screwy, or nobody up the ladder heard me, so Skabooga had to take over on comms (thanks!) whereafter coordination between B1&2 went sour. Happens a lot.
B2 seemed to be suppressed to our north, so i got us heading out south-south-east to get a vantage point from which to support. Unfortunately the area contained enough AI to see me shot before i ever saw them......

Crateresistance
Alpha Saboteur? (I had booomstuffs! YAY)
Everybody loves getting slaughtered in forests, right? Sure'nuff. Human wave tactics are always fun, and Toppometer sure had a winner in his hands when he played the human wave card on the first cache. If only more than six/seven people would have survived for the second cache then human wave would have proved itself! As it was it tapered off into a human microwave. And those tends not to win wars.

Does anybody have any general forest-fighting tips? They tend to get very confusing very fast, and then i end up getting shot by an enemy who apparently knows where i am though i cannot see him worth a damn (My Ravenous Bugblatter Beast-inspired tactics seem to come up short every time....oh well! Next time i'll try Triple Breasted Wh..... or maybe not.)

Cheers to all, good to be back after a months hiatus!

[Issus]

Foxhound (First Try)
OpFor Charlie 1 AT

Yep, I was one of the dumb ones who ejected from the heli when someone started shouting "Get out, get out". Sadly I found myself about 40 ft up in the air, making for a short, hard drop to my death. Still, at least I had plenty of company…

Foxhound (First Try)
OpFor Charlie 2 AT

After finding myself somehow riding on the roof of the chopper (verdict: a bit breezy but handy for knowing when to safely eject), Charlie and half of Bravo were dropped off in the north and started to sweep down the Red Zone. The eerie quiet was only exacerbated by Kale's microphone troubles, meaning our poor FTL was mute. This lead to some understandable communications issues, so our progress was painfully slow at times. Patched a few people up but only saw one insurgent during the whole mission. Worryingly, I saw far more friendly fire incidents and elected to help out with first aid rather than join the apocalyptic final assault on the IndFor stronghold, as by the time I got my RPG out there were already friendlies moving in.

No Negotiation
Bravo 1 AAR

A rather uneventful Ural trip across country (no sing-alongs!) disgorged us into the deadly woods of Chenarus. We proceeded to jog down valleys and up hills, dispatching the occasional UN and PMC chaps we encountered until Bravo SL Bodge bought it just as we were about to crest the hill overlooking town. There was a lot of hugging treelines and ostensibly supporting an Alpha advance that we couldn't see, before we cautiously advanced into the open field separating our two strands of forest. Bravo 2 charged ahead while we were once again ordered to pull back, listening helplessly to the MMG fire and screams echoing from the battle ahead.

I must have missed an order at some point, as I looked up from the map to spot FTL audiox and our AT guy sprinting back across the field. Rubbershotgun and I tried to catch up, but found only their dead bodies and a lot of heavy fire coming in from the south. Realising we were isolated far away from the remnants of Alpha and Bravo, I suggested that Rubber head north whilst I tried to distract our UN friends in town by performing an interpretive dance about the dire situation in my home country. They must have found my moves extremely provocative (lean left - stop - lean right - stop - repeat) as something heavy engaged me that I don't think I'd ever heard before. Wetting myself behind the thickest tree nearby, I was dismayed to find it was made of balsa wood, and therefore did not stop my head being blown clean off my shoulders.


Cratesistence
IndFor Charlie AAR

It's been mentioned before, but I think the initial plan to attack the caches (despite being on the defending team) had a lot of merit. For one thing, I doubt BluFor would have seen it coming...

As it was Charlie were assigned to the northern-most cache. Myself and Ice were (in what would turn out to be a dazzling tactical move) ordered to take up positions in the woods a good 2-300 metres to the east, out of direct sight of the cache but right on the most obvious path from cache A to cache C. Once we lost contact with Alpha it was clear that we were to be next, and that we'd be heavily outgunned.

For once, I thought I might see how some proper guerrilla tactics would work out for me. Concealing myself in a tree with good visibility to the south and east, I lowered my weapon and scanned the horizon, remaining motionless for the most part. This allowed me to spot BluFor approaching with enough time to inform my FTL and update the map before I had to open fire.

Caught one enemy before dropping and repositioning for another go. Hit another and had a pop at taking out those that ran to his aid before disengaging again. Unfortunately, I got over-excited and left my rifle on full auto, so my marksmanship was abysmal. This proved to be my undoing as I got greedy, trying to finish off a wounded enemy on my third pass while his friends located my position.

In the end I only killed one outright, but I'm pleased that I seemed to injure a few, and generally caused enough confusion that they were still grenading my corpse for minutes afterwards. It seemed to buy enough time for Dr Alexander "Deadeye" Tobacco to flank and finish off the remains of two fireteams all by himself whilst I cheered him on in Spectate Mode.


Huzzah
Delta AR

It's always a pleasure to see Specialsoup at work and this was no different. Impatient at the thought of getting us gloriously killed, our brave FTL was seething at the initial Bank Holiday-style traffic jam, so much so that when he joyously mentioned that we were under fire I almost didn't remember that this was a Bad Thing(tm).

So yes, bunkers to the left of us, bunkers to the right, and a whole mess of Landrovers filled with corpses in between. I hunkered down with the unfamiliar LMG and started the first of many spray-and-pray sessions at long range targets. Surprisingly I proved at least the equal to many of the eagle-eyed AI bastards, and we were ordered to hoof it up a distant hill and move along the ridgeline. Soup generously offered our services to take a bunker or two and, after grabbing an abandoned KORD, rained hot metal death down upon the village until he was no more.

I have to apologise to Caconym and Tink for my display of sub-par FTLing, which saw us engaging in a 1km shootout contest with some locals whilst sat on an exposed hillside. Luckily Caconym was exceedingly generous with the ammo boxes. In return, I gave him many opportunities to crouch in exposed positions and lay hands upon the many new holes that had appeared in my body.

Soon enough we found ourselves in the settlement with no command, few allies, and nothing for lunch. Hearing that a Ginsters cache was located up ahead, Tink's blood was riled and he charged forward towards the pastry treats, leaving me to cautiously peer around corners, announce "clear" and then walk straight into enemy soldiers.

Surprisingly, I survived, and after trying to heal the stricken Wafflynumber with a frag grenade (I'm still not sure how I selected that) the mission was called. Glory!

Quick final word to say that m0ntag's sterling medical efforts were very much deserving of the high praise they've been given. Bravo, sir.

[SpecialSoup]

I felt the need to write an apology here - I realised after session that I had enabled a rather silly virtual audio cable config that completely messed up my in game von to the point where half of what I said likely went unheard.

This applies most to Strang, Issus, Tink and Caconym.


Foxhound

This was FUN! Shoot some people, fell back, shot some people, fell back, took cover in a house and realised the enemy were on every side and there were holes in the walls. Gulp.


No Negotiation

I still stayed put, unwilling to pull back and abandon C1 or run into heavy fire to rescue them. This continued even after specialsoup jumped into the channel in exasperation to order us to fall back right this minute

Caconym, this was no problem but it would have been so much better if someone had explained this to me. The situation was through my eyes that me and my medic were getting the remnants of C1 on their feet and C2 should retreat now or they would be torn up in the same way. As it happened, everyone ended up dying in that forest which was far from ideal.

Strang, that field promotion was a bad move. I should have made the engineer and HMG teams act as independent elements while you took care of the IFVs (I also neglected to mention I was overlooking both IFVs from a nearby hilltop so had a constant eye on the situation)

Another mission as CO, more things learnt.

Huzzah

RIP FOLK ARPS

This mission was actually a success for the first half! My fireteam managed to stay on their feet despite a bare minimum of cover and heavy enem fire, we charged across a mass of open ground, ran over the crest of a hill to take two MG bunkers and stayed alive for all of it. Then I drove off in the land rover to get a KORD set up ASAP and intended to drive back to pick up more people when eliminating a bunker wasn't so urgent. My squad however followed on foot and I almost drove into them in surprise before I took some kind of explosive to the face (I presume it was a tank shell)

Thanks all, fun session. Let's have no more compulsory military convoy formations though

[Issus]

Then I drove off in the land rover to get a KORD set up ASAP and intended to drive back to pick up more people when eliminating a bunker wasn't so urgent. My squad however followed on foot and I almost drove into them in surprise before I took some kind of explosive to the face (I presume it was a tank shell):

That was you in the Landrover? Wow, I thought you'd managed to set up the KORD and just took at bullet at some point. I feel kinda bad for not realising at the time, although your death was pretty spectacular (no idea what the hell hit you though).