Republic of Folk

Missions:

• Clergymen
• Whitewash
• Poctalon (Advers-- oh they're all dead)
• Holy Stones
• Lifting the Siege
• ChernOLO - Afterparty!

A lovely end-of-week turnout of 50 brave comrades of our milsim ArmA Brigade. That's right, we're MilSim here at Folk ARPS - Militia Simulator! Bringing you the finest in internecine holy warfare since 1066! I am your host, and it's time for you to have a seat at the chair behind the table under the light in this room without windows. Now comrade, let our AARs pipe into the room via these handy speakers and slather your consciousness in the glory of Arstotzka The Party.

Our workshop was the first-ever attempt I've made at helping people learn how to use armored vehicles! Tanks exploded, Shilkas died, we practiced getting into hull-down positions only to realize that what we really need some more help with is just figuring out how to move effectively!

In a nice nod to workshop participants, our first mission was Clergymen! NAPA greencoats charged across open fields and hillsides towards well-entrenched Russkies and succeeded gloriously-- at ascending into GreenFor Heaven! Some of OpFor saw naught but a jeep. Whitewash saw a massive convoy roll right through a thoroughly enemy-occupied village to get bogged down on wide open terrain north of Zelenogorsk. We clustered around a barn of death, spat out enough lead that the barn of death turned into a barn of ammo-expenditure, and then charged forth into the warm loving embrace of a BRDM and literal swarms of farmers with bizons and lee-enfields. Swarms. Poctalon was the epitome of efficiency. Sans recon, OpFor plopped down one of their squads directly in front of a fortified IndFor position, and the other was hardly long for the world when their pilot's eyes turned blue and he went into a Microsoft OS seizure in the midst of landing. IndFor... victory? Holy Stones saw some truly hilarious PsyOps exercises wherein OpFor broadcast their detailed double-pincer plans in the open, then flipped IndFor on their heads and attacked with the patented SWARM OF BEES! maneuver. Unfortunately for them, when Aziz isn't plotting world domination and the fall of Azoz and the death of the Great Satan, he tends to beehives. As one, Azoz's men flung themselves foward, and as one, they were cut down in the streets. And then IceRaiser proved that you ignore the control point of a KotH map at your own peril by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. The glory of Allah blessed Azoz even as daf rambo'd into the shrine, rifle blazing. Finally, Lifting the Siege saw the decimation of a USMC platoon as it flailed helplessly in the grasp of a terrifying AI that had perfected the fine art of at-will teleportation.

As ever, please post your thoughts, feedback, screenshots and video here - comrade YouTube Hero SuperU's FA doesn't just produce our video idents, but provides leadership and guidance to propaganda artists; more guidance on video editing for Folk ARPS is provided by yours truly. Posts in the AAR threads really helps us (the hosts and mission makers), both with understanding how we can improve the experiences, and showing potential comrades what our sessions are like.

By popular request, here is video documentation of the events of Holy Stones! Expect a full-sized AAR later in the week!

Tonights session can be summed up in three words for me...

"Initializing Spectator Script..."

Had fun though as always - just a short clip from the mission Poctalon this time, when we landed in a hot zone and were jumped by The A-Team... Dogface, I know you were one of them!

Clergymen - OPFOR IFV Gunner

High Explosive rounds are apparently highly explosive as I found out yesterday.

This was pretty much my first time as Gunner of any vehicle, so yay. We all spent the first five minutes or so trying to figure out what sort of guns we have in our IFV. 100mm HE, hmm. Sounds like an option to blow up a forest... right? And then we have 27mm AP rounds, whatever these are. There's also.. rockets, I guess? And ofcourse a trusty machinegun.
Our orders were pretty much to just hold position and wait for INDFOR to come along. Took them quite some time, apparently, since we had like 5 to 10 minutes of more or less coffee break. After that we moved forward about 100m (FINALLY SOME FULL-BLOWN ACTION) and stopped. I got to scan my surroundings, and the fun began. We had reports of a blob of infantry plus IFV come from our south, from the forest. I just saw smoke EVERYWHERE, so I took my MG and fired away into the forest. Later on, we had reports of an enemy IFV at that position.. So.. HE rounds are to blow these up, right? Let's try it out, I'm sure nothing can go wrong!
WHAT KIND OF EXPLOSION WAS THAT?! (For reference, I hit a tree. The tree was still standing.)
Turns out we didn't hit anything at all, so we moved back onto the road. There, we camped and let a UAZ pass us without doing anything. We won.

Whitewash - Alpha Squad Leader

I'M SORRY FOR BEING TERRIBLE ALPHA.

Short version, Alpha rushed through enemy contact, rushed to the absolute edge of town, got obliterated. Like, really. Alpha 1 went down in an instant, Alpha 2 and 3 were pretty much following afterwards. At the end we were 3 people left, and supposed to hook up with Bravo and Charlie. We all went into a forest, where we got injured by people on the other side of the forest. Map claims Charlie, so I shout over CC "CHARLIE HOLD YOUR FIRE". Nothing. We all get killed.

Quite a nice session, I dealt less direct death this time but I'll get to that in the dobbly do below..

Clergymen - Indie Bravo 2 AT
Pr3sario FTL
Kale AR
Ininja AAR

It rained a lot in the back of the Ural as we headed to the staging marker, I promised Kale I would try my best not to shoot him as I have a habit of doing once it gets dark. We moved without any fuss to our staging point and could see trees and fog and not much else. We moved in a little to see if we could locate the enemy BMP but it found us. With all of Bravo 2 pinned behind a tiny low wall as the big cannon rounds of death zipped about us we were ordered to pull back and regroup. Lots of smoke was thrown but that made no difference, I was the first to try my luck at retreating regrouping. I made it to within ten feet or the rest of Bravo and got riddled with the bullets. Somehow I was still alive and Dan our glorious SL dragged me back. Once the many holes in my body had been covered with sellotape I tried to grab the nearest Bravo 2 wounded man, it was then that big cannon rounds of death hit me..

Whitewash - Charlie 1 AR
Draith FTL
Kale AAR
Terminal boy AT

Oh noes, the PTSD. I still awake in the middle of the night screaming about the BDRM and the ZU-23 and the SUV it does not move! With a cold sweat of terror I hoped to live longer than the spawn area this time

Once the on duty nurse sedated me I was able to sit back inside the armoured SUV and enjoy the music, we formed up on the road and drove down taking a few stray rounds but nothing to worry about. We de-SUV'd at the two barns north of the petrol station and took up security around the white barn. The message was passed up the chain about the de-crewed BDRM by the petrol station, as well as the ever night terror feature ZU-23. With nothing but mist and un-crewed vehicles to see we secured rocks and waited. Eventually Charlie 2 moved up on our position and reported the same vehicles we'd been watching doing nothing for ten minutes, suddenly WOSH and off goes some Charlie 2 AT from right next to me. With the rocket away and the abandoned vehicles smoking the angry PP-19 farmers started probing us in the behind.. After patching up a few guys and becoming quite stressed about how thightly packed we all were I was glad when we finally got the order to run across the open expanse of hill to the next clump of trees. We made it there to find Bravo on the deck with a few wounded. Draith called contacts NE cresting the hill, I turned on the deck and was about to open fire when I got hit. Writhing but with at least a modicum of personal space to do it within I was happy when I rolled over and could give some return 'what for' fire. I sang the songs of my wounded people until my belt was nearly gone, then the PP-19 farmers shot me some more..

Poctalon - Indie Bravo Medic

Carson has clearly spent some time at Hogwarts as he was able to transport me across the map in an instant , he left em with my medical bag and instructions to watch Berezino and report any sneaky heli forces landing in that area. I took a nice tree as my OP and watched a lifeless town doing lifeless town things. Eventually with Opfor landing on top of Technical 1 and getting smooshed I was ordered to return. Activating running simulator 2013 I eventually got back to Bravo lines, just in time for Bravo to get confused about the objective crash site and the heli that had been forced down. Then the mission ended.

Holy Stones - Indi Technical Driver
Kale Gunner

The code-breakers at Indfor Park deserve a medal for getting us the enemy plans. We drove up to our staging area and shot some dudes, we reversed away from a few dudes once Kale took a bullet. Once patched up we flanked to the east and blew them away. It should be noted that the Opfor technical had been dead for some time. Engaging the 'keep moving' staying alive tactic we drove around looking for dudes to shoot, and by that I mean the plan was to shoot enemy dudes. The plan didn't work. Someone in Alpha fired at us as we drove past them and his blue on blue fire was met by much more powerful blue on blue.. The call of 'stop shooting us alpha' was passed up the chain and to be safe we drove away west at full 'escape the war crime' speeds. Entering unfamiliar territory a single guy broke cover as we drove past, I'll claim he did so in a threatening way but alas it was our medic, he was very dead when we turned back towards friendly lines. With the CO dead confusion was all over the place. An enemy technical was called out and despite my 'NOO it's friendly unless you shoot at us / cross the street and surprise us' shot out on TS - within seconds an RPG hit the front of the cab. Kale was dead instantly and I was able to grumble about being knocked out by friendly fire and spot enemy movements while I was slowly roasted inside the burning cab. Nobody was able to get to me and I could see the enemy closing in, I was one of the last three alive just feet away from rescue.. It was then I decided to dedicate my remaining life to the giving of medicine to my fellow man..

Lifting the Siege - Bravo Medic

A little bit of history repeating, I was Bravo medic the last time I played this mission. Unsure why I spawned in humping the side of the boat rather than sitting in the middle like a normal person I was directed to seek psychiatric counselling for my compulsive boat humping once the mission was over (thanks Dogface).

Once ashore I took a position guarding our glorious leader bullet magnet Dogface. We were the last to move out from the walled compound but caught up with the rest of Bravo in no time, and I was soon busy patching up wall maimings and jumping biting rock wounds, plus the occasional bullet wound. Even I fell victim to either a gate or a wall getting uppity and was swiftly patched up. Then began my constant patching up of Dogface, something about this mission means I'm always touching the SL.. After making it to the base of the mortar position hill I ran around the fireteams looking for the bloodied to patch up and was satisfied with my work when out went the barrage of GP rounds, hitting every branch, twig and blade of grass around us. Putting my online correspondence course in medicine to work again I patched up everyone and stuck to Dogface as we move up the hill. Seeing a threatening enemy about to shine a searchlight in the face of our SL I suddenly remembered I had a rifle and squeezed the trigger hitting him squarely in the head. Satisfied he was no longer a threat I then patched up Dogface who'd been shot by the frankly less threatening EI, I mean come on searchlights are weapons of mass destruction! In a flurry of bullets, explosions and general chaos most of Bravo including myself were down in the cross fire between the hill and the houses Alpha were clearing. As people tried to get to us they went down until finally we were all bleeding out...

ChernOLO - Popo #4

First time as the filth in an after party, much to Iceraiser's dismay. Confident I could hold the stairs from attackers below I went prone and waited. My fellow officer watched the side door half a flight of stairs down. He went down suddenly wounded and I crept forward to try and drag him into safety. Sadly going for the drag action menu went horribly wrong, I was still half a crawl to go and when the animation completed I hit first aid by mistake. I was shot by the criminal scum and thus ended my service..

Workshop :

Hot dang! We had tanks and BMP's and were told to shoot at things.
So, this was about vehicle usage, and we had an obstacle course and some terrain maneuvering.
This was my first time as a vehicle commander, so it was tricky, but with the help of Mr Link and Nimrod things went pretty well indeed.
Vehicle movement and positioning was interesting, and definitely something i needed some practice with.

Clergyman
IFV Commander
Cam had a plan, which involved the IFV i was in command of heading out to the forest to the North-West. Certain mission parameters set a definite stop for that plan, and we got to listen to the Priest trying to chant down the sound of our BMP3.

Alpha headed out to the Southwest, and reported contacts. I tried as best as i could to get the IFV out there, and almost ended up outside our zone. We backed up, and after ponicking upon the distant view of a rabbit we finally spotted some hapless enemies behind a low wall. They were probably very deaded, and we threw in some explosives as a special prize.

Thereafter the enemy BMP was rumored to be to the south of the city, and we moved to the central crossroads. Draakon and gang managed to take out the BMP, and the mission ended shortly after.


Whitewash
Bravo 3 AAR
So, we got the Armored SUV, we got the armored SUV, we got the armored SUV. And i got to man the gun!
I haven't had such an easy time shooting things since i played Blood Bath in '97 or so....
So, the ride through the first village was complicated by the fact that it was filled with bad things shooting at us, but we made it through and everybody got out at another one of these barns of death that Chernarus is so famous for. (Come for the tractors, stay for the barns of death, as they say..)
When we left that barn my FTL had been promoted, so once my gunner died i was a one man man-mower with my eyes on whatever the city to the south was called. People were kinda panicky and dying everywhere, but command knew that retreat was for the weak and told us to press on into the city. Bravo had, at that time, approximately four people left, but we pressed on. Whereupon somebody was uncouth enough to shoot me AS I WAS SITTING IN MY MAGICAL ARMOURED SUV. Damn them!

Mission comment: some aerial recon seems like a nice way of making the mission less bogged down... Nice music!

Poctalon
A1 FTL

This mission allowed Alpha to practice the newest in land and die maneuvers.
Og well, at least we didn't get to practice the art of dying due to pilot BSOD as Bravo did...

Come one, come all, to see the mysterious Teleporting Man!



Then witness the bravery of yours truly in the face of true evil!



~ Ferrard