Republic of Folk

Missions:

• Overrun
• Footloose
• Idiots II
• Airport Salient

After-Party:

• Holy Stones
• Raidolo
• Racethunder XL

Tonight saw 33 brave comrades arrive on Altis and attempt to bring glory to the Party. We were brave, we were aggressive, we were stealthy; but most of all we were fun. Thank you to those who stepped up and took leadership slots, and to everyone for slotting so smoothly. There were new faces, and faces from our past - all of which were great to see (or hear, if we're being strictly accurate). Recently, we've started to see our Sunday numbers stabilise in the 30s and that's allowed us to slow the tempo of missions ever so slightly - I think we're starting to find what makes Arma 3 work for us, and hope you're enjoying it too. Thank you for coming to the session.

Things began with the mission we're not supposed to win, comrade Carson's Overrun. Despite pessimism from Party High Command, the platoon managed to hold out for nearly 25 minutes before calling a 'broken arrow'. Sadly, the broken arrow was itself broken, and crashed to the ground in a ball of flame. Next up, we played comrade Audiox's versatile adversarial, Footloose, which featured some awesome long-range exchanges of fire. In the end, BLUFOR managed to combine suppressive fire and flanking movement to clinch the mission, but not before taking punishing losses. After the frantic atmosphere of that mission, we played something new: Idiots II, a re-mix of Idiots SE that transplanted the action to the Vietnam-esque swampland of Limnis. Our forces crept stealthily through the marshes and reeds, playing cat-and-mouse with enemy patrols, before finally destroying the enemy AAA units. Off the back of this victory, we rolled into comrade Kale's mission, Airport Salient. With brave support from 3 Ifrits, and a slightly questionable intervention by our own attack helo, we fought bravely to recapture the main airport and a nearby power plant from FIA hands. I'm not sure what happened in the after-party, since I had to hand over to comrade Ferrard Carson at that point, but my guess is that it involved karts ...



As ever, please post your thoughts, feedback, screenshots and video here - comrade YouTube Hero SuperU doesn't just produce our video idents, but provides leadership and guidance to propaganda artists. We also have a new YouTube channel that he manages so if you have any content you think should feature then let him know and he will sort you out, for more info check out this thread!; more guidance on video editing for Folk ARPS is provided by comrade Ferrard Carson. Posts in the AAR threads really help us (the hosts and mission makers), both with understanding how we can improve the experiences, and showing potential comrades what our sessions are like.

Team Airblade go!

Overrun
FIA CO
Set up in a, considering our numbers, solid defensive position, we held out rather neatly until the vehicles got there. As a note to future COs, I can only advise liberal utilisation of FAC and FAO, as well as keeping an eye on time lapsed. Or, you know, hole up in the church and see what happens.

Footloose
AAF B1 FTL
With the fireteam reduced to Pickers and myself, we were the first Bravo element to mount up and reach our designated position. We were also the only element to reach our designated position. With all of Bravo, and all of flanking force out, we were treated to some 1337 pro MLG action before the tragic, tragic conclusion. I get the feeling that FIA have a rather favourable terrain disposition in this one.

Idiots II
CSAT BSL
Losing two men in the drop (Just two. We're improving!) Bravo scoped out the area, and ventured forth from the south, with Alpha raising all hell from the east. As we reached our target, it came to light that we had neglected to bring any high explosives with us. Luckily, the Party pulled through, and replenished our supplies through the use of our top secret, experimental teleporting technology. In light of the, er, lacklucter performance of the Party's rather unfortunately named Parachute Crash-Course, some comrades did bring up the question of why such technology was not used to transport the comrades themselves. This, as always, comrades, is down to the scarcity of resources available, caused no doubt by sabotage by our enemies. And any rumors of a light-green glow emanating from the teleported satchels is, of course, counterrevolutionary nonsense, and should be reported to comrade Commissar.

Overrun
Took some GPM to the face about 2 seconds after calling out "oh shit it's a Strider" (the usual)

Footloose
FIA B SL
After attempting an early flanking manouver from our overwatch position which reduced one fire team to it's leader we provided some supporting fire and spotting for Alpha squad. After alpha slowly died off Airblade took his fireteam down to join up with the remnants and push in on the HQ. After briefly providing some overwatch and spotting targets for the advancing troops who were being suppressed from the HQ I gathered my legs beneath my and set of on a double time flanking manouver to come neatly up on the camped out AAF forces and making short work of clearing them out (they did keep walking into my crosshairs as they came to investigate who had just died, which was convenient). Unfortunately despite spotting the last enemy first (sandwiched between my location and the rest of the FIA) I failed to make the killing shot. Fortunately one of Bravo was able to avenge my death with a pistol! A very fun match!

Idiots II
CSAT A3 FTL
We had good fun pushing up to the edge of the swamp and spotting patrols for the rest of Alpha who were slightly ahead. An enemy helicopter then decided to land 50 meters behind and decant a squad of infantry. The result was a large pile of enemy bodies, a dancing helicopter (AI doesn't do autorotation) and no casualties. We then snuck into the swamp between Bravo and Alpha taking our a few lone enemy infantry and blowing up one of the SPAAGs.

Airport Salient
IFV 1 Gunner
Good round. Sorry to any greenback allies reading this but I might have shot a few of your buddies (under orders). At some point our helicopter decided we looked intimidating (despite being roughly where we had been all round) and took us out with some excessive explosions... this is why we can't have nice things to play with more often

Holy Stones
Azoz was a bit slow of the mark and left us to capture the stones while busy killing our 'distractions' outside the bunker.

Raidolo
I tried to be sneaky and hide in a doorway outside the compound as to catch some police off-gaurd but was promptly team-killed, presumably for abandoning my post.

Overrun
Deployed as Bravo Squad Leader
We 10 brave souls took up positions watching the Eastern and Southern approaches to town.

With the first wave, we were evenly matched - about two fireteams of enemies came at us, one from each of our assigned directions. They went down hard, the eastern enemies cut down as they crested the ridge, the southern ones lured into the street and gunned down at close range. No losses.

The second wave came at us, twice as strong as before, with an HMG Strider roaming around the place. We fought them off, block-to-block, and three of Bravo were felled, but MAT2 emerged, charged the HMG Strider to the east... and got eviscerated without a second thought. Huh.

The third wave came. A Strider was parked outside my corner building when an artillery shell plunged through the roof and cored the house, bringing it down around me. I think parts of B1 were killed instantly by the blast, but I was fortunate enough to unceremoniously tumble down with the wreckage right in front of said Strider. It blew my brains out.

In the end, the survivors huddled in the church (seems to be a common theme to this mission) and called in a Broken Arrow airstrike... that got shot down itself

Swarming enemies took care of the last of us, kneeling behind the alter in ultimately fruitless supplication.



Footloose
Deployed as FIA Alpha Squad Lead / Acting Platoon Lead
As the FIA lead, I spread my troops out - Bravo received the objective of "Attain high ground and spot the enemy movements," while I kept Alpha close, setting up an ambush on the valleys between our two outposts. Alpha came into almost immediate contact, when maybe a fireteam of AAF charged forward in vehicles. We finished them off, but not before taking egregious losses of our own (including what I suspect was some indirect grenade fire from the AAF home base - very smart and creative, SuperU!).

After their failed attack, AAF gave up hope of winning the battle and instead adopted a completely defensive posture, curling up in a fetal position even as FIA naturally spread into a concave arc, with Bravo uphill to the south and Alpha cresting the ridge to the AAF's east.

The tactically optimal situation, however, didn't last. As individual AAF soldiers attempted (and failed) to charge into the teeth of FIA, the defenders were cut down in detail. Amassing FIA forces on the ridge to the east, Blip2 sent some lone dudes off to the southwest in an attempt to flank - and flank they did. Of the last four AAF, three of them were cowering in their home base, walls rattling from FIA MG fire, when they died very abruptly from rifle-fire to their rear. The last man alive for FIA managed to take more than his share of enemies, but was ignobly ended by a single pistol-shot from 30 paces. Get that pistoleer a medal! (And then execute him for running out of ammo on his SAW)

Idiots II
Deployed as Alpha 3 Fireteam Lead
We parachuted into the AO, all piss and vinegar, only to almost instantly spot one of our targets. Now all we had to do was cross 600m of foggy, foggy swamp-land and victory would be ours!

In dense foliage and close-quarters encounters in the fog, the points go to the dudes who acquire and shoot first, so everyone had their guns up, and we waded through the reeds and brush and waist-deep water, slowly and cautiously. Our night-vision was a godsend, letting us see torch-wielding enemies before they could detect us, and thrice my element brought their guns to bear and obliterated enemy patrols with nary a whisper. Special props go to Dan, whose eagle-eye spotted these offending contacts first every time.

Having suddenly remembered that we packed our satchels in that other pouch, me and Eduardo snuck up to the Panther we had found and blew it sky-high. Some minutes later, as our command structure was struggling to absorb the loss of our CO, Bravo finished the job on the last of our three targets and victory was declared!



Airport Salient
Deployed as Alpha Fireteam Lead Grenadier
I saw the FIA troopers I'd been shooting at 200m away obliterated by heavy caliber cannon fire. "Hey, there's the chopper! Everybody wave to the chopper!"
I saw the AAF troopers I'd been supporting 100m away obliterated by heavy caliber cannon fire. "Uh... that's okay, no one likes those guys anyways. Right? Just keep waving, the chopper is--"
I saw Dan, my battle-buddy 2m away obliterated by heavy caliber cannon fire. "--COMPLETELY PSYCHOTIC HOLY SHIT CEASE FIRE!"

Later on, we took our second vehicle loss in the platoon. From 20m away, I looked around and said, "I don't see any AT dudes around here - definitely none with a missile that would sound like that. In fact, that sounded like... a... chopper. That chopper. Right there."

"Are we sure that isn't being piloted by MI6 agents?"



(seriously though, if you're going to take a toy slot, please know how to use that toy to enhance the experience of other Folk ARPS comrades. There were maybe three or four other people who wanted to fly or gun on that thing, and it's a bit galling to see it grossly misused)

Holy Stones
Deployed as Azoz-For Alpha 2 Fireteam Lead
So... I totally shot AirBlade in the face. He was laying aimed fire down on me, and I was juking around right behind a fence on full-autofire with my aim all jacked up from running a huge loop around the Eastern flank.





~ Ferrard

Damnit Ferrard... i was so good at repressing those memories...
that luckshot... and just when still dealing with the PTSD that the CAS had given us a mission earlier. (and my challenge i declared that mission still stands!)

that film footage is awesome.

Special thanks to SuperU, Kendit and Gemoxy, who supported me realy good on my first time as a CO on a full force coop on Idiots II. You made this a realy good experience for me.

Idiots 2:
Alpha Squad Leader
Was fun.Probably many people hate me SQL,but meh.It did sort itself out at the end.



Overrun
JTAC CAS
Low flying in a jet is dangerous not only because of crash risk.