Post
by fer » Wed Nov 09, 2011 2:01 pm
Halted
Delta FTL: Fer
|- Some people (look, they all died, okay?)
This is one of the first missions ever written for Folk, and I wrote it. And I hate players, see? That's why I give them bolt action rifles and start them off on the other side of some buildings from a convoy of Takistani soldiers with FN FALs and machine-guns and technicals and a burning desire to kill everyone in the village so they can get home in time to play BF3.
So get this, comrades: you're not supposed to survive. And to begin with, everything went to plan (my plan, not comrade Wolfenswan's plan), because comrade Mort died instantly thanks to a negligent discharge, and most of my fireteam was killed as we moved to the north-east corner of the village. And then a totally unacceptable thing happened: we started to win.
Comrade Wolfenswan had effectively formed us up as a line to push westward, rolling up the enemy as we went. I missed much of the action thanks to a wound, but when I joined Charlie FT on the south side of town the fight was almost over. We engaged some stragglers on the high ground to the south, then fell back to the minaret. With some slight disbelief I realised that the enemy was beaten, possibly completely (though we only needed to kill 50% to meet our mission objective). There was a orderly boarding of trucks and other vehicles, after which we headed to the exfiltration point. Congratulations to all the comrades. Curse your bloody but effective methods!
Cordonblufor
We ran out of slots on the BLUFOR side, but didn't have nearly enough players to do this as an adversarial. So comrade Alpha and I picked slots in the crew of the enemy Huey and zoomed around the city as observers instead. Sometimes that's what you have to do.
From the air we saw that BLUFOR had wasted no time in exploding an M113 to the south of the city, so after a bit of queasy observation from the deck of the Huey, I asked comrade Alpha to set me down in the village just south of Zargabad. From here I hoped to watch our brave comrades assault their way through the enemy roadblocks and onwards to freedom (although I was totally going to shoot comrade Sulphur in the back if he looked like he was even close to freedom, because some people should never be released).
And so we waited. And waited. And I don't know what BLUFOR was up to, but breaking out didn't seem to be part of the plan. The OPFOR AI at the roadblock were busily firing at something, but I couldn't see what. Gingerly, I walked up towards the front line and loitered around a machine-gun team. They were angry about the Eurozone crisis and worried about their pensions, and told me so in between sending bursts of hot lead downrange at unseen human enemies. Or possibly that was only in my head.
Anyway, comrade Alpha actually landed his Huey near the BLUFOR positions, dropped his weapon and began walking towards them. Probably to see what they'd give him to fly them out of there. They riddled him with holes. Around that time they did the same to me, as I was absent-mindedly walking towards them. However, for all this, BLUFOR remained pinned at the southern edge of the city and never broke out. Comrade Nullkigan had restored failure to its rightful place at the heart of the session.
Highway to Jahannam
DC Medic: Fer
Actually, comrade Sulphur had clearly learned something from our past failures, because in place of misguided thunder run in open topped vehicles (which should surely be called the 'Kennedy option'), came a measured, slow approach that saw us combine our gun trucks with dismounted infantry and something scarily close to co-ordinated action.
Three fireteams made up the broad front at the head of our column, with the more exotic attachments filing in behind, to be brought up as require. And the mission itself became the story of three firefights:
1. At the tractor roadblock: we were quick to get much of the platoon firing on the defenders, and quicker still to rotate left and then right to deal with foot patrols emerging from the forests. I raced forward a few times to see if anyone needed patching up, but felt rather underemployed as a medic. In the end, we mounted up again and pushed on down the road, having comprehensively dealt with the opposition.
2. At the bus roadblock: things became tougher. We bunched at the roadblock itself, and the lack of open spaces to our right and left (the woods come up to the road at this point) reduced the advantage of our technicals. In the cramped space between two woods the fighting became very intense. I can't provide a lot of detail, however, because it was at this point that comrade Sulphur ordered me to seize control of the bus and perform a three-point turn. Under fire. It was tougher than when I failed my first driving test, but only just (you wouldn't believe the amount of angry men with AK-47s that could be found in Berkhampstead during the 90s). I also patched someone up.
3. At the first town: we were cut to pieces. I really don't know what happened, except that we came under heavy fire from our left, and I was quickly required to use my medical and smoke-throwing skills. The enemy had better bullet throwing skills.
Ivory Hunt
FTL: Draakon
|- AR: Fer
|- RPG: Egg
Ah the anonymity of the ranks! I could just hide in this fireteam and eat my beans on toast whilst the great and the good hunted down the infidel M1A1. We had about 20 comrades for the ambush; what could possibly go wrong?
Wait ... you want me to what? .... you want me to carry a tripod? .... you want me to carry a tripod and operate a METIS launcher? ... and shoot at the tank? But ... beans ... and toast.
In the end I couldn't use the sights on the launcher, so comrade Draakon allowed me to find a rooftop location for my trusty RPK. I had a lovely view down the main north-south MSR, and watched the hits go in on the hapless Hummers. Thanks to the wonder of object clipping my rounds never found their way to the dismounted Americans, but comrades closer to the action seemed to be doing a fine job of finishing off the ambush, so I turned my attention to the west, just in case any patrols were coming our way from the direction of the airbase.
Through the fog I saw a handful of figures emerge, and knew at once that it was my socialist duty to fire at them wildly from the balcony, RPK at my hip like some 1980s action film goon. Frankly, the only cliched thing I didn't do was fall forward off the balcony when they hit me. Instead, I writhed around on the floor a lot and wondered if our friends at BIS really see near death experiences as a rave in a brothel (lots of red flashing lights). Not that I have ever been to a rave in a brothel.
Anyway, comrade Draakon came to help me but was also shot; it was odd, because he could still walk around, but was unable to bandage my wounds. So my near death experience became an actual death experience.
From the afterlife I particularly enjoyed the succession of hits that went in on the seemingly invulnerable tank, until finally its crew decided that running away was the better part of valour. Congratulations to the two comrades who survived (bleeding, on the floor of a compound). The mission was accomplished with a mere 90% losses. Who says farmers can't be elite, eh?