- Thankless
- Metla I
- Svinets I
- Outpost Kamenka
- Tomorrow's Harvest: Lily of the Valley
- Guardians I
But not in Thankless. We're not officially adopting Apex until the start of May, but everyone on the server had it so we took a preview trip in Toppometer's mission. Which is very, very hard. I'm not sure a single member of our force made it to the airstrip perimeter fence, though we came within hand grenade range. Sadly, the grenades came from inside the perimeter, along with some accurate rifle and machine gun fire. Finally, an M113 appeared.
Next up, we pushed Tigershark into the role of leader and premiered Metla I (this means 'broom' in Russian, or so Google Translate told me). Clever members of 17 Рота might have thought this was Swept in another valley. Which it is, kinda. But you know these valleys are a) all the same and b) all full of insurgents that Moscow needs us to liquidate. Methodically, with A1 in the green zone, A2 on the southern high ground, and 'whispering Bormanov' the sniper on even higher ground to the north, we worked our way eastward until the enemy had been driven from the valley. And none of us died, either. It was impressive!
Less impressive was the lack of fuel and ammunition for the BMP-2 in Svinets I - but that's because I am a sadist it's part of the story, harakka. Still, CO washington improvised, adapted and overcame: stealthily occupying the town before something went awry and we were in a full blown firefight with the roadblock. An enemy armoured car rolled up ... and was exploded by our single RPG round. It was great. Then there were more bullets and, after taking 1-2 casualties, we were victorious. Not perfect, but not bad.
Next, we found ourselves back in the desert at Outpost Kamenka, with the evacuation bird more than 10 minutes out and dozens of enemies advancing upon us from all sides. Moscow would have been proud, for there were heroes in every bunker. Of note, wolfenswan slaughtered over 50 enemy fighters before perishing on a landmine as he moved - PKM still in hand - to kill insurgents that had made it to our inner wire. Our commander, Kefirz, manned the mortars personally, landing many successful rounds on the approaching hordes. At the end, when the rescue bird was on the pad, rotors whirring, I found him collapsed over a mortar tube. He died so we might live.
Or die in the next mission. I don't know. One of the two. I know where we went next: the beautiful micro-terrain of Vt5 in washington's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. hommage, Tomorrow's Harvest: Lily of the Valley. As wolfenswan said, some of us have never left The Zone. In fact, so of us are still there now, because we were shot by Monolith troops. But not everyone perished: wolfenswan led us on a northerly route that allowed us to attack the enemy outpost from upslope. With MG and sniper cover from kefirz and Commander Teizan, our party eventually overran the outpost and grabbed a sample of the strange plant. Victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat.
Finally, a handful of us took up our bolt-action rifles and raided the blasphemous Soviet archaeological digs in Guardians I. We killed a lot of poor conscripts, but eventually discovered that the Russian version of Time Team goes into the field with tents made of Kevlar. And they sleep with automatic weapons under their cots.
Thank you to everyone who came along. It's so great to see new faces like Commander Teizan, and to welcome back Folk legends like wolfenswan. I guess you'll be in the loving hands of Boberro next week, as it's my birthday so I'm going back to the countryside to play with a tractor. However, a few important reminders:
- There is a major update to the repo available ... now ... so set your Swifty running; we aren't adding things: we're updating RHS and CUP (and maybe even ACRE2) to the very latest versions. Anyway, start updating already!
- We're adopting Apex from the start of May. Get ready for Tigerstrip uniform cosplay, M16A1s, and plenty of terrible Apocalypse Now references. And fighting the enemy in a jungle setting with torrential rain.
