- Dusters
- Abu I
- Altis Greens
- Siniy I
- Hasty
- Busted
Anyway, on to the missions: and we started with a new one from Teizan, Dusters, which saw our mixed platoon of players and AIs (controlled via High Command) lead an assault on a Takistani town infested with rebels. The mission began with a lot of artillery shells flying through the air. Some of that was good: the shells that landed in the town and vapourised some of its rebel captors; some bad: the rounds that Kefirz called in on himself, vapourising our entire SL element (including medic). So that was a good start! I was in BrightCandle's fireteam, along with Shock and Tigershark. We lost Tiger early on, before completing our mad dash across the open ground to the town. There is a picture floating about of me supposedly 'looting' Tiger's body - but the truth is, our SOP is to recover ARs if their operators die (carelessly). Once we entered the town, it was building clearing with a twist: not everyone was armed - we had to carefully avoid shooting unarmed men in the town, even if we didn't care for their fashion tastes. It got even more confusing when some were armed with pistols - a type of adversary that we're not used to dealing with (as Shock remarked). I had particular trouble with one adversary towards the end, who didn't seem to want to die despite me putting 2 RPGs into his hut - I think eventually BrightCandle finished him off with a GL? Eventually we cleared the town and victory was declared. Nice work by Teizan - I really loved the use of civilians in the buildings, and would like to know how you did that.
Next up was a new mission I had written especially for Kefirz: Abu I (about Abu 'Special' K, who is a humble shcool teacher by day, and ruthless incompetent Mujahedeen leader in his spare time). Unfortunately, I had fucked up the radio frequency assignments in ACRE radio cosplay dress up settings, so we had to do some Boberro magic involving shooting Kefirz and making him take his clothes off before the mission really got going. However, once that was all sorted, Kefirz was able to get back to walking (riding?) down the convoy and picking out targets for us. Soon enough, the order came for us to deploy to the green-zone north-west of the convoy and mount the high ground. Kefirz planned for us to take the bunkers first, and then rain fire down on the convoy. MAT team managed to illegally teleport almost directly onto an enemy position, but I'm not sure how much that influenced what happened next. What I do know is that as we climbed the hillside enemy helicopters began to arrive. My SAM gunner, wolfenswan, tried to attack a helicopter that was coming in to land very close to us, but lost his lock the moment after he fired and his missle slammed into the ground. Then we came under fire from helibourne forces on the western slopes, and were forced to take cover. Eventually, most of us found ourselves in the big bunker on the corner where the two valleys meet at a sort of 'T' junction. The enemy still had armour from the convoy, and plenty of troops from the helibourne QRF. We had ... a lot of bolt-action rifles. It didn't end well for us.
Siniy I was very successfully commanded by 'military adviser' Shock, who was also in his first session with us. The start of this mission is rather 'on rails', and true to the briefing most of us went to the BOF position on the hill-top whilst the mortar team set up some way behind. Since the mortar team had been in my fireteam, I was effectively left leading a 3-man element with ARs Halop and Tigershark. We put up a reasonable level of fire on the open ground to our north-west and west, but both Tiger and myself were wounded and had to be saved by Kefirz. After that, we displaced a little downslope to the cover of some rocks, and looked for targets of opportunity to out west and north-west. When the intensity of the enemy fire died down, Shock ordered us forward to a position mid-way to the Blue House. From there, we supported the other fireteam's advance onto the Blue House's compound, before joining them ourselves for the final sweep. The defenders had all been killed by mortar, GL and rifle fire, and I think we accomplished the victory with no player losses! The fates of our friendly AI, however, were less rosy: I believe they experienced a 50% KIA rate.
Hasty is a mission I wrote, so have never before led, and we have never beaten. I wanted to try out a defence that I had in mind when I wrote the mission: infantry staying south of the riverbed, IFV well back on high ground, making shoot-and-scoot runs from behind the trees. Teizan and Boberro led Alphas 1 and 2 in the town, Kefirz commanded Alpha Vic on the hill-top. Halop - brave Halop - was sent forward of the riverbed to be our one scout (at FP Baltimore). When the first enemy vehicle came in we scored our first success: the infantry in the town managed to destroy it before it got over the bridge. Thereafter, our IFV was able to pop up and strafe the enemy infantry on the far treeline (north-east of the village), severely denting their numbers and blunting that attack. It seemed to be going well, but then I got reports of enemy movement behind our positions in the town. Alpha Vic was sent hunting but to little avail and returned to a high-ground position that they had picked out for themselves. A second enemy vic appeared but our IFV was able to kill it with a missile. So far, so ALB. Then BrightCandle appeared next to me on the hill-top (I had stayed on the high ground to observe) and I wondered why Alpha Vic's driver was standing next to me and not sitting in his vehicle. Apparently something had exploded our IFV - what, we'll never know - and thrown BrightCandle clear (presumably Kefirz had been toasted). We thought about joining the others in the town and then noticed an enemy soldier on the road south of the village (and directly west of us, downslope). After dealing with this enemy we were forced back to the hill-top (and its low stone walls) by some enemy shots. We didn't know where the enemy was, but we knew we wanted to get to the rest of the force. Faced with the choice of running down the hillside, or driving down it in a big metal target ... we opted for the big metal target. Like some 80s movie we jumped into the vic, me asking BrightCandle to call in our movement on the 343. Of course when we rolled up on Boberro's fireteam we realised that frequency issues meant they never got our warning that friendlies were coming in (and fast). Still, nobody died. By now the enemy assault had petered out, so I sent Teizan's men north to check that end of the village, and Boberro's men south to clear-out any remaning flankers. Victory!
Final mission, Busted, took us comfortably past midnight UK but our numbers were still great. In this new one from Boberro we had to steal some documents from a jungle hideout and then liberate some 'product' from a seaside warehouse before escaping in fast ribs (and on jet skis). Teizan was in command, and gave orders that one man from each fireteam would walk ahead of his comrades with a 1950s era flashlight as we navigated a jungle path at night. It was super atmospheric, but probably not wonderful for poor Bormanov (my nominated torch-bearer). We took the hideout without losses: Egg's Alpha 2 as main attackers whilst my Alpha 1 acted as BOF from higher ground to the left of the advance. Then we resumed our jungle conga until we reached the little seaside town. At first we were successfull in infiltrating: my fireteam made it to the nearest building and Egg's bounded past into a hotel. Then it all went noisy and violent. Teizan wanted Alpha 1 to shift north to where he was on the dockside, but I'd managed to get injured - so I sent Wolfenswan with the rump of my fireteam and joined them a little later. After a short delay, Egg's team joined us and we all pushed up the seafront towards the warehouse. Unfortunately, some enemies had got in behind us and Zitron and Teizan were soon laying injured in the open. Egg's guys had the warehouse complex so I took Alpha 1 back to recover my AR and SL, jinking a block inland to try and flank the enemy. I shot our AI medic by mistake (I totally didn't expect to find him when I rounded the corner), but we did recover our two downed men. We returned to the warehouse but almosty immediately heard the sounds of enemy vics coming in towards us. Thankfully, Teizan didn't want to stay and fight: Egg's men loaded the 'product' into boats whilst we covered, and then we all headed out to the open sea in fast ribs and jet skis. In hindsight, we should have asked Boberro to play this over TS:
See you all next week!
But at least they were pinpoint accurate 
