- Tomorrow's Harvest: Lily of the Valley
- Swept Zero
- Dorozhka I
- Blinded (Bravo)
- Lightpool
- VR - Avenue (Blue wins)
- VR - Avenue (Red wins)
- Cholo 2017
- *** Insert title here. ***
- Su casa es mi casa
We began with Tomorrow's Harvest: Lily of the Valley, a new S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-inspired mission from washington set in the beautiful micro-terrain of Vt5. Superbly atmospheric, and boasting a wonderful special effect in the 'radiation loop' areas, this felt as close to wondering the Zone in multi-player as I've come in a long time (perhaps ever). We crept through the landscape, checking out irradiated encampments and barns, avoiding a Monolith patrol that walked right past us as we hid in the grass, until finally we ascended the abandoned tower. From that vantage point we could see the enemy encampment to our north, where their vehicle-mounted MGs ruled out a direct approach. However, the micro-terrain was so rich that I figured we could loop around to the west, creeping right up to the buildings whilst Kefirz - our scout/sniper - watched over us from the tower with his SVD. And it actually worked, in the sense that Kefirz was able to guide our approach until he got Arma'd, and we nearly reached the camp undetected. Then there was a desperate fight at close quarters, with machine guns spraying and hand grenades flying. We took the camp, but moments later nearby Monolith forces were pouring fire into it and our numbers quickly thinned. Finally it was just harakka and me - we grabbed a sample of 'the plant' and ran westward for our lives. We'd made it ... but at heavy cost. One thing's for sure, though: washington is a mission making genius.
Next up, we were in Russian Mi-8s, landing at the head of a remote little valley in Takistan for the remake of a remake, Swept Zero. Now playing as Russian VDV troops, we were the sweeping element of a block-and-sweep operation against insurgent forces. Our leader for this mission was Kefirz, who played a medic so disillusioned / traumatised [by his evenings with Tigershark] that he had renounced the Hippocratic oath and become a rather blood-crazed small unit commander with two under-strength fireteams and a sniper at his disposal. Undeterred by the early death of our top-cover Mi-8, which exploded in the sky and fell onto a nearby hillside, we moved methodically: two fireteams providing alternating overwatch and the constant cover from washington's SVD, we moved first to the right of the valley. With the initial compounds cleared, we shifted back to the road and moved on the main settlements. There was an unfortunate friendly-fire incident (no names, Bodge), and Boberro's place at the head of Alpha 2 had to be taken by washington (who was out of rounds for his SVD by that point). We pushed on, facing fiercer resistance, but clearing the next major cluster until only one more hamlet remained between us and the blocking forces of a friendly bronegruppa. After some further exchanges of fire, the enemy was vanquished - but not before taken a few more of our number with them.
Dorozhka I was also set in Takistan, and we were still Russians (in lovely Afghanka uniforms), but this time we were ambushing a caravan of insurgent fighters. Starting in a narrow wooded valley, washington ordered us to lay tripwire mines in a grid and then scramble further downslope to the cover of some rocks. Meanwhile, harakka the sniper reported the movement of the approach enemy column over crackly 343. The thing about laying tripwire mines in depth is that you have to be careful where you walk! I know I spent a few moments screaming 'left ... left ... now right .... now directly to me .... no, right a bit' at Boberro, who foolishly went back to the crate for more! Still, we got set up without losing anyone to our own munitions, and waited. harakka reported the column moving slightly to one side of the valley, so washington concentrated us on the right. The enemy point-man walked agonisingly close to one of out tripwires, but in the end it was our bullets that did the initial damage. Then someone - Bodge? - started dropping UGL rounds into our minefield and secondary detonations shredded the remaining enemy fighters. We massacred them, with not a single loss on our side. Triple vodkas anti-freeze all round!
Blinded (Bravo), a new mission by washington set on Everon, begins with a wonderful set-piece: we're in a NATO firebase, with self-propelled artillery pieces firing and the earth shaking. Against this dramatic backdrop we left the relative safety of the HESCO barrier walls and headed down the hill to some woods. And got slaughtered. I don't know what it is about fighting AI in the woods of Everon, but they're better than us. Still, this just means we'll have to re-double our efforts next time!
Next up, we returned to the wonderful Vt5 terrain for Lightpool, an ambush mission we haven't been able to play lately because of the 'floating armour' bug on main branch. Bodge was in command for this, and came up with a neat plan to lay our ambush on a stretch of road further north of the gas station. An advantage of this approach was that the terrain on the east of the 'box' was wide open beachfront and water, in theory leaving any enemy dismounts far less cover to work with. We would also be using the Chechen tactic of leaving our MAT teams hidden in the rear, ready to rocket the tail of the enemy column after its head had been destroyed by our opening salvo. And it was a great plan. Unfortunately, we got a few things wrong in the execution: our initial charges detonated too early, sparing the lead vehicles from too much damage and causing them to disgorge most of their troops. Worse, our MAT teams had chosen to hide behind a bus stop that one of the trailing M113s ran over ... so there would be no 'rocket in the back' for our enemies. With our explosives used up, it was a straight fight between 4-5 of us and a whole platoon of GIs. And that never ends well ...
After our failure in Finland, we played a few quick adversarials. In the first round of VR - Avenue, a new one from washington, we put everyone with names beginning with 'B' on the blue side, which was so openly letterist that washington was triggered. Washington was also very dead, because Blue won the first round rather quickly. So we went for it again, and the second time around Blue was executed by the last surviving Red (me). Washington was still triggered. After that, we gave shotguns to Bodge and washington and told them to hold precinct 13 in Cholo 2017, and they duly shot Bormanov, Boberro, Kefirz and me in the face with their shotguns. Their totally OP shotguns.
And then we did something different. Boberro has a new mission, as yet unnamed, which is set on Porto. And it's basically this:
Except instead of killing terrorists, or saving hostages, we were fighting our way to a hotel where we ransacked every room looking for 5 kilos of pure cocaine. We were pretty successful too, but then we decided to pick a right with an orbiting enemy helicopter, and that's when things started to go downhill quickly. Having massacred untold numbers of local cops as we crept fought our way from the harbour to the hotel, the town was now filling up with soldiers as Bodge and Boberro - the last of our number - made a run for the boats. With weapons seemingly stuck on full-auto, exploding trucks and fireballs, the mission had gone full 80s. Amazingly, they made it to the boats and high-tailed it out of there over choppy black waters. And then the screen said MISSION FAILED. How very Folk.
I don't want to talk about Su casa es mi casa because I am too sad about the fact that both Kefirz and I were shot whilst still in our parachutes, but I can tell you that everyone else lived to liberate the villa. Congratulations to Bormanov for his first successful command!
