Many thanks to the 34 brave comrades who come to witness the end of an era in the last Vanilla A2 session. With a mix of missions old and new, I think we can safely say we gave A2 the grand send off it deserves. Our requests and "What's this? Lets play it!" afterparty even went on into the wee small hours (aka nearly 3am) with a handful of comrades. Many thanks to all those who came for the final hurrah!
3am?! Wow... How were those last few missions? Was there a dry eye (read: sober player) in the room?
I played the first three missions only but had a great time. My first confirmed kills - and those while I was bleeding out on the dusty ground! I'll definitely miss playing Chernarus and Takistan with big groups...
Halted: I didn't expect the enemy to start firing on us quite that fast! I made it past the first few houses but then was shot up in a courtyard, together with most of my team. While I was writhing around, a number of bad guys ran in front of my Lee Enfield, so I would've been stupid not to do my bit for victory, right? Even with very wobbly crosshairs I got two or three of them before dying of bloodloss.
Zargadam: Like Gorillas in the Mist, if the gorillas had been armed with automatic weapons. My mistake was thinking that if I couldn't see the enemy from that rooftop, they couldn't see me. Well, they saw me well enough to ventilate me, but just as Rook was about to do his healy magic, the mission ended with a victory. Yay!
Clear Skies: Atmospheric! By which I mean 'dark'. But atmospheric! After a quick road trip and an early skirmish across an open field in the moonlight, we took to the woods, which were creepy, dark and quiet, until the bad guys decided that there was more mileage in shooting me in the head. How did the mission end? I had to call it a day after hanging around as a dead guy for ten, fifteen minutes.
Anyway - looking forward to finally joining an Arma 3 session with you guys... and hoping that there'll be some impromptu sessions in Chernarus and Takistan in the not-too-distant future!
"Until now we scraped along the ground like rats, but from now on, we soar. Like eagles. Yeah. LIKE EAGLES... ON... POGO STICKS." - Grim Fandango
I didn't play much on this session. Had to leave early and when we played, I spent most of the time dead.
Zargadam (A2 AR)
We got to the dam, we cleared it. Soon after someone attacked us from our side, but it probably was alpha 3. Nevertheless I popped someone there and they killed someone in our team. There was M113 on the other side of the dam, supposedly clearly visible, but I didn't see anything and anyone. It did see me though and shot me through cover.
Clear Skies
We dismounted, as we did I got taken to the spectator screen.
Cocktails (Party guests, A1)
We were on the roof, grenades landed there.
Karavan (A2 AR)
We repelled group that attacked from the east, while other teams were engaged in some heavy fighting south. Enemy showed on the hill to our west, that was terrible place really, since it was very steep and close to us. Our FTL got killed and someone else was wounded. When I tried to help him another enemy shown up, and we shot each another. When Toppometer finaly came to help us, I bled to death in his arms.
Colonels (Azoz side, A3 AR)
We dismounted broken truck and Azoz got killed soon after.
Screenshots from Clear Skies:
Screenshots from Cocktails. Dancemoox looking for anyone to kill after he conquered the villa only to find no one alive:
Screenshots from Karavan. Not Stevie Wonder at all visibility:
Thanks very much Satire for hosting, do remember comrades this isn't the end for Chernarus, Takistan, Zargabad and the others. Vanilla sessions may be moving onto A3 but V+ on Fridays is staying firmly rooted in A2 for some time yet (A3 lacks sexy DMP camo that I require to be covered in at least once a week).
So if you wish to stick with A2 a little longer please do come along to V+ on Friday 1950 GMT. The mod pack is super easy to install and ACRE adds to the experience greatly.
With play with six download the @FA_V+ mod pack manually, start a new preset and add the mod pack as a local volume then add any client side goodies you'd normally use.
Anyway onto the AAR
Halted - CO Medic
Mission start, and people tab in after loading to shoot their comrades in the face, I spend a little time healing the unfortunate victims up then get shot by dismounting TK army guys..
Zargadam - MMG Gunner
Fog, not my friend. Once dismounted I pushed onto the dam, sneaky Bluefor killed A2 on the rise north east and started to fire at us on the dam. Unfortunately I swung my PKM around and blasted at the hillside with Figgis abandon killing the lone survivor of A2. Once I'd murdered my comrades through the fog I turned my attention to the west and let rip with another burst of suppressive fire. The M113 homed in on my tracers and I was quickly dead.
Clear Skies - CO
The little UAZ that could, sadly I left its protective embrace to heal up Tired Hippo and was gunned down. Homer my driver without legs wasn't able to drag his hadicabable self over to plug the bullet wounds in time so I bled out. Victory however was secured just at the cost of 95% of my force....
I do rather enjoy the pictures Boberro
Cocktails - TK Army Medic
After stopping for a kebab on the way in Ice fell into a meat sweat coma behind the wheel, I jumped over and drove at the Villa. Dashing inside and executing wounded party guests pretending to be upturned turtles I moved onto the roof, and began to ignore house calls.. I executed a TK Cadet who dared storm onto the roof (seriously guys warn people before blundering out). With the ferrero rocher secure I went to 'assist' a Cadet with some healing smoke and suffering ending bullets.. Then the mission ended.
Karavan - Hind Pilot
My eyes they see nothing, its all zis fog, oh hello hillside.
The Colonels - Aziz
Ninja plan that wasn't required as Azoz delivered himself to my medic for execution.
Vintage Part 1 - MMG Gunner
Vintage Part 2 - CO
I killed more dudes running them over than with my FAL..
ChernOLO - Echo Senior Officer
I fired at Antler, my pellets decided to be all wimpy and hit the building rather than him, and I died.
dancemoox wrote:So if you wish to stick with A2 a little longer please do come along to V+ on Friday 1950 GMT. The mod pack is super easy to install and ACRE adds to the experience greatly.
*installing the mod pack on the slim chance that he'll ever be able to join on a Friday evening*
"Until now we scraped along the ground like rats, but from now on, we soar. Like eagles. Yeah. LIKE EAGLES... ON... POGO STICKS." - Grim Fandango
So I haven't been playing Arma in quite a while, and my surviving skills have gotten a bit rusty I think. Still, I had a blast and I think I played more Arma in one session yesterday than in all of 2013
The only downside is that all the missions kind of blur together, but let me try.
Halted
I got shot five seconds after the mission started, got into what seemed like cover. Some nice person healed me up, only for me to be shot again mere seconds later and then bleeding out. I took a few pot shots with wobbly crosshairs though.
Zargadam
OPFOR Alpha 3 was tasked into providing Overwatch from a nearby forest. There were enemies in that forest before us. We all died.
Clear Skies
Oh man this mission. As Bravo medic under Toppo, everything was going swimmingly. When we arrived in that forest however...after a short while of "waiting for alpha to get to their positions", Bravo 1 and 2 drew fire. Since B1 was quite a distance away, I went to B2 first and patched them up, then went to B3 who had wounded as well. This was not an easy task, because communications had already more or less broken down at that point (Toppo was already dead I think) and for some reason I think my VON had stopped working. The even harder task, however, was getting to B1 who had been complaining all the time about how much they need a medic (sorry guys!) because I didn't have a map marker for Bravo Medic for some reason, so on my way to B1 (who were in a "reasonably safe spot", yeah right") I was suddenly swarmed by people. Sadly, they were no friendlies. Upon looking around, I saw a technical where our original firebase was. Believing everything to be lost, I shot two or three AI before getting killed myyself.
I later realised that the technical was CO, but I guess that's what happens without a SL
Cocktails
Bravo was defending the first floor of the villa. Lots of grenades were lobbed at the house, and I thought I was in a reasonably safe spot. When Sam shouted "run", I didn't run fast enough.
Karavan
Again Medic under Toppo (second time's the charm!), I was running around between compounds getting lost (partly), when I missed a door and ran into a wall instead. Someone with very good aim promptly shot me in the head.
Colonels
Azoz was the first casualty of the mission. Yeah.
Vintage 1
I was stuck with a bloody Lee Enfield on some hill behind a rock that gave very little cover. I lasted two minutes or so.
Vintage 2
This being a defending mission gave us a bit more time until our inevitable demise. After going to our designated defensive position, Awall, our FTL deemed it unworthy and we went a bit further north. Turns out Brock could see just as much as we could, because they had enemies 10m away from them who started engaging us. After doing Brock's work for them, we were engaged from the north, where there was supposed to be a friendly platoon or something (Don't know if they just went home or all died) and we proceeded to Spectator mode.
Chernolo
I give you
Afterparty - Not sure if I can get all those I participated in together, but I'll try.
Taking Flight
We were tasked with securing a damaged C130, get some fuel and repair trucks, refuel and repair and fly away into the sunset. For this, we were started in three armed Humvees. Sounds fun? Is fun. Securing the C130 was easy enough, although the hay proved deadly for one unlucky person. CO planned to get trucks from the airfield to the north, so we blazed there in our humvees without ammunition (trigger happiness!). We found a truck (don't remember which one), and after taking lots of casualties while looking for the other truck we needed, we regrouped in a hangar. At this point, CO was dead, and the one truck we had found was missing. Thankfully, our new glorious leader Spitnam had gone mad and started hearing voices (first one, then two), telling him that the truck was near the airfield. The voices also led us to another truck, saving us lots of time driving around. Happily driving to the C130, we didn't realise the voices were not as clever as they, or we thought. Because when we arrived, we had three trucks. Unfortunately for us, two were full with fuel and one full with ammo. Great. That's what you get for being mad I suppose. CO gave the order to refuel the plane and fly it into hell anyway. This worked better than anyone expected, and after one moment of thinking the plane would crash, they brought it home safely, leaving Ardyvee and me behind in Chernarus. The bastards.
Just Deserts
This mission was played in a plain desert (which was nice for having more fps than 25), our target was an outpost that, when attacked, would soon get jet reinforcements. We had three jeeps with AGS-90 (this translates to "grenade launcher thingies") to the southeast of the compound and a detachment of AA to the northeast of the compound. I was gunner on one of the grenade launchers, and upon arriving at a fairly good firing position, we realised AA was not even close to the compound because they didn't know east from west. After teaching them "Never Eat Santas Wedges" (or something), OP told us to attack anyway, which we did...with mixed success. The compound was really far away, and I don't think anyone knew which grenade hits were his, so it's really hard to know whether your aim is off or not. Still, I'm sure we killed lots of baddies, until the jet came and killed us all because AA somewhere else, pissing off Santa.
Babysitters
I died during this mission while exiting a landed helicopter. I love Arma. Aim of the mission was to defend a location (and a journalist) against an onslaught of baddies, and then to drive the journalist to safety, this being a UN outpost. Lots of UN jokes and rambo style journalism ensued, and the humvee (or jeep or whatever) that finally escaped through the enemy lines was not only driven by the journalist, there was only one UN soldier remaining.
Stillborn Eagle
We played this two times. The first time around, one insert went well (and let's face it, heli inserts are really cool) while the other didn't. We cleared lots of compounds like the badasses we are, until the mission borked out. Second time, we had to force the insert (by shooting the littlebird pilot), which caused the death of two good men, but at least we could finish this mission, not sure whether we won or not though.
Stary Sober
The mission was to kill a Tunguska west of Stary, then clear Stary of all baddies. The first part went reasonably well, Iceraiser had an obscenely armed helicopter that made short work of the Tung as well as three T-something tanks that were nearby (which was good, because we didn't have any other AT weapons). Unfortunately, my fireteam was wounded at roughly the same time at the western end of Stary, so we all just bled out in glory.
Thirith wrote:*installing the mod pack on the slim chance that he'll ever be able to join on a Friday evening*
There are branches of The Party that can arrange for you to be available on Friday nights Thirith. Just let us know names and locations of the people/places that are stopping you...
I make videos starring you lot. To see yourself live or die just click here
I have no clue what the differences between Opfor and Indfor are half the time, so you may need to interchange the terms 50% of the time to make any sense of my ramblings.
Halted
After following my glorious leader out into the street, and watching him get shot, I was then subsequently shot. Much fun was had watching the last remaining AI and our (stolen?) technical continually fail to spot each other at the end. Indfor victory.
Zargadam (The team that wasn't Blufor)
Not much happened until someone called out enemy positions in trees to the North as we approached the dam, which were entirely obliterated with surprisingly little resistance. Some seconds later, it was pointed out that these trees were Alpha 3's assigned location, and so it turns out that my most successful shots of the day were all friendly fire. Died to the shots of the seemingly psychic US soldiers, none of whom I ever saw, but by this point they had mostly surrounded us. Indfor/Opfor loss.
Clear Skies (A1)
Dear god, things were actually visible this time! This mission was played with my lights off, which actually made it quite fun - it's also very tense throughout, knowing there's a constant risk of either the enemy appearing out of the trees in front of you, or those mysterious dark shapes you're about to shoot at being friendly. Much of the mission was spent listening to Bravo explode horribly in the distance, whilst Alpha pretty much walked right into the Tunguska, which went boom. The retreat went pretty well for Alpha 1, but A2 and A3 ran into a bunch of enemy fire from their side of the trees as we approached our car park. A1 were ordered to find the nearest vehicles and run away, which we did very effectively (excluding the one man who accidentally ejected from my truck at full speed). Indfor victory.
Cocktails (UN Charlie)
UN Charlie mostly sat around listening to everyone else die horribly to All The Grenades™. I mostly ran around like a headless chicken until shot, then rolled around like a headless, legless chicken until shot again. UN loss.
Karavan (Defenders - Indfor?)
Sat on a roof randomly screaming "enemy movement to the East!". Pretty sure we got sneaked up on from over a hill behind us to West, though, and I ended up very dead very quickly. Amusement was then had watching our first helicopter run into a hill, and our second helicopter get RPG'd on landing. However, by this point we had whittled them enemypeoples down to one remaining man (after some nice flanking of someone with a PKM), who attempted to follow our orderly retreat and mow us down, but was mown down himself. Victorious firing of AKs into the sky commenced. Defender (Indfor?) victory.
Colonels (Aziz side)
I ran for a bit and then we won.
Vintage Part 1 (Opfor(?) Bravo, I think)
Spawned in on a hillside under the concentrated fire of an enemy squad and MG nest. Rolled around on the ground for a bit until someone informed me you can actually move by using the arrow keys, and then regrouped with my SL. Ran around until we ended up behind a burning tank, tried to take a potshot with some RPG I looted, and was returned to rolling around until we were finally killed off. Opfor LossOpfor Glorious Victory.
Vintage Part 2 (Alpha?)
We hid behind some rocks and shot at people. SL freaked out over a tank circling around us, until it was pointed out that it was friendly. Shot a fair number of the counterattackers, but then we were surrounded and died gloriously. Opfor Loss.
ChernOLO
I saw a guy and then he shot me, but then people shot him. Admins Loss.
Taking Flight (A1)
Sat in the HMMWV's machine gun and killed many enemies in a glorious fashion, as our driver continually rammed everything in sight whilst exclaiming "this isn't how it usually happens!". Our detailed plan of attack eventually devolved into a cavalry charge, so we drove down to the C130 and secured it easily, but depleted our MG of ammo. An orderly queue was formed by the whole team to inspect the dead body of our teammate, who had somehow becomed wedged between the HMMWV and a haystack, resulting in his head being forced into the ground whilst his body was suspended upside down. We drove through some towns looking for the required trucks and were shot at, until we decided to raid the airport. Found a fuel truck and designated one of our members to drive it back, but after much driving around the airport (and death, and replacement of our PL) decided there wasn't a repair truck. A voice in our heads informed us that our original fuel truck was now by the C130 but unmanned, then guiding us to two trucks in Stary Sobor (I think?). Drove them back to the plane, all hopped in ready to fuel it and repair, only to then realise that after five minutes of driving our "repair" truck around, it was in fact an ammo truck. Fuelled up anyway, spent a long time trying to move everything out of the way of the C130, then took off and flew away. Blufor victory.
Just Deserts (AA Specialist)
After discovering that our SL cannot navigate or use a compass, we eventually ended up somewhere near our waypoint. We then decided to shoot at the Ammo Dump, which shot at us. We died, having never seen the plane we were tasked to shoot, and then sat around watching a couple of squads in Jeeps with seemingly no AT capability try and take on a T72, Shilka, and a bazillion enemies. Surprisingly, this ended badly. Blufor loss.
Babysitters
Satire, our journalist, turned out to in fact be writing a travel guide, rather than an article on war. He picked up an AK (or something) from a dead AI defender, and after most of us were shot, drove off with two guys in a stolen technical, leaving two guys behind to die. After driving past many more enemies to the exfil point, he was the only one surviving. However, since our only objective was to ensure his survival, that was all we needed! Blufor victory (somehow).
Stillborn Eagle
Oh god, so buggy. Helicopters that wouldn't land, spectator scripts that crashed Arma, and some really weird respawn/heal mechanic. We lost after everyone got shot, listening to the whining cries of injured men whilst debating the nature of PTSD. Blufor loss.
Stary Sober (UK MG Assistant)
Our helicopter pilot was a wimp and landed us something like 1.5km away from the USMC we were meant to meet up with. Sat in about zero cover and shot our sexy MG at Stary, which shot back at us. Luckily, the medic was with us and spent his time healing us repeatedly, until he got shot too. I think the helicopter got taken down by some AA missile, whilst the US all ended up shot and crawling their way towards death (although they just ended up bleeding out simultaneously). Blufor loss.
River Assault (Medic)
We spotted about 3 trillion MG bunkers across the river, and moved our BDRM and M113 around behind them ready to flank. However, we neglected to consider the BMP we had also seen driving around, which made short work of us. Indfor Loss.
Donkey Sanctuary (Doctor)
I decided to move away to the glorious derrick of of Newtopia, but didn't last long. Our rescue pilot eventually gave up trying to find a landing spot and flew into an enemy car instead. Indfor loss.
Ambush at Topolka (PL)
Due to taking the ill-advised step of finally getting some dinner at 2am, I was somehow shoehorned into being PL. Having absolutely no idea what I was going, my plan was an incredibly advanced "blow the convoy up and shoot them and stuff", although a minor correction was implemented after it was pointed out that the road was not visible from my original point of attack. Instead we sort of sat around, waiting a massive amount of time for the convoy, which we obliterated with ease (woo satchel charges). We then all ran up to steal shinies, only for the counterattack to appear much more quickly than intended. Our sneaky sniper (Iceraiser?) ran around in the trees on the other side of the valley, shooting lots of enemies until he got shot too. Opfor loss.
Hamlet Hunt (MG Assistant)
Our attack helo did the attacky thing and made lots of people dead as we charged down the hill from our LZ towards the hamlet. We killed all the dirty communists with ease. Blufor victory.
Outpost Bean
I have no clue what went on. I was ushered into a pub and then shot an endless stream of people running towards me from a window, all of whom seemed to take 10 bullets before dying. Then I got shot.
