- Recovery
- Internecine
- The First Day
- Bombs Away
That being said ... some of the things I saw tonight were pretty impressive. More in my own AAR post soon-ish, so-
[Sun] 14 August 2011
[Sun] 14 August 2011
Missions:
That being said ... some of the things I saw tonight were pretty impressive. More in my own AAR post soon-ish, so-
That being said ... some of the things I saw tonight were pretty impressive. More in my own AAR post soon-ish, so-
Re: [Sun] 14 August
That about sums it up. Horaay for my blue tank though.
Re: [Sun] 14 August
Recovery
Alpha FTL: Fer
|-- Ansob
|-- Unaco (?)
|-- Washington (?)
As a mission maker, I spend a lot of my time thinking about the different ways players will circumvent the basic premise of a mission. That's especially true when writing for the Folk sessions, because players from Folk/ARPS rarely opt for the Route #1 approach - so I am constantly having to drop down patrols and obstacles in the more obvious flanking routes. Therefore it was with some surprise that I listened to comrade Jefke's plan for this mission, which - though he didn't really know it - was to assault the defending mercs head-on from the first roadblock. Oh, there would be death.
After being told that I wasn't, after all, FTL of Charlie (I was FTL of Alpha, and suffering from 'daddy-brain', as we sleep-deprived parents like to call incompetence), we moved out on the left-hand side of the road towards the first bridge. Almost immediately the contact report came in: roadbloack with a searchlight at the bridge, and men running down the road towards us. Cue a lot of hasty shooting, but we pushed on through the tall grass, eventually reaching the dragon's teeth. In the green-grey darkness I called out to PltCo that the roadblock was clear, and by now Bravo and Charlie were already creeping into the riverbed beyond it, over on the other side of the road from us. We had wounded, and as the medic ran up to---
VEHICLE INBOUND!
--and all at once there was an SUV driving right into our position, crashing into the dragons teeth mere feet from me. I (and presumably others too) emptied a magazine into the driver's side door and the merc inside died, but his buddy made it out of the vehicle before he was cut down. I moved towards--
BANG!
--and one of those make-flanking-not-so-easy-for-players patrols had appeared on our left flank and lobbed a grenade into our midst. I died instantly, but from death watched our gradually dwindling platoon attempt to hold the bridge against incoming merc patrols, before the final tragic SUV death ride of Wolfenswan. Damn those explosive tree trunks, eh?
Pro tip: The mercs (especially the patrolling ones) tend to have guns with torches, which you can see in the tall grass. When we try this next time, I recommend the platoon commander opts for a slow, scouting style, rather than an all-guns-blazing assault. Also, remember that you don't have to kill all the mercs to complete the mission - it's the tractor engine we're after!
Internecine
Bravo FTL: Ansob
|-- Fer
|-- Wolfenswan (?)
Learning from last time, I switched the time of day to a daylight hour - so this time around it wasn't like fighting inside a bottle of Ribena. I was on the defending team in comrade Ansob's fireteam (Bravo), under the overall command of comrade Iq. With only two fireteams at his disposal, comrade Iq had limited options. Alpha occupied a central-ish structure and faced east, whilst Bravo dispersed acrosss two structures at the western-edge of the village.
Soon we heard vehicles, and sweeping around our southern flank before hitting the western wall of the village came the light blue love-bus. From the rooftop where I was sitting, I had a great view of the lone driver (comrade Bodge) jumping out, of my carelessly-sprayed AK-47 rounds impacting on the dirt walls near him, and of him sauntering off to the south of the village. Unharmed.
Next, the main assault came in from the west, and again I was treated to a wonderful view of men running upright across an open field, and my bullets landing everywhere but in their squishy bodies. I lobbed a grenade or two and then went out onto the flat roof to see if I could catch them in the alleyway beside my house as they ran past. Too late did it occur to me to camp the stairs, and as I turned to re-enter the upstairs room I saw a man in clothes much like mine standing in the doorway. I was riddled with bullets a fraction of a second later.
Congratulations to comrade Jefke (commanding the OPFOR assaulting force) for a job well done. I know it's about the simplest mission we have, where everyone has an AK and a few grenades - but that's deliberately the case, hopefully forcing players to really think about their tactics and work together. I thought the players on OPFOR did a good job of that, even if that kind of competence is totally out of place at Folk.
The First Day
Alpha FTL: Fer
|-- Ansob
|-- AstuteCat
|-- F1yer
OMG it was dark. So dark that I nearly changed the mission because my immediate instinct was that this was not going to be fun for people. However, whilst I thought about it I could hear something cool on TeamSpeak: despite the mission having one of the steepest difficulty curves I've seen in a long time, the comrades were just getting on with it. And that was pretty damn cool to watch and listen to.
With the main force under the effective command of comrade Bodge, and after some intial fun-and-games with vehicles and snipers and wounded commanders and omg I can't see my own hands!, we moved off to engage the enemy. My FT, Alpha, was on the left of the road, loitering around the M113's reassuring hulk. I never saw the enemies to our front, just tracer fire inbound and outbound, and the constant chatter of element leaders and gunners over TeamSpeak. It was like being in some kind of terrifying gigantic corridor shooter where you can only ever see in one direction.
It got more terrifying: we were being flanked to our left, with guerrillas firing down from positions higher up the slope - even when I put up a flare their bodies were half-obscured by the trees and bushes all around. In a moment worthy of any Vietnam film, I found myself firing wildly at the muzzle flash of a prone enemy who's outline I had seen a fraction of a second before the flare went out. I must have been wounded and patched up 2-3 times, and by the time that firefight was over Alpha numbered just two.
Once again, comrade Bodge formed up the main force, this time sending the tank forward to breach a compound wall to the left. Comrade Ansob and myself followed behind at a sprint, breaching the gap to find an empty compound and house; I climbed the stairs and peeped out, looking down the road towards the enemy; to our 2'o'clock was a cluster of buildings and soon Charlie was being ordered to enter them from the far side. Comrade Ansob deployed his MG on the rooftop beside me and we covered both Charlie's advance and then the road again (we were joined in this by comrade Fatbeard, who seemed to attach himself to us for a while). An anti-tank mine between our building and Charlie's position was defused and the vehicles drove up.
Desperate not to fall into the pitch black behind our line of vehicles we raced out of the building and towards the front of the platoon. Moving quickly across the flat meadow comrade Ansob, Fatbeard and I were soon the most forward element again; the enemy base was 50m to our front. Throughout this time fire had been exchanged with something heavy in the distance, and now we - the main force - crashed upon the base's western wall as a wave of men and armour. Before it could breach the M113 hit a mine and exploded, illuminating the meadow and our entire assault. In a panic, the tank driver reversed at speed, squashing comrade Ansob to death (the tank's heartless commander, comrade Joseph, was heard to remark that this was no great loss to the platoon).
The assault was breaking up now, and grabbing comrade Ansob's M60 I took up a position on the left-hand corner of the base wall, shooting desperately at a group of enemy soldiers that command - over Teamspeak - had told us to expect. I bought it moments later, probably shot through the head by one of those same enemies. From death, I watched some pretty desperate last-stand action from our men, with fully-automatic fire doing for a group of enemies that walked straight onto our final positions.
All in all, I thought this mission said a lot about Folk/ARPS players' capacity to play in a co-ordinated, effective manner. It's a super tough mission that is absolutely impossible without co-operation throughout - and even in the loss, I thought we had a lot to be proud of. It would be great to play this again, but with the tiny tweaks of moonlight and more flares, so that infantry has a bit more freedom when away from the vehicles. Great job all, and to mission maker comrade Wolfenswan.
Bombs Away
This was the last mission and as I had died early on, I was only half-spectating (I was putting up the AAR thread etc.); but each time I looked back at the monitor of my gaming rig I was heartened to see that we were winning. I think somebody else should write this one up, because I believe the victory was accomplished with the loss of just one fireteam (the ill-fated Alpha, which I was in, and which got too far ahead of the main force before encountering a technical and some dismounts). Again, some effective play from a crowd that likes to think of itself as a rabble of simple farmers.
Alpha FTL: Fer
|-- Ansob
|-- Unaco (?)
|-- Washington (?)
As a mission maker, I spend a lot of my time thinking about the different ways players will circumvent the basic premise of a mission. That's especially true when writing for the Folk sessions, because players from Folk/ARPS rarely opt for the Route #1 approach - so I am constantly having to drop down patrols and obstacles in the more obvious flanking routes. Therefore it was with some surprise that I listened to comrade Jefke's plan for this mission, which - though he didn't really know it - was to assault the defending mercs head-on from the first roadblock. Oh, there would be death.
After being told that I wasn't, after all, FTL of Charlie (I was FTL of Alpha, and suffering from 'daddy-brain', as we sleep-deprived parents like to call incompetence), we moved out on the left-hand side of the road towards the first bridge. Almost immediately the contact report came in: roadbloack with a searchlight at the bridge, and men running down the road towards us. Cue a lot of hasty shooting, but we pushed on through the tall grass, eventually reaching the dragon's teeth. In the green-grey darkness I called out to PltCo that the roadblock was clear, and by now Bravo and Charlie were already creeping into the riverbed beyond it, over on the other side of the road from us. We had wounded, and as the medic ran up to---
VEHICLE INBOUND!
--and all at once there was an SUV driving right into our position, crashing into the dragons teeth mere feet from me. I (and presumably others too) emptied a magazine into the driver's side door and the merc inside died, but his buddy made it out of the vehicle before he was cut down. I moved towards--
BANG!
--and one of those make-flanking-not-so-easy-for-players patrols had appeared on our left flank and lobbed a grenade into our midst. I died instantly, but from death watched our gradually dwindling platoon attempt to hold the bridge against incoming merc patrols, before the final tragic SUV death ride of Wolfenswan. Damn those explosive tree trunks, eh?
Pro tip: The mercs (especially the patrolling ones) tend to have guns with torches, which you can see in the tall grass. When we try this next time, I recommend the platoon commander opts for a slow, scouting style, rather than an all-guns-blazing assault. Also, remember that you don't have to kill all the mercs to complete the mission - it's the tractor engine we're after!
Internecine
Bravo FTL: Ansob
|-- Fer
|-- Wolfenswan (?)
Learning from last time, I switched the time of day to a daylight hour - so this time around it wasn't like fighting inside a bottle of Ribena. I was on the defending team in comrade Ansob's fireteam (Bravo), under the overall command of comrade Iq. With only two fireteams at his disposal, comrade Iq had limited options. Alpha occupied a central-ish structure and faced east, whilst Bravo dispersed acrosss two structures at the western-edge of the village.
Soon we heard vehicles, and sweeping around our southern flank before hitting the western wall of the village came the light blue love-bus. From the rooftop where I was sitting, I had a great view of the lone driver (comrade Bodge) jumping out, of my carelessly-sprayed AK-47 rounds impacting on the dirt walls near him, and of him sauntering off to the south of the village. Unharmed.
Next, the main assault came in from the west, and again I was treated to a wonderful view of men running upright across an open field, and my bullets landing everywhere but in their squishy bodies. I lobbed a grenade or two and then went out onto the flat roof to see if I could catch them in the alleyway beside my house as they ran past. Too late did it occur to me to camp the stairs, and as I turned to re-enter the upstairs room I saw a man in clothes much like mine standing in the doorway. I was riddled with bullets a fraction of a second later.
Congratulations to comrade Jefke (commanding the OPFOR assaulting force) for a job well done. I know it's about the simplest mission we have, where everyone has an AK and a few grenades - but that's deliberately the case, hopefully forcing players to really think about their tactics and work together. I thought the players on OPFOR did a good job of that, even if that kind of competence is totally out of place at Folk.
The First Day
Alpha FTL: Fer
|-- Ansob
|-- AstuteCat
|-- F1yer
OMG it was dark. So dark that I nearly changed the mission because my immediate instinct was that this was not going to be fun for people. However, whilst I thought about it I could hear something cool on TeamSpeak: despite the mission having one of the steepest difficulty curves I've seen in a long time, the comrades were just getting on with it. And that was pretty damn cool to watch and listen to.
With the main force under the effective command of comrade Bodge, and after some intial fun-and-games with vehicles and snipers and wounded commanders and omg I can't see my own hands!, we moved off to engage the enemy. My FT, Alpha, was on the left of the road, loitering around the M113's reassuring hulk. I never saw the enemies to our front, just tracer fire inbound and outbound, and the constant chatter of element leaders and gunners over TeamSpeak. It was like being in some kind of terrifying gigantic corridor shooter where you can only ever see in one direction.
It got more terrifying: we were being flanked to our left, with guerrillas firing down from positions higher up the slope - even when I put up a flare their bodies were half-obscured by the trees and bushes all around. In a moment worthy of any Vietnam film, I found myself firing wildly at the muzzle flash of a prone enemy who's outline I had seen a fraction of a second before the flare went out. I must have been wounded and patched up 2-3 times, and by the time that firefight was over Alpha numbered just two.
Once again, comrade Bodge formed up the main force, this time sending the tank forward to breach a compound wall to the left. Comrade Ansob and myself followed behind at a sprint, breaching the gap to find an empty compound and house; I climbed the stairs and peeped out, looking down the road towards the enemy; to our 2'o'clock was a cluster of buildings and soon Charlie was being ordered to enter them from the far side. Comrade Ansob deployed his MG on the rooftop beside me and we covered both Charlie's advance and then the road again (we were joined in this by comrade Fatbeard, who seemed to attach himself to us for a while). An anti-tank mine between our building and Charlie's position was defused and the vehicles drove up.
Desperate not to fall into the pitch black behind our line of vehicles we raced out of the building and towards the front of the platoon. Moving quickly across the flat meadow comrade Ansob, Fatbeard and I were soon the most forward element again; the enemy base was 50m to our front. Throughout this time fire had been exchanged with something heavy in the distance, and now we - the main force - crashed upon the base's western wall as a wave of men and armour. Before it could breach the M113 hit a mine and exploded, illuminating the meadow and our entire assault. In a panic, the tank driver reversed at speed, squashing comrade Ansob to death (the tank's heartless commander, comrade Joseph, was heard to remark that this was no great loss to the platoon).
The assault was breaking up now, and grabbing comrade Ansob's M60 I took up a position on the left-hand corner of the base wall, shooting desperately at a group of enemy soldiers that command - over Teamspeak - had told us to expect. I bought it moments later, probably shot through the head by one of those same enemies. From death, I watched some pretty desperate last-stand action from our men, with fully-automatic fire doing for a group of enemies that walked straight onto our final positions.
All in all, I thought this mission said a lot about Folk/ARPS players' capacity to play in a co-ordinated, effective manner. It's a super tough mission that is absolutely impossible without co-operation throughout - and even in the loss, I thought we had a lot to be proud of. It would be great to play this again, but with the tiny tweaks of moonlight and more flares, so that infantry has a bit more freedom when away from the vehicles. Great job all, and to mission maker comrade Wolfenswan.
Bombs Away
This was the last mission and as I had died early on, I was only half-spectating (I was putting up the AAR thread etc.); but each time I looked back at the monitor of my gaming rig I was heartened to see that we were winning. I think somebody else should write this one up, because I believe the victory was accomplished with the loss of just one fireteam (the ill-fated Alpha, which I was in, and which got too far ahead of the main force before encountering a technical and some dismounts). Again, some effective play from a crowd that likes to think of itself as a rabble of simple farmers.
-
wolfenswan
- Posts: 1209
- Joined: Wed May 25, 2011 4:59 pm
Re: [Sun] 14 August
cr-cr-crosspost.
Recovery
Charlie:
Wolfenswan - Harlander - Joe/Sulphur - ?jefke?
It's always fun when it's obvious that the commander's plan is going to lead everyone in the welcoming maws of death but you're just a lousy grunt or fire team lead and thus have no say.
After Alpha hit the initial road block Charlie shifted to the north side of the road and took defensive position at a few car wrecks were we bravely held off enemies from every direction without loosing a single man. Deciding against my better judgement, I didn't lead Charlie to Glory and abandon the other elements who were taking a beating but instead we retreated and tried to help. This basically ended in everyone taking a bullet every odd second. As we realized that this wasn't going anywhere, Unaco captured the SUV and I crawled inside (of course my legs were shot). Together with Harlander and Joe we decided to make a last, glorious run for the objective. On the way we left joe and harlander with carooke. Originally we intended to rescue her but that didn't go so well. What then happened to Unaco and me is documented well enough.
Internecine
Alpha:
Unaco - Drakoon - Cpt Fatbeard - Wolfenswan.
I was the first to spot the attackers through a doorway in the west and managed to down at least one of them with my AK and three others with an extremly lucky grenade.
Then i got under fire and started yelling "blue on blue" and "stop firing ansob you idiot" because that was what my spacebar-scan was telling me. Turns out it wasn't Ansob and i was dead. Still i ended up with MOST KILLS and that's what counts, right?
The First Day
Charlie:
Grizzly - Jefke - Wolfenswan - Harlander
I was really worried at first that the mission wasn't going as intended; as it really seemed to drag. When things got going though, it pretty much turned into the world of fear, paranoia and misery i was hoping for. I loved how Drakoon was making elaborate plans while we were still pinned down at the first compound (i never expected those patrols to wander that far - they spawn quite a bit away).
Charlie mostly stayed in the shadows but ultimately succumbed to enemy fire, pinned down and surrounded at the military compound's wall.
I'll add a few mission maker's notes after the next AR.
Bombs Away
I was commanding a bunch of BLUFOR soldiers, 3 FTs and one Medic, into Zargabad - again. And yet again i decided it was for the best to leave most of the decisions to the FTLs: harvest the honours if it goes right, blame the subordinates if it goes wrong.
Charlie and me were approaching the South West Marker while Alpha and Bravo were supposed to break through the East of Zargabad. Unfortunately Alpha was way ahead of Bravo (who initialy had been following Charlie) and apparently got surrounded and pinned down. At the same time i had spotted the downed heli at the SE marker and ordered everyone to diverge there. While Charlie was taking a defensive position, comrade Joe had started to download the vital data.
Things got very hectic from here as we were still split up and Alpha had taken losses. I ordered the medic to unite with Alpha and then both to unite with Bravo but somehow they missed each other and the medic ended up seperated from the rest of us. Meanwhile Charlie and I got under heavy fire and were even engaged by an armored vehicle. Luckily comrade Joe was able to eliminate it with the wreck's minigun before it was able to do much damage.
A bombing run occured before we had completed the download but for whatever reason - bug or scripting - it didn't kill us and we were able to extract to a designated RV south-east of Zarga. From there we ran towards the villa via the eastern outskirts of Zarga, using the buildings as protection. We ran into a few enemies in open ground but those were no challenge for comrades who had survived the urban hell zargabad. I think we only lost 4 of 14 people.
First Day Notes.
One grave mistake players made repeadetly was to step into the head lights of our vehicles/drivers shining the head lights on friendly infantry. I did some testing with AI and darkness and it turns out that they are effectively as nightblind as the players are. You can walk/run up close enough to hear their voices and footsteps and they won't shoot at you. In the sunday session i found myself about 50m away from OPFOR who where shooting at friendlies on the road, standing in head lights. I was able to tell his position and kill him by his muzzle flash alone.
I probably have to stress this feature in the notes.
In consideration:
- I'm probably going to lower the enemy count, especially in terms of free-roaming patrols ahead of Garmsar.
- Tweak the static/MG inf placement so they aren't engaging from far away - could make it the responsibility of the sniper to dispose of those threats (>>give him more ammo).
- have infantry spawn outside vehicles; reduces head light confusion
- add another M113/replace "soft" vehicles with a M113?
- Maybe replace the CO/Sniper team with a single sniper. Adds another Flare-Unit and a medic to the column. I could let CO keep his NVG but then everyone would wait for CO to die to grab it (or he would just hand it to someone else...)
- More flares; currently FTLs have 3 while CO and DC have 4. maybe make it 5 each or just add some flares to a vehicle's cargo; could also write a small script that increases flares depending on player count.
Folk ARPS Mission Making Template & FAQ
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Helpful tools and guides for mission-makers
Our home-brewn scripting guides, snippets and more
My ARMA3 Missions - to download select a branch and pick "Download ZIP".