Cholo
DC: Fer
Comrade gang leader mingmong called upon all gang members to surround the cop shop and swarm it at once, killing every pig we could find. I reached the western entrance first and, leaning around the doorway, spotted a pig on the floor of the hallway. He was covering the south and east entrances, and not at all looking in my direction. So I shot him until he was writhing around on the floor in agony, and continued to shoot him until he was dead. Man, I felt badass. Soon, all the pigs would be dead and we'd be free to breakdance in the streets, play our music loudly all night, and deal narcotics to children and ... wait, how does this further the goals of a socialist agrarian utopia, exactly? Ah well, never mind. The cops were clearly the running dogs of evil capitalists. Probably.
Anyway, next I threw a smoke grenade through the doorway, waited for the gloom to become a smokey gloom, and then entered the hallway. Nobody was with me at this point, but I could see other gang members creeping in the eastern entrance, so I set about making sure that the first room on my left was empty (it was). Then my friends down the hall shot me in the face.
Karavan
Puppet Squad 3 Leader: Fer
Comrade Puppet-master Nullkigan ordered us to teleport into the AO such that our company-sized force of squads surrounded the village where the enemy convoy was holed-up. Our formation was weighted in favour of the southern approach, and it was here that I found myself, leading a band of bearded heroes with limited conversational skills. From this point on it was essentially a Zerg rush into the town, with an almost Soviet disregard for casualties (though all puppeteers made use of the 'advance' command, which causes the AI to move from cover to cover in a remarkably effective way).
My squad eventually dropped down to the valley road, approaching the village from the south-east. The enemy helicopters had appeared in the AO far faster than anyone (including the mission maker, me) had anticipated. So, things really did become Zerg-tastic as we raced to spy the approaching Mi-17 and begin shooting at its substantial profile. The air cow was duly brought down near the centre of the village, and en masse we entered the built-up area (having taken heavy casualties in some squads).
House clearing was more of an activity for puppeteers than puppets, and we gamely swept through the buildings looking for surviving human enemies. I didn't encounter any until the very end, after comrade Ansob had spoken to me from beyond the grave to offer his side's surrender. I found the last remaining human writhing around on the ground outside a house. And shot him to death with my AK.
Note 1 (Mission): Ignoring the puppeteer mechanic for a moment, the mission played out differently from how I had anticipated in a number of ways. The helicopters arrived too soon, increasing the tempo of the mission too early - something I'll address in the next build. The humans also deployed in too small an area, which was the the fault of my briefing - again, I'll clarify this. Lastly, the humans didn't go firm in the buildings as I had expected them to. The nature of the buildings was reported to be an issue, so I may relocate to a different setting with better options.
Note 2 (Mechanic): I enjoyed being a puppeteer and plan to explore this mission type further. The one-shot teleport worked to commit the puppet-master to a particular plan, but in this mission we really didn't get to explore the ways in which puppeteers could dynamically react to player actions - the A&D setup is a tactically one-dimensional. Comrade Null has already suggested clarifying the puppeteers' role as being closer to games master than opposition, and supporting that by giving them sight of platoon markers etc., as well as placing standard AI squads as in a normal coop. Over the coming Folk Sundays and Tactical Tuesdays, I hope we'll get to explore these ideas in more detail, and find a way to give the majority of guests a really great large-scale mission experience against an enemy that is a little more tactically aware than AI alone.
What are your views, comrades?
Vanguard
HMG Gunner: Fer
|- Assistant: Tigershark
Comrade commander mingmong'a plan began with a platoon assault on Nango, the three squads line abreast (Alpha north, Charlie south), with the M113s and light attachments in amongst the line. Heavy attachments, HMG and HAT, were sent to a series of low knolls to our north, from where we could cover the platoon's advance across open terrain.
The enemy allowed us to set up on the knolls in a leisurely fashion, with plenty of time to assemble our DShKM and orientate the barrel towards an SPG-9 position on the western edge of Nango. After we began to shoot large calibre bullets at them, the enemy became far less accommodating. I watched three missiles speed past my head as I fired off round after round at pixels I couldn't see, all the while comrade Tigershark patiently watching through binoculars, talking and walking my fire towards the enemy position. Eventually, we won the duel, and the path was clear for the rest of the platoon to trundle across the open terrain, its organic M113s providing more mobile support.
As the platoon closed in on Nango, our usefulness diminished to nothing. The CO ordered us to go forward and link up with Alpha, led by the recently rehabilitated comrade Ansob, and stick with them for the next phase of the attack. We packed up our DShKM, grabbed our personal weapons, and bravely fell in juuuuust behind Alpha. And an oil well. As the whole platoon skirmished its way through Nango, we stuck close to our infantry meatshields until at last we broke through to the other side of the town. Instinctively, comrade Tigershark and I knew we should find a rooftop position for our DShKM and prepare to engage targets to the east. Such an order duly arrived from the CO, but we were already clambering up stairs and peering through tree foliage, looking for the optimum firing point.
We settled on the corrugated rooftop of the factory, our DShKM able to traverse from east to south comfortably. Once again, I found myself firing at unseeable pixels, whilst Tigershark calmly told me about a man who was sitting far, far away, inside some kind of multi-barrelled AA installation. I ran out of lead before the man could be killed. Worse, a steadily quickening patter of incoming rounds pinging off the metal rooftop convinced us to abandon both the position and our DShKM. As we ran down the stairs I wondered if our pay would be docked by the cost of that lovely HMG.
Reduced to humble infantry, we were ordered to the southernmost part of the platoon, to fall in with comrade Bodge's Charlie squad. After a small pause, Charlie and its assorted hangers-on proceeded to mount a decent assault up the road, eventually reaching and overrunning the first enemy strongpoint. It was all going swimmingly until we rounded the final corner and found an enemy T-34 parked in the field with its gun pointing at the position Charlie had just taken. There followed an amusing sequence whereby I peeped around a corner and talked to someone - comrade Wolfenswan? - who was patiently putting RPG after RPG into the tank until, eventually, the crew got and had the courtesy to stand next to their burning vehicle long enough to be killed in the inevitable secondary explosion. However, in its final moments, the tank had rotated its turret in my direction and fired a burst from its machine gun.
Tigershark was dead.
...
...
The rest of the mission is a horrible, tear-smeared blur. I'm told I carried his body for a long time, asking anyone and everyone if they were a medic. Some filthy traitors stole his gear and fancy watch, and eventually, exhausted from walking across open terrain with him slung over my shoulders, I dumped his body in a small compound and went forward with the rump of Charlie for the final assault.
I remember crawling up a hill towards bunkers and mortar pits, and being shot and healed and shot again. Somewhere in the middle of that I turned one of the enemy's own mortar tubes against his last redoubt, raining map-click death until I was all out of clicks. Still, I bled out on that hilltop, distraught the loss of my buddy.
Note: Outstanding work by all element leaders. Comms were tight, and movement often well-coordinated and supported. That we came close to completing a mission that has historically murdered us at Nango spoke volumes.
Thank you to everyone who participated. We might just get our socialist agrarian utopia after all.
