Yet another great showing, comrades! Despite the Amerikanski Super Bowl being on tonight we had over 50 comrades in the session, and the after-party was still rocking with 25 players 4 hours later! Thank you also to everyone for helping us slot quickly, and coping beautifully when we ran into some server issues mid-session.
We began with a rapid play-through of Internecine II, with OPFOR given only 30 minutes to clear out INDFOR from the village. It was brutal stuff, with the usual mixture of fear, confusion and friendly-fire (I'm not looking at you, comrade Halop). New mission, Fighting Withdraw, was a 90-minute epic as our Russian mechanised platoon methodically cleared valleys and mountain passes, before meeting a gruesome 9th Company style end in the mountains of Takistan (though not before comrade YouTube Hero SuperU sacrificed himself to prevent a Scud-B launcher falling into enemy hands). Then there was some server craziness that prevented us from playing Ashore (we'll fix that, don't worry), so we loaded up Rolling Matryoshka II and got our required fix of comrade Wolfenswan's sadism, as we once again found ourselves playing a doomed Russian platoon. Finally, an afterparty play-through of Fuel Utopia saw the session end as it began, with fear, confusion and friendly-fire, in an atmospheric post-apocalyptic setting.
As ever - and new comrades in particular - please post your thoughts, feedback, screenshots and video here (PM any of the hosts for details of FA YouTube channel) - and remember there the a new video ident by comrade YouTube Hero SuperU. Posts in the AAR threads really helps us (the hosts and mission makers), both with understanding how we can improve the experiences, and showing potential comrades what our sessions are like.
First of all, thank you guys for being patient while I got my channel commander sorted out. As someone who is intimately familiar with the Teamspeak 3 API used for programming low-level functions of Teamspeak, I have spent very little time on the end-user side of it. Eventually I figured out what was wrong and corrected the problem.
This mission consisted of us going hill to hill, manshooting across the 3 to 500 meter gaps between ridgelines. We ended up reasonably casualty-free until we were pinned down briefly by a machinegunner from 400 meters; eventually this particular AI was dealt with by Alpha. Our failure on this mission was not realizing that the CDF forces were not Russians. Most of us figured that the AI were shooting at us because one of us had mistakenly shot at them. I walked right up to the bunker and started casually murdering people that I saw. Then they murdered me back.
Rolling Matryoshka II
A2 FTL
- Matthias (MG)
- Brave AI RPG Gunner
A2 was reasonably successful at engaging bunker positions from a south-north corridor opposite Bravo. In particular, Alpha squad landed some really expertly synced GL shots. Unfortunately there was a significant number of AI off to the West, who we didn't see, and who kept coming through the trees. Once people start shooting at you and you think it's coming from a direction that it isn't, and you never bother to look in the direction the rounds are coming from, it's only a matter of time before you get dropped.
Internecine II: Draakon had us bounding in twos with covering fire, and it felt fantastic until we were all slaughtered just outside the village.
Fighting Withdraw: I had some serious framerate issues. Only 1 in 4 of my mouse clicks registered. Saw a lot of EI, but all of them beyond effective range.
Rolling Matryoshka II: Shilka driver. After SuperU finished casually teleporting around the place we set off to regroup with the infantry. After driving further north to help Charlie we were quickly ambushed by a BMP. SuperU, I got mixed up once when you said “look at 270“. It wasn’t obvious you were talking to the gunner.
Fuel Utopia: I was viciously assaulted by an enemy spy disguised as a cart, and then later shot.
Fighting Withdrawal was my first opportunity to be the FTL. Then, again, it's because my three comrades died gloriously for The Cause. leaving me all by my lonesome. Proceeding from hilltop to hilltop, I supported A1 and A2. Fired three RPGs at a vehicle about 400 meters away; just barely missed. Five minutes later, I was a casualty of war.
I participated in Internecine and Rolling Matryoshka. NTR.
Last edited by Stoner on Mon Feb 04, 2013 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Workshop
The workshop today saw inter-fire-team bounding exercises, R(AT) drilling, and the debut of a CO course I'd put together a while back wherein we mentally war-gamed a co-op style mission. Expect more of this at somewhat random intervals.
Internecine Deployed as Delta Ammo-Bitch
I slung my backpack over my shoulders, magazines full of 7.62x39mm clanking along with a trio of grenades, all to compliment the similar implements festooning my cast-off WWII-era load-bearing harness. Following our warlord's exhortation ("THE MAN AT THE WINDOW SHOOTS! THE MAN BEHIND HIM WATCHES! WHEN THE MAN AT THE WINDOW DIES, THE MAN BEHIND HIM GETS IN THE WINDOW AND SHOOTS!"), SuperU piled us into two buildings in our sector. From the top floor, Supe and I had fantastic vision out the west side of our building, and if we exposed ourselves (not like that!) then we could get a good shot to our northeast and north. Northwest, however, was blocked by the bulk of the building our two Delta comrades, Guus and Awaitz, were in.
The idea was that we would draw them in and murderize Azoz's boys in our foyers to cut down on the landscaping cost while removing the dead bodies. After all, the gardener only comes in once a month, but the maids are around every week.
Soon we got a contact report from Bravo to the northeast. I gazed out the window, but couldn't see anything. Neither could I shake the feeling that we didn't quite see the whole picture yet. After all, the Bodgist faction loves them some multi-pronged attacks...
Lo and behold! Our village doctor, in possession of an AK and a paucity of luck, lights up a whole two fire-teams of Azoz's dogs on the hill to our west, and we have ourselves a fire-fight! Laying on the floor and watching out the doorway, I sniped the fuck out of one poor bastard caught on an open hillside, then landed rounds around another guy behind the rocks further uphill. Then, a gaggle of gangbangers appeared in the orchard directly underneath our building, and I sprayed bullets in their general direction, then dumped four grenades into the bushes.
Super slaughtered a pair of dudes who had wandered into our building, and then died literally three seconds before we killed the magic 90% of Azoz's boys required to crush them, see them driven before Aziz, and hear the lamentation of their children.
Total score: Two rifle kills and one grenade kill in the orchard. If this were any other game, I'd have gotten two assists for a hillside kill and two more orchard kills. All in all, Delta was a porcupine, taking down at least six dudes in our sector for only one casualty.
Fighting Withdraw Deployed as CO
Takistan is a fairly faithful reproduction of Afghani terrain. As such, it suffers from the unfortunate-for-gameplay side-effect that AK-74's and M4's are woefully inadequate for engaging enemies across 700m of hillside. With that in mind, I had three squads maneuver across the ridgelines of the valley through which we proceeded while a BTR-60 and a sexy, sexy auto-cannon Vodnik rained high-caliber death upon the arrogant cods who... wait, are those Chernarussians? Charlie, are you sure those aren't friendly dudes? Go say hi to them-- OH GOD, they're not friendly!
The mission ended after an hour-and-a-half when I ordered a final death-charge to prevent a SCUD launcher from falling into Imperialist hands.
Mission Comments: In this kind of terrain, crew-served weapons are king. With a paucity of MMG caliber weapons or bigger, it gets difficult for infantry to move through the completely coverless terrain when confronted by even one DShKM or KORD emplacement. Also: PACING. Granted, I have a very slow, very careful method of platoon movement, but it took us an hour-and-a-half to get halfway through the AO, and only as we reached the fortifications where Charlie died did the enemy numbers feel like they justified that slow, careful movement.
Rolling Matryoshka II Deployed as Alpha Medic
So... yeah. Charge infantry across a wide open field into fortified positions that have enemy-filled forests all around, then freeze everyone in place anytime a contact is seen until the tank deals with it... except Charlie wandered off and vanished somewhere to the north. Oh, and every single person had map-click-teleport enabled. I accidentally teleported into the midst of Nugget Hill and managed to teleport back before I could get shot. And then people very much not used to commanding ended up being tossed to the wolves by casualties, resulting in Alpha being torn to shreds where it stood because no one was giving orders - I couldn't revive people fast enough. And then I got accidentally teleported along with the dude I was healing, and when we got back to our original spot, the AI shot us before we could dump out of the map.
Very, very frustrating, especially coming off of the massive coding cock-up that was Ashore.
Fuel Utopia (afterparty) Deployed as fuck-if-I-know
Awesome mission. Terrible execution by us. My fire-team didn't get led at all when my FTL went rambo. Not very enjoyable, but that might just have been the previous two missions putting me in a foul mood to begin with.
~ Ferrard
"Take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turnin' of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' before she keels... makes her home."
In Internecine, I was told there was an enemy in that building just above me. Manage a perfect grenade lob through the door, without exposing myself, and the second I do that, I hear my FTL Ebass. "Cease fire on that building, goddamnit!". Look around. Don't see him. Grenade goes boom, Ebass goes silent. Then, a minute later, I moved into the building to get Ebass's weaponry, and got shot through a window while in the gear menu.
Fighting Withdraw(al?) saw a Bravo squad that was not as lacking in MG capabilities as our comrade CO would think. Sporting two PKTs on the vodnik, and two looted PKMs. So basically, I spent the entire mission reporting contacts 900 meters away, and watching tracers.
When we finally made it to close contact, I murderized quite a few enemies, then they decided it was time to shoot me back. Got patched up once, shot again in the next half second (my dude didn't even have time to roll back on it's belly), patched up, happened again, patched up, shot less that 1 minute after that. then patched up, but I had no legs, the squad medic had been run over by the vodnik long ago. Took a Dshk and wildly sprayed whatever was in front of me, emptying all mags. Not killing anyone in the process, but that wasn't the goal here. Then made my way back to the vodnik and it was called.
Don't look at the what? Oh, I see... *facepalm*
Rolling Matryoshka saw the quickest houdini trick of all times. Look, here's Charlie squad, look again, it's not there anymore. Heard some very confused contact reports about enemies close to us, to our north, but no one effectively returning fire. I was busy fending off the dudes attacking us to our west, and when I turned my head back to see what was up with the absence of gunshots behind me, the whole squad was basically down. Went to patch up a dude, and got shot in the process.
Note: Somebody switched seats in the chopper, resulting in himself dieing. Then he joined back in the civilian debug slot, which (probably) have something like OnMapSingleClick "player setpos _pos"; in its init line, thus enabling automatic mapClick teleport for everybody. There was not enough confusion at the time. I tend to remove that slot when sending missions for upload, but please don't slot in those, when they're not specifically left for FRAPS stuff.
Anyway, great numbers again, and see youu all next time!
Last edited by Black Mamba on Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The mission for REDFOR was to take a small village on Takistan and to clear it out of its defenders. Clean Sweep.
We had 30 mins to finish the job and I had 3 squads(6 fireteams A-F) to send into battle.
I estimated the enemy side to stay inside the houses and engage us from close ranges. Therefore I intended to get my team as fast as possible into town.
I sent 2 squads on an eastern approach into town believing that to provide enough cover with trees and walls present all the way.
The third squad went in from the opposite direction. This wasnt supposed to be a grand pincer movement with forces too small for that,who can't support each other,
but this third squad was to to wait until the firefight was well under way and then infiltrate the town and tip the balance of attrition warfare in our favour.
Unfortunately none of this worked out. While I thanks to the guiding of my platoon medic was able to walk into town relatively unharmed, I failed to inform my 2 main squads
of this relatively safe approach to the town in a timely manner and they got bogged down and greatly reduced from fire outside of the town to the South.
My "Enemy CO killing squad".. err.. reserve squad to the West got spotted by some wandering INDFOR and in the midst of combat I ordered them to go into the completly wrong direction . They also got badly hurt in the process. The battle ended a shotwhile after with INDFOR holding the town and winning.
Lessons learned: Communications.
Fighting Withdrawl
C2 - FTL
We wandered the Takistani countryside spotting lots of enemies, but being out of range almost the entire time. The only forces we got close to were friendly looking "Russians" at a Bunker marked with a blue fortress marker on the map. Amongst the radio chatter that day were such statements such as "They could be russians", "Don't fire on friendly forces", "Maybe we made them mad by firing at them", "They aren't shooting at us yet" and my personal final contribution when I was 10m next to them "They are definately frie.... gaaARRGh".
They killed us all.
Rolling Matryoshka II
C2 - FTL
Charlie Squad in this mission was tasked with taking up position on the Northern flank of the platoon and then advancing across an open field. While we waited at our "safe" form-up location in a forrest adjacent to the open field roaming with tanks and infantry, the AI decided to bring the fight to us and attack us from the rear.
They killed us all.
Fuel Utopia (afterparty)
CIV - Frightened
In a post-apocalyptic world we were tasked with defending our little town from desert raiders. So I was told. I didn't get to see any of them. I least I think so, I had 3 encounters with people with guns and I assumed every time they were friendly, I am not really sure this was the case. The next time I was absolutely sure to have a desert raider in my sights, but a shot from my Lee Enfield confirmed him to be friendly as well. The mission was called off due to the lack of firing shortly after.
I really liked the tension the mission provided and hope that with more players, you get are more conclusive result
I was OPFOR AR, Wilson was FTL, with two others whose names I don't recall. We ran up into town, and I followed Wilson, who said "ENEMIES IN THE BUILDING", so, of course, as soon as I see someone moving, I shoot! Turns out it was friendly fire, and we had injured two from a friendly squad. Whoopsie daisy!
Then I was ordered to clear a building, and the first and second floors were clear, but there was someone waiting at the top of the stairs, almost on the roof. We shot each other, and both got wounded. I called my squad for help, and they came up, finished him off and patched me up. Unfortunately, I was out of legs, and of course our medic was out of action already.
We traded some more shots after I crawled downstairs, and then it was the saddest mission I've ever played. All of our squad was alive, and we were to move to the center of town. So I crawled... and crawled, and crawled... and crawled. When I got tired of crawling, I decided rolling might've been faster, so I rolled, and rolled, and rolled. Then I got a little bit sick, so I went back to crawling. I was eventually going to reach the center of town, and I started hearing gunshots, and our squad found the fuel thingie, but it was all for naught, as a few more people died and the mission was called.
I would like to thank the brave member of my squad who decided to crawl with me, for great justice, for about 5m. It was a noble gesture!
Me and looz have been wanting to do a adversarial against each other for some time, and this time we were quick enough with the slotting
My intent was to spread out in the town as much as possible by putting a max of 2 men per house, so if the enemy put down suppresive MG or RPG fire there would've been another house nearby returning fire. I also put Echo team 500m to the south at an oil well, and Foxtrot (1 man, fer) 500m to the North in the mountains to provide me intel on enemy movements and to harrass them in their attacks. I also allowed my combat medic kerfirz to go West which paid off quite well since he spotted and engaged looz's "special" squad.
Once we started to get engaged from the East, Echo moved to the enemy flank and did a fine job killing them. After that it was easy peasy as my trusty men stayed inside their homes and shot down everyone who dared to enter my village.
mikey vs looz, 9-1
Rolling Matryoshka II
CSL
Got my entire squad + Tunguska killed by being complacent. I only expected enemies from the West, and not to my North and East...
. They also got badly hurt in the process. The battle ended a shotwhile after with INDFOR holding the town and winning.
