[Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

How we died
User avatar
fer
Posts: 1586
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:16 am
Location: Emotional wreck

[Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by fer »

Missions:
  • Bend
  • Roadside
  • Crash site
  • BlackFolkDown (limited objectives)
  • Finale XL
  • Cholo (afterparty)
Comrades, tonight was glorious in so many different ways. Let's make a list:
  • 62 comrades made it along tonight, making this almost as large as one of our joint ops.
  • Slotting was smooth and rapid (apart from when I got my maths badly wrong in Crash site - thanks for your patience).
  • Our performance across all the missions was nothing short of epic ...
  • ... but I have to single out the platoon's superb performance in BlackFolkDown under debutant CO, audiox.
  • We even managed to kill every last tank in Finale XL - despite it being 'like the end of Platoon'.
But most of all, it was glorious because lots of people who don't often command stepped up and took leadership slots, and proved that actually they're pretty damn good at this. We tried something different with regard to slotting tonight; I'll write more about it in my own AAR post, but for now I'd like to thank all the comrades for co-operating with our slightly different approach to slot-selection. I hope you'll agree the results were impressive this evening, but more than that, I hope more comrades now feel confident of their ability to lead.

As for the missions? Bend was executed very successfully, but we waited too long before withdrawing, and a surviving enemy BMP-2 executed us. Roadside was pulled of very competently, and even though the platoon took some significant losses at the start (mostly in Alpha), we were able to recover and go on to clear the AO and secure all the abandoned trucks. Crash Site was its usual, chaotic self, but there was a resolution: OPFOR managing to secure the data and extract successfully, despite suffering traumatic losses. Then it was on to BlackFolkDown (limited to 2 objectives), which was pulled off with real style. That so many troops and Blackhawks survived to the final extraction says even more than the two warlords we took out of the city alive. Finally, to counteract all the awesomeness and bring back the death that is the hallmark of FA sessions, we played Finale XL; but even in this mission we were simply glorious. There was heroism going spare, and we killed all the tanks in the end. The angry, angry tanks. Then we got high on PCP and tried to forget. Except I don't want to forget this session, because you rocked.

As ever, please post your thoughts, feedback, screenshots and video here - comrade YouTube Hero SuperU's FA doesn't just produce our video idents, but provides leadership and guidance to propaganda artists; more guidance on video editing for Folk ARPS is provided by comrade Ferrard Carson. 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.

:v:

User avatar
head
Posts: 133
Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2011 4:22 pm
Location: Sweeeden

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by head »

Roadside - CO Medic
Ran around , healed some guys.
Tried to rescue the BRDM2 crew but got shot by a nice sniper.

Crash Site - BlUFOR TH1.

Whoever commanded did great here.

Nothing special in this mission, Flew around dropped off Alpha(?) and flew off and my gunner did some expert shoot and scouting then he died and i flew around some more until my engine was destroyed and i parachuted out and then used my surviving helo to shoot some bad men before running back to the LZ to check if the helo there was still operationally.

BlackFolkDown - ST1("DELTA")

Super mission, excellent plan, excellent commander, excellent pilots

Got a nice team of joined after the summer guys, and we rocked and you rocked until i ordered a rush across a field apparently containing 90% of zargabads fighting population :siiigh:

Good work, effort on my part to use red/blue teams to bound forward. Excellent Work.

Finale XL - Commander

I positioned all my elements expect the HOST squad with a rough defensive line. Unfortunately Fox had the wrong idea and rushed out with juliet, never the less with expert Rocketship and stellar BMP2 support(Until you started moving , Should have stayed put), we destroyed every tank and plenty of the enemy infantry. Really good work guys.
Extra props to the MAT,SPG team never seen such good shooting.

tryteyker
Posts: 104
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 9:17 pm
Location: Sweden / Germany (depends really)

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by tryteyker »

Bend

CO

Why retreat when we can kill everybody!

So the basic plan was to encircle the enemy convoy once it reaches a turn. I liked the way we slotted tonight, with Carson as my DC providing valuable info at the start (such as, Charlie can't see that turn), but then again I felt he didn't have anything to do at all later on. Back to my plan however, Bravo was on the left of the circle, Charlie in the middle and Alpha on the right. HAT was attached to Bravo (which was supposed to kill the back of the convoy, where I presumed the heavy vehicles to be. MAT was attached to Alpha, which was supposed to kill the lead vehicle. Charlie and MMG were supposed to kill the rest, with Alpha & Bravo as support once they killed their respective vehicles.

Once ingame, we teleported to our locations and readied up for the attack. Bravo got eyes on the convoy but we let it pass. I told HAT to ready up on my order earlier on but totally forgot to tell them at this point apparently. But they seemed to do fine. As Alpha had eyes on the leader vehicle at he turn we engaged them. At this point I just heard explosions all around me and thought it was going good. But, as always, there are complications. At this point I didn't know we could retreat after 40% casualties inflicted. Fer, as ASL, reminded me of this, but I just put it off for later and told everybody to just continue engaging. I thought "well, can't be that many people left, huh". Wrrooong.

An APC went right at us, and at this point I told everybody disengage and retreat. Alpha got pinned by an APC right after one sneaked up to me (somebody destroyed the one that sneaked up to me tho). They weren't able to move so I just charged the APC and put my GPs in it. I aimed right at the APC but the rounds just went right through .... Then an enemy popped up right infront of me, and I KNEW he was an enemy, but didn't react. I died.

Looking at the spectator screen, there was A MASSIVE AMOUNT of AI left... I didn't know that. :o

Roadside

TH1 Pilot

ENEMY TO OUR LEFT REACT OH GOD COME ON MACACO!!

So the initial plan was for Delta and TH1 to idle at Falar. After a slow flight there, we built up a quick picnic before being called to battle. Another low flight at speeds of 120 mph. We dropped Delta off on a mountain, and then went on a rotation. As we went over Charlie, I asked a dozen times for confirmation that these guys to my left were infact Charlie but nobody said anything at first. As we got confirmation we turned around, and I saw enemies coming up the slope. I told Macaco REACT REACT ENEMIES TO OUR LEFT GOGOGOGOGOGO. Too late. Macaco got hit and I bailed out there, off to Falar. After a sharp turn to land safely we fixed up Macaco and manned our positions again. Off we are again, this time off to a weird rotation. I just fly around and we hit a force of 2 Fireteams. After engaging we suddenly see an RPG, and it very nearly hit our tail rotor. After that I steer off and tell Macaco and awaitz "we're doing a clear rotation now", but instead I just fly over the town and over the Fireteams again.

As I fixed my rotation, we do one last rotation and hit a couple of enemies, but the mission gets called shortly after.

Crashsite

Bravo 2 AR

Pretty standard mission.

We went off to LZ ROSENGÅRD as we started, and moved along walls. For 10 minutes we kept watching the epic air battle between 3 of our helos against Head, which was BLUFORs helo. So we moved along walls after that and engaged some Locals and BLUFOR apparently, where mike, our FTL, and looz, our AAR, go down. So only Tink and me are left. And we have identical camo. Exact same haircut too. Basically we rushed to the C130, got the data, and moved out. Cam, our SL, got wounded atleast 2 times in these 5 minutes. Good job!

User avatar
SuperU
Posts: 241
Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 3:02 pm
Location: Perpetual state of motion

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by SuperU »

Pretty busy time for me right now, just going to leave this here, sailor.


User avatar
Crocuta
Posts: 136
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 6:04 am

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by Crocuta »

Hello, how much for the BURRDUM?
Image


Bend: Alpha 3 FTL. I ninja teleported us to our marker, leaving Skabooga worried that we'd miss our window. I didn't know that he didn't know. Everything was going according to plan (and audiox put some good RPGs down onto the front of the convoy), but I was hesitant to be the first of alpha to withdraw. I could hear something creeping up to the East, and finally saw a BTR, so ordered a retreat to the rocks, North. We were told to get some GPs onto it, so I crept South to get a view. I don't know what the rest of my team was doing, but they ended up ahead of me to the South-East and died horribly. Got 1 hit on the BTR and had to retreat before the mission was called. I survived a Ferrard mission. :v:

Roadside: Alpha 2 FTL. All of us except for Adynod KIA on first contact. We were to take the right side of the road with practically no cover. Last time I played this mission I was in the squad taking the Western hills, and can't tell how bad it was for the road people. Maybe a good strategy is to take the hills before advancing units below.

Crash Site: OpFor TH2 Crewman. After dropping Bravo off, Macaco flew us around the AO for some pretty aggressive runs on BluFor helicopters. He seems to think I helped take down at least 2, but it was hard for me to tell. Saw a parachute, hesitated to open fire, checked my map, then lost the contact. It was also tough to hear voices at times. During a run on an enemy helicopter I briefly saw a friendly name flash up on the cursor, and then the [URGH] in the chat box, so if your stats said that Macaco killed you (pilots take kill credit IIRC) then I'd like to hear about what happened. I probably should have been more aware of friendlies below, even at long range.

BlackFolkDown: Alpha 3 AT. The only thing I really have to say about my experience: Anvil was our FTL. Just before we were told to withdraw from around the mosque, he spotted a handful of enemies. As we were leaving we opened fire for a last bit of fun, then I moved to the staircase, and BOOM, dead. I really don't know what happened, and expected that it was a misfire.

My text chat also broke and spewed out garbled nonsense.

User avatar
audiox
Host
Posts: 641
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:58 am
Location: Norway

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by audiox »

All right. This session had its ups and downs, but luckily it went out on a high note for me!

First of all thanks to Fer & hosts for making the focus of the evening experimentation without pressure. That tends to be how i feel about most FA sessions, but to formalize it a night every once in a while to get more people comfortable with the various slots is a good idea. Having experienced SL's is really golden when you're a first time FTL, so hosts slotting there makes sense (and all the more fun is had when SLs then are shot on approach to landing!). (It might be a good idea to slot A/B/C-1 with a person who is comfortable assuming command as well if we do this again. But then again that would mean even more slotting-micromanagement.....)
Working with clear orders made some of my early FTL-sessions bearable, whilst dead SLs and the like usually led to a bad time being had.

So, off we went.

Bend
A3 AT

In which i learn that i am totally capable of wasting four rockets trying to hit one target. Yay. In which i also learn that calling out an approaching APC to our right two/three times is no guarantee that anybody else will notice it. Happens.At the end of it all i crested the hill and got shot by something.
This turned into a very static mission, in which we kept moving back and forth over the top of the hill we were firing from. Being that far out from the convoy had its advantages, but the whole Massivhe Fieapowah! experience is a little bit wanting of excitement.

Roadside
BRDM Driver

Yeeehaw, i smell burnt hillbilly chicken. I haven't driven these vehicles much outside of the explosives range, so felling the soft thud of these fleshbeings scurrying all around me was quite the experience. I believe i speak for us both when i say that the BRDM was a tad confused. Hearing the cries of Alpha was apparently not enough to have us sent up for cover, and when we finally moved up there it seems i might have driven over Toppometer.... :oops:
So, me and Skabooga stood still by the truck with zero visibility for a while since somebody was kind enough to throw a smoke grenade right in front of us! Then we moved slowly forward with no clear task, took some MG-fire and was finally tasked with moving out to the right of the road.

The smoke had left me woozy, because i got the impression that there was another BRDM out there that we were meant to engage. Since i like a game of chicken i drove fast and inaccurate around the "BRDM" marker, which was apparently where i was to stop. :?
After that we raced ofrward, ended up really far ahead of everybody else, and was shot to pieces by the 10/20 troops flanking us from the village to our left/rocks to our right whilst we congratulated each other on having taken out a static MG.
YAY US! :eng101:

Crashsite
Alpha2 FTL

Hey, lets have an AI in the fireteam! :|
Hey, lets spend as much time as possible in this tincan! :dance:
Hey, lets have the SL get shot whilst still in the tincan! :fry:
Hey, lets exit the chopper without a clue as to what we are to do! :psyduck: (Fair enough, comms after SL kicking it tends to be bad)
Hey, lets not have any independent initiative as an FTL! :hist101:

Hey, lets, regardless of this, keep Blufor busy enough to allow Bravo to get away with the data! :jihad:

Blackfolk Down
CO :o

So, it was time to try commanding. I have been thinking about a fast run of Blackfolk for a while, so it was nice to get to try it on all you furry labrats. :science101:
Actually, thanks to you all for filling out my shopping list by staying so long! When planning this, the loadout i wanted was exactly the one i got yesterday, with one Helo to spare! The Party giveth, the masses giveth, i taketh and runneth witheth ith. :dance:

First a little background. Previously, when playing Blackfolk Down i've had the impression that it often turns into a grindfest. We leave our vehicles and spend the rest of the time moving from our starting point and through the city regardless of what we end up facing. What i wanted to do was to stay mobile and swoop in fast. In the original plan Alpha and Bravo would've taken the birds directly to the southernmost warlord after the raid at the Villa, but since we had limited objectives i had to scratch that part.


the mission
After the first unbearable silences on comms i discovered that i had my mic muted. As if i wasn't jittery enough....

Markers were placed (i really like to have the designations on map by the start, thanks to all COs who do that.
I completely forgot that Delta was loaded in the Littlebird, but that sorted itself out. If i had remembered, and had the time, i probably would've used them to get into the highest position they could to survey Charlies approach to the Mosque.

Alpha and Bravo went in and got the job done at the villa, which was great. They were basically on their own from the point i placed the base of fire/assault markers. There wasn't much i could do but get you another chopper. But you had like two or three circling above you so any more would've been nuts....
The problem ended up being, as expected, Charlie. (Who did a good job under the circumstances, nothing to say on that.) The problem more being that they were forced to halt and clear as we usually do in this mission. I was bordering on telling them to just ignore everything and drive until two of the three hummvees were incapacitated, but that seemed excessively abusive. So when CSL (Headspace? says so in my notes but its crossed out...) decided to dismount it was his call. He had eyes on the ground and i didn't. (Since driving a Hmmv and commanding at the same time is tricky....). So whatever he decided was good.
I still wonder whether or not they could've headed straight north from the dismount-point and charged westwards to the mosque. It would be fun to try. (In the same vein, is it possible to just land a chopper inside the mosque? :laugh: )
They didn't, and their approach through the streets of Zargabad was hopefully entertaining and confusing, as usual.
Delta did a glorious death charge thing. I don't really know why, but apparently they were very set on crossing that field and i figured they had it under control. They really, really, really didn't and all died horribly. (Did Alphas medic check up on them? I asked Fer to send one down there post-landing but never got any feedback on how that turned out.)
The Littlebird crashed gloriously, as it often does. I don't know for how long Rawrnix survived, and maybe i should've asked somebody to fly down there and check it out, but i really didn't want to over-extend myself too much on my first CO-mission, so sorry for that. :oops:

Other than that the mission involved moving some air support around and watching as able SL's and FTL's cruised their way to the mosque. Well done everybody! :jihad:

The chopper extraction was really neat, though i made a mistake and had TH2 spend waaaaaay too much time on the ground. I shouldn't have called it in to land until i knew that Charlie was ready, but there goes. Also sorry to those people in Charlie who were left behind. Your best bet is going local and opening up a Chicken grill in Zargabad, the place is crawling with them.


My only nagging doubt is how much the nighttime tilted the odds in our favour. Would the Helos have been knocked out if it was daytime? Would Charlie have died at Charlie RV?

Thanks again guys, great session.

User avatar
Dogface
Posts: 163
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:13 am

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by Dogface »

A truly glorious session! It's lovely to see the population slowly growing thanks to the hard work and community-building of the hosts and the cooperation and good sportspersonship of the players. Bravo!

Bend - Charlie SL

This mission saw us ambushing a soviet convoy in Takistan, with Tryteyker commanding. We had three full squads and a bevy of attachments. The ambush site was selected at a long, straightish section of road with a sharp chicane in the middle, overlooked by a high ridge. Charlie and the Medium Machinegun team were positioned in the middle, with Alpha and Bravo and the other attachments on either side (by the way, we were able to see the killzone easily enough!).

We spawned in the hills and moved quickly and efficiently up to the ridgeline -- indeed, since we were not that far from the convoy's starting position, we had to hurry! Crawling up into our positions, with me calling out targets with my binoculars (the SL's most important piece of equipment), we waited for the firing to start and then unloaded on the column. It started well enough, with RPGs blasting the BMPs at the vanguard, and rifle fire raining down on the infantry and crewmen who emerged, albeit somewhat ineffective at our range of about 400-500m. However, we soon ran out of RPG rounds, and many of the soviets were able to run off the road and dig themselves into concealed positions, sending the occasional spray of green tracers up at us. Meanwhile, one of the surviving BMPs started rolling up the hill towards us. :shock: Tryteyker called for other squads to take it out for us, and I started flinging GP rounds, but I caught a bullet along with many of my squadmates in the process.

From here I joined the flock of spectator-crows as we flitted around the ridgeline (btw, I would love some more controllable crow controls (crowntrols?) and the ability to caw at will :P ), watching the platoon being slowly whittled down by the remaining soviet troops, including a BMP running rampage through Charlie's position with no rockets to stop it, and a plucky soviet soldier who had apparently perfected stealth techniques as he was able to wander freely among the distracted comrades, murdering with reckless abandon without drawing attentions to himself. :jihad:


Roadside - Charlie SL

Our circumstances reversed with this mission as we were tasked to rescue a beleagured truck column from a Takiban assault in a valley. With three full squads and several attachments again, this time we were also aided by a BMP with engineers.

Charlie was tasked to move along the west ridgeline overlooking the road south. Immediately after we'd hoofed it up the top, we heard a storm of distant gunfire and worried radio reports from Alpha who were being cut to pieces. We spied the blighters responsible, raining down fire from a hill across the valley as Alpha struggled up towards them. We lay down and rained fire right back at them, quickly neutralizing them despite the long range, before continuing on. :clint: On our journey south we had several engagements including some entrenched machinegunners in a town along the road, and some elusive patrols in the rolling hills to our west, who harried Tryteyker's Mi-17 as it tried to find a landing zone for Delta(?), and a single DShK emplacement, which sent the occasional spatter of innacurate fire at us until the gunner was scared off by the BMP. As we approached the L-bend in the road and the start of the friendly trucks, word came down from command to send a fireteam back to collect the trucks we'd left behind and bring them to the engineers, who needed the supplies. Charlie 2 was the furthest back, and so were volunteered for a hike back.

The rest of us drew up on the hills south of the intersection, where we started seeing large numbers of enemies moving at medium and long range to our east, running towards Delta(?) who had inserted on the north side of the road, at the far end of the column. We massed up and started taking them down one by one, along with technicals and flanking squads, until C2 returned with the trucks. With all or most immediate threats neutralized, the mission was called as a victory. :v:


Crash site - BLUFOR Alpha SL

A nice brisk adverserial was now chosen to mix things up a bit - this time BLUFOR and OPFOR had to fight over some data from a downed C-130 in the vicinity of a Chernarus airfield. With two 2-fireteam squads each along with three transport helos, we sent one chopper to scout while the other two brought us towards the AO from the west. The C130 was crashed at the far end of the airstrip meaning we had to work our way down along its south side, while half a dozen helicopters circled and duelled and tried to supress us with their doorguns. We worked our way quickly to a Base of Fire position on a wooded hill, so that Bravo could advance, immediately coming into contact with enemies who had inserted closer to the crash site, and also taking potshots at passing enemy helicopters -- including one that came spinning down into our position and squashed A2 flat. A1 moved up to their position, not far behind Bravo who were struggling to advance - after some stiff gunfighting, the remainder of Alpha moved up to them only to be met with a sea of writhing, wounded soldiers. :psyduck:

We didn't have time to patch up many of them, though, as by this point OPFOR had already defeated the armed civilians at the crash site and started downloading the data. With choppers crashing around us we rushed forwards to try and stop them, but weren't able to move quickly enough! DEFEAT. :psyboom:


BlackFolkDown (limited objectives) - Charlie 1 FTL (Headspace SLing)

This classic snatch op had us swooping into Zargabad to capture some warlords from two locations - the villa just to the northeast of the city, and the mosque in the middle of it. Alpha and Bravo were sent to take the first target together, swooping away in blackhawks to insert on the dried out riverbed, while Charlie took some HMMVs for a long drive north to spike our way through the eastern suburbs.

After some sporadic automatic fire went over our heads we pulled off, immediately coming under fire from skirmishers hiding in the buildings and ditches to our west. After we'd eliminated the threat, Headspace pulled us together and we started moving out towards the city, clearing section after section of buildings with efficient, well-coordinated pincer attacks, despite my tendency to misread my map and veer off course. :P It was a tense, but rapid series of movements from cover to cover, with overwatch used well by fireteams and the squad as a whole, and we took few casualties as we closed in on the mosque, not least due to Black Mamba's excellent tactical chops, keeping Kido close at hand to cover me and the AR, Adam(?), as we frequently rushed ahead of them, without falling behind.

Unfortunately we were at this point robbed of Headspace's sterling leadership by an enemy bullet, and had to make do with my mostly tin and lithium-based leadership. Although more and more enemies were pouring in from the streets around us, we did have Transport Helo 2 providing light and MG fire (and a lot of noise) from above, and Alpha and Bravo closing in to support us from the villa, where they had successfully captured their warlord's soul but had left his body riddled with bullets, if the rumours were true. Charlie's brave soldiers dug into an intersection and fended off hordes of incoming gunmen, including some accurate and timely AR fire from Adam(?), and another FT leader diligently herding me to a nice out of the way spot when I started exposing myself too much. To enemy fire, I mean. :zoidberg:

Alpha and Bravo did most of the hard work clearing out the approach to the mosque, and Charlie were given the honour of taking point in the assault. Filtering into the main hall all pro ice like, dropping guards left and right, we quickly located the two warlords and arrested them in fine health, despite the number of bullets flying around. An extract chopper was called in, and the finicky warlords were eventually wrangled into it, although in the process of that and with my comms drowned out by the engines, I managed to leave several members of Charlie behind and had to tell them to take whatever transport they could find to the extract point. Sorry Mamba! Anyway, the extract went like clockwork despite the kerfuffle, and VICTORY was declared once we had our two captives lined up next to the vehicles doing jumping jacks for our amusement. :cop:


Finale XL - Medium Anti Tank gunner (Dabbo(?) as assistant).

Despite the groans that emerged from those who knew this mission, we ended up acquitting ourselves excellently against all odds. As a large enemy tank column supported by masses of infantry approached our UN position north of a bridge, with the blackness of the night and the awesome intro music throbbing around us, we lined ourselves up along a ridgeline and some buildings to stop them at any cost. As soon as the first four tanks came into a view a hail of fire started flying back and forth -- tank shells and MG fire from them, and rockets and rifle bullets from us.

My trusty MAAWS served me well, especially as the tanks tended to cluster together, gleaming blackly and dimly in my scope until they started to burst with explosions and orange flames, every tank kill silhouetting more targets and revealing the supporting infantry slinking behind them. Jubilation rang out as the first wave was stopped, but was shortlived as another came after it -- only to be brought short again, my second volley of three missiles, including two generously supplied my Dabbo, helping to reduce them all to burning wrecks along with our emplaced SPG, and numerous RPG gunners -- as well as the BMP, dug in further up the road with its hull down and continually raining cannonfire down the length of the approaching column. :hist101:

At this point me and many of the other fighters were running short on ammo, and after a fruitless dash towards the BMP to see if had any more for us, we returned to the front line to do what we could with our rifles. I went out too far and, after killing a couple of soldiers, was mown down by a T72. Dabbo bravely came to my rescue, only to be mown down himself. Then someone else (Mamba?) tried to rescue him, despite Dabbo corageously trying to ward him off, sensibly throwing down some smoke, but also succumbing to the same bastard of a tank, which then went on to decimate the battered and depleted western line, leaving only a few stragglers. :argh:

However, the heroism did not stop, with one group on the east facing down a tank with three soldiers and one RPG, decrewing it(?) just before they were overrun. Another T72 that tried to storm through our line was tracked by one of our last RPGs rockets, sending it lurching and spinning off the road. I believe Rawrmix, Kalelovil and SuperU were the last to succumb, each going down in a blaze of glory, including firing wildly at the final surviving enemy tank and luring it to its death on a mine. :fry:

Bloody fantastic way to round of a superlative session, if you ask me!


But of course, the night wouldn't be complete without a round of...

Cholo (afterparty) - PCPFOR Bravo FTL

You know the drill by now: :dance:'s attack a :cop: station while awesome music plays. B, C and D were told to immediately start raining everything we had down on the :cop:s, while Alpha snuck in from the building site to the north. Bullets were shot and fun was had, until the order to charge came -- I jacked a hippy van, turned on the lights, and pulled it up facing the front of the police station so our :dance:'s would have some light to see the filthy :cop:'s by. Unfortunately, I didn't quite make it around the corner as there seemed to be some sneaky :cop: hiding in the building site, who took us down one by one as my :dance:'s came to try and help me. He was eventually taken out and had his shotgun stolen, but beyond that, it's all a PCP haze.

Bandzai
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2013 7:38 pm

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by Bandzai »

Bend - Bravo 3 FTL

Teleported to the spot we needed to be, got over the ridge. Didn't think much about cover, so stayed quite in the open on the slope. When ambush started, I've managed to shoot some grenades. Rounds obviously wasted. Then got shot quite quickly by one of the armored vehicles. Lessons learned - get a safer firing position.

Roadside - Bravo 3 FTL

Started moving left of the road and going up the hill towards our designated destination. I did not take it seriously when initially heard shots fired, because from the sound they were quite far away, there were lots of our guys on that side, so just continued watching my left side while marching forwards. When there were more chatter on the comms checked our right side, and saw ~5 enemies skylining across the road. I was quite surprised how well the could be seen and how I did not notice them earlier. I managed to shoot one of them, and when they were all dead, I was shot dead from unknown direction. I think from somewhere behind us. Lessons learned - move to better position before opening fire, as I've simply stopped when saw some targets and engaged them.

Crash site - Blufor Alpha 2 FTL

This one was really a crash site. After a safe arrival to our LZ (thx to the pilot), and reaching our waypoint, during some coordination moment when we had to either decide what to do next, or to receive orders, a friendly helo crashed on my FT, killing everyone except me. I ended up wounded. It was quite a great sight. Second one - trees are falling in front of me (wtf? maybe a meteorite...) second two, explosion and a burnt up chopped falling from the sky. A crash site indeed.

After I got treated, and being forever alone (either dead alone, like in two previous games, or being alive alone this time) I went towards the plane crash site and found a spot where I could actually see something for the first time. It was not very great spot: even though I saw enemy movement, it was too far, also there was only concealment and no cover (or cover, but no visibility). Moments later, when the documents were already in enemy hands I saw some retreating maneuvers, footmobiles leaving the plane headed to the woods. I've check with AL (Dogface?) if I could go bandzai on Opfor, as I was only single guy left from our FT. With permission I ran across the airfield towards hangars, hoping to flank and find a enemy extraction point or to intercept their movement on the ground.

It all ended briefly after I heard enemy chopper crash somewhere in front of me, as I was trying to predict where they could be extracting on the map. We lost. Lessons learned - dunno.

BlackFolkDown (limited objectives) - Bravo 1 FTL

Nothing much to tell. It was very organised. After landing and shooting couple of bad guys we secured the first warlord, got him in a helo, transported to our extraction point and told him to stay there. And he did... for a while. I haven't noticed when but his icon dissappeared from my hud some time later, and when we returned the second time, he was not there anymore (sneaky son of a gun...). Before second extraction we were supposed to be helping Charlie with the Mosque warlords, and that we did. During movements and firefight we have lost RuckleT. Other than few more firefights, it was uneventful. Pickers was great following staying with team. AJAX (AT) was looking for opportunities to excel, not waiting for noob FTL (me) to decide to where we needed to be and what to do.

Finale XL - Echo FTL

We reached our destination (riverbed), noticed some men charging to our initial position. Decided to engage. Killed two of them only to realize they were friendly NPC's (deffinetly ot wearing helmets) :siiigh:
Then the hell broke loose. Again we did not have any cover, just some bushes and thin trees. I've got wounded, then after being healed under fire, and ready to run again, I got shot and killed. As did some of my FT buddies.

I was lucky enough to capture how SuperU, Fer, Headspace and Ferrard got shot by a single ninja chedaki standing in the corner, after one of these brave UN troops could almost touch the ninja, then turned and ran away, and got shot in the back.

Sorry for the mouse cursor, and that it was not edited. I'd rather post it now, than never :)



All in all it was a disastrous day for me :)

Black Mamba
Posts: 335
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 12:11 pm

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by Black Mamba »

audiox wrote:I have been thinking about a fast run of Blackfolk for a while, so it was nice to get to try it on all you furry labrats.
And I can only thank you for that! that mission was starting to piss me off quite a lot, seeing that I couldn't seem to find a way to play it as intended. Well done for that! You actually gave me faith again in that mission's potential, and I will definitely get back briefly at editing to sort it out one last time. Expect quite a bit of drastic changes.
I wanted to make a new version for Fallujah, to be played during Vanilla+ sessions, but I hear Comrade Rawrnix did that already.
audiox wrote:So when CSL (Headspace? says so in my notes but its crossed out...) decided to dismount it was his call. He had eyes on the ground and i didn't. (Since driving a Hmmv and commanding at the same time is tricky....). So whatever he decided was good.
He actually did when we took MG fire at the outskirsts of the city. It would have been plain suicide to keep on driving. Anyway, from a Charlie point of view, the approach to the mosque (and the fact that there was only one squad to do it) was way faster than what we usually experienced in the mission, and way more focused. Thus more enjoyable.
audiox wrote:(In the same vein, is it possible to just land a chopper inside the mosque?
It is. It was actually designed that way, and the Littlebird can easily be put down directly inside the mosque. But the different edits Wolf and I brought to the mission made it more difficult, to the point that on the current version, you could probably not take off again. By the way, rooftop insertion on the villa is very possible too, if you dedicate a chopper to spray the rooftop with MGs first.
During testing, I managed (once) to extract the Villa Warlord by myself, by landing on the roof, clearing the villa but never getting outside, then mounting back up and flying away.
audiox wrote:My only nagging doubt is how much the nighttime tilted the odds in our favour. Would the Helos have been knocked out if it was daytime? Would Charlie have died at Charlie RV?
Probably. Keep in mind that the mission was initially designed to be played at night, albeit without nightvision (except for Delta and pilots). This got somehow lost in the way (mostly because of people not liking no-NVGs mission that much, I guess).
Dogface wrote: I managed to leave several members of Charlie behind and had to tell them to take whatever transport they could find to the extract point. Sorry Mamba!
Oh, I wasn't one of those. I love home too much for that kind of stuff to happen to me. Somehow I found myself covering the front of Tiger's helo, while listening to the massive mess. Then it took off without me, so I went by myself find another one, and extracted in Kale's chopper.
All in all, it was a very fine run of the mission, up until the extraction, when it got... hmmm... messy.

Anvilfolk
Posts: 119
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 3:56 pm
Location: Portugal
Contact:

Re: [Sun] 07 Apr 2013 (Glorious)

Post by Anvilfolk »

This was a bloody awesome session! Brilliant! Perhaps even stellar! I had great fun! :)

Since I've found Bandzai so often in my fireteams, I decided to return the favour and be in his fireteam for most of the session - and good fun it was too! Bandzai's learned more in his first session than I did in half a dozen sessions of moderate FTLing! The downside? Mostly because only really bad stuff happened to him!

Bend (BANDZAI SQUAD!): as soon as we start firing, it seems like all he armour turns on us. We're wiped out soon enough!

Roadside (BANDZAI SQUAD!): going up the hill, tralala, happy songs and ponies, then BAM :psyboom: The rest of us made it out, but he didn't :( Would've been a great mission to FTL too. The rest of it went really well!

Crash Site (BANDZAI SQUAD!) was mostly confusing. There were no clear orders coming from the top, so we just huddled around. Until a chopper cometted out of the sky, right into my face. Leaving Bandzai covered in human leftovers.

Blackfolk Down (A3 FTL) was pretty interesting. With two objectives, it was longer than how we usually play it - which made it much better, IMHO. We typically take the villa and that's that. This time we had to reposition, push into town, and it gave it much more of a tactical feel. Unfortunately, I didn't do a particularly good job of FTLing, so I apologise. Movement and positioning was a bit too loose, and it was hard for me to keep track of everyone. Close quarters and urban fighting has a ton of potential for FTs to do 2-element bounding, and I couldn't get that going.

Finale XL (Arc's FT as AAR): this was good fun. If only we had gotten that last tank earlier, it would've been a smashing success! As it was, that lonely mine taking it out simply made it epic!


Now, for the less awesome points, IMHO.
- Please be active while slotting. We spent forever waiting for people who must've been alt-tabbed, not paying attention.
- People have been talking more and more during briefings and such, and it's getting pretty intrusive - at least for me.
- On a related note, if the hosts tell you to stop talking, please stop talking... making fun of it doesn't help anyone.
- Please, please, please don't use a regular letter as your PTT button. It keeps interrupting and it was pretty obvious that it was distracting planning and the CO...


But again, amazing session, and a wonderful way to slot as well! Should really help with the slower FTL slotting times! :)

Post Reply