[Tue] 31 Mar 2015 (Surprising Victory)

[Freyja]

An excellent 25 phenomenal humans joined us for this weeks' glorious trip to the unknown, as always, much appreciated.

Missions played

• Into the Fire
• The Rundown
• Jolly Blue
• Gator Raid
• Afterparty - Altian Healthcare

Starting off this series of surprising success, Into the Fire was completed in record time and with record low losses as the minutemen and the reinforcing groups ran across an unusually poorly defended stretch of ground and escaped with the downed pilot. In Gator Raid, despite being thrown into combat with no prior warning or time to plan for what was to come, the players managed to get within an inch of destroying the enemies' prized attack helicopter. But alas, the bastarding thing flew off before they could blow it up with remote charges.

Thanks to everyone that showed up, it was good to see the well oiled machine that is FolkARPS taking on the world, and even sometimes succeeding!

[Kefirz]

Gator Raid

CO

The mission indeed started without a briefing, but I managed to say something about my intent as the CO to the SL's. The plan was to loop around the heavily guarded outposts and go right to the Gator itself. Although at the start, one outpost was in our way, but we dealt with it relatively successfully, although we lost quite a bit of people right at the start. After the outpost was declared safe-ish, we saw a double rainbow on top of a hill with a little chapel, thinking that this was a sign, we marched towards it. When I got to the chapel, I was shocked that we went a bit outside the mission area, it honestly wasn't my fault, really.... I was as shocked as you are.

Eagle eye spotted some enemy armor in the town, so Bravo was tasked to deal with them and provide a BOF for Audiox, whose Alpha would move in the town and strike judgement with an iron fist.
It.. didn't work out like that per se. One of the IFV's got really, really angry and it started decimating Bravo, while they tried to manouver out of the IFV's fury, Alpha moved in the town in hopes to secure it...

It didn't quite work out like that either, I had exhausted all of my options, so Gemoxy, the MAT took a final hail mary shot and that... well... NEVERMIND! We actually wanted to shoot it down with our 5.56's right from the beginning.


P.S. Any rumors saying that we could have won it at any time we were on the hill are just that... rumors. I mean, where is the fun in not sending Alpha to it's doom and seeing Bravo not get thorn to pieces by GMG's?
(In reality I just wanted to give you guys some action so the mission isn't totally boring, otherwise the whole mission would basically consist of 1 engagement and a slog through the woods.)

[madrak_the_red]

Into the Fire

A2 FTL

This was so slick and smooth I wasn't really prepared for it. Armed with gusto and our trusty balaclavas, we got in, shot at some dudes, and then got out again with (I believe) no casualties to enemy fire. I was most impressed. It was almost like we knew what we were doing.

The Rundown

TH2 Pilot

My second time playing this mission, and good fun it was too. It all seemed to be going rather well, I dropped off my chalk at an ambush point, found two trucks going across country and followed them...until one was apparently abandoned and I lost sight of the other. There was some screaming over the radio, a fireteam was wiped out and we were back into the air to plink at the enemy from the air. It seemed we had them closed in, and I was told to land at the gas station. Of which there were apparently two. I landed at the one we had previously been shooting at, assuming it had been cleared. I landed right on top of the enemy, got shot and promptly exploded.


Jolly Blue

A2 FTL

Jumping out of the destroyed chopper and making our way towards a hill, the best landmark around ('There's some water...north. And a hill'), we took contact. A strider rode up, I stood up to GP it and...was promptly perforated by a 50 cal. Not my smartest move. I did enjoy the people being left behind, and the bazillion tanks awaiting Gemoxy at the evac site.

Gator Raid

A1 FTL

Sans briefing, we stood around confused for a while before running through the forest. Setting up on a hill and shooting the crap out of a small outpost later, we were running on a big, large flank through the woods. It all seemed well, securing buildings along the road into town (and the Kaiman) until we ran into some opfor, who shot me as I was sprinting to cover. Boo.

Afterparty - Altian Healthcare

A2 FTL

I had great fun with this one. After a slight wrong turn by the first pick up, we made our way to the checkpoint, blew it too pieces with GPs and 50 cal, and then had a good run through the forest, popping fools on hills and generally being badasses. We staged to assualt the compound, eventually brought down an enemy helo, and started moving up to assault. I got off a shot that I was very proud of, snap shooting a guy 300 meters away - bang bang, dead. Sadly, our rapid approach was too successful, resulting in ASL GPing us, killing my AR and wounding me. After patching ourselves up, we successfully assaulted the compound, clearing all the bad mens out, including the 50 cals by the gates. Once I realised it was clear, I jumped into the truck, called everyone else in, and we drove on out of there. I had one scary moment where an AAF AR guy appeared in front of me as we drove away. Happily, 5-ton truck beats squishy solider, and we drove away to freedom and glory.

On a side note, I sure did like being alpha fireteam leader tonight...

[Eagle_Eye]

A2 FTL is best FTL. The perfect place in the chain of command. Also the ugl hleps sell the rextra esponsibility

[madrak_the_red]

I get to order people around and blow things up? Sold!

[Sparks]

Was a bit late getting booted up to this one so I wound up just spectating the end of the first mission.
But the whole night was a bit... off. We kept winning. And there were lots of us being evac'd at the end. It's just not a Folk ARPS mission if you actually need something larger than a spatula to evac what remains of the initial team...

Into the Fire


Comrade Zitron, being a hero

Only just caught the end of this and Zitron's... unique take on approaching a beach LZ in a flying bus.
Though the end result of post-victory aerobatics was the funniest I've seen for a while. Saved by the admin hitting Continue there I think Comrade

The Rundown



First mission of the night and I get to fly? AWESOMESAUCE!

The plan was straightforward - TH1, 2 and 3 load their teams (Alphas 1, 2 and 3 respectively) and book to our marked destinations. 1 and 2 were to drop their teams to set up ambushes and then go scout, while myself in 3 with Alpha 3 and ASL in the form of Eagle_eye were to hold off and scout first.

Reality gave our plan an initial kick in the fork via the exploding helicopter bug, but we had a spare, so we headed away after a tactical change of shorts. 1 and 2 had no problems initially and got their guys on the ground, and we were off scouting but had no luck. 1 spotted the convoy and called it in, and ASL picked an ambush point for Alpha 3 based on that. I dropped them off, managing to avoid a low wall that popped in at the last minute to kill us all, and headed off again, but was silly enough to wait on ASL's order to lift instead of managing that myself (ASL was up to his tonsils in comms at the time) and I think we ghosted A3's position as a result. They wound up engaging the convoy and losing. When the call came in that they were down and bleeding out, I figured I'd learn from my earlier mistake and started planning and lining up for an immediate medevac (well, dropping in and using FAKs anyway) and got around to asking about it later. ASL gave the go on the way into the LZ, but then the convoy (which for some reason hadn't mosey'd on) opened up on us and drove us away. Heroic rescue denied A3 all bled out. And I thought we'd been hit as well from a red screen flash, but when I landed to bandage, we were fine.

So then we got back up in the air and headed back to keep eyes on the convoy, who tried diligently to keep bullets on us, and there was much flailing about like a deranged seagull evading and jinking. Somewhere in all that, we lost contact and went back to low passes over the surrounding area looking to get the guys with the guns to shoot at us again. Eventually they did, we did a nice grenade run or two, but our numbers on the ground were by now dwindling fast, and that wasn't helped by Madrak landing in the wrong spot and exploding very prettily. I'd thought he'd experienced controlled flight into terrain myself at the time, but no, it was controlled flight into enemy instead, a mistake that bit me a few minutes later, when ASL decided to get his boots on the ground and picked out the same spot Madrak had landed at as an LZ (I loved the additional order of bombing the enemy afterwards using the MH9 with me in it, very Party).

The problem was, I thought the LZ was cold. It wasn't. ASL thought we should land anyway. I, however, thought ASL was out there on the bench as my meatshield and I was the one holding the controls and we could talk about it later when we were several kilometres away. Unfortunately, I took a round to the face while trying to run away bravely. MH9s are not well known for reacting well to their pilots investigating the hereafter and so ASL was dragged down screaming while tied to the bench of a doomed helicopter.

Oh well. I did tell you it'd be a more impressive explosion with your mass on board Eagle_eye

After that, OPFOR executed and mopped up the last our surviving ground forces and won before they could even get their VIP to the target zone. /sigh

But hey, how many times do you get to be in two exploding helicopters in the one mission, eh?

And did I mention how the whole thing was made of AWESOMESAUCE???







Jolly Blue

I'm quite fond of this mission. The last time we did it, I thought I almost reached a level of competence best described as mediocre, which is a personal best for me in this game. We got ourselves organised and headed north-west looking for landmarks. Instead we found a foot patrol and killed them. Then we found a truck and I shot out its tyres to immobilise it. We decided to AT it, then RAT found that RAT in this mission is given a tube, but no rockets Character building! After that minor letdown, we moved up to shoot the driver of the truck for looking at us funny. Then TH1 overflew us and we watched it for a moment thinking to ourselves that we were going to have a shorter mission than the last time, and then a technical that we hadn't spotted opened up on us with a 50 cal from across the field and gave us our shorter mission.

Oh well. We watched as TH1 saved everyone who could disengage and run quickly enough and then we watched TH1 abandon the lost causes to the tender mercies of the AI. The sole survivor got onboard TH2 and everyone headed for home.

Home, it transpired, had meanwhile been invaded by an enormous armed column and TH1 gained about forty pounds from the lead and shrapnel. Somehow TH1's pilot lived, having bailed out of the armoured helo and into a solid wall of flying metal, but he was slightly injured and dazed by being hit with a tank shell in the face. Having seen this resistance to damage, the enemy wisely drove a tank up to him and shot him in the head with it. And that was our partial success, which we're claiming as an immoral victory.











Gator Raid





Well, we had a minor hiccup at the start, but the Party adapts and overcomes Comrade! Pausing only for the necessary duty of ripping the ACO (green) sight off my SAW and throwing it as far into the woods as I could we headed south-east to get an overlooking base of fire and move up on the Kaiman in town. We got to the ridgeline we had aimed for, and found a large bunker on the far side with an armed strider. MAT took the strider, and I emptied two boxes of AR ammo into the bunker before ASL had to tell me to stop firing as the bunkers were empty (I thought my FTL would tell me when to stop, so I had just kept on shooting until ordered otherwise). In the assault we lost a comrade to HMG fire, so we nicked his stuff immediately and prepared to flee.

A roving patrol to our north and more contact to our south-east interrupted our running away, and after a half-box of AR, we pulled west and regrouped, then shot some more at the persistent sods to our south-east, and then headed west again. There was a minor mishap with mapreading Comrades, and perhaps the Party should in future remember that some COs can suffer from colour blindness, and as a result minor deviations from the strictest definition of the AO's geographical boundaries can occur...

We headed south and Bravo set up to blow up all the vehicles in the town from an overlooking hill while a now-reformed Alpha would assault into the town. This went reasonably well until one vehicle didn't blow up enough, but that was mostly Bravo's problem, we had our own issues with infantry in Alpha. Madrak took one to the face in front of me (Comrade, I was *not* firing at the time, why would you say such a thing?) and I looped around to try to get to him without being perforated myself, but he was a slowly cooling corpse by the time I got there so I nicked all of his stuff too.

Alpha pushed further into the town, and ASL took one to the spleen when we hit some more unexpected infantry. I actually managed to do the heroic medic thing this time (which was good because it let me use some of my six stolen FAKs) and we regrouped just in time to hear the Kaiman go active and for the next three or four minutes, we unloaded every magazine and box we had at the thing. I ran dry and had to go scrounge a gun off another corpse, but seeing this the Kaiman learned what fear meant and legged it. And so we lost.

BUT WE WERE SO CLOSE COMRADES!
Next time I'm nicking someone's PCML...







Afterparty - Altian Healthcare



Seriously Comrades, what is it with the Party putting me behind a driving wheel in Arma? We all know how this goes...



Anyway, Reppy believed in me so we gave it a go. And we managed not to kill the technical, avoided death with nasty, big, pointy teeth, and proved that Arma's got talent. And then we got out of the vehicle and kissed the virtual ground. I took off my ACO (green) and wished I could shoot it but OPSEC required I just kick dirt over it instead And we headed towards our first target, the roadblock just up the road. I'd say they never knew what hit them, but they shot first so I'd be lying. The technical made a right mess of them, their vehicle got destroyed, and I nearly fragged people when I lobbed two grenades into the roadblock's bunkers. Fight over, we looted the corpses and headed towards the military base and the "medical supplies" truck.

Along the way, we hit contact from a few hundred metres out, and then they hit back with GP40s, but got their range wrong and just made a mess of my binocular's anti-reflective lens coating (and my shorts). We even managed to take down their unarmed transport helo who picked a really bad LZ. I guess being mostly immortal makes you careless that way. After we'd shot it far more than was reasonable, the helo crashed and we pushed on up, but we lost Reppy along the way. There was a call of friendly fire, but as it went out I stepped over a low wall and suddenly there was tracer fire. I did not squawk like a little girl, fell back and went prone and checked my map to be sure A3 hadn't gotten way ahead of us and looped round and mistaken me for enemy. And then I called it in and started divesting myself of several stolen RGNs in their direction and a few rounds of 5.56 to be sure.

Once that all died down, I legged it back to where I thought Reppy had fallen to nick his stuff but accidentally looted an enemy corpse instead and traded usable iron sights for horrible iron sights and a grenade launcher, and now my total mass was more explosive material than non-explosive material. We moved up and stormed into the compound and I started lobbing GP40s everywhere someone even hinted at an enemy position, and at one enemy who announced his own. Once I was out of GP40s, we moved to the buildings to clear them, but Grumpy took it in the face from an AI with x-ray vision in the first tin shack, and I think I finished Grumpy off while shredding the AI with more RGOs (sorry Grumpy ). That done, we pushed on the second building and used it for cover while trying to grenade the bunkers behind it, but both myself and Eagle_eye in very quick succession didn't notice we were out of RGOs and lobbed smoke instead.



I then switched to RGNs and lobbed one of those, and Eagle tried to rush the building we were covering against and didn't get past the doorway. I threw in two RGNs (why shoot when you can boom?) and we stormed into it, and cleared it heroically. Pausing only to nick Eagle's stuff on the way out, I linked up with Madrak by the trucks, and after we had confirmed the bunkers were clear, we all piled in and legged it, while I nicked examined the "medical supplies" from the truck. Have no fear Comrade Commissar, your viagra and swedish penis pump were undamaged in the firefight!




My Lessons learned:

• If you're the pilot, don't wait on ASL for takeoff permission after dropping troops.
• The objective waypoint is a pilot's only real friend in Arma.
• If one helo has blown up at an LZ, find out why before landing there.
• Always overfly the LZ before landing.
• Don't fixate on the helo overhead and miss the 50 cal that's across the field from you.
• Always check your inventory at the start of the mission so you don't carry an empty rocket launcher into a fight.
• Always take the ACO (green) sight off, dig a small hole in the ground at the start of the mission and bury it there.
• Never drive.
• Seriously, never drive. FTL is less stressful than driving.
• Binoculars are a joy.
• Always nick every corpse's stuff if you have time.
• Grenades have a blast radius.
• Don't steal the Commissar's Viagra, grind it up and slip it into the Folk canteen's tea urn just because it's April 1st.

[wolfenswan]

That's one way to beat a mission, by just avoiding the mission area.

[Sparks]

That's one way to beat a mission, by just avoiding the mission area.

Comrade, are you suggesting we did this deliberately? It was a tragic error in map-reading caused by Comrade CO's unfortunate blighting with colour-blindness, a crippling and cruel affliction!

[Grumpy]

That's one way to beat a mission, by just avoiding the mission area.

and we still lost!

[Kefirz]

That's one way to beat a mission, by just avoiding the mission area.

We came back! eventually

The plan was to avoid the brutal hill fighting, where they hose us down with .50cal booolets in every single mission that involves hills and a healthy dose of cruelty.
If there were any valleys, where we could have slipped past unnoticed, we would have gone there, besides we took the scenic route and checked out the landscape.... have you ever been in that church? Of course you haven't.