[Tue] 08 Apr 2014 (Climaxes for everyone!)

[Tigershark]

Nice big turn out for Tuesday including 2-3 new players. Thanks to everyone for smooth slotting.

• Climaxing Crusader
• Precious Cargo
• Bay

Afterparty missions:

• RedbearS - Simple Wounding System test
• Random Engagements - Head defended the Ghost Hotel against Kefirz' bastards.

Please list your thoughts and feedback here. Ferard has a separate thread for specific Precious Cargo: http://www.folkarps.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1281.

[Lord Penney]

Climaxing Crusader
B1 FTL

This first test of this mission was, in my opinion, a success. I noticed a couple of tweaks that I need to make (end triggers for example) but overall I was rather happy with how it turned out.

But anyway, as for how the mission went; Bravo had been tasked with a merry stroll through the hills near Agia Marina when we came across a couple of brutes upon the hilltops whom cared not for our free spirits. Regardless, we soon showed them the errors of their ways and set their spirits free, in a manner of speaking. We soon found a nice cosy farmhouse to snuggle down in and casually shot some more brutes that were loitering around the airfield. We even managed to get a fire going! Admittedly, we did borrow an Ifrit for kindling, but I think we can all agree that it was quite impressive. It was at this point that an awful racket started behind us, but it seemed to resolve itself after some time so it was hardly worth stopping our tea break.

We then took a trip into Stratis Air Base itself. It must have been a rough part of town because most of the chaps were staying indoors so we had to knock on every door; and when we got there, all of the chaps not indoors seemed to be having a nap on top of their own lunch! You should have seen them, they were covered in jam! Most embarrassing.
After a brisk walk through that neighbourhood, I found myself on top of a large cylinder after being instructed to do so by BSL. I'm not so sure whether sunbathing was such a good idea, as I soon got sleepy up there and settled in for the night.

Precious Cargo
Ralph (The All American Truck Driver)

Sadly, this was my last mission of the night. Even worse, I'm not quite sure how to put the events of this one into words. Truely.

To put it shortly, I had to earn ['mai] paycheck by delivering what I assumed was compressed and isolated freedom to either an AAF outpost or, if intercepted, an FIA held town. Despite my best efforts, FIA failed to realise that I was a real American who fights for the rights of every man (read, was friendly to both sides) and swiftly exercise their constitutional right on my candy ass.
Seriously though, I think someone was recording this mission so ignore my half asleep rambling and go see that!

[head]

Climaxing Crusader
Missed.
Precious Cargo
A3 - AAR - Greenfor
Well this was a bit of a clusterfuck, Not sure how much ardyvee has commanded but this is not a nice mission to start , you did a good job non the less, even after the initial confusion we set out a convoy shapey thingy, missing a few turns and all that entails.

Once we got to the First check point we dismounted with A3 going east and A1/A2 going west, we milled around a bit before we got the order to remount and at that point blufor had moved into a nice sexy position to kill us all, A1/A2 ran towards the cover of the compound sadly the enemy was to the south and opened delicious fire from their behind, killing most of them,
I valiantly tired to walk up a 90 degree mountain and promptly got shot in the face.

Redbears V4 Simple Wounding System test
CO

After gearing up and getting to LZ okay, we moved our nice tank up to support alpha has they advanced.
Sadly the tank got hit from the flank by a lone AT guy, i spotted him and promptly killed him,sadly a 12mm HMG static nearby did not agree and put a bullet in my head.

The rest then died in a slow push towards the objective, and the tank got stuck in a slope and had lots of fun.

Any constructive criticism on the wounding system?, too easy to die?, or vice versa, or any other issues?

[Tigershark]

It could have been that you were outclassed by the superior strategic planning of the opposing team....

[Cookie]

Climaxing Crusader

A1 AR

Alpha was tasked with moving right towards the outpost where we'd setup a base of fire, and with A2 and A3 moving at the bottom of the hill A1 moved right up it. A2 and 3 made it to the outpost and cleared it, while we got stuck on the hill trying to repel an enemy force the size of about two fireteams. We killed one of said fireteams but the other one was too far
to open fire upon, so we left it after being told to move on to the outpost for approx. 5 milliseconds, after which we started to move down the hill and towards the airbase itself.

Whilst moving down the hill I was shot in the head and thus a great warrior was lost. Now that I think about it, the fireteam we left was probably the guys who started to shoot down at the airbase from the hill. Whoops.

Precious Cargo

BLUFOR, A2 AR

I really liked this mission, probably because I killed eight opponents during the ambush by just spraying MG fire down from the hill I was on South of the road.

A2 moved right across the road from the scout at the windmill, and we setup on top of a hill where I just so happened to have perfect vision of the buildings the ambush would eventually take place in front of. As I prepared my machine gun to rain hellfire upon the enemies who dared cross my line of sight, an enemy armored vehicle stopped dead in front of me, and I swiftly shat myself. The vehicle moved on, though, and I hear the MAT dealt with it in glorious fashion. The two trucks stopped right in front of me, and I think I killed one of the drivers. Whoops. I'm really proud of A2 though, as my misfire was soon followed by us doing what can only be described as "serious damage." We got pinned at one point, but before we could even start to fall back to the second marker, the convoy was dealt with and victory was ours. All in all, a 10/10 mission.

Bay

B1 AR

This mission was way 2spooky4me. 2spooky5me, even. The dark night paired with the thick fog made for one ambiant mission.

The mission -- as far as I was concerned at the time -- started off fine, with B1's objective clear; get to the chapel marked with a question mark and clear it of enemies. We moved to the chapel in an organized chapel, but this is when shit first hit the fan. We lost our AT rifleman whilst him and the FTL were clearing the building as I provided covering fire with the help of the AAR. The AAR picked up the rocket launcher and we moved a bit further South, when we were told to stay put. It was at this point we learned that Alpha had been pretty much wiped out, with Alpha 3(?, not sure) remaining as the only fireteam left. They joined the Bravo TS channel and from that point on as far as I understood they were an attachment of Bravo.

After a not too long of a while we were told to move up, and we met the Bravo Medic who was acting as a scout. He ran past us and after we spotted some spooky enemies in the spooky fog, he ran right at them, bless him. We heard and saw other FTs firing at the hill to the North-East of our position, but eventually they managed to clear the enemies on top of said hill and B1 moved onto the road from the spooky beach and finally! We were on top of the fog!

As I celebrated this internally we walked right into a group of enemies in a house. With other FTs on the hill, we were the only ones actually at the house and some CQBing happened, with each of us saving each other repeatedly. Enemies came from the beach and we didn't see them because of the thick fog, but eventually we emerged victorious and the house was clear. Soon we started to move out towards the objective on the road, but we only made it about 50 meters when we were told an enemy APC was closing in on our position. We didn't know where from, but in about five seconds we saw the front end of an APC climbing onto the road. Thank fuck Hydra picked up that AT, because even though I was shouting into his ear in panic, he managed to pull it off and soon the APC was a fiery wreck. Pretty much right after that the mission ended. Good job, team.

Redbears V4 SWS test

Big Master's FT's AAR

I don't have a lot to say about this mission because it turned out to be a massive clusterfuck.

Once the heli had landed, we made our way to the windfarm where an emplaced machine gun killed our AR. I picked up the LMG and we started advancing South through the forest, taking fire pretty much all the way through. Things happened, we got pinned down at the East side of the forest, people died, and we started to move a bit more to the West in order to regroup. At this point we were told to rescue the MMG which had fallen right in front of us -- and right in the middle of a field with zero cover from the tens of thousands of people shooting at us. At some point in us carefully moving towards the MMG our AT rifleman Hydra died, after which I started to crawl back to cover, proclaiming the situation to be FUBAR.

Soon after we tried to get the MMG again, but the FTL died, leaving me alone. As I tried to crawl back to cover an enemy who had flanked me shot me.

I loved that mission, and the SWS seems pretty cool. Not that I managed to do much with it.

[Aqarius]

Climaxing crusader
BLUFOR BSL
Bravo was designated overwatch for the first part of the mission, storming a small group of buildings that denied us a line of sight of the enemy overwatch position, but providing a fantastic view of the airbase. No matter, as Alpha seemed to take the base with no great difficulties. The second part of the mission saw us storming the base from the south, encountering not much more than sporadic resistance, but eventually finding ourselves under fire from an enemy reinforcement. This, however, was too little, too late, as the party secured the airport tower and claimed climax victory.


Precious cargo
BLUFOR CO
We set up on either side of the road and troops hunkered down into cover while SL and myself tracked enemy movement. As the convoy approached, I pulled back from my OP and, lacking a better position, got into a little isolated house by the road. I watched the enemy MRAP come in, watched it go off road, watched it turn the gun at me and I hit the floor as it let loose. Five rounds into the burst, MAT killed it. The squads engaged, and I snook up and drove the first truck off (drivers dismounted?). While the escorts were being butchered by SL and his guys, I got away with another truck and the mission ended.

Good job resistance Did anyone on BLUFOR die?

[Inverselaw]

Climaxing crusader
CO

Mission started out fine with the APC laying down covering fire while Alpha stormed the outpost, bravo apparently wanted to participate and they took buildings to its south. While this was happening Tigershark warned me that a mechanized squad had shown up to his south east. It took me a while to realize that it was engineers telling me this in channel chat and not a SL on command chat.

I didn't want the APC to fight that unit by itself so I ordered them to link up with Alpha, APC noticed that the hostiles were going to crest over a hill and wanted to ambush them as they did so. So I then told them to link up with Alpha, APC then engaged the first hostile vehicle and successfully destroyed it so I told them to link up with alpha. APC then got impatient waiting for the second vehicle to crest (so I told them to link up with alpha) and tried to hunt it down and was hit and died.

I then ordered Bravo to deal with the reinforcements and alpha to engage the airport from its high position. On my way to the observation post i was engaged by and I killed a pair of oddly dressed soldiers, I asked alpha if they had cleared out the observation post and they said yes, I was then shortly killed by an ei standing between me and the observation post.

looking at the fight from my disembodied soul I saw that everything went rather well with alpha having a commanding overwatch position and bravo a nice path to assault as i had hoped.

Mission comments: No to teleporting/invisible parachuting/spawning hostiles on friendly positions. Yes to reinforcements showing up and trying to retake positions (especially a unit ordered specifically to retake observation post as its such a good place to shoot from). No to soldiers garrisoned in buildings they cant fire from, (steel box with bullet proof glass) In some cases it caused them to glitch out and fire through walls. Yes to more static defences so the airfield can fire back at the outpost (HMG nests). Engineers are not very useful with APC's as they rarely get damaged and mostly are either fine or exploded.

Precious Cargo
Strider gunner

I spent the whole mission staring at a screen in a screen, I couldn't turn IR off so I was limited to about 50 meters of visibility. Ardyvee apparently wanted us to get ambushed as it would be more exciting. I order my vehicle ahead to try and prematurely start the ambush so we would have some hope but unfortunately was for nought. MAT VS. MRAP is no contest.

Mission comments: briefing should mentioned that there are friendly AI at the markers. Please remind blufor not to shoot civilians, requiring all vehicles to form a convoy means the strider is guaranteed to die in the first 5 seconds of the engagement, unless blufor has no AT.

Bay
A3 FTL

ASL order A1 to investigate the question mark, A2 and ASL went too and all quickly died without reporting hostiles. Doubling back my unit to investigate the compound seemed empty from afar. I informed CO about what happened and he told me that if whatever was there killed off A1 A2 and ASL maybe I should not bother it. Seeing the wisdom in his words we doubled back again. creeping through a depression moving towards obj 1 I ate a grenade and died.

Mission comment: Hostiles outside of AOO and unexplained map markers, fix one. This mission has a lot of separate objectives which could be bad but they are very close to each other so its probably fine.

[Ferrard Carson]

... apparently wanted us to get ambushed as it would be more exciting ...

Am I to understand that GreenFor's plan was, "Drive until fired upon"?

Mission comments: briefing should mentioned that there are friendly AI at the markers. Please remind blufor not to shoot civilians, requiring all vehicles to form a convoy means the strider is guaranteed to die in the first 5 seconds of the engagement, unless blufor has no AT.

Re: AI at markers - Mentioned by Wolf in the feedback thread, will be included in the administration tab for both sides.
Re: BluFor shooting civilians - This is really weird, 'cuz I thought the briefing was fairly unambiguous. One thing I will change that should help with this is that I'll put GreenFor in open-topped trucks. Thus, any truck with a covered loadbed is civilian.
Re: Insta-death for convoy vehicles - Well, if the convoy emulates the Soviet 40th Army and drives directly into a mountain pass without controlling key terrain first, then that's exactly what's supposed to happen... hence all the hints and outright instructions in the briefing to dismount and secure the area before moving the convoy through.

~ Ferrard

[Kefirz]

Wanted to clarify the situation of the IFV in Climaxing Crusader, as I was commanding it.
When we stopped on that first hill and started shooting at the outpost, we got word that enemy reinforcements are unexpectedly coming from the south. We watched and watched, but nobody came, so we resumed fire on the outpost for a bit and then suddenly they showed up, 2 Marids + accompanying infantry with them. I didn't want to expose us to all that firepower, because right at that moment we were the only BLUFOR units in the vicinity. So I ordered to get back a bit and waited for the bad guys to crest the hill, where I wanted to kill them, but this didn't happen either.
As we waited and waited and waited, nobody came, so we peaked out a bit, and saw a Marid, we engaged it and it went down, then some infantry showed up and we were busy with them, and while all of us were getting tunnel visioned in that spot, the other Marid came around and hit us from behind, if we knew where we were taking fire from, we could at least try to fight back, but then in that moment we were sitting ducks and waiting to die, so I ordered my guys to bail and me and Gaius got shot promptly after that.

And honestly, if we were to link up with Alpha, then we would cross an open valley and expose us to all that meat and steel we were shooting at before, so we continued to kill their ranks and when it would be safe to do so, we would probably do it.
After our engagements the IFV didn't blow up and the only serious problems were with the tyres, so it could be operational, if repaired.



Too long? Didn't read?
In short, IFV's are shit for close combat.



P.S. We weren't performing to our best abilities, because when we started talking in the dead channel, it turned out that my gunner was shooting through PiP, and not through a proper sight, like any sane man should.

[Gaia]

I didn't know you could turn off PiP. I have been using PiP only in A3 for a long time thinking it was bloody stupid of them to force you to use that highly pixelated mess.

I accept full blame, and volunteer myself for the Siberian Gulags.


Bay: CO

I started off the mission with a basic plan for Bravo and Alpha to investigate mystery marks around the Insertion Point, and then RV at a hill near the main objective.

ASL seemed to be having problems with CC, and when he went off-the-air, I thought my CC was borked, so I moved in to Alpha's OBJ, only to find Opfor shooting at me. It was at this point Alpha-3's FTL radioed me saying all of Alpha was gone. Realizing that The Expendables were obviously garrisoning this point, I pulled A-3 out, and we joined with Bravo.

At this point, I became little more than an honorary CO, as Homercleese took over all the micro of the mission. My job at this point was to sound important, and act like I knew what I was doing.

After some well executed advances across hostile terrain, we arrived at BOF Whiskey overlooking OBJ1-3, and I ordered Homercleese to take the OBJ-1. After we engaged, I learned of an IFV column at OBJ-2, So I decided that we should instead take the Airfield. Shortly after I decided this, B-1 blew up the IFV's, and the mission was called.

Glory to Arstotzka Comrades!



PS: I still don't really know what happened with Alpha. If there was anything I could have done on my end to make sure that bloodbath didn't happen, I can't think of it.

PPS: Kudos to Homercleese. You were a great SL, and thank you for stepping up after I was shellshocked by the loss of Alpha.

PPPS: Some clearer markers and objectives would not go amiss in this mission. While the Fog of War was appreciated, and added to the suspense, I thought the ? markers near the Landing Zone were friendly, and I did not take them as seriously as I might have otherwise, had I known they were enemy positions.

PPPPS: I actually enjoyed the separate mission markers. It made me have to think of multiple possible engagements, and I felt like I was much more of a tacticool commander. Though it would be nice if the briefing said we should be facing Opposition in the area just around the Landing Zone...