Inter-four
Deployed as DefendFor Medic
We opened our eyes and blinked against the blinding fog - not that it was dense, just that sunlight was streaming straight at our eyes through it like whiteout conditions in Antarctica. Alpha girded itself for the fight to come by... more or less standing where we were. Not much to really do but stand there when the AO is barely a hundred meters across.
The terrain lent itself to a fairly obvious approach. Surrounding the town was a small, coverless hillock to the north; a wide kill-zone of a valley to the East, Southeast, and South; a modest amount of defilade and concealment between that killzone and the town... and a massive, massive ridge 300-400 meters to the west.
So as Alpha Squad and the MMG team nestled themselves into the nooks and crannies of buildings, primarily watching to the east, I settled myself between a pile of pipes, a rock, and a friendly, concealing bush, fixated obsessively on that ridge. Even as squad-sized contacts were called to the South-East, I persisted in watching the ridge with eagle eyes, and my persistence was rewarded. "Yep, they've got a spotter up there." Half a mag convinced the bird-dog to hightail it back over the ridge and out of sight, and I played whack-a-mole for another few minutes, tossing lead in the spotter's direction anytime I saw something so much as twitch up top.
And then ASL bought the farm for twice asking price, and Alpha 1 fell back into the inner town. Along the way, Alpha 1's AR halted, crouched, by my rock. I wriggled over to poke him with a syringe, and suddenly found myself teleported to his far side, completely exposed and away from any cover, concealment, or prayers. Cursing the lack of an animation cancel the whole while, I miraculously escaped without a scratch even as bullets barreled their way past my noggin. After a panicked dash across the street, I holed myself up in a half-demolished house, staring back at the buildings whose deeds ASL had recently acquired.
Again, my patience was rewarded, as a dastardly AttackFor head popped up and stared at me. A burst of 6.5mm splattered his brains all over ASL's new property, doubtlessly devaluing it quite a bit until we can afford to get a good sand-blasting service into town.
I tossed out a smoke to mark the enemy's location, and some newly emboldened members of Alpha Squad pressed forward on the left while the MMG looped around on the right flank along some walls. A katiba rang out, the MMG responded, and victory was declared!
Afternoon Delight
Deployed as APC2 Driver
Could be summed up as, "Driving is really crap if you're stuck in letterbox mode and don't have a commander." Lacking a good grease pencil, I was unable to copy several of the markers command laid down for the APCs to pass through (read, I had to rejoin due to a client error, and thus didn't copy any of CO's map markers). Even worse, my hatch was welded shut! The Commander's seat was even lined with enough wicked-looking spikes that neither Zergra nor I dared to sit in it such that we could reach the "unweld all hatches" switch next to the Commander's periscope.
So, I was stuck in letterbox mode the entire time. Thankfully, APC1 had copied the markers, and was good at navigating by dead reckoning (or maybe someone was navigating for them). After following APC1 for a fair distance, we found ourselves on a nice vantage point, creatively titled, "AP2".
What follows was an extended sequence of me hopping out of the APC to get a good sense of the surrounding terrain, then climbing back in to maneuver the APC hull-down in support of the infantry around us. Nestling the metal beast behind rocks, cozying up to the sides of small-ish molehills such that Zergra could barely see above the grass. All in all, APC2 did fairly well operating more or less independently of the squad lead. We were even able to support a single fireteam as they cleared terrain several hundred meters away from the rest of the squad (???).
Where things messed up is when I started receiving micro-level commands, right about when Zergra suffered a brief concussion and came back a little... slow (he lost connection and my gunner turned into an AI). All of a sudden, I found myself rolling directly across the front face of a mountain in support of Alpha 3 with Alpha 1 ensconced in back. The order was for me to charge to the forests at the base of a hill (atop which was a town of interest) and disgorge Alpha 1 there. Then I was told to stop and turn back... whilst mid-charge. The Marid careened and canted onto its three right wheels as I swear I pulled a handbrake turn in the multi-ton APC. I deposited Alpha 1 behind cover in a compound, miraculously having not drawn any fire during those high-speed antics.
My luck did not last though: A few rifle shots whizzed past my ear - in other words, the dreaded Tunguska had spoken! [ed. note: We know it's not actually a Tunguska, but screw A3's fake names - it's a SPAAG with missiles, so it's a Tunguska to me]
I desperately angled for cover, but the Marid came to a screeching halt mere yards away from the relatively safety of a concrete structure. I bailed and dashed for cover, only to nearly take a cannon shell to the face.
Scrounging my now deceased gunner's medkit and grabbing a Mk. 200 off a nearby dead dude, I wandered over to Alpha in a daze. In a fit of rage over the loss of my sweet pimpmobile, I slaughtered an autorifleman who tried to sneak up on us, and nicked every last one of his spare boxes of ammo. In the town of Kerry's F***ing Fuel Truck, I met my demise as I cleared up a stairwell that Bodge was already clearing. He shot into a wall-- through my noggin, and at long last, my time had come.
~ Ferrard