[Tue] 12 May 2015 (Explozapalooza)

How we died (in the future)
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audiox
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[Tue] 12 May 2015 (Explozapalooza)

Post by audiox »

Tonight a peak 22 of us converged on the server and had ourselves a mighty good time!

Tonight we played : After-party :
Please leave feedback to the mission makers in the mission making feedback threads which are conveniently linked in the runlist above!



As always, comments are most welcome below. Also, if you have a nice story be sure to tell it. Videos are always much appreciated, and will be appropriated by our propaganda departement if you tell us about them.

If you think commanding seems like fun, yet hesitate because you worry that you won't come up with a reasonable plan on such short notice, then check out our leadership programme.

If you want to test out a new updater/launcher for all your mod needs look no further than our Comrade head's marvellous new contraption.

Did you notice that some vehicles/players had way cool FA Tractors on them tonight? That's because of the power of our squad tags. Get yours whilst stocks last.

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Sparks
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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by Sparks »

/me mourns the loss of his perfect safety record in helicopters... :cry: :cry: :cry:
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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by Eagle_Eye »

One of the best sessions I've had in a while, awesome fun.

Ghosthawk Down - Alpha 2 FTL with Grumpy, Boberro and Sam

Was really annoyed that I missed the first playthrough of this a while ago. With a now DAGRless enemy force, I was glad to get a really fun run of this (and glad one of my missions worked properly for once in a while, wish I could say the same about littlebirdies, curse you AI drivers). I was slightly worried to begin, seeing as I had slightly upped the enemy count since last time, even though we were playing with about half the people.

After a rough landing behind the office block (where we lost one man early on), Alpha 2 moved to secure the near buildings and breach the office compound. Luckily Charlie team were doing a fine job, and just a few enemies remained for us to clean up. I honestly thought Alpha 1 wasn't going to make it, because there was a lot of gunfire coming from their sector, but eventually all of the NATO forces regrouped and we set out toward the pillar of smoke that marked the crash site.

Fighting through the streets, we lost boberro, and command was the next to fall. Luckily we kept it together, and joining with AJAX's Charlie team, we managed to take cover in a courtyard beside the crash site. In a definite Blackhawk Down few minutes, we held the courtyard from some roaming enemies coming from all directions while A1 destroyed the wreck. After getting shot like 5 times and patched up by the Alpha Medic, we managed to clear a path down to the milita stronghold. Myself and grumpy breached the secret FIA safehouse, at which point I was shot in the face and killed. Ah well, we got the VIP, and managed to get (some) of the survivors away (relatively) safely.

Littlest Ambush - CO
I came unto this one having never played it, probably not the greatest idea ever. I was giddy with success after the previous mission though, so I laid down a plan for a quick assault of the town. A2 and 3 would run at the enemy while A1 and attachments provided cover from some nice rocks at the back. AAF had other ideas, and brought many big guns. Luckily their northern flank collapsed, and the remains of A1 made a daring dash across the field to capture a foothold in the town. After briefly contemplating executing Alpha 2s FTL for cowardice (some sort of concerns about safety or something i dont know), I instead picked up a nearby fallen comrades AR and lay down cover fire on the town as A2 and A3 advanced into the town.

Leaving HAT in the rear to attack the convoy from afar, everyone else headed into town. Luckily the west side of town had been (relatively) cleared by our sneaky sniper team in the hills, so we were (just about) able to take up position before the convoy was on top of us. Some great AT work from MAT and HAT meant the IFVs were dealt with extremely quickly, and just the soft, squishy targets remained. After unloading all of my AR belt into a transport truck and realizing I had forgotten to take another from the dead body I had pillaged, I decided that it was time to truly embrace the party principles. Dropping the now useless AR, I unholstered my pistol and strode (well, ran out and tried not to die) to the front line, whereupon the order was given to advance and kill the rest of the convoy and its angry passengers.

I got 1 single kill with my pistol, and got to see the last 3 trucks blown to smoldering wrecks, before victory was called. Truly my (I mean our) greatest, littlest victory. Anyway, a fun mission all in all. Definitely thought I had gotten everyone killed in the first few minutes, but some good movement from fireteams (particularly A3 not all dying like cowards on the beach) meant my mistakes were not as fatal as they should have been. If only CO was such an easy job all the time...

Hillside View
Audiox decided we needed to be taken down a peg after 2 victories, and there is only really one mission for it to do that (maybe GatorRaid too). After hoorah-ing and being happy to lead my team to victory at the front of the squad wedge. I was killed by an smg round to the head, without ever having seen the scoundrel who got me. A harsh reminder of how ARMA usually treats its players.

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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by madrak_the_red »

What jolly good fun this all was

Ghosthawk Down

Jumping in as A1 FTL for this one, I found myself on the super cool littlebird. We waited for TH2 to fly around for a bit, they got shot up and then we came in. We took contacts straight away, and it looked pretty bad for a while, as we got pinned in a little walled orchard. All of us were downed, save Zenzos, who managed to get people up, and the squad was moving again. The initial contact dealt with, we cleared houses through to charlies position, not taking any more contacts or casulties (apart from one slip down some stairs. Luckily an FAK fixed that right up. ARMA!). More house clearing was next, taking a few light contacts on the road, then regrouping and getting some medic love for the push on the crash site. As we started to move on it, Audiox went down, and so the burden of command moved to me. Shortly after, charlie 1 was whittled down, and I combined A1 and C1, giving us two full fireteams for our final assaults. Zitron continued to scare off enemy orcas, presumable by flapping his arms and shouting at them. The crash site was found, rocketed (sick flip, brah) and then some running through the streets to the militia safehouse. We then spent a short while ducking 50 cal fire (that noise man, oh geez) before the evil warlord was eliminated, and everyone was a hero. Now for a nice, simple extract on the docks. Ah yes, we've popped smoke, the choppers coming down right on target and...oh, it just got hit with a rocket. Well. At least it didn't explode.

Turns out the militia must have built the compound around the technicals, as we couldn't drive out of there. Then rescue boats arrived! And I jumped into the water, hit it, and instantly went down and then drowned. Still, we had fun.

Littlest Ambush

A3 FTL

Was given the heroic task to run across the nice flat, open beach. Sadly, the enemy were looking at us, and everyone but me went down. Thanks to smoke grenades, I was able to revive most people (RIP jakob), before being shot and then revived myself. We fell back, we ran up to ASL, we ran into town, we came into the 'cleared' buildings and I spent a good ten seconds starting at an AAF guy before shooting him. He was right there on the other side of the houses, guys. More houseclearing followed, and then the convoy showed up. MAT and HAT lit it up, and soon burning wrecks were all over the road. We advanced on the infantry, blasting away at them from completely open positions, because we're cool like that. I heroically took out two of the non-destroyed trucks (as they sat still 80 metres away, but hey, they were in my kill list) and then the mission was over. A cracking good time.

The 3 Way Sabotaged Edition

Taking to the air, and pausing briefly to wait for blufor to get their helicopter off the pile of bricks of what have you, the mission was a go. Our initial plan was the find blufor and shoot them down, therefore winning by default. Some initial confusion about spotting the enemy chopper and some flying in the wrong direction, we eventually spotted the AO, were we saw blufor on the ground, AI on the ground, and a burning chopper wreck. So we touched down and started bounding up towards the town. At some point, ASL went of coms, and looked suspiciously like he'd wandered into the minefield, so I took charge, more or less. We came up into town, A1 behind us, and started clearing it out. The place was crawling with ai, but we managed to get to the VIP, bundle him into a car and drive on out of there to victory.

Hillside View

Ah, what fun this one always is. I took squad lead for this one, bravely ordered my squad ahead of me (the privileges of rank, you know) and we had a lovely run through the hills... until we hit the blue area, and then almost immediately people started dying. A2 FTL went down, but we persevered. A3 FTL went down, but we pressed on. We found a camp, nada, so we pressed on. And then everyone was getting shot from everywhere and shortly afterwards I took a round through the noggin and was down for the count.

Got to jump into the extract helo as pilot though, which was fun. Turns out a chopper can still fly when the hull reads red. Note, next time, don't fly over the AO. It will have 50 cals.

Little Birdies

All the ai worked perfectly! Apart from the one, mission critical unit, who managed to break both of their front wheels in an open highway, and so the VIP decided to move on foot towards his objective. Whilst searching for the elusive FIA VIP, I wandered a bit too close to AAA. I tried to autorotate, but they shot be as I was going down, the bastards. We had a good chuckle though.
TURN OUT FOR WHAT

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Leander
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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by Leander »

Sparks wrote:/me mourns the loss of his perfect safety record in helicopters... :cry: :cry: :cry:
Image

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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by Sparks »

Yeah, I got shot in the head and instakilled while you were checking the map there :( (you can even see the tracers)
Honestly, you'd think those helmets were made out of Empire Stormtrooper armour or something...

Sorry :(
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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by Leander »

Well, I wouldn't blame you. I'm sure you're a great pilot. ;)

As for me, all missions except Ghosthawk ended in a similar fashion. In Little Birdies I died even before the chopper hit the ground, and in Littlest Ambush I was shot in the back of my head less than 2 minutes in. I believe "Hillside View" is self-explanatory.

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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by Sparks »

Leander wrote:I'm sure you're a great pilot. ;)
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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by Sparks »

Late getting to the party this time, kindof par for the tuesday session I'm afraid. Just missed slotting for the first mission. *sigh*

Ghost Hawk Down
Spectating

Without a slot, I spectated for most of this. It's interesting to watch a mission play out from start to finish like this. Not as much fun, mind you :D but you get an interesting overview of squad movement and planning and get to evaluate those against actual enemy positions in realtime which you never get otherwise. Like that few seconds of grumpy running on one side of a wall, with an AI running in step with him four feet away on the other side of the wall, or the solitary AI people missed who assassinated audiox, and so on.

It's also fun to shadow whomever is acting as squad lead and see if you'd make the choices they did and if not, who'd have been right. If someone's thinking of taking a squad lead or CO role, might not be a bad idea to do that for a mission...

Also, Jeffers, nice autorotation :D

And Zitron, bad luck dude, even your avatar looked ticked off :D

Image

Littlest Ambush
Alpha 1 FTL with Mabbot (AR), crustycuffs (AAR) and Xenu (RAT)

Image

The mission started off at a heck of a pace, with command running off to lead from the front and induce a command chain shortening event as fast as he could. Knowing that that'd drop me in the hotseat, I tried to run faster :D We took the rocks overlooking the ambush site eliminating close contacts in the process despite not ranging UGLs properly, then I moved up to scout but ran right out in front of a HMG emplacement. The rock I hid behind bought me a few out-of-sight seconds to line up the UGL shot while I told my fireteam to hold position (no sense us all being slaughtered), but while I hit the emplacement right on the opening and the shrapnel should have shredded everything in the place, apparently the AI was immortal and he then shot me in the head with a 50 cal. Someone dropped him a few seconds later, and the mission continued on like it was no big thing :D

My fireteam then moved on to almost clear one building and then be annihilated by the TIN SHACK OF DEATH. Seriously, most horrible shack in all of Arma.

And most of the rest was just laughing at stuff going sideways in the mission. Because sometimes I'm not the bigger person :P

The 3 Way Sabotaged Edition
TH1 pilot

Image

AWESOMESAU...wait, where's my helicopter?

THEFT! PERFIDITY! OUTRAGE!

After Zeus sorted out the mystery of BLUFOR's missing helo, during which time OPFOR and INDFOR got on with things, we loaded up Alpha 1 and flew them to their LZ without incident, flew back to where Alpha 2 was schlepping it down the road and picked them up, then headed to their LZ right outside the town. Like I'd thought in the briefing, the original idea for the LZ wasn't viable (small wooded area surrounded by walls and buildings without enough clearance for the main rotors - we could get in, but it'd be one-way). So I opted for a point south of the LZ and started my approach and then came under accurate fire from the AI in the town, decided pretty much immediately to wave off and go away and talk to CO about a different plan, but as I was trying to do that, some sod shot me in the head and the helo crashed, killing all of Alpha 2 :cry: :cry: :cry:
Sorry guys :(

CSAT rubbed it in by landing a hundred metres further south-west, which was down-slope enough to get them into defilade and let them carry out a landing and survive (though they later encountered powerlines in an unwanted touching sort of way). And pretty much immediately after that, BLUFOR was down to two guys overwatching from A1's original point, while CSAT took the town, grabbed the VIP and legged it.

Feck.

Hillside View
Alpha 3 FTL with Jakob (AR), Leander (AAR) and Mabbot (RAT)

Image

Oh, that mission. Double feck. As we were talking about after dying, this mission is great for teaching comrades how to handle it when command structures collapse down under attrition, field promotions, and all that sort of thing; but actually playing it is... somewhat painful.
BUT THE PARTY SAYS PAIN IS GOOD FOR YOU TOVARISCH!

So on we go. Quick briefing in the helo on the way in (mainly "don't get dead and act independently to not get dead") and we headed off into the fog-laden valley. Took us a while to hit contact, mainly because it took us a while to get to the AO proper, but once we did, it was SOP for this mission. Enemy, out there, somewhere, in the fog, maybe over there or maybe over there, then all the bullets hit you from behind and you're spectating as five AI hold up twenty Folk from advancing...

My fireteam survived quite a while (one even made it to the chopper in the end IIRC), but we only hit the one cache. I came back in with the extract helo, which got shot up on an overpass of the first suggested LZ to see if it was viable (Hmm. Level of HMG fire: not viable), then we circled round and landed in a safer LZ to extract everyone. I hopped out twice, once to check our landing area (whoops, we're on a wall, lift straight up or you'll flip on takeoff) and once to ensure everyone got in (AJAX had disconnected and his AI confused me for a moment). Then we extracted to a partial victory!

Little Birdies
Pilot, TH2

Afterpartyawesomesauce! Yay!

Rather than the Oprah method of playing this, we went back to vanilla. Two helos, two squads, planning to shoot from the air. Unfortunately, midway to the original point, Arma decided it hated me and crashed, losing my video of the extract from Hillside View and the first half of this mission. The AI took over and left Alpha 2 hovering in mid-air somewhat confused. They managed to order the AI to land (I think) and I managed to rejoin and take control of my body back and we got back in the air and back to the hunt.

So far the VIP was nowhere to be seen. TH1 did manage to find the NATO AA and QRF though. Turned out the VIP's car had scratched its paint and rather than be seen dead in such a scuffed-up car, the VIP got out and started walking. And damn near got away too. We caught up with him near the road and tried to hose him down from the air, but my steady platform flight left much to be desired and his escort AI was on the ball and we took rounds to the engine and lost one of the guys on the skids. I autorotated in, we all got off and tried to give chase on foot, me realising on the way that I had almost no equipment (I was down to an MXC and one mag of ammo in it, no compass, nothing). I ran in the direction I thought the VIP was headed, and was shot down from another direction, and the mission was called before I bled out. The VIP was seriously inconvenienced.

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Re: [Tue] 12 May (Explozapalooza)

Post by SuicideKing »

I missed GhostHawk Down AGAIN. And joined too late to play Littlest Ambush - though I helped audiox with debugging.

Anyway, I was kinda sleepy and tired so I didn't want responsibilities that night. :roll:

The 3 Way Sabotaged Edition
NATO Alpha Medic

I somehow managed to not be quick enough with slotting, and ended up as medic. So much for not taking responsibilities! Lynche (ASL/CO) ended up dying on our overwatch position on a hill, and Alpha 1 and ASL saw Alpha 2 and their transport helicopter get shot down.

Shortly after, we lost our leader, and pretty soon it was just Jeffers and I that were left. Had to revive him once (nice smoke-drag-revive by me :dance: ), but after that we just shot at stuff from the top of the hill till the mission ended.

Hillside View
Alpha 1 FTL with Jeffers (AR), Zitron (AAR), Grumpy (Grenadier)

I kind of got self-peer-pressured (yeah, that's a thing now) into taking FTL, thanks to no one else taking A1's lead and silence during slotting. I usually avoid A1 FTL so that I don't end up as ASL, and that thought did cross my mind, but ASL survived during Sunday's Low Tide session, so he would today as well, right? Right?!

Anyway, Alpha 1 got the left flank to itself as we pressed forward in a wedge. I thought A1 would maintain a left echelon with the AR team comprising the left arm, and Grumpy to my right (implementing comrade Black Mamba's suggested tactics for forests). For whatever reason(s) we never really ended up maintaining this formation, instead it was just sort of a random line.

We met contacts downhill as we entered the forests, and slowly kept pushing on. And then we eventually lost Alpha 2's FTL...then Alpha 2. Alpha 3's FTL followed, I alternated between wondering whether I'd be next, and "hey, at least Alpha 1 is fully functional".

Eventually, Jakob joined us as a second AR, then...ASL got shot. :siiigh:

So I got a field promotion, and I didn't have a clue what to do with it. After all, ASL was also CO, given the player count. MMG sat somewhere that looked like a hill, and I just asked them to shoot at whatever, because I honestly didn't know what to do with them. I thought they'd serve as a distraction while the rest of us cleared the forest. "Clear the forest" was my plan, BTW. After a point I had an 8-strong Fire Team with remnants of A3 and ASL: audiox, AJAX and Zenzos had joined us.

Everyone was sort of on auto-pilot mode and kept pushing while I struggled with the map and administrative duties such as assigning team colours. :lol:

Anyway, audiox requested to take over (only for a sec though, sadly, and I had initially thought he was taking over completely and rejoiced) to bring the extract team on to the same channel and arrange for extract. Then I was in charge again, awkwardly coordinating the extract, which again (thankfully) everyone sort of sorted out themselves. I had a choice between continuing the mission and extracting, and sensing some fatigue (within me as well as the group) I elected to extract. We had blown up a cache after all, so it wasn't completely for nothing.

AJAX left us a few mins before we reached the helo (did anyone hear my "Get to choppa" imitation over direct VON? It's not the best :p) and I got excessively confused when a AI replaced him and refused to get in...to the choppa! thinking he was a rebellious Zensos refusing to get in.

Audiox suddenly ascended as Zeus and we were all momentarily terrified but thankfully madrak_the_red managed to get us out of the AO in time.
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