Citadel
Bravo 3 AR
Really enjoyed this mission. The bounding progress made total sense even from the level of grunt. The combined arms aspect seemed sensible. The tank being blown sky high across the valley was a sight to behold. Well inside the town we were thoroughly pinned down for quite a while but managed to push further in to town with mechanized help.
Ghost Hawk Down
Bravo 1 AAR
Had a very uneventful time getting in to and out of town. In fact i did not see any enemy or fire a single shot
On the way back the fog of boredom lifted as i found myself in the back of a speeding truck being strafed all the way back to base på a persistent chopper. Trying to get in a lucky shot did not work. But hey - we lived to fight another day.
I appreciate the complexity of the mission - and enjoyed the movement and positioning, but not seeing any enemy seems a little off...
After all my hardware and software foostering to try to up my fps, I still couldn't be here at the start of the night (family duties) and so missed out on the new DLC weapons, which sucks because I think those M14s look really neat. Oh well, next time.
Also, more or less 30fps the whole night through. We're not in powerpoint anymore Toto!
Citadel Bravo 2 FTL (conscripted) with Major Effort (AR), Ryn1u (AAR) and Bormanov (RAT), with a cameo by Madrak the Red (bulletsponge)
After two short sharp lessons in how the Party recruits leaders when volunteers don't step forward quickly enough, and how the Party enforces discipline, I gave up and settled in to watch the briefing, and in return Comrade Fer loosened his grip sufficiently to allow me to breathe and the blood to flow to my brain again. THANK YOU COMRADE.
The plan was conceptually simple - the armour would roll up to a dismount point just outside the valley, then infantry would clear the way into the valley and proceed to screen ahead of the armour as it rolled up on the town, then infantry would clear the buildings in the town and then pancakes. This was fairly standard stuff from the Party Handbook - keep the armour alive, kill the enemy, don't get dead (though that last one did seem to be scrawled in crayon in the margin for some reason).
In practice, we actually kept reasonably close to this plan, by Folk standards at least. The IFVs spent the first few minutes shaking the infantry round like the ball-bearing in a can of spraypaint just before Banksy makes a social commentary, then spat us out into the cold cruel world to earn our tea and black bread. We advanced up and over the saddle into the valley and just as we heard from Alpha that they had been wiped out and were now down to one survivor, we hit close contact and heard those words that infantry everywhere love to hear: "Burgers are ready and there's cold beer back at base, let's go home" "fuck things up at your discretion". We then expended about a third of our ammunition and explosives (infantry are not discrete and hate carrying all this stuff and don't expect to see the end of the mission so it's now or never for using toys) and killed at least one NATO spec-ops type in a bush, eliminated a large amount of hostile plant life, and disciplined the last survivor of Alpha for running away. He should have read the Party Handbook notes on retreat...
After we'd cleared the entrance to the valley, we spent a few minutes stealing the NATO guy's AT so I now had an AAR who was also a part-time RAT, spotting targets and trying to make BSL's head explode with comms traffic. We hosed down a few of the more interesting contacts, and then got tasked to push up along the road. My team bounded up on our first target with textbook precision (though perhaps next time we might use a textbook on infantry tactics instead of one on cooking rabbit) and with the AR/AAR team watching (I'd say overwatching but...), myself and RAT assaulted two empty buildings using only two 40mm grenades (well, only one really, the other one assaulted the hillside 200m down the road) and then damaged the paint on one building by bouncing two grenades off the point on the wall two inches away from the window. Our AR/AAR team suitably entertained, we cleared the buildings by hand, realised we were in the wrong buildings, cleared the right buildings and then called in for more orders.
BSL, it turned out, was impressed with us and wanted us to set the standard for all of Bravo. To facilitate this, BSL sent us off to take the next house down the road while everyone else stood back and watched. We were enthusiastic about this opportunity to demonstrate our abilities and ran off into the woods crying with the joy of it all. We bounded up to an overwatch point, got the AR/AAR team set to cover the buildings and the road from a point above the buildings on the hill, then myself and RAT headed back down the hill and along using defilade to get close to the buildings to assault them. We met no resistance around the building, and knowing that we were at either end I told RAT to stay put and I'd clear through the building to him. I entered, noone in the first room. As I entered the second room, there was a kerfuffle and shots from the other side of the door and I walked in to find two dead enemies and one dead RAT (well, he was almost dead, he died a few seconds later while I tried to revive him. I think. The menu's a bit fuzzy on the details). This is why fireteam elements should listen to their FTL when he's volunteering to stick his head round the door first!
Regrouped and with all the RAT's stuff nicked by the AAR, we were tasked to push on to the next building, which we took without incident, and then the next which the IFV beat us to (at this point I was noticing that the armour was pushing ahead of Bravo 2, but not Bravos 1 or 3 which I put down to comms overload for BSL. I had CC on by accident and was getting all the comms traffic BSL was long with the FTL traffic, so I have a lot of sympathy for BSL here, it was madder than a mad thing). Then BSL tasked us with taking a graveyard. I mean, foreshadowing much?
We pushed up to the graveyard, staying on the downslope side of the town as Bravos 1 and 3 cleared buildings above us. With the AR/AAR combo at my back, I stuck my head round the wall into the graveyard, saw no enemies but did see a church. I'm an atheist, there could be an enemy in there, I have many, many grenades, so I lobbed one into the church and sure enough, shredded someone. Cool. Sorry about the stained glass windows, but they looked really old anyway, so no real loss.
Then we got told to push north, clearing as we went, and our AAR went right when me and the AR went left, and sure enough, he took a few rounds to the chest and was down but alive. Me and AR ran back, sorted out confusion as to where the fire had come from, debated how to kill the guy, then I opted to take this well-balanced discussion, throw it away, say ah feck it and ran round the corner shooting. And somehow lived and killed the guy who'd shot the AAR, but then drew fire from another NATO specops lad upslope from us. I ran back for cover and returned fire and chucked a grenade, which he somehow dodged, then heard clicking as I tried to fire on him and while I was reloading, an IFV helpfully perforated him. Unfortunately, we'd lost our AR by that point. So now it was just me and a patched-up AAR/RAT, holed up in a shack with BSL telling us enemy reinforcements were coming in from the north. We stole the NATO guy's stuff and AR's stuff and got our heads down, and shortly afterwards, Madrak showed up and joined us.
Then BSL asked us to push up north again, and as we were doing so we noticed through subtle cues that we'd lost an IFV and had enemies fairly close. We pushed into a building half-way to where BSL wanted us and planned to garrison there until we knew if we could safely push up; I faced out the northeast door and engaged a NATO soldier on the hilltop, getting confused by how cant affects UGL trajectories, and then Madrak interrupted me to point out that he'd been shot. And so had our AAR, in the same burst. My brain, not thinking "hmm, where does that line go to" and instead thinking "crap, better use these FAKs before I lose my entire fireteam" never figured out that there was a NATO squad after getting past all of Bravo and the IFVs and then they put some more lead through me and the remains of the team and we were gone. And then the mission was called as a success not twenty seconds later. /sigh Almost made it...
Ghost Hawk Down Pilot, TH2
There was awesomesauce anticipation. Then there was awesomesauce denied. Then Zitron gave up his awesomesauce and there was awesomesauce once more! And then the mission started and I awesomesauce'd it right out of the park at 30fps
The MH9 flight lifted after Netkev reconnected following a network issue, we headed for my IP and then in to the LZ with me pretty much ignoring the CO's suggested LZ as it was in a forest and heading to my suggested alternate LZ 40m south, scanning for enemy in as paranoid a fashion as I could, with TH1 in trail behind me in case I discovered a fifty cal with my face. However, this didn't happen and I had a lovely smooth insertion and got all my chalk off unharmed, keeping my perfect record of never losing a chalk in a mission intact. In fact, looking back, I could have landed them another 30m closer, but it might have been tight to get TH1 in behind us as well had I done that. My chalk off, I lifted and ran for base to change out to the AH9, while TH1 landed behind me, got his chalk off and ran for base to grab a larger transport helo (only one AH9? booo! MOAR AWESOMESAUCE NEEDED).
On returning to my newly designated CAS IP, I called in to command... and waited. And waited... and waited... and then TH1 got shot up pretty badly and had to crashland and I went and did a nice little evac there, RTB'd him, lifted and headed back to my CAS IP to await a chance to blow stuff up with rockets and guns...
...and then my machine bluescreened.
Ka-booing. All video footage corrupted past recovery. Including that wonderful moment flying TH1 back to base when I'd checked the map and something had convinced Arma that I mean to dive into the ocean and I only managed to recover somewhere below five metres or so at over 200kph, and Netkev's only comment had been "Oh, ocean". Fudge.
So I rebooted, fired everything back up, jumped back in and found the AI had grabbed control of the helo and just hovered out over the bay. Joy! Awesomesauce resumed!
I got control back, got back to the CAS IP, tried to contact command who had awkwardly died, heard Ferrard take over, gave him my sitrep and asked for tasking and got told to go shoot down an Orca (actually it was Orcas, but I missed that bit). I spent the next few minutes demonstrating how an AH9 is great for CAS but not so great for CAP, but at least keeping one Orca harrassed enough that it didn't shoot at anyone. CO then recalled me because I was chasing that Orca almost back to our base, and CO thought that the C in CAS stood for Close instead of Completely (as in Completely Awesome Sauce).
I came back in, flew an orbit over the city looking for targets, then heard a great disturbance in the force, as though an entire fireteam had cried out at once and been silenced. Turns out the Orca I'd been chasing had turned around and murdered everyone with a DAGR from 3km out, way beyond my render distance (yeah, DAGRs are a wee bit OP for this mission I think, especially on what's basically a news helicopter with delusions of grandeur ). I reengaged the Orca over the city, but lost them in a bit of a foobar'd hairball, and then either the Orca or a ground-based fifty cal knocked out first my engine and then my frontal lobes and a portion of my medulla oblongata, and my lovely AH9 followed a lovely ballistic trajectory straight into the ground, preserving my other perfect record of never surviving a mission as a pilot.
The remains of Bravo on the ground then tried to regroup, and for a moment it looked like Zitron might think to steal the other - now grounded - Orca and fly it home for a much-deserved taste of awesomesauce, but the mission was called as inconclusive before he had the chance.
Inconclusive was a bit odd, we all felt, as we had killed all the things that needed killing and like Ferrard's last helo/intel-based mission, it was not a requirement that anyone survive for victory to be declared...
Raidolo (after-party) Terrorist. We don't do no squad level structured crap, we ain't Da Man
There might have been some hijinks and disinformation attempts during the planning session.
Once things got underway, the plan was simple - find a room, hide, kill people trying to come in. I found a room, hid, then saw people outside and shot at them instead of waiting. I was shot in the head from across the street for my troubles. /sigh
LittleBigFoot on the other hand, stuck to the plan and then found he couldn't get out of the room because of all the bodies in the doorway...
I'd say it was fun to play, but in truth, I did more watching than playing
Weekend Warriors (after-party) Alpha 1 FTL with some other folks who took notice of who was in what role because this is a planning-averse mission
I keep thinking there might be some merit in a rough plan in this mission. Like, if we have enough people, should blue team in Alpha 1 try to take cover outside the compound while red garrisons the barracks and we try to buy two or three minutes while everyone else gets to the armory and tools up? But every time I play, that idea gets weighed against "It's cold, it's dark and there are Bad Men out here" and I say "<bleep> this, cheese it" and run to the barracks, where we pick a room and start shooting at anything that moves.
Tonight was no exception.
However, tonight I had 25-30fps so I could actually see what was going on. Holy crap this mission is more fun when you can see it as you play it.
I managed, mainly through cowering, to be one of the last two left, and when the enemy showed up in the building, figured that the UGL wasn't going to be much use to me and swiped an AR from its second owner and ammo from its first owner, and then poked my head back out into the corridor, saw an enemy and opened up. One box of ammo later, I stopped and the corridor had two or three new bodies. I reloaded, killed the next guy who walked around the corner, but it may have been Bormanov, and that triggered a mission fail.
I did ask if anyone was left alive first!
Oh well. Sorry Bormanov, you did not have a good night when you were near me this time I fear
Overall, lots of fun, holy crap it's more fun when your fps is measured in double digits, and helo flying is SO MUCH EASIER when you don't fly by powerpoint. Looking forward to more of that please and thank you.
guns.ie ● stochasticgeometry.ie ● weak.ie
Don't tell mom I'm a pilot, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse
). I reengaged the Orca over the city, but lost them in a bit of a foobar'd hairball, and then either the Orca or a ground-based fifty cal knocked out first my engine and then my frontal lobes and a portion of my medulla oblongata, and my lovely AH9 followed a lovely ballistic trajectory straight into the ground, preserving my other perfect record of never surviving a mission as a pilot. 
