[Sun] 05 August 2012 (Folk is 2)

[fer]

If you haven't already seen it, please read this thread first.

Missions:

• Highway
• Finale XL
• Cacheola (adversarial)
• Cholo

I think that at our high point we had 47 comrades. 47 is one of my favourite numbers. It reminds me of the AK-47, which in turn reminds me of brave fighters taking on enemy armour with nothing more than a rifle, a few hand grenades and a strong belief in the certainty of our socialist agrarian revolution. That's one rifle shared between all the fighters, by the way.

We were unacceptably efficient in Highway, almost wiping out a 9-vehicle convoy of enemy armour and slaughtering close to 100 troops. Tonight saw the first ever completion of Finale, albeit in its expanded form, Finale XL (featuring Juliet fireteam, which has just become my new favourite fireteam). Cacheola saw a 2-squad BLUFOR being forced to fight its way through almost every possible cache location, with the cunning INDFOR running a series of hit and run attacks throughout (it was nerve-shredding on the BLUFOR side, and that was before our little blue-on-blue). Finally, Cholo began as its usual gruesome self, before descending into pure Benny Hill. If Benny Hill was on PCP.

Thank you to everyone who came along and made the second anniversary of the Folk sessions special. Thoughts, witticisms, criticisms and all manner of screenshots and videos welcome here (FRAPSers please PM me for details of the Folk YouTube account).

Here's to another year of the Folk sessions, comrades.

[Bodge]

Highway
BSL
Bravo was tasked with engaging the rear of the convoy when everything went explosive. B1 had scooted North slightly to allow for a different angle of attack. MAT let loose their first rocket, unfortunately we were not at the rear of the convoy but rather the middle so there was a drip feed of BTRs onto bravo's position resulting in sustained HMG fire that cost Bravo 1 dearly. The barrage of rockets and MG fire from the ridge began to let up and as it was clear the enemy column had taken heavy losses command ordered our withdrawl. Great success.

Finale
CO
The first thing I decided upon was the splitting up of the force into two platoons with Joe in charge of the BMP2 and Walter in charge of MAT. DC (Wolf) took 4 fireteams towards the town of Shabaz to provide a forward force to hit the enemy in the side and to be in a good position to push South to the enemy base when the attacks had ceased. DFTL (Mike) was given command of three fireteams to hold the riverbed West of the bridge to provide a link between Wolf's and AFTL's (Strang's) force of 3 more fireteams. Strang had been given the short straw of being the anvil, he was to hold position and soak up everything that came his way with the assistance of MAT and the BMP2.

The constant rocket and cannon fire from the Alpha and the BMP2 tore through most of the tank waves, not without its scares with me screaming at Joe to get a charging tank down before it broke away. Wolfs men were in position and began to engage the later tank waves in the side bringing a swift conclusion to the enemy attack. All units apart from the last two men in Alpha and myself were instructed to move to Shabaz to prepare for a final assault. I was busy taking down crew members to prevent them from breaking our line when a large burst of MG fire near the bridge took me out. Wolf then proceeded to direct the last push to success.

Cacheola
Alpha 3 FTL - Bodge
Killa
Gekke
Immy

We were to be the ground force with hummwv support in our initial push, we immediately discovered enemy contacts in the compounds on the South-Eastern part of town and the M2s opened up to take them down. It wasn't long before I could hear an enemy GL from behind our positions, eventually spotting him prone by the pipeline and taking him down. We moved clearing caches with little resistance, killa took a round but we got him back up and pushed on. 4 caches had been cleared and we were approaching one to the East when i spotted infantry on the roof and put rounds out taking them down before they were finished off by some MG fire. For some reason i thought it was a good idea to charge into the compound and got shot through a window behind me.

Cholo
Dirty Pig
Wolf and I were stationed (ho ho) just NE of our base to be a nuisance and surprise the incoming gang members, wolf took down a couple of early arrivals before getting gunned down. I stayed quiet and nervously held firm on my staircase. The main building was now heavily engaged so i crossed a rooftop on to a second building and started engaging the hostiles on the ground floor of the police station. I heard footsteps nearby and turned to the steps leading down from my building, sure enough a gang member popped up and took to shots to the chest before dropping. I went down and popped my head outside. I saw men further out than me and turned to put rounds their way wounding one and killing the other before I was taking shots. I sprinted inside and heard someone following me so sprinted out the other side only to get shot at by someone in the street. I decided the best course of action was to waste as much of their ammo as possible by running round in circles before i was eventually taken out. Good stuff.

[Wther]

Highway

I slotted as Alpha 1 (?) AT and arrived at the way-point. FTL ordered the RPGs onto the roof of a small building and I ascended a ladder. After attempting to faff with the RPG while I was prone, I awaited the convoy behind a wall. I was blind, but the call came to engage. I knelt, fired one shot off and just missed the first vehicle. A second shot hit the wheels and the crew bailed. Before a third shot, I was down.

Finale XL

I followed SuperU's lead to a high-walled compound to guard against the guerrilla force. I was Assistant AR to Pirate who took up a prime spot through a doorway beneath some bushes. I kept to his right and helped pick off a couple of infantry as fiery explosions punctuated the beautiful music in our heads. He proudly mowed 9 guerrillas down and requested ammo. Just as I felt around to resupply him, a tank round hit him square in the face, which I shared in my left face.

Cacheola (adversarial)

Reprising my role as AT rifleman in Bravo 2, our team, led by Tink piled into the humvee with me as driver. We followed Alpha south down the riverbed when, as I crested a dune, lost the convoy in the darkness. Ajax navigated me towards them and, with a slight shortcut, we caught them up. We overtook Alpha and parked outside the town and disembarked.



A well-coordinated infiltration of the town saw us run from cache to cache until the sneaky Independents shot Tink all up in him, leaving Ajax in charge.

As we were halfway through our mission, while I was studying the map, distant cries of "enemy" made me scramble around to see dark shapes pouring into the compound behind us. My reflexes got the better of me and hastily I opened fire. Amidst screams from all directions, I heard the garbled words "blue on blue" and immediately dropped my weapon. It was too late: I had killed a member of Bravo 3 and wounded another.

The rest of the mission was a blur as I began to succumb to my guilt. A little later I was shot and fell. I relished the thought that karma had balanced my crime, but Qazi revived me and I now have to live with my shame.

[NuttyTecc]

Highway

Alpha 3 AAR
Joined by:
FTL: Black Mamba
AR: Pirate
AT: Qazi

We started out on the Western side of the road that the enemy convoy was approacing from. After we saw that the first few vehicles had been destroyed we moved up North to help our comrades fight the rest of the survivors from the unfortunate convoy. We helped to take two APCs and then had to remove ourselves from the area. Just to go to a gas station and get pissed at the raising gas prices.


Finale XL

Fireteam India AAR
Joined by:
FTL: Toppometer
AR: Qazi
AT: Grizzly

We moved to the village of Shahbaz few other FTs to secure the area and prepare for the oncoming enemy assault. In middle of the fighting I had a bright idea to take cover next to a tree, instead of the walls, and had a tank shell explode next to me. I tried to withdraw to a better position but was gunned down by hostile.


Cacheola

OpFor Bravo 1 AAR (HMMWV gunner)
Joined by:
FTL: TLTE
AR: thirdkje
AT: Richard Northen

OpFor started the sweep of the town from the South. Alpha squad was moving on the East, Bravo on the West. We were rather successful going through the town, when suddenly the HMMWV I was the gunner in got a direct hit with a RPG, we were disabled and injured, but survived the shot. We got out from the wreck and followed the squad on foot, shortly linking up with Alpha. We were closing in on the last cache, when all hell broke loose and I got shot.


Cholo

A cop

After the power went and the phones stopped working we suspected the worst, a attack from a local gang full of crazy drug abusers. We armed ourselves and prepared to defend the station, I tried guarding the stairs to the 2nd floor(UK 1st floor), but failed miserably and got shot as soon as I saw any movement on the stairs.

OT: I suck at writing anything, it took me a hour.

[harakka]

I've been a bit busy IRL and have thus missed multiple Folk sessions as of late. This evening reminded me again of how good it can be. Thanks to Fer for keeping this ship sailing and the guests for manning the suspiciously bullet-ridden oars. Here's hoping we still have many years of common struggle for agrarian utopia ahead of us. And now, for the AAR:

Highway
Charlie 1 FTL
Charlie, led by Draakon, was designated as the mop-up squad. We were to attack from the side after the AT people had stopped the convoy, and take out any surviving crewmembers and infantry. We lay in wait about two compounds from the road at the south-eastern side of the ambush area, ready to spring into action.

The convoy entered the kill zone and AT teams took their shots with great efficiency: when I led the brave men in C1 to the side of the road, every single vehicle was on fire and crews either already dead or bailing. I had been slightly worried about the possibility of friendly fire, but the convoy ambush squads opposite us on the ridge held their fire admirably. I spotted some infantry at the south end of the convoy, trying to run away from their burning BTR wreck, and gunned them down. Meanwhile rest of C1 was handling the middle of the convoy.

We regrouped and started advancing north toward the other end of the kill zone, when we spotted a surviving BTR driving straight at us; I shouted a contact report, told my AT guy to engage it and lobbed my last rifle grenade towards the vehicle, hoping to damage a tire. Unsurprisingly I was gunned down in seconds, and got to watch from afterlife as the survivors took out the remaining vehicles and withdrew victorious.

Finale XL
DC medic
Wolfenswan was (deputy) commanding a detachment composed of the fireteams from Golf to Juliet, tasked with circling around the east side of the AO to Shabaz and shoot stuff from there. I didn't really have a lot of medicing to do in this, as people mostly had the decency to die when shot at, instead of me having to patch up their wounds.

We had a good vantage point, the other fireteams performed their tank-killing job very effectively from the other side of the river, and we mostly got to focus on infantry. A couple of tank kills were scored on the side though. Eventually we ran out of things to shoot and Tigershark performed his olympic dash toward the enemy HQ, planting the proverbial UN flag and thus ending the mission.

It still feels wrong defeating the Goliath that is Finale though.

Cacheola
INDFOR Alpha FTL
StrangLove's plan as indie CO was pretty basic stuff: lay IEDs around the caches, get in defensive positions and engage the enemy only at close range. The three-man alpha fireteam (me, Aquarius and Sulphur) was to be a mobile force, doing a bit of lookout duty and after the fight starts proper, go around the enemy and attack from the rear.

Around the five minute mark Strang heard his destiny calling, went to the mosque and encountered an enemy staircase, ledge or something along those lines that craftily took him out.

I humbly took my fresh field promotion, decided to hold on to StrangLove's plan, and so we waited.

Eventually the first enemy sighting came in: humvees and infantry were spotted south. We had anticipated this, as no other movement plan could take BLUFOR this long to execute. Alpha quickly got to their feet and started moving north-west, doing a half-circle around the now confirmed enemy positions. The southernmost cache's defenses were already being engaged, unfortunately from quite a distance, thus negating our IED advantage.

As we were nearing the south edge of Zargabad Sulphur shouted out a contact report, and immediately bullets started flying. BLUFOR had spread their forces wider than I had anticipated, and we had to engage way earlier than I'd have liked. The immediate opposition was slain, but with Sulphur taking a non-lethal bullet and Aquarius bleeding out from a more lethal one. Once I had patched Sulphur back into shape we started cautiously stalking the engine sound of a Humvee to our north.

Meanwhile the southernmost cache's defenders had been whittled down to one. I told the remaining defender to abandon his position and go ninja, and anticipating my demise gave all the other fireteams the permission to operate independently, as INDFOR should.

Me and Sulphur were now well in bat country: the humvee engine sound was close, and we had spotted what I assumed to be the enemy rear guard in front of us multiple times at under 50m distance. Sulphur suddenly caught an enemy fireteam crossing the road in his line of fire. I ordered him to take them down, and got myself into a shady doorway.

Taking cover paid off as another fireteam was alarmed off to my left side. While they were nicely clustered, trying to change direction while still standing in a break in a wall, I sent two GP-25 grenades off their way. I managed to kill at least one and hopefully wounded several more. They were in good enough shape to return fire though, and I left my earthly shell behind.

[Aqarius]

It's nice to see the Third international Fighting Brigade of Takistan mark such an important event. Truly, it makes a fellow proud to be a soldier.

Highway
A2-AAR.
We took positions in the western hilltop and hid. Other than an few NDs (note to self: TS overlay does not disengage ARMA commands) and our RMAT nearly dying to a disconnect, everything went quite well.

Finale
Charlie AAR
This one was actually pretty spectacular. As part of the first platoon, charlie company was tasked with taking a forward position and securing the bushes immediately after the bridge head. There, we would hold off the advancing troops and armour while the AT team takes them out. We took up positions near a chest-high wall and were alternately watching the fireworks and dodging the fireworks. Soon enough, bravo was wiped out, my FT was dead, I somehow got my hands on a MAAWS with one HEAT left, and was ordered to join alpha. En route, I took a burst to the back, with the rest of platoon one soon joining me. Despite heavy casualties, the bridge held, and platoon two was able to successfully complete the mission.

Cacheola
Alpha AAR
BLUFOR took so long our CO was so bored he literally killed himself. After they did show up, FTL took us on a wide flanking maneuver, and some 2s after Joseph announced contact, I took a 50cal to my everything. I crawled to cover, Harakka patched me up, but I still died.
Then I watched Walther sink some 200 rounds into an empty building

Cholo
Disgruntled Olympic Protester
After storming the ground floor of station, took some potshots from the outside. Got one, but somehow got a facefull of buck despite sinking a good 5 rounds into another cops face.

[Grizzly]

This was my first folk sesion in a long itme, and also the first folk session on my brand new computer.

Highway:
Charlie SL: Draakon (AGAIN!)
Charlie 3:
Grizzly - AT
Fer - AR.
I was a little late on this mission, so I ended up in the last fireteam with Fer as the AR. We were paired with Charlie 2, in order to kill some vehicles.
As a result, a few vehicles were hit by rockets, untill we got flanked by a force crawling over a hill which was blocking our view towards the enemy vehicles. Fer died at that point whilst I got wounded. Whilst trying to get my bearings, I suddenly noticed that an enemy AR was standing right in front of me and somehow had not noticed me, so I pumped him full of lead. THen, I crawled into the open and died.

Finale:
The music in this mission was beautifull, so I listened to it attentively whilst we waited to fry some tanks. I only got one missile hit before dying - a very short mission for me!

Cachoala:
Very beautifull start, where I talked to my other comrades in the group (Toppo, Fer, and Tigershark) on how beautifull Arma actually can be.

Later on, Eophasmus murdered me.

[Black Mamba]

These have been two long weeks of summer partying everyday (just to prepare Folk birthday celebration), so i was fairly drunk and exhausted. I confess. I'm Benny Hill.

Highway
A3 FTL. Everything went pretty smooth, even though i had some concentration issues and sometimes was a bit behind my orders. Anyway, we basically followed the general momentum, shot a few guys the comrades had left for us, and got back (late) to the gas station. We seem to have lost Qazi at some point. Don't know when nor where.

Finale XL
Golf AAR. Everything was going fine, we were in the right compound, waiting for the enemies. When they did come, our FTL (twas Draakon, i believe) engaged Kamikaze mode and started running at the enemy tanks. I tried to follow him to provide him with some cover, and after shooting one guy, died of a sudden bout of saturnism. I should have followed my AR, Tigershark, who did survive to the end. Then again, what is the point surviving Finale, i ask you.

Cacheola
Second time i play this one as independant. Made the exact same mistake as last time, meaning i stood up to try and see something and died by the finger of Unaco. Before even shooting one round.

Cholo.
Well.

All in all, i was that kind of soldier, ready to die for the cause, but not to kill. I'm pretty sure i did not exceed two kills during the entire session (if you don't count the Crazy Race that happened after that), which makes me a really good Peacekeeper.

Long live Folk.

[SuperU]

The tank graveyard we created after beating finale

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3021027/Tank%2 ... ard%20.bmp

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3021027/Tank%2 ... rd%202.bmp

I may do an AAR later if I remember!

[Wther]

Later on, Eophasmus murdered me.

While I am massively melancholy over your death, comrade Grizzly, and apologise for extinguishing your life so efficiently, I feel it should perhaps serve as a warning to everyone, everywhere, that sneaking up on a jumpy soldier in the shadows in the confusion of possible ambush while said jumpy soldier has his blindingly bright map out late at night is conducive to untimely bullet inhalation.

In other news: bump for the YouTube embed, above.