This session felt super busy, with lots of new players, which is great! I agree with everyone else that it's much better to have a go at leading even if you don't do perfectly, which really isn't that important anyway -- we play for fun, not victory -- rather than us all sitting at the slotting screen waiting interminably for people to step up, or the same handful of people filling the leadership slots all the time.
Anyway!
Internecine II - DEFENDFOR MMG gunner
We were ordered to find a good spot to set up on along a ridgeline west of the village, and spent some time faffing about as I ran back and forth trying to work out the best place. Then I spotted some distant movement in the corner of my eye -- an enemy vehicle approaching from the south! We hastily set up where we were and kept our eyes open.
Soon enough we saw a lot of enemies moving around at an oil-derrick to our S/SE. BLAT BLAT BLAT went the PK, a little too inaccurate to snipe folks, but enough to keep them suppressed (though I did get 2 kills in the end), as I saw them running back and forth as well as peppering me with increasingly accurate fire. The comms in this team was very good and Charlie squad was soon dispatched to advance on the pinned foes. With a little shooting and a little grenade-chucking, they wiped them all out and secured the derrick.
At this point Mamba sensibly pointed out that it was probably time to move, so we decided to go up onto the peak of the hill to surprise any reprobates who tried to hit our old position. Unfortunately it seems the enemy had the same idea as we crested the hill-top at the same time as eachother, and being only two, we were soon wiped out.
GooseChase - BLUFOR Bravo Squad Leader
Each squad loaded into a helo and we started orbiting around OPFOR's starting town of Mogilevka in order to scout out where the hostages were headed. Bravo were assigned to the green blip which seemed to be slowly heading east, so we started flying around between them and the nearest vehicle depots, hoping to intercept them. Eventually we saw some movement at one of the vehicle depots and touched down just east of it to make an assault.
It soon became clear that the movement was a mix of AI and (presumably) an OPFOR advance party sent to get vehicles. Taking fire from the trees to the north and amidst some injury-related confusion, we eventually managed to clear the area and close in on the vehicle depot. Although the initial plan was to destroy the vehicles, I decided to put B2 into the PK technical (plus one in a car) and send them north onto the main road, which the blip indicated the hostage might be taking. Meanwhile I piled B1 into the chopper to do some more scouting and try to re-establish contact.
At this point it was clear things elsewhere were going wrong, as we got word that all of Alpha had been wiped out at Castle Zub. Leaving B2 to deal with the green blip as best they could, the en-choppered B1 plus me and the medic rolled out to get our revenge. As we closed in, we started taking fire from the castle and had to wave off to a more distant LZ; on the way back towards Zub, B1 FTL was hit again, so I took the rest of his troops and sprinted across the open ground towards the hill, filtering into the thick trees on the north side of it. At this point B2 had tracked their hostage to Staroye, but the radio silence from them soon after made it clear we were the last ones left.
The chopper was circling the castle at this point, strafing it with the doorguns, and it was clear the enemy were distracted as we heard them shooting while sneaking in through the back. We soon encountered contacts around the keep in the center, with one enemy spraying some fire before running back inside the door. Rather than rush into his line of fire I popped a GL round into the doorway, which apparently was the end of the hostage Danny. Wounded at this point, I took out 1 more enemy who ran round a corner, and forced another, near the curved wall, to retreat south, while calling out directions to the few survivors in Bravo. At this point, though, both hostages were apparently dead and the mission ended.
***
A couple of points about this mission. Firstly, due to the nature of it with a lot of impromptu planning and situation-changes, and having to coordinate between distant groups and choppers, there is a *lot* of radio chatter on CC. So if I was shushing a lot of people in Bravo, it wasn't due to malice. Having said that, as a general rule of thumb, only FTLs should be using squad teamspeak, and it's really helpful if they can keep transmissions short, clear and to the point!
Secondly, Tigershark deserves commendation for his helicopter support. As well as flying beautifully, he responded quickly to requests, asked when he needed more information, gave good advice about landing zones and such, and had great discipline in loading and unloading troops. As he pointed out, chopper pilots can't really read the map while flying, so the most useful sort of instrction is something like "fly 500m S/SE, land at the base of the big hill" rather than "land us in Dolina" or "I've put an LZ marker down".
Thirdly, although I don't really have a specific point, it would be nice if we could slightly refine how the hostages behave. I know it's fun to mess about, I've done it plenty myself, but having been a guard and really having little recourse to make a hostage move or stay still, it is super frustrating, and it feels against the spirit of the mission beyond a certain point. There's also the matter of keeping them safe, and this might also rest on OPFOR's shoulders to an extent; I know there've been plenty of missions were BLUFOR have killed both hostages but it really doesn't feel like they could have done much differently short of letting OPFOR pass, and they're already at quite a disadvantage because it's so difficult to track OPFOR down in the first place. So, I'm not sure exactly what the solution is, but it would be cool if we could find one. Invulnerable hostages? Not carrying hostages in technicals? Ionno.
Finale XL -- MAT gunner
I didn't really get a chance to shoot this mission, because by the time I got called out, most of the tanks were dead or disabled and we still had plenty of RPG rounds left. Still, it was nice to beat such an infamous mission so handily.
Crash Site -- Bravo SL
After a bit of a dodgy landing in the north, we started rushing down hill towards the floor of the valley. Soon receiving word of the crash site to our west, I started heading that way, but daf reported seeing a chopper landing further south and east. While they were dealing with that, I and most people around me got shot by the AI guards. From then it was a long PvP slog -- I forget who won, in the end!
Outpost Bean -- Soldier in Crazy..SKB(?)'s squad
Bravely stepping up as a new FTL, Crazy did admirably despite the chaos, as we defended a square in Chernogorsk from hordes of hungry survivors. Unfortunately the FPS performance was barely playable for me, as sadly tends to be the case with many of the more AI/script-heavy missions e.g., Arrival, but it was still amusingly hectic and I managed to drag myself onto a departing boat in the end.