Tonight we numbered 30 in the fight through all sorts of dangerous territories.
The party participated in the following operations:
HSLD
Dangerous Quarry
Cratesistance
Dangerzone
Weekend Warriors
As always, comments are most welcome below, especially with regards to new missions for ideas to improve existing missions and make shiny new ones. 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 an updater/launcher for all your mod needs look no further than our Comrade head's marvellous 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.
Regret missing today! I did get to use some of the time to make some A3 stuff though - stuff I can be interrupted in the middle of, unlike flying a darn helicopter.
I'm gonna have to see some video of that HSLD operatorness. It's almost as if you do better without me
There are only three things I hate in this world: Ranting, Lists, and Irony.
So, what exactly happened to CO chopper Sparks? One minute you were hovering at the loiter spot, the next you were a flaming wreck somewhere behind us.
Also, we might want to have a workshop or something on how to LZ. There's hot LZs, and then there's LZs where you're being shot while you're waiting for your chalk to show up.
darkChozo wrote:So, what exactly happened to CO chopper Sparks? One minute you were hovering at the loiter spot, the next you were a flaming wreck somewhere behind us.
Headshot. From a few hundred meters out into a not-on-autohover MH9's open door. I call shenanigans
Also, we might want to have a workshop or something on how to LZ. There's hot LZs, and then there's LZs where you're being shot while you're waiting for your chalk to show up.
Oh, we're definitely going to have a something allright...
guns.ie ● stochasticgeometry.ie ● weak.ie
Don't tell mom I'm a pilot, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse
So, as you all know Comrades, as you are avid followers of the Mission Makers forums, we've been talking of late about the HS;LD mission and if it's too easy, if we need to reduce the number of fireteams (and thus the number of helos involved) and so on. Wolfenswan felt that was a good idea; I felt the problem is that we've been approaching it too conservatively:
I love this mission and HS;LD 2 precisely because of the large numbers of LBs and the hectic insert-kill-extract-under-fire unarmed-and-depending-on-speed-to-live nature of things. Increase the enemies, garrison the tower overlooking the town, have COs go completely balls-out insane with their demands on the pilots, but please please please, don't nerf this.
But this was just a theory; we needed data. As you know Comrades, the Party operates a Leadership Programme whereby you can contact a host and express a desire to CO a mission in an upcoming session (there are more details at the link). So I volunteered to CO a balls-out insane run of HS;LD and volunteered everyone else to be cannon fodder.
To be fair, I did recon the LZs first:
The plan was simple enough - stop faffing about landing way outside town and fighting our way in. It's High Speed; Low Drag. Flying's faster than walking. We want into building group A and building group B - why not land there? So, approach out of the sun, and along lines that give the chance to fly in, drop troops and lift out in a single straight line for speed. So we all form up out in the bay, then start our run. TH1&2 with Alpha kick out to Initial Point Whiskey, TH3&4 with Bravo to IP Xray, then in to the LZs at Romeo and Sierra. Sierra's just outside the building group for B, but there's no nice easy straight line approach there and it's not too hard to run five feet round the fence I figured. Then all the helos exfil east, loop south around Savros and back up to OP Yankee from the south and hold for the extract, while Alpha and Bravo kill the targets and take and hold LZ Oscar and pop green smoke; then TH1-4 fly in one at a time (one only in case of crashes and explosions and to avoid LZ ops fun) and lift out with whomever is ready.
And then Arma kicked me out of the game in the first 0.1 sec of planning and it took a while to get back, and then we accidentally kicked the mission before planning, and then I held down the wrong PTT button and gave the entire plan out before someone asked if I was still alive 'cos they'd heard five minutes of silence...
/sigh
But eventually I got the plan explained and everyone lifted and headed to the RP. Where the next thing went wrong and TH4 got promoted to be all of Bravo. We headed off, I watched TH1, 2 and 4 head in on their approaches from OP Yankee and get their chalks off safely and get away, with hot LZs being hosed down by AR fire from the helos as they landed. Alpha and Bravo started working on the town, the helos started to loop around, I called for a status update from Alpha...
...and then some AI with a Tar-21 carbine headshotted me through the door of the MH9 from 400m out and 200m up. Hmmmmmmm.
So my helo crashes and I watch the rest from limbo. The TH pilots did a great job with some solid flying (though I will say comrades, don't hop over a landed helo in an LZ, it pins them to the ground till you're clear if you're lucky - they lift off into you right when neither of you have enough energy to manouevre if you're not - and it's a fast way for spinny things to come off regardless). Madrak came in, loaded up anyone in range and legged it. darkChozo did the same but caught a stray bullet and got revived by Ajax in TH4 (comrades, a big part of holding an LZ is being in the LZ -- pilots shouldn't be medicing people, they have another job to be doing). But it all worked out and Ajax got away with a full load - though we thought for a moment that he was going to CFIT on the way out - and then pooter's Bravo 2 team, who'd just pulled double duty eliminating Bravo 1's targets as well as their own, loaded up into the last helo, with all of limbo screaming and jumping up and down telling them to move faster and get out of there; which they finally manage to do and we extract with minimal casualties from enemy fire and a seriously hairy set of memories.
Nice job everyone, that run was fun
Oh, and here's the full thing for anyone wanting the banter...
Dangerous Quarry Alpha 2 AR with Soviet (FTL), Stalkerfriend (AR), Kasmeister (AT), Galactor (R) and TarBendarr (R)
A nice hit-and-run mission this. Mostly because I kept getting hit and spent a lot of time running. First we ran up to the top of the hill, then we shot at enemies - and Comrades, these rumours of friendly fire are totally unfounded, we watched a patrol moving down the road to the east and were firing at that
We then wheeled round and covered the main base, suppressed lots of enemies from the hilltop, and then some other enemies came up the hill at us from our north. While looking for them, I ran across one and got shot before realising it wasn't ASL. Everyone else killed the EI, I got revived and we threw most of the rest of my ammo at the base (our AAR tried giving me ammo earlier, but he dropped it at my feet and a rock ate it. Yay arma). Stalkerfriend shared a belt with me and then we formed up and charged up the hill to the base, UGLs and ARs popping away as the last mag and last belt calls went out. Stalkerfriend took a round to the spleen and we used our last FAK reviving him and continued the charge, now with no FAKs to give.
Then I found a corpse (I said found comrade), robbed it and had ammo again. We made it to the base, formed up, shared out the belts between me and stalkerfriend, got medic'd and blew up the artillery and C&C vehicle; and then fled south into the night, the last few EI shooting at us as we ran and popped smoke behind us, and escaped victorious
Cratesistance Pilot, TH1
Someone called for a combat taxi?
I will say this - I really like the Taru. Carries as much as a Huron, feels like it outflies the Orca. Does 300kts if you push it. And since we got a random location 24km away from our start point this time, we needed that 300kts...
We dropped at LZ B, and I just got out as the first UGLs started to land. Did a quick recon flight by the lighthouse for its tactical value, then the orders were to turn on all the lights and start buzzing the landscape to distract people and maybe spot some folks. The former I might have done; the latter it turns out is a lot harder without a co-pilot, high speed CFIT being a pain in the ass. Mostly I was spotting people who were already being engaged, and tried to fly over them with the lights on to blind their NVGs and light them up for our guys to see what they were shooting at. And then we got down to the last crate and had no more explosives to kill it, and I was all set up for a kamikaze run when command called it and Netkev told me to wave off...
Probably for the best. It's not exactly the Folk ARPS way to kill yourself for a reason other than forgetting which key is inventory...
Dangerzone Alpha 2 Rifleman with Netkev (FTL), Edward (AR), Pooter (AR), OneRaven (RAT) and SuicideKing (R)
Nice corridor shooter. Next time I'll duck at the start and try to avoid the very last .50 cal round from the first technical we start shooting at...
AFTERPARTY
Weekend Warriors
Your gunner on drugs. Any questions?
guns.ie ● stochasticgeometry.ie ● weak.ie
Don't tell mom I'm a pilot, she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse
Sparks wrote:(though I will say comrades, don't hop over a landed helo in an LZ, it pins them to the ground till you're clear if you're lucky - they lift off into you right when neither of you have enough energy to manouevre if you're not - and it's a fast way for spinny things to come off regardless)
In my defense, that was supposed to be more of a fly away than a hop. Turns out that's a lot harder to do when you're missing an engine and haven't realized it yet.
