Crisis in Dunundistan III; Sat. Jan. 5th SQA: AAR

[Iam_Hoss]

The field was great. The improvements were great. Looking forward to seeing what else they have in store for the field in the future.

Now on to the game play. I thought the team based objectives changing as the day progressed very refreshing and adding The special direct action missions added a nice twist. It made allocating the resources for the mission a calculated risk as at the same time the mission group deployed revised faction objectives were issued changing the dynamic of the game.

Saw very few issues except for an occasional over exuberant player accidentally shooting with their MED on both sides. No issues of hit calling and like others have said " great shot" being exchanged between both factions when a good shot was made.

The only item for improvement is around missions having specific times and not having synchronized clocks to prevent the one issue Dom mentioned in retrieving the water valve. But hey if that is my only complaint it was a pretty good day.

Got to play with some different players and new ones since Gerbilizer and I ran Bravo this time and had a great time. All in all another great day airsofting .

[Dominum]

The following are my notes and evaluation of the Special Missions participation. Some groups I was able to monitor carefully and thus will render an opinion on their action, others I was unable to do much more than assign the mission and log it's completion and thus cannot give an accurate opinion of their action.

*Note that difficulty ratings are different for each faction for each mission, and are primarily based on the distance from that factions HQ to the item. Except for the last mission or two, the first group to reach me was able to choose the difficulty level of their mission, thus assiging them a specific mission. The last one or two I chose for them for game flow reasons. The second group to reach me (the HVT) therefore had to abide by the decision of the previous group and accept that same mission. The start of the mission was to assemble at HQ and call the code word over channel 1 to me, at which point I would verify the group was 6-10 players at their HQ, and issue a rendeszvous point. This point was usually near the center of the field, though sometimes further off, depending on the flow of the game and the speed with which the groups had assembled.

Special Mission Code: "Crunchy Tacos"
Name of item to be found: "2 Ammo Boxes"
Item location in grid: H11
Difficulty rating (Alpha/Bravo): 4/7
Packet given by HVT at rendesvous at (Alpha/Bravo): 1042hrs/Never
Item not allowed to be moved until: 1100hrs
Item to be returned to HQ by deadline at: 1130hrs
My experience: (Will fill in tomorrow, sorry)
@ both groups in this mission: What was YOUR experience?
Congratulations to the Special Mission Group from Alpha for a successful completion!

Special Mission Code: "Soap"
Name of item to be found: "Bullion Case"
Hint word on Mission Packet: "Dogwood"
Item location in grid: K10
Difficulty rating (Alpha/Bravo): 5/6
Packet given by HVT at rendesvous at (Alpha/Bravo): 1145hrs/1140hrs
Item not allowed to be moved until: 1215hrs
Item to be returned to HQ by deadline at: 1245
My experience: (Will fill in tomorrow, sorry)
@ both groups in this mission: What was YOUR experience?
Congratulations to the Special Mission Group from Bravo for a successful completion!

Special Mission Code: "Salsa"
Name of item to be found: "White Sack of Heroin"
Hint word on Mission Packet: "Ground"
Item location in grid: D10
Difficulty rating (Alpha/Bravo): 6/5
Packet given by HVT at rendesvous at (Alpha/Bravo): 1222hrs/1230hrs
Item not allowed to be moved until: 1245hrs
Item to be returned to HQ by deadline at: 1315hrs
My experience: (Will fill in tomorrow, sorry)
@ both groups in this mission: What was YOUR experience?
Congratulations to the Special Mission Group from Alpha for a successful completion!

Special Mission Code: "Lighthouse"
Name of item to be found: "Laptop"
Hint word on Mission Packet: "Holly"
Item location in grid: K4
Difficulty rating (Alpha/Bravo): 9/2
Packet given by HVT at rendesvous at (Alpha/Bravo): 1315hrs/1310hrs
Item not allowed to be moved until: 1340hrs
Item to be returned to HQ by deadline at: 1410hrs
My experience: (Will fill in tomorrow, sorry)
@ both groups in this mission: What was YOUR experience?
Congratulations to the Special Mission Group from Bravo for a successful completion!

Special Mission Code: "Pinestraw"
Name of item to be found: "Hardrives in 7.62mm Case"
Hint word on Mission Packet: "Tall"
Item location in grid: G18
Difficulty rating (Alpha/Bravo): 1/10
Packet given by HVT at rendesvous at (Alpha/Bravo): 1420hrs/1428hrs
Item not allowed to be moved until: 1450hrs
Item to be returned to HQ by deadline at: 1520hrs
My experience: (Will fill in tomorrow, sorry)
@ both groups in this mission: What was YOUR experience?
Congratulations to the Special Mission Group from Bravo for a successful completion!

Special Mission Code: "Pinecone"
Name of item to be found: "Severed Head"
Hint word on Mission Packet: "Aluminum"
Item location in grid: K15
Difficulty rating (Alpha/Bravo): 2/9 (Did not allow choice)
Packet given by HVT at rendesvous at (Alpha/Bravo): 1548hrs/1518hrs
Item not allowed to be moved until: 1600hrs
Item to be returned to HQ by deadline at: 1625hrs
My experience: (Will fill in tomorrow, sorry)
@ both groups in this mission: What was YOUR experience?
Congratulations to the Special Mission Group from Bravo for a successful completion!

Special Mission Code: "Polycarbonate"
Name of item to be found: "Satchell of Money"
Hint word on Mission Packet: "Shade"
Item location in grid: G8
Difficulty rating (Alpha/Bravo): 7/4 (Did not allow choice)
Packet given by HVT at rendesvous at (Alpha/Bravo): NA/1619hrs (By this time Alpha simply did not have the numbers to assign a group)
Item not allowed to be moved until: 1635hrs
Item to be returned to HQ by deadline at: 1645hrs
My experience: (Will fill in tomorrow, sorry)
@ both groups in this mission: What was YOUR experience?
Congratulations to the Special Mission Group from Bravo for a successful completion!

[Frost]

@Dom. I was apart of bravo direct mission team for mission code name soap. I have talked extensively with my team who ran with me. We had a great experience, we felt like it simulated a special forces mission. I did wish we had encountered the intercepting team from alpha for sake of having to either sneak around them or defend the objective but despite that we did encounter a small alpha force, who did not realize we had an objective i believe, which we distracted with a small diversion group while the package was snuck around through the woods then regrouped later. I hope to see more missions like this in the future.

[D.Smitty]

I was with the Bravo DAT for mission "Pinecone": locate the severed head at Grid K15. We were 10 men strong, including Esteban, myself, and my brother.

Knowing the objective was deep in alpha territory, we creeped through the woods along the southern border of the field until we located the objective at approx. 1535, having encountered no resistance at that point. Knowing that we could not move the objective, we set up early-warning scouts to the North and West and took positions around the objective.

At approximately 1550, our northern scout returned to the line and reported that he saw enemy movement in the trees coming from the north and east. I told a single sharpshooter to engage the alphas at maximum range and put him in in cover as far away as possible, since I wanted to keep our exact numbers and locations a secret for as long as possible. I designated a runner who would slip out of the back of the base along the southern fence line right at 1600.

During the firefight, we attempted to use our entrenched positions and our support gunner (my brother w/ the RPK) to keep the enemy forces immobile for as long as possible. Right at 1600, I sent out the runner along with 4 riflemen under covering fire.

The mission was accomplished and our position was untenable, so I started sending everyone out by the western path in pairs until it was just me in the barricade. I attempted to keep the enemy forces held back with my sawed-off M79 (which was a well-played shocker to rushing forces, if I do say so myself...), but I was eventually overwhelmed and rushed from the east.

I should have popped smoke and ran as soon as I fired that first grenade, but I honestly didn't think to try that.

A moment of silence for Smitty, who died defending grid Kilo-15.

[Call-Name-Viper]

I was on both operation 'Soap' and was the "Northern Scout" on operation 'Pinecone'. Each mission had different elements infused in the gameplay to make them difficult in various ways.

On operation 'Soap', we found the objective and were ordered to stay low and wait for a while. We did so and then traveled through the thick underbrush to avoid enemy contact until we reached our base.

On operation 'Pinecone' as Smitty said I was the nortern scout when we arived and retrived the head, while the rest of the squad created an impromtu fortress, complete with a "tactical playpen". I personally was hoping for a little action, and a few minutes before the scheduled extraction I spotted enemy movement and made it back to the rest of the squad. There we stayed pinned down in a firefight until we heard that our objective was complete by some of our men that detached from the squad headed back to base. Then we pulled out and Smitty provided cover fire.

R.I.P. Smitty

All in all, I had the best time out there.

[Foxx]

We owe it to you, Smitty. Your sacrifice was not in vain.

Since "Pinecone" has already been accurately summarized, I'll share my experience with "lighthouse".

The first fifteen minutes of this mission were filled with fail in regards to my team. I made the decision to assign navigation to a recently removed member of the team as an opportunity to redeem himself. This was a mistake. Mix in a failing PTT unit and you have total hell.

We walked straight past our intended destination (as well as Smitty trying to flag us down.) and into an enemy patrol. We engaged the patrol and took them down fast, but then realized we were heading the wrong way. While trying to correct our mistake, our squad of six was ambushed by a group of about ten. Didn't end well.

We respawned and headed straight to the intended grid ref. When we arrived,we found a handful of bravo on the road taking heavy fire from deep within the woods. Turns out it was the same guys who ambushed us earlier. We left two of our guys to lay down suppressive fire, and flanked right. Before we could even get around the enemy, Felix came hauling ass straight toward us carrying the objective and no visible weaponry. Our SAW gunner took him down (Causing Felix to baseball-slide into a tree. Looked painful.) and snatched up the laptop.

We proceeded to make a mad-dash for HQ. I attempted to recall the two guys I set for suppressive fire, but they had advanced on the enemy (rather than suppress as intended. ) and were too far up for us to go after.

Eventually, we safely made it back to base. Pretty damn eventful for a "level 2" mission.

[Felix]

Crunchy Taco here.
Showed up, held perimeter, received package.
Held rally point for 20ish minutes. light to no contact, some visuals on far hill
11:00 hit, realized the difference between the word Admin and HVT.
Took packages back to HQ with no resistance.

Moral of story: shoot Dom on sight, ask questions later.

[BlackJack]

I was on the special mission team for "Operation Salsa" for Alpha. 8 of us departed our HQ and we met up with the HVT 2 min before Bravo. We had contact and a brief firefight ensued while we were getting our packet from the HVT. We held the line to defend the intel being extracted from the HVT. Bravo sustained a few losses and we had none. We disengaged Bravo and melted into the woods to continue on our mission to D10. Once our package was located we set up a perimeter until we could move it at 1245. We had good concealment on all of our team members. A small squad of Bravo walked by on the road close to my position We let them go, as it was not our mission to engage. Another team of Alpha stumbled on us, and a few friendly fire rounds were exchanged. Oops! Once we could move our packet we did so through the woods for about 500 yards before coming back to the road. No other contact was made and our mission was successful.

I was also on the team for "Operation Pinestraw" We departed our HQ and met with the HVT. Immediately after getting our intel, we were heavily engaged by Bravo and all of us were killed. Well done gents! We had our back to the wall, and really had nowhere to go. We re-spawned at our HQ and started to look for the hard drives. After about 20 min of searching, some Alpha were filtering from the Hill back to our HQ as Bravo was coming up the North Road. Our team met up again with the HVT and gave chase to try and locate the hard drives. 3 of us stayed about 30-40 yards behind our main team as flank security against a possible Bravo ambush that seemed very likely, as we had been in contact only moments before. After that, I'm not entirely sure what happened hunting down the HVT, as we got separated, and we made our way to the Trenches to retake the re-spawns from Bravo. Alpha put up a good offensive and we flushed them out.

We had great communication with all squad team members and everyone followed instructions given. It was great to have these side missions in addition to the overall faction missions. I really had a good time at this field and look forward to the next game.

Any chance the trenches re-spawns could be all linked together with a trench running between them? That would be helpful in moving from each defensive position.

[Dominum]

This is great feedback, I am happy the SMs were found to be interesting. Next time I will address the possible time discrepancies more specifically beforehand. Felix is right, if I'm armed and don't have something bright on my head, keep a barrel on me at all times

[jsts ghost]

I will post my AAR tomorrow. I need to trim it down.

But yes, Dom will , quickly and some what funny, find his flag every time I had come around.

[GARRETT]

Great game. Met some new folks, ran into some old ones. see you all at the next game.

[Dominum]

Indeed, for the rest of the day I had to make sure I had a rag on my head if I was not in play or Ghost would be ready to shoot me. Fool me onces et al. He did kill me once when I was helping his guys out, but that's just how the cookie crumbles. Sometimes it's best to shoot first and medic later.

[BaldEagle]

Ladies & Gents....
Now that things have settled some, I'd like to mention the following....
1. Thanks for coming out. Seems most people had a good time.
2. For those counting, we had approximately 110 airsofters.
3. If you believe you dropped/lost/left something behind, please PM me.
4. Looking for pictures? Most pictures have been posted on the Escue Airsoft group page on Facebook.
And finally....
5. The BIG grin on Garrett's face after taking out a squad of Bravo players was priceless. (Sorry no pictures of that)

Thanks again!

[ViperThreeSixAlpha]

We (Team Wolfpack) sucked at accomplishing our Direct Action Missions (Country Tacos and Salsa) , but is was fun as hell doing it! Our failure was my fault for not monitoring the "Admin" channels as directed. Great job Dom, the missions were well thought out and we are ready for more. The maps that were provided were excellent, I laminated mine for future use. But perhaps the map could use some sort of key referencing the distance between the grids or maybe a compass rose with cardinal and intermedaite directions. Just an added tool that could be useful if you got turned around in the wood. This OP was the most fun we've had so far and was well organized. Great fun with great people.