The photos are being released episodically. It's a test of a new content release system.
@steelfallen: just buzzcut the hair, easy solution and you save on shampoo costs
I've been holding off putting up my perspective on the day's events, but it's about time.
I'd committed to the event early on, as Lenox is my closest field and I'd like it to be one of the best, I wanted to ensure a reasonable and balanced turnout.
Camouflage system: A noteworthy point of discussion in the event thread was the camouflage situation - the Op cross traditional lines by allowing both sides to use patterns with a temperate colorway, which is true to the scenario and plays to the equipment of local players - yet it was certainly expected that allowing both sides green uniforms would lead to lots of friendly fire situations.
This didn't end up being the case, at least in my observation. As an Iranian player, I was surrounded by friendlies in Woodland and UCP, and we had a small squad (of awesome dudes
dressed up in DCUs as well. We all had a chance to see who we were working with. (Early on we had a bunch of Bush Wookies on the team, it seemed like a full quarter of our manpower was ghillied up. These guys all switched back to field uniforms over time, which didn't seem to cause any confusion.
Some credit for the lack of friendly fire lies with the armbands; smaller strips of yellow or green duct tape on the left forearm were a good team ID, but weren't really obvious unless the other guy actively pointed them out (though this depends on the individual; one of our squad leaders had taped his M4's PEQ box in place using the yellow tape, it was... conspicuous.) The rest of the credit goes to good communication, everyone knowing where their teammates were, roughly - although I can't be sure that we were all entirely situationally aware, I at least made sure the squad leaders knew what the overall plan was.
Player base: We had a very good set of players show up for this event. Very few complaints about hit-calling... I did see one instance, but it was arbitrary and we still won the engagement. No one was gaming the medic rules or abusing the field - specifically, there are a lot of Halloween props around, and it didn't appear that they were being damaged. Players on my team were all cooperative with their squad leaders and whatever general orders were in place - except for one squad that showed up later, stayed on their own comms channel, and only seemed to show up once in a blue moon... but overall, great participants.
The downside of the player base is that a
lot of people didn't show up. I think total attendance was just over half of those who had registered, and as far as I know, very few had called ahead. I sort of expected this to happen if it was a rainy day, but it wasn't, the weather was absolutely perfect.
Weather: It was on our side. Mid-60's with a mild wind, BBs could be thrown off but not by a lot, and things became very dreary around the time we were chasing down those traitorous PMCs without having any idea of where they were. I'd definitely say it was a little dramatic, no fogging problems, and playing sleeves-down was very comfortable.
Administration: Running a big game like this with only a little help can be tough for a field owner, and Thadius did try to do it all himself, without leaving the parking lot for very long. There were a few refs on the field, mainly to keep time at the respawn points and escort players off for lunch. If there
had been an issue with players cheating, it would have been hard to deal with; however, the PMC side was mostly made of HOGs, who were very familiar with the field's boundaries and rules, and who were essentially refs for the first 1/3 of the game.
There were some considerable issues with how the game was planned, as the original event host "bailed at the last minute" (I've heard two stories, but this is the official one.) This left ATS with the burden of planning out the storyline (which mostly happens after the game starts, after all) and executing it on the fly - as well as providing props and intel items to mark each team's progress.
ATS - or more specifically the Army Rangers team - also managed to draw up some field maps just before the game. This is good; commanding a team and navigating a new field is much easier when you have the field's layout committed to paper. The maps were honestly a lifesaver, their only problem being disagreement over the western edge - the western clearing is part of the property and we've used it before, but the map shows it as out of bounds. We ended up treating it as in.
Scenario: The original scenario was a little bit contrived - why is this plane flying over Iran in the first place, nonsense - but once we accepted the basic scenario, the rest of the happenings flowed nicely. There seemed to be a flaw in that the majority of the objectives were located in the southern portion of the field, far from the Iranian starting point, but realistically our units were all deployed in the southern part of the field anyway and had a fair enough chance of reaching the objectives at the same time as USA units.
The PMCs' eventual betrayal was no surprise, although it wasn't clear what that meant for the rest of us besides having another bunch of targets to deal with. When we got orders from 'Command' (meaning admin, of course) to close with and destroy the PMCs before they reached the extraction point, we had no idea where said extraction point was located - and again, we found it on the southern edge of the field, well within US territory. We weren't happy to see the PMCs sitting outside the East Gate, clearly outside the play area without any explanation why; this was cleared up, but still seemed cheap. And it was early in the day; we had to add a couple more games afterwards, including a
spooky alternate ending.
Still, excellent work on ATS's part in throwing the game together on pretty short notice.
Lunch: Meals were provided, which is good, even though pizza isn't really that great a combat snack. However, there was some confusion in the way that meal times were implemented: the game was kept running, while groups of four stepped off, wolfed down their food, and stormed back into play. (I didn't see any USA or PMC troops eating, so I assumed that my team was at a disadvantage while we were snacking.) This resulted in some players not getting a chance to eat - being too dedicated to leave the action - and others being off eating when the planned scenario came to a close.
As immersion-breaking as it is to bring all the players out of the game to eat and reload, I would prefer this to doing it piece by piece. Additionally, Iranian troops had to travel back to their own spawn, then cross the entire field to eat, then return to their spawn before they could go back into the action - this took quite some time, while the USA forces had their spawn very near the food. I think the ideal implementation would have food sent to each team's spawn and one squad, on 'Reserve' status, would get the chance to eat while they waited for action.
Other stuff:I don't think Jason's participated in a single larger game in the time I've known him, but he does snap a decent number of cool photos.
Parking was good, we didn't have to drive through a ditch this week - and there were lots and lots of spots since it's a busy Haunted Hayride place.
The terrain at ATS is quite good. Lots of small buildings, with a single river and bridge, a big open field in the west, lots of tight woodland crossed by roads in the south, and much more open woods in the narrow northern strip. The addition of a 'refugee camp' on the western forest edge is far superior to the old reeds-and-dirt-mound arrangement. Some permanent ladders, another bridge, and some breaks in the fences would make the field almost perfect.
I think I've said enough, l-o-l.
dressed up in DCUs as well. We all had a chance to see who we were working with. (Early on we had a bunch of Bush Wookies on the team, it seemed like a full quarter of our manpower was ghillied up. These guys all switched back to field uniforms over time, which didn't seem to cause any confusion.
