Karkand Late 11th Nov 2005

[Bommando]

Karkand. The Reversal.

After Squad Leading the previous round on Oman, I looked forward to doing the same on Karkand when the next map loaded. We initially spawned at the Suburb and set a C4 trap, but saw that the 1st MIP had already taken that task, so we moved toward the empty Square. Sure enough, a USMC squad had punched through and had enough time to turn the flag before we got there. I guess they weren't expecting a quick counter-attack, because we pushed them off the flag really quick.

It soon became apparent that the MEC would be without a Commander, so I found myself a nice little hiding spot on a roof and applied. Little did I know what an intense round that was to become. By the time I had my eyes, we were already broken through on a number of fronts and the USMC were making their way across the river. I quickly ordered 2 squads to fall back to the East and when S8 lost the Hotel, I had them fall back to the Suburb with S1.

We had a perfect setup for a while, holding all of the East with a good line and also the Suburb with 2 squads. The Suburb soon fell to overwhelming forces, but the next 10 minutes saw us develop an Eastern line and a 100 ticket lead.

Although I got very frustrated with the number of breakthroughs we seemed to allow across the land bridge, we mopped most of them up pretty quickly. I began to get very cranky when my repeated requests for a C4 defence were very slow to get responses and sure enough, they eventually broke too many men over to the East for us to contain comfortably. We made a valiant stand at the Factory, with one of my successful C4 bombs wiping out half of a squad attempting to cap the flag, but we just couldn't keep it up.

Once the Factory fell, I had no option but to switch to combat mode and resorted only to giving general orders. We ended up losing the entire Eastern side, but since their forces were concentrated over there, the 1337th did an amazing job at capping 3 Western flags in really quick time. That was a turning point for us, because we retained hope by only being one bleed-flag down. I was quickly blinded and without artillery, so I made it my mission to keep DrunkenSoul's artillery down, since it's a huge advantage on Karkand if one Co is with and the other without. This ended up being more successful than I expected and I managed to keep it down and kill most of the repairers with additional C4 traps I laid in wait.

One of the highlights had to be the 2 minute knife fight with Mishkan on the South Eastern hill. I heard a M24 firing and went in search of the Sniper. Mishkan must have heard my footsteps, because he had turned around when I approached with my knife drawn. It would have been easiest to just shoot him in the face, but I observed the knife fight code of honour and made it a fight to the death. We ducked and weaved, prone and crouched for 2 tense minutes. It seemed my ping was affecting us both, because we both registered multiple hits on each other without getting the kill. Finally, Mishkan got lucky and nailed me, but it was a valiant fight and I do not feel robbed

Some great battles ensued with the swarm of Engineers who converged to repair the arty. Our squads rallied amazingly and ended up securing the Train Wreck to quell the bleed. From here, we had a 60 ticket lead and held on to it until the round ended.

It's the first MEC victory I've seen when the East has been lost halfway through and I am very impressed with all of our squads for holding on and keeping their chins up.

Great round with great opponents.

Result: MEC win 61-0

Bommando.

[munchkin]

Originally Posted by Bommando

This is a placeholder thread for our amazing Karkand victory. I am writing it now. I just wanted to post so nobody steals my thunder

I have but one question. How did you manage to CO and shoot a bunch of guys at the Factory flag at the same time? COing + fighting + admin-ing = Super Bomm.

[BeefofAges]

It was awesome when Deveran took us across the river in an APC to retake the west side.

"WHY THE HECK ARE YOU STILL IN THE APC GET OUT OF THE APC AND GET THOSE FLAGS YOU IDIOTS" is the general idea of what he was saying.

[Steel_Penguin]

I don't think those were even words that Deveran was saying most of the time.

[xTYBALTx]

That was one of the most exciting rounds of Karkland as MEC I've played in a while. Bom sounded. . . ehhm. . ."less than amused" when the breakthroughs started.

Shoutout to my squad. You guys rocked. Wussypoo, Chronic, Martyr, Pyramid, and I'm missing one other person but da*&it that was an excellend round.

[Bodofooko]

I was in Deveran's squad until I got auto switched...and I'm kinda glad I did...always lots of negative energy in that squad..yeah...was having a real hard time focusing my chi...

[DrunkenSoul]

I was commanding the USMC. Didnt start out commanding from the beginning, so we were behind by 100 tickets by the time we got to the river battle. I decided to do something different and switch sides to neutralize thier assets. We eventually got it and got ticket bleed by holding the train station. The setup up and idea were good except for the fact that I should have brought one squad to defend the arty. If we had the arty the last 5 mins, we would have def won, but because I couldnt stop the huge push towards the train station we eventually lost a good game. Sorry to the USMC, but I wanted to try something different other than that river battle. Good job to my squad leaders; the almighty Beatnik , Santa, Darkviper, BF2style and others. Props to Bommando for an excellent job countering my moves.

edit..forgot to mention i was living up to my name at that time and could not think straight

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Bodofooko

I was in Deveran's squad until I got auto switched...and I'm kinda glad I did...always lots of negative energy in that squad..yeah...was having a real hard time focusing my chi...

'You Fail!'... hehe.

By the way, nice gunning in the Cobra on Kubra Bod. It got to be a little redundant watching those missiles slam into our nose

[Beatnik]

That was a good game. I'm not quite sure how we managed to get the Factory flag after taking it once, having almost our whole team over there, then getting shut out. But the second time stuck... I thought we'd had it wrapped up for sure, but that attack squad taking out our arty was apparently the deal breaker. Bleed changes things much more than I thought on that map - now if you're behind, you NEED to take that extra flag on the opposite side to keep the bleed on. Watching the lead go from 130 to 40 or so was very exciting, and knowing that I got to invoke the Wrath of Bom on his SLs by blowing his supply crates and and assets was even better.

One question Bom - what happened when your guys pulled off the Cement Factory flag? I assume it was to draw us across, so your guys could get our back flags...

Thanks to my squad for fighting hard early, staying patient in the middle, then getting back onto the line toward the end for some extra kills. Good job Drunken at COing a hard fought round. And good job Bom for holding onto the W.

Also munch - I can tell you Bom wasn't at the Factory flag (or the east side for that matter), so he was doing all that somewhere in the middle of the map, which is even crazier.

EDIT: Looks like he was by our main base. Crikey.

[Mishkan]

That knife fight was bloody awesome, if only I had a recording. Anyhow at one point I was sniping I think it was the 2nd with Penguin and one of them tried to take me from behind and threw a grenade onto the roof. I jumped off the other side and ran around behind him and knife him

Anyhow Bommando's and my knife fight was fun.

[Malum]

It was a good close fight actually. We had the upper hand and didnt utilize it to the best imo. I thought we could have had one squad go take the hotel but we just ignored our UCB spawn points ....but I wasnt in leadership, I was pretty vocal in my squad about it...but I obeyed orders...The TG command structure, I respect!....it was a close battle. I think if we did that, with a full squad while maintaining our river dance, we'd have owned that map. imo.

EDIT: as I remember the CO did actually do it, but it was like way too late. I was itching to do it as soon as we sealed off our side of the river.....I think anyone on our side would agree with this assessment....

That was the first time I played Support ina while, you can really rack up teamwork points that way....

[Evanz0rz]

That was by far the most intense game I have ever had as medic. Me and Evil Lemon really had our hands full in Beatniks squad. I thought that we were gonna have it but i guess you cant kill Bommando, though it was really annoying at the end because with about 10 mins or less left i got kicked to make room with a supporting member. It made me mad since i was doing so good, i think i had around 150+ points which put me on top of the USMC side but oh well thats what i get for not being a supporting member. I would like to thank Beatnik for execelent squad leading as always and to everyone in the game for a great game.

[Lucky Shot]

I was on the US side and at the very end was stationed at the Train Station as part of BF2XStyle's squad. We were able to keep the MEC at arms length for a long time while bleeding them as long as possible. If we could hold onto the flag, we would win.

Thoughts were optimistic as we were able to keep the MEC holed up at the top of the ramp for a long time. As they gained mass, the Artillery would take it away. Whoever on the MEC who took out our artillery late in the game won it for the opfor in my mind. With close to 20 enemy soldiers grenading our positions and rushing the flag, nothing we could do could seem to prevent them from advancing. Even at the end, with my support gun blazing, and wiping out an entire squad, we just could not keep the mass of enemy from taking it.

I do have to give BF2XStyle props as he is quickly becoming a quality SL. His ability to stay alive in several assaults and that last defensive stand was unreal. I enjoyed playing in that squad, and props to the MEC who deserved the win.

Lucky Shot

[Malum]

its true, probably the best thing a SL can do tactically is just to stay alive as a mobile spawn point.

[James315]

USA performed very well in light of the new ticket bleed setup. MEC was lucky to get those western flags and hold them at the end.

I was in the Christmas squad for the string of Dragon Valley, Oman and Karkand (USA all). I thought I'd mention some of the new tactics that I saw being used during these rounds.

On Oman, Bommando was squad leading a group of MEC tasked with taking and defending the Hotel. They were met with a mix of success and failure, but one thing that stood out was Bommando's use of his own tank on the hill overlooking the Hotel from the north. He didn't try to push in the tank up to the flag, but rather used it in an overwatch position and made use of the tank's long-range weaponry. At the beginning his display was particularly ostentatious because he had engineers attending to the tank when it was damaged.

Later in the round, Bommando was still sitting up on his high and mighty armor throne and the Christmas squad decided to take him down a notch. We had three or four ATs in our squad and were sending rockets toward the various armored vehicles around the Hotel flag. Santa had an interesting idea that we put to good use. He told all of us to hold our fire, get into positions and wait for his order to fire on Bommando's tank all at once. After a few moments, he gave the order and we all fired. Even though it was at very long range and we struck Bom's tank from the front, we were successful. (My rocket hit last and got credit for the kill.)

I thought this was an interesting strategy. It prevented Bom from getting engineers to repair him. It also prevented him having the time to realize he should wheel back and retreat due to excessive damage. Plus, he didn't have time to counter-attack or even get a good read on the direction of the rockets since they were coming from everywhere. I think this strategy could come in handy in future matches.

On Dragon Valley, Fallosophy and I were acting as Medics for the squad. Especially at the beginning of the round, we were able to keep deaths to a minimum. I repeatedly got revived by Fallosophy and tried to return the favor. Having two Medics seems to work expontentially better than just one. I've been tempted to try having an all-Medic squad to see what would happen (if we were just against infantry, of course). I saw a lot of reviving by the MA infantry so I think they probably relied on Medics heavily.

On Dragon Valley I was testing out the Bodies-on-the-Flag procedure to see just how long I could stay alive on the flag even when the area was not secure. I was surprised to see that sometimes I was able to do this for an extended period despite the flag being in the open. At TG I think our procedures are more cautious and we lose the opportunity to quickly turn the flag because we're afraid of going into insecure, open areas. It may be a little suicidal, but it can be very effective. If the attack force can turn the flag it's almost sure to win. Knock out the enemy flag and their SL and you've won. We need to learn to be more aggressive about piling bodies on the flag, even when the enemy forces haven't been cleared out yet.

The Christmas squad used the delayed-spawn tactic of MA a little. It occurred to me that when on offense, squaddie infantry should never spawn until the SL is in a good position to assault the flag. Not only does this prevent slowing down the group with a bunch of infantry on foot, it conserves tickets. If you're all in a buggy with the SL and the buggy gets bombed, it's a waste of time anyway but if the SL is the only one in there, at least you've only lost one ticket.

But what I also realized is that it allows the SL to more intelligently assign kits. When the MA SL zipped by a control point in a buggy, he could catch a glimpse of our defenses and say either "lots of armor there, everyone spawn AT on me now" or "all infantry, everyone spawn Medic".