Wow - what a blast last night! Mantis ran a great mix of maps and it felt like one of those epic nights back when I was pwning santa and bommando night after night.



I came in to the UKR team on Spies Like Us towards the end of the round. I joined a squad with no recognizable names and had a pretty rough round. Germany had the map pretty well locked down. Highlight of the map for me was seeing our SL drop a 'defend here' mark down on Launch Site after I explained how bleed worked.




Next up was Pripyat and was blessed with an allstar squad... Don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure it was Boudreux, Troublesome, Jaymind, :CB:Gillz, DaVinci, and I think Stockpile. We defended the Command Center flag for most of the round. During the defense, we had a nice mix of kits and vehicles, with Gillz in the dingo, and Troublesome in the tank that spawns there. Traded a lot of rounds with the Cultural Center flag just to the north, and fended off a lot of 2-3 man infantry attacks and the occasional tank or two rolling in. I have to say, the enterable, eastern-bloc appartement buildings around that flag are really really cool. A couple of times we had to head up stairs to clear out snipers over-looking our flag - so fun - three of us, stacked, SWAT-style heading up floor to floor. About 3/4 of the way through the round I got killed and 2 seconds later the flag went grey and we lost it. (I hate it when that happens!!).




Next up was Raid on Kerch as Ukraine again. I had another great squad there as we set out to defend Disco. UKR really had it's act together this round - at the start, before the spawn, we announced what flags we were taking and just seconds after the start, we were deployed in a great defensive formation:



Kudos to my squad - Boudreux, Bisclaveret, Sparkks, Ronin, and Stockpile - all followed orders to a T and made my job real easy. Also - HUGE props to our commander ExageratedTruth. He did a great job spotting, giving intel as to where their major pushes were going. He also gave great advice about best directions for attacking flags (once US finally got a foothold by capturing slums). After US took Disco <sniffle>, they did a great job of defending - we turned it white a few times but never were able to get it back permanently. UKR ended up winning in a ~350 ticket blow-out. About 5 minutes before the end of the round, Mantis typed in team chat "Do not try balancing teams, we'll need all help we can get on next map - SnakeEyes"




SnakeEyes was indeed next, and it was a blood-bath. Despite a pretty well coordinated opening assault on beach, Ukraine was also ready and brought the pain. Finally, after falling behind by a few hundred tickets, squad 5 (I think lead by mantis) was able to sneak along the north side of the map and take motel. About a minute later, my squad took outpost and the two M1A2's that spawn there. The US held bleed for most of the rest of the round, and, holding both Outpost and Weapons Bunker, were slowly able to chip away at the lead. Unfortunately that opening slaughter was too much to over come and UKR walked away with what must have been a 250pt victory. It was a really fun round regardless - that map is just amazing... the atmosphere is just fantastic with the artillery shells whistling over head, smoking craters on the beach, and the realistic feeling sea-fog.




The last round I played was Orel. Had another great squad of XCat, lokka, HenryMorgan, Stockpile, and SilentScope. We started of in a frenetic defense of Backyard. I asked for two medics in the squad and split them as I split the squad into two fire-teams... one to watch the east side of the compound, and one to watch the west. Unfortunately we never really had time to setup and lock the place down as wave after wave of attakers poured in. We eventually lost the flag, and fell back to defending church and Farmhouse. Again, we fell to an opening ticket deficit, but were able to claw back. Eventually we took the NW three flags, and were able to setup a defensive line. Unfortunately, the German troops were in fine form tonight, and although they were loosing tickets to bleed, they were able to kill enough of us to keep it close. The lead stayed around 90 tickets for the final 8 minutes of the round, and although Germany pulled off the win, it was an exciting and very satisfying round. One of those rounds where, although you loose, you play well and loose with style