Very intense battle. All four games were close - no blowouts in this scrim.
Things started off quite poorly for us. I mostly chalk this up to the language barrier between the two communities. Apparently we had a sync issue on the start time - we had 4 EST - they had an hour later. So things did not get started for an hour. Somewhere someone screwed up but neither side caught the error despite both communities forums having the scrim time posted for several weeks. There isn't much you can do once it happens so we patiently waited and started at 5EST.
The other major problem we had was we apparently got the sides wrong on the first two maps. We thought we were playing one side - turns out we were the complete opposite. We looked back at the pms quickly and confirmed the error was on our side. Definitely frustrating as you have to scrap two of your plans and make things up on the fly.
Despite these major hiccups both armies showed up in full and the matches went smoothly with no technical difficulties or major player drops.
Zhytomyr: We were very surprised in the planning stage that they choose to play as GER. Turns out we got that wrong and they weren't crazy. They had chosen UKR which has a major advantage with the high ground, flag proximity and better armor. For a while the match was going OK for us - despite receiving a pounding from their armor parked on the high ground we maintained bleed on them. Eventually though they flanked and took a backflag. Things started to fall apart when that happened. We lost another flag not too long after and subsequently were put on heavy bleed for a bit. Our lead vanished quickly.
Slowly we started to come back a bit. The backflag was recaptured and we continued marching right onto the adjacent flag. With tank support that flag fell quickly. BPM countered well though by swarming the center flag - we could not get reinforcements there quick enough and it fell. At this point we finally started to keep them honest by going after their backflags to hopefully capture an undefended flag or at least pull men off the frontline. In retrospect we should have done that much sooner and we did have plans to do that so I'm not sure what happened there. Unfortunately it was too late and the ticket difference grew quickly in the final 5-10 minutes.
TG lost this one
87 - 0(tickets start at 600 each)
Scoreboard
Squads
Battle of Sambir: Second map again we planned for the wrong side. This map is quite balanced however with a mirrored flag setup so I don't think this hurt us too much. The army we ended up playing as, Ukraine, has one man bombers so this may have helped us some as it allowed two more boots on the ground. Other than that not much really changes in the intended gameplan.
Like Zhytomyr the round started well - we secured three out of the five flags at start and held bleed for a good 8 minutes or so. After trying various attacks BPM shifted their attack to one of our backflags. It was defended however BPM made very good use of their transport helos - from what I saw on the battle recording it looked like they paradropped two squad leads out of the transport and then between the superior manpower and chopper support they overwhelmed the defense there.
For a good 10 minutes I would say we attempted to recapture that flag. We came close several times but two squads was a tough nut to crack and their chopper support swooped in often to take out our infantry on the barren hills when they really needed them. They held onto that flag for quite a while but the bleed they gained was offset quite a bit by the pounding they took there from our air and armor.
Not long after we finally recaptured that flag(Village) they countered by dropping our other backflag. An even worse flag to hold for them but we took the bait and pulled too many men off the more important center flag. So we traded flags and this proved the deciding blow that lost us the match. It was close though - 600 tickets later we lost
40 - 0. This was the one map I expected we would have trouble with due to poe2's slow decline shedding away our experienced armor and air players and tournaments like BPM typically coordinate their airpower much better then we do here at
TG.
Scoreboard
Squads
Crimea: The pressure was on now. Two losses and we find ourselves down 127 tickets. Thankfully we got the sides right on this map and the next so our plan was put to use on this one.
For those not familiar with poe2, Crimea is a dday style landing map where USMC assaults Ukraine on a rocky cliffside village that tiers upward with limited routes for attack. To help USMC they are supported by a nasty Cobra and mobile artillery support. Ukraine have to hold the high ground and push back while withstanding the punishment raining down from above. It has always been one of my favorite maps and it played very well in a scrim environment.
This map was mine to CO - I really wanted this one as it is a fun one to plan - lots of layers(geographically and tactically) to think about. Like any plan it didn't hold up to perfection but we did most of what I wanted to do. Our start went quite well looking back. The initial APC push by USMC met heavy resistance - our armor and a heavy dose of RPGS and mines took down their armor support quickly. Smartly they didn't waste time and secured the beach landing flag right away to secure a spawn point. They then pushed hard on the north approach and pushed their way into the forest up there. We held them off there however one guy snuck past - our troops there missed him and I must have missed spotting him. Sadly this one lone soldier took the Farm flag. He quickly got reinforcements and now our armor was cutoff at the bridge leaving our main.
BPM knew they had an important flag with the Farm and they held onto it dearly. Despite our armor chewing them up from the opposite side of the bridge and repeated infantry attacks they mantained control. Throughout all these attacks our troops on the frontline held on as hard as they could. Constant arty and heavy pushes flipped the two frontline flags a few times but the squads there pushed back every time and kept the other half of the USMC from pushing forward while they held the farm.
Near the last third we ended up trading them the Farm for the Church - not by design but I was happy with that trade. Our armor could finally move up and BPM now found themselves surrounded from the high ground by our armor with mortars coming in as well. As they tried to hold onto the Church flag they pushed hard on the adjacent Lower Village with what must have been 20 men at times. That flag became quite the meatgrinder and we took a lot of tickets away there near the end.
Overall a great effort and finally a good result.
TG won Crimea
156-0. Kudos to all those who carried out the minor details in my plan.
Scoreboard
Squads
Raid on Kerch: Final round for this scrim was an infantry assault map called Raid on Kerch. USMC assaults with blackhawks and littlebirds. Our rollout plan was to swarm the Slums flag and we had no problems here. One squad was defending and they were greeted by our entire team mass landing with blackhawk support from overhead.
Our plan then called to push northward. BPM reacted well however and despite a heavy push on the Distribution Center flag they held onto it with vital tank support and heavy manpower. We continued our assault on this flag for a while and our blackhawk support was causing them lots of problems. Still - it took us a long time to take this flag and they ended up retaking it right back shortly later.
Our assaults were not isolated to this one flag however - about a third through we secured the Disco flag and later on we marched into the lightly defended Keep. The key moment in the match however definitely came when we snuck a squad in to capture their main Town Hall flag. The light defense they had there cost them bigtime as with the loss of that flag they lost their tank and AA support. Our infantry now had a much easier time and our blackhawk teams were free to move around without worry of AA. Flags started to turn much easier now. With blackhawks hovering overhead BPM just couldn't move out in strength to recapture a third flag. They bled quickly the rest of the round and
TG won the match
113-0. So by rounds we tied but our larger ticket wins put us over the top - an overall 142 ticket win by my count.
Scoreboard
Squads
Overall some lessons learned in regards to the early snafus but great games were had in the end. Kudos to BPM for bringing the pain - I am sure if we had split the matches between home servers as originally intended things might have turned in their favor - the ping advantage surely had a big impact. Like most tournaments of their kind they were very organized and their armor/air worked in tandem with their infantry.
I will probably make a few videos of some of the cool events in this scrim when I have time. Great games though - I hope we can find a way to do another scrim of this size for poe2 at some point.
Rockin the Boogie! 
. Something always comes up when I try and plan ahead for these things.
Thanks!
lTG-6thl NardDawg
