AzrealDarkmoon

The Descent, that is what it felt like. I know I really dislike Karkand. I wanted someone else to command. After 5 minutes I realized no one was so I hopped in the role. We had a comfortable lead, I am an able CO, I had a good team I should be able to just win by a decent margin. Oh fool is thine name.

I like bigger maps, as a CO at least. I like maps where I can move squads and armor and have air support. Hell even Kubra Dam isn't so bad anymore. Last night I felt like I was a noob in the CO chair. I had a 60 ticket lead at the start, we stabalized the river and started bleeding. I was foolish, after the 2nd time I sent Bom across the river in an armor column and it failed I should have stopped. I should have, I didn't. I think I sent them across 8 times. That is 8 times armor had to be brought up, 8 times an entire squad of excellent soldiers were out of combat. 8 times our armor was not throwing lead at the other side from safe engineer points. 8 x 6 = 48 tickets lost. We started to lose the ticket lead it dropped to 20, I pulled away from the train accident and tried to setup a killzone while pushing the land bridge. Our lead jumped to about 40.

Then they started pushing through, I would push over to the east side and the squads would die, or they would hold the point but I couldnt get men over to defend near enough before they fell. We got pushed back, they started taking the west side and I was silently gritting my teeth has our lead evaporated. Squads 1 and 4 did a great push to the east. We bled tickets like crazy taking that Factory, their assets were down, the tickets were literally within 5 either way and time was running out. We reduced them to 2 or 3 flags, dropped arty but still they were chewing us up at the factory. I still could not get armor across to suitably help them. In the end I think it came down to the fact I got 3 more arty strikes than they did. 3...

My hats off to the enemy. The pulled out of a 60 ticket hole and lost by...8? My hats off to Squad 1 and 4, not sure who was COing, but you did a good job in taking the east. Bom sorry I told you to head into that meat grinder 8 times. I learned though, made notes, and figured out some things.

1. Losing the train accident when you want to lose it is not a bad idea but make sure you do NOT let them any farther.

2. Armor should be at the beach as support, not the spearhead.

3. Two full squads should be on the train accident and the land bridge with the rest backed away or not bunched up providing suppport.

4. If you have a 3-4 man squad they need to be a hummer at all times to help protect against anyone sneaking through.

The map and the enemy team beat me, its true we won but not by my efforts. The map will not beat me again.

Az

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Turbo

Please try this out, I would also like to see the northern part of the river opened up so you have some more room to maneuver.

I was on the MEC side and at the beginning of the round I think my squad was the only squad on the west side. You guys almost got a hold of the west flags early on but the commander had a few more squads fall back and help out. When the stalemate started I had my squad drive across to the east side and try to take a flag. I seemed like we were getting more kills then we would of just sitting their fighting across the river. We never really held a flag on the east for long but we at least attracted some attention. We probably stopped going across with about 150 tickets left and the US got a hold of the factory flag. It was a fun game but I would have to say Karkand is getting old, I think we need to try something to spice it up a bit.

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AMosely

I think Karkand feels old because it's so linear, it's really hard to avoid the basic premise that MEC needs to hold their Western riverside, especially protecting the Factory and their assets there. So you end up with a stalemate/stay alive game on the riverfront -which, as Bom said, is boring.

But the linear nature of the map doesn't leave much option for alternative strategy. Sure , the MEC can try and sweep out the eastern side and choke off opposition at the southernmost CP (this is how the map starts), but this is very difficult to do, and often leaves the western side under-defended.

The best thing we could do for Karkand, I think, is to make the MEC's factory a UCB. This would take the pressure off MEC to defend the western territory so tightly, thereby allowing them to spread out into other regions with less risk.

Good job last night Turbo, that was a fun squad. I didn't have a great game, I'm really used to playing Medic, so most other classes I'm less effective. I did what I could though, and got some nice C4 kills.

perry

I was on Dark Viper's USMC squad.. we coulda been squad 1 or 4, I forget, but we kept pushing across that river! It was a blast. Right off the bat we were making APC rushes across the river, but after being driven off the warehouse flag and spawning back we never saw the APC's again.

He'd drive us over in a Hummer, leave off a person or two at the warehouse to cap it, then move on back to the factory to try to get it. We got the warehouse flag several times, and neutralized the factory a couple times, but could never get enough people to spawn at the warehouse to hold it. We (the team, don't know if our squad was involved or not) finally did get the factory at the very end though! Made all those attempts worth it

While on the roof at the factory, I managed to fall over the side and got stuck between the building and a pole of some sort. It left me with a great vantage point to watch the MEC come in between the little trailers. I was down to my last clip of bullets before finally getting shot off.

Strikeman

Yea you killed me when you were there, I saw you but you got more hits on me before I got hits on you I tried to warn my squad but I think you got a couple of them anyway.

It was fun playing on Turbo's squad. We did what we could with a bad situation. Seems like the bridge was getting repaired faster that it was getting blown up.


Anyway...good game by all. Intense till the end.

jepzilla

I find 16 and 32 player Karkand fun. 64 player is ... less so. I've had a lot of fun fighting around the Suburb flag, but defending the east side just sucks. Not a fan, give me Mashtuur any day.

burble

the problem with karkand is that everyone's always too content to stalemate at the river- and it's BORING.

there is no excuse to not break the the river somewhere. at one point last night, i got fed up, took the tank from our base, and drove right across the temporarily-repaired bridge to the USMC side. i then proceeded to drive around, at full health, for about five minutes taking potshots at armor and killing lone infantry. no one even bother to touch me- had i been a squad leader, i'm confident we could have capped at least two flags before the USMC did anything.

but no. let's all sit at the river exchanging tank shells, MG fire, and artillery. that's a fun hour. (where's my sarcasm smiley?)

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Beatnik

Yeah that's pretty much my opinion of the map. The best strategy for USMC is to encourage a river stalemate, just because our sniper rifles are so much more effective. But that's not really as fun as charging the MEC factory, is it? I've come to view Karkand (in normal TG play) as a challenge to play in a non-typical style. But overall I'd rather just get in some good CP struggles and lose, than win in an arty party sitting at the river for 600 points. However, I think Karkand would be an excellent test for a team's discipline and effectiveness to play this in a scrim.

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Turbo

If their was bleed on this map then the MEC would have more of an incentive to push back. Lets lobby for bleed, who's with me?

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AzrealDarkmoon

*laughs* Trust me if I had seen one more dot appear you would have your hands full Burble

Az

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burble

hey- i coulda just been biding my team, you never know. :/

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