TWL vs Dads
Last game of the season and TWL hasn’t taken a single point, we’ve fought like mad but it seems the fates have been set against us. Too much spider squashing or something in our youth probably.
Dads is a familiar bunch, we have faced them before and were looking forwards to playing them but come game time we realised we’d made a mistake. Our WA had dropped the ball by not informing DAD that we as home team temporarily lacked a server! After frantic searching we scrounged up two, tried both and went for the second one. Game start waaaay past 21:00. Dads requested that we played Karkand first and we agreed.
First round, Karkand, TWL as US.
During the tactical planning we had a few different thoughts on how to tackle this map, this time around. Several options were available but we opted trying for the first flag in the beginning. We had tried a few crazy ideas in the pracc, among others that I took the APC as SQL. That way we’d free up the need to keep a SQL infantry alive, plus also we’d be able to deliver infantry to flags far more easily and quickly.
Dogie gladly took charge of the tank, Tubbe took a kamikaze jeep to run through the streets and clear a path of any mines. He made it up ‘Broadway’, the centre street without a problem. Meanwhile the armoured column took up position at the beginning of the far right street, weathering a storm of AT missiles. Spawning two waves of infantry but then we bought it as a trio of Dads AT’s found their mark.
Once more, same spot. This time we landed a jeep to clear the right side of mines, one of our GI’s hopped in and was successful! Clear road ahead to square, which fell pretty quickly in our hands. It was not meant to be however and soon we lost that too. Beginning to feel desperate and a little reckless we attempted to go the long way round to their main, which we did but failed to capture the enemy tank as it spawned and we were sent to kingdom come again.
Grim times, 30 tickets to their 130…we managed to push them into their base but we didn’t make much headway down into it, until we had a little tactical discussion;
Alternative 1,
"Dogie, I love you. We have no tickets left, let's do a suicide jump together."
"Lan, I'm with you all the way, lets do it!"
"Dogie, take the first step, every TWL will follow us to the death!"
Alternative 2,
“Dogie, it’s now or never. Let’s jump.”
“Lan, you’re insane but you’re on!”
“Dogie, you take the lead! Every dead inf spawn up on me once we’re down and in the flag zone!”
You guess which discussion we had.
We’d discussed the move ever since I tried it once before a pracc, here’s how it goes. We setup on main street at the first flag, revved our engines and with the tank in the lead, raced up on the square and up the ramp down to market level, straight as an arrow flies down to the flag zone! While I’ve seen jeeps do this, I ain’t never seen a tank hop!
The first attempt was a bit poorly coordinated and we were pretty alone at the flag, a DAD spec ops had some fun and we were blown to bits.
At 20 to 120 tickets we set up again and jumped! I called out to the dead infs, each by name, to stop spawning at square and spawn on me. ”Fly hiiiigh, like an eaaaaagle…” Dogie taking a shot in midair at the tank waiting for us down by the end of the street, swerving left to give me a clear shot and wham! APC missile away, scratch one DAD tank! We raced for the flag, repairing from 70% health. At least three TWL infs spawned and with five of us in the flag zone, killing left and right, it went down like tequila at closing time!
One Dad was left alive and yours truly ran him down trying to run for the hotel flag, he’d nearly capped the square first but we nipped him. A fat shining zero!
TWL 9 – 0 Dads
Second round, TWL as MEC
I can’t believe that last round, I CAN’T BELIVE…we never succeed at assaults like that?!? True to our tactical planning, I mined the railroad while Tubbe raced off in our one and only jeep to cover our extreme left flank, the rest spawning at the front with Hitman as SQL at market rooftop.
Dads rained down on the city in a forceful drive that dislodged us after a cpl of minutes intense fighting from the first flag. AT missiles raining down at them, we were making them pay for every step of the way.
About a third into the round we had a stalemate where TWL held the square, first flag in Dads secure hands when all of a sudden we had US infantry in the main! Feeling shaky about how the hell they’d gotten there we raced home and tried to hunt them all down, meantime their armour pushed hard for square. Our mainflag going down, I rolled in and felt very vulnerable sitting still at the flag, yelling for support! My clan mates informed me that they couldn’t spawn, the general and myself were all that was alive? Jezzus! In the nick of time we got the main capped, TWL spawning up and breathing again!
Tubbe took the jeep around back, going for the hotel to relieve some attack pressure on main. I took the tank up to the high ground with the same thought, when all of a sudden Dads APC copied our death-defying leap – evil knievel, look out! Luckily I had put down some tank mines so they couldn’t race straight ahead, but Dads Jonne wasn’t to be defeated that easily. Taking a right and then a left he came up in the flag from behind, only to die from TWL AT’s. That leap works best when you have two vehicles, repairing each other on touchdown, free tip.
TWL infantry were pushing back good and tight, giving hell to any who came down. The flag went up and down like a jojo I swear, the DAD APC doing the death leap 3-4 more times. Once managing to ram my newly spawned tank after sucker punching it with a missile first, boom. We held out through it all and defended like a team, which actually knows what it’s doing…strange!
TWL 85 – 76 Dads
Third round, Dragon, TWL as US
Like Daging and Dalian, this map is all about air superiority. If you have that you kick arse, if you don’t then you might as well go do something more creative, like knitting a nice pair of warm gloves for your inactive gaming fingers (respawn wait can be chilling) perhaps.
Our basic plan is about mobility and defensible positions, take the PowerStation and hold it with a minimum of effort. Use the downhill slope to rush the secondary flag with all remaining forces. Good in theory. Worthless without control of the enemy chopper. We got up there alright, we even won the flag but we didn’t hold it for long. Our chopped went down in flames, theirs ruled and we had to start over. From there it was a struggle to even get out of our base. We tried laying down smoke on heli spawn, we tried shooting the enemy heli down, we tried jeepraids, we tried to exit with our armour…nothing worked.
Until the enemy heli actually missed with a TV missile and ours got up, instantly we charged out and took PowerStation. For a glorious minute we held half the map. Then we were back again in our main, Tubbe did a marvellous breakout with the APC and drew the heli back to their main but to no avail. We had lost the map.
TWL 43 – 127 Dads
Fourth round, Dragon, TWL as China.
Oh boy, doesn’t look that good ticket wise. Determined we spawned only to have our commander drop out, in the minute it took to pause the game our chopper was downed and Dads were looking mighty strong. To our surprise and without our request the round was restarted, very very sporting of the server admin I must say.
Not that it did that much good, we got the Power station but the enemy heli were making it real hard for is to get anywhere near it to set up defences with our armour. Some of our infantry attacked the village but never threatened it really.
Within a few minutes we were pushed back to main, suffering jeep raids and infantry running around the factory, making us spend valuable bleeding time to hunt them down. A few times we managed to get our chopper up but it was unable to gain headway against it’s opposite.
As the spawn zone is huge, it was inevitable that we lost the APC but for some reason Dads charged it at the flag and we nailed it pretty good as it lacked support. Why it didn’t wait for the US vehicles, set up on the main entrance and pounding us flag, a hundred yards down the road I don’t know.
We managed to take out the US APC, charge the tank into backing down around the bend, nailed that too and got payback in the form of a…TV missile. Damn I hate choppers…except when I’m flying one.
TWL 31 – 227 Dads
Net result: Dads 330 – 168 TWL
Beg your pardon for the lack of names and overall less then humorous report, I’m feeling a bit worse for wear at the time of writing but still I felt I had to give a record of that little jumping act…wee, that was fun. Thanks to Dads for a wonderfully tight game on Karkand! I wouldn’t have missed it for the world! Always nice playing you guys!
Thanks for reading,
Lan.
