19 pages... phwaw...
Right! I will now relate the fruits of my weekend's activities with abandoned armies.
DISCLAIMER: the author wishes to deny any responsibilty for the lack of original material in this post from this point onwards.
Now, with that out of the way, I will begin.
For starters, I didn't get quite as far as I'd expected I would with the mission, but that's fine with me. I'm not a *particularly* skilled flashpoint player, and I tend to retry if things don't go perfectly according to plan, so this probably contributed to my lack of progress. Played in cadet mode but with quite a few vet options enabled; this is mostly 'cause I can't drive (or command) a vehicle without 3rd person view or I'd be fodder for the first RPG or LAW soldier with any degree of skill. Having said that, I've made a pretty mess of Stamenov's convoy(s?), caused a major fracas between the so-called Northerons and Southerons, and am preparing an armoured assault on Stamenov's HQ.
La Trinite
One of the good things about beta testing
after everyone else is that I could glean a bit of situational awareness (knowing what to expect) as well as a few tactics for the mission. Cheers Planck especially for the bit about hiding under the bmp ambulance. I must have spent the larger portion of my time in Trinite under there ;D Anyhow, I knew to expect a
lot of opposition both armoured and on foot. Oh yes.
I started out from my salvaged savegame at the lodge having rescued one lot of civilians. Instead of going straight to the other 2 spots, I decided to head straight for Trinite, figuring that I'd pick one of the other lots up on the way back (the one closest to Trinite), and use 'em as drivers to steal some of the support vehicles and any tanks I could make servicable from the town. ('Civilians'? Hah! They can earn their keep if I'm rescuing them ;D). At any rate, I figured 5 other group members was sufficient, as I wasn't planning on doing any heavy fighting on my own. Let Andropov do that. If any other men joined me later, I would arm them with my stolen ammo truck.
So off we went in our Pv35, taking care to avoid roads this time. The ever-present helicopter to the North made a few close passes but never did more than that. We reached Trinite without event. Not a soul. I'd considered doing a bit of insurgent-style RPGing from 2nd-storey buildngs to complement the excellent AV/AP mines, but the town was a ruin. Not a building left standing (aside from the church- but I don't think anything can be done about that
). So I ordered a disembark a little way from the outskirts of the town, and had a quick squiz about - no one home. Deciding I could spend all day fretting about unseen soldiers (the fog was bad at this point), I boldy strutted in with my squad, as if we owned the place. Still not a soul in sight, and I soon located the ammo crates and the BMP ambulance. I received my mines. Minelaying takes a while, but now was as good a time as any since I could go about it unmolested. I placed a few of the scripted AV mines as well as some real ones; according to various people the scripted ones weren't quite as powerful. I put a few in the city, as well as some other key choke points, yada yada, the usual. Took me, with great care, about 10 minutes. Next, 'twas time to break out some guns for my squaddies - however, my good luck began to turn here. 2,3 and 5 armed up just fine, but 6 refused to take a gun no matter what. I begged and pleaded with him (exaggeration), I threatened him at gunpoint, but the daft sod just wouldn't. I left him exasperated, and turned my attentions to 3, the only other member of my squad able to tote a heavy weapory. I realised I'd told him to take the wrong gun. Rectified that, managed to arm him with a G36 and a AT4. Grabbed an RPG for myself. 5 was looking good with her dragunov, but d*mn! The others all had pistols out. Another 3 minutes whilst I figured how to get them to switch to primary weapons (of course, there was no 'select AK74' option, no, that would have been too
easy). Eventually I solved it by getting them to 'put it to' the ural ammo. As for 6, I'd just about given up on him; he'd managed to drop his pistol but not to pick up anything else. I decided that he could just stay like that, and do any surrendering we needed for us. I moved the others off, away from the ammo trucks ready to leave, and- Lo and Behold! 6 runs up to the truck and takes his M21. The others must have been blocking him... or something? A bug perhaps, but annoying to the extreme.
Anyhow, I said my luck was taking a turn for the worse. With all this mucking about and frustration, I'd forgotten to save. I became acutely aware of the squeaking sound of tracks nearby, and realised this then. My entire squad would be cut down; I had planned to evacuate at the first hint of the armoured column. I could retry, but my intricate mine-laying work would be lost. I agonised for a bit. Decided to save and keep going, see how things panned out. As it happened it took about 10 retries before I managed to save all of my squad, and throw myself under the ambulance. To use a cliche, in the nick of time. Enemy infantry swarmed through the town, it really felt like that. Fog was moderate at this stage. Then: the brown stuff hit the spinning thing. The convoy began to hit the first of my mines. Infantry poured past my position- I shot any that crossed my field of fire. This went on for some time; I'd long since got the message that the two sides were fighting each other, and the sounds of gunfire rang merrily through the streets. I must've spent the best part of 1 and a half hours, alternately hidden under the BMP ambulance when things were hot, and running around the streets tracking and shooting any stragglers. An M1A1 managed to get through several of my mines without any great impedance, only to stop a couple of LAWs from an enemy rocket soldier. 2 of its crew died there and then, the other one escaped the blaze on foot but died soon after. Another M1A1 hit one of my mines in the town and was propelled into an alley, sideways... much to my annoyance, since I could have repaired/used it later. An infantry squad of Southies was heading around the outside of the town dangerously close to where i'd hidden my men, I ordered them to hold fire and fortunately the opposing force was was torn to pieces by some of Andropov's infantry and an m2A2, and the survivors fled into the city where they met their fate. At one stage a cobra(?) joined in the fight, launching TOW after TOW, before being shot down itself. Must to my dismay I found he'd been finishing off armour that I was planning on taking for my own ends. There were countless scenes like this going on; I dont know how many of them were deliberate (although I'm sure you helped them along
), but the combat ambience was quite thrilling and cool. Although I wont tell you how many times I died.
La Trinite - the aftermath
Eventually the combat died off and the remains of the convoy(s) left. After being shot a couple of times, I decided to make a good go of it and eliminate every last enemy who was likely to cause me grief. Much to my surprise there were only four or five about the place, and after they were dealt to, I was able to reclaim a few tanks; a T80, A T72 and an M2A2 (weak, but great for the TOW launcher). Corpses everywhere. La Trinite was a mess- there were quite a few armoured wrecks to begin with; now, well... it's more practical to drive around the town than through it.
The cobra lies crumpled some way away in a copse. A shame; I had plans for shooting the pilot when the heli was flying slowly and low down, or perhaps gettting lucky with ECP's tail-rotor faliure script (which inevitable results in an intact chopper). Ah well.
I went off to grab me a civilian work force, picked up the tanks, support trucks and my trusty PV35, and headed off back home. Or at least, intended to. The logistics of getting that many trucks and tanks back to the lodge is a nightmare. For a start, forget about going directly offroad from Trinite to the lodge. After experimenting for about half an hour, i found it was a no-go, and was forced to use the road via Arudy (no convoy to run into now). Which took a long time indeed. My advice: if you want the player to have a sense of 'base' about the lodge (and I did-I found myself heading back there automatically after combat), and think there is a possiblily that he/she might have armour, then please put the lodge more accessible.
Anyway, I was forced to return 'coz I had to 'rescue' the civilians... and of course i realised too late that they comprised the crew of one of my tanks. So when the civil arrive back at base my m2a2 was left high and dry.
Currently camped out some way from Houdan, preparing for a final assault on Stamenov.
Apologies for the long post, that summarises a couple days of gameplay. Having a blast ;D, but might be a while til my next post. (Gotta find time). Cheers
Fragorl