OP: THUNDER STRIKE

[tingsoon1]

I was 10 ft right behind you when you tripped over that hidden log in the brush (was to your left asking you to call out targets before you made your mad dash). I watched in horror as I thought you were going to hit the tree head first. Glad it was only the gun that broke...over-all I rate the fall a 9.7 because there wasn't any blood .

Haha thanks. Yeah I'm not gonna put this any other way: that bleeding sucked... I've got a nice bruise on my hip and a brand new sniper w/o a stock. Oh well, a little JB weld and some gorilla tape will make everything better... Once I find my stock!

[Infidel]

I heard that stock snap from across the creek bed, I thought someone had broke their leg. Good to hear you're alive. I enjoyed the hell outta that OP:TS, my only two gripes were the miscommunication about the spawning when a base was contested. And Bravos first spawn on the road, that sucked.

[Strider117]

I just wanted say that the Dunedain Ranges had a GREAT time today!!!
Thank you all for a great event!!!
Looking forward to the next one

[~Chief~]

EXCELLENT game! Well done Matt! It definitely set a new standard. Alpha: You all simply rocked. Great leadership and teamwork. Bravo: You are all a truly formidable opponent. It was a pleasure doing battle.

Cheers to all!

[Rico]

Great day today everyone. Thank you Matt for putting this together. I think this game really raised the bar for large events. It proved that mag and uniform restrictions can work just fine for a large game. There were plenty of people scaling on experience, this should be the model for more games IMHO.

Thank you also to all who came out and contributed to a great day of no-nonsense airsoft.

Martin, you can be my wingman anytime.

[Android]

Ah, just woke up from my nap & gotta say it was fun. The usual camping shenanigans was nice and I learned that humping an M60 up & down Hamburger Hill hung over for the 1st hour is something I'll leave for the young'uns. Too bad I discovered that it wasn't working properly, though I did have a blast holding off Alpha's charge at the end of the 1st round with just my 1911.


So... when are the pics and video going to be up?

[Cap n pickles]

that was awsome for my first OP! I got a good amount of kills i think, and a even better amount of fire fights. But it did show me that i need to work on moving up and i realy need to upgrade my gun. So this was a good lesson learned.

I hope to see some of you at faction wars when it gets closer. Even though im running woodland for that....my team only has that for now. ill turn them multi!

Come to the PLA training's and we can help you with the tact moves and stuff.

[Variable]

Great game. The restrictions made it more enjoyable. Congrats to Bravo on fighting hard, and grats to Alpha for following your leadership to victory.

I hope no one on Bravo took my insults *too* seriously

[Matt]

Thanks for a great game everybody! I had a blast running it and being the CO of ALPHA co. Both forces seemed highly motivated and organized, with great teamwork and communication. I haven't seen two forces work so well together in a long time. My hope was to see some really good back to basics squad tactics and amazing firefights and I'm very happy with the result.

Jester - you made a great adversary. I thank you for stepping up to lead BRAVO and I am sure your guys are thankful as well at your willingness to take up a leadership role and help organize everything.

To my folks on ALPHA - excellent job. I was impressed at your willingness to sick together and your great communication on the field. To my platoon leaders - you guys made my job easy. And to the squad leaders, thanks for volunteering. You guys were staying on top of things on comms all day, despite some minor hot-mic issues and other problems that we always seem to have.

BRAVO - you guys put up an amazing fight, some of the fights over sector 10 (the cow bunker) were EPIC! We tried our best to take it back at the end of phase 1 but I just kept seeing wave after wave of dead ALPHA members returning to the respawn point with dead rags on.

I only wish the mortar situation had gone better. Unfortunately those bike pumps to fill the air chambers just weren't holding up. For the record, I bought those pumps, they didn't come with the Mil-Sim labs mortars. I didn't receive them in the mail with enough time in advance to test with different bike pumps. I'll be buying some heavy duty pumps to test with before I break those out again. When we managed to get a good fill, range was decent. I can see these being VERY effective at the warpaint field, or at Sniperz Den in the village. At Splat Action there's a lot of tree cover, but there's still many areas on the bottom of the field that are fairly open. After we get the air situation figured out, we can dial in ranges and test fire before the next even so that mortar operators know what to expect.

Thanks again everybody for making this game great. I hope to run more of them like this one in the future. MARPAT vs MULICAM seemed like a great option, considering that numbers were very even.

[Team sorr/couger]

Thank You..... TF-Delta... had a blast...

[VogonFord]

Thoroughly awesome game, I haven't had that much of a blast at a game in a while.

Barrett- Sorry about your Mk 46. If you want some reimbursement for repairs, just PM me. Still was fun to use in the first round, I put over 4,000 rounds through it.

Nasty- That second MP7 made my day. You have no clue how much self-control it is taking right now to not buy myself another one

SOTA and PSC- It was awesome to run with you guys for once. Makes me wish that OD and MultiCam were paired more often, I'd be glad to fight alongside you again.

Alpha- Sorry for taking the cow bunker from you at the end of Round 1 That firefight for it was amazing, even though for half of it all I had was a Glock.

Nocte- Who knows, maybe next time you'll peg my face

[Hard_Drive]

thanks to all for a Great Day.
Matt - Thanks for putting it all together and all of the raffle gear to give out, unfortunately I didn't get anything.
To my Teammate I shot - Sorry. What goes around comes around...
Ben-Thanks for leading our platoon. Try not to shoot me in the a$$ next time.

One complaint though. The outhouse. In a word, "Eeeeeew!" Probably the worst portable outhouse I've ever seen. I felt dirty just parking close to it.

[Nightshade]

I actually pumped a grumpy in that shithouse so I wouldn't feel too bad about parking next to it.

[Bad Karma]

Single pattern-per-side was a nice change of pace.
Midcap-only games are always more enjoyable than those without this restriction.
Teamwork was fantastic, and save for a couple glaring incidents, sportsmanship was similarly fantastic.

That said:

I'm not really sure what I paid $30 for.

Gameplay was comparable to most of the free skirmishes I've played since 2006. Game mechanics were lacking, spawn points relative to major objectives were poorly laid out. Aside from a couple of PVC launchers, there were no props, or anything that really justified the price. Hell, even lunch was extra. I didn't see any real value in the game.

120 players at $30 a head works out to $3600 in gross income. Less field fees and insurance, that's still a couple thousand dollars in net profit, and I didn't see anywhere close to that amount invested into making the game anything special. I have no problems with game hosts making fair gains off of hosting an event, but OP: Thunder Strike seemed like nothing more than a cash cow to me.

[Pacman]

One complaint though. The outhouse. In a word, "Eeeeeew!" Probably the worst portable outhouse I've ever seen. I felt dirty just parking close to it.

Agreed, it doesn't cost much to add an additional crapper for just the weekend and the field owners lack of concern about sanitary facility's is disturbing. They should at least have it cleaned before a big op such as this.

I actually pumped a grumpy in that shithouse so I wouldn't feel too bad about parking next to it.

That's where that mound came from