Please feel free to post your own AAR / event recap in this thread.
AAR: 1st Platoon 3rd Squad / Task Force Scorpion
PHASE 1
Day1 started with an assault on the MOUT town. We were told that three indigenous tribes inhabited this land, some may be hostile and some may be friendly. We found one such tribe in the village, after we explained that we were there to help and liberate Rilea Town, the locals accepted us and allowed us to remain. Even several minutes after the game started, Task Force Eagle was nowhere in sight.
We finally made contact with TFE on the NW corner of the MOUT town out in the bushes. 1-3 began to hold that corner and keep the enemy at bay with a foothold on the northern road, meanwhile an unknown force of indigis began to walk up the road. Crimmins intercepted and spoke with them. They explained that our men were on their land, the forested area south of the road, and needed to leave and ask permission of their chief before we could be allowed to enter.
Crimmins started to negotiate with them, explaining that we were eliminating a common enemy in their land, Task Force Eagle. We explained that we could help them eliminate the infidels and were allowed to continue fighting here, for a while. Eventually more locals started to join in on the negotiations. It became apparent that they wanted to fight TFE but lacked weapons. We offered to help arm them, but couldn't promise them weapons immediately. Crimmins ended up actually going back to their local village, alone, to negotiation a trade for weapons to be a allowed on the tribe's land. He came back alive, and had actually not only delayed the turnover of any weapons for 30 minutes, but convinced the local tribe to fight for us and clear the area south of the road of TFE forces. We had no such intention of giving the tribe weapons, although Crimmins gave them his own rifle as a sign of good faith.
After this, we had been asked directly by the CO to take a small force of about 6 guys and seek out a weapons cache south of the MOUT town. He directed us to sneak by the enemy by running all the way around the lake in the center of the AO to come back around the back side of the weapons cache, grab it, and then shoot enemies in the back as we re-enter the MOUT town. On the road near the west side of the lake, we encountered yet another indigenous tribe, these folks seemed peaceful. However, they were also in need of weapons to defend themselves. Again, Crimmins engaged in negotiations. He convinced these folks that we were looking for a weapons cache, and if allowed to pass through the land, we would return and share our weapons with them (haha, yeah right).
As we continued up the road, we realized that other members of this tribe were also talking to TFE, and had made a rock-border on the road to mark a territory. We stayed on our side, TFE stayed on theirs, neither side fired a shot for concern that the locals may get upset. There were no other enemy units out here in the boonies, but it was kind of ironic that the one enemy unit we did run into happened to have the guys from Airsoft Outlet NW and PACMAN in it. The locals started asking us about returning to their village so we could all have a feast together, but we declined and reminded them that we were getting weapons for them. Crimmins mentioned that perhaps the TFE guys could join them for the feast, and we could be on our way. So the six of us skirted past 10 enemy TFE as the locals began to pull them back the other direction towards town. We were 50 feet away before one of the TFE guys exclaimed, "Wait, we're letting them BEHIND our line!" We continued walking, reminding ourselves to "act natural" until we realized TFE was actually pursuing us, but luckily for us the fork in the road ahead provided a great bottleneck. We placed the majority of our forces on that bottleneck and 2 of us went ahead to find the weapons cache.
Unfortunately, the weapons cache had already been taken, so Pat and myself returned to base alive but without any weapons cache. This was the end of phase 1.
PHASE 2
This phase started with an assault on an already inhabited MOUT town. More fighting in the MOUT town, yup. The fact that it was inhabited didn't really stop us from gaining a foothold rather quickly. We made short work of TFE and controlled most of the town within the first hour of this phase.
The indigis in this phase were more unpredictable. I'm not sure if this is because game administration told them to be, or if they were just getting bored. But these guys seemed to just be leaving the village and then re-entering in "attack mode" at random. It was hard to tell friend or foe, so eventually we just started shooting everyone.
Unfortunately the game quickly went downhill form here, with reports of blind-fire, actor OPFOR not understanding gameplay safety rules, etc. A few shouting matches ensued. Meanwhile, we held back wave after wave of TFE + indigenous attacks from the south side of the town. It was evident that game control had to move the indigenous forces over to the TFE side to help balance the game, despite the fact that TFE had us outnumbered by 30 guys.
After 3 hours of the same old shit, this phase started to get stale really fast. Although I had to return to the bunk for another battery and didn't make it back for the end, I'm told we still controlled a significant portion of the MOUT town in the end.
PHASE 3 / SUNDAY
Was, surprise, more MOUT town assault. In this mission, both COs had been captured and were being held hostage somewhere in the town. We had to go building by building clearing each one to find them. TFE seemed late to the party again, I guess all that crap they attach to their helmets weighs them down. 1-3 already had our two buildings cleared before they even made it to the outskirts of the town.
I spent the majority of this phase occupying the 2 southeast buildings we were told to capture and hold, shooting wave after wave of incoming TFE who all kept coming back to the same spot to get shot. This was fun. After a while of listening to people nearby screaming "HIT, HIT, I'M bleeding HIT YOU MOTHERLESS DONKEY UNCLE!" The game was reset and we were brought back to respawn. TFE had saved their CO. Probably used some of those wizz-bangs on their helmets to their advantage after all.
The reset phase scenario was simple. We were supposed to get our CO back and then capture the mayor, who was waiting at the dock on the lake for extraction. Finally a scenario that's NOT in the MOUT town, woohoo! I can't really go into details of what went down at the docks, I got bogged down at the road and took cover to shoot several TFE as they walked down the road unassuming. More fun. I'll let one of the other guys elaborate on exactly what happened at the dock.
GAME PLAY REVIEW STUFF
SUSTAINS
The leadership, for the most part, was phenomenal. Igor Dobrov was an exceptional leader, despite his extremely high level of training and expertise, this guy is as humble as they come and very approachable. Our platoon leaders were squared away guys, I served under Chris Kosty from Spokane Airsoft in 1st Platoon. No complaints there, Chris was laid back and lead by example. He kept us on task without all the screaming and hollering. Although I fought against his side this time, I served under MadMax Mullen at Lion Claws XI as well, this guy is awesome. Again, he's been there and done that but he doesn't like to toot his own horn. He's as humble as they come and exceptional in leadership. You couldn't ask for better COs.
Blank fire full auto M240 was sexy. Having those weapons going off during the game was awesome, it added a whole new level to the game because we had to shout over the guns to communicate, obviously this is more realistic. I only wished they had done it again on Sunday.
The Camp Rilea training area and MOUT facility was a blast to play in, I hadn't been there before so this was all new to me. It was actually larger than I had imagined. The outlying land around it is also amazing, it's just a shame we didn't use more of it.
IMPROVES
Some folks in leadership roles seem to think shouting cliche phrases like "If you are behind me, you are wrong," is actually leadership. In fact, it's not. You need to understand the objectives and see the big picture. Consider where the forces are, where they need to be, and help us line that up. Shouting "MOVE MOVE MOVE" won't always win the day, especially when your orders sometimes actually contradict orders that have already been given by platoon leaders. Treating people who pay $160 to play an event like grunts is also not a good idea, we aren't soldiers, we don't receive a pay check. In fact, we're paying you to be there. Keep it light, all that macho bravado crap actually makes me more likely to ignore orders.
Lack of objectives. It was clear that we were moving faster than the game play could keep up with us, in fact some folks in leadership positions even said this. More secondary objectives should have been prepared, in these cases you need a contingency plan for when/if your objectives are achieved quickly and your game becomes stale. This is often the first lesson learned in game hosting, I would expect a top tier promoter with a game at this price point to have this figured out.
Use more of the field. This might be easier with more players, but I would suggest having more objectives in different parts of the field to break up that "village stalemate" that happens at every game. We took a jog out around the lake for one objective (the only objective we had on Saturday, sadly), the terrain out there is awesome. It's begging for some action! Hopefully next time we can use more.
Zero props. It was clear that the PsyOPs unit stationed at Rilea got to use some of their toys for ambient noise, which was cool, but I would credit them for this. The game host provided no additional props, nothing more than really a set of flags for mobile regen points. $2 at the hardware store and $2 at the fabric store can buy that. Again, I expect more from a game from a top tier promoter at this price point.
Train your actor/indigis. They need to be briefed on Airsoft safety, military training or not, they still need to learn the Airsoft rules. Blind fire is not acceptable.
Attack vehicles. We needed them. You can break up a stalemate with a few high powered mounted guns on vehicles, as we noticed at Lion Claws XI. You'll see Humvees in the photos at Trade Winds, in many cases they were just parked stationary or used by admins to move and transport equipment. We could not use these vehicles as assets during game play, that was unfortunate. Securing some light assault vehicles for use would have added another dynamic to the game.
Start things on time according to your schedule. Registration wasn't open on the first day according to schedule, folks told me nobody was even there. On Saturday it was set to open at 6am, however all of the registration equipment had been locked up and the registration volunteers could do nothing until after 7, more than an hour late. We come to accept this as the norm for free skirmishes, but for paid games it's unacceptable.
Lack of Raffle. I know, I know, I'm a phony pony to complain about lack of free stuff. But all games have raffles, and since they do, we have benchmarks to compare to. They gave away 2 medium quality rifles at the end of the event, that's it. In fact, they didn't even have raffle tickets, they forgot them. So they had to shoot the roster with a BB to mark the winner. It's a neat idea, but still, with a top promoter we expect these amateur mistakes won't happen, and we expect more free shit.
CONCLUSION
There's games out there for a $40-60 price point that offer as much in the way of immersion, props, freebies and AO. If Tradewinds comes back next year, I'd like to see a lot more from the game administration side of things. You cannot rely on the players 100% to make the game, we are a big part of it, but we can only use the tools and follow the objectives you give us. That said, getting some new faces and players from out of state here in Oregon for a game was a big plus. The CO leadership was top notch, and interacting with the PsyOPs unit was fun. I look forward to next year, if there is a next year, but I hope it's also bigger and better.
Ive got some decent footage and will try to edit alot of it together soon to post.
