October 10 2010 Game review

We played another patrolling scenario. We have done this in the past (during the visit of the Quesnel players on the last full weekend game) where yellow foam happy face balls are distributed over the 1.4 km of trails here.

This time 10 of the 20 balls were striped, so each team had the objective of recovering all 10 of their designated objectives which required a successful patrol of all the trails. The enemy's ball were not to be moved. First team to have all 10 balls deposited in bucket in top of tower won. Balls can only be carried 2 to a player. If you die while carrying balls you leave them on nearest trail (not in the bush). Infinite respawn at your base.

This variation of the original patrol rules worked better in that each team still had to patrol fully to win. You could also see where the enemy had not patrolled yet and set up ambushes. Balls WERE placed near enemy bases. As well there were now no stretches were the enemy had already swept through leaving no objectives.

By having the balls needing to be brought to tower top that made the tower (and surrounding rubble) an important point to occasionally control as well, but not the entire point of the game.

Game went for nearly 2 hours, and everyone seemed to enjoy the flow and speed of the game. The game never devolved into a static firefight, and the respawn didn't overwhelm the realism of the game play. It just allowed everyone to play till the end.

It is suggested that with the 12 players we had, that maybe 6 balls a team would make for a better game. Have to try it and see. As it was I think those of us who ran vests with the ability to carry more ammo had a scenario that finally allowed some advantage. Shorter games lean toward light equipped players geared for short skirmishes and not longer engagements.

I found that even carrying a c-mag I need to refill once during the game, so trying a 6 ball version maybe worth while.

We had cameragirl show up, so here is a short film of the day. She attached to my unit so a lot of it was of just me and my fire-team mate assigned to investigating the southern trails. But we did see some action twice during filming.

There is a tiny bit at the end of some of the rest of our team.

Team division were long hair versus short hairs...or hippys vs skinheads (grin)