Berget 12 as seen by 6mm.se
Posted: 06 Jul 2014, 14:16
Pre-game
B11 was a astonishing success, with the Ravens completing all missions by the second day and in the final battle smuggling Rico out of a nearly destroyed Iron Walls-fort. This was of course not unnoticed by Berget Events (BE), and hence they made our starting situation a lot more difficult for B12. Base in the middle of the map, with almost all factions either neutral or hostile to us, just as an example. But, this year we boosted HQ with three more officers and more importantly, we had five months preparation time instead of the five weeks for B11. We assembled a team of good officers for the task and briefed everyone extensively prior to the game, and had officers on site on Sunday already.
Gameday 1, Wednesday
The first gameday focused almost entirely on control of the border, the village and the supply points. Call me a control freak but that initial control of the game area is vital to ensure a negative feeling amongst our opponents (“--- SPAM !!! ---, we cant even get across the border!”) and out of the 16 firefights reported to HQ we won every single one. Not bad, considering we gotten no BAVS at all for the Ravens.
Since our primary mission was to get enough heavy weapons to attack into Guyana in force, a lot of work was put into that effort. We also focused on getting friendly with the Orlows, as they would have a huge stockpile of heavy weapons that they could supply us with.
An early firefight with some PMC unit was most likely unintentional by PMC command. They sent us an envoy to smooth things up, but before they arrived there was another two attacks by PMC on us. So we dissolved their bodies in acid. My guess is that this happened due to undisciplined players not following orders, instead being too eager for a firefight. Sadly this pretty much destroyed any chance of the PMC to be a balancing act and enjoy many of the missions BE had prepared for them.
Gameday 2, Thursday
Our diplomatic work led us to become friendly with the Orlows, to the point where we were giving them tactical information, the ability to spawn in our base and a timesharing agreement on the supply points. This deal worked strongly in favour of both factions. By now, we had established who was friendly and who wasn’t.
A highlight was Genocide, commanding the mechanized fleet, suddenly calling that he had captured a canon wich was on its way to the Orlow base. Nice play by our "Hamster", Genocide is an absolute expert in bringing stuff back to HQ.
The real coup was landed by players from Hotel and Foxtrot platoons when they searched a PMC player, thereby uncovering a computer tablet with a tactical program containing all their positions, strengths and every chat conversation since game start. A goldmine! Together with the high mission tempo we had accomplished all goals by 1630, and planning began for the battalion attack into Guyana.
Now, I got knifed while moving out of base, so I let this video made by Balder platoon speak for itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmnZsOFCvhw
A great success were we raided thru the Border Police base, then thru the PMC base, then back thru the Border Police base again as we retreated back into Lerando. Personally I sat in the safe zone watching the Germany-USA match and witnessed the disgruntled players of PMC and BoPo coming in for respawn. It was a joy (“Man, this is just like last year.” And “Next year I play for the Ravens too!”).
Back in base, our GM was burned out and was replaced for the night with a different one. His first comment was something along the lines of “Guys, you have already completed all missions we gave you. What the --- SPAM !!! --- are we supposed to do with you?”. Upon wich our commander, Wasp, replied “Well what do you expect when you put a police officer, an ex-military and a security consultant with 15 years experience each, AND five months preparation time, in charge?”
BE at this point wanted us to slow down, so that the other factions could have some success and fun too. 6mm had been in that situation on B9, being the 60-man strong UN faction, so we fully understood the situation and agreed to slow down the tempo of operations so that every player would have some fun.
Gameday 3, Friday
The infamous third day when all crap happens and all mistakes are made. The amount of assassination attempts on the commanders as well as stealthy attacks on the base increased immensly as our mission tempo slowed dramaticly. BE restriced the amount of Ravens operating inside Guyana to a mere company, and never larger than a platoon on a single mission. We were not allowed to enter Guyana with vehicles at all. In Lerando we were not allowed to move more than a company for a mission. And so on. Never the less, we focused the day on building the nuclear bomb, a 6mm tradition. To our great disappointment, BE informed us that after GCT had blown the mine, there would be no plutonium in-game any longer.
We got a BE-mission to escort some bogus Sheich from Oil Fields to the Fort so that the PMC would have a fun and successful mission. Even tough they got the info four hours before we arrived at Oil Fields, they somehow managed to --- SPAM !!! --- it up and never arrived. So the Sheich took a taxi back to the border and was promptly caught there.
A bit bored, we executed one of the platoon leaders for having the wrong SMS-signal. It went off as he was charging the phone in the HQ-tent. That’s OK of course, but not when the signal is “Nuclear Launch detected”. As we were trying to get the bomb my first thought was “Unbelievable, somebody beat us to it!” followed by my orders to evacuate all areas and close with the enemy as fast as possible. Luckily the guys brother happened to stand guard and informed us about what it was.
We was also trying to put a nice photo of a platoon and the president showing the finger, into the TVs of the other bases. Sadly it did not succeed as we were not allowed to enter Guyana with enough men.
Players from especially the PMC but also the BoPo began to pack up and leave the game during Friday evening. We were ordered by BE not to conduct any more base raids at this point.
During the night, we got a mission to take out a satellite dish near the northern trading station together with the Orlows, and at the same time getting the President across the border for a UN-meeting. The Dish was to be destroeyd so that the PMC/BoPo/GCT couldnt call in air or artillery strikes on us. Both succeeded. Wich according to the BE-missionplan they shouldn’t. Oh well…
Gameday 4, Saturday
We were up early but then got word from BE that they still needed some planning time and would brief us at 11.00. Kinda sucked. Our BE-mission was threefold: Escort the president to the far north with only three platoons, take and hold the Oil Field in the south, and defend the village. We argued that the village, wich in our view now consisted of more or less completely of assasins, traitors, spies, rebels and ambushes, was not interesting to us anymore, and that our priority would be the President, wich was a game changer in our point of view. Sadly, BE would have none of it. Adding to this a BE decision to get the Orlows to attack us at the same time as the PMC, the GCT and the BoPo, it was obvious that we would stand almost no chance.
BE tough ordered the GCT to capture, not kill, the President. So he is still in the game. The fight at Oil Fields was cleverly executed so that the PMC/BoPo force never managed to unite with Orlows and attack us at the same time. Much Credit to Perrin and Jack for doing an excellent delaying action against both forces. In the end, we defended Oil Fields with five platoons as the Orlows overran us. It was a good fight.
Aftermath
While BE really tried to make difficult to us this year, we succeeded greatly. To the point of BE using us as sheep so that other players could at least once experience victory. 6mm is still debating the outcome of this. We absolutely want to support all players, not just our own in the Ravens, to have fun. It’s the point of it all! With hindsight, we maybe should not have let them decide on Saturdays battle I think. There have been some harsh words regarding us giving away the victory on a silver plate, to a bunch of players that couldn’t succeed.
We also found out after the game that Orlows were allowed to find and use plutonium from the destroyed mine. And that BE never had any intention of even building some of the props we had to secure before being allowed to go into Guyana. Based on this info, It should be fairly obvious that the BE gameplan was never made with the possibility that Ravens would accomplish all the missions, instead I think their plan was to keep us on the defensive all game, trying to protect the villagers and our base from attacks. We were 411 Raven-players on site who together payed more than half a million Kronor/50 000 € to lose. That would have been OK if BE would have told us so that each player could decide for themselves wether that was OK. For me personally its not. If one does well, one shouldnt be punished for it as we were. This is also a tip for anyone else doing or considering doing a command-role in the future. Prime example is the Presidential escort last day were we were restircted to use just one platoon/40 players with two armed vehicles. And no other Ravens were allowed to deploy north of the base during this time. Previously we had used a minimum of nine platoons with 10 vehicles when escorting the president.
6mm consist of a fairly large amount of LARPers, so we really like the LARPing at Berget and try to get our side to interact a lot with the LARPers. This worked wonderfully at B11. Sadly it seems that only some 10-15% of this years civilians were actual civilians, the rest were there to make life really difficult for us, as we see it. It would have been much wiser for us to simply off the lot of them at game start, and be done with it. I really hope BE sees the contribution LARPers give to Berget, and in future games be more supportative of real LARPers instead of bunching a large batch of shooters into civilian clothing. Maybe outsource the whole thing to a LARPing community, and forbid players to engage them if no evidence is found that supports an attack?
As players were arriving to base, we found that quite a few of them had no idea of anything that had been written on the Ravens forum. Many had never gotten access at all. BE should put the commanders in charge of letting players access the team forums, to speed things up and ensure that everyone gets access to the vital pre-game info.
Cheating. We all know there will be a fair amount of non-honest players when so many of us get together. However, it not always is cheating. With adrenaline pumping out of your ears it is easy not to register the hit on the pouch on your vest. As true is also that just because you got a fancy gun with a fancy sight, a fancy shooter does not make. Firing from the hip is really difficult and hitting a small target at 50 meters is not easy with slow-flying, direction-changing plastic. And the BAVS suck. So before bitching about it, take a deep breath and realize that the only thing that will happen is a bad mood for everyone.
Will 6mm lead a battalion again? We actually don’t know right now. After B11 it was a must to do it again. After B12 we are in doubt about it. We feel that the team that performs so well, and has so much sportsmanship that they slow down so that others should have fun too, should perhaps not be mocked and worked against as to the degree that we encountered this year. Decision will be made later this year.
B11 was a astonishing success, with the Ravens completing all missions by the second day and in the final battle smuggling Rico out of a nearly destroyed Iron Walls-fort. This was of course not unnoticed by Berget Events (BE), and hence they made our starting situation a lot more difficult for B12. Base in the middle of the map, with almost all factions either neutral or hostile to us, just as an example. But, this year we boosted HQ with three more officers and more importantly, we had five months preparation time instead of the five weeks for B11. We assembled a team of good officers for the task and briefed everyone extensively prior to the game, and had officers on site on Sunday already.
Gameday 1, Wednesday
The first gameday focused almost entirely on control of the border, the village and the supply points. Call me a control freak but that initial control of the game area is vital to ensure a negative feeling amongst our opponents (“--- SPAM !!! ---, we cant even get across the border!”) and out of the 16 firefights reported to HQ we won every single one. Not bad, considering we gotten no BAVS at all for the Ravens.
Since our primary mission was to get enough heavy weapons to attack into Guyana in force, a lot of work was put into that effort. We also focused on getting friendly with the Orlows, as they would have a huge stockpile of heavy weapons that they could supply us with.
An early firefight with some PMC unit was most likely unintentional by PMC command. They sent us an envoy to smooth things up, but before they arrived there was another two attacks by PMC on us. So we dissolved their bodies in acid. My guess is that this happened due to undisciplined players not following orders, instead being too eager for a firefight. Sadly this pretty much destroyed any chance of the PMC to be a balancing act and enjoy many of the missions BE had prepared for them.
Gameday 2, Thursday
Our diplomatic work led us to become friendly with the Orlows, to the point where we were giving them tactical information, the ability to spawn in our base and a timesharing agreement on the supply points. This deal worked strongly in favour of both factions. By now, we had established who was friendly and who wasn’t.
A highlight was Genocide, commanding the mechanized fleet, suddenly calling that he had captured a canon wich was on its way to the Orlow base. Nice play by our "Hamster", Genocide is an absolute expert in bringing stuff back to HQ.
The real coup was landed by players from Hotel and Foxtrot platoons when they searched a PMC player, thereby uncovering a computer tablet with a tactical program containing all their positions, strengths and every chat conversation since game start. A goldmine! Together with the high mission tempo we had accomplished all goals by 1630, and planning began for the battalion attack into Guyana.
Now, I got knifed while moving out of base, so I let this video made by Balder platoon speak for itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmnZsOFCvhw
A great success were we raided thru the Border Police base, then thru the PMC base, then back thru the Border Police base again as we retreated back into Lerando. Personally I sat in the safe zone watching the Germany-USA match and witnessed the disgruntled players of PMC and BoPo coming in for respawn. It was a joy (“Man, this is just like last year.” And “Next year I play for the Ravens too!”).
Back in base, our GM was burned out and was replaced for the night with a different one. His first comment was something along the lines of “Guys, you have already completed all missions we gave you. What the --- SPAM !!! --- are we supposed to do with you?”. Upon wich our commander, Wasp, replied “Well what do you expect when you put a police officer, an ex-military and a security consultant with 15 years experience each, AND five months preparation time, in charge?”
BE at this point wanted us to slow down, so that the other factions could have some success and fun too. 6mm had been in that situation on B9, being the 60-man strong UN faction, so we fully understood the situation and agreed to slow down the tempo of operations so that every player would have some fun.
Gameday 3, Friday
The infamous third day when all crap happens and all mistakes are made. The amount of assassination attempts on the commanders as well as stealthy attacks on the base increased immensly as our mission tempo slowed dramaticly. BE restriced the amount of Ravens operating inside Guyana to a mere company, and never larger than a platoon on a single mission. We were not allowed to enter Guyana with vehicles at all. In Lerando we were not allowed to move more than a company for a mission. And so on. Never the less, we focused the day on building the nuclear bomb, a 6mm tradition. To our great disappointment, BE informed us that after GCT had blown the mine, there would be no plutonium in-game any longer.
We got a BE-mission to escort some bogus Sheich from Oil Fields to the Fort so that the PMC would have a fun and successful mission. Even tough they got the info four hours before we arrived at Oil Fields, they somehow managed to --- SPAM !!! --- it up and never arrived. So the Sheich took a taxi back to the border and was promptly caught there.
A bit bored, we executed one of the platoon leaders for having the wrong SMS-signal. It went off as he was charging the phone in the HQ-tent. That’s OK of course, but not when the signal is “Nuclear Launch detected”. As we were trying to get the bomb my first thought was “Unbelievable, somebody beat us to it!” followed by my orders to evacuate all areas and close with the enemy as fast as possible. Luckily the guys brother happened to stand guard and informed us about what it was.
We was also trying to put a nice photo of a platoon and the president showing the finger, into the TVs of the other bases. Sadly it did not succeed as we were not allowed to enter Guyana with enough men.
Players from especially the PMC but also the BoPo began to pack up and leave the game during Friday evening. We were ordered by BE not to conduct any more base raids at this point.
During the night, we got a mission to take out a satellite dish near the northern trading station together with the Orlows, and at the same time getting the President across the border for a UN-meeting. The Dish was to be destroeyd so that the PMC/BoPo/GCT couldnt call in air or artillery strikes on us. Both succeeded. Wich according to the BE-missionplan they shouldn’t. Oh well…
Gameday 4, Saturday
We were up early but then got word from BE that they still needed some planning time and would brief us at 11.00. Kinda sucked. Our BE-mission was threefold: Escort the president to the far north with only three platoons, take and hold the Oil Field in the south, and defend the village. We argued that the village, wich in our view now consisted of more or less completely of assasins, traitors, spies, rebels and ambushes, was not interesting to us anymore, and that our priority would be the President, wich was a game changer in our point of view. Sadly, BE would have none of it. Adding to this a BE decision to get the Orlows to attack us at the same time as the PMC, the GCT and the BoPo, it was obvious that we would stand almost no chance.
BE tough ordered the GCT to capture, not kill, the President. So he is still in the game. The fight at Oil Fields was cleverly executed so that the PMC/BoPo force never managed to unite with Orlows and attack us at the same time. Much Credit to Perrin and Jack for doing an excellent delaying action against both forces. In the end, we defended Oil Fields with five platoons as the Orlows overran us. It was a good fight.
Aftermath
While BE really tried to make difficult to us this year, we succeeded greatly. To the point of BE using us as sheep so that other players could at least once experience victory. 6mm is still debating the outcome of this. We absolutely want to support all players, not just our own in the Ravens, to have fun. It’s the point of it all! With hindsight, we maybe should not have let them decide on Saturdays battle I think. There have been some harsh words regarding us giving away the victory on a silver plate, to a bunch of players that couldn’t succeed.
We also found out after the game that Orlows were allowed to find and use plutonium from the destroyed mine. And that BE never had any intention of even building some of the props we had to secure before being allowed to go into Guyana. Based on this info, It should be fairly obvious that the BE gameplan was never made with the possibility that Ravens would accomplish all the missions, instead I think their plan was to keep us on the defensive all game, trying to protect the villagers and our base from attacks. We were 411 Raven-players on site who together payed more than half a million Kronor/50 000 € to lose. That would have been OK if BE would have told us so that each player could decide for themselves wether that was OK. For me personally its not. If one does well, one shouldnt be punished for it as we were. This is also a tip for anyone else doing or considering doing a command-role in the future. Prime example is the Presidential escort last day were we were restircted to use just one platoon/40 players with two armed vehicles. And no other Ravens were allowed to deploy north of the base during this time. Previously we had used a minimum of nine platoons with 10 vehicles when escorting the president.
6mm consist of a fairly large amount of LARPers, so we really like the LARPing at Berget and try to get our side to interact a lot with the LARPers. This worked wonderfully at B11. Sadly it seems that only some 10-15% of this years civilians were actual civilians, the rest were there to make life really difficult for us, as we see it. It would have been much wiser for us to simply off the lot of them at game start, and be done with it. I really hope BE sees the contribution LARPers give to Berget, and in future games be more supportative of real LARPers instead of bunching a large batch of shooters into civilian clothing. Maybe outsource the whole thing to a LARPing community, and forbid players to engage them if no evidence is found that supports an attack?
As players were arriving to base, we found that quite a few of them had no idea of anything that had been written on the Ravens forum. Many had never gotten access at all. BE should put the commanders in charge of letting players access the team forums, to speed things up and ensure that everyone gets access to the vital pre-game info.
Cheating. We all know there will be a fair amount of non-honest players when so many of us get together. However, it not always is cheating. With adrenaline pumping out of your ears it is easy not to register the hit on the pouch on your vest. As true is also that just because you got a fancy gun with a fancy sight, a fancy shooter does not make. Firing from the hip is really difficult and hitting a small target at 50 meters is not easy with slow-flying, direction-changing plastic. And the BAVS suck. So before bitching about it, take a deep breath and realize that the only thing that will happen is a bad mood for everyone.
Will 6mm lead a battalion again? We actually don’t know right now. After B11 it was a must to do it again. After B12 we are in doubt about it. We feel that the team that performs so well, and has so much sportsmanship that they slow down so that others should have fun too, should perhaps not be mocked and worked against as to the degree that we encountered this year. Decision will be made later this year.