AAR Rebel Training Camp: Northern Resistance Game 2
March 5, 2014
The second evolution in the Rebel Training Camp: Northern Resistance was centered on 4 newly-constructed destroyable buildings that Gamepod Combat Zone staff had just fabricated in the days leading up to the event. Essentially, they were air cannons filled with pancake mix that could be detonated using two audio cables and a detonator with a single red button. This system could actually be moved around to just about any building in the complex, making search and destroy scenarios almost endlessly variable. In addition, Gamepod staff tested which powder mixes were the easiest to wipe off of gear and found that flour is the worst/hardest to clean off of gear and pancake mix was by far the easiest.
After all, it can be very invigorating to destroy an objective but to have that followed up with powder that is hard to clean off gear can be a frustrating situation. Thankfully, with a little play testing by the Gamepod staff, disaster was averted and a ridiculous new game prop was created!
©2014 Terrence Taylor
So, I’m sure you are wondering what the setup and force dispositions were for this game. Luckily, using MS Paint like a complete champ, I have created a diagram which you can see below that shows my forces’ starting position in orange, Josh’s forces’ starting position in green, as well as the objective buildings for each side marked with an X of the corresponding color. Each team had to destroy their objective buildings as well as prevent the enemy from destroying their own respective buildings. Overall, this was a very fun game with quite a few heart pumping moments, so let’s get into how the game went!
First and foremost, it is important to note who was carrying the detonators as they became engineers and, thusly, high value targets who could be captured for this evolution. On my side, I asked Greg “Spartan117GW” Wong to carry the detonator and on Josh’s side he requested that Daniel be his engineer. Both Josh and I seemed to have made VERY fortuitous decisions!
My plan from the get go was not to focus too much on preventing the enemy from getting to their buildings as I knew I could send a token force in front of those buildings that would at the very least slow down Josh’s advance. Therefore, I decided to focus about 2/3 of my force on pushing toward our objective buildings while the remainder of my rebel troopers would do their best to prevent Josh’s forces from detonating their objectives.
My plan worked seemingly well, as my forces were able to detonate both buildings within the first 15 minutes of the allotted 30 minutes for this evolution. Our concentrated push got us from the airport all the way up to the end of 4th street at kill house 3 by the end of 15 minutes at which point our last objective building was detonated by Greg Wong thereby earning us our 4 pts for this game (2 pts per building). At this point, I began shifting rebels over to 2nd and 3rd street in order to cover the enemy’s objectives, because at that point all we had to do was hold out until the end of the evolution.
From Josh’s side there was no coordinated effort to prevent our advance on our own objective buildings which would account for our speedy success. Now, because we had complete control of 4th street that also allowed my forces to engage Josh’s team from the side further slowing their advance toward their own objectives. Because his team was engaged from the side as well as being engaged by my token force from the front, Josh’s forces had a tough slog getting to each of their objective buildings in turn. However, with some hard fighting and excellent use of cover Josh’s rebels, they were able to detonate their first building with only 10 minutes remaining in the evolution. Luckily, Team Disposable Heroes were on top of their game as far as escorting Daniel, and the detonator he was carrying, to each objective building. As soon as their first objective was detonated they rushed Daniel directly across the field and into the next building, all the while putting themselves in between the incoming BB’s and Daniel, the engineer.
Now here’s where the story gets a bit more interesting…
At some point after Daniel detonated his first building, possibly during the frantic pell-mell rush across the field to the next objective, one of the audio cable pins was ripped completely off of Daniels detonator. With only minutes remaining Daniel pulled out his detonator, ready to obliterate the last objective building only to see one audio cable pin and one set of frayed wires. Daniel turned around to the ref and yelled “The cable is busted, what do I do?!” And the ref responded with, “Hey man its real world, make it count!” And, make it count he did. Daniel proceeded to plug in the remaining working audio cable then literally shoved the frayed wires into the receptor and hit the big red button with all the gusto he could manage and… the building detonated.
With less than 10 seconds remaining in the game Daniel was able to detonate the last objective building giving Josh’s team the first head-to-head tie of the day. I must admit after I heard the story I felt equal parts embarrassed and overjoyed. I felt embarrassed because I was personally organizing a defense of the building and we were just about to go charging around the corner when the building detonated and the game ended. But, I felt overjoyed because when Daniel finally told me what had happened, I though it sounded AWESOME! I mean moments like those are what airsoft is all about for me! The moments where your heart is pounding in your chest while the seconds tick by and you are just hoping you don’t get shot before you complete your objective, are exactly why I love the hell out of this game!
So, cheers to Daniel for his epic detonations, hooray to Greg for getting our buildings detonated as quickly and as Wong’ly as possible, and thank you to all the amazing rebels that came out for a great day of training and game play!
With each team scoring 4 points for detonating both of their objectives the score for the day at the end of Game 2 was as follows:
Josh’s Rebels: 6 points
Bob’s Rebels: 9 points
Make sure to stay tuned for an AAR of Games 3 & 4 to follow!
…In fact, here is the video for Games 3 & 4 in case you just want to watch it now!
