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The Battle For OkinawaSpatbrothers, Hopewell, VAJune 16, 2007 - Chronicled by Mongo & Hudson Hawk<![if !supportEmptyParas]><![endif]><![if!supportEmptyParas]><![endif]><![if !supportEmptyParas]><![endif]><![if!supportEmptyParas]><![endif]><![if!supportEmptyParas]><![endif]><![if !supportEmptyParas]><![endif]><![if!supportEmptyParas]><![endif]>By
Mongo: Just a few random thoughts...in no particular order.... Coyote found us a most excellent campsite...close to the insertion point, yet out of the way...and with very convenient parking. Heck, the first thing I saw when I hit the field was Hudson...moving the orange cones that had been protecting a place for me to park! All concerned (DBD, OTC, friends of DBD, and family of DBD) were a huge help in unloading, setting up, taking down, and eventually re-loading my vehicle...it was downright PAINLESS. Vader and Shadow and Pepe, as usual, brought mass quantities of food and drink...and cookies! And Vader even made lunch. Lil John's friend Mike (what is it with all the Mikes?) has turned into a talented airsmith...and is making some sweet custom markers. And, along those same lines, I got to see Yote's newest pump marker...MOST impressive. We didn't expect to need any Demo for this game (i.e. plenty of other folks had already signed up for those roles), but that turned out not to be the case...and the MB was put to EXTREMELY good use. The game itself was back and forth (we spent plenty of time in the enemy backyard and they spent at least some time in ours), but, point-wise, our side won going away (I believe it was 500 and something versus 300 and something). Spud did a good job as general, particularly for a first time general. And one of our red players (whose name I have no forgotten...Corndog?) managed to get himself taped as a blue player (see Yote for details...I think he had a hand in this in more ways than one) and proceeded to cause havoc with the enemy team, causing them to blow at least 7 or 8 missions. I think he got the MVS for the blue team...and he got the MVP for the red team...a very impressive performance. Our base was at one end of the spool field...their base was on one side of the trench field. The worst part of the day was the injury to Little John's hand...a Pugatory related accident where he was practically catapulted forward (and skyward) through no fault of his own...and where, in trying to protect the borrowed marker he was carrying, took, he took the brunt of the impact on his left hand. Probably broken...but I hope not. But Lil John still hit the field for the final battle, first working as the "paint caddy" at the insertion point...and then taking to the field to hand out grenades...and then hurling grenades. The latter may not have been wise, but it was effective...and I watched Lil John eliminate a lot of key enemy players with those grenades.... And the final battle was actually FUN. There were three different objectives, thaning the length of the field (roughly on the 50 yard line)...so you had choices of where to go and what to do once you got there. An idea, I believe, that may have had it's origin in the recent game that Yote and Lil John generaled. I think our whole team played in the final battle (even me...somebody had to take up the slack with Emeril not there)...and Shadow, in particular, sprinted to the tower and did a great job defenting it. And we even won that battle. Overall, I thought that Splatbrothers ran a solid and innovative game, from the Kamakazi pilots to the American naval bombardments. The Japanese "spider holes" (sort of a mobile insertion point) were also a neat idea, but I never actually saw one used. Referees could eliminate players due to "snake bites"...and those could only be healed by medics who had antidote. Yote brought very cool Japanese headbands...so popular that he eventually ran out.... And Zeylor, thanks again for the cool skull amulet! Meanwhile, Hudson's marker stand continued to get great comments (and envious looks) from passerbys.... And Hudson, I hope your friend had a good time and will come back and play again sometime. And Bob did well. At one point when I was alone near the trench field (Vader having just been eliminated...but not without taking several enemy with him)...and yelled out "Flank these guys! BOB!!! Go right!!!". And sure enough, 30 seconds later, I hear enemy...having moved to cover that direction...open on Bob. But they must have missed, because I never heard Bob call himself out.... Probably missing lots of other important bits and pieces...but that's a start on a re-cap.... - Mongo By Hudson Hawk: We (myself & a friend) made it back fine. Definitely one of the best eye opening games for me. Without the use of the DIII, I relied on my ION. (btw- Doom they had a last minute cancellation of a Demo and I was given the job. I was kicking myself but realized it was a blessing in disguise... just this time) This led to my first place winner of memorable stories. My number 1 killer time of the day occurred when Yote & I were reinserting. It seems that the Americans had come very close to taking over our CP. They were on the opposite end of the spool field. A bunch of us had just reinserted but a lot of the people were starting to bunker down after tagging in. Yote being the natural born killer...er um... leader he is started yelling and pointing at people to get up and start moving. I was mesmerized by the whole thing until Yote said my name. "Casey get up here... let's go!" Well Yote had given me my Kamikaze headband earlier and I told him to reserve it for me until I earned it. Up to that point, I had not earned it. Well when Yote called my name, it was like something snapped in me. Like an old 80's movie where you superimpose a tiger's roar coming out of my mouth. I started the duck walk towards the enemy. Luckily Yote was there to go with me. My standard persona of looking at the whole picture and planning an effective route instantly turned into tunnel vision focused on the poor soul who popped his head out from behind the spool. It was such an overwhelming feeling and gave me such a great high. That is what led to my nasty wound that Mongo spoke of. I didn't see a guy hiding behind a spool and he shot me from about 3-5 feet away. Oh well! I did get the "look" from Yote though. It was too funny. We were on a mission to go demo Maze city and as we headed down from our CP (which was on the back end of the spool field) I shot my marker off. Just to make sure the ION was on and stayed on. Yote turned around and looked at me and said "We are trying to go without them seeing us so don't do that." I said sorry... ok! After a couple of minutes as we were breaking out onto the road (no enemies yet), my finger brushes the trigger. (Lil' John's friend Mike, set my stock trigger really well.) Unfortunately I let off another one. Yote's head whipped around and looked at me and said, "STOP that." I told him Oops... sorry. We then took off running and went around the back way of Maze city. As we started to go through the brush the inevitable happened. POP! Yote's head whipped around once again and gave me "the look". As to say, I want to rip your soul from your body and feed it to Cerberus right now. What's funny is I couldn't see his face from the glare off his goggles but I could tell from his stance that there was fire in his eyes. He said.. "Get your hand OFF the trigger" in as quiet yet sternest voice possible for the situation. In an instant my hand snapped back in the way 'not so masculine' men hold it. And I walked the rest of the way like that until Yote 'gave me permission' to touch my marker again. Luckily Maze city was unattended but it certainly was a lesson learned. Adding insult to injury though, I was telling Marksman the story... after he was done laughing, he simply asked me, "Well doesn't your ION have a safety?" It was like his hand reached through the phone and smacked me on the back of the head. As far as the final battle goes... absolutely fantastic! Mongo was correct in his assessment of the final battle. It was much better than previous final battles. I found myself at the ravine on the middle flag. The Americans had their flag up and I was trading shots with an enemy player positioned on the other side of the street behind one of the big tires. After about 10-15 minutes, 2 grenades, and me getting tired of winding my Halo's rip drive because my batteries were dead. I had a WWYD moment... (What would Yote do?) Would he run back to camp and change his batteries and run back... no. He would make the other team take him out. So I pulled a couple of people over to say where this guy was popping his head up at (Vader being one of them.) I told them to pop him when he pokes his head up to shoot me. Well after I walked across the road and ducked behind a barrel. I peeked over and saw he was reloading his marker. I shot one off and it ricocheted off his shoulder. I then started to scream at him to call himself out. He was just looking at me still pouring balls into his hopper. Until I shouted at him, "I will shoot you right now if you don't call yourself out!" Ding.. popped up his arms. Just then 2 other guys from our team came over from the right. I decided to make a run for it to try to remove their flag and place ours. I got the others to cover me and I took off. I jumped behind the milk crates near the flag. 2 refs came over to paintcheck me and I was all clear. I got the thumbs up from everyone again and jumped over the fallen tree and snatched the blue flag out from the holder and then got shot. I called myself out. As far as I was concerned no flag is better than a blue flag. That teamwork between Vader, myself, & the few others over there, I believe is what started the push which led to a red flag in there as well. All in all, we had a great time. ~Hudson Hawk (newest and grateful member of Dead-By-Dawn) |
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