BH5 AAR

[The Rick 238]

Thanks to all that made it out for our 5 year anniversary.  

[jazzman 223]

So since I cheated and ran around with the scouts for 3 hours in the dark Friday night I want to make a quick comment on that.

 

Lots of fun stumbling around in the dark, watching all planning and prep go out the window in favor of a few choice "how do we get this done" moments was really cool.  Lot of cool people that did scouts and had fun stumbling through the woods with you guys.  I think there was some problems on both admin side and on scouts side that could have been fixed but thankfully nobody gave up and threw in the towel.  Adapt and overcome and was glad to see you guys survive the entire weekend.  Huge thanks danarchy for loaning me your NOD/Helmet Friday night, definitely a highlight for me.

 

Lots of good play saturday but little direction from AMS.  Maybe they wanted more sandbox this year, which I guess is cool.  But even sandboxes have some sort of overarching objective.  We had little to direct troops to do much of the time (in comparison to other years).  I feel as though this led to some soldiers getting a bit discouraged when we just sent them out to make contact again and again.  If the command element cannot give them any sense of urgency and purpose to their fighting, people won't fight as hard.  Toward the end of the day Saturday we did complete some objectives and Sunday was slightly better, but still lax compared to other years.  I would rather have too much stuff lined up to do and not be able to get it all done rather than have troops sitting around doing nothing waiting for missions, or send them out to do something random and then need them later.

 

I might be the only one who missed the control points being there.  There was always a point to taking/defending these for points before which was a pseudo mission to fall back on and direct troops to take/defend when there was no immediate mission.  We ended up trying to hit COST base the entire time just to take more of the brick crates just because there was no other thing to "do".

 

Another thing I missed was having embedded CC.  This role I feel is critical as they are with command elements and can sense the ebb/flow of the game progression firsthand.  If questions about objectives come up they are a single point of contact for us and can save game director (alex) time by not having to answer radio calls from all sides at all times.

 

I am only talking about the bad stuff I guess, Overall I did have fun and it was a great weekend of running around shooting people in the woods.  Just personally maybe not as good as some prior years/events I've been to with AMS.

 

As always, an honor and pleasure to work with all UFS troops, especially the leadership team who I consider good friends at this point after 7 or so years of playing games wearing Tan with you.

 

Big congrats to AMS and all the crew/admins/support staff for the 5 year anniversary, really cool that you made it this far and see all the way you've come.

 

See you all at the next OP.

 

~Jazz

[Blackbird 278]

Woohoo AAR Time!

I think this event went off well, lots of new changes this year, and I feel like, for the most part they worked as intended (even if some failed because of other issues).

1. Mag limit changes - my teammates and I didn't like this change when it was announced. As in, some of them regretted buying tickets after they found out. Super unhappy about it going in, but honestly, I can say for myself at least, that it was all unfounded. I actually liked this change a lot, it decreased what little overshooting remained except from some SAW gunners, and it definitely forced people to make use of the SAW when they had one around. 10/10 would play with this rule again,.

2. Resupply stuff - This is the one where I think some improvements are needed though, maybe not on the admin side. I like the idea of the resupply crate, and having to have your resupply trucked in. It absolutely cured any reloading in the field issues you would see in years past. however, at least on the UFS side, I couldn't get a resupply truck all weekend. Any time I tried to call in for one, naturally, comms would fail, and we'd just end up having to walk back, or try to sustain on task for as long as possible with what little ammo remained. I don't know that i consider this a failing on AMS part, because, I guess it kind of worked as intended, in the real world resupply isn't perfect, and if you comms went down, you'd be screwed, and we were. It definitely negatively impacted my experience, but only because of some other stuff.

3. CDF medic rules - While I recognize being the smaller team, the CDF needed a leg up somewhere, I firmly believe making every single person a medic was an absolutely atrocious decision, and whoever's idea it was should sit in a corner and think about what they've done for at least a solid minute. This was my one HUGE negative for the whole weekend, and the one thing I can't look back on in hindsight and try to find some positive or how it really played into the metagame of the whole event. I spoke with Kyle (i believe, sorry if it was a dif. admin, horrid with names) during the game on saturday for a few minutes about this, and I think if CDF needs to have an extra force multiplier, then linearly increasing the number of medics is a good idea, but enacting all-healing clerical powers to every single member of the faction led to a lot of frustration, and imbalanced firefights. I had suggested maybe doubling medics per squad, or something similar, allowing them free-form choice in squad composition with regards to roles or something, but "everyone is a medic" just didn't work for me. I witnessed a lot of guys on UFS get very frustrated with the mechanic, maybe because they didn't fully understand, or they didn't hear Rick bring it up in safety brief (i know it was brought up in mine) but lots of complaints of cheating, and A LOT of discouragement going on, even heard some CoST players complain while we'd cross paths while dead. This didn't work for me. not at all.

4. three factions - I spoke with kyle about this a bit as well. I think this ALMOST worked. It was definitely better than my last three-faction experience at broken home, because the concern with three factions is always flip-flopping or in-field alliances. Some of that definitely still happened. I was of the impression it wasn't supposed to, and everyone was still shooting everyone, but my squad definitely recon'd at least one ceasefire, which then directly lead to us getting massacred. I was not pleased, but that's life. If you do three factions, it needs to be all out 1v1v1 fighting, none of this two sides team up and pound the other guy stuff like broken homes past, and while it never got QUITE that organized this year, the small pockets of "oh, they must be working together" was very irritating.

 

5. other CDF stuff - Uniform requirements need to change here. allowing camo-pants/civvy shirts created a ton of confusion from what i could tell. If you're doing three factions, this shouldn't be OK. Make em wear jeans, or flat color bottoms or something, but especially at D-Day, there are far to many times when all you can see is a pant leg, or their shirts looked awfully close to green/tan camos in the trees with all the plaid-erator action going on. Couple that with obviously multicam pants/gear and this definitely caused the confusion i feel it was meant to, but definitely just pissed more players off than i think it should've.

 

6. Direction - We didn't feel like we had jack crap to do all weekend. I didn't get a single direction from anyone in UFS leadership, and while initially i was going to put this on UFS leadership, it seems like this is from a bit higher. Forcing squads to just kind of go out and patrol and find bad guys isn't fun for me, and I feel like that feeling went a bit further. I don't know if this is because the scouts got a lot of the cool-guy stuff (and they should, seriously those dudes are badasses) but that shouldn't come at the expense of everyone else participating. I don't think that was the case, this seemed to be a bit more intended, but for me, it just fell flat. I'm in the same boat as Jazz, control points gave direction, gave you something to do, and let squads who got disconnected from leadership (or just didn't want to deal with it) something to do that was still moving the game forward. Best example of this, is the number of times we'd wander around patrolling whatever area we were patrolling, and it always ended the same way. "okay guys, we've accidentally stumbled on the enemy fob again, we've now been massacred, or chewed out by some dude on the other team for unknowingly shooting at the enemy fob, guess we'll walk back to respawn now". EVERY SINGLE ONE of the firefights we got into, occurred in one of three places. Pegasus bridge, outside the CDF fob, or somewhere near the cost fob in coleville. but, because fob's weren't attackable unless we had missions to do it, it became a game of "lets push out as far as we can, get shot, walk back, respawn, and repeat". There was no variety. In years past, we've had mobile respawns to subdue and capture, HVT's to secure, EOD stuff to deal with, and with the faction FOB's spread out, more room to do it on. I get where this was trying to go, but i don't think this worked as well as it was meant to. This was my only other big complaint, but i can see where the design idea came from on this. As a guy who also hosts the occasional airsoft event, i can appreciate the intention, even if for me, it didn't work.

 

7. Fob locations - I get the intention here too, from speaking with some staff, it seemed like the intention here was to shrink the field a little bit, decrease walking, and while when i spoke with kyle on field the one time, at the time i felt like i had done less walking, by the end of the weekend, we actually did more walking (and we had the pedometer stats to prove it). Not quite sure if this was the FoB's or the discontinuation of the mobile respawn barrel for this game, but we spent a lot of time walking, with almost zero motivation to get out and go do it again beyond "well, i'm here, and it's a 6 hour drive home, so i'm gonna try and at least get in a good shootout" because we didn't have much else to do. I didn't have a specific piece of land to try and hold, I didn't have a laptop to recover, a dude to rescue, or an HVT to capture or kill. so with the FOB's so close together, I felt like it severely restricted the number of places I could get into aforementioned good shootouts (and believe me, we definitely got them, but there was no location variety). Again, I get what this was meant to achieve, but I feel like after having played it now, the old way was better. Bigger field and mobile respawns making a comeback was better for me.

All of this being said, I actually had a fantastic time. Did it live up to how much fun I had last year? no. BH4 is still kind of my highlight year, I left early last year and still felt very satisified with money spent on the trip, and time spent playing that i could leave saturday night and not be upset. I didn't get that this year. In fact, had saturday been my only day of play this year, I'd have been pretty bummed out. Sunday, We gave up on chain-of-command, gave up on meaningless patrols, and just decided to support whatever action was going on any given time, and that's when all the fun happened. We rolled around with the scouts for a bit, and interacting with those guys was cool as hell. We got in some bigass shootouts where the seven-mag limit actually became fun to manage, and not just a huge pain in the ass to deal with. I shot a gazillion reaper rounds (and it was worth every penny). But that said, the game wasn't as fun as years past when I relied on trying to play the game as intended, and didn't get fun for me or my teammates until we chose to make our own fun.

Rick asked me before the raffle started if I had fun. I told him yes. I didn't lie. I had a ton of fun this year, and I feel like after playing, a lot of the changes implemented either worked, or will work with time. Three factions mostly worked, resupply didn't fail because of AMS, and once everyone adapts to it, it's going to add a cool layer to the game. Seven mags was plenty (though, honestly? I'd like to see it bumped to 8 for a bigger game like this, but i can live with seven). This AAR is going to make it look like I was miserable, and that's simply not the case. Hopefully it gets taken as constructive criticism. This was worth all 12 hours of driving, the couple hundred bucks in gas, the extra mileage on my car, and the two weeks of serious back pain i'm going to have afterwards. Plus, I still came away with a bunch of great stories to tell the guys at the shop when I get back. Can't put a pricetag on that.

 

It wasn't as  big a win for me as it was in years past, but this was definitely still a good year, and I think it will all be worth it at BH6.

 

Bird out.
 

 

[MumbleKing 7]

I enjoy myself everytime I come to this event. This is the only one we go to. And no matter the issues we always have a good time. I only have two complaints worth talking about. Camo for all factions needs to be worked on. I know everyone wants to wear multicam because it's the cool guy camo and to be honest I don't have much trouble picking it out(we are cost) but every year multicam guys talk about being killed by their own guys. My big complaint is for my own guys in atacs fg. I love the color up close, looks cool. I don't like mowing down 4 of my teammates in faded atacs fg. Looks tan from far away. Woodland and tri desert camo is what it really needs to be. There wouldn't be a question who you are shooting at and those camo patterns are super cheap. The other thing is communication on the night game needs to be better. We headed back out to the field only to be told the night game was canceled because there wasn't ebough Ufs wanting to play. Couple hours later a few guys came out of the woods telling us the night game had been on. Sucks for acouple of my guys who had nods and thermals and had been looking forward to the night game. One more thing just a extra thought. We miss the Friday night game. Bring that back.

[pappy 18]

I had fun, but I think this was a big step back from previous games. Honestly, I don't think it was anything I couldn't get at an open play at home. We were given one mission to start out with, then were basically left out to dry and had two heat casualties in the first two hours. Props to the CDF guys who let us walk through their lines to get back out of the western valley to get our kids safely back. But back on point, all I heard this year (and last year for that matter) is this would be different...we would be playing in different areas. Then we come to find out the COST FOB is IN COLLEVILLE....so all the fighting took place in the ville and on pegasus bridge. That made no sense to me. Comms with command was less than suck, it was non existent. The two times we called for corpsmen, we had to run to find an admin as there was no admin in the valley with a radio to us. That has to change...there has to be a emergency channel available for just these purposes. Having to radio to your command when something happens, then relay, is an extra step that takes time when time is of the essence. Change that please.

 

I never had any idea where our FOB was...I just kept coming back to Caan because I couldn't find our FOB...no one seemed to know. For me, the resupply rule was a good thought, just horrible execution.

 

Anyway, between all the fighting STILL taking place in the same areas, no missions or direction from command (not just for my group, I heard this from multiple places), it really was no different than the past events...and in fact was a step backwards.

The good things was I had fun...the helo went REALLY low this year...wow, that was really cool...and I didn't really have a lot of hit calling issues...when I did, I just ignored it and played on.

Btw, if the dude with the video of me shooting him over and over while his coward medic hid behind him sat late afternoon in the ville could post up that vid, I would preesh....that was some funny crap!

 

I will likely be back next year again, because I have been going since the first OKINV...but this year was disappointing in many ways. I expect more from these games, and I hope the staff will take the concerns they are going to hear on this thread and make the adjustments.

[pappy 18]

btw, saw bo being loaded up looking hurt...what happened and is he ok?

[PITT 90]

Pappy,

 

Bo took a pretty bad tumble and heard a pop by his knee. Took him to the hospital but they couldn't do an MRI over the weekend so no official verdict on whats jacked up at the moment. I talked to him Sunday morning and he was hurting pretty bad still and was going to have it looked at as soon as he got home. We'll let everyone know how he's doing as soon as we know. I know I've seen multiple posts on FB and other areas wishing him a speedy recovery and I want to thank everyone for that, I know it means a lot to Bo too.

[Bilbo 18]

Hey there, I was the COST S3 and kinda second in command for parts of the weekend. I had a few things that come to mind when comparing this year to last year. I've had fun every time I come out to play there, and I've been to every Broken Home. This year felt a little different (maybe it was the rare good weather) probably because of everything new the AMS staff tried to implement this year. Some ideas worked, some seemed to not go over so great, some just made it different. 

One of the biggest changes was the time-table. Pushing back start and running through the night sounds really great on paper, and probably has worked really well in some of the smaller AO's but at DDay, it is so massive a field that it seems to me it just exausted everyone as much, if not more than usual. And Cost was etting tired and hot even though most of them were defending Colleville although there was a bunch of moving from flank to flank). A even though there was no official break for dinner, most of each team took it, and it seems to have had a negative effect on the night game. By 9pm we were being told only a handful of UFS were on the field and available to play, so we were told to call it at 9, and most of the remaining COST players walked (or rode) off the field. Then we were told if you wanted to stay you could, but most of Cost, if they had Night vision, had either left already not knowing a night game was on, or had left it at the vehicles and had no time to get them before we started a small night game in Colleville. The night game was not fun. I understand that if you have nods, by all means use them, but when you have a group of guys who don't have nods playing against a group of guys who do, it isn't exactly fun. I got dome-popped a few times, and really close too. 

Another thing I noticed was the smaller number of Fragos. I've been S3 at Broken Home 4 and End State 3 and both of those times we had Fragos start early and continue. This would give us a sense of momentum, not just defend Colleville all day. We had guys sitting so long, they went and harassed the UFS fob without me knowing, just for the heck of it. Also, some of the finer points on the play-ability of FOBs wasn't pushed down in our op-order, like the ability to raid enemy FOBs for the War materiel crates. We had UFS take one in the last hour on Sunday in Colleville, but 3 of 4 times Saturday we were up in theirs and could have gotten 2 or 3 of those crates, again just a lack of communication down. 

One thing that is blaring in my mind (and I'm sure I'll either edit this post or add another one as I digest all that I did as command for Cost and witnessed my troops go through) is the Helo runs. I understand helo runs are a main attraction here for many, and I love that we can do them, but when it comes down to how Helo runs affect our overall game play, I feel there is room to improve. I noticed that 2 out of every 3 gun runs seemed to be friendly to UFS (may just be me only noticing when they weren't friendly) but it really seemed to break my sides spirits when 3 or 4 gun runs in a row targeted us, and thats when a bunch of my guys who were on the fence about walking off for the day did so. I might be spit balling here, but maybe implementing a system where there is a fixed number of gun runs per side, might help. Not that it would be limited to only people enlisted on that faction, but say you have 8 UFS gun runs and 8 COST gun runs. well, all 8 UFS sold, but only 5 COST did, well those 3 could go to UFS soldiers, but only on the understanding that they are COST in the HELO and that intentionally targeting COST on a COST Gun run would count as a war crime against the other faction. Might need refining as an idea, but that seems like a fair-er way of leveling out gun runs, so that those who pay for them can go on them, but it won't adversely affect the game play like it seems to have done in the past.

Communication is always a topic of frustration, even when mine was working right. As command, I only have commo up to Game admins, and down to Platoon leaders, From there platoon leaders have commo to me and to squad leaders, and from there squads have squads and  up to squad leaders. I have seen a few AAR's where they couldn't directly send up real world requests for corpsmen or other emergencies, and this might need to be addressed in the safety brief next time, but if you are sending something real-word up the chain of command, but say your squad leader is dead (in game), squad leader, do respond and continue that request up the chain. As S3 I won't know unless your Platoon leader tells me, or you find me yourself. I understand dead men don't talk, but interpret what is real world and send it up. The whole idea of the lower mag rule and one re-spawn area is that squads would stick together and squad leader would have commo up to platoons, which would generally stay in one AOR and within radio range. Follow that line of thinking on up. I understand sometimes hills or distance get in the way, but if I may suggest investing in a programmable radio capable of frequencies, because I had hardly any problems with my Baofeng, hearing people who were down in valleys while I was up in the church. This is tying into squad cohesion so I'll say this, by Sunday it seemed that large chunks of every platoon was gone, and by the middle of Sunday, all platoons had dissolved, and my command became more direct than delegation. I was running around finding groups coming in to respawn and tasking them out from there once they were up, even to the point of me moving to engage myself (which I enjoyed the change of pace, just saying). Platoons dissolved, but squads either stayed together, or were quickly formed, and there were a few squads (probably local teams that stuck together) that I knew I could rely on. Shout out to Ad Astra and the leviathan tactical pro staff (Breaker and Crash) for being some guys I could count on. I was a little disappointed in the fact that many didn't come back to play Sunday though.

Overall I had fun. I always enjoy it, and the weather this year was better than most. I look forward to playing with you all at possibly Copperhead. 

Bilbo.

[jazzman 223]

The other thing is communication on the night game needs to be better. We headed back out to the field only to be told the night game was canceled because there wasn't ebough Ufs wanting to play. Couple hours later a few guys came out of the woods telling us the night game had been on. Sucks for acouple of my guys who had nods and thermals and had been looking forward to the night game. One more thing just a extra thought. We miss the Friday night game. Bring that back.

 

Totally agree on this.  We were planning on running through till 11 although at significantly decreased force presense.  AMS informed us at around 10 minutes to 9PM that the game would stop at 9.  We told as many as we could, but still many players we could not get ahold of stayed out on the field and did not stop playing until 11 and did not know the plan was changed. 

 

I think everything would have been fine if we'd just kept going till 11 like the schedule stated.  I think the night game should be there for those who want it, even if it's only 10% of players or whatever, it's still cool to have.

[Kaid Yates 25]

AAR from a CDF perspective.

Pappy- I organized your teams pass through CDF. Is your guy who fell out from heat doing ok? He looked rough.

 

My platoon plus a few extra(15 total) played opfor against the scouts on Friday night through Saturday morning. It was incredible traversing the AO all night and into the morning. We may or may not have breached the UFS TOC around 1:00 A.M. and made Top lose his shit. Lol. Anyways we were in game 24/7 with the scouts. That first night we played set pieces for them to attack. Honestly the best Airsoft experience I have had. Moving silently through the AO at night with no NODs. Pretty damn cool.

 

After the set piece we went back to our area and crashed for the night from about 6:00 AM-10:00A.M. The next day brought lots more hiking and shooting. I learned to hate the hill next to our FOB. Had another cool moment with the scouts in which we all shared some water mid battle on Sunday. My hat is off to those guys.

 

Yuk is a hell of a commander and his diplomacy showed when some stuff got heated.

 

As for the medic rules, they were amended half way through the game, but they did make us pretty strong. I believe there is a good medium in which they can be effective. But it was an incredible experience overall.

 

Thanks to Noe and Alex for staying up all through the wee hours of the event helping orgistrate us and the scouts.

 

I can not wait to do it again.

[pappy 18]

Kaid, yes, they were fine...both back in the game later that afternoon after some rest and rehydration. We suggested you guys get recognized for helping us out that morning, but guess it fell through. We really appreciate it

[Kaid Yates 25]

Absolutely no worries. When it comes down to it in the end, we are playing a game. No sense in someone being seriously hurt. I still felt bad that hiked up that hill. It was a dopey that we climbed many times.

I am happy they are doing well and were able to get back into the game. Maybe I'll see you and yours around bing or wildcat sometime this summer.

[Blackbird 278]

 

As for the medic rules, they were amended half way through the game, but they did make us pretty strong. I believe there is a good medium in which they can be effective. But it was an incredible experience overall.

 

That's frustrating to read. We definitely encountered some guys following the original medic rules later sunday, but such is the problem with changing rules halfway through a game.

 

Glad to hear your kids are OK pappy, we were actually pretty close to ya'll when it happened, never quite found out how that got resolved, glad to hear it all worked out ok.

[Mr. Yuk 229]

That's frustrating to read. We definitely encountered some guys following the original medic rules later sunday, but such is the problem with changing rules halfway through a game.

As CDF's CO I would like to clarify our assigned Medic Rules and the in-game changes.

 

Our original rule was "Everone is a medic and2 medic bandages each."

 

The intent was to allow was to operate a small fire teams across the entire Al, especially since we were centered in the AO to the other factions' FOBs. This was in conjunction with our 80 players verses CoST's 120 players verses UFS's 250 players/scouts and 8ish technicals.

 

As the game progressed, CDF secure the western part of the AO, allowing us to consolidate forces along the middle of the AO running north to south. As we began to press east, it began to be apparent to me the our medic rule may too strong and unbalanced for the current game tempo.

 

Liking to challenge my guys and trying to balance the game, I made the decision to change the rule to "one medic bandage each." This seemed to be a great balance at this previous Reindeer Games as well as saved me a reassignment nightmare infield.

 

I hope this clarifies somethings and I hope the in-game change helped to balance things out.

[pappy 18]

Thanks guys, really appreciate it. Kaid, come on out for a John May open play sometime at the cat...they are a great time.

As a clarification, the guys that went down weren't STL guys...I don't remember where they were from, but they were attached to our squad. Great guys. One of them (not one that went down) won the 416c at the raffle...the bastard...lol. Sorry about the confusion at the top with the red rags and whether we would put them on or not. A lot was being thrown around in a very little time, and my sole focus was on getting those guys out of the valley to a safer area for them. We had a hard time getting a hold of the corpsman in the valley, and if something else happened, we wanted to be out of it so we had better comms. You had a good idea to put the red rags on and walk out, I just didn't comprehend what you were saying at first...cause of that damn mountain I just climbed...lol

[Kaid Yates 25]

Heck yeah. John May is a good buddy of mine. He is what all airsofters should be. I'll hope to see you out there.

 

I know that mountain all to well. It became the bane of my existence. And no worries for the miscommunication. Looking forward to trading plastic with you in the future. Send me a favebook friend request. We can chat off the boards.

[Wolfman 16]

First I want to say, I have always enjoyed playing at D-day. It has always been one of my favorite AO's, and will keep coming back.

 

Several of us got on site around noon on Thursday. We had a great time talking with the AMS staff. We also helped set up all of the vendor tents. Afterwards we had a great time playing cornhole and having a few beers.

 

The rule changes for magazines worked well. Honestly, I didn't use the first load on my mags all weekend. The reason for that is I didn't really see many people to shoot. The first day our mission was to defend and hold Colleville, which honestly isn't that hard to do. It seems that the first faction that can get a few squads in Colleville will hold it for the whole weekend. I found it kind of strange that we started there.

 

When we marched on to the field the weather was mild, and quite nice. For the first half hour before the official game start we were exchanging fire with the UFS scouts who were around Colleville. Had they gone a little off path and thought we were roll players? Not sure. I hope we gave them a little unexpected excitement. When game on was called, we all kind of looked at each other wondering what we had been doing for the last 30 minutes. After the official game start, we stood around Colleville basically roasting in the sun for a couple of hours without much trigger time to speak of. I decided to hold a high point in the middle of town and call out contacts. I didn't get much action until a UFS technical finally made it into Colleville. I was able to shoot the three passengers in the cab, and the one in the truck bed, somebody else finally got the driver. A few minutes after that I decided to join some of my teammates near the south entrance of town. I started making my way down the east side of the road, and got maybe 300 feet and was shot from behind some thick brush along with a lot of other folks, still not sure if it was CDF or UFS. We had a medic that was doing a great job, but unfortunately when he ran and slid like pro baseball player to heal me, he was shot. After that I decided to take my chances in the church with the helicopter.

 

After getting into the church I started making some great long distance kills, and was having a great time. We had several long range rifles, and several SAW gunners. UFS and CDF were making a good push toward the Colleville, but we were holding them off well. I was in the top of the church when I saw Bo Stewart come out of nowhere with grenade in hand and make a flying leap to frag someone in the top level of the building in front of the church. When he hit the ground we heard something pop, and thought he had been hit and was acting it out REALLY well. A few seconds later we decided it was no act and called "blind man". After a few more seconds of watching him writhe in pain he gained some composure and said call "corpsman". Last I heard He had torn his ACL or MCL or both, hope the inevitable surgery goes well and you heal quickly.

 

It was about this time (4:00 pm) that communications started being an issue. Couldn't get hold of anybody. I think this is where people started falling out due to exhaustion.

 

Shortly after Bo's injury, two of my team mates and myself got bored and decided to go into the woods and find some action. The first time we got to the woods a helo run got us in the trees, and we bled out. being determined we headed out again. As we were heading into the woods another helo run came over the trees and we were setting ducks in the wide open. We decided make a run for it. Well, one guy leaped into a trench not to far into the woods into what looked like a nice soft bed of leaves only to find nice jagged boulders a few inches under the leaves and twisted his ankle pretty good. He was still able to walk, so we knew it wasn't too serious. Not two minutes later the other team mate I was with tweaked his ankle just in front of me. At this point it was about 6:30 pm, and we decided to call it a day. We were hot, tired and slightly injured. We didn't want to take any chances on making things worse.

 

Sunday morning I woke up, and just couldn't get motivated. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, and beaten with a pool noodle. I decided not to play the second day, and take my time breaking down camp. Which may have been the wise decision, because I think a lot of people suffered heat exhaustion.

 

Suggestions:

 

Don't start anybody out in Colleville, make us fight for it.

 

For the love of GOD, bring back mobile respawns. I'd like to see more of the field while playing. Mobile respawns seem to solve the movement issues. The ammo reload delivery idea was a good theory but didn't use it once, probably because we never got to far away from our FOB. There has got to be a way to combine the two ideas and make it work.

 

The new time table was brutal for this AO. I think it would work just fine in some of the other AO's where we have events that have buildings where you can get inside, find some shade, and gear down for a while to cool off.

 

Overall had a good time.

[Mr. Yuk 229]

American MilSim's Operation Broken Home 5 occurred Memorial Weekend 2016 at D-Day Paintball Park in Oklahoma. I drove the 18 hours with two of my bros to attend. I was to be the CO of the Civilian Defense Force (CDF) faction and we were to be pitted against two other factions, the UFS and CoST, during regular gameplay and also act as OPFOR for the UFS Scouts during their intense and immersive weekend.

 

Having taken some time to process my thoughts about the event; as well as talking to others and reading feedback, it is clear that the event was not without some "hiccups." I can assure everyone that the folks at AMS take all feedback seriously and will work even harder to make the next event that much better.

 

Unfortunately small negatives in life can consume positives, like gas to a flame. I myself battled with this after the event, small negatives clouding my judgement. I am glad I took the time to process my thoughts before committing them to words.

 

As the BH5 registration was finalized, it became immediately apparent that some challenges laid before my CDF brothers and I. We were outnumbered, weren't allowed technical POVs (long walks to respawn), no in-field resupply, FOB placement put us in the middle of the western part of the AO with a constant 360 degree battlefront, and roughly 25% of our forces and all of our command were going to be in the AO the entire weekend to pull OPFOR duties for the Scouts which could lead to fatigue issues. We did have CDF special rules to help us (which I will discuss) but it seemed we had a tall bill ahead of us. Combined with me being "techno-tarded" haveing spreadsheet and email issues getting info out to my CDF folks and a long, mostly sleepless drive to the event, I might have been a little worried that I could meet the personal challenges and goals to be an effective CO.

 

I went into the event with the sole goal of making sure the players on CDF had a good time or at least learned from the experience to become better players as they continue this hobby of ours. The feedback I have received thus far after the event seems to be positive experiences coming from the CDF players that I was privileged to lead. For that I am glad, as that was my primary goal! If I did falter or fail in any way please let me know. Only by finding flaws can one seek improvement towards betterment. And I promise you that you will always receive at better Yuk at each upcoming events.

 

I am upset to hear that others felt our CDF special rules somehow gave us an advantage, especially our Medic Rule: everyone can medic and 2 medic bands per person. The original intent of this Medical rule believe was to allow us to operate in smaller forces over much-larger portions of the AO. For whatever reasons, the events that unfolded on Saturday allowed us to push the majority of opposition out of the western side and into the eastern portion of the AO. This then allowed us to concentrate our forces along a more controllable battlefront. As soon as I heard complaints that other factions thought our medic rule was too strong , CDF immediately changed our medic rule to one medic bandage per player. This seem to be a good balance at this previous years Operation Reindeer Games and helped me to avoid a reassignment nightmare infield during the game while trying to amend any perceived advantage.

 

The reason I am upset of the complaints against some of the special rules that CDF was allowed, is that all the players on CDF and their command did and outstanding job and I honestly feel that even without the special rules the result would have still been the same for us. We kept to the basics of teamwork, communication and a simple fluid battle plan. While I can appreciate special rules to allow factions different flavors then the normal, I just don't want any special rules to demean the hard work of any group of players out there whether they're under my command or someone else's.

 

Your still reading??? Wow!!!

 

So we're does this leave me about my overall opinion on Operation Broken Home? After weighing the negative against the overwhelming amount of positive experiences throughout the weekend I can say, unfortunately for others, that I had a GREAT WEEKEND!!! I honestly don't go to these events for the airsoft specifically. I go to these events to spend time with friends and having a good time. Combine that with meeting new friends each time I attend another event. I am lucky and privileged to be able to go to an event and be surrounded by so many awesome people. I go into these events only looking to have a good time with the other like-minded people and I honestly believe, ultimately, that mentality allowed all on CDF to have a great time!

 

I would like to sincerely thank all those at me this weekend possible!

 

To all the players and leadership on the UFS and CoST factions, thanks for bringing the fight and making it a good game! I heard the lowest amount of complaints of rule breaking and unsportsmanlike conduct at this event more than any other. Outstanding work to you all! I would like to say that I don't enjoy shooting my friends, but if I did I would be lying.😠Let us all remember it's just a game after all, and if we all played on the same team it would get boring fast. Thank you and I look forward to the next challenges you fine folks provide!

 

I would like to give a HUGE THANKS to All the Poor Unfortunate Souls who signed up for CDF and had to put up with me all weekend long! LOL! Honestly could not have picked a better group of folks to play with as my first time as a CO. You all did everything I asked of you and far surpassed any of my expectations of how this event was going to go for us.

 

Special shout-out to our CDF leadership! Thanks XO Dan Lee "Helios" for allowing me some needed sleep, smoking some awesome eats and just generally being one of the biggest badasses I know! Thanks Joseph Fuller "Toxic" for being the CDF "Pitbull"! One couldn't ask for a more loyal player and friend then you. Thanks for keeping me alive! Thanks to my "Squadtoon" Leaders: David Johnson, Josh Longtin, Anthony Patton, Kaid Yates, Andrew Gauge Potter and Daniel Drew Dudley! You guys have no idea how easy you made my life. I only hope I can sucker you guys into those leadership positions again. LOL! Sincerely though, thank you gentlemen!

 

 

And once again the biggest thanks to all the CDF players! The players and our camaraderie are what all this is about at the end of the day. I hope you all had a great time. I can certainly can say you folks made it a great weekend for me being your CO! I hope I did not disappoint and I look forward to the opportunity of doing it again with you folks.

 

Thank you as always to the AMS staff! You folks are the hardest working staff I have ever seen at national events. I appreciate all the work and effort you put forth.

 

Thanks to the photographers and camera crews out there immortalizing us players! How about a little more CDF love next time.😉

 

Thank you to the AMS crew. John, Rick, Blake and Silva,I appreciate what you guys do and your friendship. Thanks for letting me into your airsoft world! ......and sorry!😊 lol

 

Oh, and thanks to the two suckers I talked into driving with me to the event from Buffalo, NY. Konrad and Matt, good times as always!

 

So even with a few bumps in the road, I still had a great time at American MilSim's Operation Broken Home 5! I also know that AMS will definitely make sure that Operation Copper Head 2 will be just that much more better than anticipated. I can't wait!

 

Oh..... and if your worried about having a good time at an event, at registration just ask for YUK!ðŸ‘

[Alex AMS 614]

Broken Home 5 was single handedly the most exhausting event that I’ve been a part of from an admin standpoint.  There were lots of things that were done differently, some worked out, and some didn’t.  I’d like to address a lot of them so that people know what the intent was, and what actually seemed to happen.  It’s always difficult to re-invent the wheel and sometimes when you make it into a square, it doesn’t turn as well.

 

Three factions.  We tried out having three factions on the field.  Historically we have started at opposite ends of the field, and played towards the middle.  We discussed using two factions, and playing the field sideways, but settled on adding a third faction, and playing three independent factions.  The intent was for there to not be any alliances, but that seemed to not be what happened.  There was a period where CDF aligned with one faction or the other.  This was not the intention, but the player leadership seemed to make it happen.  It was corrected at one point, but had already caused some frustration among players.  I personally don’t like what I call “swing teams” that can change alliances mid game, it leads to frustration and takes away from the game.  We did call in missions to CDF that would put more pressure on one faction or the other (between UFS and CoSt) but it was our original intent to have three independent factions on the field.

 

Fob Locations.  FOBs were put centrally with the hope that most of the fighting would take place in certain areas, while FRAGOs would draw small groups into fighting on the fringes in smaller groups, giving squads and platoons room to move.  Originally UFS was the largest group.  UFS was expected to operate out of their FOB at Caen, in addition to a Patrol Base in the Western Valley.  The Western Valley PB was intended to have approximately 50 personal that could move around to the north, and put pressure on CoST from the North West, and CDF from the west.  UFS finally established the Patrol Base towards the end of the day on Saturday, and never really used it.  It was figured that CDF would operate towards the south, and east towards UFS and CoST respectively.  CoST would operate out of Coleville towards Caen and the CDF camp, and out of the Airfield towards UFS from their Western Patrol Base.

 

FRAGOs.  With the added complexity of managing three factions, In addition to the Scouts, we fell flat on FRAGOs.  There were many FRAGOs that never got moving because we were dealing with so many other things that they never got set up, or called in on time.  This was a planning problem on my part, and has been ID’d as an issue.  We suffered from the same communications problems as everyone else, and this made those issues worse. 

 

CDF:  One of the things that we have begun to use as a force multiplier when it comes to registration numbers is the medic rules.  One faction may operate with different medic rules then another.  CDF earlier in planning had very low numbers, and they were given an advantage in regards to the medic rules.  When CDF registration picked up, we simply overlooked this detail.  On Sat afternoon Kyle and I realized that this had been overlooked.  We made contact with Yuk, and he made the suggestion before we could bring it up. it was at that point that we changed the medic rules for CDF.  

 

Scouts:  I'm not really going to discuss the scouts stuff on here.  We sat down with all of the Scouts on Sunday afternoon and had a sit down AAR and came up with lots of ideas for the next go around, and we went through successes and weakness's. 

 

General Admin Stuff:  This was the first event where I collaborated with someone.  Kyle Noe and myself will work closely going forward until we run him off.  This was also the first time that I had a second hand in running Game Control.  We both learned some valuable lessons in regards to working with someone in regards to setting standards and expectations.  There were a few things that were overlooked, and unfortunately the players felt it.  We had a few admins not end up making it short notice, and some that had to arrive late, this didn't have as bad of an impact on initial setup as I was worried about, but it did leave me having to get more people up to speed once they got there, and was a little bit of a pain in the ass.  Beaver always does a great job with helping out with the registration and check in piece, and my other admins did a great job of busting their ass with setting up tents, digging holes, and generally moving a lot of heavy stuff.  We had Cody and Brandon who helped us out with Chrono and it would not have been easy without them.

 

Like I said before, it's always hard to re-invent the wheel, and keep events interesting.  We learn new things at each event, sometimes through making mistakes and messing things up.  No matter how much you plan, there are always variables that you don't account for or anticipate.  I always value feedback from players.  I literally read every post on these forums so feel free to post up an opinion or question.  I like transparency for the most part, so don’t feel like you’re going to hurt my feelings by posting up a negative comment because I want to see the good and the bad.  For the most part I feel like we typically do a few things well, but this time out we did more things so so, or not that great.  I am happy to see that even though we fell flat on missions, and a couple of other small details, it seems like the Faction Commands did a great job of keeping people busy, and most people still said that they had a good time.  I feel like the player base, and the factions’ leadership have both come a long way in experience, and general growth in this regard. 

[jdelbs18 97]

There's so much to put down and it's hard to filter the garbage rambling with good, constructive information so I have a short AAR. I didn't even notice flag capture points were missing. I actually liked them in the past. I didn't notice many fraggos but then again, I was so busy that I might have missed them. 3 factions were cool. I wish that CDF had control of the two towns and their objective was to protect the city. We don't like either faction and when missions came in for some thing in buildings etc, they would have to negotiate with CDF to gain access to buildings etc. I think that would be cool but I don't know if it would work. If people weren't acting peacefully toward CDF, they would end up getting lit up. Just an idea. As for the game, I had a lot of fun. I can't say at any point I was upset or not having fun. I think over the weekend I went through 4 full sets of 7 magazines or around 3,500 rounds give or take. I had fun sneaking around and providing recon for CDF command. I can't wait for AMS's next event!