The Great Equalizer: Raider: That tank pissed me off. They definatly needed a small spot on the back for us to shoot with a paintball gun. I felt so dumb walking up and hiding behind a bunker. Then when we were told to give cover fire im just thinking. "And how are we supposed to do that?"
I personally liked the tank, but definitely agree that it may have needed some
balancing. Given the fact that most teams didn't have any way of
fighting it, you either blew money on the mercs, a launcher or just
dealt with it like the US team did. I thought it was kind of funny (though frustrating) to
see 30 or so people come flying out of town followed by the tank
rumbling behind. :)
At some point, the tank was busily
racking up kills in town and one of my teammates told me that we could
temporarily disable it by pulling the flag. I was skeptical since I
hadn't heard anything about it during the General and XO briefing, though it seemed to make sense that something might have been done to limit the supernatural ability of that thing, so I
radioed a buddy who was standing next to a ref. That ref confirmed
that pulling the flag would force the tank to return to HQ before
heading out again. So I gave the go ahead for somebody to run and pull
its flag. This promptly infuriated the tank crew who started yelling
that we weren't allowed to do that. :) I called Ivan over who told me
the other ref had been mistaken and that pulling the flag did nothing. (Except maybe prove that the guy who pulled it has a pretty big pair.)
I apologized and helped the guy rehang the flag on the tank. It was an
honest mistake.
He was not impressed. :)
Hey Mike, I remember responding to that radio message while standing next to
a very short ref (dave's grandson I believe since he yelling out "grandpa" everytime dave walked by) in the top of the Ludendorf tower,
while being surrounded by German players who had no idea I was there :) Which leads me to MY favorite memory of the day....
Halfway through the second half of the day at about 3:30pm myself and 6 other brave U.S. soldiers load up into the "airplane" and went on what would surely be another suicide "para-drop" in the middle of town. For all you Jap and German players who couldn't keep their eyes off of the "airplane" you may remember this one in particular. As we came up past Mt. Suribachi and behind the Reichtag, I noticed that the Ludendorf was sporting one of the small german flags, but had been left UNGUARDED!!! I was in the rear of the "plane" so I could observe things better and had put my teammate at the front of the "plane" so he could direct the pilot for me. I had him pass between the Ludendorf and the Reichtag and head toward the Bank, which at the time was the Jap HQ. I guess what amused me so much was both the German & Jap armies were so worried about 7 paratroopers that we cosistantly had 40-50 Axis players following or "escorting" the plane (I know i'm intimidating guys, but seriously, a bit of an overkill don't you think...lol). Upon realizing that NO-ONE was in the Ludendorf I had the pilot pull a 180 and head back between the Reichtag and the Ludendorf. Right as we passed the tower I gave the "deploy" command and everybody "pulled the cord" and rushed the Tower.
I can only assume that 2 of our noble crew were shot out before we "landed" because by the time we all got behind the Luddy, there were only 5 of us. I rushed to change out the German flag for the U.S. flag, and then VERY QUCIKLY took cover by the doorway under the tower, while my fellow soldiers took whatever cover we could get from the incoming enemy fire. As we being surround on 3 sides due to poor cover I found myself being pushed into the little room under the tower as my teammates tried to protect themselves. Within 2 minutes everyone but myself had been shot out and I realized that I was standing in a very small space, with only 1 way out, and could now hear every word my attackers were saying. At this point in the story you should realize that for a brief moment I thought that it was a very real possibilty that I was about to lit up in a "closet" by 5 players and qui9etly turned my radio off so that the U.S. orders coming over the channel wouldn't give me away. I had only a few strips of burlap in doorway between me and 17 possible welts on my chest. But alas, fate has a funny way of turning bad situations into strategic opportunity. And fate was on my side at that moment. I say this because not only was it obvious that no-one did a "body count" while we were on the airplane in the open, but no-one, I repeat NO-ONE did a proper building clearing (there's only ONE FREAKING ROOM PEOPLE!!!)
So, as the tower was now crawling with about 5-6 German players, one of them moved quickly to change the U.S. flag back to germany's color. As he changed them out, I promptly shot him out from within the burlap shadowed room, and then APOLOGIZED to him for "accidentally" shooting him. He was pissed and wandered off muddering something about "dumbass players" and stupid friendly fire accidents happening way too much. It was all I could do to stop from laughing out loud (sorry dude). At this point there were 2 players in the top of the tower at the bottom of the stairs. I took a gamble and yelled up to the 2 guys up top "did WE get them all?" . To which they responded, "yeah, theres nothing going on around here. This sucks." I looked at my watch and realized that the rocket was about to go off and that I wasn't going to be able to change the flag back to U.S. colors without being seen. I had to get these guys away from the tower quick. I told them, "hey, I have the flag guarded, if you guys want to move up to where the action is." After a few minutes of this type of exchange, and a few random players coming around, I manage to clear the tower without ever having to fire a shot. I then scope out the outside of the tower and judged the coast to be clear since everyone was occupied with their own game. I stealthly switched the flag back to U.S. color and hurrily moved to the top of the tower to "guard it from those damn ALLIED players" (lol). It was at this point that I was finally clear to turn my radio back on at a low volumn to inform TGE that his XO hadn't dropped off the face of the earth, just off of a doomed "airplane". Thats when I heard the tank question and asked the little ref about the tank flag.
At about 1 minute unitl the next rocket went off, someone FINALLY noticed that the flag wasn't German. They yelled over to ME, of all people and told me. To which my response was simply, "well how did that happen?" Someone came over and changed it right before ivan drove by for his 4pm flag check. I was so mad I could have shot that player right there. All my hard work was for nought. The fact is I had the opportunity to barrel tag a half dozen players, or
take out at least 4 different groups of 5-6 players during this entire
"occupation". But I decided that discession was the better part of valor, and kept
my mind on the task at hand, try to get points, not personal glory. So I stayed up there for another 10-12 minutes without incident waiting to change out the flag at the last minute before ivan drove by again. It wasn't until this point that someone, the ref I believe, bothered asking what team I was on. I simply pointed to my wrist tape, which made him laugh. All the while I was up there someone from either the U.S. or British team was pot-shotin me from like 150ft away thinking I was German. I didn't want to shoot at my own players, so I just stayed low. Several players came up to the tower, some even halfway up, all for various reasons.
It wasn't until a German Negotiator came up to the tower, stood right next to me and talked to me for like 2 minutes and then said "hey, your Hannibal!!", that I was busted. I raised my marker on him like i was going to shoot him hostage style. He said, "you can't shoot me, I'm a negotiator!". And although I wasn't going to shoot him point blank in the chest I don't think he was entirely convinced. I simply held my A-5 on him told him to exit the tower quietly, while following him down the steps. I realized that I had been made and had to make my move now. After the Negotiator walked away, I quickly moved to the flags to change them one last time hoping that I would be able to stall enough to get the points. As I'm doing this, I hear that treachous French Merc Chappy (damn you chappy) voice behind me saying, go back to ur base Hannibal, the tower belongs to the Mercs. I was confused and asked who had hired them (since I was obviously not being shot at). Chappy response was simply to "go find TGE and he'll explain everything." My plea that I had stolen the Ludendorf first and had dibs on it fell on deaf ears, so I took this as a sign that my 45min+ ruse had run its course and it that it was time to check back into my HQ and find out what was going on.
All in all this has to one of favorite experiences up there so far.
( free advice to all the players that were germans who took back the Luddy just after our plane dropped us off, COUNT YOUR ENEMIES & CHECK ARMBANDS, lol, suckers)
Hannibal out....
"Where the f*** are my KEYS!!! Has anyone seen my keys?!?!"
1st Strike Paintball