Last night on Vantage Point

One of the problems we seem to be facing in BC2 atm, although a welcome one, is that when we have good numbers (which is regularly atm) we have a tendency to end up on the shitty team, since that’s the one which loses enough people for us to switch teams. While it’s good that we’re able to get on the same team and squad up, we’re still finding it difficult to difficult to win rounds on a regular basis, but on occasion we come together and absolutely nail a result, and just that happened last night on Vietnam playing Vantage point. I suppose it’s unfair not to mention that we had literally just won a game of this as defenders, at a canter, and we’d also won a good first stage defence on Hill 137, but playing a second round of Vantage point, we must have all been team swapped because we ended up defending a second round and it wasn’t so easy this time.

Now for those who’ve not played it, or who don’t recognise the map names yet, this one has a ridiculously brutal first stage where the Vietcong have to attack up a variety of slopes from a river, and it invariably descends into a nade spamming fest from both teams. Anyone courageous enough to storm the slopes is normally taken care of very quickly by the defending team as there’s little cover at the top, and the defenders have plenty from the usual nade spamming positions. It’s actually the worst stage on any Vietnam map, and nine times out of ten the defenders win it easily, however on this occasion our team’s defence was lopsided, and we let them in.

I normally take a position up near the burnt out tank covering the two left hand slopes when defending here, as it’s central enough to assist the other side of the defence when they need revives, plus I can normally pick up a few kills without becoming too much of a battle medic, but it was this spot where the experienced lvl 50’s of the attackers concentrated their attack, and I was quickly overwhelmed with virtually none of our team in support. The call went out on TS that they were attacking this direction, but as people were already dead when shouting, XDC reinforcements were arriving as individuals, with no backup of their own, and the flank inevitably collapsed. The attackers getting in and setting charge A quite early on via the opposite flank didn’t help matters, but the side we lost is always crucial as it offers the shortest route to the hardest charge B, and we found ourselves pushed all the way back and unable to diffuse once they set it, although we did manage to claw back a few kills in our attempts.

So back we go to the hill to defend the second stage but feeling confident, since this is again a tough one to cap given the choke points, however once again our team’s defence was lopsided with the central road the main focus, leaving the path up the hill almost uncontested. We were as guilty as the rest of the team in allowing this, but we were forced into it as the attackers were pushing up with a tank, and it took our XDC squad of engineers to take it down, with little assistance from the rest of the team. Our suicidal approach to this didn’t help either, as it split us up, but with no medics (and the hardcore server made it difficult for medics anyway), Maniac and myself ended up at the back of the hill just in time to see them storming the exposed flank. We tried our best, and beat off a couple of lone rangers, but we were overpowered and they got in. Coordinated or not, it was a good time for them to storm the points, as Queeks and Wolf were occupied with the respawned tank coming up the central road, and despite a valiant attempt by Wolf to get back in time, everyone trying to diffuse was cut down by the attackers, from their entrenched positions.

So the hill falls, and we’re getting a little worried now as the final stage isn’t nearly as hard to assault as the first two, but the team’s forced to fall back to the village. At this stage I’d been lucky enough to escape the attackers somewhat careless sweep of the hill, and was starting building a reasonable kill streak ambushing stragglers. Public players being public players, the guys I’d killed didn’t bother coming back to hunt for me, and instead respawned on their team mates in the Village who were making good headway early on. By the time I’d made my way back to the slope down, they’d already set charge B, and from the calls on TS they were in good positions covering it.

This was the turning point though, and it was all XDC. Maniac, Queeks, and Wolf were all covering each other in the village, and had adopted good positions around the final charge A for a valiant last stand, which kept the opposition off the point during the initial assault after B blew up. While this was happening though I was trying to get down from the hill to come around the back of the attackers position, where I’d surely get a few kills before being spotted, but some idiot was about to throw me a bone. The attackers get a tank on this final stage which spawns at the top of the road down into the village, and while I saw it spawn, one of them got to it before I could and took off down the hill. At the bottom bridge though there was the burnt out wreckage of their previous tank, and instead of ploughing through it, the guy inexplicably jumps out, and runs off to snipe or something, leaving the tank sitting yards away from me, completely empty 😀 Take it I do, and even though I needed a couple of shots to sort out my aim (no sights on the hardcore veitnam tanks ffs!) I was able to drive up right beside the enemy positions and completely annihilate the two squads sitting there, thanks to the calls I’d been listening to over TS. Paddy then jumped in as a gunner, and in true XDC fashion, I got the tank stuck in a 3 point turn, but together we still beat back the other side of their attack, and when an RPG did eventually finish us off, I was sitting pretty on a 14 or 15 kill streak. Quite satisfying, but job wasn’t done yet, and we had to close out the game with some good defensive covering, and I think both Queeks and myself frantically reviving those who’d stuck their heads out too far. The game finished within a few minutes, and our XDC squad was sitting quite pretty on the team’s score board, with positive K/Ds almost all round.

Great game, great comms, leading to great team effort, and looking forward to much more of this later tonight 🙂