Aar

[Deb]

Fellas, here's my view of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Its short because I just woke up and can't really move right now.

The Good

--Increased Skirmish security. The bag checks and extra chrono before reinsertion was a step in the right direction for Skirmish. Also, I saw a few hand chrono's going around to make sure. It's always better when everyone is playing fair and not cracking masks because they are assholes.

--We won. Go us! From what I saw, Help Nelson did a great job rallying the Russians and moving the line forward to scare the Germans and cap a few crucial points.

-- From my standpoint I think the organization of the team was ok. I'm sure someone else can give more detail on this.

--Lydon. It's always good to see our charismatic leader recruit dozens of people to join us in our epic crusades...even if they are suicide charges.

-- I got alot of good pictures from the game!

The Bad

--We lost the fort battle at one point, but hey, we capped alot of other places and stole all most of the props so this is a minor point.

--Our LAW didn't work which kind of put a damper on the LAW team...


The Ugly

--Nelson's picture

-- Fuck you Reiff.

[Lydon]

Ok, first off, the Reiff thing is it's own separate catastrophe. What that means is so much deeper then this one game that I'm not going to bother mentioning it in detail on the AAR except the parts that actually, directly impacted the game.

So, with that having been said...

The Good:

- Help Nelson, as a group, ran like a fine oiled machine. The squad leaders knew where their teams were for the most part. This can only improve, but I think with a structure like that, suddenly having 35 people wasn't such an issue!

- We absolutely destroyed the Germans. I mean, we fucking creamed them. And it's legit. So far, there has been none of this "oh, the allies were shooting marbles so we stopped playing" bullshit

- Nelson performed VERY well as a battle captain. Well above my expectations.

- One of our guys was an MVP! Actually, all of the information I gave to Reiff was either wrong or completely useless. He saw a copy of that player map I handed out about a week before the game. So... the German General knew that Kurgan was Orange... even the grid system on there was completely wrong. I kept the useful map for myself and didn't let anybody actually see it, apart from Bob Haskins when he was showing me how to get places and kept me from fucking up as a CC. Thanks Haskins... Thaskins.

- Roger told me over the phone that Alpha Company was basically the dominating force of his Companies... we'd hit the field with our 30+ and the other CC's would hit the field with their 5-10... lol

- Nelson's picture.

- We were able to keep the line moving without having to resort to foolhardy charges or anything like that. Literally, we were able to keep it rolling, the entire day. A lot of us never had to even break into a sprint. Less dramatic, but more effective.

- Our new people worked fairly well imho

- Having the Torch group there at 7am was a fantastic idea... I needed all 4 hours.

The Bad:

- The Germans were shooting us from the Swiss Embassy, and Sean Collins got dragged of the field when returning fire.

- Somebody had to babysit my brothers. It wound up being me.

- We did spend, in my mind, a little too much time off field. In the future, I want to investigate possible ways of extending our stay on field and/or reducing our turn around time.
Possible solution: 1) Enforce some team fitness standard. The better shape you're in, the less time it'll take you to recover from fatigue plain and simple. 2) Encourage players on our team to buy extra pods and have them prefilled at the site, so when they return they can quickly swap them out along with secondary air tanks? 3) Thermal masks for all, so people will be inclined to stay in longer 4) Encourage people to buy bigger vests and/or have a few "pack mules" carrying extra everything

- Organizing this game was, hands down, the biggest headache I had ever had in my duration as Help Nelson's CO. This was more complicated then ION even. I was 1) constantly being backed out on 2) called an asshole by perhaps one of the lamest jackasses I've ever met, and 3) arguing with my father the entire time.
Possible solution: Never talk to my dad again. Also, make people literally sign something saying they understand that once they get their money paid, they can either go, or not go and not get their money back.

- I needed a lot of help organizing the groups prior to this game... and I largely didn't get it. Hackman ran his whole squad both on and off field... that was it. I'd ask Bill what the status of his squad was, and he'd whine in my general direction about how he didn't need to do that. I asked Carl, who just never responded. And up until game day, Nelson was nowhere to be found. This may have partially been my fault, the damn fireteam scheme changed so many times after all. I also perhaps should have driven home exactly what these responsibilities, so people knew what to expect before they volunteered/were voluntold.


The Ugly:

- Everything about that LAW. I'm going to try to get our money back.

- The "let's back out of the hotel" game our team is so good at.

- I didn't have a radio? Not sure what that was all about...

- The whole "one of my best friends was a spy for no reason that makes sense to me thing."

- Carl's face. *shudder* God, that's an ugly face.



Overall, this game was awesome on the field. But that just illustrates to me that to get any better, we need to work on our off-field stuff. Especially organizing people.

My MVP for this game is, hands down, Bob Haskins

[Lydon]

Reiff posted something here.

And I deleted it.

[Ooob4]

My AAR....

Good:

-Organization & Fireteam Breakdown
It's been said by almost everyone, but hopefully I can go into a little more detail about why I felt it was better. At my last two events ('Paint the World - 1944' - 2007 & 'Stalingrad' - 2008) we were not bound together as a single company nor divided into squads or teams. The way those events went for me was: Insert. Run to front lines and fight. Get easily separated from people. Get absorbed into some random group that went out to do some mission. Sometimes get reunited with HN team members. If I had to reinsert, then repeat process. There was no real structure or order. With the squads and teams, not only did it motivate me to make sure to stick together with my immediate group, but also for higher up and mid-level command to keep everyone in HN together.

The breakdown of command helped with knowing what to do. If I wasn't sure what to do (like direction to move, hold position, advance, etc...), I looked to Gero or Jeff. If they weren't around or didn't know, I knew to go to Hackman. When asking him, if he wasn't sure, he knew to go to Nelson, or another squad leader. Basically trickle up the chain of command. At the other two events, orders were not as clear. Quite often I was separated from HN people and had no choice but to start taking orders from people with no idea what level of authority they really had in the army (basically, if they had any idea wtf they were doing). Sticking together with all of HN, it was more difficult to get pulled away by some random guy, and I always knew that orders given were from or approved by HN people above me and were intelligent and more immediately important.

-Maps
I believe this was also mentioned but I feel it can be stressed more. I didn't have one for this event, but looking at maps that Gero, Jeff, or Hackman had while out in the field was invaluable. I don't know who made the maps, but if it was us then enough maps should be made for everyone on the team (including noobs), not just squad and team leaders. If it was Skirmish and they only provided a certain amount that day, then perhaps we can scan and edit the ones we just got or get even a simple printout from Skirmish's website that at least has the labeled layout of the field. Also what would be helpful is a hole punch at the bottom so they can be zip-tied to belt loops.

-Radios
Radios at this event definitely helped us a lot. It was easy to stay in touch with the rest of the team. Part of my problem at the other events (especially when reinserting) was finding the team or knowing where to go. With squad and team leaders in contact with the whole team, it was easy to find out where everyone was and get to them.

-Hackman's ghetto-rigged yellow/red bandanna system
VERY helpful in quickly finding fellow squad members, especially for those not wearing HN t-shirts. Definitely an idea worth expanding to all squads, whether it be all the same colors or different colors for each squad.

All this combines together to be one simple positive: we stuck together. We were a very effective, powerful, unmovable force. It is tough to get a charge going by yourself with non-HN people, but when they see 35 people screaming and running, they follow. It definitely helps that we had our biggest turnout ever for an event. Like they say, "power in numbers."

I remember a conversation that Lydon had on the field with another commander:

commander-"How many people do you have from your team?"
Lydon-"30-35"
commander-"No, I mean how many people from your team are physically HERE right now?"
Lydon-"Uhhh.... 30-35"
commander-"Oh, damn. Wow. Ok. That's the majority of the Russians that are at this spot. You guys should chill here with us."

-Taking over the German base at the end of the game
Wow. Holy fucking shit. That was fucking amazing. Nothing better than the refs counting down while hundreds of Russians advanced and bombarded the German base with gunfire.
refs-"30 seconds left!"
me-"30 FUCKING SECONDS - FUCKING CHARGE FORWARD ALL YOU MOTHER-FUCKERS!"


Bad:

-No player medics
For the first half of the day, I had a difficult time finding ref-medics. To get my card stamped I had to back track quite a bit to find someone. At the other events, player medics were very plentiful and I could easily get my card stamped without leaving the action.

-Difficult time getting back to reinsertion point
I'm not sure if this is really a bad thing (and it definitely isn't something that is HN's fault or that can really be fixed next time), but it definitely was annoying. One or two times when it was my third death and I had to go back to the reinsertion point, I asked several refs which direction I should go to get back to the reinsertion point and every single time they pointed me in the direction of live fire. One ref even said to just hold my gun up, run through, and hope for the best. Having to figure out the best way to go to not get lit up prolonged my reinsertion and prolonged my return to the group.

-Charging the German insertion point early in the game
Good job Hackman. As epic as that was, we got our asses handed to us. But it was still awesome.


That is all I can think of right now. If I think of anything more then I will add it onto this thread.


Overall, this was my favorite event so far. Thank you to everyone and especially Lydon for their efforts in organizing and executing everything yesterday. Perhaps this year I will finally be able to attend an ION.

[Lydon]

About the Maps...
Those were made by Roger, the General. He only gave me 40, and I had to distribute about half of them to the non HN in our company, as they were quite numerous and I wanted to try and keep them. However, he did email me a copy of the map prior to the game. Next time, I'll try to print out a shit-ton of those motherfuckers and make sure each warm body on Help Nelson has a copy, although it probably won't be laminated... (E-4 pay being what it is). I had a G-tool with me though, I could easily have punched a hole and we could tie it off... That's actually a really good idea.

About the radios:
We had I believe 6 or 7 prior to this event, and we used almost every bit of team money we had leftover from the LAW to buy more. I think we're going to do the same for ION.

And I also want to say that we bought several roles of colored tape for taping our arms to be distinctive. Except that apparently violated Skirmish's policy or something that they made up that day, so we had to go without. I'm going to investigate copying that head band thing for the rest of our team.

[Cmac2786]

Not a whole helluva lot to add that hasn't already been said so I will approach this differently. The GB and U has encompassed already any valid points I may have had, so taking into account our performance on the field concerning this game specifically, I will make suggestions for improvement.

Recon Team

There are several of us who are getting, perhaps not tired, but some of us derive little from front line play anymore. I'm looking at you Bob Haskins. The Slipper Bros, Todd and I collected a prop late in the game, and that was the only prop we got all day (Help Nelson). Granted, it wasn't our role, our role was to cover for other teams doing that. However, I learned from the Something Wicked team members that were on prop collection duty that they allocated a whole 4 people to collect props. Contrary to popular belief, many are scored without contest.

I suggest taking a team of 4-6 people interested in doing prop collection and related behind the scenes/lines activity and designating that team as a detachable force that will work almost exclusively with command. These people should have several qualities:

1) A decent marker. The quality of your weapon is a force multiplier when there are only a handful of combatants, so the better the marker, the better your chances.

2) Knowledge of the fields at Skirmish. This is our primary field, and as this team will be working closely with command, each member should be able to understand what the HQ means when they say "Go to the Pentagon and pick up the Fuel" etc etc.

3) Be willing and able to stay on the field for long periods of time. This team will not be spending inordinate amounts of time back at camp. In order to be effective, they need to be on the move from area to area, flipping flags and collecting props at their drop times. Also, as the force is small, sometimes it requires extra time to take the scenic route and avoid larger engagements and high-traffic areas. So, having the stamina and equipment necessary for long stints on the field is a must.

I believe we have enough people on HN who fit the bill. The difficultly arises in that many of these people, who may also be interested parties, are the same people who are Sergeants and above. Luckily, we're finally beginning to develop new leadership so this ought not be a long term issue.

The Radios

These largely didn't work. We reverted to cell phones near the end of the game. I don't know what the problem was, whether it was the quality of the radios or the lack of experience of the users therein, but something needs to be done. Our effectiveness will be magnified if the increasingly self-sufficient squads are in better contact (or any at all for that matter).



These are my only two points that hadn't already been mentioned in depth. Now, Kudos to all deserving parties:

Lydon: Company Commander seemed to be an unnerving job, but well done nonetheless. Also, organizing this off-field was a bitch, in aid of which I was no help. This is a team issue that is hindering our development, and I'm sure it will change.

Hackman: A well deserved promotion to officer. We didn't see much of each other on the day, as my squad volunteered for rear guard action or was detached most of the time but I hear good things.

The Slippers: I thought our squad held together pretty well, case in point when we pretty much held the rear of the Russian line by ourselves mid-afternoon against opposition 3-5 times our size. This is due in large part to the both your exceptional paintball IQ's and the exemplary use of your markers. Job well done.



As a final note, with the exception of my first ION (because who can replace their first time storming the beach?), this was my favorite event and also the event in which I thought Help Nelson performed most admirably. Excellent work everyone, and let's kick ass and take names at ION 2009!

[Stirfry]

The good....................................................................................................

*gasp* Todd's doing a AAR......

-Was very fun for me in general even though I never got into any real heavy firefights. Didn't mind wandering the backfield with the Asshole trying to find a tank to kill at all really.

- Also didn't mind not being organized into a platoon so that I could float in and out and help out whenever I A)came across HNers who needed it or when I was bored aka hanging with Carl and the Heaslips
I suppose I had two key moments during the game..

- Longballed a fucker through a tippman castle window from 50 ft away or so, with Asshole as my witness.
- Grabbing the heavy water with Carl and the heaslips was awesome even though it was easy.

- Also I guess throw in there when we were trying to defend the flag at the pentagon or whatever it was even though in the end we got owned.


The Bad...

-The law...or should i say Lawlz

-Friendly Fire from assholes who can't tell white from orange tape

-The whole Reiff thing...Meh

Overall I feel this time around it was far more organized and *flowing* than either of the two ION's I've been out. I had fun and that's the point

[grabnar117]

That was possibly the best paintball game I ever played in!

The Good:

-The whole team stayed together pretty well, I admit I did get seperated from the team a couple of times, but in all I thought we stayed and fought together as a unit pretty damn well compared to D-Day 08.

-Lydon was more than up to the task of leading the company. I know he was mad because he didn't have a radio to keep in touch with rest of the officers he wasn't standing next to, but without a doubt, he sis an awesome job.

-My Guts. Apparently I have gotten a lot more bold in 7-8 months. I will admit I wasn't the bravest soul under the Help Nelson banner at D-Day 08, but I was hell-bent on not holding back.

-Base defense was not boring. The second I realized that I unknowingly volunteered for base defense I dreaded it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Especially near the end after some guy was wigging out at the fact that people thought he was a German spy and his buddy had to shoot him six times and scream at him because he wouldn't move out of the way of the Russian insertion and thought he was going to take a shot at the general and the Red Hawks carrying the props.

-To the extent of my knowledge nobody lost anything or had any major or minor problems with their markers or any other equipment. I know that a lot of people in one place, people of oppertunity find it very easy to take things when nobody's looking.


The Bad:

-Wipers. I hate a certain kinds of people. Terrorists, Vegans, People who beat women, and Wipers. I hit two guys square when we were defending that little town with the fort near the center and even though we lost it and the points when we were falling back I hit two guys square in the chest and head, obvious breaks. They touched the hits hits, saw the paint on their hands, and wiped the paint right off and started shooting at me.

-Even though everyone else has already said it... the LAW was crap.

-This isn't so much a critizism as it is a compliment. I could not find Carl. I mean no disrespect, he did a great job fighting and leading our squad from what I heard and the little bit where I actually saw him and took orders from him and on the skirmish line and in the final charge he was awesome, but for the life of me everytime he gave me an order that wasn't "form up" I would go, carry out the order, and when I looked back, POOF!, Carl was gone in a cloud of smoke.

The Ugly:

-The only obvious thing... He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named betrayed us.(sorry Reiff )

[Lydon]

as an update...

I just mailed soul of the warrior, we should be getting word back on if they'll refund us shortly.