Squad Play at its Finest. A guide to surviving the mess called War!

The game play on Squad is a very realistic experience.  If you suffer from PTSD I would recommend not playing it as it will probably make you lose your shit.  Squad is a battle field simulator that encourages strongly team work.  They did a fantastic job setting up the in game sounds to reflect the real thing.  The models are fantastic as well as the terrain layout.   The weapons platforms follow a realism stance and not a suped up lambo your crackhead father left to your asshole brother. (Black Ops 3)

The goal for the Devs seems to be be immersion.  They want the most realistic feel that you can achieve in a game.  If you want to immerse yourself then I strongly recommend it.  Now onto the review.

Twisted

Listed, Greeneyedghost and I played it for most of the day yesterday.  We had a fantastic time running a squad and leading our team to victory.  The control systems are definitely still in alpha.  They need to be cleaned up just a tad but they work.

We tried playing in other peoples squads but the communications they have and use drove me to the brink of drinking in the early AM.  They talk about things that violate the first 9 blogs that I have written.  We had enough, at that point Listed and I decided to break out on our own.  We had the basics down it was time to lead men into battle.  Listed would run the communications with other squad leaders, something else that gave me a headache which would free me up to lead the squad.  We were able to do some pretty amazing things with a group of PUGS. (Randoms group members)  Once they got the feel our how we run the squad they came back over multiple games to rejoin our squad.  They loved the way that we would run our squad.  They loved how we communicate and at one point one guy even asked if we were war veterans.  He told me "man you really know you shit."

I took it as a complement meaning he was having a good time.  Having Listed run the squad coms  gave me the ability to focus on running the fire team.  We were able to infiltrate an enemy base to the point we opened fire with hand grenades.  It was a bloody mess but it was fucking awesome.  Its all about communication.  You have to sternly tell your squads directions and tell them what the greater plan is.  It wasn't all success yesterday like any leader learning a new battle field, I put us in fucking terrible positions several times.  We were never wiped out though.  Lets be clear on that.  We had to reposition and the guys did fantastic listening to directions and for the most part interpreting and following them.  

Position, Position, Position.  If you don't have it you will lose every time.  If you don't have it you need to find a way to get it.  If that means disengage the enemy and fucking run, you haul ass.  If they have the high ground and your in the reaping box.  Dodge that shit by putting your ass towards it and run the fuck like your mothers virginity is at stake.  Otherwise you will meet our good friend Allah probably via the receiving end of an RPG. (Happened to me yesterday)

Use your squad and maneuver to where you have the advantage and utilize that.  I was able to flank a group of 5 guys engaging my squad while they were building a FOB.  I thankfully was packing a SAW and I used it to mow them down like a fucking forest.  Solo work in squad is a challenge because your usually facing 9 man squads that are actually working as a team.  You can usually get 2 or so but then the rest will shit on you.

Overall I will give it an 8/10.  The downfall is the wonky medical and interaction system that needs polish.  The over game play is good and the sounds are fucking amazing.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

The 7 P's as it was referred to in the Marine Corps.  This blog will talk about properly planning a strategic strike on an enemy base and then executing that plan.  The goal is to survive contact with the enemy and facilitate the missions objectives without failing.  This op plan was for an enemy team in ARK.  We setup this plan to crush the enemy.  Get creative with your planning as that is what will pay off in the long run.

But the lesson to learn is no matter how much planning you do, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.  So stay flexible and stay tactical and you will prevail.  The intent was to record this raid but we ended up just pulling it off with 4 guys.

To read the whole blog Series go here.  www.fistfps.blogspot.com


The Mission:  Clear to and Breach The Warriors Vault which is located inside their wooden base.

The Operation

9 of our people will be split into 3 teams.   We will have one team consisting of the distraction team while the second team will be the insertion and the last being the sapper/extract team.

The teams will be as follows:

Team 1: Distraction or TREX team will consists of 2 members on Dino's with Stalker as the team leader in a sniper hide on over watch.

Team 2: Will Consist of Mark, Chris, Myself and Dan.  We will be on 2 throw away argentavises and will insert upon command from operation leader.

Team 3: Will consist of one bird with max weight carrying the "Sapper" or C4 Breacher

The Plan:

Each team will go to its staging position shown in the pictures.  Once in your position the over watch will take his position and then direct the operation from his POV.

He will initiate the assault by whispering the main raid leader and giving the green light to begin operation.  The T1 will then approach the gate and attempt a breach in the outer wall next to the gate.  See picture.

Once the TREX team is going to make as much noise as possible to draw defenders into fighting them off at the gate.  We will attempt to lure out the 148 TREX away from the main base compound.  If we can kill it with consistent sniper fire then that is the plan for that.

Once the defenders are drawn towards the outer wall to defend T2 Will be given authority to execute.  the 4 man team will land on the upper level of the base and begin to breach and clear using grenades the wooden walls and doorways.  Once access is made into the base the main going of that team is to locate and eradicate any beds that they might find.

Once we clear to the vault breacher team will call in the Sapper.  Skycrane will deploy the sapper to follow breacher team in then commence operation nut cracker.  We will blase the enemy vault until it pops then retrieve the goodies.  Once the safe is cracked sapper and 2 of the breach team will begin to load up the goodies into SKYCRANE and any of the remaining argentavis' from the initial mission launch.  If TREX team has cleared the field of enemy opposition then TREX team will guard the entrance until the loot is loaded and gone or make themselves available to pack the loot out as well.

This will be televised raid to be used in a blog post to that I am going to write about mission buildup and plan execution with a strong reminder that no plan survives contact with the enemy.