TAW SCENARIOS

Well, now that the event is done I thought I would take a few moments to give a bit of an After Actions Review of my experience at Decay of Nations III.

I was the General for the UNA army so this will be coming from that perspective.

When we rolled in on Friday, it was great to see many familiar faces…. some from recent and some from the past. We camped over by the SW Regs which was a blast because they provided a lot of entertainment! LOL Friday late afternoon I got with the staff to do a walk through with me to show me where the bases were and such…. where they had our base (UNA) was originally positioned in Laos…. however, even they could not find the UNA base because of how dense the vegetation was… we were out there for over an hour and after getting lost, it was decided to move the UNA base over near the POW camp… however, the whole field was still in play. After seeing where everything was on the field, we headed up to Clowntown for some grub. All I can say is, THANK YOU to the Clowns for cooking up grub for everyone… that was spot on! I then picked up my player packet and paint. It was also VERY humid which had me concerned about the paint. Pogo NTC (Ekron General) and I had a chance to hang out as well and went over General stuff for awhile…. good times.

Saturday

As I was prepping to head to the stage for the morning briefing, the heat and humidity was really uncomfortable. Again, my concern was for the paint and how it would shoot. In my experience, even high quality paint has a problem with getting gummy, bouncing and not breaking when the temperature and humidity is high….. especially when the paint is in that type of temperature environment for any good length of time. We headed to the stage and had the safety briefing with everyone then after the meeting, I got a chance to address the UNA troops then prep for game on. As we were getting ready at our CP for game on, I was very much concerned about no arm band tape. I was told that we would just be using the Player ID cards as the identifying factor, however, we quickly learned within moments of game on that that was ineffective as players from the previous DONs had past Player ID Cards on them…. so there were players that had both Blue and Red cards. We also saw and heard that there was a considerable amount of friendly fire because people could not tell who was on what side. I would definitely agree that there should be some better marking of the players on this. There were little issues here and there throughout the day from a logistical side but nothing that could be handled. One issue that we had was our tanks…. OCMI did an awesome job bring out their two cool tanks but we quickly found that there was a problem with how to insert them without….. for a while, players on the Ekron side were rightfully frustrated because they (The Ekron players) owned the city and the tanks would get inserted at the city and that was not fair to the Ekron players. Pogo wanted the tanks pulled and we even had a meeting with Dennis to determine what to do with the tanks. Later in the day, the OCMI tank drivers were able to maneuver their tanks through the brush all the way back to our base to respawn. We were stoked to see that the tanks could finally be used and that because they had to drive all the way back and wait 10 minutes to respawn that it made things more fair. BOTH generals had tanks/vehicles (motorized and non motorized) and BOTH generals had Metadyne rocket launchers issued to them by the field to kill the tanks. It would have been nice to see more launchers out on the field though. Again, these are minor issues. The UNA finally really gelled as a force by mid afternoon on Saturday as UNA players stepped up more for role playing and missions. Many of them were gracious enough to allow me the opportunity to have them do some crazy missions and such out in the middle of no where like out at FO. My army had a lot of heart especially after being swarmed on by the Ekron troops earlier in the day and despite the heat, humidity and everything else, they continued to fight on and in great spirits. Pogo NCT and I had our hands full as generals in many ways with many different challenges, but we did the best we could with what we had and I personally had a blast the entire time. By night play, I was pretty beat but was ready for the following days battle.

Sunday

Again is was a hot and humid day…. but it did not seem as bad as before. However, we do know players were having issues with the paint being gummy and bouncing. But it did not seem to stop the majority of the players from playing. Right away we had missions and role playing happening…. it was cool to see many new players and teams step up to do those things…. it wakes for great experience. The UNA army did a fantastic job scouring the field for props. By early Sunday, we had Fuel, Super Rice, 4 huge bags of “moon rocks” and 4 downed Ekron pilots….. all at one time! We also had a Nuke which we used one on Saturday and then controlled one of them on Sunday. All in all, for props, our army (The UNA) really kept their eyes open and gained control quickly of them. Both Saturday and Sunday it seemed as if the majority of the battles took place in the city (Beirut) and the village (North Vietnam) and it was cool hearing those battles happening from a distance. The final battle was a riot!!! T-Devil stepped in for Pogo for the final battle and it was awesome to see both the UNA & Ekron duking it out til the end. Ekron did a hell of a job keeping my UNA forces busy!

When the final battle (Blood Bath) was done, I wanted to make sure to congratulate and thank the Ekron army for being an incredible force to oppose as well as congratulate and thank my UNA army for being amazing army to lead.

It was great to recognize during the award ceremony those who went the extra mile and it was great to see how well the sponsors stepped up and donated the wonderful prize package that was donated for the players.

I will be getting with Dennis and Gio regarding logistical and production notes that can help make the next Decay of Nations (4) be even better!

Thanks and Happy 25th Anniversary to SC Village, Dennis and Giovanni for having such a great place to play and allowing me the opportunity to step out of a producer role and get to General! I had a fantastic time!

Thanks to Pgo NTC and ALL the players on the Ekron army for keeping me and my troops busy all weekend. You had a hell-of-a great group of teams and players and it was a pleasure to face off against you guys.

Thanks to ALL my troops on the UNA side for supporting me as your General and it was without a doubt and HONOR to serve with all of you. A General is nothing without the dedication, motivation, determination and loyalty of those that fall under his command and a General is only as good as those that serve under and with him. From the single uber-noobies, to the young teams, the seasoned ballers to the veteran scenario players, the speedballers to the MILSIMers to the OCMI tank drivers….. this victory was secured by YOU…. and it was a pleasure and an honor and I look forward to the next time when we can take to the field once again!

No matter what, no matter the issues, no matter the outcomes, etc…. take from each game whether it is a tournament, rec-day, big game, rogue game or full blown scenario…. don’t get wrapped in the small stuff and take the best experiences with you. Offer solutions to problems rather than get wrapped up in them.

Until the next time…..be safe, have fun, play honorably and see you in the middle!

Best Regards,

Damian
UNA General