On September 27th, most of the Ravens (Nick, Mason, Gabe, Blake, Alex, Ryan, and I (Derek)) went to Napa to play against a team called 'A-Squad'. Their field is deep in the hills of American Canyon, CA. We met at the base of the hill, loaded our gear into trucks, and convoyed up to the field.
A-Squad's field is much better than Dead Man's hill. At least three times the size, it is densely wooded and has cool rock formations for cover. This field is very reminiscent of our old IVC field, for those who ever played there.
A-Squad outnumbered us 11-7. They are almost all at least 19 years old, and have a very reliable armory, including two snipers. You could say that we were a bit outmatched.
Our first game went very well, much better than we had expected. Ravens started atop the hill, and A-Squad at the densely wooded foot of the hill. Within the first five minutes, the Assault Squad had eliminated at least three A-Squad members, and the Recon squad was moving down the hill to flank. Unfortunately, A-Squad managed to surround the Ravens' Recon Squad, eliminating me (Derek). Alex and Ryan retreated and rendezvoused with Assault Squad, and together they defeated the remaining A-Squad members. The only other casualty was Alex.
Unfortunately, this is where things went downhill for us.
The next game we switched sides. When the game started, Assault moved up through the right side of the hill, and the Recon Squad took the left side. Recon moved up along the edge of the hillside, and managed to advance all the way to A-Squad's starting point with little opposition. Almost all of A-Squad went the other direction, where Assault Squad was. Nick informed Recon Squad (over the radio) that they were pinned down by a sniper, and Gabe's, Mason's, and Nick's guns had failed. After they took out the A-Squad sniper, everyone had been hit but Blake. Blake met up with Recon Squad, who were pushed back to a tree bunker. A-Squad's ten players had little trouble eliminating our remaining four players.
The final two games we played were speed games played in the rock formations on top of the hill. Mason sat this game out, leaving us with 6 players, and only three working AEGS. A-Squad still had eleven players, all with working guns. It wasn't much of a contest for them, and we never stood a chance the last two games.
All in all, we had a blast playing with A-Squad. We only wish that our guns had held up the whole time. We plan on playing A-Squad again in the near future.
