The Chest-scenario - Feedback and speculation

[meborc]

This is how the treasure scenario looked like through the eyes of a Vishna-Ghrim warrior

At first I need to point out that our feelings and motivation, before the scenario started, were very low. We felt that we (the mercenaries) again were the cannon-meat. That there is no way we can win this scenario. So probably this is why it felt so good when we reached the finish point.

Now about the finish point. It was clearly said in Finnish (and English) that the mercenaries have to carry the chest to the location of the forest fight last night. The mercenaries DID NOT KNOW where the English or French troops need to carry the chest, so if we had lost the chest, we would have had no means to find it again. So it was a little unfair, wouldn't you say?

So our leader came up with a simple, yet effective plan how we might have a chance at victory. The plan was to scatter the mercenaries troops and fool the English and French to think the chest is somewhere where it was not. Our thanks to the heroes, who died early in the scenario to let the El Muerte guys take the chest to the forest.

We (Vishna-Ghrim) made a screen for the chest carriers. We moved on the rocks and scared off any scouts who could have reported the chest location. At the early stage of the scenario, RÄMÄ got really close to the chest, but as they were fighting the French, they didn't have the time to look around

The chest carriers were excellent, thumbs up to you guys. It was really heavy as i found out myself. I carried it a while in the end, but then it fell on my knee and i was too slow to keep on going. The sensation of winning the scenario was overwhelming. Probably because the chance of surviving had seemed so small.

we shall always remember the heroes that died on the field, protecting the real location of the chest with their souls. This was without a doubt the best scenario of SH07 to me. Thanks to all!

[Ugrik]

The best moment for me in this scenario was when we encountered snakeman (perrkeleen pojat?) fewhunded meters before finishpoint. When they were far i thought that rämä and english have found us finally just before the end and our hard work still failed but when we recognized our fellow mercs it was such a huge moraleboost - you could really see happiness, hope and glitter in the eyes of men and i think im not far off if i say that treasure carriers managed to double their speed even though they were tired.

BTW i think i saw english banner and army on the hilltop near droppoint - what they were doing there and how many of them where left at this point?

And again - thanx for all the MERC groups who made it possible or how Hannibal Smith from A-Team would say :"I like when the plan commes together"

[Gnomus]

Actually English had found you and had still large (larger than yours) group of soldiers after killing french and rest of mercenaries. There were four marked points in the area, and those who were left were waiting for you to come to the victory point so they could kill you. Alas, they were in wrong point, because instruction about your victory point given to english weren't clear.

Not to take any honour fron your hard work and efective screaning (it took lot of time to find the chest), but english were quite dissapointed after scenario because we didn't win because of unclear scenarioinformation.

[Ugrik]

Its sad to hear that. Still - you had pretty good general directions and when you werent sure about correct victory point i believe noone denied you the right to come right at us when you knew where the arc was

From what you said you knew about the whereabouts of actual droppoint to?

[saloneju]

After the big disappointment of the loss of england in the scenario, it is so nice to hear the mercenaries view of the scenario. Makes me almost glad that you did it to the end

[Bernard]

Every battle plan has to be as simple as possible and as elaborate as necessary to have a chance at victory. But it should RARELY be something more difficult than "go from point A to point B - kill enemy at my command" for a common soldier.

Our instructions to the merc groups where simple:

After the first kill (special thanks to our kamikaze team)

* Every group scatter in different directions.
* Make for the target area via different routes
* Make as much noise in the woods as you can - draw pursuit
* If you reach target area - wait - if chest appears, rush forward and entangle enemies trying to intercept it.

--

This plan meant that merc's would scatter on a large area not giving English and French the possibility of a directed heavy attack (the thing at which they where better than us). Also the element of confusion could be used to our advantage (no offense - your big armies get confused easily and A LOT).

Also since every merc leader had a general idea what to do, but was not dependent on other groups to do it - there was no need for complicated communication and/or cooperation plans (which would not have worked anyway because of differences in training, equipment and manpower).

Still the beauty of this plan was that every merc group was making for the same target which (besides even more confusing the enemy) would mean that at some point or other there would be a relatively big force of mercs occupying or stalking the target area - thus giving at least a slight chance of fighting the chest through.


Vishna-Ghrim and El-Muerte where playing a whole different game. El-Muerte's task was to carry the chest as fast as they could, cross-country to the target area. VG made the cover for them and ensured that if the chest would fall into either French or English hands, the other side would get to know about it and know where the chest is. So we stalked the chest.

Also as meborc described we where scouting and screening the El-Muerte's movement. And as it turned out, our presence was enough to scare off most curious eyes. Prior knowledge of the terrain (we scouted it for hours, Friday evening) and navigation skills came handy.

All-in-all the plan worked like a charm - as has been told before.

---

About knowing enemy locations:

I think the fairest way would have been that every side knows only their own target area, and has to find out themselves where the enemy is (or would be) taking the chest.

General experience and now specific knowledge about Sotahuuto, tells me that you should be careful when taking the information given by GM's as pure truth. When they give you information about the enemy they might outright lie to you, deceive you, bend the truth a bit, not exactly know themselves or have some miscommunication between them. Also there always is the probability that GM's got it right but the opponent didn't so once again the intel turns out to be incorrect.

Take the information about the enemy, you get from GM's, as guidelines, a basis to start your own scouting from.

Estimation is the mother of all fuck-ups (excuse my French). Don't estimate - know. If you don't know - find out.

---

Once again - my deepest thanks to all the merc groups you were the true heroes of this scenario, providing the necessary cover and making our actions A LOT easier. My special praise to "The Hobbits" for carrying the burden with so much commitment and trusting in us.

As I have heard, the English could kick some French butt and French could redecorate some English faces, so all-in-all I think everybody was having fun.

And that's what matters.

[saloneju]

As I have heard, the English could kick some French butt and French could redecorate some English faces, so all-in-all I think everybody was having fun.

And that's what matters.

Now this is the very essense of this whole conversation

[Leldin]

I think it was part of England leaders misunderstanding about this scenario.

Our scouts first did notice that chest is with you (estonia) and then they did bring us info about where you move. Misunderstanding did come when our leaders ask did they see chest and answer was no.

After few more min and hard looking we did find you estonian again and saw El muerto and some more, don't remember which group there was. Then we knew all the time where chest was, we did send info to main group but they were I guess too much busy with french or something. So when you did cross first road, we did leave area and return maingroup and needed to scream to all that chest is there. After that we started move towards you and noticied your victorypoint (the wrong one) logical was wait that you come up but.. you never came... and then it was over.

But really nice job on carrying that heavy chest in that hard forest.

Don't know then was the wrong in scouting (I thought we did really nice job in scouting) or where it was.

ps, sorry for bad english

[Archibald]

Your confusion tactics worked good. Actually, too good I say as French.

We (Entalia) got different information about the chest. Then at one point, someone said the English had the chest (behind Maahinkainen) so we assaulted Maahinkainen and Rutto with SOS - huge losses, and what? They thought that the French had the chest in the direction behind us! There we sat down confused, at least 30 dead soldiers in a bunch from both sides.


-a

[JonTzu]

We (Entalia) got different information about the chest. Then at one point, someone said the English had the chest (behind Maahinkainen) so we assaulted Maahinkainen and Rutto with SOS - huge losses, and what? They thought that the French had the chest in the direction behind us! There we sat down confused, at least 30 dead soldiers in a bunch from both sides.

At least Maahinkainen tried to avoid direct fighting. We considered even killing the french a loss for us as every man out there was a man looking for the chest that we knew the mercenaries had. But alas, you were hell-bent on attacking us and had to die.

As others have stated in the end we knew where the chest was but were standing on the point that we thought was the merc destination. In the end the marked point was not used for anything.

[Dan]

There were four marked points in the area, and those who were left were waiting for you to come to the victory point so they could kill you. Alas, they were in wrong point, because instruction about your victory point given to english weren't clear.

Not to take any honour fron your hard work and efective screaning (it took lot of time to find the chest), but english were quite dissapointed after scenario because we didn't win because of unclear scenarioinformation.

I heard same topic after this scenario. It wasn't the gamemasters mistake, but, as *i* understood the players were told the right location of the merc. victory point but they THEMSELVES went to the wrong point.

Even if there would have been people in the right victory point, there was quite a bunc of mercs protecting the arc also But fortunately everything went as was planned.

Many thanks to these mercs who died for making confusion among lö fräönch and english soldiers. In Valhalla we feast together !

[Satanisti Pappi]

Yes merc did really good work with the chest and it was our mistake that we (English) stood on the wrong point (it was the french risk point ) we shouldnt tried to take that wictory so easily. We had scouts that watched after the chest but still our main force was standing on wrong point. We should have come to the chest instead of waiting it... still im not sure of that would we won the fight because of the merc. There were still estonians and muerte... but good work and I hope that the treasure tasted good

sorry of my english as well

[Ugrik]

In the end i think MERC side had 10 Vishas, El Muerte, EXP (dead packman group?) and about 10 Perkeleen men. Or so i remember it

I wonder how GMs would have decided if we (mercs) would have rushed through english shieldwall and droped the chest in the point and lost all or most men doing it

[Satanisti Pappi]

That would be of course your victory or so i would see it... And yes you did have at least 35 men then so we might had some problems to get you down and if we would win i wonder could we taken the chest to our point... But as I said you did good work and you earned your victory

[JonTzu]

Yes merc did really good work with the chest and it was our mistake that we (English) stood on the wrong point (it was the french risk point )

It was not. The point wasn't used at all. It was supposed to be used for Risk but wasn't used at all.

But hey, great work by mercenaries anyway. As we knew where the chest was and outnumbered our enemies we have no one but ourselves to blame for not reacting.

[Pahistonttu]

Jontzu are you really sure that you werent waiting us in your own or french victorypoint? I think it was marked like that in the map...

[Leldin]

ye it wasen't use for anything. after Risk started we almost did get there.. untill some sayd that gm is taking those marks away

[JonTzu]

Jontzu are you really sure that you werent waiting us in your own or french victorypoint? I think it was marked like that in the map...

I am certain. We had checked our own point in the beginning of the scenario and fought the last remnants of remaining opponents near the French point. The point we were guarding was intended for the Risk scenario but was removed for no apparent reason.

[gobliini]

All in all, the scenario was a lot of fun, even though we were sitting in a wrong point. Our strenght was something like 15 from maahinkainen, 15 from rämä, few (5?) lads from rutto. Perhaps still a few other lads but our strenght was around that. If we would have encountered your merc force the ending result would have been a really tight mach. Perhaps there would have been just one last man standing on the chest and cursing the fackt that he only has one hand left... good luck with carrying the chest...
-Aki

[N.Hirvelä]

All in all, the scenario was a lot of fun, even though we were sitting in a wrong point. Our strenght was something like 15 from maahinkainen, 15 from rämä, few (5?) lads from rutto. Perhaps still a few other lads but our strenght was around that. If we would have encountered your merc force the ending result would have been a really tight mach. Perhaps there would have been just one last man standing on the chest and cursing the fackt that he only has one hand left... good luck with carrying the chest...
-Aki

I think same, that it would have been very tight, because Auerbach-Galens did have 5 men alive in somewhere woods and 3 with chest and there was also many other men with chest (and some in woods), so it would have been very tight match.

[Oravainen]

Since I, atleast, am grateful for that bottle of coca-cola handed to us Tura after the scenario for our "good work" (i.e. getting like totally pwned by Kuola at the opposite end of the area) I'd like to thank here the Estonians screening El Muerte (end El Muerte themselves of course). Although this posting was completely unnecessary, but, hey this conversation has only been about bragging how cool the scenario was.

anyway, it was quite fun to watch from where everyone of us had been slaughtered to watch the last french bowman aiming his last two arrows towards that lonely merc figthing that lonely english. But atleast we had drawn some attention away from the chest. Not for too long, but still...

now that I think of it, the scenario was really cool, with the mercs stalking all around the woods. That was a nice staright-forward plan