Filed by Samuel”Predator” Zentner
Fort San Miguel, Monterey
AAR: This was a Marauder against Marauder game
It was about 0730hrs on Sunday September 13, 1998
Maj.D.Saster had just arrived at the field. It was not his standard procedure to arrive at the field quite this early, but he knew there was a chance that Predator might not arrive until after noon and he wanted to get set up and have time to sit back and relax.
Renegade and Mrs. Renegade checked in, but they could not stay as they had other places to be that day. There would be no Mama’Sans Kitchen. Brutal Bob drove in bringing the soon to be Mrs. Brutal and Steven. They were followed by Sandman, and then Brain and Brain’s friend Joe.
We all sat around for awhile wondering what kind of turnout we were going to have for the day when Druid showed up. And then to everyone’s surprise, Predator unexpectedly came rolling in somewhat earlier than anticipated! Eventually a total of ten players made it to the field over the course of the day. Sometime in the afternoon Landon, a local independent player, showed up to even out the player count at five against five.
Head for the Hill
Predator, Maj.D.Saster, Druid and Joe made up one team while Brain, Brutal Bob, Sandman, Steven, and Skittles, who is an independent player and former SC Dogpound associate made up the other team.
In game one the 1st squad with Joe walked up to Fort San Miguel, taking one of the field radios with them. This would be a familiar scenario. Four guys would hold the base and five guys would try to take it away from them.
Once on the hill, the defenders had to decide how they could best hold this ridgeline of trenches and pits with only four men. They decided to base their defense in the field area behind the main trench-line and to stay close together so that they could concentrate their gunfire.
As the assault team came in from the field under the high-tension lines and approached the fort, nothing happened!
The garrison was sitting behind the trench line in the shadows under bushes, waiting for the assault team to come up over the edge of the ridge from the big ditch and into the fortress area. After the battle Brain commented,
“It was kind of weird to come in that close and have no one shooting at you!”
The assault team spotted some of the garrison’s positions and began lobbing in the long-ball shots from out in the field as they continued their advance towards the ridgeline. One player fired off several rounds at Maj.D.Saster, who could see the balls as they came in towards him on their long arching trajectories. At this range, most of the incoming rounds just landed harmlessly around him. A few rounds came in so close that he could hear the zip of the balls as they passed by, barely missing him. After the game, Maj.D.Saster said,
“I just tried to remain still, thinking that if he didn’t see any reaction, then maybe he might think he was just shooting at shadows”.
Sandman had gotten up onto the ridge and had worked his way into the fortress area, actually crossing over the main trench-line towards the garrison team’s main line of defense.
To counter Sandman’s move, Predator advanced into the main trench-line and was soon engaged in a shoot-out with Sandman. Somehow, both players managed to eliminate each other.
Joe took a hit and was eliminated at about the same time and it is a possible that Sandman had something to do with eliminating Joe. But that is just speculation around headquarters, based on the near geographic proximity as well as the timing of these events.
The threat of Sandman in the fort had been eliminated but the garrison had lost two men. Maj.D.Saster got up and moved into some better cover and eventually got into the main bunker pit where Druid soon joined him. Druid stayed to hold the main bunker area while Maj.D.Saster ran up the main trench to the upper pit. As he climbed up out of the large pit and down into one of the smaller pits that overlook the edge of the ridge, he came under fire from elements of the assault team who were out in the field. As he stood up and fired back at them, he saw his antagonists duck for cover among the bushes, so he rolled out of the small pit and slid down into the ditch that runs along the front of the Fort San Miguel ridgeline. Without stopping, he crawled along the ditch until he was behind a thick clump of brush and directly under the gun-ports of the Bravo bunker.
Druid was now occupying “Boxcar’s Bunker” and could see Maj.D in the ditch below him. There was a lot of incoming rounds from at least two assault force guys out in the field but his defensive fire was forcing them to keep their distance.
Maj.D.Saster looked up over his shoulder and could see the co2 muzzle-flash of Druid’s gun from within the small fort. From what seemed like just a few feet in front of him, he could hear the attacker’s voices as well as their gunfire. Sitting in the bottom of the ditch and watching to make sure he was not followed, he listened to gunshots from in front of him and from behind. The paintballs hissed back and forth as they cut through the air just above him, so close that he had to remind himself that those guys did not know he was there, just a few feet in front of them. They were too busy shooting at Druid in the bunker.
“I’m out of ammo!”
he heard one of the attackers say, and soon caught sight of one of the assault team guys leaving the field, then figured this was probably good of a time as any to do something. Creeping further out along the ditch, Maj.D.Saster was attempting to get around the flank of the assault team while they were focused on shooting it out with Druid.
Meanwhile, coming up the road from the bivouac area was Brain. He was on his way back to the game after gun trouble had forced him to disengage from the battle, when he encountered the assault team player that had run out of ammo. Knowing that you need every gun on your team for an assault to be successful Brain did what any good Sarge would do, he gave the guy some ammo!
Now they would come in as a two-man squad, which from a tactical point of view was much better than coming in as an individual sniper! As the two-man assault team advanced towards the battle-zone they spotted a figure at the end of ditch. Brain halted and cried out;
“Hey! That’s Maj.D.Saster!”
As Maj.D.Saster brought his gun around to shoot, Brain and his wingman opened fire at the same time. They had caught D.Saster out in open at the end of the ditch and there was not much in the way of defendable cover he could reach in a hurry. The whole action lasted only a few seconds and feeling several sharp impacts, Maj.D called himself out.
From his vantage point in the bunker, Druid had observed the entire action as Brain’s adhoc rifle squad eliminated Maj.D.Saster and knew he was now holding the fort on his own. But there was only one of him and at least four of them, so it was just a matter of time for the assault team to finish him off and end the game