Week 5 DGL Match vs [grrr]Danglers on Panama Canal

Infantry:
Surv0
Eish Mamela
BushWeasel
shofixtie

Armour:
N4RCOlepsy
Grimlock_za
Lazersaurus
TheVovo

With a tough midweek practise behind the back, where we missed several of our core players. I was a bit concerned about how things were shaping up for Sunday nights game. With our warmup prac we just focussed on having an infantry scuffle over probably the most important flags, C. Up and down. Round the back. Think after that we were pretty confident that if anything happened we would be able to attack/defend C. We unfortunately didn’t have time to have armour battles over B. Another knock also came. LazerGunz was unable to play, then Rocket-Boy also asked to be substituted due to the problems he had been experiencing on the line he was playing on. While the team lineup did change unexpectedly. The armour squad was happy to welcome in the experience of Lazersaurus and N4RCOlepsy.

Panama Canal can be a tricky map. The Canal divides the playing area into two sides, C and D, A and B. Which can be used to your advantage in defending. If however you are working either side of the canal, traversing the areas inbetween can be problematic. Places where armour have battled can also be reduced to rubble in a short while, leaving you exposed and without cover. A and D are important as they are the flags closest to their respective teams deployment. Once you have that flag you are basically on their doorstep. B is a traditional armour battleground. With little cover for the vehicles, and the area around the flag being a deathtrap for vehicles leaving them fully exposed. C lends itself largely to infantry warfare. It has 3 levels, and lots of places around it which can be used to take refuge while you regroup.

A little before the game the alarms bells started ringing. People complaining about latency and being unhappy to play. Latencies affecting half the opposition team. Ranging from 200 – 300. We had a similar situation in our team. Problem seemingly stemming from MWeb uncapped accounts, and in our case a dodgy exchange.

Things settled down quick enough and we launched into action. First round was routine enough. There were slight deviations from the original plan. Just before the game had started I decided to change my loadout for the occassion. I chose to go with the Improved Warheads Package. I had intended to change back to my usual Alternate Weapon Package, but never did. It seemed to be working as the enemy armour was going down.

We managed to capture 3 of the 4 flags. Which allowed us to pin them back a bit. They did manage to sneak past us on occasion to cause us to fall back a bit to cover. It was a pretty good display. The oppositions use of AT mines was quite the annoyance. If you didn’t pay attention you were bound to be caught by them. It also served to slow us down in certain situations, which they benefitted from.

The second round started in a similar vain. We went out and managed to get hold of 3 flags. The problem was that we had managed to stretch ourselves too much. In a matter of minutes we went from having 3 flags to 1. Even managed to steal their armour a few times. Despite that they managed to fight back and give us a hard time. It was a really tough fight.

N4RCOlepsy says: “Was a sweet game. Last round was lekker tense.”
Lazersaurus had a similar comment: “First round was textbook, second round got a bit hairy at the end.”

This leads us into the last week of the competition, with two games left to play. Both are new maps, Nelson Bay and Port Valdez. Its going to be interesting.