RRF/Malton Herald & Sun/Text/Text0307right

Editor's Note: Continued from the left-column

In the meantime, we'd started getting some notice over at Desensitized. Jacquie, our oldest and most beloved opponent, started a thread concerning the situation in Ridleybank. She had been strafing into Moggridge to fight us, but realized that we were a bit more than the typical spontaneous microhorde. Her 'Situation in Ridleybank' thread would go on to become one of the most useful survivor threads ever, as she expanded it into a continually updated intelligence thread for the downtown area.

This also started one of the more famous relationships in the game, as Grim's character Gorbonzo developed a deep and sincere affection for Jacquie's character Maggie, leading to page after page of chatter between the two of them, as he tried to woo her away from her nasty harman friends.

Back to Ridleybank, one of our early running jokes was that survivors should join us because we had a book club, a singles dating service, and SQUARE DANCING. Well, the first-ever meeting of the book club came after the fall of Moggridge. I picked the Caswill Lane School for the meeting, and sixty to seventy zombies descended on the school, tearing down the barricades and devouring the one unfortunate survivor inside.

This kicked off a general bloodbath, as we began systematically debarricading and crushing all the targets in the suburb. First we took resource buildings, then we took everything else. Finally, we had cleansed Ridleybank of all the smelly, unwashed harmanz, and we needed a new objective.

That objective was Nichols Mall...

A raid across the borders

• Taken from an account by Papa Petro himself

Nichols was funny because we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. Very few of us had ever had anything to do with a mall siege, and we didn't know siegecraft the way we do now. We just went rumbling on down, hitting Nichols like a tidal wave, taking down the barricades as AP allowed, charging in singly, in twos and threes, etc. The defenders had no concept either, and would leave the doors open, bodies uncleared, etc., as they gunned down whoever came inside.

Nichols was also where we started using propaganda. Obviously, it was a staging point for attacks on Ridleybank, but we never bothered coming up with any evidence of that. We just declared it a terrorist outpost, essentially, and slammed into it.

Nichols Mall Continued

• Taken from an account by Papa Petro himself

We had no intention of hitting the mall, but the defenders had thrown up Operation Nichols Shield, and we loved poking the occasional stick into that anthill. The best part was the complete lack of understanding of Brigade standard MO, fade instead of being shot, which resulted in several bodies being left on the floor that the defenders assumed belonged to the zombies making the breach instead of the kills they'd made. (If the Nichols Shield wiki page is still around, it was reported as a 'no casualties for survivors' affair.)

Another one we pulled with Nichols was when both Grim and I would wander around outside there, catching XP headshots that did nothing to us, just to mess with their heads. There was more than one report on Desens about how 'Petro is at Nichols! The horde is coming!'

(This was how Grim also jumped from solidly behind me in the death standings to heavily ahead, since he was engaged in legitimate scouting operations in the area. Legitimate scouting operations that just so happened to involve him getting gunned down constantly...)

The Formation of the RRF Groups: Petro

• Taken from an account by Papa Petro himself

Alright!

I shall end much speculation now, as we chart our course for the newly liberated suburb of Ridleybank, which has been largely purged of the unlawful human elements that have plagued our more perfect society.

First, everyone pat yourselves on the back. Those temporarily without arms, seek a friend to pat you on the back, because the Horde takes care of its own.

We have not only broken the back of human resistance in Ridleybank, but we cleaned out a nest of aggressors in the nearby mall, who were assaulting our innocent citizens as they proceeded about their day.

Now, how does one organize chaos, you ask?

And I answer!

With simple math skills!

We will subdivide the horde into two groups.

These two groups will be named, oddly enough, Group One and... oh, get this... wait for it... Group TWO.

Every poster shall alternate in this fashion...

I... am Group One.

The next poster will be in... Group Two.

The next poster after that will be... (you're smart people, you no doubt have discerned the pattern) Group One.

Grim will then organize and list the Groups.

At any given time, one group will be busy patrolling Ridleybank, tearing down barricades, and attacking any armed human trespassers, while the second group will be assaulting the bases and stronghouses of our militant neighbors. Every three or four days, the groups rotate, so we defend our home and act proactively against those who would harm us.

And... Group 1 will be defending this time around, Group 2 continues the cleansing of Stanbury.

Commence!

The Formation of the RRF Groups: Barbecue

• Taken from an account by Group 2 Leader, Barbecue

I of course quickly declared my allegiance to Group 2, to take the fight to the harmanz.

Barbecue wrote:I shall join the valorous Group 2, and lead the jihad against the human oppressers!

Things just sort of formed out of chaos, and we quickly gained a sense of order. Joining the Groups was switched to a voluntary system, with a special thread in the Recruitment section of the forum; although most people ignored it and joined in the Group threads, causing Grim no end of frustration :P

We decided to keep our orders and plans and such completely open, as Petro put so eloquently:

Petrosjko wrote:We maintain our cheerful utter lack of security and arrogant displays of power.

And as our ranks continued to swell at dizzying speed, the Ridleybank Resistance Front swept forth amongst the harmanz and began to forge the grand reputation that is ours today.

The Formation of the RRF Groups: Petro II

• Taken from an account by Papa Petro himself

Yeah, Barbecue and Fima started the original group coordination threads at Desensitized, and so they were tabbed for leadership for taking the initiative.

We formed the groups precisely because Nichols folded like an accordion, and the concern was that we would steamroll everything we hit so easily that we'd lose challenge in the game. There were a lot of people who felt we were dluting our power and 'oh shit effect' from breaking down into two sixty-zombie groups, but we were still recruiting like mad and eventually each group would, for a while, both be larger by themselves than any other horde besides the Scourge.

So we'd taken our first real steps outside of Ridleybank, and still the rolling ball of chaos, destruction, and squaredancing continued unstoppably onward. Our first real hiccup would come at Hildebrand Mall, in what was to become known as the 'Timer fiasco'.

Oopsie.