LUEshi's Rangers/Campaign Journal

A Concise Account of Malton

LUEshi's Company of Rangers on Campaign

Journal of Captain Loup Garou

The Beginning

I've spent the vast majority of my time in Malton as part of the undead. I started as a fireman and was quickly killed due to incompetence and, because of further incompetence, I didn't know I could be revived. That's what it is to be a newbie. But after a number of years of that including stints with the RRF, the LUE horde, and LUEshi's Undead. At one point, I found myself combat revived. I became proficient with every survivor skill and thought I'd give killing humans as a human a shot. It was the most fun I'd ever had playing the game. People just don't get into the zombie-human conflict as much. Nobody really blames humans for shooting zombies or zombies for chewing on humans. It's just what they do. But, if you shoot another human? Things explode. I remember this one guy and I played cat and mouse for weeks. He'd kill me, I'd kill him, he'd kill me again. I learned the standard PKer tactics by accident at this time. Using them, I succeeded in killing him 4 times in a row after which I never saw him again. I assume he got while the getting was good. I also picked up a few less-than-admirable traits at this time (I found it amusing to report myself to the Rogues Gallery).

I did this for months. I racked up an OK bounty with the Rogues Gallery. I learned a few things. First, while being killed was inconvenient, I rarely had trouble getting a revive. Second, bounty hunters were simply not capable of dishing out enough retribution to cover the damage I inflicted. I was active on-and-off for awhile. Part of this was simply that the vast majority of survivors did not utilize the Rogues Gallery. Eventually I decided I wanted to found a group. I put out a posting and attracted old LUE members as well as some new ones. Of course, a small fraction of those who responded actually showed up for duty but those who have added their strength to the company are invaluable.

LUEsers naturally make good player killers. Like Something Awful goons, drama and butthurt is like crack to a LUEser. Nothing generates ill will in Urban Dead like player killing. It's rather peculiar.

The Caiger Campaign - August 04th, 2010 through August 13th, 2010

Caiger was selected as the location for our genesis for a variety of reasons. It's history made it a fun challenge. Even if that history has been somewhat tarnished by Caiger now falling like every other mall. It's also a target-rich environment. A busy mall in a busy suburb that did not currently have much in the way of zombie menace. It was a good ground to practice and refine our procedures. We did some good work here. My Rangers never failed to exceed my expectation for each outing.

I want to say our biggest success at Caiger was the body count. We appear to be about keeping pace with the Rolt Heights War and with 1/2-1/3 the numbers there at their peak. But, that's presumptuous and I'll leave that to others to estimate. Our greatest success seemed to be psychological. I don't know that I've seen this much butthurt in awhile. I can understand the frustration. Not posting our members makes things that much harder for them and nobody likes to wake up dead. On the other hand, writing a page built around insults, none of which have any basis in anything the Rangers have said, only spurs us on. LUEsers like Lulz. As much as that page tries to marginalize us, all it does is cement how much we've done to Caiger. They actively try to hunt us down. Even if our knocking out the Necrotechs didn't put them out of commission for much time, it still warranted a radio warning trying to get support to them. Every strike we made infuriated the Caiger survivors even more.

The campaign codified our tactics and procedures. Each engagement was a learning experience and we added making pinatas to our skillset. We took 101 heads and suffered 15 or so retaliatory casualties tops. We found our direction and purpose. The most entertaining part of this entire campaign has been reading anti-LUE tags and radio transmissions. Every engagement shows us how to refine our process and I think subsequent campaigns will be even more successful.

Our first battle went about as well as any group's first battle. Numbers were high. Everyone was fresh. Nobody was headhunting us yet so we had free reign to attack. We're a smaller group so we didn't post the high kill counts of, say, the Samhain Slaughter events but I think we did all right. The reactions were priceless and we exceeded expectations by a large amount.

The second battle of the campaign is harder to analyze. For this purpose, I'm lumping together the 5 straight days of engagements that occurred from the 09th to the 13th. The fighting on the 09th-11th focused on 5 Necrotechs near Caiger. By the 11th we had managed to pinata each at least once. They were back up in working order nearly instantly but it's the thought that counts and the lulz that ensued. The primary engagement was on the 10th with a small pre-game operation on the 09th and sporadic fighting in Latrobe throughout the day on the 11th. We geared up for a full strike on the 12th and executed a decent raid. We struck again on the 13th with less results still. I'm surprised we managed to successfully fight for 4 days straight. By the last raid, everyone was simply out of bullets. We gave them hell for 5 straight days and I consider it a great success. Our kills tapered down to about 10 on the final day but this was a product of being out of ammo and not taking time to revive our fallen more than anything else.

The Siege of Calvert Mall - August 18th, 2010 through August 20th, 2010

Whether or not this was the 'first' mall pinata or not is not my concern. I'll let the junior Rangers squabble over that 'honor.' The things I am most pleased with about this battle are as follows: The opening attack featured a record number of Ranger participants. We had about 20 men lighting up the mall. The second was that it was a success. The Caiger Campaign could only be called a success in that we out-killed the Caiger survivors by a wide margin and managed to operate fairly well. However, the Caiger Campaign had no real objectives. It was simply a convenient place to meet and it provided a target-rich environment with-which to hone our skills. We came to Calvert with the goal of making the place in to a pinata.

The opening battle went well. We had record Rangers ready to attack. It would seem, however, that our average wasn't keeping up. We killed in the mid to high 30s with just 15 Rangers in the opening battle of the Caiger Campaign but with 5 extra Rangers our total kills don't seem to have gone up proportionally. This can be traced to 2 major causes: The first being that most Rangers are switching to a majority-pistol kit so they can fight for 2 days straight (this is why our second day of battle had significantly higher kills than the last time we tried a 2-day affair) and that at least one Ranger in attendance during the siege was wielding a fire axe as his sole weapon. We learn new lessons with every battle.

The second engagement also went fairly well. We managed to polish off the mall, if just barely. Many Rangers were drawing their knives and axes by the end of the fight. The second day of battle was thrown together as an ad hoc assault. We didn't expect such a successful first battle and couldn't give up the opportunity to press our advantage. Calvert was a very welcome host. We suffered almost no retaliatory kills.

The fact that we suffered less retaliatory kills is probably more reflective on the area we were fighting in than it is on us. Caiger was under siege so those who were out for our blood there were disinclined to pursue us North. The Calvert area doesn't seem to have as many dedicated groups as Caiger does. I was personally claimed by Erica Rackham of The Saints during the Caiger Campaign and one Ranger was killed by a regular of The Preston Arms. We didn't really see any of that at Calvert. Alternatively, it may have been simply because the entire siege was over in 3 days.

The final battle I was not present for. My Lieutenant ably organized and directed the battle and personally pinata'd the mall. The Rangers involved were definitely using knives and axes shortly in to the fight. It's gruesome work and certainly wasn't a glorious battle like the first day's fighting was but it was a fitting cap to the siege. My Rangers gave their all and dragged the mall in to ruin.

The siege was a clear victory for us. We accomplished our goal and the butcher bill we paid to do it was extremely light. Calvert lacks the famous nature of Caiger. It seems few there are willing to defend it bitterly the way they will Ackland or Caiger. So, the defenses were comparatively light. However, that's not to say it was easy. We expended full loads of ammunition and fought tooth and nail for 3 days straight and killed 68 people to do it. The company did a lot of growing in terms of skill during the siege. If we were to have swung back around and attacked Caiger again with the same tenacity, we would have definitely left them with a severely bloody nose. Our losses would have been quite a bit higher but losses have never stalled us much at all. Caiger losing 70 of its roughly 100 survivors (during our campaign there, anyway) in a few days would certainly be felt, even with Caiger's greater ability to reclaim its losses. We can proudly claim victory at Calvert and keep our heads high after the rough slight-win in the Caiger area.

The Siege of Joachim Mall August 29th, 2010 to September 08th, 2010

We finally wrapped operations in the Joachim area and it feels as though we leave things unfinished. I was not present for the first battles of the conflict. My Lieutenant organized and led the Rangers to his second straight victory as officer in command of an attack. The battle brought us less glory. Joachim was sparsely defended and only resulted in about 2 dozen kills. Retaliation was weak, as expected. We lost maybe 2 Rangers to counter attacks. Under my leadership, we executed a second successful attack and took out the mall as well as a nearby necrotech. Then began our real goal: holding territory.

We wanted to see how well we could hold territory. I also wanted the Rangers to practice acting autonomously as opposed to coordinated attacks. We only had 2 days of practice but we put Joachim back out of commission right after it was put back together. Unfortunately, 2 days isn't a good test group. It doesn't put strain on our reviving, manpower, and ammo needs. We did well but I would have liked to take it further.

Part of the problem was the loss of momentum in our bid to join the battle at Blackmore. A sizeable chunk of our force, myself included, journeyed to Ridleybank as zombies to join that fight. We arrived just in time for it to be over and then had to walk back to Joachim. This put a lull in our operations by splitting our focus.

We can't call the campaign a defeat in that we were accomplishing our goals and it wasn't the survivors of the area who forced us out. But calling it a success is surely just as wrong. It's not as decisive as Calvert and we had clear goals here so we can't get a weak pass like Caiger. It seems we played to a draw. It's very difficult to leave the suburb but with it on its way to ruin there's no much point in us staying.

The defenders of Joachim were probably only aware of us peripherally. They probably didn't realize a fight was on. That's part of the trouble we've had since Caiger. If we attack a large enough target, we become semi-local villains at best and we don't get the fight we're looking for. Not to say we ought to be a big deal but the targets should react more to mass murder. Regardless, due to zombie interference the campaign was a draw.