By the Numbers
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." ~Emerson
<<August 21, 1999>>
Yep. That definitely qualified as a "fort".
You watch bitterly as two of your troops rush away from the tree fort back to the main body of your force . . . well, not much of a force, just five people including yourself. You shoulder your XP 110, a skill you'd picked up recently. Your men had an XP 70, XP 150, XXP 175, and a CPS 1000. You pull off your backpack and examine its contents -- four two-liter pop bottles and a funnel for refilling. You take out one of the bottles and the funnel and offer it to the soldiers, who begin refilling their weapons.
The enemy was three people up in that tree fort. You couldn't see all of their equipment, but they at least had an XP 150, XXP 175, XXP 275, CPS 1500, CPS 2500, and 7 water balloons as of one minute ago. They were now down seven water balloons, but there were probably more up there.
You searched the terrain . . . not much help there. Except for one 20 degree cone extending from the base of the tree fort to the gate behind you, the whole forest was filled with dense underbrush which wouldn't make for easy or quiet travelling.
You consider your options. The fort consisted of a small platform with a dense railing suspended between two trees. There was one ladder up through a trap door on one of the trees, and on the other you could climb up from the side opposite the fort and then swing around onto the platform when you reached the top. You just had to get one man up into the fort.
"All right," you say, breaking the silence. "Here's what we'll do . . ."
Tree houses usually have a "blind" spot directly beneath them, and from there you can often shoot up between the floor boards. However, if they've got water balloons, they could simply extend their arm far enough off the platform to toss them underneath, and anyone stuck down there would be all wet. Also, because the three people up there can simply stand on top of the trap door, its useless to try to force our way in through there. Furthermore, although I have greater numbers, they clearly have a superior armory, as well as the advantage of height and whatever cover they can get from the tree fort.
The first thing to do, then, is to draw them out with a siege. The XP 70 and XP 110 are light enough to move around quite a bit with, so I (without the backpack) and whoever had the 70 would make taunting runs on the base, dodging around and jumping behind trees, attacking just aggressively enough to get them to use a lot of water and hopefully some of those balloons. It would be necessary for me to come up personally to gauge how much we have to fire at them to get them to counterattack us. We have access to almost 8 liters of refill water remaining (or should), so running out of water is probably not an issue for us, but they're trapped up in the tree house, so it may become one for them.
Continue this until they catch on or we get too tired to be effective dodgers anymore. If the later happens, we can pass off the weapons to another couple of people and let them take over, but I would need to keep a close eye on them.
Meanwhile, the person with the CPS 1000 has entered the woods while the enemy was distracted and is slowly and cautiously making a wide loop around to the back of the base. If there are at least two watches available, they will be synchronized down to the second and he will be given a certain amount of time to get into position (hopefully more than enough) based on the size of the circuit he has to make to avoid detection, and the rest of us just have to come up with something to keep the baddies distracted while he does that.
Once the time expires and we assume that he is in position, we regroup and refill all our weapons to maximum capacity, and then leave the backpack. Even if they wanted to sneak out of that base and try to steal it, they wouldn't stand a chance, so there's not really any danger, but everyone should keep their eyes pealed anyway. We would also switch weapons around so that the fastest (and preferably least tired) person has the XP 70 and the best shot has the XXP 175.
Then, we attack. The person with the 70 takes point, making a quick strafing run and then disappearing behind some tree near to the base that will provide adequate cover. Hopefully, the enemies won't notice him, because the person with the XP 110 (probably myself) and whoever's got the XP 150 will be close behind him on during his approach and will provide cover fire as he hides, then move off to find reasonable cover in the opposite direction. Behind those two is our deadeye with the 175, who tries to make sure he's not the target of the three opponents while he takes a few careful shots, sticks around center stage slightly longer than the 110 and 150, then follows them into cover. Once he's safe, the 110 and 150 come back out and make another quick attack, and the 150 moves off to the side that the 70 is hidden on, but doesn't take cover in the same location.
This should all take place within the space of about 30 seconds.
Now, everyone is in position. The 110 runs out and draws the fire of the enemies, and then the 150 and 175 step out, get just into range, and start hitting the enemies with everything they've got. At the same time, our man with the CPS 1000 lets the weapon rest by the shoulder strap and starts climbing up the back ladder.
If no one notices him on his way up (an appealing but unlikely possibility), he simply steps onto the platform at the top and we win. Otherwise, someone's going to see him, at which point he becomes a distraction -- and you have to admit, a CPS 1000 at point-blank range makes for quite a distraction!
Meanwhile, the person with the 150 drops back and stops firing, hiding himself behind any available cover. The person with the 110 moves off towards the side of the 175, and once everyone in the fort is focusing on either the 1000 or the 175 and 110, the 70 sprints up under the base. Once he's safely out of sight, the 150 resumes his attack.
The three people in the base are now dealing with the three-pronged attack, which probably means no one's looking for any more surprises. The person with the 70, if no one seems to notice him, sets his weapon down and climbs up the ladder, pushes open the trap door, and climbs into the base, handing us the victory.
If someone notices and begins attacking the person with the 70, he becomes another distraction, firing up through the floorboards, focusing on anyone near the rear of the base. When the man with the 1000 sees the fire coming up from under the base, that's his signal to stop shooting and try to physcially push his way into the base. Hopefully he can take everyone with enough surprise that they won't be able to stop him quickly enough. If they do stop him, everyone starts making a tactical retreat.
If no one seems to fire at the person with the 70 but someone is standing on the trap door, several others things could happen, and the person with the 1000 is really the key once again. If no one seems to notice our man trying to get in from underneath, the man with the 1000 tries to push his way in, change targets of his weapon, or anything he can do to try to get them off the trap door. Once he's done that, he climbs or jumps back down, signaling to the man with the 70 to go up. If they notice but ignore the 70, or the 1000 can't get them off the trap door, he is to fire one shot straight down (making it look like an accident, if possible), at which point the man with the 70 reclaims his weapon and starts firing up through the floorboards (see above). If they start attacking the 70 when he tries to get in, he drops down, reclaims his weapon and starts firing up through the floorboards (see above).
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