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Well it feels like a long time now that we have been staggering in the dark of 'downtime'. I realise not all our teams were inactive during this time, but the clan really has been in hibernation relative to our workload 'back in the day' when things were beyond busy and against which all workloads will forever be measured as long as I am here to measure.

Always darkest before the dawn as they say, and the the announcement last year of the Bad Company 2 beta was like the dull glow on the horizon, hope at last of a new game! Well here we are in January and that dull glow of hope is now a half rising sun pushing back the clouds and raising interest in gaming once again... This is because the beta was released this month and many of us have been busy with it :)

So far impressions are favorable with more than a handful of caveats and addendums added in to qualify any appraisal of the product. But it is just a beta, and we know for sure some of the bigger issues are already responded to by EA and assurances are that they will be fixed for the full version. Those of us that can remember the BF2 beta, and even the release version remember a very different product from that which kept us very busy the past 5 or so years and with that in mind we are more confident than others that even those issues not yet recognised by EA will probably be addressed before too long.

Most of us are playing for fun or for the relief of playing a super fresh battlefield title, while others still are madly rushing to get the unlocks and things so they can be more competitive in the upcoming beta comps at Gamearena and Cybergamer (a money comp!).

As this new interest takes the forefront of the clans activities a handful of us were took part in a game of BF2 that I will remember forever as the closing curtains of competitive BF2. It was a 64 player Community Challenge game on Dragon Valley organised by GameArena and NetGameRadio.

For some time now im sure we will still have a team or two still playing BF2 at GA or GameSpace but as far as this old vet is concerned, BF2 is about big format and it has been unconscious on the table for many months now, this community challenge game was the last spasm of life in the big format corpse before it flat lined in Australia forever.

*AUS* went in with 5 people but were given an attack chopper and a jet, so our squad of 5 really became a squad of 2 with air support. Despite being on the side that ultimately lost the game, the *AUS* boys are happy with their contributions. Our USMC attack chopper was the key ticket taker in the first round and our F35 kept the enemies superior J-10 jets from dominating the battlefield. Round two was a little messier, the enemy pushed too hard for the main which meant too many were kept there in defense, many of our undefended flags quickly fell to the yanks and then the main base eventually fell under the pressure of 3 attack choppers, 2 jets, tanks and APCs coming up the hill, arty falling from the heavens beside para shooting troops bailing from a blackhawk hovering almost out of sight in the sky.
And so with that huge push of combined forces on the Refinery flag the big format version of battlefield two died. A fitting end to big format gaming, may it rest in peace.

As for small format Battlefield 2, both our GS and GA teams have been active, our GA team has secured a finals spot for this season finishing fourth on the ladder prior to ladder lock. Our GS team has started the 10th Gamespace BF2 Season mid month and will be working to secure a finals spot again in a few months.

Please visit the battle results page for details of the games played in Jan.

That is it for now. Roughly one more month before BC2 launch and a new era of Battlefield gaming for *AUS*.
Wish us luck!

With only the one BF2 team active in November we find only four recorded games for the month and *AUS* enjoyed a win in just one of them. The GA 10v10 team plays on all the maps now including those that used to be limited to the EF and AF mods so for a change after many years of vanilla maps the Great Wall and Nuclear Winter maps were tried. The win came for us on the Great Wall map which have have the most experience with of all the new maps. Unfortunately we seem to have forgotten how to play the classics like Zatar and Gulf of Oman - the two vanilla maps we lost on.

A similar case in December with games played and the result bringing our GPA down just a little for the year. This time all the maps were new to us. The results show that the one we did win was by a large margin, and conversely, those we lost were by large margins. Consistency is key they say so we have that working for us. Our 2142 team stumbled also on the Cologne map to the 'Near Miss' clan which maybe reminds us that despite years of trying, maybe 2142 just isn't our game :) but it is a nice distraction from time to time.

No matter. Energy for games at the moment is at a record low after seemingly countless years of Battlefield 2, most of us are enjoying a well earned break before the next game gets us all very busy again.

With the other teams down waiting for new seasons there hasn't been much else on. A release date for Bad Company 2 has been announced and almost weekly we find new youtube videos of the new game modes and gameplay released by EA. It is visually stunning, a bit like BF2 was on release. Most of us will need to considder a computer upgrade to make the most of it early on I think. It looks very much like a mix of BF2 (which excites us) and COD 4 (which concerns us). Some of us have been playing the Beta on the PS3 and feedback so far has been favorable. I guess we wait until the finished product, and also the mods which will be made and used for ladder play before making final judgments.

Keep an eye on the history page which will be updated soon with an overview of 2009. Adding to the records for all time the significant events in our Battlefield campaign which began way back in 2002.

Another productive month for *AUS* saw us secure a satisfying win against Evil Fun on Mutrah City. With this game the PR season ends for for *AUS* but hopefully the down time between seasons wont be as long as it was last season. A long awaited patch should be released soon which will grow interest in the mod.

Our other teams enjoyed some wins too, our GA 8v8 team defeated ARK on the Armored fury map Operation Road Rage and Clownz on Mashtuur city for the 4th successful defense of position 1. Our 10v10 team in the GS ladder took down Sobr on Oman but lost to SC and Requem earlier in the month. So all in all 7 games played on the BF2 mods and 5 wins.

Growing interest in the 2142 game as BF2 slowly dies down sees *AUS* field a new team in that old ladder. Hopefully we can make our presence felt there as we have had in the BF2 ladders. A shaky start with the first game chalked up as a loss to the Variant Clan will hopefully be avenged in the coming weeks.

October also brings to us some increased activity out of dice pushing screenshots and videos of the new Bad Company 2 game which we hope will be either a BF2 replacement or at least a healthy BF related distraction until Battlefield 3 is announced.

September saw a total of 7 games being played, comprising of 6 wins and only the 1 loss - which was actually a thumping of our PR team by the BigD Clan on Operation Archer.

Some strong wins by the GS team, one as high as 230-0 against +SC+ and a 283-0 against =RFG= which help to push our overall win\loss ratio for BF2 and its mods to 181-110.

The BF2 1.5 patch was released also, this patch included all the EF and AF mod maps and is the final patch for the game (although a glitch has been identified and reports of a new\fixed patch by the same version number will be released shortly). This sparked hope of a new (hopefully mid to large sized) vanilla ladder.. only time will tell if this eventuates though. Either way it has caused a lot of old players to load up BF2 again and run around in the pubs, many of the new maps are quite refreshing.

Other than that *AUS* finally put to bed the HWT team, even though it hadnt been playing in its former capacity since the last big format games. In its place a new team has been created for the new GA 8v8 ladder. GA used the old 16v16 ladder meaning that *AUS* sits high on the list of new clans in that ladder with a win\loss ratio of 50-39, all other teams, being new entrants, have 0 games. It is nice to see that in some small way the HwT legacy lives on as does its 89 game history for all to see and fear (or respect).

August

We reported some months back that Barra stood down as a long time serving clan officer, and we're sad to announce that Jaydageezer has also stepped down from his officer position due to the expected arrival of his 3rd child. The *AUS* community would like to wish Jay and his family the all the best for the arrival of his 3rd child, and would also like to thank him for all the hard work he has done for the clan in running the in house competitions and also the very popular Battle Racer community comp. GG Jay!

Meanwhile, activity in the clan picked up a fair bit as all our teams (aside from the usually busy GS team) eagerly sent out their challenges to begin their ladders in earnest and thus far, our teams have endured rather mixed results. HwT played both -Evi|Fun (-Evi|.) and violent Resolution`(vRes`) that resulted in pretty bad losses. Better luck next month guys. LiD played Carnage ([carnage]) and Predatorz (-pZ^) for a loss and a win respectively.

With the GS team, it has been a hell of a busy month! They blitzed the challenges, managing to squeeze in 6 matches this month against No Real Danger (=NRD=), Team Southern Cross (+SC+), Triple O'z (Triple O'z), Army of Reckless Killers {ARK}, [S2]Goon Squad Mk 2 ([S2]), No Real Danger (=NRD=) once more and lastly Ready And Willing (-=[RAW]=-), with wins and losses evenly divided.

The PR team had three games vs Gungrave Warriors (!GuN!), Wolf Company ([WC]) and TeaSin (TeaSin) for 2 wins and a loss.

Chronologically speaking, after a long and bad losing streak for all teams across all ladders, things finally turned around for us as the GS team won over [S2] on the 23rd, thus amounting to our third win streak combined from the LiD, PR and GS teams. Good way of turning around our results! It was quite the morale booster, and we sure as hell needed it as we try to stay strong and competitive in the ever shrinking BF2 community.

In other news, our resident enlisted Royal Australian Navy (RAN) man MrAussieDevil has returned from deployment after going away for a few months for some high seas adventures with the U.S. Navy. Also, now that Jay has retired and the officer group has been reduced to a mere two people, offers went out and both MrAussieDevil and Blood_Raven have accepted positions in the group and thus promoted to Major.