Latest news

March was a busy month for the clan, with our longest serving officer taking a break. Barra has given *AUS* years of service as an officer and team leader and his contributions will be sorely missed. *AUS* thanks Barra for his service and wants to acknowledge his fine efforts publically. He has managed the clan from its darkest time through to its greatest success's and now leaves it in strong shape to continue to play competitively in many BF2 competitions.

The Battleracer comp rapped up early in the month with AMF Sook and NSOF taking the chocolates. The championship was a great success with many participants already asking when series 3 will commence. Jay our Battleracer guru is catching his breath for a bit but a new series will go ahead in the second half of the year. We will be starting season 4 of the AUS in house BR comp soon and with some great prizes this looks like being the best one yet.

The 14v14 ladder unfortunately has been reduced to a mere 7 teams and gives every sign of imminent failure. *AUS* though has thoroughly enjoyed the POE mod with some great games been played against NSOF and 667th in particular. Looks like finals will begin shortly with *AUS* in a great position to take the ultimate prize in the larger formats swansong. It will be a shame to see the larger format die but it is a reality that BF2 is now over 3 years old and it was inevitable that interest in the wider community would die. But *AUS* will always have fond memories of the larger format ladder.

With Sychoshreder being given the challenge of preparing a Project Reality team for the up and coming PR comp, our 10v10 LiD team has changed leaders to Jay. They have fought some tough battles against some tough clans. Matches against Team Renegade, AvA and AFO were particularly challenging. Some good wins have been recorded and the team stands on the cusp of yet another finals campaign next month. Wish us luck!

Our Gamespace team also changed leaders with Steric finally getting a proper job! Our navy swab Aussie Devil took over the team and together they have enjoyed some great matches. We secured a top 2 finish and the chance at another finals campaign. A little hiccup as we lost our first finals match but the Gamespace format gives a second chance to high finishes so the boys have a second crack at defending their grand final win from last season. Best of luck there boys.

Lastly we come to our 6v6 team which has exceeded the clans and wider community’s expectations by making the finals. After beating some strong teams like Team Renegade to get where they are our boys are hoping for a grand final appearance. Keep flying the *AUS* flag boys, do us proud.

As we wrap up march in AUS we are moving into 4 'finals' campaigns and looking at starting up a few in house competitions. A busy time for AUS with plenty for everyone to choose from and do. April will prove to be an eventful month in AUS. Tell you all about it in May.

Well the year has certainly turned out to be a busy one. Thankfully none of our players are victim to the floods in the north or the fires in the south east so for the most part it has been business as usual. The temperatures in the south may be responsible for a computer or two frying however…

Anyway the Battle racer comp continues to go strongly. Last night we completed the 5th of the 8 scheduled rounds, NSOF is leading the way in the team leader board by a significant margin, and NSOF Sook is sitting first in the drivers leader board, however close on his heels is nitris and madtrain from the 667th clan and the GsF clan respectively. The final three rounds will be completed this week and the winner will then be announced. After which we, Jay in particular, is looking forward to a break and getting back into normal clan life.

The heavy weapons team, competing now in the 14v14 POE2 ladder has enjoyed a win in its first game against a somewhat rival clan in DNA. The ladder has dropped significantly, only 15 ‘active’ teams remain and a few of those are expected to drop any day now. But there is still activity amongst the clans there willing to give POE2 a try.
We thoroughly enjoyed our fist game, and not because of the win. The new maps and new tactics and toys make it a refreshing change as most of us have been playing vanilla BF2 competitively now for 3 years. There are only so many times you can play karkand and think it is fun…

The Special Forces team also has enjoyed some success in the new year, however signs that it’s ladder too is failing is slowing down the activity there significantly. We hope it picks up but it probably will not. It is a bit of a shame as the mod is quite enjoyable to play and *AUS* was quite successful in it, playing in the grand final in the season just gone. Anyway only time will tell what happens to this ladder, but we will certainly be active in it until it closes (if it does).

The GS team too has recorded a win or two for our battleresults page. A relative low in new recruits has seen the team change only slightly since last season. Some of their players graduated up to our 14v14 or 10v10 as the ladder changed recently to an 8v8 lineup but for the most part the lineup remains unchanged. The ladder is quite strong over there, small relatively speaking but in its 8th season it seems always to have enjoyed loyal membership from the clans that participate, so im sure this team will be active there for some time to come.

The GA 10v10 team has a win or two on the board but recently drew two strong teams and was defeated twice on infantry type maps. Some new training has been organized to help us get back some of our squad work that vanished over the Christmas break. Still sitting as high as we are in this very strong ladder means the teams we are playing are strong and quite competitive. This is where we need to be, but a bit of effort is required to keep us there.

The 6v6 team is humming along nicely, though having squared off against aK last week and exile5 this week, we understandably have had a bit of a struggle on our hands. Prior to this we were winning every game. We don’t expect to be able to beat these teams anyway, unless with a lot of luck, but still we train so that we can be ready if that luck does come our way. Currently sitting very high on this very high ladder, and with finals lock on the horizon we are getting ready to try and cement our position in the top 8 before ladder lock.

A bunch of internal things have been going on too. We are running a little 2v2 comp on custom maps to help lift the general infantry skills of those competing and also we hosted our 2nd annual quizznight as well.

That is it for jan-feb 09.
Cya next month

2009 has kicked off well with already enough activities going on to have the whole clan engaged in something over the past 14 days. A bit of a warmup before another busy year.

Season 2 of the *AUS* Battleracer champs has started, the first two races completed now and the scores are locked in. Elxx from the SIR community has been helping out with great enthusiasm seeing his mod alive and kicking so strongly. Visit his website (http://labs.elxx.net) for more info and the live stats site (http://brstats.battleracer.com/?p=t-aus-s2) to see how the drivers and teams are stacking up against each other.

The move in the community from 16v16 games down to 14v14 POE2 has apparently sparked a bit of interest in BF2 once again, though this has not effected *AUS* much, nor has it resulted in a surge of teams flooding back to the large format comp as was suggested, but it does mean we have to learn a new mod and new maps with new rules. To that end our boys have been dipping their toes in the only GA server up for the mod, some enjoy it, some don’t mind, some don’t like but either way the rego in the game and the new weapons and vehicles means that the game play should be different enough from BF2 to keep us on our toes. The maps are being finalized before a start date to the season is announced.

There has been some interest in the clan about this new 6v6 comp run by the CyberGamer network. *AUS* recently did a survey to gauge interest which resulted in a team being entered to represent us, this will be lead by ALfie and supported by 11 others all working to stamp our logo all over that comp, like POE2 this mode is different from vanilla bf2 in many ways and so some prac session are being organized already to see people ready for the fight.

Our 2142 team has been retired for the short term, the team has always struggled since its beginnings in Season 1 of the GA ladder. Limited support from BF2 only type players in *AUS* meant that we didn’t have a solid enough group of core players to push the team along. We hope that this changes in the future and so we have not scrapped plans for 2142 by any means, just mothballed them for now.

Our other teams are starting to come out of hibernation now, the Christmas break shut down all ladders but we are far enough away from that now for challenges to start being issued. It wont be long before SF8v8, GS8v8, GA 10v10, GA14v14, PR10v10 and the 6v6 team fire up and keep us all very busy. Add to that the administration of the Battleracer comp, the internal 2v2 comp, the *AUS* BF Trivia night and some other side projects coming up and you have a recipe for an interesting start to 2009.

Our Gamespace team won the Grand Final game against the SOBR clan in an unusual 2 map grand finale to end the 2008 gaming season for *AUS*, it was a great way to see out the year.

With all our teams now locked down or in free play mode for the Christmas break things have been slowing down significantly as people take some leave.
News has finally come through for the new large format comp, after a bit of uncertainty the 16v16 ladder is confirmed now a 14v14 Point of Existence 2 Ladder which most of us are looking forward to.



Other than that we have a few activities planned to see us through into mid January when things will begin to pick up again for the year that will hopefully reveal the long awaited news of the new Battlefield game, until then, BF2 and its mods will keep us busy im sure.

What started out has a bit of fun racing around Karkand one night by a bunch of semi bored *AUS* clan members has grown into a little in house competition and then evolved again into an ‘invite only’ community wide event. It is a battlefield 2 based racing ladder on the Battleracer mod, hosted here at *AUS* and now sponsored by All Needs Computers who are supporting the comp by putting up cash and prizes for the drivers and teams to race for.

We are pleased to announce the second season of the *AUS* Battleracer Championships which will begin in January 2009.If last season is anything to go by, season 2 is bound to be a blast with some exciting new race formats and maps for the drivers to negotiate. The competition is going to be fierce so be sure to check the forums for the team and driver registration procedures.
A special thanks goes out to All Needs Computers and the SIR. community, especially Elxx for supporting the comp and making this all possible.