You forgot to factor in that Buffy deliberately led a whole bunch of POTENTIALS, as in normal teenage girls with no experience and little training, in that first attack without any proper strategy besides full-frontal attack, with weapons that had already proved ineffective against a slew of super-vampires and an unknown enemy, but one that could still apparently control the aforementioned super-vampires. She did this despite the very large likelihood of it being a trap (of which she has a consistent record of springing). She also disregarded the input of the vastly wiser and more logical Giles, who usually planned most of their coordinated skirmishes in the past. My own military experience dictates that it doesn't matter if she was trying to reassert her authority or not. A military operation is no place to be stroking one's own ego. The vineyard attack was a badly planned op that ended with two teenage girls dead, dozens more wounded, and one man missing an eye for the rest of his life.

Then she made it worse by demanding a second attack based on a hunch (which only turned out to be correct due to Deus Ex Machina), with most of her troops not fully recovered and seriously demoralized. With the potentials understandably questioning her authority and planning skills, Buffy lashes out and makes it all about her and Spike, saying how she did all the work and that Spike was the only one who supported her. As if the potentials didn't JUST follow her to the vineyard for the first attack, and Xander didn't JUST lose his eye during her op.

I think you were FAR to generous to Buffy the terrible General with this.

Disagreeing with your conclusions does not make someone non-objective. I LIKE Buffy, but all emperical evidence shows she is possibly the worst leader in the world.

Anyway, an enjoyable fic though.

Your opinion is noted though I conjecture that you're being FAR too harsh on her leadership skills. I have personally seen worse leadership capability in action. Plus there are several military history books that would point out some who made worse decisions using even much better intelligence. Plus, she did not make this decision in a vacuum. Her support team failed in their duties as well.

Glad you enjoyed the fic. Hope you like some of my others better.

This is great. Hope to see more stories like this someday.

One area I disagree with is the officers assessment of Xander. Even early in season 4 the writers go well out of their way to show that his Army training has faded to nill. Riley would have noticed this easily. Therefore most of the officers reactions to Xander (other than his speech giving talent) should not have been colored by the Halloween incident. Other than that I like the story you've written here.

Good work on trying to provide an unbiased review. I'm not sure how much weight Buffy would give to it as she doesn't know any of the people involved but it was interesting to read.
There is one possible spelling mistake in " A boost to moral" I would spell it morale.

very fine read, thank you.

This was good.

There's always been emmotion in the whole business of the Vineyard and the subsequent kicking-out of Buffy.

As Mustaine snarled out in "Sweating Bullets"; "Hindsight is always 20/20, but looking back, it's still a bit fuzzy."

An independent AAR was called for.

Thanks for providing it.

You're welcome.

Interesting. I like the format, and agree with the conclusions, but you've got a little bit of grammatical tightening-up to do. I'd be very interested to read AARs for other scenes in Buffy and other series. Heck, I think it'd be kinda fun to do episode-by-episode (or season-by-season) evaluations over the course of the entire show.

At the moment, I have been focusing on Season 7 since that is where a lot of Buffy bashing has occurred in stories I've read here. Now, I don't think Buffy is perfect but then neither are any of the other characters, though many try to make them so in their stories. I hope my stories have been more even handed, not making any one character too much more or less than they were in canon. Not sure when the next installment will be out but I do intend to have others in the series.

Sorry, it reads like a list of excuses for her decision to me.

A couple of points that I think they might have brought up:

1) A strategy of sitting around waiting for the bad guys to attack you is a losing strategy. If you want to win, you pretty much have to take the battle to the enemy

2) No matter what they did, just about the only way they were going to find out about Caleb's abilities would be when he came along and killed a few of them one day.

Very intriguing story. I liked your approach and the crossover characters that you chose to write. :)

Really enjoyed the new chapter. I agree with your conclusions.

Thanks.

Hi;

Just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed this, and look forward to reading the rest!

-Despite these handicaps, she still recognizes the strong possibility of a trap associated with the message Shannon delivered.-

Curious about that statement. Did Buffy say something about it being a possible trap?

Edit: That says everyone else was aware it was a trap and she didn't believe it was.

When Buffy first brings up the idea for the attack after talking to Shannon in the hospital, Xander mentions that it has 'trap' written all over it and Buffy tells him that Caleb won't be expecting a full out attack. Later when she and Faith are out looking for where Caleb is hold up and they easily find a Bringer who leads them to the Vineyard, Faith also mentions how much it looks like a trap. Buffy responds that she is tired of waiting around to be attacked. So yes Buffy is very aware it's a trap, she just feels they can make it work for them instead of against them.

Interesting idea. I'll be following it.

One thing. Someone made the following statement in a review.

"I would if i was writer make one small edit of the whole briefing. While Buffy was shouldering all the decisions, it had been becuase she had systematically over six years proved to everyone that shed'd just over rule them if she disagreed. It was in fact a problem of her own making."

I disagree.

This ignores the fact that for those 6 years, they WERE Buffy's decisions to make. Right or wrong, it was on her.
SHE was the Slayer, the chosen one. The burden and the choices that resulted, were on her and no one else.
Not Willow, not Giles, and certainly not Xander.
Nor was it overruling them. They had no 'rule' over Buffy. They could and did, give advice.
Advice, that as the person who had to make the decision, she could disagree with.
Most of which came down to 'Kill it". Kill Angel, Kill Dawn, Kill Spike. Seeing a pattern?
Bet Dawn's pretty happy Buffy 'disagreed' with Giles advice huh?

The situation in season seven was different. as it involved so many non-volunteers.
But no one disagreed with the first plan to attack the Vineyard.
They baulked at a second attack.
Buffy's failure at leadership was NOT in the first 6 years. It was right here. When she failed to make her case for a second attack.

I do intend, at some point, to analyze that scenario as well. I've even got an AU version of that mulling around in my head where I show what might have happened had Buffy refused to be tossed out.