Part 35: Campaign Mission 15S: Captain Drake! as Sami

Mission 15S: Captain Drake! as Sami (or "That Tsunami should be against the rules!")

Meanwhile in another leg of Jake the Peg's Trousers of Time...


OH GOD IT'S ORANGE STAR QUICK DO SOMETHING
nope
WHAT DO YOU MEAN nope WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE
doubt it
geez your face is scary anyway get some botes out there on the water or whatever it is you do with botes i don't know
it's spelt "boats" you cretin
look do i look like someone who knows the first thing about botes? just get out there and do something
ugh fine



Max was leading on first preference votes, but when Andy got eliminated it turned out that enough people voted for Sami as their second preference to tip the balance in her favour. So Sami it is!



This is the run where we want Max and Eagle for the final battle, so the mission number's as low as it can get at this point. But I'm gonna call this Mission 15S rather than Mission 11 to keep everything (relatively) tidy. Anyway, we've got a bonanza of cool music this time, what with Sami and Drake (it's damn hard to find good remixes of Drake's theme) both being on the field. Feel free to alternate as you see fit.

Day 1


why do all these people hate us?
probably something to do with marching armies through their territory without really asking permission first but hey what do i know
so who's this drake guy anyway?
basically he's this guy who's good with botes (or boats it you prefer)

Okay, enough of this craziness. Got a few new lines now:

If he's that good, I want to challenge him!

Don't worry Andy, one instance of you is going to be fighting him plenty.

That's Andy for you, Mr. Happy-go-lucky. Anyway, I think we need to secure bases as we move through this area. I won't feel safe unless we're able to do that. Yes, I think fifteen properties should be enough to secure our victory. Let's get movin'.



So yeah, like Sami says, this is a property capture map - if I recall correctly, it's the last property capture map in AW1. There aren't any in AW2, and there's only one in AWDS (conveniently, Alkydere recently reached it in his thread). So I guess in a way we're bidding farewell to a noble (if occasionally irritating) institution. I actually played through this one without peeking at the fogless "cheat sheet", so the results should be interesting.



This is actually one of the easier property capture maps in Campaign - certainly it was a smoother ride for me than Blizzard Battle! or Sami Marches On! There's fourteen properties north of that big splodge of mountain and forest in the middle of the map, and fourteen properties south of it, so it's going to be a case of grabbing a property from the other side of the divide - I've got either the base or port in the dotted red circle in mind. I'll be looking to land some troops there eventually. Drake starts with nine properties captured to our five, but we'll catch him up soon enough. Interestingly, he starts off with some bases and a port though. We don't have anything to deploy from initially, and it's highly unusual for an Advance Wars map to start out like that. We can remedy this by grabbing the bases and ports on the northern half of the island ASAP. Other key properties are the ones closest to Drake's half of the map - hopefully they won't come under too much heavy fire.



Subs dive and go out scouting. Well, these reefs are clear at least.



Battleship moves down into a reef, and the first of my two landers takes a couple of infantry across the strait.



Now, these mechs are a little too far from the second lander. But that's where we apply some ninja tricks. Mech into APC, APC into lander.



Loading the medium tank in as well, and dropping them all off on the opposite shore.



And finishing off by moving everything else.


gotta go fats
*fast
*no wait never mind



Oh lovely, rain. Drake's random weather curse strikes a lot in this mission. Still, at least it's not snow. Okay, Drake's got the edge on us in rain, while snow would put us at an equal disadvantage. But snow is just so frustrating, especially with ships, that I'm quite happy to just have rain to deal with.

Day 2



With all this rain around? Not really.

This terrain makes it difficult. Without a doubt, we've got to use our landers to move troops to the middle. We need to be aware of tanks and battleships when unloading. If not, they'll blast away as soon as we unload our troops. Ready to march, Paul?

Fair enough. Useful advice, although it's kind of overstating the severity of Drake's threat here. What if we'd said yes?

Great! You're in command!

Okay then.



Some scouting with a sub reveals it's fairly clear down here at the moment. Incidentally, one extra effect of rain that we haven't seen before: in fog of war, it reduces your vision range by one. So here our sub can only see four squares away from it rather than its usual five.



For now I'm going to ignore the low-hanging fruit of the cities near the shore and head for these bases over here. Grab those and we can deploy all the capturing infantry we like. Meanwhile my battleship hops into a reef behind the info box.



Medium tank and APC hide in forests, the APC dropping off its passenger. And the northern lander heads back to pick up the mech and light tank that are left on our starting island.



Cruiser and sub move down.



And before I forget, let's grab that rocket launcher too.

Day 3



The sun's come out of hiding, and it looks like Drake has too.



That cruiser's an obvious threat to our subs, so it's the first target for our battleship's wrath.



And then my own cruiser heads in to target Drake's sub. Once again, Sami's direct attack penalty plus an opponent's defence boost is giving us some problems. But we should be able to cope.



Incidentally, you probably noticed that the cruiser is right in battleship range. Not much I can do about that right now, my subs can't reach it from here, but I've parked the cruiser on a port to try and minimise the damage.



What we can do with the subs is finish off the rest of Drake's stuff. One sub takes out its opposite number...



... and the other bucks the rock-paper-scissors triangle by finishing off the cruiser.



Now then, how about the land units.



Well, first let's get to capturing.



And then the landers can start heading south towards that crucial base and port. They're safely out of battleship range for now.



Tank and APC go hide in the forests.



Back to rain again (looks like Tsunami's nearly ready, too).



Cruiser takes a hit from the battleship as predicted.



And looks like there's an arty in those woods, and it's been attracted by the scent of my APC.

Day 4



In case you were wondering how Drake's artillery saw me... well, thank this light tank.



Double Time's charged up, but since all my footsoldiers are either busy capturing or being transported right now, there's not much point in using it yet.



Instead let's send in the subs to smash up Drake's battleship. An interesting thing about getting a two-star terrain defence boost rather than a flat +20% defence boost is that the fewer hit points a Drake ship as, the smaller the defence boost it receives. So Drake only gets a +12% defence boost on his battleship once it's down to 6HP, allowing Sami's sub to hit it for five damage rather than four. This is why some people actually preferred it when Drake's bonus was changed from two-star defence to +10% in AW2. I dunno, personally I like the uniqueness of it being a terrain booster.



So yeah, that battleship's basically neutralised now. Looks like Drake has more than one arty on the prowl, though.



Still, if we keep the landers in reefs and the battleship out of arty range, we should be okay.



Medium tank goes on the assault, APC and cruiser retreat. Sami's transport movement boost nicely cancels out the forest-bogging effects of rain here: getting to that wood required 7 move (3+1+3), and that's just what Sami's APCs have. I just hope that that APC wasn't the only thing stopping that arty attacking my medium tank.



Tsunami, unsurprisingly.



That APC was the only thing stopping that arty attacking my medium tank. But I guess the middie can take the hit, whereas the APC would've been finished off.



Well, he's got courage, I'll give him that.



Although attacking a Sami mech on a city with a 4HP tank is more "suicidal" than "courage".

Day 5



It's not looking too bad though, considering.



Let's give that suicidal tank some help.



Infantry progress with capturing, and I build two more to help them out.



Now then. Drake's only two properties from winning, but one of them's this port. He's dropped an infantry unit on it, but he hasn't started capturing yet.



So let's make the job a bit harder for him, and finish this sub off while we're at it.



Some scouting shows that the southern seas look fairly clear, although my subs are starting to suffer fuel-wise. The APC's some way away, too. Oh well, we'll work something out.



Let's drop off the rocket launcher. It's kind of vulnerable in a "behind enemy lines" sort of way, but Drake's arties don't seem to be in range of it so we're probably okay. The other lander's getting closer too.



Retreating the medium tank a little. I don't want that mech walking over to spot it, leaving it vulnerable to arty fire again.



Looks like the "cripple the port infantry so Drake takes forever capturing it" plan is working.

Day 6



Hmm. Drake built a rocket from his new base to try and counter mine, and one of his mechs crossed over the mountains, but decided not to try attacking.



I think this is a good moment for Double Time.



Gives me the extra move range and firepower to start a war in the mountains.



And I'll start capturing this far northern city, too. I can leave the closer cities for when I don't have Double Time active.



Looking good.



In the south, I surface my reef sub to conserve fuel.



Indirects go on the attack. Probably should have finished that rocket launcher off, really. But oh well.



I should have the resources to finish it next turn whatever happens, what with my tank and mech arriving.



More tactical withdrawals, with the other sub copying its comrade by surfacing in a reef to conserve fuel, and my medium tank heading to a city for health.



Unsurprisingly, Drake goes for my rocket launcher. That stings, but I can work round it.



And his forest artillery gets in on the action again. We need to find that at some point.

Day 7



And back to rain again. I guess it's pretty appropriate for the Britain-themed CO (hey, I'm allowed to make jokes like that ).



Continuing with the capturing. We only need three more properties, and two of them up here are completely uncontested.



Let's just have a few shots of Sami's footsoldiers in action, shall we?



And the Arrow-O-Vision version to go with it. Oh hey, found that arty at least.



Let's bring the battleship up to help deal with it, and use the medium tank to finish that 1HP infnatry off for good measure.



We've got a ton of money from all those turns where we've either not had bases or have just been deploying infantry. So let's indulge ourselves.



That battleship's unlikely to see any action, but hey, may as well use the dosh for something. Let's ave a couple more infantry for tech spamming purposes - I haven't lost any units yet, but you never know. That 8HP infantry unit is looking particularly vulnerable right now...



Enough of the north, what of the south?



Well, the light tank can clear out the base, putting our mech in a prime position to capture. If all goes well, we should be able to win next turn.



Rocket knocks the port infantry down to 1HP, meaning Drake's going to need even longer to capture it - time he's not going to get. And one of my landers goes WHOOSHING up north for no real reason.



Enjoy trying to capture with 1HP, Drake.



Owch. There goes that 8HP infantry unit I mentioned.

Day 8



But on the plus side, Drake hasn't done anything to stop us winning this turn.



Let's have a bit of fun first, though. After all, we've got an artillery to get vengeance on.



Battleship softens the arty up, 5HP mech moves in to reduce it to 1HP...



... and medium tank finishes the job.



In the south, I take out a couple of weakened footsoldiers with light tank and rocket launcher, including finally putting that port infantry out of its misery..



Okay, enough. Let's finish this!


yeah nice work you guys. i guess i should be more upset really but hey credit where it's due
hey are you a green earth co?
nah i just painted my units green for a laugh of course i'm a green earth co dummy
why am i even talking to you i didn't fight in this battle



Bit harsh, Sami. After all, we've got some pretty good COs for dealing with Drake. Andy's Hyper Repair cancels him out, your infantry can shrug off a bit of scratch damage when they capture, and Max's directs just chew through stuff regardless. Anyway, perfect S-Rank, and frankly that went about as well as it could have .



Even got a rank up out of it, although in this timeline I've only just reached Grey Hen thanks to the small number of missions played.



So, where next? Continue with Sami, go back to Max or get Andy up and running? And since the STV/AV thing worked out pretty well, let's use it again: I'd like first preference and second preference votes from you guys.