Part 66: Advance Campaign Mission 3: Air Ace! AC (or "They
Advance Campaign Mission 3: Air Ace! AC (or "They all gave their lives so we might cheese the mission with an HQ capture")
Youtube Video (20m32s)
Sorry for the delay, been a bit busy the last week or so. At least the video's a more reasonable length this time, so no worries about having to split videos up or get rid of animations or anything just yet. Joining me this time are Seraphroy (of AWDoR fame) and Cryohazard.
So, a quick stock-take tells us that Eagle has eight B copters (five more than NC), two fighters (same as NC) and two bombers (one more than NC). At least, unlike the previous two missions, Advance Campaign hasn't taken any units away from us: in fact, it's even given us another AA to play with. But will one more AA help us against this horde?
But despite how many more units Eagle has to throw at us this time, the basic strategy is still the same: drag all his air units down south, kill them and then land our T copter at the lightly-defended HQ. The only real difference is that we'll be losing a lot more units in the process this time - but then, with Advance Campaign not caring about Technique (and indeed me not really caring that much about my score anyway), that won't be a problem.
Opening salvos of Day 1. One of the eight B copters is down, and my T copter is on its way. I sometimes wonder why on earth Eagle would leave units just lying around for me to smash up like this, but I guess it all goes into charging up Lightning Strike faster.
Day 2, and smashing up a bunch of air units. Eagle's already lost half of his B copters.
We've got a bit of a worry though: Lightning Strike's good to go already, and I need to make sure that this T copter has enough units around it to keep it safe.
Now it's time for Eagle to hit back.
Hard.
I'm able to shrug off the worst of it though, and counterattack nicely.
That defence penalty from Lightning Strike is really useful. Well, if you're the person fighting Eagle anyway. I imagine it's not much use for Eagle himself (answers on a postcard if you can think of a possible use he could get out of it).
Day 4, continuing to mop up most of Eagle's initial assault and moving that T copter in near the HQ. Stll got a defending bomber to deal with, mind.
... aaand I make something of a hash of it.
Yes, a definite hash of it.
But eventually, the job is done.
And the HQ is captured.
9-Day A-Rank, thanks to my horrific piece of derpery with that final bomber. But it worked out in the end, and we get a rank up to Gold Hen for our trouble.
Now then, moving on. I've decided I'm going to take a crack at the Andy route through Blue Moon. There's a few reasons for this: one, it's a mission shorter, so less AC for me to worry about. Two, the route feels like it should be easier. Max's Folly? was already a desperate mad dash, and we should be able to cheerfully ignore the titular Olaf's Navy. More to the point, this route'll avoid Blizzard Battle! AC, which is one of the nastiest maps AC has to offer (or so I've heard). Thirdly, it'll give us Max in The Final Battle (assuming I can even make it to The Final Battle), and I don't need to tell you how much of a help that could be. I'll make a separate save though, so that if I do get stuck on the Andy route through Blue Moon, I'll have the Max route for backup.
But yeah, looking at this map, I have a weird feeling that maybe this isn't going to go so bad. The land battle to keep our HQ safe might be tricky, what with the sudden splurge of medium tanks, but Olaf still doesn't have any cruisers or subs...