Part 67: Advance Campaign Mission 4: Max Strikes! AC as Andy

Advance Campaign Mission 4: Max Strikes! AC as Andy (or "Silly me!" "Silly you!")



Youtube Video (24m3s)

Apologies for a bit of voice distortion on my part at the start, it should settle down after a while (for whatever reason, I'm having serious trouble getting the volume at which I say "Hello, and welcome to etc." right. Nervous energy?). And yep, Andy route, for the reasons outlined last time. Hey, you guys'll get your Max soon enough. Joining me for a second time are Fedule (who handily pointed out that I forgot to include the names of the guests when I first posted this post ) and BrooklynBruiser.



So this time round, Olaf has four battleships instead of three, and he isn't offering one of them up as a gimme kill. More worryingly though, he's also got an extra medium tank and rocket launcher near his HQ, and they're set to defensive - they won't rush blindly forward like the rest of his troops. It's going to be a bit of a grind to remove them, but we should get there in the end. Olaf has a few more units on the mainland, too, and we're down a medium tank and a rocket launcher, but we don't have to worry about those too much...



... because chokepoint tactics will be as effective as ever. Cranking out a few artilleries will help us there, and Olaf won't be sending all of his stuff at them because again, defensive AI (of the two middies in the north, only the red-circled one will be heading forward). In the sea, it's going to be a war of attrition against those battleships, aided by Hyper Repair and building more battleships from our port. Olaf's own port will be pretty busy too, churning out useless landers to begin with but later surprising me with submarines - it'll take some slightly crazy tactics to counter those.



Only the one battle animation this time, since naval battles don't tend to be that exciting animation-wise (and that moving sea effect makes the GIFS really huge, too). But yeah, day 2 and Olaf's one battleship down already. Meanwhile, one of my artilleries say "thank you very much" to a careless medium tank in the north.



Day 3, and it's snowing already as both Olaf and Andy use their CO powers (with all these battleships and medium tanks around, they fill up fast). Sub and battleship take on battleship, and artilleries and tanks in the north continue to clean things up up there (I decided not to send the 6HP tank for repairs so that it wouldn't starve me of battleship funds).



And next turn I get the chance to join the two light tanks up anyway. Sadly my battleship didn't make it, but there'll be another one along soon enough.



Now then, here's a dumb mistake. I meant to target the right-hand battleship with my sub, rather than the left-hand one. But I tapped the wrong key when it came to taking the shot, and targeted the left-hand battleship. Why's this such an issue? Well, not only would that have finished off the right-hand battleship, but I'd've been able to move my lander into the range shadow of the left-hand battleship. Instead I'm now worried about the lander taking a hit from the right hand battleship. So it's going to stay back for now. As a result, the sub and the lander share an old Chuckle Brothers catchphrase.



Day 6, and we have three artillery working together to bring down a medium tank, the 4HP battleship going down so my lander can move up a tiny bit. And I build a replacement battleship. Going to need at least one to clear out that HQ area.



A few days later, and as I try to assault the HQ island I notice that Olaf's built a submarine. Time to use my own sub as a sacrificial decoy.



Which it does admirably. My battleship takes down the still-surfaced enemy sub, and my own sub dives again...



... but not for long, as Olaf, undaunted, sends out another sub.



Too little too late, though.



Especially since the AI considers it a higher priority to try and get health back than to stall my capturing my mech . Still, victory!



A rather messy 14-day B-Rank of a victory, but still, a victory. Luckily, I think it's impossible to mess up the speed score on the next mission...



... because we're back to Max's Folly? and it's survive-for-five-days frenzy! Since this mission's already a mad desperate dash for the HQ, it shouldn't be too different from normal campaign... but there are some worrying changes. Grit's had some arties upgraded to rockets, and a light tank to a medium tank. More worryingly, Max is down a light tank and a medium tank, and has had his mechs downgraded to infantry. The relative lack of direct firepower could make this one hairy. But still, we just need one unit to survive and disrupt Grit's infantry. So we'll see how that goes.