Part 89: Advance Campaign Mission 17: The Final Battle! AC - Part 3

Advance Campaign Mission 17: The Final Battle! AC (or "Quick-Time Event") - Part 3



Youtube Video (31m46s)

Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Or, er, something. On the mop-up stage of this operation, it feels like I spend most of the video desperately trying to make Socker proud, while doing a lousy job of dodging meteors. Still, by this point the meteors don't mean that much, even if they hit me in the middle of my attack formation - I just have far too much stuff for Sturm to deal with. Joining me are Sockerbagarn and alcharagia.



Sturm gained a little ground here. But by this stage, any victories for him are pretty much pyrrhic.



2HP medium tank and 1HP missile launcher down, and that airport is finally - finally - clear for capturing.



Andy's not capturing it though.



That's Max's job. Max's other jobs include being our best method at dealing with medium tanks, and deploying a bomber. Hell yes.



Messing about with APCs. At least that infantry managed to move one square further than it would under its own motive power? I guess?



Yadda, yadda, yadda.



In the east, Drake clears out an AA and a B copter, and shows why it's a bit of a shame that I haven't brought any indirects with me to finish off that 1HP medium tank. But you can't have everything, and right now I'm going with the move-and-shoot flexibility of direct combat over being able to hit stuff at range. In the west, Drake's medium tank finishes off the AA that Max attacked previously.



Keeping things spread out a little bit, because I'm sure you can all guess what's round the corner...



Oh god, what was the key combo again? Wasn't it Triangle + B + Left Trigger + Print Screen + Page Up + Start...?



... maybe not.



This was taken right at the end of Sturm's turn (as indicated by his low, post-building-stuff funds). Somehow Sturm decided not to try attacking either Max's 1HP medium tank or his 1HP B copter. I blame either "I can't attack! I'm in healing mode!" logic or the AI knowing when it's going to be unlucky.



Day 15. Andy's kind of hit the point where he doesn't have that much else to do. He's not completely out of it just yet, but certainly nothing that interesting happens for him this turn.



Even ol' Maxie can have infantry chip damage work for him.



Always good to finish off a 1HP unit with chip damage from some badly crippled unit of your own. Especially if that 1HP unit would have started healing otherwise.



Joinin' units (maybe joining the APCs wasn't the smoothest move. Now I have half as much bait!) and doing disproportionate amounts of damage with a 4HP medium tank.



Kamikaze-ing with the 1HP B copter knocks a hit point off that light tank. Again, better than waiting for it to get killed.



Let's move on to Drake. I take down a B copter with an AA (in hindsight, I could have taken it out with the 8HP AA further back, and freed the full health AA up to attack something more juicy like a mech. Not the end of the world, though) and attack a light tank with a middie, leaving it at 1HP. My 1HP middie clears it up in what will probably be another suicidal move (though not directly so this time). And some damaged infantry join together.



Yet more chip damage as battered AA takes on battered AA. And for those of you screaming "for goodness' sake, refuel that poor medium tank already!", well, there y'go.



Sturm's medium tank gets dragged off the HQ. It makes his frontline look a lot tougher, but it's also pretty much his last throw of the dice.



Hey look, Andy killed something! All right, it was only a 3HP AA, but that's one less bit of chokepoint clutter than Max and Drake have to deal with. Go Andy!



And compounding the drama by building something that isn't a mech. I know, right.



No prizes for guessing how that "last throw of the dice" turned out for Sturm.



I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I decided "let's have the B copter attack a random light tank rather than the missile launcher threatening Max's bomber". Probably "eh, Drake'll deal with it." But even then, this attitude causes some problems for me.



Doing 6HP damage to an AA with a 4HP medium tank (Max ) before joining the 1HP one onto it. And an APC heads forward for yet another bit of



To be fair, Drake did deal with it - that missile launcher's down to 1HP now. But it is kind of a shame that he couldn't finish it off, which he surely would have if Max's copter had also attacked. Now that missile's gonna heal back up to 3HP, tear a fair chunk off the bomber and reduce its effectiveness...



The AAs continue their work, taking out a B copter and a mech.



The bomber situation aside, it's all going very smoothly.



Sturm's response leaves Max with a 6HP bomber . At least the other missile launcher's decided that it's not worth sticking around here to get smashed to pieces like its brother, using Sturm's ignorance of terrain movement costs to get the hell out of Dodge.



Andy continues to break the mould by building... A TANK .



AA pushes through to take out a mech before it can leave base, while the damaged middie and bomber keep plugging away.



And plenty of troops behind them to keep the mill rolling.



Drake pushes onwards. Once again I find myself leaving that missile launcher alive. I think I still have some kind of "oh, they're useless" mental block when it comes to missile launchers. But it keeps getting health back, and it'll probably finish that bomber off on Sturm's next turn.



Battle of the 1HP units.



And because heck, why not: let's have a Drake B copter. Nothing for stamping your authority on a situation like building usless things just 'cause.



Here it comes again... let's try F8 + Square + Pause/Break + ¬ + holding the left stick up and the right stick down + swinging the Wiimote in an anti-clockwise direction...



Nope, that's not it. But even hitting me right in the heart of my assault force, Sturm's only delaying the inevitable.



RIP Max's bomber, taken out by a combo of meteors and me not dealing with that missile launcher properly. The other missile launcher continues to escape - in the video, we end up deciding that Hawke, Lash, Adder and Flak must all be on that thing...



Andy, Andy, he's our man, if he can't do it...



... oh, uh, I guess Max can?



Max gets revenge on the missile launcher - too little, too late. But we can enact a bit of eye-for-an-eye by taking out the bomber that's been gradually repairing on Sturm's airport for the last few turns.



Max Force's extra movement boost does help out a little here, letting this B copter makes a suicidal-looking charge to take down a mech, and letting that medium tank rumble one tile closer to the front.



Base-blocking shenanigans. I really should try to do something about that AA on Drake's turn, if I can.



But that's Max done for the day.



I really should try to do something about that AA, but I don't. Or can't. I could have had a few options though: on Max's turn, I could have attacked the right-hand mech rather than the left-hand one, thus freeing up Drake's tank to attack the AA. That might have made base-blocking trickier, but Drake seems to have an APC in reserve for that task. Forward planning, that's always my problem.



But then if the APC was blocking a base, it wouldn't be able to block this airport and aaaaa. Either way, worthy sacrifice or not, it does look like Max's B copter is going down.



Drake's turn finishes up. Hmm... he does have plenty of infantry within three squares of the HQ now... sentiment says I should give Andy the job - and he does have an APC close by - but it'd take too long to set up, and the HQ area's far too cluttered for APC deployment.



Andy does get to do something though.



Beautifully, the AA is finished off by chip damage from an infantry and - you're gonna love this - a mech that's run out of bazooka ammo.



I'm laughing now, but that lack of bazooka ammo will come back to bite me. Perhaps only the tiniest bite possible. Like, a bite from a toothless shrew or something. But kind of a bite.



Max is as Max does.



Paving the way for Drake's HQ run.



Drake graciously accepts.



All factories locked down.



So here's where the toothless shrew bite comes in. Sturm's APC decided that it was fed up of running, and returned to face the music. This means that Andy can make a "useful" contribution! But oh no, his mech is out of ammo... but wait! There's an APC right there! I could resupply the mech and attack the APC!



Nope.



Sorry, Andy.



And Drake adds the finishing touch.



And there we have it! A serious grind, and a 20 day B-rank, but from some of the horror stories I've heard, that went relatively smoothly. Andy didn't fall (though he was reduced to a single mech at one point), Drake gave a star performance and Max was... well, you know, Max. A fitting end to a run of Advance Campaign that wasn't stylish, or quick, or even competent - but at least it was stubborn .