Part 15: GodDAMMIT Greyfield!

With our lips wet from the sea battle of last mission, we continue north into what can reasonably be called Lazurian Territory. I can only assume that Greyfield was stuck on the coast for the better part of the last year, and only with Brenner is he doing decently.


Oh boy DOES he.


We're off to a great start, aren't we?

: Th-thanks to the brave effort of all our units, we crushed the hated Lazurians. Brenner's Wolves fought particularly well. It was only due to their--


: Where is the 12th Battalion now?

: On...on the coast, Admiral Greyfield. L-l-looking for the enemy...

: Send units to assist them. Make it clear that Admiral Greyfield is in command! Brenner will obey my orders to the letter during the next battle!

: B-but, Admiral...

: Do you question me, Davis? Armies need discipline and leadership, and I provide these things!


: Y-yes, sir! Absolutely right, Admiral. I'll... I'll get right on it.

Yes, how dare we follow orders and kill a bunch of Lazurians? Yes, Will was a bit of a dick to you, but hey, you deserved it, ass.


: We can now produce naval units!

: Well done, Will. But the enemy possesses ports also. This may be a long battle.
No it won't.

: Greyfield has sent a token amount of funds and military support. But I think it's mostly for show. I doubt he really supports the 12th Battalion. We'd better make plans to secure our own source of funds and materials.

: Got it. Thanks, Lin. All units! Spread out and capture as many neutral bases as you can!


Well, here we go. We start with a decent chunk of units in the bottom corner, including one more new unit that I'll get to in a moment.


Over here is Greyfield's token "support", consisting of two gunboats and a rig. Thanks Greyfield...


In the northwest Lazuria has a decent contingent of units as well. That would be a bit of a slog...


If their HQ wasn't off on the opposite side of their landmass. With beaches nearby. Yeah. I won't be going near that northwest end with much of anything. Strange though, they've sent out AA missiles...


And here's why. Our final nautical unit, the carrier has been changed from AW:DS, where it was a massive ranged AA battery. Now it exists to produce seaplanes and act as a mobile refueling depot for air units. What are seaplanes? Have no fear, they shall be revealed, because I will be making some this mission. The biggest issue with carriers is the fact they can't move and produce, or move and launch units. There's also the detail of the material amount being 4, so they can only make 4 seaplanes anyways.


To begin with, I load the infantry into the lander and gunboat to begin capturing the other islands. I mess up slightly by not also throwing the rig into the lander, but it ends up being a minor inconvenience.


Carrier produces the first seaplane at a cost of 15000G. Not cheap, given the carrier itself is 28000G to produce.


Meanwhile, our battleship sets out to get first blood.


Awesome. Everything else moves out towards the west to hit the enemy fleet.



Not a bad first turn, overall.


: Prove yourselves worthy of my glorious leadership!
*cough*your leadership sucks *cough* Greyfield actually commands this token force. I'm not a fan of his theme, but it's title is Madman's Reign, which is just hilarious.


Not much happened here. Lazuria moved some units closer to the HQ, but really, nothing happened at this corner.


To begin my turn, I produce a second seaplane in the carrier.


Capturing begins as well, and a gunboat goes and probes the water. That weakened cruiser is the one from below Greyfield's two gunboats. He couldn't finish off the damn thing. He also appears to be tolerating THAT failure. Hypocrite.


The lander returns and collects the rig I left behind last turn.


Western force conglomerates nicely, and I leave my battleship in a bad spot trying to get it closer to the enemy HQ. Whoops.


Uh, what?


What orders? Greyfield, what are you doing? This is MY military. Go back to playing with your gunboats. This screen also shows the mistake with the battleship. It took a hit from the MD Tank. Again, a mild inconvenience, but one I'd rather not have done by accident.


I launch a seaplane to show it off. The seaplane is actually very powerful. I liken it to a gunboat that flies. It has three attacks, minimal defence, but a strong punch. Kind of nice to have to help turn the tide in a navy vs. air battle. That said, if you're getting into a battle like that, something is going horribly wrong.


Meanwhile, I begin preparing for the eventual push for the HQ by buying an Md Tank of my own. Capturing also finishes, getting us an extra 2000G a turn.


Go to hell, Md Tank. I LOVE battleships in this game. They may be weaker, but at least they can punish almost anything that attacks but doesn't kill them.


Gunboat and sub take out the enemy battleship that I forgot about, which is why our cruiser is suddenly at 4 HP. This will likely backfire on me because of Greyfield picking gunboats, but hey. We'll get to that next turn.


Other gunboat beaches itself to fire a salvo at the enemy carrier. It is now also hilariously out of position. Whoops.


: He says they must be obeyed under penalty of death, sir!


You know, endearing yourself to your superior to not kill you outright would not include calling him an idiot while he's PRESENT ON THE FIELD.

: Sorry, sir! But I'm just the messenger! Please do what he says, sir! I have a wife and kids!

: Wait...the penalty of death applies to you? An enlisted man?!

: I think it applies to all of us, Will. There's no choice. The admiral clearly doesn't like me very much.

: This is my fault, Captain. I was disrespectful to the admiral...

: Don't blame yourself, Will. Things can't be changed now. I could risk my own neck, but I won't endanger the lives of my men.


: Yes, sir!


Fuck. YOU.


Well, guess I'm not retreating those units. At the very least, they'll distract the enemy while going down in a blaze of missiles? Welcome to the gimmick, it can either be inconsequential or reset worthy, and this one is more the former. Gunboats are nice, but I can have a real navy in this mission, so they start losing their worth at this point anyway.


I could have placed my sub better, but a kill's a kill. Stalls the enemy's own capturing for a moment, which'll help us later.


Lander returns, picks up the first Md Tank, and I build a second to completely dominate the northern land.


The Md tank retreated here, but I'd rather it not exist at all. Battleship and seaplane wipe it out. For reference, the seaplane's damage to an Md Tank on a tile with no defence is 65%. I love them, even if they are unwieldy to actually use. I pull the other seaplane alongside the first, and end my turn.




: Great! Maybe there's a problem in the ranks!

: I wouldn't want to speculate. Let's just finish the job at hand.

Oh Gage. I love your theme. You might be devoid of all emotion, but the song makes up for it.I forgive anyone who just listens to this song for any update, even if Gage isn't present.


Sub's trapped and running low on fuel. Great. One of our gunboats got sunk too, thanks to Greyfield not letting us retreat them. So... thanks for that, Admiral. This'll definitely get us to follow you.


Sub finishes Greyfield's blunder and kills the enemy cruiser before it can begin healing. Our remaining gunboat retreats as well. It'll eventually be used to transport that infantry.


Battleship attacks the anti air, rig begins building a T. Port, and the carrier moves up to give the seaplanes a place to land and refuel.

Before Day 6, Will tries being a nice guy

: Attention, Lazurian commanders! Can anyone hear me?

: ...



: ...What do you want?

: Hey! You heard me!

: I'm switching the intercom off now.

: Wait! Please, hold on! I have to talk to you! I need to know why the Lazurians started this war again!

: I obey orders. I don't engage in policy discussions.

: Orders? But Lazuria is destroyed! Both of our nations are in ruins, and yet we're still at war! Orders don't matter We don't have a reason to fight.

: ... ... ... ...

: Surely you thought about this! You must know this war is pointless!

: That's not my concern. Soldiers follow orders, not their hearts. If soldiers acted as they pleased, armies would collapse. We're tools of the government. They tell us what to do, and we--

: But there IS no government now! I mean, not a real one!


Gage just gives no fucks about logic and empathy. Good try Will.


We have money, so let's spend it on a battleship. The costs of all the naval units are also here, for the curious. Subs happily start dived in this game when they're bought. Kind of a nice touch.


Forgive the lack of in between shots, but here's what happened: Seaplane in the north launched from the carrier and attacked the Md Tank Gage just built, battleship finished off the AA, and the lander dropped off the assault force of two tanks. The other seaplane is playing defence force, and the gunboat was loaded up with the infantry and is now making it's way to the beach as well.


Greyfield strikes again, and this time it's more concerning. Thanks to this, I have to make smart choices this turn with my Md Tanks, or I could outright lose the attack on the north.


Again, intermediary shots didn't turn out well, so here goes: Battleship and seaplane take out the basic tank. Lander moves over one to let the gunboat drop off the infantry into safe territory. Md tanks form up a wall while damaging the enemy Md Tank and one of the missile launchers. Other seaplane takes out the tank Gage thought would help control the island we aren't using. Our sub heads west to see if it can do anything while running on fumes. Time to see if our Md Tank placement was good enough.


: Captain? I have more orders from Admiral Greyfield.



: Captain, we can do it anyway! Brenner's Wolves won't be beaten by the Lazurians OR Greyfield!

: Captain, he's right! We can win this!


Fuck off, Greyfield.


To begin the turn, our sub uses it's last gasp to annihilate the carrier. Farewell sub, you did your duty.


Meanwhile, over by the HQ, our infantry shames Gage by blowing up his missile launcher while trying to stay safe from the rest of the forces that could actually attack it. I also retreat the damaged battleship, since it ran out of shots last turn, and use the new one to finish off the enemy Md Tank.


Seaplanes fly around, finishing off the enemy tank on our island, and also taking out the damn lander. That's all for this day.





Well, this looks alright. Gage ran a tank into one of our Md's, so no real harm there


In the interest of keeping my infantry alive, I pull it down a tile to prep for the next day, our battleship damages the AA, and our lower Md tank returns the favor the Gage's tank. Our seaplanes also return to the carrier again, which then moves to the battlefront.


Day 10, and Gage retreats anything that could potentially hurt us. Not alright with this, I give chase with the battleship, killing the tank.


Md Tanks take on the missile launcher parked on the HQ.


Infantry begins doing it's thing. I daresay we win.


Our other battleship is healed and restocked with more shots, so he joins in the chase. Cruiser, now also healed, goes sailing and/or fishing.


Too late, Greyfield. Too late.


Battleships sate their bloodlust before we finish the map by destroying a new tank. Infantry then captures the HQ to win the map.


: We have no choice. We must retreat.



: Tell Greyfield what happened here...
Yes, let's go tell him he got a gunboat crew killed, left our Md tanks out to hang, and was ineffectual in a battle himself. I like the sounds of that.

Before I get into the post mission plot, this run didn't show the worst Greyfield can pull. ANY unit you have can be called out. Battleships, subs, seaplanes... In a previous playthrough, he's called out infantry just before I started capturing the HQ. This meant that the infantry couldn't finish the second turn. This completely threw me off, and a single AA got in around the defences that got hilariously battered by Gage, and shot up my infantry. I almost threw my DS at a wall, since that was the first goddamn time I played that mission. Fuck you Greyfield, fuck you.


: Er...I mean... It was probably due to your leadership, s-sir!

: ...I see.

: A-Admiral? You're not...upset at our victory, are you?

: No! Of course not! How dare you!

: Until they are wiped from the face of the planet, we will know no peace...

Well sir, you see. We were chasing them with the Md tanks, but then your orders came in to not move an inch. We had no choice but to stop moving. So, thanks for letting them get away Greyfield.


Meanwhile...



: I'm... I'm sorry. Do you know me?

: Oh, I doubt you'd be remembering me.

Oh God, we're in Newfoundland! Abort! Abort!

: Oh... I'm...I'm sorry. I can't really remember anything.

: Wait! You know Isabella? She's lost her memory. Anything you can tell us about her would be a big help.

: Well, that's just a shame, it is! But I'm afraid I won't be of much use t'ya. I only saw this young lady and her family a few times.


: She has a family?

: Oh yah! Had herself a couple'a sisters and a brother, if I'm rememberin' rightly.

: ...I had a family?

: Do you know their names? Or where they are now?

: Oh no! I don't think anyone here will be tellin' ya any of that. Not quite sure the best way to tell ya this, but...


: Why?

: Oh, I don't wanna be talkin' poorly about someone's family! Wouldn't be right.

: No! Please tell me! I want to know!

: Yah well, we had all kinds of strange rumors flying about! Folks said your family wasn't human! Said they were monsters and the like!

That was totally necessary.

: That's...horrible.

: Oh golly, now I gone and done it! But yah, there were a buncha rumors! Folks said that a buncha tough guys caused ya trouble and then died all mysterious-like! And some folks said that if ya got near weapons, they'd explode and such!

: ...

: But they're just rumors, yah? Don'cha be payin' these things no mind.

: Will...

: Listen, Isabella, I'm sure that--


Then we give you a gun, and help you regain your memory of being a killing machine. Welcome to the forces.

Also...




Next time!
We face Forsythe. Meteors appear. Backstory!