Part 34: Trial Map 3: Isosceles Inlet (Triangle Lake, T29)

This map comes courtesy of a discussion in the Skype chat for Paul.Power's Advance Campaign runthrough, wherein numerous people had difficulty S ranking the map. I hope to show the way to reaching it.


Of course, being one of the early unlocks, we have no CO. It won't matter with the size of the map.


We appear to be outnumbered. Heavily. And there's an anti tank on the enemy HQ. Wonderful.


My strategy is pretty basic. I retreat my infantry back a bit.


Which draws out the majority of the enemy's standing army. I'm alright with this, I have a base with which to rebuild. He does not.


I actually move no units on day 2, nor do I buy anything. I have plans, you see. Plan A was drawing out the recon and artillery in the south path.


Infantry, you've done good.


But it's time for the big boys to step in.


And my other infantry will finish the job.


When I did this, I had completely forgotten that recons actually do damage against artillery. I was really pleased by this outcome.


Already things start looking a little up, eh?


The tank moves north to play cat and mouse with the other artillery.


And our recon ensures that son of a bitch isn't going anywhere.


It's hopelessly crippled now. A duster can finish it off.

Yeah. I said it. No regrets. Dusters still suck.


And my infantry take shelter in the mountains.


Day 5. Everything comes to a head here.


because I buy what I was saving for. A rocket.


But before the rocket can do anything, I smoke that artillery with the recon.


And since the other artillery is now hiding behind a mech, I pull the tank back.


At the start of day 6, I move the rockets along the road.


But because this infantry is in range of it, and can still do damage to the rockets (20% on the road), the recon gets the first strike to prevent that.


And everything else slowly heads east.


The enemy has broken through the north chokepoint, mainly because I abandoned it entirely. That's fine though.


Between the tank and rockets, the foot soldier threat is heavily weakened.


I briefly considered using the recon for the sheer overkill of it, but there are other plans for him. Instead, this damaged infantry gets a kill.


Which opens the capture for this infantry.


The recon instead gets this massive overkill. Because there's no kill like overkill.


We now have the unit advantage, by the by. A weakened mech and ranged units compose the enemy force.


The mech opted to attack our tank, leaving itself at 1 HP, and our tank at 6. I'm alright with that.


Mainly because I can always build a second one, like so. And with no direct fire units, our rockets now have free reign. They head east for the time being.


On Day 9, I move the rockets into position to attack the anti tank. This'll be good.


The armored units begin the charge towards the artillery.


One of these days, that arty will run out of fuel. While I wait for that, the rockets begin the bombardment of the enemy HQ.


Checking the rocket range. I don't want to accidentally lose anything.


This'll do.


The rockets continue the assault, and I have no idea why I do what I'm about to do.


Seriously. I could have put both tanks into the rocket shadow and attacked the enemy artillery. Bloody stupid.


Oh well. Nothing lost from it. The anti tank goes down as planned.


I could have been done by now. But I'm not. Bah.


Enemy moves the artillery into the rocket shadow, so I counter by putting the rockets into the arty shadow.


Meanwhile, that poor arty loses the only other unit on it's side.


And the recon moves up as well.


The distress the artillery feels prevents it from moving. Or it really had nowhere to go, so it stayed put. Either or.


So delayed by my foolishness earlier.


But finally, the artillery dies.


Funnily enough, that was FASTER than the par time. I don't know either. For the record, if you want an S rank, you HAVE to use a rocket on the anti tank. It's the only thing in your arsenal that can do that level of damage.


And of course, being in the corner, nothing new is unlocked. That A rank beside it on the story mission really bothers me. I may go back and redo that mission sometime.