Part 39: Chapter 39 (Battle) - I’m Confiscating Your CO Meter, Kindle
Update 39 (Battle) - I’m Confiscating Your CO Meter, KindleWelcome back, everybody! Hell of a map today - by which I mean, this map is hell. This is a two-parter, and it's not even close, so let's get started.
So, we're going with Sasha and Jake for this map. Jake's not going to see much action, but Sasha, oh boy... she's going to make this whole thing happen for us.
Let's get started. We've got properties to capture.
Spiral Garden... here's the deployments that will hopefully squash Kindle.
Today’s Deployments
Alfonse, Infantry
Rin, Infantry
Carter, Mech
Michael, APC
Ludmilla, APC
Fleur, APC
Vanessa, Recon
Cassandra, Anti-Air
Dave, Tank
Dimitri, Tank
Diana, Tank
Rose, Medium Tank
Selena, Medium Tank
Ingo, Artillery
Inessa, Artillery
Ivan, Artillery
Lucy, Bomber
Zlata, Bomber
Peregrine, Bomber
The D-name tanks and the I-name artilleries are out in full force today!
Oh, man. These pipes are makin' me dizzy... Hope I don't ride the porcelain bus...
What does that even MEAN.
This map's got a lot going on, and we have multiple things to be doing, so here we go.
First thing is for Ingo and Inessa to start breaking through these seams - we need to head up and block off Kindle's forces as quickly as we can, though we also need some forces to go west to deal with Kindle's oncoming tanks and copters. Plus, those two piperunners need to fuck off and die, effective immediately.
Inessa next. Thankfully, two artillery shots and one tank shot can take out a seam, which is nice and convenient, seeing as we have two tanks and two artilleries to begin with. I do wish we had a medium tank or a bomber to speed up the process, though...
Soon. I will get my fun toys soon.
Dimitri smashes the first pipe seam. It's not much, but the important thing is that it's enough.
Dave does the same thing to this one. We don't strictly NEED two open, but it'll make life easier when we're moving troops up and down if we have two areas of egress.
And, you know, I have the resources, may as well use them on something whilst we're waiting for Kindle.
Now for our foot soldiers. They're going to be pretty crucial on this map, seeing as we need to capture properties. Alfonse hops into Michael to get started. Our mech, Carter, will be staying here to capture the two free properties we've got. The more we capture down here, the less we need to take from Kindle later, which will help.
Atta boy, Carter.
So, time for Kindle's turn. She's mostly gonna be spamming foot units and sending her vehicles my way.
The piperunners, as well as the squad in the middle section of this spiral, begin moving towards my units. The piperunners will be on top of us in a couple of days, so I need to start making allowances for them. The medium tank will take some time to get to me, and by the time it does, I'll have the resources to beat it.
Uh. Hopefully.
Back to us! We've got lots of things charging us, so now's the time to divide our forces and start showing Kindle just who she's messing with.
First things first, these seams need to go, otherwise our tanks aren't going anywhere.
"Alright, the seam's open, Dimitri!" Inessa announces, beaming at her handiwork.
"Thanks, Inessa. Dave, you're handling the west?"
"Yup. You take the northern chokepoint." Dave replies. "Backup should be on the way later, so just get in there."
"Oh," Dimitri replies, giving a vicious grin. "I intend to."
Dave goes charging out west, whilst Dimitri heads up, with Vanessa in tow. Michael drops off Alfonse next to a nearby base. We won't be deploying anything from it, but hey, it's a property.
Speaking of properties, Carter's doing good work. Just one more down here to go!
And next, I purchase an anti-air - Cassandra. Dave can't handle battle copters, so Cassandra will be backing him up in the west.
The enemy troops continue surging forward.
And also capturing shit, but like, who cares. Just like me, Kindle can't win unless she takes one of my buildings down south, so whilst victory might be, you know, fucking tedious, I'm in little danger of actually losing the map.
The rightmost piperunner keeps moving forwards, along with the rest of Kindle's crew. Just offscreen, the other piperunner and the battle copter are making their way forward, too.
There he is. We'll deal with them soon enough.
So now, we move Cassandra forward...
...and we can keep Dave out of harm's way by moving him behind her.
You might be thinking "Post! Why would you move Dave forward only to retreat him again? Did you overextend? Tactical error?"
No. Come on, I'm more brilliant than that.
Kindle's piperunners will almost always stay out of the range of my tanks, since tanks do over half their HP in damage. I needed to keep Dave that far out to stop the piperunner from moving too far forward, because if it does, it'll end up in range of this base and I can't have Alfonse capture it safely. However, no piperunner in range, so he can capture it all he likes!
Now, Inessa's job isn't done. There's more seams to smash, and we've quite a brutal time limit - one of Lash's infantry up north will be moving down to capture this airport in another couple of turns, and we need to make sure we prevent that at all costs. But our units are spread thin already, so it's gonna be tight.
Meanwhile, I decide to deploy Diana, Dimitri's Shadow, since Dimitri needs looking after and she's the best person for the job.
"Dimitri, I'm on my way to you." Diana says in the transceiver as she begins driving.
"Good," comes a response crackling through the transceiver. "We need all the backup we can get if we wanna hold off Kindle's whole army."
"I never disappoint." Diana replies, before turning the transceiver off and focussing entirely on getting to her destination as soon as possible.
Carter makes a start on the other property now. Mechs don't have the movement range to do much else, so it gives him something to do whilst I deal with Kindle's forces. Once it's a bit safer, I can get an APC for him and get him to some of these more distant properties.
And that's about how we shape up. Dimitri and Vanessa will be lying in wait for Kindle's advance forces - an anti-air and a recon. Tank/recon beats anti-air/recon any day, so I'm not too worried - we just have to make sure the piperunner doesn't mess things up.
Down here, meanwhile, Ingo will be providing a bit of extra damage for Dave and Cassandra.
Now to let Kindle's forces move in so we can initiate on them safely. The copter is in range of Cassandra, but as we established recently, bro copters NEVER initiate on anti-airs because they would get bitch-slapped into next week if they tried it.
Also, Kindle's units have started capturing stuff fully starting today.
This Dick Captures A Property: 38
Yep, she captures a whopping 4 properties today, which is helping her catch up to our early lead.
See, she's at 7 now, and still has more buildings to capture! God damn you, Kindle.
This, meanwhile, is the IDEAL setup we wanted down below. The piperunner's hiding behind the battle copter, which we can cleanly one-shot with Cassandra. If it had chosen to hide behind the tank instead, we'd have a much harder time of dealing with it, since we can't take out the tank as easily.
The anti-air and the recon have moved in, meanwhile, and the piperunner is keeping its distance. This is what we wanted!
These opening turns are pretty important, but they're going well so far. I suppose that's what you get when we have Rose helping out, too.
And Carter gets the last property down here. He's doing a great job, well done, Carter.
Alfonse gets a base, though! We could deploy, like, tanks'n'shit from it. We won't, but we could.
First things first, we need to retreat Vanessa so that the anti-air can't get at her. She can trade decently well with a recon, but the anti-air will hit way too hard, and we need to keep her healthy to finish off the enemy recon.
Dimitri has nothing to fear from these flimsy fucking vehicles, and brings this one down to 1HP so Vanessa can kill it next turn.
Inessa takes a shot at this seam. And y'know, thinking about it...
I can have Diana shoot it on her way past - that means Inessa can take it out next turn instead of in two turns. That'll be handy!
Meanwhile, let's begin making Kindle regret approaching us down below. Cassandra slaughters the bro copter without even trying.
Dave decides that the cure to piperunners is "bullets" and shoots the pipey fucker. It's pretty solid damage, so we don't have to worry nearly as much about this thing now!
I move Ingo further in, too - if the piperunner chooses to attack something this turn, it can be crushed by Ingo next turn and we don't have to worry about it any more. The tank's gonna go for Cassandra, seeing as she's open.
The only problem is that the piperunner AND the tank might both go for Cassandra. But I have faith that she'll survive that. I think.
Sometimes, you gotta take risks if you want to win.
Also, Kindle does this bullshit.
Oh, fuck you.
Now, I was under the impression that Kindle would only use her CO Power on this map if you have 3 units on properties or more, but evidently that's not the case. Still, we can heal off that damage after a couple of turns - we just need to make sure Kindle never gets her CO Power again.
And that, my friends, is why we brought Sasha.
Kindle also captures some more properties - just two more this time, but still, annoying.
This Dick Captures A Property: 40
Aha! The piperunner's gone for Ingo, so Cassandra is safe! I'm a genius!
It doesn't even hit that hard now that we've weakened it, so Ingo's fine too.
Cassandra does take a pretty heavy hit from the tank, but not nearly heavy enough to, you know, kill her. She's fine!
The recon and the anti-air move further down over here. That's, uh, weird but I'm not going to complain. Neither of them attack, but to be fair, I wouldn't attack Dimitri or Vanessa either.
We're in a pretty good position. Just a few more bits to take care of before we can properly start nabbing properties - namely, getting that airport and crushing those piperunners.
Cassandra retreats one space. You'll see why.
Ingo finishes off the first piperunner, which is a huge relief.
"Piperunner's down!" Ingo yells. "Thank god, that thing was a pain."
"Nice one, Ingo!" Dave replies. "Hopefully the Meteor and Vanessa are doin' just as well up at the chokepoint."
"Don't worry about them - worry about us! We still have a tank to deal with." Cassandra replies, and Dave nods.
"Right, on it. Stay back, Cassandra, let me handle this!"
Dave attacks the tank - this position works well. Cassandra's safely out of the tank's range, and whilst it can attack Ingo, it can't kill him when it's so weak, so we'll be able to tank the hit and defeat it next turn, no problem. Took a bit of smart play to sort everything out down here with just these limited units, but we're almost through it now.
Up here, things aren't nearly as dangerous. Vanessa can put paid to the recon without any issue...
And Dimitri can put a massive chunk of damage into the anti-air, virtually disabling it.
Meanwhile, thanks to Diana's chip damage last turn, we can open up this seam with Inessa.
And as promised, now that Kindle's forces are looking a bit thinner, I get an APC for Carter.
And it's Ludmilla, too, so that's like, doubly good.
"Well, hello, little soldier." Ludmilla says, winking at Carter. "Cute helmet. Where are we bound?"
Carter tries not to stare at the attractive young woman's face and chest, but finds it difficult. "Oh, uh... orders just, uh, came in. We're going to the airport up north."
"On it. Let's get going, then - we don't want the enemy to find that airport before us!" Ludmilla replies grimly.
Right, let's see what Kindle's going to do now that most of her forces are dead. I guess throw that medium tank at us?
Oh, and capture more shit. God forbid we should have a turn where she DOESN'T capture something.
This Dick Captures A Property: 41
As predicted, the tank decides to ruin Ingo's day, but he takes it like a champ.
The anti-air can get at Vanessa now, but it doesn't do all that much damage after it got Dimitri-ed in the face.
And would you look at that? This piperunner's hiding behind a friend, too, but that friend's not going to be there for long, Mr. Piperunner.
Dealing with this piperunner is pretty important, as it'll be an enormous obstruction to our plans to choke this point otherwise. Ranged units always ruin chokepoints, and piperunners are especially annoying about it.
Carter wastes no time in hopping into Ludmilla's APC, but Ludmilla's in work mode right now and doesn't flirt any further, instead just driving off towards the airport as fast as her vehicle can go.
Around the same time, Alfonse gets back into Michael so that he can head north, too. There's a couple of cities which are now undefended, since all of Kindle's forces are heading south, so we're going to nab those as well.
Dave finishes off the tank - and just in time, too. The medium tank and artillery are nearly on top of us, so we'd best start making plans for dealing with them.
The APCs meet at the pipe seam. This was just in time, too, as this infantry was nearly at the airport! See what I mean about there being a lot to do in a short space of time? Efficiency is key in these first turns if you want to try and avoid a drawn-out stalemate.
And even with this fantastic start, we're STILL going to get a drawn-out battle...
Inessa moves over here, where she can freely fire on the airport. Let's see you try and capture something when I'm artillery-ing you every turn!
As I said earlier, by the time the medium tank shows up, we have the resources to deal with it - and those resources are "buy a medium tank of your own", so here's our girl, Selena!
"I won't allow Black Hole to continue this nonsense." Selena says fiercely. "Troops, form up and prepare for combat. Dave, allow me to handle the medium tank at your side."
"Sure, Selena. Waitin' on your orders."
"My orders are simple; they're the same as my dude's orders." Selena replies. "Kindle insulted our dear friend, Rose. Show no mercy."
So, Diana's caught up to Dimitri now. Dimitri can take out the anti-air...
Which lets Diana attack the piperunner for massive damage. Yeah, you won't be bothering us anymore, fucker!
Sorry. I hate piperunners.
My troops down south back up a bit to begin making repairs. I need everybody at close to full HP if I want to win this - I'm taking no chances.
Plus, making repairs is dangerous when Kindle's got her CO Power hanging around, so we'd better do it sooner rather than on a turn where Kindle's going to go "lol no fuck your units on cities" as she so often does.
This fucker gets halfway towards capturing the airport. Unfortunately for him, that's as far as he's going to get.
The piperunner, well, runs for it. Kindle's not got many troops up there now, and most of them are slow-as-molasses foot soldiers, so we have some time to arrange a decent chokepoint. Plus, I want to capture that neutral city near to Dimitri if I can.
Right, let's continue. Another day, another threat coming from the west. This time a medium tank and an artillery, which could be threatening if we hadn't, like, had six days to prepare for it.
This guy's also not a problem. Inessa hits him with the Fuck Off Special...
And Vanessa, who didn't have much to contribute at the chokepoint and so came back over this way, can finish him off. Recons can't do much, but they can do decent chip damage to infantry units. The airport is open and ours for the taking!
"Right, the airport's open! Ludmilla, you ready?"
"Heading in now!" Ludmilla says. "Thanks, Vanessa, Inessa, that was almost really bad. I think we're turning things around!"
"We've still got a lot of properties to take. Don't count your chickens yet." warns Michael.
Ludmilla drops Carter off at the airport, and Michael drops Alfonse off near one of the cities up north - it's in piperunner range currently, so we'll need to hope that it continues retreating next turn.
I think Dimitri and Diana are suitably scary enough to make the piperunner retreat. I do need to be careful, though - if those tanks get any closer, I may have to call a retreat myself.
Hm. Kindle looks quite close to getting her CO Power.
Do we release The Sasha? We do. Sasha! Make Kindle's CO Meter go away.
I'm on it.
Time to ruin Kindle's day.
So, as we've established, Market Crash reduces Kindle's CO Meter by an amount based on how many funds we have. The REALLY fun thing about that is that it doesn't consume funds, it just checks how many we have. So it's pretty easy to drop Market Crash at the start of a turn, then use all those funds to buy your expensive shit.
And that's no CO Meter for you, Kindle! Yeah, Market Crash is an absurd CO Power, and a lifesaver on this map. I mean, two fucking stars for a power THIS good?!
Thinking about it, I might find it more useful because I'm doing no-deaths and usually I tend not to use CO Powers much anyway (especially since without sacrificing units, you don't gain as much CO Meter). So I guess Sasha's power is a pretty perfect fit for my playstyle. Why've I not been using her more?
Anyway, diatribes on CO Powers aside, let's see what Kindle's gonna do today.
Well, that's a lot of dudes, and a few tanks, but most importantly, the piperunner's gone north, so we can safely capture that property!
So let's, like, do that.
This medium tank and artillery also helpfully lined up for us, so we can weaken those now. Selena makes a good start on this medium tank, which is probably the biggest threat on the map right now.
Well, the biggest enemy threat. Selena is the biggest threat on the map right now, let's be real.
We can weaken the artillery too, since it might take a shot at Selena. That'd be problematic.
Just in case anyone decides to fuck around, Inessa heads over to cover our bases. Literally, too, since she can resupply on this base. She's been shooting a lot of seams today.
Carter makes a start on capturing this airport. Finally, air supremacy will be mine!
The tanks pull back a bit up here, meanwhile. I don't want Dimitri and Diana biting off more than they can chew until reinforcements arrive.
Speaking of reinforcements, we need more infantry and APCs to capture stuff, so here's Rin and Fleur!
"OK, Fleur, we've gotta help capture properties!" Rin says brightly. "Where are we going first?"
"Unfortunately, mon cherie, it seems like we're bound for the chokepoint, where there's a property nearby. It may not be an easy ride..." Fleur murmurs. Rin winces.
"Well, that sounds rough. Guess we've got to do our best out there, though!"
A voice comes over the transceiver: Dave. "Look after yourself, kid. Listen to Dimitri, alright?"
"Oh, don't worry!" Rin replies, sighing. "I always look after myself. It's you that does all the dramatic heroics!"
"I won't let him get into too much trouble, don't worry." Selena says. "Good luck, Rin."
Right, more Kindle time. She's a lot less dangerous with no CO Power to worry about.
All her troops just kind of... inch forward.
The artillery moves back so that the medium tank can attack Dave.
"Ngh! Damn tank... you think you can take me out?!"
That smarts, but eh, Dave will be fine, and the medium tank's still in Inessa's range, so that problem basically solves itself.
Our turn now. Let's go murder some stuff to make me feel better.
Firstly, Inessa crushes the medium tank. We have that property down there, which the infantry is trying to take, so we ought to go over and murder him too.
Selena finishes off the artillery, too, since Dave's not really in a position to do it. Poor guy took quite a hit from that medium tank.
Meanwhile, Rin and Fleur prepare to head off to the northern chokepoint! I want that city!
Carter nabs the airport, giving us sole control of the airspace on this map!
You already know what I'm going to do. Bombers for days.
...But not quite yet. We need more money and we need to be in a better position first.
Let's get Dave to pull a retreat so he can heal.
Meanwhile, Kindle's CO Meter was close to filling, so-
DENIED.
Now, we'd better get to work on those reinforcements for the chokepoint. Rose will be leading the charge!
"This woman has insulted me for the first and last time. Dimitri, get your troops ready - we will hold off this point indefinitely whilst the other troops steal every last one of Kindle's properties!"
Kindle's turn. She's lost her bite a bit now that most of her advance troops are all super dead.
Well, except this guy. Fuck.
This Dick Captures A Property: 42
One of Kindle's tanks attacks Diana, as I was worried about. They should be able to hold out until Rose and Selena can get up there. Once we have two medium tanks up there, we're virtually unstoppable.
That piperunner isn't helping matters, either.
Right, let's finish off that annoying infantry down below and steal his city.
Cassandra can kill him quite easily thanks to, you know, being an anti-air. She'll finish him next turn, so now we just need to get someone over here to capture this property.
Meanwhile, Selena's due up north to help Rose out, so she'd better head back. She can stop by my properties and heal up that damage before she does, too.
The other troops are there already - Rin can start capturing once we, uh, figure out what the fuck we're doing here. We need to push Kindle's forces back a bit more.
And since Carter took that airport, we can help out with a bit of chip damage!
"Uh, sorry, Diana, is it possible to move?" Carter says. "I can't get the piperunner and the enemy tank without hitting you, too!"
"That's fine - I can handle it." Diana replies. "We have reinforcements arriving soon. Take the shot!"
Carter nods, feeling a bit nervous. "Right. Right! I'm trusting my elders!"
He takes the shot and we do big damage!
The piperunner's down to 1HP so it's basically a non-issue, and the tank's too weak to do much damage to Dimitri and Diana. They're in rough shape, so we've gotta get the medium tank girls up there ASAP.
We're actually in pretty good shape for this map! We're almost done with this part, I just want to do a couple more things before we call it for this week.
And one of those things is "stop Kindle getting her CO Power ever"
Kindle captures another base, which is a bit annoying.
The piperunner takes a pot-shot at Ingo, but... it doesn't do much.
Now that the piperunner's dealt with, we just need to wait until the medium tanks catch up. In the meantime, we need to make a start on heading north to get some of Kindle's properties. We'll need air support for that.
We can grab this city too, now that Cassandra's ended this dude.
Carter gets back into Ludmilla to go get it.
And it won't take them too long to get over there.
I decide to start murdering the infantry over here so I can push forward.
And I put Dimitri and Diana together.
"Jeez, Di," Dimitri says as Diana hops into his tank. "I know you wanted to keep an eye on me, but don't you think this is a little too close?"
"We make do in the circumstances." Diana replies, shrugging. "Come, we've shared tents in the frigid north on previous missions. This should be nothing to you."
"Ah, I suppose so..."
Vanessa heads up to take care of business whilst we wait for Rose and Selena.
One of them's nearly here! Rose has caught up, so she can move in next turn. Thank fucking god for that.
Michael and Alfonse are still merrily capturing things. Good job, lads.
Kindle's turn. There's not much she can do at the moment, since there's no way a couple of infantry can break this chokepoint.
OK, a tank might be able to. Uh-oh.
Eh, we're fine.
Right, let's see if we can push forward a bit now that we have Rose.
So, first we have Ingo strike.
Unfortunately he doesn't kill the tank. Bleh. Dimitri/Diana can take out the infantry next to it though.
And that lets Rose push forward and finish off the tank, giving us just enough space...
For Fleur to drop Rin off: Fleur can block Rin, and there's nothing that can kill her in one hit, so we're pretty safe for this turn. Perfect!
The rest of the troops start moving up, now that everything's been sorted down below. Selena still needs to catch up.
Alfonse starts capturing this property, also. We've nearly got all the properties available to us! After this, we'll need to nab a few of Kindle's up there.
Kindle's CO Meter is filling up again. Let's deny that again, shall we?
Get fucked, Kindle. No, I'm not letting you have your power. And guess what else, Kindle?!
I have one thing that you'll never have.
Bombers.
So, with Lucy deployed, and with a good start on this map, we'll leave it there for now! Next time, our air forces will surge north with our APC squad to capture some of Kindle's properties, whilst the medium tank girls hold out against the oncoming horde of Kindle's units. See you then, folks!
***
Update 40 (Intermission) - A Direct Discussion