Part 47: Chapter 47 (Battle) - The Grey Goo Scenario Never Accounted For Megatanks

Update 47 (Battle) - The Grey Goo Scenario Never Accounted For Megatanks

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen - and hey, it's finally time to get on with this Fuck of War map, so let's do it.



The prevailing vote for the orange team was Jake and Jess - and Jess also happens to be one of our least-used COs, so it'll be good to see her in action!



The other least-used COs were Sensei, Grimm and Javier, and I figured Grimm and Sensei would have some lines together, so I went with them. Plus we saw Javier last map.



Since Jake's rank 2 now, we also have 2 skills to equip! How very exciting. The new ones are as follows:

APC Guard: Transport Unit Defense +10%
Tower Power: COM Tower Effect +5%
Sneaky: Dive/Hide fuel cost -1

These are all weird but solid. Sneaky is especially nice. We're going with APC Guard though, in the hopes that my APCs will be useful bait during this Fog of War fuckery.



And nobody else is qualified to have skills yet, since they're, you know, our least-used COs. Still, let's do it!



The map may be called "Into the Woods" but actually, we're going to try and avoid the woods as much as possible. You never know where surprise rockets might be lurking.

Today’s Deployments
Orange Team
Vanessa, Infantry
Alfonse, Mech
Michael, APC
Petra, Anti-Air
Cassandra, Anti-Air
Dimitri, Tank
Diana, Tank
Zlata, Medium Tank
Rose, Medium Tank
Conrad, Neotank
Selena, Megatank
Ingo, Artillery

Blue Team
Lysander, Mech
Arqa, Mech
Dymek, Mech
Darwin, APC
Adelaide, APC
Ludmilla, Recon
Iago, Anti-Air
Sofia, Tank
Inessa, Artillery
Ivan, Artillery
Talora, Rockets
Yakov, Rockets
Shaia, Missiles

And our deployments. Plenty of units, all predeployed. At least it's not a Fog of War map that you have to use bases to produce from. Yeah, looking at you, Show Stopper...



I don't know what to say. It all sounds so horrible.

It was pretty jacked up. But I guess I'm cool now. Once we drop these fools, we'll rebuild it in a big way.

When he's not spouting stupid bullshit, I kind of like Jake's vibe. His quiet determination is kind of admirable.



Now then, let's get started. We have a Fog of War map, and you know how I feel about those. As such, we're going to make it go as quickly as possible, and we do this by just following Rose's orders the whole time.



The absolute first thing we need is more info, so Vanessa hops into Michael.

"Alfonse, you and I need to scout out the surroundings! Got it?"

"I'm with you, Vanessa." Alfonse replies. "I'll meet you up there - report back if you see anything."



OK, there's nothing, like, RIGHT next to our units, which is always nice. That'd be a cheeky way to start a map like this. Let's surge forward, then, and find some trouble!



Alfonse gets into Michael next, so he can be dropped off on a mountain further forward.



The rest of our units move forward - and yes, that is Selena in a megatank. Yes, I'm very proud of my favourite girl.



And thankfully we don't run into anything horrible on the first turn! These trees are making me anxious - something could be lurking in any one of them, and there's no reasonable way to search it all.



I also decide to swap to Jess, so we can see her in action if we run into trouble next turn. Jake's a decent all-rounder, but with our units mostly hanging out on roads or forests, getting a boost from a plain isn't super reliable, whereas Jess is.



Plus, I want a Tag Power, so I ought to swap between my COs a bit more than I have done in the past. And with that, it's the blue team's turn.



Nobody can match my speed! I'm like a bowling ball on a steep hill!

Hah! That's a classic Grimm line. Too much speed can get you in hot water, though. Don't forget your first campaign!

Grimm



The blue team's got a weirder setup than the orange team. All these ranged units means that we can't really surge forward quite as confidently - and those missiles make me nervous. They'd only give us missiles if they've got airborne units, and if it's bombers or something, that could be seriously dangerous.



Ludmilla can help scout the area before we move forward, at least. Orange team could do with a recon.

"All clear." Ludmilla reports over the transceiver. "There's some forests by the bridge ahead, and I can't see beyond them. There might be enemies lying in wait; do we move in?"

"We do." Rose replies. "I have calculated the enemy's forces based on their financial situation, and ascertained the likeliest locations for those troops to be. It's going to be a rough battle, but I have calculated every step to perfection."



Lysander hops into Darwin, giving the nonverbal soldier a grin. "Heya, Darwin. Let's ride, shall we? No need to be nervous - we got this."

Darwin nods with excitement and prepares to drive off.



Arqa does the same with Adelaide, our other APC. Dymek's just gonna have to walk like a scrub.



Iago and Sofia, as our only reliable combat units, move ahead, whilst the indirects catch up.



And now it's time to see what the enemy's got cooking today. Surprise rockets, I bet.



And it's about time for THAT to make an appearance... Those fools are going to be eaten for lunch. Aha aha ha ha.

Kindle, that laugh was weak. You can do better than that. Do it again.

Oh, dear. Is something amiss, kitten?

It's Lash! And don't forget, kittens may be cuddly, but they've still got claws! And that thing is SO not a weapon. Compared to my inventions, it's just hideous. It's not even fun to poke!

I love the way this implies that piperunners and black bombs are fun to poke.

My dear, jealousy is so unbecoming. Don't you know it'll give you wrinkles? Why aren't you dreaming up your next invention? Something that causes doom? An unproductive CO is nothing more than dead weight, after all.

Shut up, hag!

Yeah, you tell her, Lash!

I don't need you to tell me what kind of evil I should be brewing!

You would do well to remember you are speaking to your superior officer, child. A clever kitten obeys the masters that feed it. An alone and abandoned kitten would find life very difficult. Do you understand?

I think one of the AWDS writers learned what an extended metaphor was when they were writing this dialogue and wanted to show everybody.

I understand we have to crush these allied geeks! That's all that matters.

Good kitten. Now then, shall we prepare to move out? You will be my partner. I expect nothing less than a complete and perfect victory.

A tag battle? With you?

Awww, such a sour face! You wound me. No matter. With THAT on my side, there's no way I can be defeated. Aha ha ha ha ha!

THAT'S a better laugh, Kindle! Now we can finally start the map.



The entire rest of Black Hole's turn is just ominous-fog-noises.jpg, unfortunately-

You heard that, right?

Heard what?

There was a squelch, I heard it. That's a new noise. New noises are dangerous.

You're very receptive to noises in the fog, aren't you? I barely heard it through everything else.

...Hm. I wonder...



Weird squelches aside, let's continue.



Dropping Alfonse off reveals an enemy artillery. Looks like they're pushing forward - we'd best take care of this guy right now.



As Dimitri moves in to attack, I realise that unfortunately, I forgot the cardinal rule of Fog of War.



There's always another ranged unit. Fuck.

I mean, Rose has already planned for all of this so it's not a huge concern, but still, annoying.



As much as it'll put Cassandra at risk, we need the enemy infantry out of here. I'm nervous about that airport nearby - we can't let them get it.



Seeing as I already put my foot in it, I decide to commit really hard and move everyone else forward too. At the very least, the artillery can only shoot one unit, so the rest will be fine.



Let's hope the blue team has a slightly less stressful time, shall we?



FUCK



As predicted, the forces were all waiting at the bridge. I need to hold them off and protect my indirects, and thankfully, Sofia and Iago are perfectly in range to do it. First, Sofia initiates on the tank to weaken it - thanks for the extra damage, Grimm!



And then we slip Iago into this forest. Enemy units can only attack him if they reveal him first, but they can only reach him from one tile, so he literally can't be fired on this turn. Pretty handy.



The rest of the troops move forward next - our indirects, Talora, Yakov, Inessa and Ivan, will be taking care of anything that tries to fight me next turn.



We got our extra damage from Grimm, so let's avoid his weaker defences by switching to Sensei for the enemy's turn. Grimm is not really a "choke points" kind of person.



I wonder who the best chokepoint CO is? I wanna say Lash, if there's defensive terrain at the chokepoint, or maybe Dipshit for consistent healing.

Oh, right. Kanbei exists and outstats fuckin' everything, never mind, he's the best.



Right, Black Hole's gonna actually, like, attack us this turn. I'm a tad nervous. What's Rose planning?



And then out of nowhere, a blob comes out of the forest.

What the fuck is that?!

I've never encountered anything like it. It must be a new Black Hole weapon.

I get chills just looking at it. This is a bad omen.

Aha ha ha! Surprise! The look on your faces was just priceless! Behold Black Hole's ultimate weapon, the creeping death known as oozium 238!

Hm. As I thought.

OK, Rose, you're a genius, I know, but how on EARTH did you know that they'd built a new blob monster?

I didn't know that specifically. But I suspected that they'd hide a powerful, slow unit within this forest; my first thought was a megatank.

I guess that tracks. One slow unit that can virtually murder anything is the same as any other.

I'm pleased to report it's impervious to bombs, missiles and even CO Powers.

That doesn't change my strategy at all. I'm going with the very my dude-esque strategy of "throw tanks at the problem".

Atta girl, Rose!

...!

Rose? You're blushing. <sub>Oh, god, is this about thinking of my dude as your dad again?

Q-quiet!</sub>

It's quite hungry, and it will feast on you and everything else in its path!

It looks slow to me, but...yeck. OK, people, we have no clue what that thing's capable of. Watch yourself!

I don't plan to find out what it's capable of. Come - let's take it on.



So, oozium! Wait, hold on-

This Dick Captures A Property: 43

-oozium! It can only move one space at a time, and can't attack. But if it moves into a space already occupied by an allied unit, it instantly destroys them, no matter what. Yes, you heard that right, they DID introduce a unit that instantly kills your units on a goddamn Fog of War map when you can't see them coming. We love playing fair.



The artillery decides to fire on Cassandra.



"Ngh! I'm still holding strong, but that was-" Cassandra grunts. "Rose really gets every bit of use out of her units that she can, can't she?"

"She's less careful than my dude, for sure. But I know Rose - she won't let anybody die." Vanessa says. "Hang in there, Cassandra!"



And then there's another-

Wait, another targeting reticle? Who-

SURPRISE ROCKETS, MY OLD NEMESIS. Damn it, I should have prepared for that - Dimitri takes a big hit.



The weakened tank moves out of the way, and the full-HP one goes for Sofia.



"Be careful, everyone! They're... hitting quite hard!" Sofia says, wincing as the shots ring around her tank.



And then a goddamn recon comes out of nowhere and charges for Cassandra.

"Cassandra! You're already too weak, get out of there!" shouts Conrad.

"Thanks for the concern, Conrad, but-" Cassandra says, and then the recon opens fire on her.



"I don't think you understand who you're dealing with! Cassandra Morgenstern, the one who metes out justice! It'll take more than a mere recon unit to take me out!"

"Oh, my god..." Petra breathes. "That was close! We'll come help out, Cassandra!"



And just before Black Hole's turn ends, they switch. Also, hey, look, bro copters! Thank god it's not bombers. We can deal with them next turn.



That's not ideal for us - there's not many buildings around for Kindle to take advantage of, whilst Lash has plenty of defensive terrain to make use of.



OK, back to us! Now, uh, let's see what we can do about this oozium.



Selena prepares to open fire. "I don't care what this thing is - all I know is that it will not swallow our soldiers!"



Her blast rips through the outer gel of the oozium. Selena's eyes widen. "It... virtually absorbed that shot. That was the full strength of a megatank!"

"That core must be keeping it together. Can we even damage that?" asks Zlata.



"Only one way to find out!" Conrad replies, blasting with his Neotank's cannon. Rose, in the other medium tank, watches carefully, but the oozium is still moving around, apparently undeterred.

"Highly armoured indeed..." she murmurs. "We must break that core. I believe machine gun fire might be the answer. But to get a perfect shot through that ooze and into the core..."



"Leave it to me!" Dimitri says. Despite the rockets that just assaulted him, he still charges forward with gusto, and wheels his tank around, releasing a brutal - and accurate - shot into the oozium's core.



"And there we have it!" Dimitri replies. "The gel is down!"



The oozium has a unique death animation, too - first it begins bubbling up...



And then it explodes into goo. Pretty cool!

"You don't look too happy, Rose." Vanessa says, as the oozium blasts everywhere, coating the tanks in the stuff.

Rose, in her medium tank, shakes her head. "I'm not concerned about one oozium. I'm concerned about more."



Rose moves forward and takes out the enemy's recon. They're just irritating.



Diana, the other tank who is still on full HP, goes for the artillery to finish it off.



Oh, there are the surprise rockets. I thought they were in the forest nearby. That makes things easier - Petra blasts this artillery. Cassandra, weakened after being shot a whole bunch, has made a retreat for now.



We are going to get rocketed a second time, but we should be able to take them down next turn, so nothing really to worry about.



Wait, Rose, the enemy almost have their Tag Power!

I know. I'm counting on it.

What?



First things first, let's delete those bro copters from existence.

Shaia opens fire, but seems to have something on her mind. "Urgh, at least missiles are easy to operate, provided you just... aim... correctly... why am I so bothered about doing my best today? Argh, Arqa's getting in my head. I don't care about doing well. I don't!"



We can start indirect-ing these tanks, too. Inessa opens fire first.



That's both tanks weakened, so now Iago can pop out of hiding and delete this other copter. That's a huge relief; I'm hoping there's no more flying things on this map, because I do not want to have to drag the missiles any further forward.

"I can... do more!" Iago says. "Out of my way - I will contribute more!"



Dymek decides to capture something, trailing at the back of the group. Perhaps I can heal Sofia there - I feel like I could use a tank with more than 2 HP.



Now then, let's start rocketing things! Talora blasts this anti-air first, doing pretty huge damage.



Yakov does the same with this one. We've all but removed the threat of these units now, which is nice... but we have absolutely given the enemy their Tag Power. Why is Rose being so chill about it?



No idea. In the meantime, we arrange the blue team's units like this, and prepare for a rough turn.



Rose, how do you plan to minimise losses against the Tag Power?

I don't. There won't be any.

You sound sure of yourself! How'd you figure that, kid?



I know our enemy - Kindle and Lash, two COs on the same side, but in opposition to one another. Both seeking personal glory.



In opposition...you mean the way that the Black Hole COs have been divided?

Correct. The original Black Hole COs and the new ones are opposed, and I have recognised this as a crucial weakness.



Diana takes a hit from the artillery - it's not a good start.



Rose herself takes big hit from the rockets - she won't survive another.



Even now, as they hammer and flail at my tank...



I will not be defeated. Because I know them better than they know themselves. Their desires are, ultimately, their undoing.

Wait, you said--personal glory!

What about it?



The recon goes for Ludmilla now, but again - Lash and Kindle don't have any buildings or much in the way of defensive properties, so their SCOPs aren't hitting nearly as hard as they could.



What about it, Rachel? It means they're not focussing on winning - they're focussing on beating each other.



They swap, allowing Kindle to take her turn. This is gonna be rough, we were already weakened enough by Lash...



The artillery takes another shot at Diana, but she shrugs that off with 3 HP.

And that means they won't attack units weakened by the other person. I could be destroyed by those rockets, but...



Kindle would rather die than finish off a unit that Lash set up for her. She'll go for Zlata instead.

Are you serious? They're not going to take the kill?

They're weak. The Tag Power is only truly mighty if used in co-operation. If used like this, it is a third-rate strategy at best, and one that I would NEVER lose to.



This mech charges into Selena, but, uh.



Yeah I dunno why he did that



"Ludmilla, hang in there!" Dimitri says, and Ludmilla grins.

"I'm on it, chief."



"Just like Rose said! She calculated it all to perfection!" Ludmilla replies, beaming. "Now let's show those fools how a REAL Tag Power works!"



And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you survive a Tag Power with minimal losses! We'll be leaving the map there for now, but next time, we'll take on the second half, charging into enemy territory and using our own Tag Power to fuck Kindle and Lash up. You know, if we don't blunder into any more ooziums.

See you all then, folks!

***

Update 48 (Intermission) - Fogbound