Part 51: Chapter 51 (Battle) - Around 51 Screenshots Of Oozium Being Shot At
Update 51 (Battle) - Around 51 Screenshots Of Oozium Being Shot AtAlright, let's fight some oozium!
The winner of the vote was Grimm by some margin, and Sensei's coming with him! Seems fitting that Yellow Comet and Rose would be the ones to save Hawke.
And considering how predictable oozium is, I don't foresee this being a difficult map. Deployments for the map as follows:
Today’s Deployments
Orange Team
Dimitri, Mech
Alina, Mech
Dymek, Mech
Arqa, Mech
Iago, Mech
Ludmilla, APC
Yakov, Recon
Inessa, Recon
Selena, Medium Tank
Rose, Neotank
Petra, Artillery
Kurtz, Rockets
Peregrine, Stealth Fighter
Andromeda, Battle Copter
Lysander, Transport Copter
Blue Team
Lash, APC
Hawke, Rockets
Heh. We're the ones that need to worry about being swallowed up.
So, the general plan is... fight the oozium, I guess? There's not much we can do in the way of strategy, since we just swarm any oozium nearby and kill it, then move on. I do plan to do a few cool things, though, so keep an eye out.
I haven't been in a fight like this for ages.
I've never really experienced conditions like these. I did some desert battle training with Nell in the War Room, though.
Take heed. Indirect-combat units function poorly when the desert winds are blowing. Specifically, their maximum range will be reduced by one.
Hawke? We can't trust you!
Regardless of your feelings, the factual information is correct. Hawke's not lying.
Word. Thanks for the hot tip, Hawke. Now that you've got my back, let's get out there and own some oozium!
So, let's not waste any time and get to the sploding. Kurtz opens fire on the oozium - it doesn't do much, but any chip damage is good.
Peregrine flies in to take it on at close-range. The most threatening thing about oozium is that it doesn't become less effective as it takes damage; so if you don't kill it in one turn, you WILL lose one of the units you left next to it. As such, we'll be surrounding and swarming each one as it comes to minimise risk.
Selena finishes off the oozium.
"It's done! That was... three of us? To take out one of them?"
"They're resilient." Rose mutters. "If we wish to save Hawke and Lash, we need to break the line and give them an avenue of escape. But Hawke's rocket unit can't move too far."
"It moves faster than the oozium, and that's the important thing." Dimitri replies, grunting as he marches through the sand.
"Correct. Let's do it, then."
Ludmilla's got an important job on this map, which is Constantly Resupply Peregrine So She Doesn't Fucking Explode.
You'll never guess what happened during my first run of this map.
We gather the squad like this. Due to the oozium only moving one space, you can literally stand anywhere that isn't adjacent to them and be fine. First map in a while where I've not really had to worry about enemy ranges.
We also get a turn with Hawke and Lash - if they were AI controlled, this map would be a pain. But we have them, and we can move them out of harm's way without much trouble.
Lash makes her escape in the APC, joining up with the Allied Nations forces. Hawke's, uh... gonna need to catch up. He's safe for now, though, so we just need to make sure to murder all that oozium around him.
So, let's see what Koal is going to do. Move his ooziums one space, I guess?
Immediately after doing so, he also uses his CO Power, which, uh, is not terribly useful, since it only affects those missiles at the top of the map. I'm just glad I don't have to deal with oozium that get extra movement. That'd be brutal.
His missiles moved one space. It was an unsuccessful turn for poor Koal.
The two oozium (does it have an s for plurals? I have no idea. I'm probably going to flick between both) nearest to Hawke need to go, so Dimitri gets started on this one.
Alina catches him up.
"Fighting to save the enemy! Kinda crazy, isn't it?" she says, firing on the oozium.
"I don't blame 'em." Dimitri replies, observing the oozium with a look of utter disgust. "If I saw these things on my side, I'd change sides pretty quick-like, too."
Yakov and Inessa, our two recons, do decent damage to oozium, actually; as my readers said, machine gun fire from things like infantry and recons are surprisingly effective on oozium, so our recons will be quite important on this map, despite the desert hampering their movement.
Yakov takes on this one and successfully defeats it. "One down." he announces over the transceiver. "We've nearly made an escape for Hawke."
"Right!" Inessa says. "The air squad is moving in now - we'll take on that one nearest to Hawke!"
Selena takes on the oozium first - we need to move her slowly up the map for a cool thing later, so this is just helping me get her into the perfect position.
Peregrine flies in to land another solid blow. Requiring three units for one oozium really does limit how many we can take out per turn - especially since some of our most effective units, our mechs and recons, have limited movement and can't always get into position.
"Perry, I will break, shatter--no, splat this fucking ooze!" Andromeda replies, flying her copter in and opening fire.
"Thanks, Andy! Rose, is the way clear on the ground?"
"I believe so, yes." Rose replies. "Hawke, do you copy?"
"...Yes." comes the cold response. "We will move in when it is safe."
The rest of the troops move in, which is rather unhelpfully preventing Hawke from actually moving west. Whoops.
He can at least move further away from the oozium, though.
Hawke heads south, and is rejoined by Lash.
Hawke! You're OK! We aren't out of the woods yet. That my dude! I can't BELIEVE we owe him for this! We owe them nothing. They are choosing to do this themselves. At least...that's what I'm telling myself. I refuse to owe the Desolate Flower a single thing.
Time for the oozium to sludge around again.
Yup. That sure was a turn when you have a shitload of oozium and very little else.
Let's continue chipping away, then!
And now we move Selena up here, where she can both fire on the oozium and be in the perfect position for next turn. Great work, me.
Peregrine helps again - having some airborne units on this map is proving to be very nice indeed.
And Inessa finishes.
"There we go! Another down, but man, they give me the creeps..." Inessa says.
"Keep it up - I know it's a strange foe, but it's never been normal where Black Hole is involved." Selena replies.
We gather the group like so - once again, Ludmilla's resupplying all the fuel-guzzlers, especially Peregrine.
I move Rose in the Neotank up north - she'll be useful up there, and I think Dimitri and Alina can handle themselves in the south, with rocket and recon support.
So, now that we've rescued Hawke and Lash, we may as well start putting them to use.
And their use is, uh, doing chip damage to the oozium. Look, it's better than nothing.
Any damage is good damage, so I'm not complaining. Last thing I need is someone dying.
This is such a wacky map. I love the more experimental map designs in the series, and this is definitely one of them.
Goddammit, this loser's using his CO Power for no reason again. This map, both gameplay and plot-wise, really feels like there shouldn't be an enemy CO - just a bunch of unmanned ooziums.
Our turn again! Let's cause some chaos.
But we can't cause chaos without first shooting this thing. For you see, Petra's slight chip damage on this...
Gives us access to this.
oh my god he makes puns on his own name
So, why do we need all this stupid amount of damage, you ask? One main reason, really, and it's not the oozium.
It's so Selena can comfortably one-shot this cannon, and remove it as a threat.
I mean, OK, strategically we didn't need to do this, but one-shotting cannons makes me feel cool.
And hey, it lets all of our other units, like Alina here, do way more damage to the ooziums, so not a waste in the slightest.
Hell yeah, Dimitri!
"Another one down! How many are there left?" Dimitri says, trying to stare through the swirling sandstorm.
"Still plenty more, I'm afraid!" Inessa replies.
"Same here." Yakov says. "We're slowly turning the tide, though."
"Then let's keep at it, Alina." Dimitri says grimly.
"Right behind you, Meteor." Alina replies.
We can bro copter this oozium's face off. Do they have faces? Well, it gets bro-coptered anyway.
And thanks to the big damage boost, Inessa can take this oozium out, leaving our really heavy hitters to go for another one.
Combined with Neotank support after, that's a two-shot! Go for it, Peregrine!
Rose rumbles forward and releases a mighty blast that bursts through the outer shell of the ooze, destroying the core within. Rose narrows her eyes.
"Such an awful creation. We need to erase it immediately."
"Yeah, we are, Rose." Peregrine replies. "Come on, we've fuckin' got this! Show us a smile!"
"Oh, if I must..." Rose says, smiling to herself inside her tank, but it just as quickly fades away as she looks back up out of her Neotank. "...But saving Hawke... it feels so very counterproductive."
As per usual, we end our turn without being adjacent to any of the slimy fuckers. Except Hawke. We'll move him in a second.
Like, uh, now, I guess.
Hawke decides to, what we call in layman's terms, "get the fuck out of there".
Like, yeah, the insta-kill potential and the huge defences of the oozium are kinda tough gameplay-wise, but other than that, I really can't feel threatened by these things. This map, presumably intended to show off their danger, instead shows off how easy it is for even weak units to gang up and take them on.
They just go "blob" and move closer to your units before getting their faces shot off. Sorry, Kindle, Neotanks were cooler.
Hell, piperunners were cooler.
Back to the old "shooting oozium" thing, anyway. Dimitri and Alina will be taking this one on, with Dimitri firing first.
May as well hit it with rockets for the extra damage - Kurtz lands a solid blow.
And well, since we're doing chip damage, Petra can do the same to this one up here, albeit much less successfully.
Alina can't reach the lower oozium from any space other than the bottom, so I'm moving the recon in that space, Yakov, up here to attack this one. Taking out these two shouldn't be a problem with all our firepower.
That opens the space for Alina to move in and finish off the oozium.
Inessa decides to help out her twin brother and also fires on the upper oozium, weakening it further. And with just enough damage, I think...
Perfect - Andromeda can finish it!
"The blob, ooze, oozium is defeated! We can... move on now?"
"Correct." Rose replies. "We must move towards the enemy HQ - nothing but a total rout of the enemy's forces will buy us the time we need to escape."
"I'd better rejoin you, then." Selena says. "There's not too many left, from what I can see. We've got to move forward and destroy it all!"
"We will, but we can't afford to rush things. One slip-up and we perish." Rose says.
We gather our forces, ready for some more swarmin' and slayin' next turn.
Oh yeah, these two exist. I keep forgetting.
May as well move them forward - Hawke should be in range to fire on a few of the ooziums if they move in.
And hey, it's their turn to move! At least because they all move just one space, the enemy phases don't take like ten minutes to observe playing out. That's an advantage.
I mean, it's all the same to you guys reading via screenshots, but look, watching long-ass enemy turns, it grates on you. Especially when it's mostly dicks capturing properties.
They have indeed moved closer. Their mistake, really.
We're pretty close to two useful things - getting our Tag Power, and killing enough oozium that the rest can be routed via a Tag Power. I think, if we take out a few more of them...
Like this one, which Dimitri immediately goes for.
Alina helps.
The oozium remains resolutely un-exploded though, so we apply Yakov to the problem until it goes away.
Again, may as well chip this thing. Why would they even give us an artillery when it's this useless?
Now THAT'S damage. Nicely done, Rose.
We can keep bullying this thing with all our strong units - Peregrine next.
Hm. Seems like kind of a waste to have Selena do just 1 damage.
We'll move her out of the way and have Inessa do it.
Even closer to our Tag Power now! That'll be an excellent finisher if we can get everyone into a good position. It's those missiles that are the big problem - nobody's near them right now, even with two Tag turns to get there.
We'll figure that out later. Right now, let's get Hawke into a useful position so he can shoot things.
Like here! No matter where that oozium in his range goes, down or left, it'll still be in his range. And ooziums tend not to flee, from what I've seen, so I don't envision it moving up or right.
Oh, Koal's got his SCOP. Cute. And again, utterly useless.
It's nice to not have to worry about an enemy CO Power for once, honestly. Usually they're very concerning because they often mean at least one of my units will die.
But this? It's just cute.
Right, back to the REAL COs doing business, Koal.
Ludmilla, in the APC, and Lysander, in the transport copter, get Dimitri and Alina into a perfect position to move on the ooziums nearby. We're gonna tag next turn, I think, so I'm getting everything prepped for a perfect victory.
This loser has to go, though, so Selena shoots him a bunch.
Rose can help, and once again, we've moved one of our units into a useful position for next time.
And- what the fuck?
"Your oozium is worthless. Only a fool would fall into its trap, and we are far from that. I have foreseen a great many battles in my time, but this is the first battle where I have known my victory was assured without even needing to consider every option. Slow, unintelligent... you really think the oozium is a match for my dude? For Rose Kuroda, for Vanessa Kita Farid? For the Allied Nations and Commander Rachel? Worthless!" Rose replies, releasing an enormous blast from her cannon which splatters the oozium in a single shot.
42% turned into 6 damage?! Goddamn, Rose. Critical hits are real, I knew it.
Dimitri breathes out. "Damn... she really eviscerated that thing."
Alina nods. "Yeah. That Rose is remarkable."
Well, guess we didn't need Hawke after all, now that Rose just kind of destroyed that oozium.
I'll move him up here - he should be able to fire on at least one of these - that one to the west is my main concern, since it's further away from the rest of my soldiers.
I bet Rose killed that thing on purpose to ensure Hawke had nothing to do on his turn. Though, is Rose that petty?
The oozium moves in for one final time.
Now let's get started.
What do you say, Rose? Is it time our two COs tagged? I think a good Tag Power here will decimate the remaining foes, my dude. Let's do it. You heard her, Grimm, Sensei! Time for you to do your thing!
Grimm, you literally have Rose in your employ, you can't say shit about little girls. They're on par with your own badassery.
A unique tag, too! Probably not a surprise - I'm pretty certain each pair from each country will have a unique tag, but hey, it's cool.
Rose charges off - she's planning on removing that offending missile unit, and from her current position, she can just barely make it with the second turn she'll get from the tag.
The rest of the troops will be doing a hell of a lot of murdering things. Kurtz opens fire on the nearest oozium first!
Yakov helps - I might be able to take it out with just one of my mechs, leaving the other one free to go somewhere else.
Oh, easily! Hell yeah, that makes my job easier.
"I ain't planning on handin' this world over to goo and aliens!" Dimitri yells, blasting the oozium to pieces with a well-aimed shot of his bazooka. "Now you'd better get moving, Alina."
"On it - Lysander, can you be my wings?" Alina asks.
The transport copter flies over as Alina races towards it. Lysander gives a salute from the cockpit.
"Course I can, beaut. There's more oozium further ahead, so let's not waste time."
Alina gets dropped off next to this one.
With some enormous damage from Selena, the pair of them should be able to take it out on Sensei's action.
I make a start on the faraway oozium by sending Peregrine to get it. She's got pretty good damage, too.
Inessa attacks this oozium from the left - this is actually really important, since I want her to go west and take on the faraway oozium next turn, in case Peregrine can't finish it off on Sensei's action. By attacking from the left, she's got the movement to reach the faraway oozium.
Andromeda heads up to attack this one in the meantime. Man, Grimm's damage increase is pretty great.
Still, we've done all we can, so let's swap over!
We... we literally haven't swapped with you all battle, what do you mean, quick?
I mean, yes, we are beating the oozium pretty quickly, to be fair.
Sensei's not got the same insane damage as Grimm, but he should have enough to finish off the oozium. No matter how terrible the other CO is, just getting a second turn is absurd. I wonder how Eagle works with tags? Presumably you'd have to go with him first, since his CO Power coming second would do the exact same thing as the tag would - just giving his units more actions.
Sensei does, uh, provide backup. I guess Dymek, Arqa and Iago are here now.
And Rose can reach and outright fucking obliterate the missiles! Just the ooziums left now!
Alina fires on this one, but doesn't have the damage to kill it.
Ooh, Peregrine might be able to kill this one, actually. And she does, taking it out rather conveniently! We can definitely rout the enemy now - watch this.
First, Dimitri begins attacking this full-HP one.
And some extra chip damage from Petra for the fun of it.
Yakov can't finish this one off, but he can do solid enough damage to it.
And with a shot from Inessa...
One from Andromeda...
And a final blast from Selena...
We're done!
It appears you have rescued us. I am not often childish, but...I'm going to lord this over you forever. ...Such is the price of my survival. My...my thanks, Rose Kuroda. Hmph... We want answers, not your thanks. Why were those things chasing you? You're in the Black Hole Army. We knew too much. What do you mean? Hmm...I suppose it would be in my best interest to tell you everything. I'm going to need your power if I'm ever going to escape from his grip. That's an interesting thing to say considering the circumstances. But we'll come back to that later. For now, start talking.
We won! And HOLY SHIT look at those points. Yeah, I see why my commenters said this would be a good map to grind on. As it happens, I'm out of town next Friday and can't post an update, so I might grind out some of the CO's levels this week so we can see and demonstrate a few of the higher-level skills. Plus, it might help me keep all these people alive in what are presumably the hardest maps in the game, coming up.
Grimm and Sensei get their first promotion; a well-deserved one, too.
I... literally can't tell if that's shared ending dialogue or not. Grimm sounds like he's not even on this planet any more.
Still, there's an upcoming mission for us, so let's see what's coming up next.
This Von Bolt guy is manipulating Black Hole from behind the scenes. Exactly. He's using the Black Hole Army as a tool to leverage his own ambitions. And I suppose that's NOT what you were doing with them in the last campaign? Oh, SNAP! Why...are these two here? I ask myself the same question regularly. I used Black Hole to test my power, but I have no quarrel with the world itself, not like Von Bolt does. You can thank him for turning this place into a wasteland, too. So we take that old dude down and save the planet. 'Nuff said. Sounds like the best course of action to me. But we don't even know where he is! Hand me your map. What? There's a well-camouflaged base in the middle of Red Rock Desert. Take this road--it will lead you right to it. Are you serious? Don't let him fool you! He's one of them! So was Von Panzer, Max! And in case you've forgotten, he's almost singlehandedly responsible for saving Alfonse's life, not to mention all the other times he's held the line! That's different! Hawke's one of the COs! Chill, Max. It's cool. Jake? Did you fall on your head? Can't you see what he's doing? Think about it. What does Black Hole get by invading a bunch of dried-up land? There's no tactical benefit. It's not even scorched-earth policy--Omega Land is the most resource-thin of the continents even before they started draining the land dry. We've seen that Black Hole is obsessed with pipes and factories, taking our resources. The fact that we've barely encountered any factories here just shows that they aren't prioritising resource collection. Exactly, they don't get jack. The army can't be behind this. If they wanted the resources, they'd just take them like they have in the past. They haven't. Thus, this isn't bleeding the land dry for a tactical purpose--this is out-and-out psychopathy. There's got to be some evil freakjob pulling the strings. Yeah, but, Jake, my dude... Grrr... All right, fine. There's no way I'm trustin' a word out of anyone from Black Hole! But I'll trust you two, Jake and my dude. Even if I do think you're kind of crazy. I'm with you, too, Jake. And me? Only by technicality. Hawke has pointed the way--let's roll out! Wait. Lash and I are coming with you. Huh?! Have you completely snapped?! You want to join our alliance? What are you scheming? I...don't think he's scheming anything, Commander. You have my dude and Rose; your victory is virtually inevitable. I'm merely joining the winning side. This way, I'll have a better chance to survive. That is all. I'm going to use you. You're going to use me. It's that simple. If we're going to believe what you told us, we might as well trust you. OK--Hawke, Lash...you're in! But I'm in charge--what I say goes. I can't believe you're serious about this! Us, on the same side as my dude?! Yeah, I can't fucking believe this either. Welcome to our crew, Hawke. You too, Lash. Spare me. I fight for myself. If you want to save your land, we must go. They're moving out even as we speak. I hear you. Prepare to move out! And my dude, take that look off your face! I am not sure I'm going to like this. ...Someone's going to have to tell Vanessa that Lash is with us now.
I'll break the news! Me and Vanessa, we get along! OH YEAH! Yes, you're both...uh... Energetic, to put it charitably? Yes. That.So, let's check out the next mission, then. We have two new COs to play with, so that's going to be fun!
Look at all these wrecked units. It's giving me the creeps.
We called this the Tower of Rebirth. It was used to repair all of the units you damaged. With the power of the crystals, we can completely repair anything in five days. The units we damaged..? From the last campaign? Yes, why? Hm. No reason.
The curtain of your trickery is lifted! This is the source of your endless horde! Let's take it down! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down, kid! I saw this kind of thing back on Bearen Island. Those black crystals are suckin' the life out of the land. Those things are so going down--I don't even care what it takes. Jake's right. We can't let this continue! Regardless, we can't move forward as long as they are standing. The black crystals must fall. It's going to be a little harder than just taking out the crystals. What do you mean, my dude?
Well, if it isn't the bird-boy betrayer and his squeaky little friend, Lash. I was sure you pests had been squashed, yet here you are. How annoying. Shut up Kindle I'm explaining things Do it quickly, then! What's the problem? Kindle, you ketchup-tipped overgrown hunk of asparagus! You're gonna pay! Well, this is the graveyard of all the destroyed shit from the previous war. Where all the broken things ended up. Oh my, what a fierce little kitten you've become. And such a sharp tongue! You're guilty of treason, and I sentence you to death. I'm the judge and jury--now my army will be my executioner's axe. Would you SHUT UP? What's with all the broken things, then, my dude? This is where Sturm's mask probably ended up. The Tower of Rebirth...what better place to reinvent yourself? So you're sayin' the Director got her start here? And if we're threatening the place, chances are solid that she's here defending it. Aha ha ha! You are bright, aren't you, my dude? Just like the others said you were. Madam Director, it seems your friends are here! Want to say hello?
...Selena is here. I can feel it. Finally...I can...kill you. She doesn't seem to be in the mood for pleasantries, I'm afraid. Unlike the traitorous two over there, Madam Director understands the importance of our work. Don't you, love? ... Kindle's lying. You think the Director can be saved? You may be correct. It is worth trying. You're...you're saying THIS is the battle that we have to save the Director? That Neotank in the middle. We need to keep her alive so Selena can talk to her. My dude...that's not going to be easily done. We have to try. Rose--you'll be taking care of the battle. My dude--get a crack team and prepare to get Selena over to the Director. Right. Yes, Commander.
Battle software loaded. Aha ha ha. Turn off your speaker, Jugger. There's only room for one on this stage. Now then, are you ready, fools? Behold the power of the Tower of Rebirth. Bow down and beg for mercy! Aha ha ha!
The bottom...
...and the top of the map. So we have two teams, four COs total, and we've just unlocked Lash and Hawke. I'll grind up the COs to give them some levels, so you guys can choose whoever you want! Just do be aware that I intend to try and beat the map without destroying the central Neotank - i.e. I'm already making this map hard enough for myself, so please don't feel the need to make it any harder.
Either way, as I said earlier, I am busy next week, so I'll see you the week after with some freshly-promoted COs and... a very interesting map to try and beat!
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Update 52 (Intermission) - The Fires Of Ambition