Part 67: Chapter 67 (Battle) - Around The Island In 13 Days

Update 67 (Battle) - Around The Island In 13 Days

Welcome back. This map is long as shit, and I have a million screenshots to go through, so let's just hurry along.



It was Black Hole's turn! You may recall that Grit said "It's grittin' time" and gritted all over those guys on the first front, and the secondary front had a bunch of copters, which all died, and a Neotank, which is not dead and is kind of an enormous threat.



This Dick Captures A Property: 56



That's the only notable thing to happen, really. Our chokepoints and shitloads of ranged units are preventing Koal from being any kind of actual threat.



The volcano erupts again on the secondary front. For the sake of cutting down on screenshots, and the fact that the volcanoes do nothing useful for the rest of the map, I'm not going to be showing them any more. Just know that they're still erupting, and still not having an effect on the battle.



Kanbei just used his SCOP last turn, so his units are still bulky as fuck. I can't even one-shot infantries with anti-airs! That's like, a fact of life. You can't do that, Kanbei, it's unnatural.



Anyway, Valeria shoots the first infantry, and now Eduard does the same to the second infantry. Our mechs should be able to finish it from here.



Alina...



...and Nika finish them off.



Everyone just kinda chills afterwards - the APC is no threat and we need to start focussing on that Neotank sooner rather than later. Dimitri and his anti-air pals, Boris and Fliss, accompany him back down to rejoin the others.



Thankfully Kanbei can't do much to threaten us.



The Neotank comes over, but doesn't dare attack. And the APC just, uh, captures the HQ. If only APCs could actually capture things, huh, Kanbei?



So let's get back to the other battlefield.



This guy is an absolute motherfucker. He's in range to shoot Gordon next turn, but...



...he's just out of range of Gordon's UNLIMITED ROCKET WORKS.



Anyway, on a more important note, we can get bombers now! So let's just keep buying 'em until everything is dead. First up, it's Lucy!

"Heya, guys! How are things looking?"

"Better now you've arrived." Rose replies. "We can handle the central island, but we need you to deliver the heavy blows to the remainder of Koal's army."

Lucy salutes. "Rose, yes Rose!"



Since Lucy can functionally choke that point forever, as the ground units can't even fire on her, Rose can head up to the central island and help out there.

So, what's my plan for the Gordon chokepoint?



What we need...



...is just a bit more range.



Gordon can absolutely crush the anti-air now, and thus, we're safe again!



Since we have the extra range, may as well use it for some other stuff too. Our man Noah can take out this medium tank.



Yakov decides to go for the megatank in the meantime.



His sister, Inessa, slams the Neotank that hasn't been damaged yet.

"I'm not going to lose to you! How many tanks have you taken out now?" Inessa asks. Yakov shrugs.

"Dunno. I've hit a lot of them, but not finished them off yet."

"Keep up, then, Kov!" Inessa replies with a cheeky grin.



This infantry thought he could run away after harassing my units, so I have Mina take him down.



Fred can basically kill this medium tank, or at the very least stop it from being any kind of threat.



And hey, I can just finish it off with Ingo, perfect.



There's not much left in range for Sebastian to shoot, but he can take out this bote, anyway.



And that was our very cool use of an absolutely busted CO Power. Nice job, us.



Koal's not having a good day.



All his units just kind of mill around over here, not doing much. And, well, they can't do much to Lucy.



Back to the secondary front, then. Let's fuck around and Kanbei can find out.



Boris starts poking the APC on the HQ. It's remarkably tanky thanks to the HQ bonuses, and being a Kanbei unit, but it's also no threat whatsoever.



Eduard lands another hit, but can't quite take it out. It won't last another turn, though.



In the meantime, we need to do something about this Neotank. Lena attacks first!



And then Von Panzer!



...and they collectively deal 2 damage, which the Neotank will... immediately heal. Cool.



Here's hoping the Neotank just kind of fucks off and doesn't atta-



OK that's chill actually, at least copters take basically no-



2 damage?! Javier, you have three comm towers how is this happening

I'm losing my mind. This Neotank is going to singlehandedly win the second front for Kanbei.



You may recall Michael was on a one-man trip around the island to refuel all the ranged units. The third leg of that journey brings him to Inessa, who he refuels.

"Hey, Inessa! Take this - thought you might need it."

"Thank you so much, Michael!" Inessa cries. "What a gem! Are you heading back now?"

"Yup, gonna refuel Ingo... and Fred, next." Michael replies. "Good luck up here - keep up the good work!"



Also, remember that medium tank that was juuuust inside Inessa's range? Yeah, not anymore, fucker. You're dead next turn.



Woo, Noah can do another couple of points of damage to the megatank, too.

"I'm feeling good today! So I hope you don't mind if I give it my all!" Noah says brightly, and with a slam of the rocket controls, he launches rockets towards the megatank.



It's a critical hit! Not actually, but it was a kill where I... really wasn't expecting one. How the hell did he do that? He doesn't even have luck bonuses, Grit's on his own right now.



Well, Lucy's not going to let some rockets show her up! She all but slaughters this Neotank, leaving it on 1HP.



And, hilariously, we can afford a second bomber immediately. So why the hell not? Let's bring Zlata in.

"I'm ready to fight! Made some tweaks to my bomber, so it should be even stronger now!" Zlata announces.

"Ah, Zlata - I have a special mission for you." Rose replies. "Prepare to move out immediately."



The tanks have become depleted enough that I feel safe starting to move some of my mechs in. Arqa starts capturing the first of the cities!



And, hell, he's not doing anything else, so I get Dymek to nab this other city. We actually want to get cities now, since we need to afford more bombers.



Gordon's still doing an excellent job of keeping everything away. He and Julian can hold this entire chokepoint by themselves now that the anti-air is gone.



I move Rose up to block off the enemies from reaching Arqa whilst she captures, in the meantime.

"Arqa, I'll cover you. Make sure you get that property captured." Rose says.

Arqa nods, her eyes glinting with determination. "No problem, Rose. I'm all over it, k?"



I was about to say "Koal will do nothing useful again", but...

Heh heh heh... I'll not surrender! Bend your knee and beg for mercy!



We have been doing a lot of damage to him, so he's charged up his SCOP again. What's he going to do with this terrifying increased movement and higher damage on roads, you ask?



This Dick Captures A Property: 57

Yeah, the usual.



Admittedly, a few annoying things happen. Firstly, this infantry comes running over out of nowhere and shoots Inessa.



And secondly, this Neotank blasts Dymek's face off.

"F-fuck me!" Dymek yells, as rocks and debris are hurled up around him.

"Dymek!" gasps Rin, who's standing nearby with Carter.

"Damn, that hurt." Dymek groans. "Goddamn tanks... the mountain blocked most of the blow, but I'm not in good shape. Can one of you two sort that city over there?"

I'll do it, then!" Rin says, and Carter salutes at her.

"That sounds good! I'll go north and help out the others, then."



That's all in terms of annoying things though, so, you know, it's not that terrible really.



Speaking of things not being that terrible, me and Rose have a plan for the secondary front! All we need to is hold out for one more turn.



Boris can finish the APC, so that's one minor irritation dealt with.



Everyone else just gathers up like this - Alina is in range of the Neotank, but I'm pretty sure Javier's comm towers mean that she survives.



Just need Kanbei to take the bait...



"The Neotank is coming! Are you sure there's a plan?!" Alina asks, bracing herself for impact.

"With my dude and Rose, it seems they always have a plan." Valeria says. "I'd trust them."

"I'd trust 'em with my life." Dimitri replies. "Just hang tight, Alina!"

"R-right!"



BOOM! A heavy blow, but a survivable one. With that, this Neotank has sealed its own fate.



Arqa finishes capturing the nearby city. One down, three to go. I feel like I'm going to win the secondary front before I capture all of these, honestly.



Our ranged units down here are on Neotank alert in the meantime. Fred lands the first hit for about half its HP.

"You dare spill the blood of our fair soldiers? Taste death from the skies, as rockets rain down around you!" he roars, with characteristic passion.



Ingo can just about finish it off, rendering our soldiers relatively safe once more.



Up north, Rose comes in to help Inessa with her little infantry problem.



Sebastian can slam the tank to render it pretty harmless to Arqa.



Taking the hit off that infantry, though, means that Inessa isn't hitting as hard as I would like, so she can't do much to this medium tank. Still, better than nothing.



And even medium tanks are no match for the Unlimited Rocket Works, so Gordon and Julian are still totally fine.



Yakov kills the recon, since he can. I need to rout every unit, so they all have to die eventually.



Lucy's on her way north to help out with the enemy forces there. She smacks this infantry on her way past, just because she can.

Our other bomber, Zlata, as Rose said earlier, has a secret mission.



Yup. Why bother dealing with the Neotank using our secondary front units when we can just send over a fucking bomber to solve the problem?



We can't afford another bomber just yet, but we can choke this point just as easily with a copter. The enemy forces are kind of in disarray. Andromeda, it's your time to shine.

"I'll... wall, hold off, all these fuckers!" Andromeda says with determination. "Nobody worry!"

"I'm never worried, Andy." Vanessa replies. "You're doing great work out there. Don't let a single tank past!"



The good thing about this turn is that Koal can't use his SCOP again, since he used it last turn. You just know he's going to be right back to spamming it on day 9, though.



Inessa gets shot again, but the weakened infantry does basically fuckall to her now.



And that's it! Great turn, everybody, thanks for coming. Let's move on.



"So you're the one who's been harassing my friends in the Snowbound Free Company and Dimitri's Mercenaries?!" Zlata says. "I guess you can be the first test of my new-and-improved bomber, then! Bombs away!"



The ensuing explosion does a ton of damage to the Neotank, and following that, Alina leaps up, a bazooka in her hands. "Thanks for the assist, Zlata! Allow me to finish this, Snowbound style!"



With a final blast, the Neotank is completely destroyed, with Alina standing upon the wreckage.

"Not bad at all." Dimitri says, whistling.

Alina winks. "Eva, what'd you think?"

"I think you're fucking terrifying." Eva replies, chuckling. "Nice one, Alina. This battle's basically over now!"



And, indeed, our job now is just cleaning up these last few units.



Von Panzer finishes off the APC, allowing the rest of our anti-air squad to start moving up past the volcano.



They look kind of funny all bunched up like this.



And Kanbei can't do anything to actually stop me. He's got like a mech and some rockets which don't move.



Yeah, that's going to be pretty easy from now. So let's focus on the more difficult part - killing all of Koal's units before I get bored.



Lucy gets rid of this Neotank on her quest north. She'll be clearing out the northern units, for the most part.



Noah can fuck up this infantry on the base in the meantime.



And Inessa, in the meantime, slowly continues firing at this medium tank.



I move Mina in to get the kill on this medium tank, now that Inessa's set up the kill for her.



God damn it, Mina. That single point of damage is going to be an extra turn of capturing that I didn't need.

Rose can kill the infantry that's been bothering Inessa, though, and she does that reliably as always.



See, Mina? THIS is how a mech kills something. Good job, Lysander.



With Dymek out of action and Carter off north, Rin handles the capturing of this second city.



Best girl Andromeda shoots the recon that came up to her in the meantime.



Gordon continues doing Gordon things too.

"Goodness, we have been doing well, haven't we?" Julian says with a silky smile.

"I'd say so! And I've been able to nab a few pictures of the Twin Crown Volcanoes in action in the downtime." Gordon replies. "What an incredible place for a battle!"

"Good. We're almost out of the woods, I think." Julian replies. "But... I'd like to see your pictures afterwards, if that's all right. I've heard you're an excellent photographer."

"Oh, sure! I'll get out some of my photo sets when we get back. The ones I did for Stanley are some of my favourites, I think!"



That's all for this turn. We're very close to gaining total control over the central island, but there's still tons of units to kill on the outside.

Michael's tour is continuing, too! As you can see, he's now stopped off next to Fred, who he can refuel at the start of next turn. He's almost done the full lap of the island!



Go on, Koal. Do the annoying thing. I know you want to.



But apparently he doesn't have his Super CO Power charged right now. Thank god for that - and, as you can see, his troops are looking scarce up north, now. Lucy can handle most of this on her own, I think.



The secondary front is mostly just "walking to the things we need to kill", which is not terribly interesting, so let's zoom right through it.



Cassandra is in range of this guy, so we can put paid to him, at least. The rockets are a bit further away, though.



Lena charges on ahead whilst the rest of the troops catch up.



Is Kanbei going to do anything?



Yeah, that answers that question. Back to the front where stuff is actually happening then!



And the first thing I'm going to do is bully this Neotank with Yakov.



Andromeda can finish off the Neotank that Lucy weakened earlier, in the meantime. That moves her off the airport, which is good...



...because we can afford a third bomber - Peregrine!

"Right, shitlords! I've heard you've been causing trouble for my girls, Rosey, Vanny and Andy!" Peregrine says.

Rose narrows her eyes sharply. "R-Rosey..?!"

"So here's what we're gonna do - bomb the hell outta ya until you stop causing trouble! Sound good?" continues Peregrine. Andromeda gives a sweet, musical laugh.

"Yes! Explode, crash, um, bomb them to kingdom come, Perry!"



Lucy is doing the same thing up north, though she can't one-shot infantries on bases. Very upsetting.



Inessa helps kill this medium tank, and with that, the central island is basically cleared out!



Rin has captured city 2/4, too. Almost there.



Up north, Mina and Lysander move in to take the final two cities, though in Mina's case, it's gonna be three turns. The last thing for our ranged units to do is finish off these botes, which Noah begins doing.



Fred goes for the artillery this turn, though - that might be dangerous if it moves down and gets close enough to fire on my own ranged units. Plus it's a one-shot, and one-shots are immensely satisfying.



And that's all for this turn. Koal's army is really on its last legs, now - once we win the secondary front, a solid Tag Power should be able to finish him off, no problem.



Watch him struggle, and laugh at him.

Heh heh heh... None shall escape.



Oh right, he can still do this.



And he deploys a goddamn anti-air. That's going to be a problem for Lucy.



Right. Let's see what we can do about these rockets, then.



...And, well, the answer is "nothing". Lena was the only one in range, but she couldn't one-shot them, so we have to take one more turn to finish this map. Fuck you, rockets.



On the plus side, they can't do anything to me, since everything in range is immune to rockets.



So, back to the action - or, to put it another way...



Back to the capt-tion.

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week.



Fred practically kills this tank, which is the last thing on the north-western side to deal with.



Remember the botes in the middle? No you don't - they're all dead now, and Ingo finishes off the last one.

Michael's round trip continues with refuelling Ingo and friends, too.

"Whew! Been a heck of a drive, but we're almost done. One or two more things to do, now..." Michael says to himself, preparing to drive off once more.



Peregrine gets started murdering all the Neotanks. "Man, this bomber's not as comfy as Clyde..." she grumbles to herself. "Still, hits just as hard. Take this bomb payload!"



And look who can afford another one! It's us! We get Conrad out here to round out the bomber crew.



Andromeda helps out, too, clearing up the rest of these units.



You might be wondering why I didn't fire on any of those guys with Yakov to weaken them. And, well, he's out of ammo, if you check his status in the bottom left. This is the last stop on Michael's island tour - refuelling Yakov once more.



Lucy gets the fuck away from the anti-air in the meantime. She does barely 50% to it, and it does a shitload in return, so it's best to deal with that once we have our Tag Power.



The oozium needs dealing with, too, come to think of it. I'll get Mina and Rose on the case.



The anti-air heads down, which is perfect for us - now we can get at it with our ranged units.



Let's just finish this front real quick, shall we?



Zlata can do that, no problem. "Looks like we're done here. Hya!" Zlata cries.

Alina nods. "Nice one, Zlata!"



Gwar har har! Now we can really unload on these chumps! I'll learn those Black Hole types not to use a volcano against me!

I'd be angrier if the volcanoes had actually achieved anything.

The Orange Star Army has won on the secondary front!



So, right back to the main front!



Oh, you know what time it is.

Y'all can run, but you can't hide!



It's time to finish this map off in the most stylish way possible.



Carter, who has headed up to contribute, hits the oozium to start things off.



Rose can follow it up with some more damage, which should let Carter finish it during our second turn.



There's an APC and an infantry in range of Inessa, but I go for the APC first - Grit gets extra range, which lets him hit the APC, but on Javier's turn, only the infantry will be in range, so doing it in this order lets me take both of them out with Inessa.



Lucy hits the artillery for a solid amount of damage, but she gets two turns, so we can easily get the kill with her next hit.



Noah, the absolute MVP of this map, now heads up to get into range - he'll be taking out the anti-air on Javier's turn.



And Mina finally captures this thing!



We think they were causing the eruptions, so we detained them for...questioning. The eruptions on the secondary front should cease immediately!

The, uh, already-won secondary front, that is?

My dude! Be respectful--these soldiers worked hard. Excellent job, men! That will make it easier to win the day.

Man, Sonja's on everybody's case today. Is she OK?

She's up against Kanbei, remember? Of course she's giving it her all.

Watch me, Father! I will be victorious!



Michael continues his tour, racing towards Yakov. He'll be in range to refuel Yakov in time for the second turn.



And thanks to our gigantic fucking range, this tank tried to run, but couldn't get far enough. Fred finishes him.



Now we just have to deal with all this stuff over here - Andromeda takes out the infantry to begin with. She can move up to get the recon next turn.



We can get more one-shots with our bombers, as Conrad shows us.



Here, we need to attack the medium tank. Grit only does 92% to the APC, but thanks to the comm towers we got earlier, Javier can easily one-shot the APC once we switch to him. This is the kind of planning that needs to go into a Tag Power to get the best use out of it; I actually really love how tactical Tag Powers can be, and things like this best demonstrate that.



We can afford another copter, who might be useful, so I decide to go for it, and get Anton. He may be able to provide some extra damage to finish off everything down here. And with that, part one of the Tag Power is done!

My armor has the thickness of an iron dragon clad in a steel girdle!

I love Javier. Have I said that? I must have said that.



Nabbing those two comm towers is going to pay dividends now, since it means Javier's basically as strong on this front as he was on the secondary front - that is to say, strong enough to murder everything that needs murdering.



...Hm. Except this.

Roll high on your luck bonus, Noah!



FUUUUUUCK. We won't be able to win with the Tag Power now - no style points for us. God damn it, Javier. I'm blaming you for this.



We can still finish off everything else, at least, so Inessa rocketates the infantry to death.



Carter finishes off the oozium...



...whilst Rose does absolutely overkill amounts of damage to the mech.



Lucy takes out the artillery.



Andromeda finishes off the recon. "I... I defeated it! Is everything going well, good?"

"Pretty much. I think we'll be totally fine, even if I couldn't quite destroy the anti-air." Noah replies.



Michael resupplies Yakov, and breathes a long sigh of relief.

"Whew! The full trip, there we go... good luck, Yakov!"

"Thanks." Yakov says, giving a curt nod. "I... appreciate your help. Go rest, got it?"

"Way ahead of you." Michael replies.



This tank gets totally Yakov'ed.



And Javier's absurd bonuses let Conrad just utterly fuck this APC's day up.



Fuck you, anti-air. I'm ready for you.



Admittedly, there's not much you can do to us right now.



The anti-air flees further south, and Koal deploys a mech in the base. Both are going to perish - we have Javier now, who has much better close-range combat than Grit.



See what I mean? This would have been like 70% with Grit.



And Andromeda can finish off this accursed anti-air, winning us this loooooooooong map.



But better to flee and lick my wounds than become fodder for the hounds!

Oooh yeah! We totally slammed 'em! One more battle under our belts!

Ha ha! Keep 'em coming! I feel like I'm 80 again!

You rocked that, old-timer!

Listen up, everyone! We're going to the Central Plains!

I have some SERIOUS bones to pick with the Omega Land Department of Naming Locations.

If we can win, we should be able to boot Black Hole out of Omega Land for good!

Commander Rachel! Th-this is serious! W-we just got a r-report... It's... It's...

Easy, Colin. No need to burn yer grits. Rachel ain't going anywhere.

Calm down and speak slowly.

Y-yes. You're right... You're right... Calm thoughts... Cool thoughts... Oh, it's terrible! Omega Land is turning into a desert again!

Dude! Weak!

Jake, I feel like that's underselling it a bit.

No...



An S-rank, as expected - this really wasn't a hard map, even before we picked arguably the two best COs for the job.



I love that Grit seems to be responding to Javier's line here. At least, I'm like, pretty sure this isn't paired dialogue?



The wasteland has already swallowed up all the towns along the coast... Wh-what are we going to do?

Shit! For once in my life, I'm disappointed to be right.

Rachel?

The rejuvenation of Black Hole's army... Cloned COs, requiring massive amounts of energy... The creeping desert... My dude, this is what you were investigating after we destroyed the obelisk, wasn't it?

...Yeah. You already know what my suspicions are, don't you?

I hate to think of it, but there's really only one explanation...

Aw, man, no... Not the black obelisk! Dude, super weak.

OK, that's STILL underselling it, Jake.

I'm afraid so.

Dude... We smashed the black obelisk! I watched it happen!

Even as we did so, I suspected they had a second one. They were far too easygoing about us destroying the source of their power.

My dude's right... and I'm not used to saying that. Who's to say there's only one? Black Hole is extremely crafty. They may well have another one somewhere.

Fine! Let's smash that one, too!

I'm with Max--strike quickly and without mercy.

B-but...unless we know where it is, Rose...

Colin's right. We just gotta sit tight 'til we find that obelisk thingamajig.

But...Omega Land is enormous! I wouldn't know where to start looking.

My dude's been investigatin' it, hasn't he?

Correct. I've narrowed it down to this particular area--see this map, Rachel?

Hm...looking at this map, I'd start in the desert... The obelisk we destroyed was in the middle of Red Rock Desert. You'd never notice the country turning into a wasteland if it started out as one.

Yeah, I getcher point. If ya want to hide a tree, stick 'er in a forest, right?

I'll deploy our intelligence team and have them track the obelisk down.

Rachel! I can do it-

No, my dude! I need...we need you here. The battles are only going to get harder, and we need your expertise.

...Of course. I'll be here, then, until the end.

In the meantime, we'll head for the final battlefield and...

C-Commander Rachel! We've got a situation!

DAMN it, Colin, twice in one conversation?! Stop finding out worrying things!

The enemy is deploying some kind of weapon in the Central Plains!

Roger that. Let's hightail it back there and teach Black Hole a lesson!

And thus, the next map begins.



They're enormous... And there are two of them.

I... I've seen those silos before! Those are Black Hole mega missiles! They're strong enough to wipe out an entire continent!

During the last war, we captured the surrounding buildings and cut the power. At least...I think that's the way it happened.

Aha ha ha ha! The brave little schoolboy remembers his lessons!

This bitch again. Could this day get any worse?

And since you're such a clever little boy, I'll let you in on a little secret... Unless you capture all four com towers on this map, both missiles will fire!

I'll start calculating a perfect strategy.

Oh, and did I mention that these missiles... these...Black Armageddons... are aimed directly at your homelands?!

N-Nell!

Yes, they will fly off to your countries and redecorate every last city. Talk about an extreme makeover! Aha! Aha ha ha ha ha!

Kindle!

We'll stop you in your tracks!

Aha! Ha ha ha! It's far too late now! Oh...I see despair in your eyes... How lovely! Where is your esprit de corps now?

Come on, you think I'm going to lose this? I'm ready for any tricks up your sleeve.

My dude? Yes, I thought you might be. And I have another treat just for you... Oh, clone! Are you ready to crush these insects?

Bring it on. I am ready.

No. No, no, no! No, no, no, no, no, NO!

That's Andy! No, wait... That's a clone... Isn't it?

KINDLE, YOU FUCKER!!

Aw, nuts! You gotta be kidding me!

Dude, that's Commander Andy from Cosmo Land! He's a legend!

A legend? Dipshit? Absolutely the fuck NOT.

You have 24 days until the missiles fire... Until then... I will keep you company.

Dude, we gotta fight Andy?

No. You don't.

What?

Everybody stand down. Do you hear me? Clone Dipshit, huh? Allow me to handle this one...personally.

My dude...you can take command. Take any of the COs that you need.

Good. Let's not waste any fucking time.

My dude..? What are you going to do?

...I'm going to kill this fucking kid.

Next time, we fight Dipshit. And I am going to enjoy every god damn second of it.

Two teams, two COs for each team, 4 COs in total.

Place your votes for the red team and blue team, and I'll see you next time!

***

Update 68 (Intermission) - The Meaning Of A Flower