Part 11: Field Training Missions 12 to 14
Field Training Missions 12 to 14 (or "Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night...")Well, it's time to finish off Field Training. It's had its fair share of the good (Tanks Ops, Dogfights), the bad (all those walls of text) and the ugly (OLAF GOING FIRST). But I hope I've been able to show off why I like it, and I hope it's given everyone some food for thought.
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Anyway, let's get rolling.
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Mind you, the bit in AW2 where we find out Olaf was born in Blue Moon probably had something to do with it. But then trying to reconcile the backstories of AW1 and AW2 is like taking two jigsaws of similar but different pictures and then trying to create one SUPER-JIGSAW from the pair of them: just about doable, but you're left with a lot of warped cardboard and a splitting headache.
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Ah, betrayal. Now we know why Nell has such a beef with Olaf. I guess this would be rather more of a dramatic reveal if we hadn't already learnt this fact from Campaign.
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Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties: westerly or southwesterly 4 or 5, increasing 5 to 7 later. Moderate, occasional rain, visibility moderate, occasionally poor.
Day 1
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Nell's been checking her seaweed.
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Wow, she didn't even tell us about the R button this time.
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Shame really, because I'm actually going to use it for once. Here's a look at the movement costs for five of the most common terrain types in Advance Wars. Roads and cities are amenable to pretty much every type of transport. Plains are fine for most things, but vehicles with tyres bog down in them somewhat. Forests are trickier again, giving treaded units some difficulties and tyred units a lot of difficulties. Mountains can only be crossed by infantry (with difficulty), mechs and air units. The reason I'm showing you all this now will become clear shortly. Or rather, the opposite of clear.
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Both sides have some pretty serious numbers here. We're almost in Campaign territory. Olaf's got four B copters to my one, and two medium tanks to my one as well. This'll be tricky.
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We've got some nice natural chokepoints by these mountains here, so let's take advantage of them. B copter moves to shield my arty from the north, and my tank and rocket move up a little in the south.
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Moving infantry and transports. Okay, let's see what Olaf has in store for us...
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Olaf's magical snowy witch-doctor powers at work, here.
Day 2
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Aw, man
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Hello, snow. Er. Again.
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Let's see how things get more difficult for us in the snow. Nell gave us some idea, but here's the bigger picture. First note that life becomes trickier for air units right across the board - their movement ranges are effectively halved. Roads and cities are still as easy as ever for ground units to traverse, but plains become a trickier prospect and woods become a nightmare, especially for tyred units. With mountains, note that the movement cost becomes 4 for infantry when infantry have a movement range of 3, making mountains effectively impassable (well, okay, unless you're Sami in Double Time). Mechs can still have a go at crossing them, though. In fact, although mechs are our slowest units, they're also our hardiest travellers, with a move cost of 1 on plains and in forests even in the snow.
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For some visual examples, note how the infantry cannot move any further into the mountains. The mech can gain some traction, but not much.
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My rocket launcher is okay on the road, but struggles away from it (then again, that's true of rockets in general). And my B copter is severely compromised.
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Fortunately, indirect units don't suffer any firing range penalties in snow. So my missiles can still get rid of this B copter.
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Those are some gorgeous purple skies. If uh. If purple skies makes any sense.
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How does Olaf fare in snow? Considerably better than us. As noted, snowy weather for Olaf is just like clear weather for anyone else. Now... a big question is, should I kill the B copter down south with my AA? It leaves the AA in range of Olaf's tank. But on the other hand, can we really allow that B copter to run rampant on our other units?
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I decide to attack. It's probably the better move in the situation.
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While that's happening, I reorganise my northern chokepoint a little so that the B copter is protected from Olaf's AA. This way, the medium tank is sitting on the city and receiving extra defence and HP bonuses - which is pretty much what you want.
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Olaf attacks, and leaves my AA with 5HP. Could be worse.
Day 3
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We've got some nice targets to aim at here.
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Rocket launcher punishes the tank in the south for daring to attack my AA. And in the north my arty and middie take down Olaf's AA. Getting rid of that should give my B copter some free reign...
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At least, if it could hit anything. Goddamn snow.
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Tank finishes off tank and AA retreats. But with the AA in the workshop for the next few days, we're going to need something to drag that B copter into missile range. Once more it is the duty of the APC to decoy the enemy. And also to demonstrate that although infantry can't move in mountains when it's snowing, you can still drop into them. Just because the move cost is exorbitantly high, doesn't mean the move type stopped being there.
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With the other units busy, my T copter and infantry act as meatshields for the rocket launcher.
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Day 4
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And so, in his mad quest to destroy all APCs, Olaf wandered straight into missile range.
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Let that be a lesson to AIs everywhere.
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Meanwhile my arty and medium tank take down Olaf's tank in the north...
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AA reports to the HQ for repairs (HQs can conduct repairs as well as cities and bases and so on) while my rockets and tank make short work of Olaf's artillery.
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The copters make what little progress they can upfield. Fortunately things are about to get a lot easier for them...
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Hey, you got three turns of snow there Olaf, that's two turns better than you normally get. Well, okay, except in AWDS.
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Day 5
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Nell, I outnumber him 14 to 8 now. You're a bit behind on this.
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Fun fact: as juicy and delicious as APCs are to the AI, mechs and infantry will still prioritise capturing over attacking one of them. There sure are a lot of them around here at the moment.
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Better get to work clearing them out, then.
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Rocket, tank and B copter soften up...
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... mech and two infantry clean up.
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Mind you, attacking with that mech has placed it in range of Olaf's medium tank.
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But we can turn that to our advantage. The mech becomes the bait for a trap. Our artillery and medium tank become the snare.
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Moving up the other units.
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Olaf falls for the bait.
Day 6
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Sure, if you're a farmer.
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And here's our third weather type, rain. Rain is like a less extreme form of snow: it doesn't bother infantry, mechs or air units, and again roads and cities remain free from blockages. Vehicles still have issues with plains and forests, though - and tyred units still suffer that punitive 4 movement cost through forests.
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Rain isn't as bad as snow, but it still isn't pretty: forests in particular are a pain for us to traverse.
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But look at how badly it hits Olaf. Olaf's troops may treat snow like clear weather, but they treat rain like snow. So we have the advantage here, albeit a kind of messy advantage. Incidentally, you may be wondering: is there a CO who's immune to rain, the same way Olaf is to snow? There's two of them actually, although it'll be a good while before we meet either of them and it's fairly incidental to their other strengths and weaknesses. This is also pretty much the only time we'll be able to exploit Olaf's weaknesses in rain: only a few Campaign maps are played in random weather conditions, and they're against one of the aforementioned "good in rain" COs. Oh well.
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Arty and middie fulfil their role as trap snare pretty well.
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And even the bait gets to lend a hand. The same way things looked whiter in the snow, they look greyer in the rain.
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And you can see that the sky has darker clouds, as my B copter takes on Olaf's other medium tank.
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Those last two attacks on the map. We can really exploit Olaf's struggles in the rain with our B copter: on a clear day, Olaf would be able to attack our B copter with his, but as it stands he can't reach it.
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Tank and infantry attack the remaining mech in the south, and my T copter moves up and loads.
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Everyone else edges forward as much as they can in these awkward conditions.
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Olaf tries attacking my B copter with his middie, but ends up doing more damage to himself.
Day 7
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So far, so good.
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My B copter continues to assault Olaf's medium tank.
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Meanwhile I finish off that mech and capture a city because hey, why not.
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Slogging through these forests in rain is really tough work.
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But in the meantime I drop off an infantry unit to do some scratch damage to that rocket launcher. Every little helps.
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Olaf attacks that infantry with his damaged medium tank, but can't achieve that much.
Day 8
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Still raining. I think it probably continues to rain until the end of the mission however long you take over it. It certainly did for me.
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Medium tank down to one hit point, rockets down to eight.
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And... yeah. I drive my medium tank up a dead end. I really don't know what I was thinking here: I think the mech standing on the mountain made me think it wasn't a mountain? Shame, because I could have reached the road this turn. Oh well. Either way, ol' Mr. APC continues to do decoy work for us, making sure that Olaf's rocket launcher has nothing else on its mind other than attacking it.
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Everyone else moves up a bit.
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You're a star, Mr. APC.
Day 9
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Olaf retreated his medium tank. Not surprised, frankly. Oh well, it's not going to get repaired this turn so we don't have to worry about it for now.
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Instead let's focus on the rockets.
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B copter and infantry whittle them down to 1HP, while my medium tank finally gets onto the road it should have been on in the first place, to make sure that Olaf can't escape that way.
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Missile trucks in forests in the rain. The very definition of "ugghh".
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Moving everyone else up.
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APC continues to attract Olaf's attention. Not that he can do much with a 1HP rocket launcher.
Day 10
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Couple of 1HP units left, and that B copter.
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Crash boom bang.
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And I'll drop an infantry off on the HQ for good measure.
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Don't think my B copter'll be able to finish the job off on its own though. So I move my AA up into attack range.
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Just look at how far behind that missile launcher is now. Just look at it.
Day 11
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Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night...
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... can stay these soldiers about their duty!
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Aww.
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Never mind an "It's your turn." count, I should have been keeping up a "Just wait until next time!" count.
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A tad slow, but we're still keeping on an all A-Rank run for Field Training here. So on we go:
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As you can see, I've already beaten this one, to unlock Campaign. Let's do it again, this time with screenshots. And pay no attention to the Special Intel behind the curtain. We'll be dealing with that shortly.
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That we have.
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Huh. Nell didn't have anything else to say this time. Oh well, makes a nice change. Anyway, once again we're going to be covering a topic in Field Training after coming across it in Campaign.
Day 1
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Once again, Fog of War is this weird mystery phenomenon that just happens to descend on the battlefield every so often.
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Not that it's that often that we're heading towards them. One or two missions in AW2 aside. But yeah, it can be handy in Fog of War to know if some errant infantry unit's capturing your HQ or something. And it makes sense that you'd be able to see your own stuff.
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Yeah, I guess. Oh hey, it's blue.
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Well, caution is a bit much. After all, to an infantry unit the only difference between an enemy city and a neutal city is that the enemy city is a higher priority for capturing.
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I could of course just mess with the tutorial at this point and not move that mech onto a mountain. But it seems a bit mean to Nell after all this time, and besides, it's useful.
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Damn, that's some nice vision. I can see that medium tank over there and everything! Can't see into that forest though.
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When people run, they move faster!
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Yup.
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Okay, got it.
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Oh, go on then.
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Lies. Recons still can't see into forests or reefs unless they're adjacent to them. Then again, maybe Nell means "they can see standing anywhere, as opposed to infantry and mechs which have to be standing on a mountain." Benefit of the doubt?
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Semi-true. Recons are no good against tanks or even anti-air. But they're very handy against infantry, and useful against indirects. They're nice, cheap harrassing units.
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All right. Let's see what free toy we get in our cereal today.
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Another rocket? Ugh, I've already got four of those. I still need an anti-air to complete my collection...
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Ah, yes, ambushes. I'll show one of those off later in the mission.
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All right, our investigative efforts with the mech and recon have revealed two rather nice targets.
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That medium tank is conveniently in rocket range.
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And we can finish it off with our own medium tank.
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The rocket launcher goes down to my light tanks...
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And everyone else moves up.
Day 2
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Olaf brings a couple of tanks out of the darkness.
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So let's go say hi to them.
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Medium tank assaults, light tank cleans up. And I move my artillery into that northern forest because... I don't know really. Maybe I was hoping that that infantry unit would decide to stay in arty range. For some reason. Doesn't make much difference in the end.
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My other light tank goes in on the attack, and my recon moves up to shed some light on the HQ area.
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Once again, everyone else moves up.
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Hey, don't look so sad there Olaf, you did four damage and took none in return, that's pretty good. Dunno what Nell's got to smile about, though.
Day 3
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And the target practice continues.
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First up, let's get rid of this tank.
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Then my middie can roll over and terminate some infantry with extreme prejudice.
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Tank and recon take down the other infantry. Now then, don't those forests around the HQ look exactly like the sort of place you'd hide a couple of indirects if you were a game designer?
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Yeah. There's a rocket in the woods south of the HQ, too. (naturally I know all this because I ran into them on my previous runthrough of this mission to unlock Campaign
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At least we've got this nice road here, so it's relatively easy for my rockets to keep pace with everyone else.
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APCs: the true heroes.
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Day 4
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So, we know where the artillery is. What about the rocket launcher? Which of those two forest squares is it in?
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Well, let's send the recon in to investigate. If the rockets are in the bottom forest square, the recon'll spot them and it'll all be good. If they're in square above that, then...
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... it's an ambush!
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So the recon can't move or do anything else, now - its turn is auto-ended.
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Fortunately we've got enough firepower that the ambush isn't a major concern.
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The mech provides support in the north to finish off the artillery, but we can't quite finish off the rockets. Might be an issue, but not a major one.
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And of course it wouldn't be a Fog of War tutorial without some ridiculous lander hiding in a reef somewhere. At least this time the lander's off the coast rather than trapped in a lake.
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Olaf's rocket launcher chips a couple of hitpoints off my own.
Day 5
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Which yeah, that could be an issue for finishing the lander off. We'll see.
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Okay, the rockets have only knocked 4HP off. Which means we're either looking for a lucky strike from the artillery, or the artillery to be followed up by a lucky strike from the 8HP tank (I can't bring a stronger tank in because if I move the 8HP tank, I lose my vision on the lander).
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Oh, okay. Lucky strike on the lander it is. Thanks, Nell.
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Well, we've had the rain and snow...
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... and here's where the gloom of night comes in.
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True. Although it's kind of already started. But, um, you know.
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Off this bit of Orange Star, anyway. But hey, any excuse to celebrate. And we've already cleared Olaf out of OS in Campaign by now. So yeah.
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*sniff* It's been a blast, Nell. Albeit an occasionally really wordy blast. But oh well, can't stay in school forever.
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Oh hey, Andy.
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Hiya, Andy. Good to see you. Er, again.
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I wouldn't quite call him a "wiseacre", but... yeah.
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That's where Field Training ends from the perspective of beating this mission - because I've already beaten this mission to access Campaign. There's a bit extra if this is your first time through:
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And then she gives you that rank up battle card thing that we've picked up a couple of levels on already.
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And here's a little spiel that, under normal conditions, would have set up Campaign nicely for us.
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But Nell's wrong here. We aren't quite done with Field Training just yet.
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This lesson doesn't appear in the menu normally until you beat Fog of War. It's not really a proper mission, just you clicking on things and Nell telling you what they are. But hey, we may as well finish the job. You can skip this if you want, although Nell does have at least one genuinely interesting thing to say here (but I cover that first, so hey).
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Ooh, swanky.
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We're going on a wall of text hunt!
Day 1
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Okay. Let's start out with the fighter. What's that doing here?
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Yeah, bit of an error taking this screenshot. But you can see the line Nell wants me to follow - the one that goes round the mystery hidden unit.
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All right. Going to do it slightly differently from Nell though, because hey, why not. I'm a fully-fledged Advisor, I can make my own decisions now!
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I think I used it at least once in Sniper!, right at the start where I was coaxing my recon around a wood to stop it running into the infantry in there. Anyway, Nell has a bit more advice here, pertinent to something that njsykora brought up in the thread: fuel usage in Fog of War.
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Yup, move-cancelling costs fuel in Fog of War, mostly to guard against you cheesing situations by exploring lots of alternate paths to try and find hidden foes. Of course, if you've got an APC or cities on hand, you can cheese to your heart's content. Something to bear in mind, though.
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Now let's look at this cluster of curious-looking properties down here. Why, what could they possibly be for?
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Okay. We've seen all this in Campaign, but hey, completionism. I deploy an infantry unit so I can afford to build stuff from the other two properties as well. Let's look at the thing with a bunch of runways next.
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Oh right, airports! I've heard of those! They're what planes come from, right?
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Again, going cheap with a T copter. That should leave us enough to buy some manner of ship. It's a reasonable guess that they come from the building shaped like an anchor. Granted, real ports aren't shaped like anchors. But whatever.
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We've got enough to build a lander and nothing else. A curious collection of units, but hey, we're just messing about here. So what else is there to do in Special Intel? Let's try opening the menu up...
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Well, you told us about End. I kind of skipped over saving. But sure.
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Okay. Let's start with Unit.
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Huh. Whaddaya know. Gas lists the units in order of how much fuel units have left, with the units with the least fuel at the top. Could theoretically be handy, although "wait unit the fuel icon starts blinking" is a simpler way to handle fuel quandaries. Okay, now let's see what Options does.
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Hopefully it'll never come to that.
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Okay. But is there anything else? Well, let's try one last thing. Nell loves the R Button. Maybe she'll have squirrelled away some information there?
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Bingo. Y'know, this section isn't actually in the Game Script FAQ I've been using to help with transcription. Looks like I'm not the only one who tends to ignore the R Button.
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Well then. Not that it's especially useful to know that Cosmo Land rivers are gentle and flowing. But hey, it's there.
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Nell doesn't have anything special to say when I R Button on a unit though. So I guess I'm done here? Let's end turn.
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Yeah. I think I've seen everything. No doubt someone in the thread'll correct me, though
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See you around, Nell. Field Training played a big part in making me the AW player I am today (so... kinda good, but not that good? Oh, I don't know) and it's been good to go through it again. I think I've said the same thing four or five times now. Maybe I'm becoming Nell.
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I uh... I win? Oh well, not complaining. Especially not with full marks.
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And for A-Ranking all 14 Field Training missions we get a nice, gold-coloured "Field Training" on the main menu. That's probably the easiest thing to get coloured gold.
With Field Training over and done with, it's back to Campaign. And Andy won the vote. So tune in next time for...
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... the answer to a very pressing question. Maybe. Probably not. Actually it's one we kind of answered this update ("no, but he gets very very wet when it rains."). So, um...
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NEVER FORGET