Part 48: Highlights Reel: Andy Times Two! as Sami

FIRST PREFERENCE

Andy 3
Max 16
Sami 10

Andy eliminated!

SECOND PREFERENCE OF ANDY VOTERS

Max 2
Sami 1

TOTAL VOTES

Max 16 + 2 = 18
Sami 10 + 1 = 11

Max wins! Not a complete landslide, but certainly a comfortable win. And yeah, being honest Max is my choice here too. His ability to just smash through Sturm's paper-thin defences is definitely handy here. I'll see if I can beat it with Sami in a highlights reel, though. Speaking of highlights reels...



We're going through Andy Times Two! again, this time as Sami, and this time hopefully showing how it should be done.



Appropriately for Sami, I'm doing this on the save where I played as her throughout Green Earth (i.e., the one that'll become the Andy-Max-Eagle iteration of The Final Battle). Anyway, Sami and (clone) Andy both feature in this mission, but I've pretty much run out of music to link you to. I dunno, search through the thread or something .

Day 1

First up, let's have the dialogue you get if you pick Sami for this mission:


Who? Oh, it's you. Sami!
Who is that? Is that... Andy?
What the...?
Huh? Two Andys? What's going on? Eagle! Can you explain this?
Ah, yes. That's a clone of Andy that our enigmatic foe somehow constructed. Starting with Green Earth, he's attacked several countries.
So this is why everyone's been picking fights with Orange Star! I don't know who that guy is, but he's got me steamed! Look out, bozo! Here I come!

I may have said it before, but the crazy E-rated slang that Max and Sami come up with is pretty hilarious.

Hey! Hold on a moment! The green units are my troops! Let me handle all of the enemy air units. It'll give you time to push straight ahead and storm the foe's HQ.



Anyway, let's roll.



One of quite a few things that I suspect had you guys going "why on Earth did he do that?" last mission was that I really wasn't aggressive enough with my navy. I kind of needed to get my battleship and submarine up in Clone Andy's face. Well, let's make amends this time. The T-Copter also sets off, loaded with infantry this time rather than a mech, and boasting Sami's movement range increase as well.



The ground troops head upfield as well. It's important that they make a strong showing even though we won't be relying on Plan B this time: we have to draw Clone Andy's crazy army of medium tanks away from his HQ.



Dived sub alert, if you're interested. We're mostly going to be ignoring it this mission though.

Day 2



After Eagle and Clone Andy's turns. Somehow a bomber managed to survive this time. Eagle's AI is pretty random, and apparently I got dealt a really bad hand during the Andy run. Maybe it helps that I went on the offensive with my navy this time?



Anyway, let's keep trucking. Sub attacks battleship, battleship moves up with the lander acting as sacrificial material for that submarine. And the T copter moves up too (note: it's important to keep it over the sea. Put it over or adjacent to land, and those medium tanks'll start heading back this way wondering what all the fuss is about. Found that out to my cost on my first attempt at a Sami run here). The T copter's sitting in fighter range, but I'm hoping Eagle has the gumption to take care of that fighter. He should do, he's got a Lightning Strike up his sleeve after all.



Moving stuff up.



Eagle's AI is being a bit better behaved than last time, but it's still an AI. And it's still going to target transports over actually threatening units any chance it gets :osapc:.



Anyway, as promised he gets a Lightning Strike.

Day 3



And he does eventually manage to take out that threatening fighter. After three shots on his second turn, but he does get it done eventually.



Sub kills battleship, battleship maims medium tank and I drop my infantry unit off inside the rocket's range shadow. But it's still four squares to the HQ! Well, that's what Double Time'll be for. It's not the most explosive of powers, but it can still give you a handy edge.



Medium tank shoots tank, other units mill around a bit.



Didn't notice that Clone Andy still had a fighter active. Good job the T copter had already delivered its payload. My lander gets finished off as well, in a rather painful turn for my transports.

Day 4



All right then, Double Time's charged, let's rock.



And roll straight onto the HQ. Black Hole's HQ is a weird alienesque structure that sadly kind of got squashed here. You'll get a better look when I finish capturing.



I'd better have a turn where I focus on killing units for the power score. Down goes a light tank.



And an infantry.



And the submarine. You don't often get a chance to notice it, but battleships actually do very heavy damage to submarines when they aren't submerged. It's just that subs are completely invulnerable to battleships when they are submerged.



All right, I guess we'll leave that there.

Day 5



And may as well finish this off now since I don't think there's anything to be gained from further conflict.



Bam! Perfect S-Rank. So, with that out of the way, we'll leave Eagle to play with all those Andy clones and head on out to...



... the source of all our troubles. Hopefully.