Part 80: Advance Campaign Mission 14A: Battle Mystery! AC as Andy

Advance Campaign Mission 14A: Battle Mystery! AC as Andy (or "The Mystery of Battle Mystery")



Youtube video (11m03s)

After Sockerbagarn joked at the end of the last video that I needed an S-Rank here to make up for my B-Rank last time, I figured I might as well give it a shot. Let's face it, it would be nice to get at least one non-compulsory S-Rank out of Advance Campaign. And this seemed as good a chance as any. After all, all I've gotta do is find and kill the lander, right? Sockerbagarn continues to oversee me in this mad quest for an S-Rank, and joining us is alcharagia.



No apparent differences with the fog in place, so let's strip that away. Drake's actually moved his lander a little closer to us in Advance Campaign, but its new position means that we can't spot it from a bridge - the only way to see into that reef is with a naval unit of some type. Drake's also bringing a much more competent land force to the party this time - most notably, a medium tank in the south and an irritating artillery in the north east. He's also got a few more naval units - our fleet will be chased by a sub and a battleship, and a second cruiser is hanging out around the lander, discouraging a submarine assault.



Since we're pretty tight for time here (in order to get an S-Rank, we need to finish in - wait for it - five days. Six days is too long for that precious S), our spotter's going to be a cruiser simply because they move faster than subs. Once the lander's spotted, a battleship and rocket combo will blast it out of the water. Meanwhile we've got to keep Drake's land army at bay by blocking the bridge with medium and light tanks, while taking care of that northeastern arty. Much like its Normal Campaign counterpart, it's a really easy mission to beat - but getting an S-Rank is another matter. That five day time limit will test us.




Starting moves are to get a cruiser, sub and battleship heading towards that lander, while one of my own landers drops off medium and light tanks.



The other lander (loaded with the other light tank and a rocket launcher) can't quite reach this turn, sadly. But we should be okay regardless. Meanwhile, the other cruiser heads south for a bit of sub-spotting.



The spotted sub then promptly decides to go on the attack. There's something about that two star defence bonus that makes Drake's subs suicidal around cruisers. I mean yes, only taking five damage on the counterattack is kind of impressive for a sub assaulting a cruiser. Dealing two damage and receiving five on the counterattack still goes down as a rather silly move, though.



Day 2, and in the north we can spot a dived sub with a lander, and take it out with a cruiser-sub one-two punch.



Dropping the other units off, blocking the bridge with my medium tank, and I make a bit of a miscalculation. I was expecting that arty to stay in the forest, and park just out of range of it. Turns out that the arty moved...



... and now Drake's going to start bringing the hurt. Luckily my landers distract his battleships via the ol' black magic (orange magic?) of . They both go down, so I'm bringing no more units across from the starting island. But I shouldn't need to.



And let's just get rid of all Drake's hard work (in my first attempt at this, I derped and used Hyper Repair before Tsunami. To repair one damaged unit. Welp).



The crippled tank does its best to discomfort Drake's arty, but it can't achieve much. Meanwhile, my charging cruiser hits an ambush...



... and meets up with Drake's northern battleship. Well, the one good thing about this ambush is that at least the cruiser is nicely in the battleship's range shadow. I move the subs up too, ready to take on the battleship next turn.



In the south, with the sub finished off a while back I use the cruiser to spot Drake's southern battleship. That guy could really mess me up... unless I distract him with the APC. strikes again.



Day 4. My medium tank just about survived Drake's turn, luckily.



But now we can start taking control of things. My battleship mows down that pesky arty, while my subs clear out Drake's batteship. Most importantly though, the cruiser continues to head forward. If all goes well and I don't run into another trap, it should be able to park next to the reef and spot the lander next turn.



Rockets attack medium tank, and I pull my own damaged middie out of there, replacing it with a light tank. That should be able to hold Drake up.



Lander spotted!



Battleship attacks, rockets attack, lander explodes and victory is ours!



And there you have it folks, S-Rank acquired. I have... not dishonoured my family, or something. Unshameful display? Something like that. I dunno. Either way, we're done with Green Earth, and you know what that means...



Andy Times Two! And goodness, does it look tricky. Eagle's air force has had a huge wodge taken out of it - he's lost two of his five fighters, and one of his three bombers. On top of that, Evil Andy has an AA and a missile launcher to play with (plus another battleship), making any aerial ploys even tougher to pull off. But horror of horrors - we don't have an APC! How am I going to bait the enemy now? (more to the point - how'm I going to refuel my submarine?)

It's going to be a while before I can attempt this one - in a couple of days, I'll be off on holiday to Austria for a week. In the meantime, since this looks like a tough nut to crack, feel free to provide ideas, hints... or maybe just discuss whatever the mystery of Battle Mystery is supposed to be.