Part 29: Japan

In mission two of The Grizzly Theft we've tracked down our stolen plans. They're somewhere here in Japan, we just need to find them.

But finding them will not be so easy.



We start the mission with two LZs, one in the north and one in the south. The one in the south will become our base due to its proximity to a very impressive ore field.



Our first bit of research for this mission is the upgraded repairer. It's a very important piece of tech to grab since it allows you to upgrade your units in the field for free.



Our northern LZ is dangerously close to an ED outpost. We've got three Tigers, that should be enough to shut down the power. So let's do it.



NEO? As in the former UCS hacker who went rouge in the 2140 war? I thought he was dead. This isn't good.



KAIN IX signs NEO's death warrant. As a traitor to the UCS and threat to our recovery of the Grizzly plans it's no surprise he's been ordered to be killed.



NEO's taken over two of our Tigers. We've no chance of destroying that ED power plant now.



Our spy satellites have pinpointed NEO's transmission though. It looks like he's in a compound near the center of the map. Take out the compound, and we take out NEO.



The Albatross has arrived at the southern LZ and I order my Mammoth to start base construction. I paused the game so you could see where every structure was going to be built but it didn't work out.



Our Tiger has been destroyed, but not before he discovered this structure in the water. It looks like a Shipyard. This must also be the HQ of the Eurasian Dynasty's Pacific Fleet. Great. As if we didn't have enough on our hands already.



We've got a secondary ore field near the first one. This is rather nice of the game to give us, since we're going to need tons of resources. Now that our army is on the field, let's send out a scout.



Jumping Jehoshaphat! That base is almost within sight range of ours. And its filled with all sorts of nasty ED units.



Our base is fully established and we've got a nice defensive posture near the entrance. We're in a bit of a valley, so we can focus our defense at a single choke point. This is invaluable. If we were spread out like the LC were in the Andes mission I'm not sure we could hold the line.



We have our first upgraded repairer. I'm not showing off the Construction Center picture for it since all its stats are identical. The only difference is the upgraded repairer gives us the upgrade command. I order this Tiger to upgrade my whole army. Now those under-teched starting units can do more than just be cannon fodder and scouts.



Rocket upgrades are just as important for the UCS as the LC. Perhaps even more so since we don't have any energy weapons yet. Rockets are going to be our bread and butter for a while.



The ED sends a scout over. He doesn't make it very far. But now they know we're here. They've also destroyed our northern LZ, but I'm not too concerned since I wasn't planning on using it anyway. Instead, we'll be taking to the seas. But there's no suitable locations in our base.



So we're going to build a bridge to somewhere that there are suitable locations.



The Tiger has even upgraded our Harvesters to the Harvester II.



With the bridge built we can now construct our Shipyard. The shipyard allows us to build naval units. Unfortunately, you can't transport naval units back to base so they'll be one mission only things. To make up for that, the top-tier naval units allow more mounts than any other unit in the game. One Leviathan heavy cruiser can destroy a coastal base on its own.



The ED air force has shown up. Thankfully they're still in those awful Cossack copters.



They don't have a prayer against all our rockets.



The shipyard is done, but we don't have any chassis for it yet.



This will do nicely. The Shark is the light naval unit. We can research some upgrades for it and eventually unlock the Leviathan heavy cruiser.



I'm worried about our defense. The ED attacks so far haven't been that tough but I know a big ground force is coming any minute now. The Large Tower will help keep the Dynasty out of our base.



These aren't pre-built Taiga Ls. The enemy has laser technology and they're willing to build units based on it. Shit. We need to take out that ED base now before we're over-run with lasers.



The defenses are chewing our forces apart and we're not even making a dent in them.



The ED has brought its air force to bear on us. That combined with the towers will destroy our attack force.

Fall back! All units fall back!



The retreat is absolute chaos. This is the first time in this LP we've seen an attack go completely sour. Our losses are horrifying, we've lost over half our army and did only miniscule damage to the ED line.



To make matters worse, the ED has finally gotten wise and stopped using Cossacks. The Grozny is a true attack helicopter. It has innovative things like armor and "more than 20 HP." Given how weak most of our units are, they'll be a real threat for the rest of this mission.



Our 4 Gargoyles and the small towers are the only things that can save us now. Our Tigers are nowhere near fighting shape after the beating they took.

The line must hold or this mission is lost.



Should...should I order the full retreat? ED helicopters are in the center of our base, the defenses are failing. Our Tigers are out of ammo. More ED tanks are pouring out of the base. The Gargoyles are being picked off one by one by attackers. A retreat here would at least let us keep our units and have a fighting chance in the next mission. If we stay and fight and lose we'll have no chance of winning the next mission.

Is this the end of Japan?