Part 9

Successfully.



And then I moved on to deal with the problem of Vegas. I don't need to do as much narrative here as you should have an idea, by now, of what I'm attacking and why; I went after the AA units with my infantry and damaged what I could of the tanks and artillery.

To start it off though, our Airbase lost its Combat Virginity today:




Then, with choppers being worth so much money and being so deadly, I deployed the Stuart's rockets against it - I chaparraled the other helicopter, then finished it with an airstrike.





And then B2ed the MERL on Hoover Dam, hoping to destroy both but failing at the most important task



The counterattack began (this is why you should never deploy so close to the enemy if you're defending, as you get one whole turn to rape). They had better forces there, but since I struck such a decisive first blow they didn't utterly annihilate me.







Then it was my turn again, so I used my airbase to target the damaged Supercobra and finished it off with my wounded F-18.





Then I bombed the MERL. Notice how the PC went after my airbase, knowing it would kill my entire airforce?



Status update:



And then I went after their armoured pieces with my infantry, both because the commandos would take less damage from return fire than my tanks given their defense bonus in city squares, and because units only get one opportunity fire - which means if they waste it on the infantry, my tanks can win unscathed.







Now, back by Flagstaff, the enemy had moved up a few of its reserves, including an abrams, some partisans, and some artillery. Since I had the advantage of having an air unit though, the battle quickly went my way = you'll notice that I move my Stuarts right up to the artillery to fight it - I do this because in the game, artillery isn't allowed to fire into directly adjacent hexes.

My Stuarts are fast enough that they can zip down, attack, then retreat back up that mountain they're camping on.





I also found one of their Warriors, which has no air-to-air capability, so I took a few potshots with the apache before finishing it off with a chaparral strike.





I also used my artillery against a hummer that had found its way into Flagstaff after the fact.



Back in Vegas, the computer resumed its attack, trying to wipe out my infantry and targeting my chaparral and merl.

One even attacked the Stuart. I had lost most of the commando units and my MERL, and on top of that my chaparral had come under heavy fire. The Battle of Vegas has been the bloodiest of the war for us.







They also renewed their attack by Flagstaff, sending in some medium armour and artillery against my Stuart - which outclassed them both by a mile and enabled it to survive, whereas a pair of abrams would have made short work of it - note the bridge got wrecked during the battle with the tank.





On my turn, I went on the offensive again, trying to dish out enough damage so that I wouldn't be overwhelmed on the very next turn:







At the bridge near Flagstaff, I satellite upgraded my Apache and sent it out to deal with the few pitiful units in the area. The artillery played a backup role.







Remember how I was worried about being overwhelmed in Vegas? Well, I nearly was. I had damaged two enemy Abrams, severely, during the enemy turn, but I had lost everything but the airfield, a Stuart and a commando unit in the process. If I would have lost those, I would have had to have withdrawn or risk losing the airbase.



Remember when I mentioned that certain classes of weapons do better against certain types of things? Well, the turrets on our Stuart shred the pissing out of infantry units. Observe.





Start to dead in one second.

More opposition in Flagstaff.



Hey, you see that crate up in the corner? That's the Russian aid that was mentioned before. If someone snags it, they have a chance at being damaged, being completely healed, or getting a unit for the rest of just this battle. I didn't get to it first.



But the enemy did.



And then they withdrew. It was quite a battle, and we lost quite a bit during it and didn't get a chance to use our new special power which I guess you'll see next time.

However, after annihilating the Texan Republic's helicopters and a large portion of its armoured divisions and artillery, I quite literally destroyed their capacity to make war. In one battle that focused on Flagstaff Arizona of all places, and Vegas, I succeeded in doing to the Texan Republic what took Texas and I three weeks to do to the California Commonwealth.



With nothing else, I hit the next turn button and hoped that the Great Plains Federation would attack us instead of gobbling up regions from Texas - the Federation, knowing my fears, decided to block my access to any poorly defended Texan territory, while it gobbled up some for its own.

The Confederacy, seeing a chance at getting some goodies of its own, gobbled up precisely half of Texas itself. New England and the European Alliance, having both been in their own private war for several turns, carried out attacks back and forth on each other's territory.

Here's what the map looks like on the start of the next turn. As always, I suggest you give me my orders. Also, those green bars over my stats at the bottom mean which ones I'm going to gain through successful conquest.







Where to?