Part 11: MISSION 10: Brave New World Of Pain

Got a bigass update on tap tonight...this mission takes no prisoners.

MISSION 10: Brave New World Of Pain



Wrap it up, Orthodox Shaman Commander groupies. It's Orthodox Shaman Commander Gagarin Zombie Samurai now. I'll have the new business cards printed by Monday.

So, Mars! We're taking the fight to the dickheads now, which probably means some ball-bustingly hard endgame missions, assuming the developers remember how to make the game challenging. And have no fear, true believers...they can copy-paste with the best of them.

Oh, and let's not forget the wacky! Newly-christened Prince of Mars throws in both a Mario joke and a little vulnerability, revealing his lizardophobia. Yuk yuk yuk.



Hmmm...come to think of it, we haven't run into this guy yet...



We're starting Mars off right, by defending ourselves from the oncoming horde! Is this a late-game rendition of the good ol' "win by doing nothing" sieges?



FUCKING NOPE



At this point, I don't expect you to think this is very threatening, but there's one important difference. The Blowbos have already spotted our forces and are moving in. The only thing that made them useless was that they never aggressed until they were already breathing through a tank-shell-shaped crater in their chest, but this time...



...We're kinda fucked.

I did let this one run without touching anything, just to make sure, and you will indeed lose this fight hard if you do nothing. In truth, you only have to do one thing, and that is use those four trucks in the bottom center.



Say hello to the Katyusha, the last unlockable unit in the game! If you are ill-versed in Soviet military hardware, the Katyusha is essentially an absurd number of missiles, stuck on a rack and strapped to the back of a truck. It's a bit hard to see in this shot, but my Kattes are peppering the sallow three-balled gimpfucks and their undulating dong buddies with a cloud of rockets.

All you need to know about the Katy is that it has crazy range, does a ton of damage, and DOES NOT AUTO-TARGET. That last one is a little important, and the sooner you figure that out, the sooner you stop losing.



With the oooOOOooohs and portobello bombers down, all that remains are a few firephants and their explodey toady friends. The Kitties rain hell upon them, as they are wont to do.



Portal secure! Time to take out the Martian base...which is like 50 feet away. Huh.



Well, let's round up the rest of our supertanks and give those fu



Holy SHIT



Well, we found those lizards. It was a little hard to tell how dangerous they are, given the circumstances. All you need to know is that five seconds later, all of my tanks were dead.



My rocket trucks were spared by my forgetfulness, though, as were these reinforcements I received for finishing the portal objective. Looks like we've still got a chance!



With this many rocketracks, I might be able to spot with my supertanks and artillerize everything into bits. It's amazing how much the game opens up when you have actual long-range units to play with.



In case you were wondering, everything is now unlocked...even Historical Inevitability. Hm. The Katydids are 200 KremBux apiece, putting them equal to Stalin's Falcons. Really? We'll see about that.



Turns out I get a pretty good vantage point from this hilly terrain, so I open up with my boom trucks. The game doesn't allow you to fire into fog of war, even if it is in range. You guys need to loosen up.



Direct hit! And then some! The KatKar rockets have a bit of a spread on them, so pretty much everything near your main target is going to die, too. I'm becoming quite fond of these little death-dealers.



So of course some douchenozzle lizard has to come ruin my fun. Turns out they can torch a Katamaran in two shots of their doucheray. This I do not appreciate, and I express my ire with bullets. Many bullets.



Bullet delivery puts my remaining tanks a little to close to what's left of the base, which proves enough to blast my babies down to one. Lizards are deceptively powerful, and my hate for them grows by the minute.



That last tank has a great view of the survivors, though. The Katastophes swiftly revoke their living privileges.



So long, base! Now we caOH FUCK YOU STALIN

Apparently briefings are only accurate about the shitty parts. Time to hunt down some Geico psychos.



And get farted on by unseen assailants. This mission is unkind, to say the least.



Jesus, game. It's like Mission 10 hoovered up all the challenge that was missing from the previous three. I'm now out of supertanks and low on ProlePoints.



Time to see if the Rocketeers can hold their own in a fight.



Nnnnnnope. They can't even get to the fight.



Fine. We'll try to save a few more units from the siege and



THIS IS NOT HELPING



Take 3, you assholes.



Much better.



This is our original force, plus the reinforcements. We're in good shape, but this mission has already fucked with me twice. I'm not taking any chances this time...not if I've got the funds.



Whee hee hee hee!



BOOM MOTHERFUCKERS



I completed the FUCK out of that objective, thank you very much.

Stalin's Falcons are actual airborne units, and so clear the fog of war around themselves in addition to glassing anything in their general vicinity. This means I can get a pretty good look at the lizard resistance.



Not promising. But then, what in this game is?



Well, those cheap tanks survived the siege, but nature and the Motherland abhor weakness.



Face your deaths like men, brave decoys. Also, thank you for revealing both the green-faced socketfuckers on the left and the creepy crawly fartillery on the right.



Their sins did not go un-rocketed. Unfortunately, we seem to have drawn more attention from over the hills.



The next lizard lounge is starting to break and attack, but our Katyooshies are in the perfect spot to rain on their parade.



Our frontline tanks have taken a beating, and only two remain, but we're in good shape! There's just two more lizard camps to go...and then whatever else Stalin feels like making us do.



Rolling back south and around the craters, we hit more of the same. Luckily, the craters blocking line of sight worked to my advantage, allowing me to set up the Kathooms before engaging with my poor attention-grabbing tanks.



This technique is very, very effective. And gratifying. Sexually.



Our blocked line of sight is less awesome trying to round the corner, because SOMEONE thought hiding suicide bomber units there was clever. SOMEONE needs to stay away from code, computers, and hallucinogens in general.



Here's a look in the crater, if you're curious. More garish crystals. How do they get them out of there and over to Siberia? And more importantly, why? The world will never care.



Apparently I pissed off some jumping jerkoffs earlier, who decided to tail my launcher lorries southward. Good thing I spotted them on minimap...Katyushas have a minimum range, inside of which they cannot fire. That sounds pretty reasonable, no? Maybe they designed this unit first, before huffing Mom's nail polish and working on the others.



Are we out of 'shrooms? Good. Let's keep it that way.



The last enclave of cold-blooded cockups is not nearly as imposing as the others. Machine gun fire works pretty well against them, and in limited numbers, they don't do as much damage, thank the Prince of Mars.



Luckily, these artillery aphids 'tarded out and failed to notice me before I replaced their organs with ordinance.



Now I have to blow up a portal? Can't make up your mind? At least it's just up the road.



I'm down to two tanks and a mess of tinfoil artillery. This close to the end, I'm not taking any chances, so I purchase a single squad of warm bodies to keep me from losing outright if my useful shit gets pounded.



We're almost there. Maybe there won't be any guards.



Oh. Well, that's not too bad. I'll just roll up the rocke



NOPE

NOPE NOPE NOPE

DO NOT WANT



At least the developers did one thing right.



They gave you an option to skip fights you don't like.



When you think about it, you fuckers brought this on yourselves. Really.



They actually modeled the aircraft! You can only see this if you zoom all the way out, angle your camera all the way down, and look right over the bomber squadron. Great priorities, guys.



From this perspective, though, I can't be too mad.



We came, we saw, we blew it the fuck up.



Don't even need eyes on the target to know it's been atomized. Good work, boys.



We're in the home stretch now, and it looks like the game's not going to pull any more punches. I'm expecting wall-to-wall aliens, and not enough sprinkles to really break the bank. Functional artillery gives us some options, but it's mostly just backup...more gun against otherwise impossible odds. I'm just glad Stalin's Falcons is such affordable overkill. Judicious use of rockets, bombers, and supertanks should carry us through.

That is, assuming the game doesn't throw us any curve balls.



NEXT TIME ON STALIN VS MARTIANS: