Part 34: Mission 12 - After-School Visitor - Part 1
Mission 12 – After-School Visitor
: We ran slightly late. The operation’s already proceeding as planned, I see.
: This is where the first Sphere’ll be set, right?: That’s right. 
: Want me to take out the rest of the trash, then?: … No, I’ll handle them.
: Hah, that’s the Glain-Neidr for you…: I’ll begin setting the Sphere. Take care of LOTUS when they show up.: Copy that… Come on over whenever you’d like, LOTUS... 
: (Indeed, come, Quatre. If you say your struggle’ll save Earth, that is!)
: There they are! …Aah? Wait, it’s the Dancouga?
: No surprises there. We can leave that one to the R-Daigun.: He’s right. We’ve no need to waste our resources dealing with it.
: Seems we weren’t quick enough – they’ve the whole area under control.
: And they brought a real big one along for the ride too.
: Is it a new type of Arma…?
: No time for questions now. Let’s try and wrap this up quick, before that pain-in-the-ass turns up!
Noooo, don’t do that! Send the Dancouga far, FAR away because you don’t wanna goad the Katou guys to attacking en masse – especially the new guys. The Dancouga can’t handle that kind of attention without Iron Wall, and, more importantly, you want them to hang back as much as can be.
So insert two turns of me moving far, far away : first turn, only a handful of Armas start moving in; second turn, the rest of the smaller Armas (but not the named guys).
Player Phase!
: It’s—!: Yeah, there it is, alright – the R-Daigun!: Everywhere we go, it’s there… These run-ins of ours are trying my patience.: If you ask me, my patience wore out ages ago. So now we’re gonna wreck it along with the Katous, and get ourselves some answers! 
: You talk a lot for someone who doesn’t understand the point of this battle…
: Ah… It disappeared!: Damn it, where is it…?!: I can’t get a bead on its location! It’s using some powerful jamming device!: Sure this is alright, Masaki? We’re also running blind here.: Yes, it’s fine. It’ll be over quickly.: “Quickly”? Now that’s a shame… The Dancouga finally awoke to justice, and I was so looking forward to making it slooowly savor how powerless it actually is. 
: !! Behind us?!
: Gaah!: Urk! I’ll handle this!: No, I’ll do it!: Not the time for bickering, if you can’t tell!: All of you, shut up!: And how’re you also getting angry going to help, Aoi? Calm down!: If being calm won battles, I would’ve become a frigging Zen master already! If we don’t do something, it’ll—!: You’re already panicking over something like this? What a joke.: …!
: AAAH!: Victory is mine. And, with it, the Earth will be saved…
: We… We lost to the R-Daigun?: That’s…: Goddamn it!
: Oi, it didn’t even finish ‘em off!
: It won’t wield its blade against a foe which has lost the will to fight. The R-Daigun also trails the path of the samurai. (That’s where you’re wrong. Were that the case, it wouldn’t explain why it held back against them all the times they fought). : Well, the jamming’s gone. Get that Sphere set up already so we can go home, Masaki.: I still need more time to finish things. Carry on guarding the area. : And the Dancouga?: I need only set the Sphere – if that succeeds, everything else is a nonissue. Deal with it as you would.: “The Earth will be saved”…? How’s us losing going to save…? : I can’t… Everything’s… foggy…….
: Are all friendly units already gone?!
: And we got all the bosses hanging around again…
: Shows how important this op must be to the Katou Organization.*Looks at the Dancouga.*
: Is that the Dancouga?! It’s busted all over!
: This is LOTUS speaking. Come in, Team D.*…*
: Megumi, check for signs of life!
: Already did, and they’re fine – just passed out, by the looks of it.: Damn these Katous!: You shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Ichitaka Nagumo. It wasn’t us who attacked the Dancouga.: Huh?
: This transmission… There, it came from that Arma!*Looks at the Glain-Neidr*
: A-Are you serious…? There’s an Arma that stupid huge?! It’s bigger than the Gaiking, for crying out loud!
: That’s no Arma… It’s a Machina, like ours!
: What about that other new guy? Same with him?
: The Talisman…! I heard the Katou Organization found and won over its Factor before JUDA could get to him!: You make it sound so bad… I simply realized that true justice lies in the future Cmdr. Katou’s guiding us to. 
: It’s truly regrettable that a man of your caliber wound up taking his side.: You say that because you don’t know how many times I was betrayed by your vaunted justice. I don’t regret any of my choices.: (I see… The reason for his distaste of justice and ideals is easy to grasp, once it is brought into the light.): It’s been a long time, Ishigami.: Masaki…: Eh? “Long time”?: I’ve picked up the torch you left behind. Now I lead the 1st Unit. : So you do… And since the Glain-Neidr’s out on the field, I presume Katou’s finally getting serious about things?: I suppose so. Do you think yourself capable of stopping our plan?: I don’t know what said plan is, but I’ll see that it goes nowhere with the full might of LOTUS.: Then it’s time to put our cards on the table.
: Hey, prez… You wanna explain what that talk was about?: Save the chit-chat for later and focus on the mission – we’ve no time to waste now. 
: Captain, I’m detecting an anomaly coming from the giant Machina. It’s generating some sort of dimensional distortion!
: This may not give us anything, but try running an analysis! Lt. Angeloni’s report did say that their technology shouldn’t be too different from ours. *Boooweeeeep!*
: … This is… Captain! It’ll only be a few minutes before space-time around that Machina is made permanently distorted!: What?! How long exactly?!: I can’t tell you for sure…!
: Meaning we need to take that guy out ASAP or something really bad’s gonna happen?
: And we don’t even know what the time to beat is? Well, isn’t that fun…!: Troops, focus all your fire on the Glain-Neidr!
: Um… Shouldn’t I have deployed too?
: Sorry, Shinji, but I want to wait and see how things are looking for a bit.: …Understood. : (I knew it… Misato doesn’t trust me either, even after I showed her that I was willing.): Change of plans, then. Yamashita, you’ll provide covering fire with your artillery strikes and gather intel from the battlefield with your Reflector Cores. Hayase and I will lead the charge against the Glain-Neidr; Kujo, you watch my six.: Yes, sir…!: The remaining troops will engage the defenders and the Glain-Neidr when possible. We cannot afford to concern ourselves with the Dancouga, understood, Nagumo?: Is that the only way right now…?!: Forward, then! Open fire!
Mission Objective: Shoot down the Glain-Neidr
Mission Failure: Any battleship, Reiji, Yamashita, Miu shot down, or if the Dancouga Nova is EVER attacked.
So, yeah, ignore what Reiji said because you absolutely need to care about the Dancouga – if even a single enemy decides to take a shot at it, you lose. No, it makes no difference if you heal up the bot to full (I know from experience). One attack = game over.
You can’t afford to be careful here: rush, rush, rush all your guys as close to the enemies as possible to try and give them other stuff to target (they like going after Reiji since he has more HP). At the first turn, you’ll only have a few guys get in place, so you’re at the mercy of the AI playing ball and going after your guys. After that, everyone should be in place and all you need to do is form a nice wall to block the enemy’s advance.
And, if you’re curious, it makes no difference where Aoi was before the event: the R-Daigun’s attack will always knock her back to the same spot on the map.
The first two rounds are the worst because while the Katou bosses aren’t too beefy, they all have command auras – so you’ll be staring at some decent %s. Once they start going down, though, things become a lot simpler. Masaki won’t move from his spot until turn 8 hits (no, you don’t lose since the even’tll happen anyway), so you’ll have to make the trek across the entire map.
Now, a quick look at the new stuff the Katou Organization has brought to the table today:
Jack Smith
Pilot Skills:
Sword Cut
Predict
Commander L1
Prevail L4
Support Attack L1
Support Defense L2
Attack Combo L1
Salute this man, glorious Iczer-4!
Jack is exactly what he looks like: just some guy, on foot, with a katana. While his stats aren’t as massive as Iczer-2, he’s still quite the fearsome “pilot”… That said, his single attack right now isn’t too powerful. Worse, it’s range is 1-3, so he’s easily sniped.
Prevail L4 aside, he’s not too tough to bring down – just make sure you pack some hit % boosts, because that Predict + SS size combo (plus the likelihood he’ll be in someone else’s Command Aura) will make him rather difficult to hit otherwise.
Talisman (Soubi Nakajima)
Pilot Skills:
Factor
Commander L1
Prevail L3
Support Attack L1
Attack Combo L1
The first of the Katou Organization’s Factors we have to face, Soubi doesn’t bring much we haven’t faced yet. As a pilot, he’s about on par with his peers, but with a slight edge on defense.
The Talisman itself is a mix of ranged attacks and debuffs (mobility down), and is a bit bulkier than Sawatari and co., but still nothing we can’t handle. Just remember that he’ll regen some due to being a Factor.
Glain-Neidr (Masaki Sugawara)
Pilot Skills:
Factor
Commander L1
Prevail L3
Support Attack L1
Attack Combo L1
Mech Features:
Nullifies Beam Attacks
And now we have Masaki, piloting the mother of all RB-79 Balls. Masaki is, BY FAR, the bigger threat here as you might expect. His stats are a whole lot higher than all the other Katou midbosses, and the Glain-Neidr is tough (though not as much as Sachiel).
On the offense side of things, Masaki’s can either blast you with lasers or blast an entire area with lasers. Not very creative but the single target version will hurt if it connects, while the MAPW carries a +30 accuracy modifier and hits everything in a 5x5 area around the Glain-Neidr. Not fun.
Only a handful of your guys can outsnipe him, so you’ll likely need to take a few hits on approach – just make sure you don’t get in his MAPW range before you’re going for the kill, and make sure you don’t use Beam weapons.
Now, before we get going, keep the following in mind:
Secret Alert! Do at least one of the following:
- Have Kouichi shoot down Soubi.
- Shoot down the Glain-Neidr within 7 turns.
Akurasu doesn’t mention the second option, but I checked two JP wikis and they both had that one noted, so I’m pointing it out. Granted, the first option is so much simpler and there’s absolutely no reason why you need to rush Masaki down, so I’ll be going with that one.
So, like I mentioned before, send everyone forward as far as they can go and right in the enemy’s face.
Miu finishes that one off.
And do keep in mind that, as ordered, Yamashita cannot be moved off that spot. He can still attack if stuff get in range, mind.
Enemy Phase!
The vanguard midbosses are moving in.
: I am Soubi Nakajima, captain of the Katou Organization’s 2nd Unit! I’ve no personal beef with you, just so we're clear – this is all for the world that’s to come…!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPIONWogfPo
He and Miu drop another two mooks that attack, while Kouichi slaps another pair away.
Player Phase!
OK, so now we need to bash ourselves against the incoming tide and push it back – get rid of all the nearby mooks and get that wall of units set to prevent anyone from going after the Dancouga.
Oh, and here’s Shizuru and Anna’s combined attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1yplbML66M
What, no DK? Guess it’s only for when Goh gets back in the thing.
Spreading out, Kouji and Alto’s groups claim the mooks Reiji and Kouichi previously weakened.
And the AI always likes to go for Ichitaka, so let’s bring him right up front.
Once you take out any of the named guys, get the Katou units under 11 or turn 8 rolls over…
: Hrm?! An ambush… They’re stealth?!*The four new Armas vanish.*
: S-Stealth Armas? How the…!
: I see how it is… These appear to be the same types as the one who showed up by JUDA HQ.
: Meaning it won’t be easy to find them…!
: …!: They’re so fast…!
: And they’re ignoring the Painkiller, going straight for the Vardant?!
: Destroy the enemy from the top-down, starting with the leading units… A textbook approach, but an effective one.: RAAAARGH! Get away from Reiji!: Y-Yamashita?!*Yamashita dashes towards the new enemies.*
: Don’t leave your post, Yamashita!: I… I should have noticed those units…! I was the one gathering intel – it’s my fault you’re in this situation…!: Yamashita, hold on! That’s—: GODDAMN IT!
: Uwaah!: …You imbecile!
: R-Reiji…!: Why did you not listen to my orders?: B-But, Reiji, you…!: …
: R-Rei… ji…?: Now you’ll have to stay put. At least you can still serve as a turret.: I-I…!
: …
: H-Hey, I know Machinas are tough and all, but isn’t it still dangerous to leave him immobile?!: The mission remains the same.
: Shinji?! : I should be able to keep him safe with the EVA’s A.T. Field… right, Misato?: In theory, I guess that’s right, but…: … Then I’m going in!*Shinji tags in with Yamashita, and the Stealth Armas blip back to Masaki’s side.*
: (Wanting to wait and see backfired on me…): LtCol. Katsuragi?: I’ll talk to him later. I guess I’ll see how he does, and then decide what do to.: Understood.: Shinji, I already mentioned this during practice, but the EVA has a very limited energy supply to operate with the Umbilical Cable unplugged. : Remember that you can plug it back in if you’re next to any allied ship. And while you have several power supply buildings available when fighting in Neo Tokyo 3, you’ll have to make do without today.: …: (Is he listening?): Will Shinji and Yamashita be alright…?
And we can’t lose Shinji either. That’s fine since the A.T. Field’ll hold well enough, but that is not the case with the Hind-Kind! He's at 10 HP and, if attacked, Shinji'll only be able to support defend him if the mooks decide to focus fire - if not, he's gone!
In other words, heal Yamashita to full and carry on. It’s not an auto-game over if he gets attacked, but he IS still at 10 HP.
Shinji can’t move, either, but he’s got a new weapon for extra range – we’ll see it in a bit.
And Yamashita takes the kill, despite his gimped morale.
Jeeg and Voltes each nab a kill, Gaiking moving to further close our wall.
Boosh!
And here we have it. Soubi’s the only unit who can attack the Dancouga and, as far as I can tell, the midboss AI won’t go after it if there’s anything nearby.
Next turn we’ll tear through them.
Enemy Phase!
And I may have overestimated the Valkyrie’s mobility… or underestimated the boost the Katous get from each other’s command auras.
Ow. At least they’ve Prevail…
For instance, Jack gets a 50% chance to hit against Iczer-1, which I don’t think I’ve seen happen before!
Catch-all convo first:
: LOTUS… Is a foe capable of satisfying me within your ranks…?And for Iczer-1:
: I have heard that one of LOTUS’ collaborators came from space, and is a renowned swordswoman…
: I understand now… You’ve modified your whole body – that is how you’ve gained this strength. : Indeed. And I now challenge you to see whose is superior…: As you wish. To arms!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ0qQb47Yd8
And, by the by, if you wish to DISHONOR THE SAMURAI SPIRIT, you can still summon the Iczer Robo to this:
: It is truly a shame… I’d hoped to cross blades with a swordswoman like you in the flesh.
: Sure about this, Iczer-1? That guy’s looking like he really wants to fight you.: Well, I suppose dueling with him wouldn’t be an issue if you'll allow it.: That man… He strikes me as someone who fights and lives solely by the sword.I won’t be summoning it before Jack’s gone, though – that’d be absolutely disgraceful.
The other midbosses all lose a decent chunk of HP next. And the AI also follows the plan, Ichitaka and Quatre claiming 3 mooks.
Down south, Combattler and Shizuna are also big targets.
Two kills for them.
Player Phase!
And with a solid wall in place, most mooks wrecked or destroyed, all we have is spread and kill. Prioritizing a few midbosses will make things simpler as you deprive others from the command auras.
A decent bunch of our guys now know Luck, so you ought to prioritize them getting the midboss kills (unless someone really needs the exp). Quatre’s my only Bless cast still, and he’s saving it for Masaki.
Forward!
: Much is said about your skill with the blade. We duel!: His physical ability is beyond superhuman… I accept. Come.
: Huh… No way! Is that a man?: Is that all the power of your imagination amounts to? I’d expected you to be somewhat different since you’re part of LOTUS, but it seems I was mistaken. What a pity!
: Th-The hell? Am I going crazy, or is that a guy?!: My strength far exceeds that of a Machina! Prepare to meet your end!: Yo, are you serious? The Katou Organization has their own Iczer-1?!
: There’s nothing to be gained by staying here further… That said, I shall at least bring the blue Machina’s head back with me.*Jack rushes the Vardant down!*
: He’s after Reiji?! Oh, no, you don’t!
: What…! He parried them?!: Throwing daggers… A fine prize, these. I trust you’ll allow me to borrow them for a bit.: …!! Kujo, pull back!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3WojUkXfW8
: That wound… So that’s why you’ve such extraordinary physical ability. : …
: Your body itself is an Arma… : Allow me to introduce myself properly: I am Jack Smith, captain of the Katou Organization’s 6th Unit… And you are?: Reiji Moritsugu, Head of JUDA’s Special Forces and assigned to LOTUS.: Reiji Moritsugu… I hope we’ll have a chance to duel again someday. Farewell!
: The guy might look like a regular person, but he sure as hell gave us a lot more trouble than one. Talk about a tough fight.
: You should try and fight a Zentradi with that attitude and see if it lasts, Alto.
Heey, Izuna learned Attune from that.
Dmitri can’t keep on going, and is forced to back off.
Daiya’s rather miffed that despite how important this whole thing seems to the Katous, we still have no idea what they’re actually trying to do. But Sakon tells him to chill, as it’s his and the other eggheads’ job to figure it out.
That’s too much punishment for Sawatari’s Arma to take – time to head back.
And he better stay gone, roars Kenji.
And that’s all Yulianne can enjoy for today, “unfortunately”.
If anything, Misato’s impressed with how skilled they are at making their escape – shows that they’re really pros.