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Rorac posted:When it came to Minerva, I think that moving her north might've been enough to save her. Kindle gains a massive offense boost while on a property, and that was enough to overcome the defense bonus from being in the mountains; moving north would've denied the offense boost to the tank while getting her on a mountain. God, I totally forgot that every property counts for Kindle's bonuses. Yeah, that would've done her in, drat. mr_stibbons posted:Grimm's defence penalty probably just makes keeping everyone alive more difficult. I wouldn't want to give postman more headaches. Yeah, Grimm does not suit my playstyle all that much, I'm afraid. I like his character though, so there's that!
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Jan 22, 2022 20:46
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If Grimm is gonna make CP's life miserable I'll change my vote to Jake and Rachel, cause there's a lot of plains to attack pipes and enemy units from and a lot of cities we already own to heal on.
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Jan 22, 2022 21:48
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Well, poo poo. RIP Minerva. Definitely hurts to lose a recognisable character, but at the same time it wouldn't have any impact if it was just any old red shirt. CP, it's your choice of CO for this one!
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Jan 24, 2022 07:08
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Rawkking posted:If Grimm is gonna make CP's life miserable I'll change my vote to Jake and Rachel, cause there's a lot of plains to attack pipes and enemy units from and a lot of cities we already own to heal on. Its funny, seeing posts like this when in the first game we goons gave him Sami for all of Green Earth. And poor CP got caught by surprise by Rivals for it. Fortunately for his narrative that was a friendly spar so he got to turn off permadeath, but still. We goons showed him no mercy just two games ago, and now here we are actively trying to give him an actual fighting chance. ....I blame the 11th Division. Those of us who have been around for that long are doubtlessly in a state of "Don't let them die" by now.
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Jan 25, 2022 11:00
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Part 33 (Battle) - Three Useful Bombs And Six Unnecessary Ones It's time for a new map!  So, for this mission, it was mostly left up to my choice, but Jake and Rachel were relatively ahead on votes, and they are our main characters, so I figured we'd go with them. I've taken Slam Guard on Rachel and Bruiser on Jake - Rachel's extra healing makes her a good defensive CO and Jake's plains bonus makes him a good offensive CO, so they should pair quite well with those skills.  Other than that, though, no much prep - we're ready. Our objective on this map, basically, is to open up those pipe seams and scatter bombs on Lash's army before it reaches us - we're roughly evenly matched, but as you'll see later, the black bombs put the odds massively in our favour.  Today’s Deployments Fliss, Infantry Carl, Mech Alfonse, Mech Fleur, APC Michael, APC Rin, Anti-Air Von Panzer, Tank Julian, Tank Fred, Medium Tank Dave, Medium Tank Selena, Neotank Ingo, Artillery Lucy, Artillery Paul, Artillery Carter, Rockets Peregrine, Battle Copter Mostly Orange Star today, since we have two Orange Star COs, but a fun bunch nonetheless. Plus Peregrine, for airborne matters - she has a pretty important role early on in the map.   Black Hole sure loves weapons that self-destruct, don't they? Maybe it's because they always leave the smell of gunpowder behind. I could dig that... It's kind of a nice smell. What are you talking about? Oh, never mind. Let's just get ourselves some of those bombs. Hell yeah--were you really going to play around with zero-drawback super-explosives and not let me have a go with them? Yo, my dude! Welcome back! Nice, he's back! This'll be a cakewalk now! My dude. Figured things out, I take it? Commander my dude?! Yep, I’m back. And I want to apologise, Rachel- Oh, don’t be so smug! We got on perfectly fine without you, so… Hang on. You want to apologise? I’ve had a lot of time to think, and not just about tactics. It was something Jake said. He mentioned that you two formed such a good team because you both lost everything. Your land, your homes… your family. I thought that was ridiculous. “But Rachel’s got Nell!” I thought to myself. It’s only now that I realise that wasn’t true, and it was my fault. You lost everything, and you clung so hard to Nell… which explains why you were so set against our marriage. You viewed me as a thief, stealing Nell away from you, didn’t you? I… I can’t promise to be the man that you think Nell deserves. Your standards are pretty high, after all. But I can say that I’ll do everything in my power to help you win this war, and… I want to promise that Nell is still your sister. I don’t want you to feel like she isn’t, just because I’m married to her. She still cares about you so, so much. She’ll make time for you - all you have to do is ask. My dude… I’ve been working on my strategies. I’m not going to let one defeat get me down - I was too brash and overconfident at the start of this campaign. If I’d have kept it up, people would have died under my watch. So I’m going to be more careful from now on. Rachel… can you accept me as your ACO once more? Ordinarily I’d say something sarcastic here. But… that’s the most frank and honest that I’ve ever seen you be, my dude. And I appreciate that. I suppose I can let you rejoin us, but you’d better no go hiding in your office every time a problem arises! No, no, ‘course not! I’m past that now, I did a whole character development whilst I was in my office. I’d best get down to the front lines to see how things are going, anyway. Colin’s gonna blow someone’s head off with that remote if we don’t stop him. ...And he’s gone, just like that. Thank you, my dude…you might just make a half-decent ACO if you keep this up. Alright, welcome to the map! I'm back in command, so let's get loving started. First things first, we have a pretty beefy predeployed army for this map, but so does Lash. There's a nice chokepoint halfway down the map, which we're gonna be using to hold Lash's advance troops off. We'll have to move quick to do that, though, so we'd best get started.  We need to load up some troops - Fliss hops into Fleur, and she'll be going for those com towers in the bottom left - they're pretty out of the way, but well worth spending a few turns capturing them. Carl gets into Michael's APC in the meantime. "Michael... we must move forward and defeat the enemy. I am glad to be working alongside you." Carl says, making a concerted effort to make normal conversation. Michael, ever the ray of sunshine, nods back. "Same here, Carl! I mean, I'm not a big fan of blood, being a pacifist and all, but you're a mighty soldier. I'll be safer having you with me!" Carl nods; it's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him. "I... thank you, Michael. I shall slay anybody who looks in your direction - this I swear!"  Peregrine's heading up, meanwhile - she's the only unit we've got that can blast this pipe open, and seeing as the only airport is halfway up the map, closer to Lash than to us, and needs capturing before we can use it... yeah, this is just way faster. Bro copters do like 25% to a pipe seam so we'll have the black bombs ready to go on day 5.  The rest of our army just kind of surges forward. We've got to reach that chokepoint ASAP, and our frontline tanks, Julian and Von Panzer, can reach the chokepoint on day 2 if we're quick. And you guys already KNOW that a chokepoint isn't complete without a Von Panzer parked in the middle of it.  Time to see what Lash's army is going to do. Though, considering the sheer size of it, we already know she's just gonna charge us.  The main things to note here are the tank and medium tank way ahead of the pack - we need to hit the chokepoint mostly to block them off, pretty much. The other thing is that Lash has a couple of Neotanks. Always worth keeping an eye on those six-movement one-shotting motherfuckers. I mean, yeah, we have a Neotank too. But like, I'm allowed to have one. I thought medium tanks were cool from day 1. "Who's rocking the Neo?" Dave asks, turning and watching the tanks move forward. The voice that replies is familiar enough that Dave can recognise it instantly. "It's not just Tina capable of using these things to their fullest extent." Selena replies. "I'll be commanding from the front lines today. Dave, can you direct the tanks?" "'Course." Dave replies, grinning. "You heard the lady, tank squad! You listen to me!" "Oh, I suppose we ought to then." Julian says in a sarcastic drawl. "Just tell me where to stand." Michael and Dave, still suspicious of Julian's motivations, both roll their eyes at this. Dave sighs into the transceiver. "Move forward with Von Panzer and just hold the line, Julian. No backtalk, got it?" "Man, it's nice to hear Dave chewing out somebody else for once," Carter says, sighing with relief as he mans the rockets.  Right, anyway, on with the map.  Peregrine makes a start on this pipe seam. "Heya, Lucy! Shame you couldn't join me in the sky today!" Peregrine says as she opens fire. "Keep an eye out for the bombs, though - they're from you know who!" "You're doing great up there, Peregrine!" Lucy shouts joyfully. "I wish I could be up there with you!" "Heavens, Lucy - keep an eye on the battle on the ground first." Ingo says, smiling gently.  Fleur drops off Fliss by the com towers. This is the only thing Fliss is going to contribute to this map, but it's important and Fliss is cute, therefore it's worth documenting.  Here it is, the "chokepoint". Officially stuff can get past the trees, so we do need to move forward a little more, but by parking Von Panzer and Julian here, we massively limit how far forward the enemy tank can move. And they're still out of range of the medium tank, so it's a pretty perfect setup.  Peregrine's taking care of the rightmost pipe, but our artillery squad - Lucy, Ingo and Paul - will be destroying the left one.  The rest of my soldiers are arranged out of range of the enemy tank - our medium tanks, Dave and Fred, and Selena, will be replacing our tanks as the frontline, uh, tanks, next turn, so they're in position to do that now.  I would say something like "ooh I hope it all works out OK" but it's Von loving Panzer so I don't even need to worry.  Pictured: Von Panzer not dying.  I laughed when I saw this anti-air try and attack a goddamn tank. Was not laughing a few seconds later when it somehow did three loving damage. The important thing is, though, Von Panzer continues to Not Be Dead. Julian breathes out in surprise. "...So this is the power of Von Panzer. I had heard legends, but... seeing it in person is remarkable." "Ngh! Ja, it is my duty to hold the line. And you must do the same, young Julian!" Von Panzer growls. "I must retreat - Dave, are the Verstärkung- um, reinforcements, ready?" "I'm right behind you, MVP." Dave replies. "Head back and get yourself repaired soon as you can!"  The rest of Lash's army is slowly moving forwards. The trees and mountains are making her progress much slower than mine was, so all we really have to worry about this turn is that medium tank, and the stuff that attacked Von Panzer.  So, hey, let's do some murdering.  Don't want to waste my frontline unit's turns if I don't have to, so I take this anti-air out with a nice shot from Carter from afar.  Peregrine's still working on this. We've got to move fast, too - the black bombs do have limited fuel, and it is ticking down each turn like any regular air unit.  Fliss is making a start on these, also. That'll be useful once she captures both of them, but that's gonna be another three turns.  Ingo takes the first shot on the pipe. The other artillery units are slightly out of range, so I can't have my bombs this turn, tragically.  Fred can take on this tank, and does so with gusto. "A true hero destroys any foe in a single blow, just like Dimitri. HYAH!"  "Although, maybe I need to work on my strength..." he frets. Dave shakes his head. "It's fine, Fred, we can handle that. Von Panzer, you can't retreat yet. You know that, don't you?" "Harrumph!" Von Panzer replies. "Of course. I won't let this enemy get past me!"  Selena can, and does, destroy this recon in one shot, at least. Atta girl.  Next, Dave moves around to make him and Selena the new frontline blockade, and thanks to the mountain and layout of the water on the right, this is an actual chokepoint. They should be able to handle a medium tank attacking them, at least, though that city is going to make things annoying.  Von Panzer can just barely muster enough damage to ruin this tank's day.  Everybody else just kinda moves forward now that we have an actual chokepoint to work with. They're pretty safe so long as Dave and Selena hold the line. And helping them out is Paul - I don't need all three of my artilleries shooting that pipe, so one of them can come up here to harass anything that harasses my tanks.  Speaking of, it's Medium Tank Harassment Hour.  Oh, right. These guys are doing this in the meantime. Guess I'd better update the counter. This [Redacted] Captures A Property: 28 ...Who the gently caress renamed my counter? This Dick Captures A Property: 28 That's better. I can't trust anybody to report battles for me these days, god.  As predicted, the medium tank goes for Dave - it can hit medium tanks harder, and can do so from more defensive terrain, so it's just the sensible option, especially for a Lash unit. Still, it's in the artillery murder circle, so there's not much use in talking about it any more.  Lash's army continues to struggle with trees. Importantly, though, the Neotank...  I said before it's always worth keeping an eye on them.  And this is why - if we attack the medium tank from the right or above, we'll be in Neo range. Gotta avoid that as much as possible, so instead, we'll have to attack from below. But uh, not with Dave, he took quite a beating.  So close. Keep it up, Peregrine, I want those 'splodeys!  The artilleries are close to two-shotting the pipe, but not quite. How frustrating.  It's OK, Lucy finishes it off, releasing our bombs from their pipey prisons. Now we can start the real carnage.  God. Paul can barely scratch this thing. We'll need more firepower if we want this thing gone - and we do want this thing gone before the Neotanks start showing up.  But hey, we have these now! So, they work basically like they did when we first met them. High-flying explosive devices which do like 5 damage to everything in range - which I'm pretty sure includes our own units, so we do have to take care.  That thing has bomb written all over it! It's essentially a simple air unit without a main cannon or secondary guns... But, also, crucially, I can spam them without needing to deploy actual named units that can die. My dude's right, I think it's an unmanned weapon. We can control it from here with the remote. ...Why is my dude holding the remote?! I wanna play with the bombs! First my airstrikes, and now black bombs...you and Max are just military meatheads, aren't you? Well, if you want to use them so badly, the controls are simple, so we should be able to move it like any other unit. Hey, let's try blowing one up! Um...isn't that...dangerous? Jake we are in a war. Maybe not. This is a new kind of weapon, and I'm not familiar with it. Blowing one up is a good way to see how it performs. "This tank looks powerful, but let's blow it up and see for sure how good it is." That's not what I meant, and you know it! Bombs are SUPPOSED to blow up! So yeah, when we move these around, we just have this great "Explode" option. Right now, however, I just want to position them better, so I keep them over the ocean. Next turn, they'll dive deep into Lash's forces and do their thing.  Julian moves in to start attacking this pipe... not that he does much damage to it. I don't really need the airport to win here, but I at least want to stop Black Hole from getting it.  Dave and Von Panzer can retreat to heal now, too, so they go do that. They've done their duty for this map.  First com tower down, too! Woo!  Fred redeems himself for his failed kill earlier by taking out this medium tank on Dave's behalf. Now that we've dealt with that, and we're still out of Neotank range, we can just wait for everything to come to us. We have Bombs. They have Nothing.  I park Selena on the city - she is in the tank's range, but it would have to be a remarkably suicidal loving tank to try attacking a Neotank on defensive terrain.  Lash is going to do a very suboptimal play here, which I call "not surrendering and continuing to play the game".  Sigh. This Dick Captures A Property: 29  This Dick Captures A Property: 30 The big 3-0! I honestly thought they were going to capture more property than that throughout the game so far. Wonder if we'll be above or below 100 by the end? I reckon we'll be well below 100. Unless there's like, those AW1 capture-more-property-than-the-other-guy missions.  The two Neotanks are moving in. Were it not for my fuckloads of bombs, I'd be a bit concerned, but with them, I feel zero fear.  So, uh, let's get right on with that.  May as well let the other bombs come to play, too. "Pipe seam destroyed!" Peregrine announces proudly. "Get loving ready, the black bombs have been released!"  When we use a black bomb, Rachel gives us a little dialogue prompt, which I presume is for people who accidentally misclick "Explode" like the fools they are. But yes, obviously, we want to blow it up.  That seems like a reasonable number of dudes to catch in the explosion. Plus we hit that capturing infantry too, can't complain.  And there we go. Flat 5 damage to everything in range. It's loving insane. Holy gently caress, I can't believe it does so much damage with such a huge range. I love these things! I knew it! This is the same thing that destroyed our copters on Bearen Island! The bombs take five HP from any unit within a three-square radius. OK... Now we know what these black bombs can do! Know what's funnier than one of those?  Two of 'em. Those Neotanks are basically worthless now, and so's the rest of Lash's army. Selena could probably rout them singlehandedly at this point. We won't do that because it would tank my speed score but we could.  Our girl Fliss is still capturing away, too. She's helping!  Fred snatches yet another kill on an enemy, this time defeating a Neotank. If this were a Fire Emblem game, I'd be like "drat, Fred's snatching all the exp from my other units", but this isn't Fire Emblem, and so there's nothing Fred can do which will make me like him more than, say, Dave or Selena. ...What, yes, of course I like Dave and Selena an equal amount. They're both prominent main characters with interesting backstories, fun to talk to, why would I favour one over the other..?  Argh no I was distracted and I loving misclicked--abort! This is exactly why I didn't want you to have the remote. Give it here! No, no, I can do it, just give me a second! I arrange the rest of my black bombs like so - we honestly don't even need half of these bombs, but hey, the game's given them to us, I'm going to use them, unnecessary though they might be.  We're still chipping away at this pipe seam, too. We're, uh, gonna be here a bit longer.  Since virtually everything is on 1HP and can't hit us for any meaningful damage, I feel relatively safe pushing forward a bit more with Fred and Selena, with Carter for rocket support.  And we switch to Jake - we were playing defensively with Rachel, but now we're got a turn where nothing can really hurt us and we want as many kills as possible. Bruiser plus com tower support, not to mention the plains everywhere, will give Jake every advantage he needs for this next turn.  And when I say "next turn", I mean "upcoming bloodbath".  Lash still doesn't quite have the ability to use her SCOP yet, either, so she's in a really rough position.  This Dick Captures A Property: 31 She wins the moral victory by getting another building. She has to know how much it pisses me off. She has to.  Lash moves her units forward in a convenient diamond shape which seems to say "apply bombs here until I die", so hey, gently caress it.  I don't even know why you'd leave yourself this open, but if you're going to, I'm not going to complain.  First things first, Fliss gets the second com tower. The buffs may be slight, but more damage is better damage! That's a quote from my new course at the My Dude School of Military Tactics, "How To Get The Most Out Of Your Medium Tanks, And Also Stop Deploying Units That Aren't Medium Tanks".  My units are also arranged in a diamond shape, but that's to avoid the black bombs rather than invite them in. Look at how perfectly I can just gently caress these infantry units up.  They didn't have a hope.  And I still have three more bombs. This really is the most unnecessary amount of firepower I've ever been given in an Advance Wars map, besides maybe a predeployed Kanbei map.  Literally, Lash can't do anything about this. I wonder how expensive black bombs are? I guess when we don't get six free ones, they'll be a bit less convenient to produce. I imagine a tidy 20k at the very least, if not more expensive than a bomber.  But god, it's so worth it. A bomber can murder one unit per turn; two black bombs can decimate half an army per turn.  Boom. I mean, we have one bomb left, but like, nearly everything is on 1HP anyway.  I guess I'll do some damage to that anti-air over there.  This was a truly unnecessary amount of bombs.  Carter finishes off the APC. Our units are going to move forward and clean up now, and I want the APC and mech out of the way so they're not limiting the movement of my tanks.  Fred can crush the last Neotank - god, he really WOULD have been drowning in exp if this were Fire Emblem, maybe Fred is short for Frederick - which is the only relatively threatening thing. Lash does have some properties, and I don't want her healing her more dangerous units.  Paul finishes off the mech, giving Selena free reign to just kinda slaughter stuff up north.  Lucy slaps an infantry from on high for the crime of thinking he could capture a goddamn airport on my watch.  Selena completely powderises a helpless artillery, meanwhile; the ranged units are the ones I'd rather not have sticking around, since they can head to a city to both heal and attack from afar.  The anti-air should be taken out of the way, too, now that I think about it. Also, wow, imagine barely managing to do 30% to an anti-air on 1HP. Makes me wonder if Peregrine would have taken actual damage if the anti-air had initiated on her instead.  Julian is attacking this pipe, but honestly, he's gotta put in more work. I'll have Lucy help him out next turn, now that the offending foot unit is gone.  The rest of my soldiers move forward, ready to fight. I need as much firepower as possible - Lash absolutely got her SCOP from all that murder that just happened, so she's going to be incredible hard to damage next turn.  And, seeing as a SCOP is on the way, I play it safe and go back to Rachel for that little bit of extra defence.  I don't imagine Lash is going to be able to do much, but better safe than sorry. This is what a new and improved, post-character-development my dude looks like, ladies and gentlemen!  ...Even though I'm playing in basically the same way as I always do. But shush.  yes shut up This might be one of the most annoying SCOPs, in my personal opinion. She always gets it right at the end of a battle, and it always drags things out by making her last few units impossible to kill.  The only attack that occurs is this tank going for Dave, but the tank takes more damage from the counterattack than Dave does, so meh.  The rest of Lash's units join up where possible and make a beeline for the nearest city. God drat it.  Right, it's Lash cleanup time. Which basically means "desperately attempt to get kills on weirdly tanky units". At least defence stars scale less well for units on low HP, so it might not be too bad, actually.  So first, Lucy smashes this pipe wide open. The extra com towers helped out here, I'm pretty sure! She was doing way less damage to the seams earlier.  Julian can then nab a kill over here, since the road provides no defensive bonuses. gently caress you, missiles!  This tank, with six goddamn defence stars, is the real problem. Peregrine uses the last of her ammo to land a fairly solid blow on it. "Gonna need more firepower to take this thing out!" Peregrine calls. Dave nods. "We've got treads on the way - move out, everyone!"  Dave doesn't go for the tank, and instead takes this medium tank out.  Selena might be able to pull this off. "It's a risky shot, are you gonna be alright taking it out on your own?" Michael asks with worry as he listens to the battle over the transceiver. Selena gives a rare smile. "Of course. Witness the might of the Neotank!" And indeed, she lands the crucial extra damage to finish the tank off. That's massively useful.  Fred continues hogging the exp by murderfucking yet another unit - this anti-air. The infantry was also in range, but someone else can deal with that.  And as Rin proves now, anti-airs should really be called "anti-air-and-also-gently caress-foot-units", but I guess that's too much of a mouthful. "There we go! Another foe down!" Rin cheers. Dave nods. "Good work, kid. Not many left - we shouldn't have much trouble cleaning them up."  Two units left, and one of them can't even do damage. Yeah, we're fine.  We could capture the lab, but we got a ton of bombs, so routing seems like the obvious - and more fun - solution.  Julian is in range of the rockets, but he shrugs it off remarkably well, so I'm not worried.  Right. Let's finish the map! ...but wait. Let's do it in style.  More unnecessary bombs, perfect! I don't know HOW you keep talking me into this... Yup, airstrike time! For units with basically no HP anyway! Why not, right?  The first missile brings them both to 1HP already. Pfft.  BOOM! And one more...  ...That was completely unnecessary. Yes, but consider: hilarious. OK let's actually finish the map. Selena sends this poor fucker to the Über Shadow Realm with like, 156% unnecessary extra damage.  And Fred takes care of business one last time. Man, he REALLY wanted to redeem himself after missing that first kill, huh? Anyway! Lash is routed, and it wasn't even hard! This is probably the easiest map I've played thus far, that many bombs just made it effortless.   Hey! We found a blueprint for the black bomb! Nice work! Now we can develop our own black bombs. We already had some black bombs. Could we not have just reverse-engineered those? Yes!! We could have...if SOMEONE hadn't blown all of them up! ...Point. Let's get developing, then. Works for me! Those bombs are stylish! Gwar har har! It's like a huge fireworks show...and everyone's invited! Yes, I suppose. But you can only use them once. Isn't that a waste? It's like you scratch that one phat beat that you'll never find again. I like it! I've got to master these things! Wait, master, like mastering a song? Was that a subtle music pun?) Commander my dude! I'm glad to see you in high spirits again. Oh, Sasha, Rose, hey. I'm glad to be back--sorry for kinda losing my mojo for a little while, there. My dude...I'm glad you're back. I may have bested you, but it was only once. I would still like to learn from you. If...if that would be alright. Of course, Rose. You and I, we're going straight to the top, kid. Th-thank you. I'll continue working hard--I'll see you later. I must report to Sensei about the battle. Later, Rose! You're surprisingly good with her. Ah, I've known her a long while. I feel just a bit responsible for her development, you know? Of course. I understand--I feel the same way about my brother. I just wanted to say...if you ever feel like you need to talk to someone, please feel free to confide in me. Thanks, Sasha. I'll let you know, but don't worry. Right now, I'm feeling good. Let's keep the victories coming! A tidy S-rank for an excellent performance. Not that I'm being arrogant, though, that just was a legitimately easy map. I'm not arrogant any more. Character development and all.  Aw, and they're cute when they win together. Rachel's real proud of Jake. Heaven knows why, he was only in that battle for a single turn, though I suppose it was a very crucial single turn.  So, what's next? That looks like a familiar face...  Let's move out and see what's what, then!   I don't have a good feel for the geography of this continent. Please, think on it no more. You are from Macro Land--this is my homeland. Besides, escorting a beautiful lady such as yourself is a gentleman's duty and honor.Oh god, he's one of those guys. Now then, I believe the Allied Nations have been fighting in this region. I've heard their company includes COs from several nations. I am curious to see if they are really as good as rumor has it. They certainly are. I fought alongside some of them in the last great war. Ah, is that so? I would welcome the chance to witness their skills myself. It smells like cordite. I think we're here! 'Sup! You're from Green Earth, right? We've been waiting for you to show up. My companion is Jess. I am called Javier. May I ask your name, young sir? Word. I'm Jake. I'm psyched that you guys are joining our crew.Jake and Javier talk like they're from two completely different worlds, I love it. Ah, thank you. The people are talking about your valorous deeds. Yet egos feed on such talk and can grow quite overstuffed. Don't I know it... At least you learned your lesson. ...Right? I, Javier, would see if your abilities match the name you've built for yourself. What? You wanna test my skills? You better check yourself! Test battle? We got an audition for these two? The nerve of some people. Grimm, YOU loving- Keep your trap shut, Grimm! Yeah, what he said. Fine. If you want a taste of this, you're on! And don't think I'm going to hold back--my dude, Rose, I want you front and centre. Let's show them what the Allied Nations can do with their finest tacticians! And please, for once...no backchat! Yes, ma'am! Ready and waiting, Commander. You have my gratitude. Shall we, Jess? Sounds good to me. This is a good chance for us to get to know each other. Haw haw! Youth's a beautiful thing. You've even got my old ticker pumping. You sure that's not an oncoming heart attack, Sensei? My dude, you can't just say--oh, well. There's an ideal location nearby. We'll hold the trial there. All right! It's go time!And indeed, it's go time! Let's check out the map and... see... what...  What the gently caress is that. Dude! There's a crazy big tank parked at their HQ! Green Earth's weapons development division have been working on that since the last war. I have some familiarity with it--it was financed in part by Yellow Comet. It looks like they're close to perfecting the design. It's freakin' huge!! Think it can actually move? It's said to be the most heavily armored, hardest-hitting ground unit ever fielded. It looks pretty slow, though. I wonder if we can even scratch it... Allow me to tip our hand. Tank units under Jess's command are poetry in motion. As for myself, I have modest skill with com towers--ignore them at your peril.Ah, OK, he's a com tower specialist. Interesting! I challenge you to defeat my troops and the megatank within 15 days! If you accomplish this mission, I will gladly bend the knee to your skill. Rose, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Of course. They've yet to build a tank that Dave loving Ruston and Vanessa Kita Farid cannot kill. Oh. I was not thinking what you were thinking. Dammit, Rose, get on my wavelength. Are you seriously considering sending an foot unit against the megatank? If it's possible, absolutely. Imagine it: the Ultimate Disrespect on the ultimate grounded vehicle...I have to try. For heaven's sake...it's a good job this mission is non-lethal.So! The map:   The red team start up north with just a small handful of troops, whilst the blue team surround the enemy, with their HQ off to the right. I want to pull off the Ultimate Disrespect if I can, so that may factor into your votes, I dunno if anybody specialises in "infantry doing suicidal things". But as per, two teams, two COs on each team, go nuts - Rachel, Jake, Max, Colin, Sasha, Sensei, and Grimm. Time to take on Green Earth! *** Part 34 (Intermission) - The Bet
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Jan 28, 2022 12:30
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It's a nonlethal mission, and you're trying to pull off the Ultimate Disrespect on a Megatank. This is the mission Grimm was born for, and Max might be useful for it as well.  Blue would probably be best covered by Rachel and Jake. Rockets work the same against everything, and with the mountain terrain, firing indirects from the plains may pair nicely with Jake.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:28
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Colin and Sasha on Orange Star, Grimm and Sensei on Blue Moon. Even ignoring the fact that it's a mock battle with no deaths, Grimm is great for Blue Moon anyway because he shoots a lot and doesn't get hit by anything. Sensei can boost his luck. Is it only the ultimate disrespect if it's an infantry rather than a mech? Because Blue Moon has no infantry, in which case Grimm kind of needs to be on Orange Star. So maybe swap them around. I went with Sasha on the other team solely for her CO Power. You've got a lot of poo poo to kill and it's gonna jack up Green Earth's power meter like crazy. Anyway, here's the unique dialogue for last mission! Colin/Sasha ...Oh, yes. I know that smell... The aroma of gunpowder always reminds me of sweet potatoes. Mmm... Sweet potatoes... Now I want some sweet potatoes! Hey, Colin, let's bake some tonight! Hey, Sis...stop talking about tonight's menu and start worrying about Lash!Grimm/Sensei Explosives are hard on these old bones... Hmm... Is old bones one word or two? Oldbones? Old bones? Oooold booones... Gwar har... Huh? Hey, Sensei, are you really senile or just faking it?
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Jan 28, 2022 15:23
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I'm concerned about the bet. Lucy's primarily a bomber pilot right? And Peregrine favours fighters? Even with the same vehicles, I wonder if a race doesn't favour the fighter pilot more.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:25
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Javier  He continues the Green Earth = Europe tradition of Eagle=Germany, Drake=England, and Jess=France. No points for figuring out what country Javier represents, but what's more fun is that he also just straight-up is Don Quixote. His powers are pretty good, if heavily map dependent, as this mission is about to show you.
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Jan 28, 2022 21:26
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Natural 20 posted:I'm concerned about the bet. They actually both have Bomber and Fighter as classes. Lucy has Artillery while Peregrine has Battle Copter, and then they both have a currently unknown class (Anyone whos played the game can probably take one look at Lucy and Peregrine, and the AWDS New Classes, and guess it though). Its honestly a pretty even matchup. (More later including votes, posting this while short on time)
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Jan 28, 2022 21:45
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SMaster777 posted:They actually both have Bomber and Fighter as classes. Lucy has Artillery while Peregrine has Battle Copter, and then they both have a currently unknown class (Anyone whos played the game can probably take one look at Lucy and Peregrine, and the AWDS New Classes, and guess it though). Its honestly a pretty even matchup. Nah, we just had the Mega tank unveiled. It's gonna be the best race ever.
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Jan 28, 2022 22:32
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Grimm/Max for orange and Sensei/Sasha for blue
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Jan 28, 2022 23:25
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Rachel/Jake as OS for Team Hold The Pass Grimm/Sensei as BM for Team Bombardment Buddies
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Jan 29, 2022 04:39
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Alright, so I'm voting Grimm/Max and Sasha/Rachel, but which team is which is CP's choice based on whether he wants to try for the disrespect with infantry or will settle for mech. If he wants to go for it with an infantry, then Grimm Team is orange. If a mech will do, Grimm Team Blue.
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Jan 29, 2022 07:50
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Black Bombs are a neat unit concept in theory, but in practice people don't seem to ever use them outside this mission, they're prohibitively expensive and almost never worth it (they cost as much as planes). I guess it's nice that they give you this mission to play around and have fun with them. This LP might give them a higher chance of returning, though: if you don't count them as a unit casualty, then they could be a neat tactical option to help the rest of the army survive. As for the next mission... good luck, is all I'll say. It'll be cool if you can pull that off but I'm not sure the numbers permit it. Let's say... Grimm and Sensei, because Grimm is unlikely to get much play elsewhere and the attack boost will help, and Sensei also boosts infantry; then Rachel for either luck damage or missiles and whoever with her.
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Jan 29, 2022 16:19
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Natural 20 posted:I'm concerned about the bet. They've flown both, but yeah, Lucy generally favours bombers and Peregrine favours fighters. Plus, according to her ending slate in AW2, Rose has been having her test prototype super-fast jets, so she's certainly more used to the faster planes that our girl Lucy. Remalle posted:Javier I must admit, whilst I made a snide comment about him in the LP itself, that was mostly done for comedy. I like Javier and I enjoy his Don Quixote-ness, I'm looking forward to seeing how he's gonna perform! Explopyro posted:As for the next mission... good luck, is all I'll say. It'll be cool if you can pull that off but I'm not sure the numbers permit it. Let's say... Grimm and Sensei, because Grimm is unlikely to get much play elsewhere and the attack boost will help, and Sensei also boosts infantry; then Rachel for either luck damage or missiles and whoever with her. And by "looking forward to", I mean "suddenly very concerned about Javier and how hard this map's gonna be". I gotta try and pull it off, though I won't, like, stress myself for it. The later missions in these games are always difficult enough already with my self-imposed limits, so I won't be quite as ridiculous for this map. Explopyro posted:Black Bombs are a neat unit concept in theory, but in practice people don't seem to ever use them outside this mission, they're prohibitively expensive and almost never worth it (they cost as much as planes). I guess it's nice that they give you this mission to play around and have fun with them. This LP might give them a higher chance of returning, though: if you don't count them as a unit casualty, then they could be a neat tactical option to help the rest of the army survive. Agreed - the game doesn't count them as a casualty, so neither do I. They're unmanned, after all. I may have to use them, they seem like too handy of a resource for a challenge runner such as I, but I guess it does depend how much that expense is worth it.
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Jan 29, 2022 17:54
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Black Bombs seem pretty niche. Useful only in such limited situations that I'd probably forget to use them anyway. Maybe for cleaning up the end of a large-scale map, where you already have tons of funds and just want to clear out the holed-up enemy defenses?
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Jan 29, 2022 19:29
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Maybe Fred is short for Fredinand von Aegir.
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Jan 30, 2022 09:06
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Hey, hey Postman. Remember this?  Also, when it comes to Jess and Javier, Jess is more powerful than she was in AW2 and while nothing is really different in terms of how she plays, she's just... better, overall. Javier on the other hand is aggressively mediocre or literally impossible to defeat, depending on the number of com towers he has. Specifically, in addition to the standard 10% firepower bonus from com towers, he also has a 10% defense bonus. His powers also multiply the effect of towers by 2x and 3x, including the defensive bonus. Lastly, in addition to and separate from all of this, he has a passive 40% defense bonus when receiving attacks from indirect units. Yes, this does mean that with 2 towers he is immune to indirects with his SCOP active. Rorac fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jan 31, 2022 |
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Jan 31, 2022 13:41
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Quackles posted:Maybe Fred is short for Fredinand von Aegir. God, let's hope he doesn't loudly announce his name at the start of each battle. Rorac posted:Hey, hey Postman. I do remember that! It was indeed, a veiled reference to the megatank - though I knew it existed, I was not aware just quite how absolutely terrifying this thing was. Jess does sound pretty good, I did always like her anyway. Javier... huh. I'll take an indirect immunity, indirects have hosed me over a lot throughout the series. Kinda want to play with him - I presume there's some maps later on where Javier and com towers can just kinda go to town?
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Feb 1, 2022 11:56
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There's a war room map pretty much designed exactly with this in mind if you want somethingyou can take a spin on. Megalopolis, I believe. E: yup FoolyCharged fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 12:00
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A Life Update - Please Read Hey, guys. I didn't really want to have to do this, but real life's been a bit bothersome lately. Primarily, I'm partway through a teaching course which I started late last year, around the same time I started LPAWDS, and up until now I've been balancing doing both. However, I'm coming to recognise that I'm nearing the end of my teaching course and I still haven't finished up nearly as much of my work as I would like, and I think that my love for Let's Playing means that I'm putting too much of my focus on LPAWDS and not enough on my course. As such, until my course is concluded, I'm regrettably announcing a hiatus of LPAWDS. Trying to balance both things on top of everything else is just going to cause me more stress and hassle than I'd need, and I'd much rather put my focus onto LPAWDS when I don't have anything else on my back. The course is scheduled to finish in April, so I'll be back in exactly three months time, after the end of April - May 6th, 2022. I'll still have enough time to hang around the thread and SA in general though, so do shoot me a PM if you ever wanna keep in touch, or feel free to use this thread to discuss anything and everything. I'll be back as soon as I can, and I hope you all understand. You guys are the best. Thanks for all your support so far, and know that I'm already looking forward to coming back to LPAWDS. - Post
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Feb 3, 2022 10:16
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[hugs] Take your time, and good luck.
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Feb 3, 2022 18:05
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Take care of you, man. I'm glad you had fun with the LP, but one of the hardest parts of adulting is taking that step back. Proud of ya for doing so. Most of us will probably still be here, will still read when you're done. Take your time.
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Feb 3, 2022 18:20
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At least this hiatus, unlike others in other LPs, has a set timeframe! We'll just have to make sure the archive machine doesn't eat the thread in the meantime, that's all.
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Feb 3, 2022 23:14
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Secret: the archiver is broken and not archiving anything.
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Feb 3, 2022 23:15
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You're great, Posty. No problem from any of us. Best of luck to you, hope it goes well.
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Feb 4, 2022 02:21
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Thank you all so much. Your support means a lot. I'm looking forward to being back as soon as possible - just three months, here's hoping it flies by!
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Feb 5, 2022 10:26
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Hello, everybody! So, we're a couple of weeks away from May 6th, 2022 when we'll be back in action, and I wanted to give you guys a quick update. And hey, I figured April 18th (by my timezone) was a good day to do it - it's my dude's canonical birthday today! Happy birthday to my dude! More importantly - my course is done! I'm not only a qualified teacher now, but qualified to teach English as a foreign language in whatever country I desire. ...Chances are that won't happen for a while yet, but I'm looking forward to travelling the world a bit more. Primarily though, this means that I will absolutely be back on the intended date - I'll be taking the next couple of weeks to finish up a couple of other things, get back into the swing of LPs and have a practice at the next map, and I'll see you all soon! Consider this your "three-ish weeks left, might be worth rereading the last couple of parts" update (I know I'm gonna have to reread to remember what the hell I was doing)! Thank you all for your support! - Post
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Apr 18, 2022 06:47
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Congrats on the pass, CP!
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Apr 18, 2022 07:32
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Part 35 (Battle) - Return Of The Tankslayer It's been a while, huh? Worry not, folks - I'm back. Let's not waste any more time, then - here we go!  So, the votes came in - blue team is going to be Sensei and Rachel, though Sensei's not going to see any actual combat. Rachel is a super important choice though. On the red side, we're using the powerhouses Max and Grimm! The red team only has one goal, and by god, we're going to loving achieve it.  And with that, we are in fact ready! I have a winning strategy and Rose Kuroda on my side, so these chumps are screwed.  Today’s Deployments Red Team Fleur, Infantry Fliss, Infantry Dave, Infantry Michael, APC Gordon, Recon Von Panzer, Tank Selena, Medium Tank Boris, Medium Tank Blue Team Alfonse, Mech Dimitri, Mech Fenya, Mech Arqa, Mech Iago, Mech Alina, Mech Ludmilla, APC Nika, APC Vanessa, Recon Jacquelyn, Recon Lucy, Artillery Ingo, Artillery Rin, Artillery Harlow, Artillery Carter, Rockets Eva, Rockets Fred, Rockets  Check out the guns on that beast! I gotta get me one of those. No kidding! I want twelve. My dude, we can barely afford your medium tank budget as is, let alone megatanks on top of that... So, let's begin. There's not much happening on this map, but small errors lead to large problems, so we have to start taking action from the first turn - the red team's job is to plug up that mountain pass down below and choke the enemy's vehicles, whilst the blue team's ranged units take out the foot soldiers and ranged units, who say "gently caress you" to mountains and/or chokepoints respectively.  And who better to choke a god drat point than Mathis Von Panzer? "Harrumph! I shall hold the enemy here - they shall break themselves upon Von Panzer!"  Next thing we need is some infantry to get to capturing. We need money if we want big tanks. Von Panzer is a good wall, but we really want a medium tank on that base down below to be completely untouchable.  So! Fleur and Fliss are here to help. "We must capture the buildings around, Fliss." Fleur says, looking around. "And... are those tours de communication in the fog?" "C-comm towers?" Fliss says. "We should get those to help Von P-Panzer!" Thus, we end the turn - blue team next.  Bah hah ha! Bigger is definitely better. Think I can supersize my copters? Supersized copters... imagine, Rose. The beautiful fusion of a medium tank and a battle copter. ...I can't say I'm not tempted by the thought. So, the blue team have a lot to do - we need to slow this lot down and do as much damage as possible, but we have to be really careful about how we do it. I'll explain why later. First things first, though, we have four mechs who can stand on nearby mountains, and that vision is going to be very useful.  Up top, Alfonse (left) and Dimitri (right) take their positions. They'll be staying here for basically the rest of the map.  We also have two spare mechs down below. So on the right, Iago takes the mountain position whilst Alina hops into Nika's APC. "Hey, Nika!" Alina says, beaming at her fellow Snowbound mercenary. Nika grins. "Ready to go? Orders from Dimitri came through - he's spotted something important in the fog, wants us to go check it out. As much as I'd love to stay here and get a good view of what that megatank can do... orders are orders." "Is that so? Let's go check it out, then!" Alina replies. "Full speed ahead!"  Over here, Fenya stands on the mountain whilst Arqa hops into Ludmilla's APC, also bound north.  "I've sighted enemy artillery in the fog." Fenya says into the transceiver as she reaches the peak. "Ranged units?" Dimitri replies, grimacing. "We'd better get our own rockets on the case, and fast."  Unfortunately, it's not going to be that fast. Javier has enormous defensive bonuses against ranged units, so even this favourable match-up becomes barely a scratch. Still, we can weaken it, so I let Carter take the shot.  The artillery we have down here, Lucy, takes a shot at the other enemy artillery in the fog. We could finish it off with Eva, in the rockets, but Eva's gotta get up north as soon as possible, so we can't spare the time.  Speaking of, let's get moving, Eva. You have stuff to shoot later.  Ingo can take a shot at it, though, he's not doing anything right now.  That's about all we can do for now. Once the enemy disperses from the HQ, we'll be able to make better use of our ranged units. It'd also be nice if they switched to Jess so my indirects can do some actual damage.  Here we go.  The enemy begin moving, and one of them's gone for the comm tower in the middle here. There's no way to get at this, so no matter what, Javier's gonna have at least one comm tower active at all times. And that's annoying.  This is roughly how the enemy shape up - there's a recon hidden in the forest next to Von Panzer, too. They've not made it to the chokepoint yet, so we're fine for now.  And they switched! Excellent - time to counterattack whilst I can.  It's not just because I can do more damage with my indirects - we also want to charge Jess' meter more than Javier's - again, I'll explain why when we get to it.  Back to me. Let's see here...  More capturing...  Though Fliss, on the left, doesn't capture. I want her to go for the better stuff further down - the airport and the comm tower. I deploy Dave to capture the buildings closest to the HQ... and to do Something Else Later.  Since the Green Earth forces are moving towards my units now, I also switch to Max instead of Grimm.  Since he suffers no defensive penalties, you know, and the only thing the red team is doing is holding a chokepoint. Seems sensible. Blue team, meanwhile...  Alina pulls up her transceiver. "Dimitri, Commander Rachel, your suspicions were correct - Green Earth have the comm towers under their control." "Thought so." Dimitri says. "We need to cut off Javier's source of power - Alina, take the rightmost tower, and Arqa, get the leftmost one."  Arqa replies as she arrives at the other comm tower. "On it, sir!" I thought Javier's units seemed a bit too bulky. This explains it. We need to take those towers ASAP.  Now, I know what I said about needing Eva up north, but we do need to get rid of all these pesky foot soldiers, so I take the shot here. May as well take advantage of the enemy not being Javier right now.  Lucy can finish him, too.  The artillery that Carter weakened last time can be finished off by Harlow, the artillery on this side.  And this luckless infantry gets Carter'd. Mostly.  Rin, up here, meanwhile, takes a shot at the medium tank. This is the most important attack in the entire map. Just you wait.  Meanwhile, our rockets up north, Fred, fire at the mechs. Like I said, they're pests and will walk all over our mountains, so they need to go down.  And that's about our turn. We'll be moving our indirects north once we've dealt with the last couple of threats, in order to gather them around the chokepoint and really make the enemy regret existing. Nonviolently. We, uh, we did make sure to pack the nonlethal rounds, didn't we..?  Well, none of our units have been paintballed yet, so we're doing OK.  Javier gets a third tower under his control. Urgh. I forgot to actually check Javier's CO info, didn't I? I'm sure the thread can summarise it better than me - and I'll run over it when I get to use him myself - but in short, comm towers increase his unit's defence as well as offense, and he gets a huge defensive bonus against ranged units. Pretty fun to see a defensive CO, but an absolute pain to fight with mostly indirects.  The units continue moving up. "Post! Von Panzer can't hold off several medium tanks and a megatank!" I hear you cry.  You know that thing that keeps happening in these games, where a weak unit that can't do damage sits in front of a bulky enemy, preventing any units that COULD actually do damage from getting close? Yeah, that. With this recon. "Lorelei, why are you blocking up the pass?" says Abelard over the Green Earth transceiver. Lorelei, the poor recon, sighs. "I wanted to sneak past, but there's no space - and now the snow and forests mean I can't really get back easily. I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place!" "Dammit, we'll need to wait for Jess to help out." says Conrad, grimacing. "Urgh, just our luck... I bet there's indirects everywhere in the fog. Brace yourselves, everyone!"  The group do brace themselves, by switching to Javier, who laughs and scorns at your desires to hit him with indirects. Ha ha ha! gently caress you.  Right. Let's get on with the capturing and indirecting and stuff, then.  Fleur captures something!  Fliss and Dave make a start!  And we'll need an APC for a bit of convenience later, so I deploy one - Michael, obviously. "Hey, Dave, let me know when you're done with capturing. I have special orders from my dude." "Special orders, huh?" Dave replies, grinning. "Heh. Sounds good to me. I shouldn't be long." "Whoa, what are you planning?" Rin says over the transceiver, but Dave just chuckles. "Wait and see, kid."  That's all from the red team for now - the blue team's where all the action is happening.  I think a few of the weakened foot units might head back to the HQ, so I'm sending Carter to get in range of it. That'll make them think twice about going back.  On the right, our indirects head up, guided by the recon, Jackie.  And we make a start capturing those comm towers.  Alina, too!  Since Javier's got 3 towers and I would be doing squat damage anyway, I take the chance to rearrange Ingo and Fred so that they're making best use of their range.  I begin moving Harlow north to join Rin, who's just sitting in the trees, waiting to shoot stuff.  And what are these losers up to, in the meantime?  Their weakened artillery - Sebastian - fires on Dimitri for...  ...basically no damage. "That all the paint you got?!" Dimitri asks. "C'mon, you barely even touched my shoes!"  And that's all they can do whilst Lorelei is still stuck in the pass.  We're gonna move Fleur down to that base, so she hops into Michael to get there quickly.  Perfect.  Fliss and Dave continue capturing things on the left, too.  As usual, not much else to do. Von Panzer is still Von Panzering.  And now, it's the blue team's turn, and here's some sneaky poo poo. So, we need to weaken Javier's mech and artillery to protect Dimitri and Ingo, but if we weaken them too much, Javier will get his CO Power. Somehow, through So, the solution? Capture one tower to lower Javier's defensive buffs...  And this is his meter beforehand.  Fire on the enemy with a one...  ...and a two!  And now we've weakened them enough to prevent them from killing my units, but not done so much damage that we gave Javier his COP.  If we'd captured both towers at the start of the turn, we'd have done too much damage. Suck on that, Javier - I control how much damage you take.  Eva and Lucy catch up in the meantime. We still need them.  And Carter's in place to take out anyone who heads for the HQ.  Here's hoping they switch back to Jess next turn.  This mech, Wallace, attacks. "Dimitri, right?" he says. "Eat paint, lad!"  Unfortunately, it doesn't go well for him. Wallace sighs as he's splattered with paint. "Huh, looks like I'm a bit out of practice..."  The artillery goes for Fred, but leaves him with 5HP. That, uh, stands for "Has Paint".  There we go! Back to Jess, so we can properly counterattack next turn.  Here we loving go.  I mean, OK, the foot soldiers are just capturing; blue team will be doing most of the counterattacking.  But now we can purchase a medium tank! Selena rolls onto the battlefield. "Von Panzer, I'm coming to back you up. Still holding strong?" "Ach! They haven't even tried to approach me." Von Panzer replies. "But I would be grateful for the backup, Selena!"  The red team, as they shape up this team. Michael's on his way to collect Dave, for that Something Else Later.  Arqa, now that she's done her job, is just getting moved closer to the action. Harlow's nearly caught up to his new friend Rin, too.  This poor bastard - Mina - though she could heal on the HQ. Carter swiftly corrects her. "Oh, man! Drake's gonna be so disappointed that his star student performed so poorly." Mina grumbles as she heads inside. "If there'd been any naval combat in this battle, it would have been a different story!"  The two damage artilleries joined up, which would have been a good idea if Green Earth hadn't switched back to Jess, invalidating any defensive bonuses. As such, Eva, from afar, can crush it with no problem.  Dimitri finishes off Wallace. "Wahahah!" Wallace says, grinning as he steps away from the battlefield. "The young'uns really are something, aren't they? As one of the Old Guard, I'm happy to bow out to a youth with such skill." "...I'm thirty-three." Dimitri says, raising an eyebrow, but Wallace has already wandered off. "I don't look that drat youthful, do I?"  "Ingo, are you approaching the megatank?" Lucy says with worry. Ingo nods. "I wanna see what it can do. We're allowed to use live rounds on the megatank, right?" "Of course you are." Abelard, within the megatank, says. "But don't think that makes it easy." Ingo fires off a deadly shot with his artillery, and it's a direct hit on the megatank, slamming into it - the shell explodes violently, but as the smoke clears...  "That barely did anything?!" Ingo yelps. "Let me try!" Fred shouts, firing off a rocket shot.  "Still nothing." Ingo murmurs. "What the hell is this tank made of, the stuff that Black Hole pipes are made of?" Abelard nods. "Young Ingo, isn't it? This is the megatank, the most powerful vehicle ever fielded - unmatched in all four countries, it shrugs off all comers and destroys all opposition. You'd need a lot more firepower if you want to even dent it. So come, young man! Show this old hand what the Allied Nations can really do!" "How the hell do we even take it out? Not even live rounds worked?" Dimitri whispers. "We'll need something stronger." Eva says, narrowing her eyes. "Better hope the Commander and Rose cook something brilliant up!"  Rin all-but-deletes the last mech, in the meantime, meaning I'm pretty much safe from all threats now. God loving bless Von Panzer. And also dumb AI.  I arrange the units like so. Not much to do now but plink them with ranged units until we get to the enemy's Tag Break - that's what I'm waiting for. It's why we attacked the megatank this turn - we need Jess to have more meter than Javier, as I said before. Then we activate the Tag Break.  But we can't activate it yet. We need to get everything in position first. And also it's their turn.  Gasp! More infantry! Thankfully, probably not much of a threat.  The COs switch again, putting Javier back in control. That's exactly what we want.  You may be wondering what the plan is, and I promise I'm not withholding it arbitrarily. I just want to explain it when it actually happens.  Fliss gets the airport! Spoilers: we will not use it even slightly. But I feel better with it under my control. I'm not dependent on bombers. I can quit anytime I want.  Michael gets himself in position to pick up Dave. It was also around this time I realised that the APC looks different - presumably because we led with a Yellow Comet CO, we have the Yellow Comet-themed unit designs. I don't think I've noticed that before. Then again, Yellow Comet's units are noticeably different compared to the other countries, so it stands out.  And this is how we end the turn - Selena's going to be swapping places with Von Panzer next turn, in time to trigger the Tag Break. We need to try not to do any damage this turn so we don't trigger it early.  So I just spend the turn rearranging all the indirects over here, and resupplying them with Nika.  "All good, guys?" Nika asks anxiously. "Yup, perfect." Ingo says. "...How much of the military budget goes to buying all of this paint, do you think?"  And thus, we hold back from attacking. Pay attention to the meters on the right, though; the Green Earth COs aren't the only ones close to getting their SCOP...  The last mech and infantry move into positions where they can be easily sniped by my indirects. So, uh, thanks for co-operating, guys? Green Earth, as usual, can't do much more, so let's put them out of their misery.  Our turn, and for once the red team has some actual stuff to do!  Dave hops into Michael, first things first. "Are these secret orders from my dude what I think they are?" Dave asks. Michael nods. "You know it - come on, Ruston. Let's go."  Von Panzer, our loyal brick wall, moves aside to let Selena sit here. She's gonna be necessary - even with the support of the city, Von Panzer can't tank what's coming. Don't tell him that though. He's the unbreakable wall in our hearts.  And now, finally, Fleur and Fliss make a start on those comm towers. We'll need those, too - we need every attack buff we can get.  Just for safety, I decide to deploy another medium tank: Boris, of Dimitri's Mercenaries. I have the money, what was I going to do, not deploy a medium tank?  That's all we need to do for now. The stage has been set for Miss Selena Hartford, so let's bring in the big guns!  First things first, we need murder- uh, paint, the remaining foot units. Rin takes this one...  And Carter takes out that one. Man, putting him there was a good drat call.  And now the next job is to poke some stuff until they both get their SCOP.  Yup, gently caress you as well.  ...Oh, not quite. Javier needs a bit more damage to prepare the Tag Break.  You'll do. Squash 'em, Eva.  That's more like it! We'll be eating a Tag Break next turn - and now I get to explain what the strategy is. So, you know how I said we needed to get Jess to fill up her meter first? It's so that when the Tag Break actually activated, it was Javier using it.  You see, Jes-  What does that even MEAN, Javier, oh my god. And I thought YOU were the only one who comes up with ridiculous comments in battle. Aw, are you not fond of my ridiculous comments? I bet you think I'm really funny and cool, actually, despite pretending not to like me. My dude. You're projecting again. Sorry, that line was excellent and deserved my full attention. So! You see, Jess' SCOP gives her units more movement, which means that Lorelei, the recon, can move out of the way and allow something else to move in and crush Selena. Then Javier would get his, finish Selena off, pour through my wrecked chokepoint, and then have massive defensive buffs for the next turn.  With Javier going first, he can't attack Selena, so his entire SCOP is a waste.  Then he switches to Jess, who can't take Selena out with one hit, thus meaning the chokepoint holds.  All her units get refreshed, and Lorelei prepares to move out of the way. The other fun fact is - there's a small chance that Jess COULD take out Selena. Or at least, there was.  A medium tank comes charging out, having been hidden in the forest for most of the battle, to attack Selena. If this tank was at full HP, it'd paint her before she knew what was up, and the chokepoint would fall. But guess what?  Yeah. That was this tank.  "Hah! Is that all?" Selena says, grinning. She looks incredible atop her medium tank, hair flowing in the breeze and her eyes blazing with passion. Matilda gasps. "You withheld... my medium tank?" she murmurs. Atta girl, Selena! Our gambit worked perfectly. You see now why I recommended we attack Matilda early on? Yes, yes. And you see why I wanted to get Javier to begin the Tag Break? ...Yes, my dude. It seems our combined talents won us this battle. It's not over yet. There's a megatank coming our way. And there we have it - the Tag Break, the most dangerous turn on the map, is done with!  Now it's our turn to get a SCOP up and running.  First things first, Fliss and Fleur capture the comm towers. That attack boost might just be exactly what we need for this.  Then I move my invincible bulwark, Selena, out of the way, and plop down a defenceless infantry unit in front of the entire Green Earth army. I swear I didn't just lose my mind.  And then I switch to Grimm, who has weaker defences. Bear with me here. Do you know what you're doing, my dude? Why should that stop me? On the blue team's turn, our only goal is doing as much damage as possible, for one specific reason.  Yes, yes, paint them all!  Man, Eva and Fred are actually doing some damage to this thing now. The megatank's not completely invincible, though it's unbelievably bulky.  Anti-airs are... not as bulky. Unfortunately for them.  This tank was just asking for some paint to the face. And why did we do all of that, you ask?  Oh, just getting the best SCOP. Again.  Yes you are, Rachel, crush them.  Rachel's COP might be useless, but god drat, her SCOP is genuinely incredible. It's like, Meteor Strike levels of good, but arguably more useful since it can hit multiple different targets.  BOOM! Imagine this happening three times.  And thus, virtually everything is left with 1HP, so it won't take long to do cleanup now. "Gah! Paint from above?!" Abelard says. "Hm... these soldiers really are a well-oiled fighting force. I'm highly impressed." "So what, you're just gonna let them paint us?" Henry says. "Why not go over and, heh, paint the town red?"  In order to prevent anyone from retreating to the HQ, Fenya and Iago block the way. Nowhere to run now.  The only way out is through the pass.  The megatank rumbles up the pass, with Abelard in control. He nods. "Hm. A little arrogant, don't you think, that a mere infantry unit could hold off the megatank, weakened as it is? The megatank is using live rounds, you know. I'll be sure not to hit anybody." Fixing the cannon squarely on the soldier ahead of him, Abelard suddenly widens his eyes. It's too late, however - he's already opened fire.  The shots ring out, but they go wide. Abelard stares in horror. "You're not just any infantry unit... are you?" "Got it in one." Dave Ruston replies, grinning and holding a machine gun by his side. "The name's Dave. I think we fought together in the last war. But if you think this enormous tank and some flashy words were going to be enough to stop me, then..." Dave spots the weakness - a small dent in the side of the megatank, made by one of Ingo's artillery shots earlier. The slightest seam, the smallest rupture... the key weakness. Dave continues grinning and opens fire, charging forwards as the megatank fires at him.  "You've got another drat thing coming!" There's a gigantic explosion from inside the pass, and on both sides of the battlefield, soldiers from all four nations watch as the machine built to challenge heaven itself, the most powerful ground unit ever built by human hands, is destroyed, the smoking pieces of the vehicle crashing down around the victor - Dave Ruston, the Tankslayer. I REFUSE to believe that worked. I told you, I told you! They've yet to build a tank that Dave cannot kill. The Megaultimate Disrespect is real, I can't believe it! Megaultimate Disrespect? Because it's a megatank. Does that mean what Vanessa did in the last campaign was a Mediumultimate Disrespect? Don't be so silly, Rose. That would be a Supreme Disrespect. Come on. The allies are as strong as we'd heard. We cannot get careless, Jess. Agreed. Seeing the Tankslayer in action... They'll make good allies, but now it's our turn to make an impression. And apparently the best way to do that is to switch to Javier. Probably wise, to be fair, since he takes less damage from ranged units, but considering the absolute shambles that the Green Earth forces are in, I don't think it's going to change much.  So, let's finish them off. Unfortunately the red team can't really help in that regard. But we can send-  oh god drat it  gently caress IT. BLUE TEAM. PAINT EVERYTHING.  LEAVE NOTHING UNPAINTED  Thankfully it's not to hard to clear out the last of these units with our indirects. That tank is out of range, but it can't retreat to heal, so we're fine.  Well done, Rin.  Green Earth have one tank left. They, uh, can't do much.  It parks itself next to Dave but wisely does not attack him.  So let's just end it. In style, though, obviously. "Hey, Meteor, I already got a cool tank kill." Dave says, gesturing to the tank in front of him - the cheeky form of Quincy is within. "She's all yours."  "Don't mind if I do. C'mere, eat paint!" Dimitri shouts. "Aw, man, I'm out! Still, I lasted longer than everyone else, so I'm chalking that up as a moral victory." Quincy replies, chuckling. "Nice job, you guys!"  Young master, Javier willingly entrusts you with his life. Thank you, Javier. It's an honour serving alongside you. Who taught you to speak so respectfully? I've never heard you talk like that. Rachel! You insult my dignity. A knight always speaks in a gentlemanly manner, for his honour may be besmirched otherwise. Nell taught him. Or, more accurately- Max! Don't embarrass me- -he taught himself after Nell said "if you don't start speaking with a bit more respect in these meetings, you'll be sleeping on the sofa for the rest of your life". Heh heh. That sounds like Nell. We finally have COs from all four nations. It's time to counterattack! Here are the megatank schematics. Now you can build them for yourselves. JAKE! C'mere, we got megatanks! ROCK! I'm gonna roll in style now! Jake, loud music, and a megatank? Black Hole should run far, far away! Never mind my dude and a megatank... is anyone in this army even qualified to drive one? Besides Tina... I bet she wishes she was here. God, Tina would LOVE a megatank. I'll tell her all about it in my next letter! And with that, the next map is done! What a thrilling encounter.  And a few of our units promote again! Max hits Rank 1, and Rachel hits Rank 2. That'll be useful, the more COs that can use skills, the better.  I love that Rachel and Sensei get the victory lines despite the red team... well, no, actually, the blue team DID do most of the work. Sensei did gently caress-all, though. We have unlocked the ability to deploy units as megatanks! Some soldiers have discovered a talent for controlling megatanks, and the Proficiencies of some soldiers have been updated to reflect this. You can check the details of soldier proficiencies in The Allied Nations: Soldier Overview, available on the contents page.  So, let's get a little preview of the next map before we move on.   Their backs are to the wall, and I've got two piperunners ready for action. But I'm more curious about what you think of our new Black Hole Army, Lash. It's as evil as ever, isn't it? World domination and all that."World domination and all that", amazing. We've drained so much of the planet's energy that it's turning into a wasteland. What's the point? Is this prize worth dying for? Is this a noble end? What's the big deal? We can always just fix it later. Right? I'm the one who disposed of Sturm, and this short leash is beginning to chafe. This is no way to use a trained army. Maybe it's not for me to say, but... If someone wants to use the army to pursue his own personal goals... Shoosh! What are you whining about? This isn't like you at all, Hawke! In fact, you're starting to sound a lot like the Director! I can't deny I feel some sympathy. She was promised vengeance on her country... not the complete ruination of her world. The allies are gonna escape! I think you'll feel better after you crush 'em. You may be right. I better deal with the problem at hand first. Bring the Director to me.Hm. Intriguing.  Oh, this doesn't look fun. How did we even manage to get ourselves into this sticky of a situation?  Yeah, no poo poo, Jake. Do we head for the sea or keep it on the ground? That's a tough call. But if we take out the three minicannons on the left, we'll take the wind out of their sails. Let's head in that direction. To check a minicannon's range of fire, touch and hold it for a few seconds. The highlighted area shows how far they can fire. Try to stay out of that range. Man, tutorialising really runs in the family, huh? If they get around to us, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. They can only move on these pipes. If we can destroy the joints, they won't be able to get this far. But if we create an opening in the pipe, the enemy forces will pour in. We can more easily choke Black Hole's forces at a seam than we can deal with powerful ranged threats. Agreed. I'd take the army over the piperunners, but... I wonder what the best approach is here... We're in quite a pickle, eh? Sitting here yapping ain't improving the situation! Let's get with the busting! Forcing our way out as Jake and Grimm have suggested is definitely an option. And word is the enemy has a research lab near Cape Houdan. Oh, god, we need to find a map for that. Rose, get a task force together, would you? Already on it. I'll send Vanessa with some troops. Sounds good. I think we might find a map leading to it in one of the cities on the coast here. We may not have the manpower to spare, but finding it would be a big bonus. Don't worry, Commander Rachel. We'll acquire it. You got it. Let's roll. We've got three minicannons to level. Minicannons, huh? Someone get me six bombers and let's get to work! So, let's take a quick look at the map. It's on the larger side...  With some naval things going on down here. That silo might be useful.  Ooh, a bomber behind the minicannons. That's not nice at all. I guess that's why we've been given the missiles, though... if I can just lure it over to the pipes.  And some Neotanks amongst the enemy forces, above and below. Yeesh. This is going to take some doing, isn't it? Right then. Place your votes, how do we get through this one unscathed? *** Part 36 (Intermission) - By The Goddess’ Will cosmicPostman fucked around with this message at 08:33 on May 7, 2022 |
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May 6, 2022 15:54
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May 6, 2022 17:41
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I'd say you should take Javier for a spin and use his indirect defense to hold off the pipe runners, thus allowing you to turkey shoot the rest of his army without busting a seam.
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May 6, 2022 17:51
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Ok. That happened. An infantry took down a megatank. I mean megatanks suck (way too little movement, way too much $$$) but still. Congratulations. You won Advance Wars.
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May 6, 2022 18:12
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Nicely done with the enemy power management. That was a thing of beauty to return on.
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May 6, 2022 19:00
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What was the super secret thing that Dave did?
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May 6, 2022 19:43
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:What was the super secret thing that Dave did? Slay the Megatank. I'll post my own thoughts later, about to go to my day job.
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May 6, 2022 19:54
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Well that's one hell of an update to come back with, haha. Welcome back.
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May 6, 2022 20:58
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Right, so now that I'm able to sit and think about what I read... holy poo poo, Dave. I knew CP was gonna go for the Megaultimate Disrespect, but seeing it actually executed is still quite the sight. Definitely a note to come back on for sure, just... don't forget, no more nonlethality now that we have all four nations in the team. One heck of an ensemble to play with, though. to that end I'm gonna say Rachel and CP's Choice are probably the best bets here.
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May 7, 2022 09:58
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Piperunner have surprisingly dubious movement and are indirects, so they can't move and fire in the same turn. There's also a LOT of pipe for them to get through. I vote for go after the bomber and leave the piperunners/seams till later.
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May 7, 2022 11:01
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