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They're also referred to as mud bugs and make goofy little mud cone nests on the ground. The pool I used to work at was right on top of a retention pond, so when it rained hard they would crawl up the ditch and make the short trek into the pool where you would find them scuttling about on the bottom.
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Feb 13, 2021 19:04
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Yep, used to find them in small rivers and larger streams back in Missouri. Never ate them, but they're basically mini-lobsters.
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Feb 13, 2021 20:45
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Interview 46 - “The Night Before” (Like last time, this is just a bonus prose piece. Regular update will be on Friday as per. Enjoy!) “Alright, everyone.” I say. I’m reminded, as I sit here facing the combined forces of all four countries of Wars World, of the last time we had a briefing the night before facing Sturm. That was a nice night… probably because most of us expected it to be our last. “It’s time, once again, to prepare for a big battle tomorrow. We have nothing to worry about, and I want everyone to make sure that they’re mentally ready. Relax, chill out, train, do whatever it is that will make you ready for tomorrow. We’re all gonna go home tomorrow - you have my word.” gently caress. I should not have promised that. If anyone dies now… I shrug. “OK, dismissed. Have a good evening, everyone.” As I make my way back to my tent, I’m bemused at the thought of all four armies sharing a joint camp for just one night. I wonder if they’ll all get along? They’ll probably keep to themselves mostly, I decide. I almost run headlong into Nell as I step towards my tent. She chuckles and nods at me. “My dude. Were you intending to finish some work?” “I figured I should go over some tactics or something.” I mutter; I didn’t really know what to do. I just didn’t want to be caught out tomorrow. Nell smiles. I love that smile. “It’s been a year since you left, you know. I’ve missed you. Would you like to take a walk and catch up?” “You know what? That sounds good.” I say, smiling back. * Most of the Orange Star Army have found their own small hideaways. For once, everyone seems to have something else on their mind, and instead of poker and drinks, a night of introspection awaits the soldiers. Dave and Rin are taking a walk around the joint camp under the pretense of keeping watch, but they’re using it as an excuse to spend time together. “Say, Dave…” “Mm?” “What are you going to do after the war?” Dave has thought about the question a lot recently, and he glances down. Their friendship bracelets are just about visible in the moonlight, and he stares at them intensely, then up at Rin. “Stay with the Orange Star Army, of course.” he replies. “And I hope you’re staying too, kiddo.” “Of course! You’re not getting away from me that easily, Dave.” Rin replies, winking. “All of our wonderful friends… it’ll be nice to keep fighting alongside them. Though hopefully after this campaign…” “Hopefully the fighting ends.” “Yeah. That would be nice.” They fall silent again. Rin’s not usually this quiet, and Dave is a little worried. He puts a supportive arm around her shoulder, and she embraces him quickly. “You alright?” “I’m just worried. I’ll be OK though! We’re going to do our best tomorrow.” Dave nods. “‘Course we are, kid.” “And, hey, after the battle, I was wondering, would you be able to teach me how to whittle?” “Whittlin’?” Dave asks. He shrugs. “Sure thing, if that’s what you want.” “Thank you!” “Heh. Don’t mention it, Rin.” * Tina is sitting with Rose in a Yellow Comet tent, and the pair have decided not to do anything, instead simply satisfying themselves with sitting together and thinking. Tina is reminded of the last time there was a quiet night before a final battle - she had spent the evening with Wilbert. “Hey, Rose.” “Mm?” “You all geared up for this battle?” Rose nods. “I’m… if I’m honest, I’m relishing the chance to test my wits against Sturm. And I’ll get to see my dude pull off an incredible performance.” “Heh.” Tina smirks. “You’re really confident in my dude, then?” “I do not idly give people my respect, but he earned it. Painstakingly, he fought his way across half the world, and whenever possible, he came up with plans that minimised losses. I feel much safer knowing that he’ll be in charge - though I, of course, could have easily done it myself if it had been necessary.” “Oh, I don’t doubt you.” Tina replies, grinning. She puts her arm around Rose. “Man, where’s it gonna end for you, Rose? CO? Leader? Empress?” “Oh, goodness. I wouldn’t go that far.” Rose replies, but the thought imprints itself on her mind, and she can’t help but briefly imagine being Empress Rose of Yellow Comet. It has a nice ring to it, she decides. “I simply wish to use my talents as best I can. What about you, Tina?” “Ah, well…” Tina says, sighing. “I’d love to say on, but I have to get home to my kid. I just joined the end of this campaign to help you guys out, but… I can’t really do that again. I’ve gotta think of my family now.” “I understand.” “It’s nice to have a family, though.” Tina murmurs. “Been alone for so long, but this last year or two, I’ve had the Orange Star Army, Wilbert, and now my daughter. And you, of course. Suddenly I’ve got more family than I know what to do with!” “And we’ll always be there for you.” Rose replies. “I may be back in Yellow Comet, but Orange Star has done me many kindnesses, and they are just as much my family as my actual parents.” Tina ruffles the girl’s hair, and Rose pulls a childish face, wriggling away from Tina’s grasp. “Sounds good to me. Well, if we’re gonna go home to our respective families, first thing we’ve gotta do is kick Sturm’s rear end. Let’s go get some sleep, shall we?” “Yes, I suppose we should… I am getting a little sleepy.” * Lucy pops her head into Ingo’s tent and gives him a charming smile. Despite the fact that Ingo has been worrying all evening, Lucy’s face completely restores his mood, and he sits up and smiles back at her. “Thought I might find you here!” “Yeah, I’ve just been listening to music. Where’ve you been?” “Seeing my pals!” Lucy replies, smiling. “Caught up with Tina, chatted to Michael and the boys, the usual.” “Yeah, I did the same earlier with Dave and the others. I think Dave’s gone AWOL now, though.” Lucy hops onto the bed besides Ingo and plants a kiss on his cheek. “Probably chatting with Rin! Anyway, you… how are you feeling?” “Oh, don’t worry about me.” Ingo replies, grinning. “I mean, I’m worrying, because of course I am. Big battle, you know? But this won’t be anything like last time.” “Good. We’re both going to get through this!” Lucy replies. “Yeah. I… Luce, thank you.” Lucy’s eyes widen as Ingo pulls her into an embrace.. “Uh, what for?” “Being there. All the time. I really appreciate that.” Lucy reciprocates, tightly hugging Ingo back. “Of course, silly! I care about you. You’re the best boyfriend a girl could ask for.” “Heh.” Ingo replies, chuckling. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been pretty up and down in the last couple of years, but you’ve always been constant. I love you for that, Luce.” “I love you too, but if you keep saying nice things, I’m gonna start getting emotional!” Lucy replies, burying her head into Ingo’s nape and trying not to tear up. “Alright, alright. Let’s chill out, then. Got the headphone splitters?” “Mm? Yeah, right here!” Ingo plugs them into his music player, and hands Lucy a pair of headphones. The pair sit together; silent to any onlookers, but for their ears alone is the music that they need to get through the night. * Fliss and Carter arrive in the largest Orange Star tent to find Michael, Alfonse and Fleur enjoying a quiet chat before the battle. Fliss waves to her sister. “H-hello… what are you all doing?” “Oh, nothing.” Michael replies. “Come on in, you two. Always nice to have company on a night like this.” Carter takes a seat, letting out a long sigh. He seems deflated. “Man… final battle. This army thing hasn’t been anything like I was expecting.” “The first rule of the army…” Fleur says, winking. “Nothing they taught you in military académie applies in the real world.” “No kidding.” murmurs Carter. Alfonse nods. “You’ve done good though, Carter. We’ve just about managed to quash your ego.” Blushing, Carter nods, glancing away. “Ahah, yeah… sorry about all that. I was top of the class, you know? Figured I knew it all. I mean, I’m probably a better shot than most of you, anyway…” Michael rolls his eyes, leaning over to murmur to Fleur. “Nothing short of a medium tank is heavy enough to quash that ego.” “I… I… um, wanted to thank you all…” Fliss murmurs suddenly. Her voice is louder than usual, and though she’s shaking, she’s looking at her sister and friends with determination. “M-my p-parents wanted me to be like my big sister… but then in the academy… th-they saw how good of a shot I was and m-made me become a soldier instead of s-support…” “Oh, I see.” Alfonse breathes. “So that’s why you’re uncomfortable. It was Orange Star that pressured you to become a soldier!” “Y-yes!” Fliss replies, nodding. “But I’ve… I’ve got used to it now. I’ve m-met so many great warriors and good friends… and I know what I’m fighting for now. I w-won’t falter tomorrow. I promise!” Fleur places a hand on Fliss’ shoulder, pulling her into an embrace. “Ma sœur… Felicity… you make me so proud. Our parents would be proud too.” “I agree. You’ve done good, Fliss.” Alfonse says. Carter sighs. “Yeah, I guess you’re a crack shot.” “We’ll be here for you, no matter what.” Michael replies. “That’s what being in the Orange Star Army is all about, Fliss. We don’t turn our backs on a friend.” Fliss’ smile is wide, and she beams at her allies. Alfonse stands up, looking a little perturbed. “This is great and all, but speaking of not turning our backs, I just want to check on someone. See you guys in a bit.” “Goodbye, Alfonse.” Fleur says as he exits. She turns back to the others, smiling joyously. “It is such a marvellous night. How about we sit outside and enjoy the moonlight?” “I was just about to head to bed, actually, but yeah… bit of stargazing sounds lovely.” Michael replies, nodding. * Selena stands alone, at the edge of the island that the joint camp is set up on. The cliff is high, but the waves below are calm, dancing as the dappled moonlight shines upon them. Once more, Selena is reminded of the beauty of the moon, and she wonders if her parents and sister are observing this selfsame moon from their home. She sits down, her legs dangling over the side of the cliff, and leans back on her arms, staring up at the sky. Every star seem to glimmer in its own unique rhythm, and Selena loses herself in the ethereal beauty of the cosmos. It’s easier to be lost in the stars than it is to lose yourself in your own thoughts, Selena knows. Her own head can be a dangerous place. The family she left behind, the pain and rage they must feel… her constant desire to outdo herself, to rise to the occasion no matter what… and the damned face of her superior officer, Commander my dude. When he arises in her mind, it’s not a knowing grin or a leery smirk that she sees - it’s a gentle smile, a calming influence. The stars worry about no such things, and so, just for tonight, Selena decides not to worry either. A disturbance behind her causes her to turn. “Thought I might find you here.” Alfonse says, giving her a friendly wave. “Everything alright?” “Yes, it is.” Selena replies. “I’m not overthinking. For once.” “That’s good to hear. I take it you’ve got your family on your mind, usually?” “Amongst other things. I’ve still not heard back from them. Two years, now…” “I couldn’t bear to imagine that.” Alfonse murmurs. “My family’s been so supportive.” “You’ve certainly become a capable hero. Don’t some of the newcomers call you one of the Big Three of Orange Star?” “They do?” “You, Michael, and Dave. You boys are the glue that holds this army together.” Alfonse is genuinely surprised to hear this, and bashfully looks away, distracting himself by staring at the gentle waves far, far below the cliff. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, I’m glad. It’s what I’ve always wanted.” “Really?” “I’m the youngest of four brothers. So I’ve always had to worry about standing out amongst them. I was such a nervous kid when I started in the army, and a lot of that is because I grew up amongst three other boys. But… my family at home supports me, and this army supports me, and I really do feel like I’ve made a name for myself.” “I understand. I’m very happy for you, Alfonse.” Selena replies, smiling gently. “I guess you’ve had the opposite experience - you were the more standout sibling.” “Quite.” Selena says. “A degree in physics, an accomplished singer, one of the top-rated students in Orange Star… my sibling, Lena, probably understands your position better than I do. Though…” Selena studies Alfonse for a moment. She cannot see any venom in his eyes. “Though… you don’t hold a grudge.” “I couldn’t hold a grudge.” Alfonse says, smiling. “My bros love me, I know that. It’s not their fault that I was never very standout.” “I’m much the opposite. Lena blames me, and I… I blame myself too. I wish I could do something to help, but… I suppose I’ve committed to being in the army now.” “Commander my dude’s got you in his clutches, huh?” “Wh-what are you…” Selena gasps, and Alfonse laughs. “Whether you love him or just like him, you have to admit, virtually everyone in the army is here because of him. He’s unlike any other leader.” “That’s very true. Nell and my dude are a wonderful couple, too.” “I’m surprised you feel that way.” Alfonse replies. “Wouldn’t you rather have my dude to yourself?” Selena smiles and shrugs. “I’m… not sure it would have worked out. It’s probably better this way.” “If you say so. Anyway, I should probably get back to the camp. It’s getting late.” “It is.” Selena replies, as Alfonse stands up and begins to walk away. He turns back to her. “Make sure you get some rest too. I’ll, uh, head back and see how everyone’s doing. ...Big Three of Orange Star… really?” “Really.” Selena says, smirking. “Though, of course, a Big Three needs a head bitch to keep them under control.” Alfonse bursts out laughing as he walks away. “Hah! That’s very true! I guess you fill that role pretty perfectly. Goodnight, Selena!” “Goodnight, Alfonse.” Her thoughts return to the moon and stars above. However, for a brief moment, she’s filled with an overpowering warmth, thankful to have such friends like Alfonse, Dave, Michael, Lucy and Tina. * Most of the Blue Moon soldiers have also elected to have a relaxed night, which is why Dimitri’s Mercenaries have hidden out in Dimitri’s tent to play some card games. At Zlata’s request, they’re playing a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity, with Zlata’s custom-made deck. It’s Ivan’s turn to read the submissions, and he grins as he reads the cards out. “Alright, let’s see who has the absolute worst sense of humour. ‘The Blue Moon barracks would never be the same after’...” Dimitri and the other soldiers chuckle amongst themselves as the answers come out. “After ‘Olaf and Grit making out in the kitchen’. Pfft, hahah. After ‘Bees?’, that’s a good one. ‘The tiniest shred of evidence that God exists’, I like it. ‘Getting sucker-punched in the stomach by Ludmilla’, was that you, Eduard?” “As if Eduard’s that funny.” smirks Anton. “Hey, shut it! I’m plenty funny!” Eventually, Ivan finishes reading, and mulls over the winner of the round. “Ah, it’s gotta be Olaf and Grit. Who played that?” To everyone’s surprise, it’s Fenya who leans over and takes her winning card. “Me, actually. I think I’m starting to understand how this game works.” “No kiddin’,” Dimitri says, nodding. “Next round, then.” “Me next.” Diana replies, taking her card. “OK, let’s see here… your prompt is ‘What is Colin’s reason for living?’” “Oh, I’ve got a good one for this.” grins Valentin, shuffling through his cards. “So do I, come to think of it. It’s perfect.” Anatoly replies with a wicked smile. Dimitri, whilst the others are thinking of good cards to play, leans over to Diana and whispers in her ear. “You were right. I think the mercs needed a night off.” “Of course.” Diana murmurs. “Tomorrow isn’t going to be easy.” “We’ll fight as one.” Dimitri says. Diana nods at Dimitri, and he’s surprised to see the fierce look of devotion blazing in her eyes. He’s seen it once before - it’s the way she used to look at Wanda. “I’ll be right behind you, no matter what.” she replies. “I appreciate that. Now pick the winner of this next round, and let’s rest ourselves. Tomorrow ain’t here yet, after all.” * “Can’t sleep?” says a voice from behind Sebastian. He turns to see a tall, exquisite woman with flowing green hair, proudly wearing the cobalt-coloured uniform of Blue Moon. “I just, uh, needed a walk. Clears my mind before a battle.” “I can understand that.” the woman replies. She looks him up and down, a glint in her bright eyes, brilliant as the moon itself. Sebastian feels himself grow nervous under her discerning stare, before she looks up once more, meeting his gaze. She offers a slender hand. “My name is Ludmilla." He takes it. “I’m Sebastian.” “Sebastian. If you don't mind diverging from your walk, I often find myself in need of company before battle." “Oh, I… uh…” Sebastian says. Was she insinuating what he thought? "My tent is not too far from here." She was. He’s not sure how to respond to this situation, but a part of him feels compelled to follow this Blue Moon girl. And yet, another part still ties him back to Adelaide. As he tries to reconcile his emotions, Ludmilla walks alongside him, seemingly unaware of the effect her blasé request has had on him. “The night is so beautiful this evening. I have to say, I’m looking forward to the battle tomorrow.” “You like battle?” “Is that so strange?” Ludmilla tilts her head. “I joined the army for a reason, you know. I’ve got substantial talents in the fields of navigation and reconnaissance. I enjoy being good at my job." Sebastian can’t help but chuckle. “I suppose that makes sense. I felt the same, actually. I felt like I wanted to make a real change, and joining the army seemed to be the best way to do that.” “Well, if you’ve come this far, then I can assure you, you’ve made a change.” Ludmilla says. “We all have. Tomorrow, it all ends - we’ll free our countries from Black Hole’s influence. It’s going to be a hell of a fight. That’s why I’m looking forward to it.” “I see.” Sebastian murmurs. “I’ve been so distracted by my own romantic problems that I didn’t even realise we were already at the eve of the final battle. It hadn’t really hit me yet.” “Romance problems, I see. That explains why you looked like a lieutenant in the headlights when I asked you to come back to my tent. Well, I’ve been there, pal. What’s the situation?” “Just a bad breakup.” Sebastian says. “It was a toxic relationship, but… she still meant a lot to me. And I know she didn’t do it all intentionally, you know?” “I understand. Sometimes it's just not the right person. Or the right place, or time. You've got to do what's right for you; you'll both be happier in the long run." "I just don't know when it changed. She didn’t change, I just… started to see that things weren’t as good as they were. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before." "Because you were happy. Sometimes people learn toxic behaviours from how they've been treated by others. Sometimes they're insecure, they don't like themselves, and that manifests in volatile ways. Hell, sometimes they're just not very nice people, and we didn't see it at the beginning." “Yeah, I guess so…” murmurs Sebastian. "There's so much pressure surrounding relationships, pressure about sex and love and passion. You're doing it wrong, you're doing it right, you're not doing it like them, so... Society's funny like that – all rumours and libel and conforming to certain ideals." “Especially when you’re young. The military academy is full of rumours.” Sebastian replies. “Girls whispering and boys bragging, every day.” Ludmilla nods. "I think that's why so many girls hesitate to just enjoy their youth and do what they want to do… or don't want to do. Either way, they're a slut or a prude." “I didn’t realise it was so…” murmurs Sebastian. “Wow. Guys have it differently. One path, really. You’re only cool once you’ve lost your, uh, virginity. Before that, you’re just… not considered a man.” “It sucks. However, whether they have a reason for this toxicity or not, you need to do the right thing for yourself. A relationship that one person wants to leave is no relationship at all. This break-up could be the crack in the dam, if you get me, the start of the healing process for both of you.” “The crack in the dam. I hadn’t thought about it like that.” “She's got friends around her, right? Or family? Or someone she can talk to?" “Yeah, Cassandra and the others have been supporting her.” "Then there you go. There's good chance she’s started to progress already. And if you really love her, then you want to see her become the best she can be, right?” Sebastian, thinking of Adelaide and trying to grapple with a variety of feelings, nods. “I do. I want her to be the best. With or without me.” “Then you’ve made the right choice.” Ludmilla says, giving Sebastian an affirmative nod. “Thank you, Ludmilla. That was insightful.” Sebastian replies. “I do my best," she smiles. There is a minute or two of silence. "But my offer still stands… if you want to forgo that walk." For a moment, Sebastian considers his options, but he realises that there’s a clear choice. He can’t be alone tonight. * With Rose busy chatting to Tina, the members of the Yellow Comet Army are split across the joint camp, and Vanessa is relaxing with her friends, sat amongst the tanks. She’s taken pride of place on top of the tank, whilst Kyril and Andromeda sit on the treads. Peregrine is living rather dangerously, lying on the huge barrel of the tank. “I must admit, it’s been nice to meet the other soldiers in other armies. We’re all so similar.” says Vanessa. “Yes! I wonder if we fought any of them in the past… but who knows?” “Who know indeed.” Vanessa says. “I suppose we’re reaching the end of this campaign, now, so it won’t matter.” “You must be excited, Van! Getting promoted into an ACO after the campaign, aren’t you?” “Oh, yes!” Vanessa replies. “I’m definitely excited for that. I’m just quite pleased at how things have gone. I feel like I’ve grown up, you know?” Kyril shivers a little as the night air passes over him, and he glances up at Vanessa. “I’d agree; I feel the same way!” “I have… to agree. I feel joyful, excited, that I have met so many people. I have extended, grown, during this campaign…” Andromeda replies. Peregrine shrugs. “Eh, I don’t change. I just like flying nice and fast, and hitting the enemy as hard as I can. If I can do that, I’m happy!” “Well, there’s a good chance you’ll have to do that tomorrow, Perry.” Vanessa replies. “You give me a target, Van, and I’ll loving crush it! Nobody’ll stop me!” Peregrine says, grinning. Andromeda laughs, her musical voice filling the silence. “I cannot stop, wait, to destroy this Sturm bastard. I shall help in any way I can!” “Rose was right; you two really need to stop hanging out.” Kyril says, chuckling. “You’re teaching Andromeda a lot of bad language, you know?” “Hey, they’re good words. Besides, we’re in the army, we practically invented swearing.” Peregrine replies. “Andy doesn’t mind, do you?” “I try… to talk, speak, like the rest of you.” Andromeda replies, beaming. Her smile is so genuine that Vanessa can’t even bring herself to complain. “You’re doing a wonderful job, Andromeda. Let’s just all do our best out there tomorrow.” * “Aw, man, mother, do you really need to do my hair? I’m twenty-four years old, I can style it myself.” “Then why don’t you?” asks Sofia as she pulls and twists Lysander’s hair to try and make him look a bit more presentable. “The ladies like a more unkempt look. It suggests that I’m aloof and bad, you know?” “Oh, goodness, this again. Lysander, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you aren’t going to be cavorting with ladies whilst I’m around.” “Mother! I’m in control of my own body, this is… this is an outrage!” Talora chuckles as she watches the pair bicker good-naturedly. “Having fun, are we?” Sofia smiles at Talora. “Something like that… it’s nice.” “Perhaps for you. You’re not the one whose hair is being violently attacked.” Lysander grumbles, but Talora can see him smiling. She points to her own frizzy and unkempt hair, and grins. “At least you’ve not got this to worry about, Lysander. It could be worse. Anyway, shouldn’t you two be getting some sleep? It’s getting rather late.” “I was just thinking that…” says Sofia, checking her watch. “Most of the younger soldiers are still up, but there’s a big battle tomorrow… are they going to be awake in time?” “I suppose we’ll have to see. I, for one, always get an early night before a big battle.” Talora replies. “And you should too, young man!” “Oh, you as well? I was just thinking that I didn’t have enough parental figures in the barracks.” sighs Lysander, shaking his head and standing up, wrenching his hair out of Sofia’s grasp. “Oh, alright. I suppose I’ll get some rest.” “That’s my boy.” Sofia says, smiling. “Goodnight, Lysander.” “Goodnight, mother. Goodnight, Aunt Talor-” Talora turns around, her eyebrows raising, whilst Lysander pauses, completely unsure of what to say. “Uh. OK, guess that’s your name now. Slip of the tongue. Jeez, that’s unlike me…” He wanders off into the joint camp to find his tent, and Talora looks back at Sofia, a wide smile on her face. “Aunt Talora! I could get used to that.” she says, smiling. “You do feel like a sister to me.” murmurs Sofia. “You’ve helped Lysander a lot, but… you’ve also helped me, Talora. The army is not an easy place for a mother, but I had to pull through for him. And you helped me pull through.” “Oh, heavens, Sofia. No thanks necessary.” Talora replies. “You’re a wonderful mother, and Lysander’s lucky to have you. That said, you’ll be more wonderful after a full eight hours. How about we take some rest?” “Oh, yes. We should do that.” replies Sofia. She looks around. “If… if I can remember which tent was ours again…” Talora grins. “Don’t worry, I know where it is. Follow me.” “Thanks again, Talora…” * On the edge of the forest, Green Earth’s set of tents have been set up, and in one of those sit Mulligan, Howard and Cassandra, who have elected to rest up, and are chatting in the darkness of the tent as they try to get to sleep. Mulligan and Howard, sharing a sleeping back, are one one side, whilst Cassandra has set up her sleeping bag close to the tent flap, so she can see the stars. “Did you catch up with Orange Star?” Mulligan asks. Howard nods, though he’s very tired and talks through his yawns. “Y-yeeaaaah… it was nice. Raynald’s still confusing as all hell, though. How about you two?” “Lucy was overjoyed to see me.” Cassandra replies. “We used to share a room, back in the last campaign. In fact, she was the one who helped me work up the courage to repair things with you, Mulligan.” “I’m glad she did. I feel that things worked out well.” Mulligan says. “As well as they can do, anyway.” “You ever wonder about all the countries?” asks Howard. Mulligan shrugs. “What do you mean?” “Like, this joint camp.” Howard replies, his eyes slowly closing. “All the countries together, one unified force…” “I was saying the same thing to Cassandra a few weeks ago.” Mulligan replies. “We feel like one country. Perhaps we’ll form some kind of alliance after this… who knows?” “That would be nice. Fighting alongside Orange Star again…” Howard says. “I would love to do that again. It’s been too long since we all fought together properly.” Cassandra replies, but as she and Mulligan wait for a response, Howard lets out a small snore and they realise he’s asleep. “I suppose we should take his cue.” Mulligan says. “Sister… tomorrow, we free our world from Sturm’s yoke once more.” “We do. I’ll be right alongside you, brother, no matter what.” “I know.” “Goodnight, Mull.” “‘Night, Cass. Remember, we’re up early tomorrow.” “Urgh,” Cassandra says, trying not to laugh. “I’m not going to oversleep again, I swear… that was one time.” * “Edgar! Still awake?” says a voice from across the joint camp, disturbing Edgar as he walks towards his tent. He turns to see a group of youngsters watching him - Conrad, Henry and Petra, all enjoying mugs of hot cocoa. “Ah, Conrad, Petra, Henry. You should be getting some sleep soon. Tomorrow is a crucial chance to prove yourselves on the grandest stage of all.” Edgar replies. “And… I want to ensure you all come back.” “Hey, old timer. No fear. We’ll be alright.” Conrad says. Edgar lets out a sigh. “The last time Sturm was defeated, Green Earth helped deliver that final blow. But there was a cost - a young soldier, about your age, called Princeton. He didn’t return.” “Didn’t…” breathes Henry. “Like Roland..?” “Like Roland.” Edgar says. “This is a chance to prove yourselves, but more crucially, this is one of the most dangerous battles you’ve ever faced. Sturm commands the very cosmos themselves, and his forces are of alien origin, with more powerful vehicles than we could possibly hope to build.” “No matter what he does, we will win!” Petra says. “Edgar, you saw potential in me, right? Eagle did too! That can’t be for nothing. I’ll defeat Sturm, I promise!” Edgar can’t help but chuckle. “Ah… perhaps I’m getting soft in my old age, but when you say it like that… I feel like I can believe you.” “I’ll be there, sister in arms.” Conrad replies, placing his hand on Pera’s shoulder. “We all support each other! We already lost one, and we won’t lose another!” Henry says. “So no worries, Edgar. There’s a Sturm coming!” Edgar nods. “Very well. Get your rest, you lot. There’s a big battle tomorrow, and it seems like you’re all ready. Look after one another out there.” He strides off, and Petra punches the air. “Right! Sleep, everyone! We need to rest so we’re in tip-top condition to take on Sturm!” “You don’t think we’re getting in over our head, do you?” asks Conrad as they walk to their tents. “That Princeton… he obviously had the same gung-ho that you do. But he paid for it dearly.” “Hey, you gotta have some faith in Petra.” Henry says, winking. “When she puts her mind to it, I don’t think there’s anything in the world that could stop her!” “Heh. That’s true.” Conrad murmurs, watching Petra stride away with purposeful steps. He feels a chill in the air - the night is cold, and it’s getting darker. * Our walk comes to a close outside Nell’s tent. She’s got one to herself, since she’s running the show when it comes to Orange Star. “According to my calculations, Sturm’s base is here.” Nell says to me, pointing at the map in her hands. “But there’s enemy COs, Flak and Adder, here and here; I think they intend to pull off a pincer movement. We’ll need to deal with them.” “Take Orange Star.” I say airily, shrugging. "Kanbei, Eagle and Colin are all I need for tomorrow's battle." “You’re going to take on Sturm with just three armies? But my dude-” “Nell.” I say. “I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again.” She smiles, and clutches my hand tightly. “Alright. It’s all riding on you tomorrow, my dude.” “You’ve nothing to worry about. With you taking on Flak and Adder, and me taking on Sturm, Black Hole’s got no chance of winning! We’re the loving power couple of the century!” “Hah… I suppose so. It’ll be nice to crush them.” Nell says. “Shame that Lash isn’t with them. She must be working on the missile platform… and my intel hasn’t told me anything about Hawke’s whereabouts, which makes me nervous.” “We’ll be fine. We’re gonna win tomorrow. Then…” I can’t quite bring myself to say it. I fiddle with the ring on her finger, and Nell holds it up to the moonlight. “Then, we marry.” Nell says simply. “I’m looking forward to it, my dude.” “Yeah, me too. Guess we’ve got to earn our perfect wedding, though.” I reply, chuckling. Nell excuses herself and disappears into her tent, no doubt to finish off her battle plans. All I’ve got to worry about is taking out Sturm… but that’s no easy feat, even if I’ve done it before. My palms feel a little clammy, and I realise that they’re shaking. “Commander.” A voice behind me makes me turn around, and I see Ruin standing at the edge of the forest, almost concealed from view. She gives me a curt wave. “Ruin! Am I glad to see you.” I say. “I’m missing your commentary, you know.” “You’ve more important things to worry about right now.” Ruin replies, the slightest hint of a grin on her face. “Though… I am missing it too. Still, are you ready for tomorrow?” “Yeah, I think so. I can’t lose now. Like Nell said, everything’s riding on me tomorrow.” Ruin pats my shoulder, in what I assume is supposed to be a comforting manner. This girl needs to work on her social interaction skills. “Your victory is assured. And I’ll be on hand to save a single life if need be.” “That’s a big relief. Thanks, Ruin.” “But of course. I’ll be going, anyway. I’d like some rest.” “Yeah, of course. No worries.” I reply, waving to her as she walks off. It’s only as I’m walking to my own tent that I remember what I wanted to tell Ruin. It was important, too, and I blow a raspberry in annoyance. “Argh, dammit… I must remember to tell her tomorrow. After I win.” After I win. I hope.
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Feb 17, 2021 09:34
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Interview 47 - “Let’s See How Far We’ve Come" It's time.  We've come a long way to be here, but we're finally taking on Sturm again.   I think it’s going to take a little more time. How much? About 3… No, about 40 days. Maybe… I will not wait that long. Finish it in 30 days. …… Do you understand? OK, I’ll try… And how is the Deathray? It’s fine. You can use it now. I even fixed it, too! Now it won’t damage our troops when it’s fired. It does need 7 days to build up enough energy to fire, though. Hm. 7 days… I’ll not forget. As we already established in the previous part, the winners of the vote for this final map were Colin, Kanbei and Eagle - a group of nice, uncomplicated and strong COs. Having Lightning Strike as a backup is always nice too.  So, uh, this map?  'S pretty big. Thankfully you can ignore most of it, since we won't be using a lot of the space. Pay special attention to the middle section, where there's two Black Cannons - this is where a lot of the fighting will be taking place, and as such, getting rid of those cannons is going to be top priority. Our actual goal for the map, however, is further north.   Here we go… Look what I’ve found. You… You’re Sturm! And you’re the little girl who likes playing with soldiers. Here you are again, sneaking around where you don’t belong. Sonja’s not alone. We’re all here. Different place, same cast. You’re all here? Then you shall all taste despair. For you shall witness the destruction of your world when my missile strikes. As long as we’re alive, that will never happen. Empty words, worm. The missile platform is beyond your reach. What is that supposed to mean? Enough talk. I would see your power. Hey! Wait a… Beyond our reach? It’s right… Ohmigosh! We’ve just received a report of a giant laser blocking the platform! That would explain why the old boy was so doggone sure of himself. In that case, we should strike now, while we have the chance. It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to avoid that contraption. So we weaken his defenses, attack the platform, and stop the launch… That sounds like a plan I can get behind! Let us aim for the laser. Move out, everyone!And there we have it - our mission for this map. Breaking the Deathray is how we win, but getting up there in one piece, and avoiding his shitloads of troops, is not going to be easy. "B-but Post!" you stammer, looking at the map I showed you. "Sturm doesn't have any units!" Oh, don't you worry. He's getting friggin' 29k a turn, so we'll be drowning in his overpowered units within a few days. Anyway, it's almost time for us to begin; here's the deployments for the final battle. TODAY’S DEPLOYMENTS Blue Moon Ivan, Infantry Peter, Infantry Elena, Infantry Anton, Infantry Boris, Medium Tank Dimitri, Neotank Diana, Battle Copter Alina, Battle Copter Gavril, Battle Copter Zlata, Bomber Klara, Bomber Olga, Bomber Valentin, Fighter Yellow Comet Lysander, Infantry Talora, Infantry Vanessa, Anti-Air Kyril, Medium Tank Rose, Battle Copter Andromeda, Battle Copter Minerva, Battle Copter Peregrine, Bomber Green Earth Mulligan, Infantry Conrad, Infantry Edelson, Infantry Cassandra, Anti-Air Henry, Missiles Howard, Missiles Amarah, Bomber Matilda, Bomber Wallace, Bomber You might notice a surplus of bombers on this list. And you all KNOW how I feel about lots of bombers.  BH Soldier: S-sir! We’ve… we’ve received a troubling report! Fool! Nothing can trouble us. This ragged army poses no threat to my plans.BH Soldier: B-but, Lord Sturm… reports say that he’s with them. …What?BH Soldier: I don’t know how it’s possible. We had scouts all around the Black Hole territory… it’s like he just teleported in or something! Leave me! Get back to your post.BH Soldier: Yes, Lord Sturm… …… So, against all odds, you’ve come back. Hmph. You can think what you like about yourself, worm, but your presence does not guarantee victory. Not this time. I will crush you, Commander my dude. You shall bear witness to the end of your miserable world. Struggle all you may, but there is no changing the outcome. As Lash said, this fucker fires every 7 days. We do not want to be in the way of it when it does - it does 8 damage to every unit caught in its path.  Anyway, since nobody on this map thought to predeploy any drat units for the final battle, we'll have to start from scratch with some infantry. The beginning of this map is slow, but it speeds up very quickly. You'll see what I mean. Anyway, here we've got Ivan... "Dimitri's Mercenaries are all ready for ya, Sturm. You sure you want to fight us? We'll beat you, without even breaking a sweat." ...and Peter. "I finally understand. Battle is like poetry, and every one of us is part of the poem. Under my dude's command, we're a symphony of soldiers, ready to defeat you for good!"  Kanbei's turn next, and he deploys some infantries too. We all need more money if we're to hold Sturm's forces back. So, up next we have Lysander... "I don't like the idea of you destroying my home. Anything I can do to stop you, I'll do. Are you prepared to call my bluff?" ...and Talora. "It doesn't matter what happens to me in this battle. What matters is that I will give up everything if it means protecting my loved ones! So come on, Sturm! Give me everything you've got!"  Same for Green Earth. I promise more interesting things happen in a bit - we just need money first to do those interesting things. Here, we've got Mulligan... "This is your second chance, Sturm. But I'm sorry - we beat you last time, and we'll beat you again! No matter how many times you come back, we will always be here to stop you!" ...and Conrad. "Aw, man. Petra's watching this battle. I'm gonna give it my all to impress her - the new blood of Green Earth can't be stopped by the likes of you!"  Right. Sturm doesn't deploy anything super dangerous on his first turn - a couple of infantry, a tank, that sort of thing. His forces will be aiming to capture the two bases near Kanbei and Eagle, though. Worst part is, we can't defend them since they're right in Black Cannon range.  Whilst our blue boys get started on capturing, I deploy some more infantry. Colin needs more money than his peers - partially because he's going to deploy a lot of expensive poo poo, and partially because he's going to be the one doing the meteor-baiting this time around. Next we've got Elena... "Every shot I fire today will be aiming to kill. There is no mercy for one such as you." ...and Anton. "We've come so far. We won't give up at this last hurdle - there's so much more I want to do before I die!"  Kanbei does not deploy anything because of his more useful units (i.e. bombers) are insanely expensive. However, his infantry make a beeline for some nearby properties. There is a reason that Lysander's going towards the base to the east - we'll need it for deploying something later, and it has to be captured ASAP. I wouldn't say it's quite as RNG-dependent as Final Battle in AW1 was, but Final Front is definitely the kind of map where every minute counts. You can't slip up - Sturm punishes you hard if you do.  Eagle's troops are also off to capture stuff, and I deploy a third infantry to help out. It's Edelson. "I'm here to help! No matter what I have to do to help my country to victory, I'll do it. There's no backing down here!"  The stuff Sturm deployed last turn starts charging towards us, but it'll take a while to get down to us.  So! Day 3, and you might think that we've not got nearly enough money to deploy something fun. But as usual, Colin's lower-priced units come through for us.  Oh, yeah, a day 3 bomber, lads. It's Zlata! "I've come so far from where I started. I'm a proud member of Dimitri's Mercenaries, and I will teach you to fear our name!"  Everyone else is still capturing. Zlata's gonna be putting in some good work for us, though.  Lysander and Talora start capturing. We... seriously aren't going to be able to deploy very much as Kanbei, at least not for a while. Naturally, it'll be well worth it when we eventually do, especially since his units are so bulky.  More capturing. Eagle's money is pretty tight on these first few turns, and you'll see why next turn.  Sturm's already being an rear end in a top hat, meanwhile. This medium tank is going to cause problems for us.  On the other side, he's already got an infantry towards that base. See what I mean? There's absolutely no way to get there first and actually hold the line. Trust me, I tried.  But we already knew Sturm was a gently caress, so let's just keep on going with our plan.  Our infantry are done capturing, so I send them south for now. There's some more buildings down there, and I'd just like to have them out of the way of the fighting.  Let's get a bro copter! These will be our best investment for most of our COs - Sturm's tanks, even with their jacked-up attack and defence stats, still can't do reliable damage to copters. This is Diana. "Dimitri... the hate I held in my heart for you is gone. Now the only hate I have is pointed squarely at YOU, Sturm! Let me show you just how Blue Moon wages war!"  Zlata heads north, as far as she can go. She's on her way to the first of the Black Cannons, though she's not in its range yet.  Kanbei is, uh, still not doing much. Man needs his money - on the plus side, that base that we needed is captured. Not a moment too soon, either.  Anywya, Eagle's troops continue to capture. Mulligan's going for the base, since it might be useful later. But you'll also note that we've just barely got enough for a bomber - 22k exactly. So, let's do that, shall we?  Yeeeeeeees. Amarah shakes the hair out of her eyes and looks over the battlefield. "It's time to take to the air. With every Black Hole soldier I defeat, we get closer to earning our freedom!"  Unfortunately Amarah will not be doing much killing. She has another more important, but way less fun job.  Just in case you thought the left side was fine, it is not. That bomber is a massive loving issue, and it is exactly why we needed to capture that eastern base. Everything else, we can pretty much ignore though.  Sturm's middle units are finally closing in on Blue Moon's area, so we'll have to block them off at the bridges if we can. The bad news? The bridge on the right is directly in range of the Deathray. So, yeah. We won't be blocking that one.  Oh, boy, things are swiftly getting rather gently caress. This map doesn't give you much time to prepare at all; if you were expecting this to be a deal-with-opening-gambit-then-snowball, you're out of luck, I'm afraid. This is more of a desperately-hold-off-sturm-until-you-win kind of deal. Sturm's units are so strong that trying to snowball and get to him is possible, but not without losing units, and the 30-day time limit is also a Sword of Damocles hanging over the whole ordeal. We're going to have to sneak a unit up to take out the Deathray and just use the rest of our forces to buy as much time as possible. ...So, let's do it.  The infantry continue to head down - you can see the buildings there. Any extra money for Colin is a good thing right now.  And Diana, from the airport, is exactly in range to block off the bridge from that enemy tank. It's almost like this was the intended method.  The only thing better than one bro copter is two bro copters! ...Though, since they're both girls, are they even bro copters? Anyway, it's Alina. "The Snowbound Free Company always finishes our mission. And our mission, from the beginning of this campaign, was destroying you. So hold tight, Sturm... A storm is coming!"  Zlata continues heading up. Yes, I am aware she is directly in Black Cannon range. Trust me. Just trust me on this.  Everyone else is doing fine, at least. Sturm not having a proper opening gambit means that the early part of this map isn't very panic-inducing. It takes a few turns for the dangerous stuff, like his bomber on the left and medium tank on the right, to actually reach your forces. Honestly, it's strange how this map can be physically one of the largest in the game, and yet it feels the most restrictive in terms of your options. Intelligent Systems are either geniuses or idiots, and I can't tell.  So, that base we needed? It was to deploy an anti-air on! And it's Vanessa. "You know, Sturm, I like you." Vanessa says, an eerie smirk crossing her face. "I mean, it takes incredible bravery to go up against the three greatest strategists in the world... or incredible foolishness! Let's see what you're made of!"  Talora isn't going to be capturing something this turn - she'll be heading down so she can get to this missile silo next turn. It should help turn the tables on Captain Deathray over here.  Everyone else is staying where they are for now, though Lysander will be heading south next to help capture those last few properties.  On Eagle's side, Conrad is doing the same thing. I mean, they're giving us the missiles, we can't not use them, right? It's be rude not to.  Amarah, meanwhile, will occupy this exact position. And yes, I am aware that she's in range of the Black Cannon. Since Colin's bombers are cheaper than Eagle's, she'll be taking the hit, thereby keeping Zlata safe. It's the same concept we used back in Hot Pursuit, but even more spicy this time.  Eagle is all out of money now, though, so we'll be taking it easy on the deploying front for a bit. Just keep capturing stuff, Mulligan. It'll work out.  And as predicted...  Amarah takes the hit. "Hit confirmed!" Amarah shouts. "That means you're free to move ahead, Zlata, quickly!" "Thanks, Amarah! I'm going forward now - that cannon will be dust soon!"  But hey, bad news - the medium tank's arrived, and this infantry is going to be capturing that base. I'd rather not have these two hanging around, so our next plan is to figure out how a single bomber on 5HP can hold off these two losers.  Things are going decently, though. Zlata's almost at the cannon, for starters.  Yeah, there we go! She's definitely going to eat the hit next turn, but even on 5HP she'll have more than enough firepower to finish it off, so that's a win in my book.  Diana's just hanging around for a bit, just in case Kanbei needs help, so it's up to Alina to attack the tank. It's not clever enough to move around to go across the other bridge, so it's pretty much a non-issue.  But that's not what Colin's here for! Deploy more fodder for Meteor Strike, more! "You've got me all riled up now, Sturm! Hit me with your worst, because I promise, if you hesitate, we'll destroy you!" Boris yells, punching the air.  OK, now Blue Moon is done. Let's move on to the rather more dicey Kanbei and Eagle situations, shall we?  First we're going to be helping out Eagle a bit. "Hang in there, Green Earth. We're here to help." Talora says, preparing the missile to fire.  And it's a direct hit on these two!  Also, Kanbei's finally got the loving money for a bomber, so let's deploy Peregrine. She'll be crucial to our battle today. "Man, I feel like I could break the sound barrier today!" Peregrine shouts. "Sturm, you loving bastard, let me show you just how powerful I am! You can't stop what I've got planned!"  Everyone else, however, waits. I didn't deploy Vanessa to target the bomber - she's simply a deterrent. Bombers might strong, but an Kanbei anti-air on a base is going to tank a bomber without any trouble - and because of that, the bomber isn't even going to attack her.  Anyway, let's help out Eagle even more. Conrad fires the second silo at the same targets.  Yeah, these two. This might seem like a waste of two missiles, but a 4HP infantry is going to take 5 days to capture that base instead of the usual 2, which prevents Sturm from being too aggressive with Eagle, and a 4HP medium tank can die to Amarah (about 10% of the time, anyway).  The other lads just capture some stuff.  Come on, RNG, don't fail me now! If you leave this thing on 1HP I swear to god...  "Threat neutralised!" Amarah says. "Gosh, it's so nice up here. We must protect this view... How's everyone doing?" "Just peachy. Let's keep it up!" Mulligan replies.  Sturm's turn, and Zlata takes a direct hit to the face. She'll be fine, though.  Sturm's bomber makes the incredibly baffling move of moving into Vanessa's range but not attacking her. I am not going to complain.  Also, forget what I said about Sturm not being too aggressive with Eagle. Fuckin' Neotank is on the way now.  We're doing alright, though. I'm almost ready to make a move on the second Black Cannon.  The Blue Moon folks begin to congregate down here - Peter and Anton on the right, however, don't just yet. It's day 7, and if they move across they'll be right in the range of the Deathray.  Alina's not in Deathrange (see what I did there?) so she can just keep attacking this tank.  Diana hops over to killsteal like a bitch. Well, OK, the tank would have retreated if we didn't finish it on this turn, so it's a good job she got the kill.  "Here it comes, Sturm! This is only the beginning!" yells Zlata, preparing to fire.  BOOM! Wonderful job, Zlata. One down, one to go.  Anyway, nobody's in range of the Deathray, we got a cannon down and our meteor fodder is slowly growing. This was a good turn.  Let's keep the good luck rolling with Kanbei as Vanessa attacks this bomber. This is a crucial move - bringing it down to <2HP activates the AI's flight mode, making it value retreating over attacking. It'll take the bomber like 3 turns to get back to the airport, and a further 4 turns to heal up to full HP again. That means that for 4 turns, Sturm can't deploy anything from that airport, and the bomber won't be a threat to us for at minimum 7 turns. That's a pretty good result for just one attack from an anti-air.  Speaking of good results, we can land a devastating blow on this anti-air, too - Kanbei bombers do not give a poo poo about anti-air units, but we need it out of the way so we can move towards the second Black Cannon. Peregrine's got an important job ahead of her, and I do not want some anti-air or missile units loving it all up.  Sturm does have a shitload of units over this side, though. Dealing with it is not going to be easy, especially with how little money Kanbei's got.  Anyway, over on Eagle's side, we've got to try and prevent anything dangerous from getting past this base; the base makes a nice 2-space chokepoint for, say, two bombers. And since this infantry isn't doing anything threatening, Amarah decides to let him live.  And we'll get a second bomber for the choking of the point. It's Matilda! "I stand by my companions and my convictions. People like you must not be allowed to exist in this world, Sturm. We shall rid our land of your evil influence!"  Mulligan's capturing another base down there. He's not got much else to do, really.  Anyway, like I said, day 7. Sturm's got something to show us.  The Deathray charges up power...  BWOOOOOOOOOOO Ruin would have made a better sound effect, I bet.  Exactly like I was hoping, the anti-air and bomber, the most dangerous units here right now, retreat like their lives depend on it (and to be fair, they do). So all in all, this turn wasn't so bad. It'll get worse soon enough, though.  Colin's only real job now is to put money into baiting out Meteor Strike, and helping out Eagle and Kanbei. So first we're going to get Zlata and-  -what the gently caress is that. Oh, god, a fighter jet?! It's going to ruin Eagle's bomber chokepoint! gently caress gently caress gently caress. So, yeah, this guy. I don't know if it's because of the units I've produced, but Sturm always seems to produce a fighter on day 7 - he can either deploy it her, or in one of the airports near the Deathray. And... as bad as this looks? We want it over here, because if it comes down from the top, it'll run right into Peregrine whilst she's destroying the other Black Cannon and wreck her poo poo. At least if it kills anything over this side, it doesn't ruin my chances of beating the map. Though, obviously, we would much rather it not kill anything at all...  Another bomber, Klara, for the meteor bait. "I... I'm feeling pretty enraged right now!" Klara yells, her berserk tendencies taking over. "Come on, Sturm! Hit us with everything you've got, and watch us take it like it's nothing! You know why that'll happen?! Because YOU'RE NOTHING!"  Anyway, right, Zlata needs to get the gently caress out of there before that fighter finds her.  Everyone else is doing alright, but man, that fighter is going to be a problem. And I didn't deploy any fighters of my own to counter it.  Things on this side are going well, though. The enemies have moved in such a way that Peregrine can occupy this spot - which looks like it's in cannon range, but it's just barely outside it. She can sneak through and take out the cannon now!  Vanessa just starts cleaning up the mooks. She's done her job. "Hey, Perry!" she says through the transceiver. "You moving ahead?" "Yeah, I'm en route to the cannon. Your orders?" "You already know my orders." grins Vanessa. "Peregrine... fly a lot, and kill everything!" "Your wish is my loving command!" yells Peregrine, speeding up her bomber and blasting through the air, right over Sturm's army.  Anyway, isn't it about time that Yellow Comet's finest hit the scene? Come on, Rose, the goons have been waiting for you. "I was hardly going to miss the greatest battle of my career, Commander my dude. It's an honour to see your tactics at work once again - with you, I am confident that Sturm has no hope of victory." Rose says, taking flight and preparing for combat. "Sturm, your days are numbered. We are not just a powerful force - with our COs, ACOs and soldiers combined, united under one banner against a despicable foe, we are an invincible legion. Challenging us was folly, but it was the choice you made... so allow me to show you just how miserable of a mistake it was to face me!"  These guys are still helping, too. Come on, capture some more stuff and give Kanbei more funds already. He needs them, poor guy. Nobody should have to save for two turns to afford one bro copter.  That was a fun turn. Let's keep it up, everyone! And uh, just ignore those tanks up there, Vanessa. They're definitely not going to murder you next turn. Promise.  On Eagle's side, however, the 'oh gently caress' alarm has been ringing for the last five minutes straight, so we're deploying missiles to try and take out that fighter. First up, we've got Henry. "Heheh! Sturm, for once in my life, I'm not in a joking mood - the only joke here is that you think you can defeat us when we're all working together!"  And the loving Neotank's shown up, too. Come on, Sturm, this is a dick move, even for you.  "Gaah! Rose, are you absolutely certain that my dude knows what he's doing?!" says Vanessa, wincing as her anti-air is rocked by a tank blast. "He may not look it, but he's a tactician on par... or perhaps better, than me. His style is just a little more haphazard than my exact planning and focus on minute details." "You don't say..." sighs Vanessa, eyeing the encroaching army with a pit of fear in her stomach.  The fighter jet's here and so is the Neotank. And if I kill the Neotank with the bombers, they'll be in range of the fighter. God, I hate fighters. loving 9 movement pieces of poo poo...  OK, how am I supposed to even deal with all of this.  One step at a time, I guess. Right, Alina and Diana are going to back up Kanbei since one anti-air, even a Kanbei anti-air, is not going to survive a medium tank to the face. Diana gets a good hit on the enemy bro copter.  Alina can't quite get a kill, but eh, the copter's basically a non-issue now. We'll finish it off later.  Another bomber for the pile! More funds, more baiting! Olga lets out a long breath. "My final battle... I'll do what I can. I've fought long and hard to get here, and I never lose. Never, ever!"  Speaking of, we still haven't seen Meteor Strike. I'm surprised. Then again, I suppose we haven't killed very much stuff, we just weakened a bunch of things.  Anyway, our little copter placement also provides the perfect place for Vanessa to retreat to. If she installs herself here...  The tanks can't get to her. I mean, we really need to finish them off, but that's gonna take a few turns. They're bulky as hell and our bomber is currently occupied doing something else.  More Kanbei copters sounds like a plan, though. Andromeda, come on out! "I will... not lose, fail, lose! Not today. We fight for safety, freedom! We fight to win... for our friends!" "Well said, Andromeda." Rose replies, giving her friend a determined smile. "There's nobody else I'd rather have flying alongside me - let us go, together."  Well, things aren't looking quite so dire over here. That medium tank is going to annoy the poo poo out of me, though. I can already tell.  On Eagle's side, I continue to deploy a bunch of random plane-killing poo poo to take out that fighter. This is Cassandra loving Morgenstern! "Your aims are lofty, and that's to be admired. But I'll be the one to bring you down to earth, Sturm!" Cassandra shouts. "All the countries have united, and we fight together, because it is our duty to destroy evil!"  I'm putting the folks in a defensive formation like so - they're not in fighter range, and the Neotank can't target Henry, so this should be good. Hopefully. I'm a tad nervous, won't lie.  On the negative side, this is a one-shot. On the plus side, it was Mulligan. "I'm off out of here! Can't let Howard be all alone now, can I?" Mulligan says as the Neotank's shots rip through the undergrowth around him. "Yep, this is definitely the time to back out. Best of luck to the rest of you!" "How does he do that?" murmurs Henry. "He just... dodged the bullets?" "Best not to ask." replies Amarah, shrugging. "We've got bigger things to worry about right now, like that fighter headed our way!" Annoyingly enough, the goddamn fighter isn't approaching as quickly now that we have missiles. gently caress you, fighter jet.  Sturm's tanks harass Colin's planes a bit, but it's not major damage. We have survived another turn! ...Barely. God knows what I'm gonna do about that fighter jet.  Y'know what? That's something that future my dude can worry about. I'll see you all next week for the thrilling not-quite-conclusion! And hey, if you haven't voted for your favourite characters in Let's Play Advance Wars: Their Finest Hour yet, go do that before votes close next week! Link is here or on the contents page if you need it. *** Part 47 Additional cosmicPostman fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Feb 19, 2021 |
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Feb 19, 2021 16:16
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y'know, I think the most depressing thing about the fact that we have a YC/GE/BM comp here is that OS isn't going to get any final battle deployment lines, since they're off fighting Flak and Adder. Ah well, Sturm's reaction to my dude being present made up for it. Then again Rose did basically become the main character of the 2nd half of the game, and she is here....
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Feb 20, 2021 02:52
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Interview 48 - “Slightly More Desperate Than I Was Intending” Day 10 of Final Front. Who has two thumbs and is ready to finish Sturm off? That's right, this guy. Plus if I delay any longer I'm going to get overrun. We need to keep Sturm off our backs for as long as possible, so let's get to it.  First we need to deploy more expensive bullshit to keep Meteor Strike off our back and onto Colin's back specifically. He can handle it. So, here's Valentin. "Whatever I need to do to defeat you, I'll do it. This army never gives up, and I'll never give up on them! Give us your worst!"  This Neotank almost murdered  The copter girls over this way, Diana and Alina, are helping Kanbei out by attacking this tank. First Diana lands a solid hit...  And Alina follows up with a bit of chip damage. God, everything Sturm has is so loving tanky. Hate it.  Our meteor bait is looking pretty good though, so hey, Colin's doing alright by my standards. Kanbei, you're up.  Obviously, these tanks are massive loving problems for anything that isn't a copter, like, say, Vanessa over there. Rose comes in to harass the medium tank and protect her friend. "There's no way we're going to pull ahead like this." Vanessa says to her, eyeing the battlefield. "What's the strategy, Rose?" "You haven't figured it out yourself?" "Well, logically, a small strike team or a bomber should break out and go for the big fuckoff laser over there, but there's no way that anyone could get over there before we get overrun down here. If my dude is as focussed on no casualties as you say... well, you can't have it both ways, basically!" "Ah," Rose says, winking. "But Vanessa... you underestimate Peregrine's speed."  More copters! Their defensive values against tanks are pretty useful in this map. To be fair, Kanbei's defensive values in general are pretty useful. This is Minerva. "You will never understand what real fighting is, Sturm. Your motivation is ruling the world? Pathetic. My motivation runs far deeper - for Kanbei, I would do anything. For this country, I will gladly lay down my life. Now lie still - this will only take a second!"  Peregrine's off, meanwhile; she's successfully snuck through the army and is on her way to the cannon.  Andromeda is on hand in case anything goes for Vanessa, who's gone back to the base for big defensive bonuses, and also healing.  Right, Eagle time. We've got two bombers and an enemy Neotank, so let's see what happens when the two of them collide. Matilda unleashes all her firepower and, since she's the only bomber who is still on max HP, does actual damage and kills it. Since that's the case, we don't need Amarah and we can retreat her south, away from that loving fighter jet that's hanging around here.  ...Hm. Looking at this, the fighter could sneak in and kill a bomber without getting into Henry's missile range. We absolutely cannot allow that.  The solution is more missiles. Howard, let's go! "I'm only here because Mulligan would have my hide if I missed the final battle of our campaign. I do have good reason to be here, though... you've threatened both my home of Orange Star, and my new home of Green Earth, and I will no longer allow you to threaten anything I care about!"  Two missiles and Cassandra. Wherever this fighter goes, it is hosed. ...Though it looks like we're going to lose a bomber. Sturm's turn next. Here we go.  Zlata's eyes widen as the fighter screams towards her, unleashing a volley of torpedoes aimed squarely at her already-damaged bomber. "No, no, no... this can't be!" "poo poo- Zlata!" Amarah says, turning desperately. "Don't break formation! You'll end up getting yourself killed!" Howard yells. Amarah gasps. "Howard?! How can I not help out when Zlata's about to... about to..." "I know it looks dire." Howard says, watching the missiles fly towards the bomber. "But my dude never allows his soldiers to fall. He... he must have a plan... right?" Suddenly, Zlata's transceiver crackles to life and they hear her sobbed last words as the sounds of explosions rock the bomber. "A-aah! D-Dimitri's Mercenaries, do you copy?" "We're here. Zlata, I..." Diana says. "No, it's OK. Just tell Dimitri-" A mighty explosion strikes the bomber dead-on, and it begins to fall out of the sky as Zlata screams. However, there's a shift in the air behind her, and a white-haired woman in a police uniform is running towards her, her hand outstretched. "Take my hand if you want to live!" Ruin yells. In desperation, Zlata grabs the woman's hand and watches as she pulls out a playing card and flicks it, taking herself and Zlata out of the universe just as her bomber strikes the ground in a furious explosion. The rest of the army is silent for a few moments. "...Did you hear that?" Vanessa says. "Yeah. Who was that?" Howard asks. "I knew it." Rose says, giving a soft smile. "Well... for once, I didn't expect that. But I knew my dude wouldn't put anyone in danger unnecessarily. He knew that was going to happen. He'd planned it." You're god drat right I did. Or... I guess I have the goons to thank for saving Zlata's life. And Ruin. You guys really pulled through when I needed you. So, that stressful nightmare is out of the way... let's get on with the map, shall we?  The rest of Sturm's dipshits are determined to kill at least one of my units permanently, but this tank doesn't do much to Vanessa on the base.  This medium tank, though, goes for Alina, who is already immensely weakened. Even a 3HP copter can take a Sturm medium tank, but it is not nice to watch. We've got to get the Blue Moon copters out of there - Kanbei's bro copters can handle the situation much better.  Whew. No more loving around now.  I lied. There's going to be lots of loving around. Firstly we deploy Gavril for bait purposes. "You've crafted some of the finest weapons I've ever seen. The Black Cannons... the Deathray... I'd love to study them." Gavril says. "But I cannot condone the way these weapons have been used, to inspire terror and fear! War is purveyed to protect, not destroy, and I will prove that today!"  Over here, since Diana still has a decent amount of HP, I made her continue stabbing nearby tanks. Then I have a genius idea.  Yeees. That should buy them some time. "Hope you don't mind us coming along for the ride!" Alina says, winking. Diana shakes her head. "The Snowbound Free Company's been a great boon throughout this campaign. Let's finish it together, Alina." "With you all the way!"  And we end our turn. Colin really isn't doing much in the latter part of the map, honestly, besides meteor baiting. It's Kanbei and Eagle doing the more important stuff.  So let's start actually killing some of these god drat tanks, shall we? I'm sick of them. Vanessa manages to finish one off despite being an anti-air, because Vanessa doesn't give a gently caress about things like "match-ups" and "units being alive".  Then we can slowly wear down this- holy gently caress, is that a Neotank up there? Come on, Sturm, I've barely managed to kill your tank, let alone your medium tank. What the hell are you doing, deploying a Neotank on top of that? This is why everyone secretly thinks you're an rear end in a top hat. I'm lying again. Everyone openly thinks you're an rear end in a top hat.  Either way, Andromeda did some decent damage. Rose can't get to the medium tank, but she can at least weaken this infantry. Next we need to move Peregrine.  ...But very carefully. Sturm deploys a bunch of anti-air stuff to try and stop you just cheesing this map with a single bomber, but his anti-air units will head south if they don't run into anything, so it's pretty easy for either Kanbei or Eagle bombers to just sneak past them like this.  Well, this is looking... decent. The copters should be able to handle the Neotank, but that strategy is going to be ruined the minute that the anti-air on the base is healed up. He'll shred my defences given half the chance.  First, Henry targets this dickhead... "Hey, one of my family members is coming to visit me soon!" he says, beaming. "Oh, really?" asks Amarah. "Yup," Henry replies, firing on the fighter with everything he's got. "You may have heard of her - Auntie Air!"  "Oh, very droll." Howard says, chuckling. "Allow me to finish this thing off." And with another shot from Howard, it's down. Thank loving god for that. I hate fighters.  So now our bombers can fly around unopposed once more, and I'm in the mood to kill some stuff. I need to let off some steam, so Matilda absolutely crushes this loving infantry.  Also I would like more bombers that have more than 5HP. Come on, Wallace. "You took my boy." Wallace growls. "You. Took. My. Boy."  The rockets and artillery aren't super threatening since Eagle mostly has bombers, but still, if I can keep them trapped then I'll feel better. Sturm's turn, anyway, let's see what he does.  loving finally. I was wondering if he'd just forgotten he had Meteor Strike.  And, thanks to my prep...  It goes exactly where we want it to. "Oh, hell, is that-" gasps Ivan. "Oh, god, not again." Boris says. "Brace for impact, everyone!"  BOOM! Good job, guys, you absolutely nailed it. I feel slightly bad for dropping meteors on you. Slightly.  Of course, the other big problem is all of Sturm's units getting a massive attack and defence boost. This is going to be a rough turn, and Alina/Diana are struck first, by the goddamn Neotank of all things.  And the medium tank?! Come on, that's not even fair.  Thankfully, that's all that really happens. Still, Sturm's units are going to be reeeeeaaaally hard to damage this turn, which is not going to help. Let's see what we can do about that.  First up, more stuff to protect Blue Moon's HQ. Dimitri! "Soldiers! Status report." "The meteor just hit, and we're all wounded but alive." Boris reports. Dimitri nods. "And Zlata?" "She's alive. I heard from HQ that she just showed up in the medbay, like she'd been teleported there. No idea how, and I don't think she knows either. But she's alive." Ivan says. "Good." Dimitri says. "Alright, you big masked bastard. You almost had us on the ropes there, but you made one fatal mistake. You pissed me off. I'm gonna snap your soldiers like twigs given half the chance, and if you think there's any hope of you winning this battle, think again! Dimitri Volkov is ready for action, and his troops are the best around!" "Sir, yes sir!" yell the proud members of Dimitri's Mercenaries.  Everyone who was part of that whole meteor thing has joined/healed up, so hopefully they recover most of their HP by the time Sturm's units get down here. They'll be knocking on our doorstep soon enough.  Meanwhile, we have a full HP, Sturm-powered Neotank hanging around, and Vanessa is tanky but not that tanky. The copters form a defensive circle around her, which should hopefully buy us some time, but this is... not looking good. Let's deploy backup.  Kyril is here to help! "I'll never stop fighting to protect my people. Never, ever! So no matter wh-what stands in my way today, I'll crush it. That's what being in the Yellow Comet Army is all about!" Plus, we've got even more good news on Kanbei's end.  "I'm in position A!" Peregrine yells. Rose and Vanessa look at each other, and nod. "Alright, Perry. Let 'er loose!" says Vanessa.  A titanic explosion ensues from the north of the Yellow Comet Army as the Black Cannon crumbles into pieces, each monolithic part of it landing on the ground with an almighty crash, shattering and breaking until all that is left is rubble - and a gold-coloured bomber, flying triumphantly around it. "Woooooohoooooo!" Peregrine yells, punching the air. "Well done, Peregrine!" Rose says. "Now get to position B as soon as you can - we need to finish this battle as soon as possible!" "Right on, Rose. There isn't a faster pilot in all the world, so hang on as long as you can!"  OK, this is going well. Both cannons down, and we are kind of being overrun, but like, not too much? Eh. We'll see how this goes. We're so close to pulling it off, though...  So now we need to deal with Eagle's side. There's a whole lot going on here, so first up we have Cassandra bullying this artillery. And yes, I know there's a medium tank right next to her that could absolutely crush her. In my head I was thinking "yeah, it's fine, I have bombers around to take out that medium tank"  ...Forgetting, of course, just how loving bulky post-CO Power Sturm units on a base can be.  So yeah, even combined, Amarah and Matilda can barely get enough damage to scratch this thing, and it'll heal 2 of that HP back next turn. "Cassandra, you need to get out of there!" Howard calls. "If Mulligan-" "I know, I know..." Cassandra says. "Mulligan would be furious if I risked my life like this. But this is the final battle, Howard. If we don't give it our all... we may not win. I'm determined to success." "Cassandra..." murmurs Howard.  Anyway, things on Eagle's side aren't too badoh for gently caress's sake is that another fighter jet  I hate fighters. Right, we're gonna have to figure something out - I think I've got a plan. It's risky, but...  Sturm's units, meanwhile, have located the weak link in my defensive line - the Colin copters. Alina/Diana take another brutal hit from the Neotank, but they're still standing.  They've also finally broken through the middle and are now approaching the Blue Moon HQ. We're about to have a lot of company very soon, and Gavril takes the first attack from this enemy tank whilst he's healing.  The medium tank charges at Alina/Diana, already on 2HP, to finish the job. "Oh, it's all over. I never got to..." murmured Alina, but the tank fires before she can speak.  There's an explosion, and Alina looks up to see Diana's copter ahead of her, taking the hit on her behalf. Diana's copter is just barely holding on, but she grits her teeth and gives a grin of sheer bloodlust. "You almost got us there," she growls. "But I'm a member of Dimitri's Mercenaries, and we do not go down easily. You'll have to shoot me another five or six hundred times if you want me to die for good!" "Diana, don't do anythin' rash." Dimitri warns over the transceiver. "Yes, sir. Permission to retreat with Alina?" "Granted. Get back here safe - I need my second-in-command with me." Dimitri replies. Diana nods. "Alright, Alina, we've given everything we had. Let's get back!" "R-right!"  The medium tank, healed up, turns to Cassandra and opens fire mercilessly, tearing through her thin defences. "Gaah!" "Cassandra!" gasps Matilda, looking down at the ground, but she sees Cassandra holding on. "Oh, thank heavens..." Cassandra is whispering a mantra to herself. "We must hold the line. We must hold the line. We must hold the line..."  God, this is getting closer and closer. If I leave it any longer, someone's going to actually die. Just gotta hold it together for a little bit more. You can do this, my dude. Stay on task.  Dimitri can open proceedings against this tank - it's nice to have a Neotank on hand for stuff like this. He can't kill it, but I've given up on the idea of actually killing a Sturm unit at this point. Weakening them is about the best I can do.  Everyone else retreats and/or heals, but up above, the army is nipping at our heels. This is going to be close. You should also be able to spot Alina/Diana just under the menu - they've retreated back to safety.  The anti-air has finally healed up and moved down towards us, which is why I deployed Kyril in the first place. He can completely neuter it in a single attack - just shy of a kill - and thus I no longer have to worry. Phew, my copters are safe once more.  ...Relatively safe, anyway. Minerva makes a start on the Neotank.  Rose follows up on the medium tank...  And Andromeda attacks the Neotank again. We're barely scratching them, but damage is damage and we need all the damage we can get right now.  Peregrine is on track for the Deathray - which is good, because it fires again next turn. I'd like it to be gone by then.  ...Unfortunately, Alina/Diana needing to retreat means that one part of our Vanessa protection group is now gone - Vanessa's vulnerable again. Let's hope she can take a few more hits.  Now we've got three bombers hanging around on Eagle's side, though, we should be able to pull through. First up, Amarah weakens this artillery - it's important that we don't weaken it too much, and you will see why.  Wallace can actually damage the medium tank now that Sturm's CO Power isn't affecting it, so he slices through half its HP without even trying.  And finally that lets Matilda finish it off. Cassandra is safe once more!  She pokes the rockets to celebrate.  What's the plan for that fighter, you ask? Easy. Since the artillery isn't weakened enough to retreat, it's just going to sit there. The rockets will do the same. And if they don't move out of the way, the fighter can't shoot down my bombers. Once more, one of our enemy's own units is the key to holding off the rest of the army.  This is, uh I have this completely under control, I swear  Also I forgot that rockets have such a huge range, but it's OK, Howard survives. Barely.  "Gah, loving drat..." Howard gasps. "OK, OK, don't get stressed... everyone's still alive. Hold it together, Howard..." "Howard, are you alright?!" says Cassandra, but Howard barks at her. "I'm fine! Don't break that defensive line on my account! We're almost done here!" "Right. Yes, that takes priority. We're almost done..."  The Neotank goes immediately for Vanessa... "I'm Vanessa Kita Farid! You think you're going to hold me back with a mere Neotank?!" Vanessa yells as she takes the hit. "Absolutely not. Hit me with something harder next time!" "drat, Van really doesn't hold back." Peregrine says, grinning. "Good to see that her temper is still as under control as ever!" "She's getting there." Rose replies with a smirk. "Now come, let us focus. Every second counts." "Right! I'm going maximum speed, Rose, just hold out a bit longer!"  Day 14. The laser's gonna fire again unless we do something about it. So hey. Let's do something about it. "The HQ's under attack!" yells Valentin. Dimitri turns around, his eyes blazing with a fury that the Blue Moon veterans have seen before, on very rare occasion. The white-hot fury of a man who will not be stopped. "Zlata." he says. "Dimitri's Mercenaries! Snowbound Free Company! Other members of Blue Moon! We must defend that HQ at all costs! Do not hold back and do not show mercy, but mow down everything in your way! CHAAAAARGE!"  Boris charges ahead and lands a heavy blow on the infantry capturing the HQ - which is good, since it slows him down a lot.  Dimitri goes absolutely ballistic and just crushes the nearest target, powderising this poor anti-air.  Even the weakened units contribute. It's the last turn, we may as well get all the damage that we can!  Good job, everyone. This should be enough to hold the line.  And gently caress this bomber especially. Only I'm allowed to abuse bombers, Sturm!  Kanbei's turn.  Even with the combined efforts of Kyril...  Rose...  And Vanessa, I still can't quite finish off this Neotank. I was hoping for a satisfying kill, but ah well, we weakened it a whole lot.  The medium tank also needs bullying, so I put Minerva and Andromeda on that.  Kanbei copters, I have underrated you. You're pretty amazing when there's absolutely no anti-airs around.  "Perry, how are we looking?" Vanessa asks. "It's dead ahead. I'm ready!" "And not a moment too soon. My dude and I planned this to perfection." Rose replies, nodding. "Alright, Peregrine. Finish it." "Alright, but we gotta get the troops' morale up first. Open the transceiver communications for every army!" Peregrine says. "Even Black Hole?" "Especially Black Hole."   "Listen up, and listen well, Sturm! You and your COs have made a loving mess of this world, abusing your powers to build factories and bases across every country, deploying as much poo poo as you thought you needed to stop us! But you forgot one crucial thing. The soldiers of Wars World value our home more than you could possibly know. Your soldiers have no will of their own - you don't care what they want to do. They just execute your will, that desire for world domination!" Peregrine yells as every soldier listens. "But we're in sync with our commanders, because we want the exact same thing - to free our world of your tyranny! Every soldier here would happily lay down their loving lives if it meant defeating you - would your soldiers be willing to do the same for you? Would your COs be willing to die for your cause? I don't think so!" "She's drat right." Dimitri says, nodding. "Absolutely." Cassandra says. "We'd do whatever it takes to earn our freedom."  "And you genuinely thought that you'd be able to beat us? Divide and conquer? Absolutely not! When we work together, we're absolutely unstoppable - we're all from different countries, but our hearts still beat in the same rhythm, and it's a rhythm you'll never understand, you cloak-wearing prick! The worst part is, I don't even know why I'm telling you this. People like you will never change, because you never adapt. It takes people like us to make change - tacticians like my dude and Rose to make change!!! So take this! One final message from all of us, delivered by me, Peregrine Siddeley Lockheed!"  One last BOOM. The Deathray is down: the battle is won. You're done, Sturm. Once more, you've lost to Commander my dude of the Orange Star Army and the combined forces of Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet and Green Earth. Phew... my work here is done. Now it's up to them.  The enemy’s weakening! Attack the platform, and halt that launch! Nell! You won your battle, too? Of course, my dude. But we won't have properly won until we're destroyed the missile platform! Ye-Yes, ma’am! Quickly! Let’s hit the platform! We will do our duty. Soldiers! Attack!!! The moment of victory is at hand. The platform must fall! Hit it now!!! Lord Sturm! The missile platform… It won’t hold! How... did I lose to him again..? No. No matter. The missile must be launched. It’s impossible… Eeeeek! Carter: The missile launch platform is completely inoperable. YES!! I have come so far… You’re next on this list, Sturm! …only to be stopped by you again. Commander my dude… Why must you always stand in my way? I will not let it end here. I will sacrifice my own flesh, and all of you… …will join me in death!!! Whoa! Hold it! What’re you planning? A self-destruct device? Possum spit! Maxie! Back off! You jerk! Andy! You think for one second that we’re going to let you get away with this!? This… This worm… I…am…not…a…WORM!!! I’m Andy! I’m a CO in the Orange Star Army!!! No! Andy! Run away! Dammit… Ruin already used her power... Dip- Andy! Get out of there! Andy! Everyone! Get back! Chance is a fickle thing. You never know when it will come your way. Who? Hawke? Sturm…I think it’s time for you to go! Black Storm!!! Gaaaaaah!!!! Hawke…you trai...tor… Good riddance. But why? Why would you… …… Lord…Sturm… Hawke, what have you done? As of now, I am the commander-in-chief of the Black Hole Army. If you have anything to say, come forward, or hold your peace. …… What’s all this about? Weren’t you in league with Sturm? I wanted to test my power. To see how strong I could become. I’m interested in nothing save myself. That was my purpose. Nothing more. In any case, you saved us all. Does that eliminate his sins? I won’t forget what you did to Green Earth! Hah… I didn’t ask you to. I’m through with all of you. I’m satisfied with your performances. What? How about his… We continue this fight until I’m satisfied! I swear to loving god, Eagle, why do you always want to have a bonus fight after beating ostensibly the final battle? Eagle! That’s enough! Our troops are on the brink of collapse. There’s nothing to be gained by fighting any longer. I may be out of line, sir… But I believe he’s correct. …… The Black Hole Army is in ruins. They’re no match for you now. I’ll take them and withdraw. Hawke! I’m with you all the way! Me, too! This looks like it could be fun! I… I follow the strong. Then prepare your troops. We’re leaving this place. Hold it, Hawke! What you’ve done to Macro Land is unforgivable! But… You saved me… You saved all of us. Thanks. Hah… Though the Black Hole Army’s gone, you would do well to remember me. Until next time! He had his say and left… I wonder if he’ll attack again someday. It’s hard to say. If he does, though, we’ll just have to drive him back. We’ll have to spend some time preparing if we’re going to do that. I am not going to lead the charge for a third time. We must help heal the battle-ravaged soil of Macro Land as well. All of that can wait! We won! …Well, we did, didn’t we? Yes, we did. Well, let’s celebrate! It’s party time! Paaaarty! Figures. We barely escape death, and he wants cake and ice cream. For once, I’m with Dipshit. A party sounds like a fun idea. PARTY!!! Well, it's not a perfect score, but everyone's alive, and that's what matters. We actually pulled it off. And with that... I guess the campaign is over.  Agreed, Colin. Now let's have ourselves a party, shall we? We beat Advance Wars 2! That warrants a celebration as far as I'm concerned.  So... this isn't quite the end. We're gonna have a little celebratory week now that it's all over, so here's the schedule: From now until Sunday, I'll be running an QnA. I don't know if you'll have any questions, but if you wanna know about behind the scenes stuff, any other details, my thoughts on the game or whatever else, now is the time to ask. I'll check in as often as I can to answer questions. On Wednesday, I'll be revealing the results of Their Finest Hour, where we'll find out the top 10 most popular characters from each country. As of today, voting is closed, so hope you got your votes in! And finally, next Friday we'll have the actual final update, which is going to be the credits. No credits video this time, we'll have to make do with credits screenshots, but I hope you're looking forward to it nonetheless. It's been a pleasure, everyone. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a party to get to. *** Part 48 Additional
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Feb 26, 2021 10:57
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While I remember this battle being somewhat more stressful due to the time limit, I always have AW1's final battle burned into my head. I cannot for the life of me remember how I managed to beat this one myself, although I know it involved way more unit loss. Good goddamn battle, all the same.
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Feb 26, 2021 12:13
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cosmicPostman posted:
Congratulation on getting this done 
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Feb 26, 2021 13:01
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Rorac posted:While I remember this battle being somewhat more stressful due to the time limit, I always have AW1's final battle burned into my head. I cannot for the life of me remember how I managed to beat this one myself, although I know it involved way more unit loss. Good goddamn battle, all the same. Same here, honestly. I think Final Battle is harder than Final Front (especially for my ruleset), and it was definitely more satisfying to beat. Still, Final Front is a cool map to end the game on. Very stressful to actually beat though. Carpator Diei posted:Ah, my favourite moment in all the Advance Wars games: The part where Hawke lobs his CO power at Sturm's face like a goddamn Hadouken. I was very amused by this, I love the idea that COs can just use their CO Powers on humans like goddamn magic or something.
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Feb 26, 2021 13:10
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I am utterly fascinated by the idea that Hawke actually can just summon a wave of...black something that, if Sturm's fate is any indication, can literally kill people. You thought it was just a gameplay mechanic, but nope, he used it in a cutscene. I wonder how the hell that works. Great job beating the game with so few deaths! Since you're opening the floor to questions I might as well ask a few. How did you like the game? Favourite CO to use? Favourite CO character wise? Favourite CO music? Reaction to the Hawke betrayal twist? I expect you'll most likely be taking a lengthy break from this genre to avoid burnout but I hope to see you return for AWDS (my favourite in the series) somewhere down the line.
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Feb 26, 2021 13:18
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cosmicPostman posted:I was very amused by this, I love the idea that COs can just use their CO Powers on humans like goddamn magic or something. Grit using Super Snipe to throw his burger wrapping into the bin on the other side of the room without having to get off the couch. Adder constantly shouting "Sidewinder" and walking slightly faster because he thinks it makes him look cool.
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Feb 26, 2021 13:22
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Great job cosmic, excellent work on the final battle! Here are my questions: 1) Between AW1 and AW2's campaign mode, which did you prefer? 2) What is the change that you most liked between AW1 and AW2? 3) Which is your favorite map in AW2's campaign, and which is your least? Again, congrats!
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Feb 26, 2021 13:38
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SoundwaveAU posted:Great job beating the game with so few deaths! Thank you! In total, 6 permanent casualties. SoundwaveAU posted:1. How did you like the game? 1. I think it's a huge step up from AW1, especially in writing and map design. Getting to use all the COs against a small group of enemy officers feels much more fun than three COs going up against basically every other CO, as in AW1. The new COs were integrated nicely and a lot of them open up interesting new niches - I hadn't even considered a CO like Colin but he's so much fun to use. 2. There's definitely a lot of favourites, but it's gotta be Kanbei. I like units that can kill stuff and not die, and Kanbei's units do that in spades. Plus, now that Max has taken a nerf, Kanbei is the go-to for medium tanks doing shitloads of damage. Close seconds would probably be Eagle, Jess and Grit. 3. I think I've already said more than a few times that I love the relationship between Grit and Olaf; their dialogue is great together. They're probably my favourites, character-wise. 4. Grit's is probably up there, but also, Sturm. I might hate the guy, but goddamn his theme is good. It's the one thing that makes Final Front bearable. 5. I really enjoyed it, actually. I was expecting a "I'll be back", it is bold of them to kill off the final villain. I'm really hoping the idea of Hawke now being top dog in Black Hole is revisited in AWDS (no spoilers, though, I want to see for myself). SoundwaveAU posted:I expect you'll most likely be taking a lengthy break from this genre to avoid burnout but I hope to see you return for AWDS (my favourite in the series) somewhere down the line. I am indeed taking a lengthy, lengthy break, got some other stuff I want to work on outside of LPs, and also like, finishing my teacher training. I debated doing a Patreon it but decided against it; there's many talented people here who are making great LPs, I won't be missed much if I take a year or so off. Eeepies posted:Great job cosmic, excellent work on the final battle! Here are my questions: Thank you very much! As for your questions: 1) Hm. I would have to say AW2. Because each map was specific to the CO you chose, they felt more designed around that particular COs abilities. Also, it didn't have seven goddamn maps of fog of war in a row. Plus the conditions to unlock the bonus missions in AW2 were less esoteric and honestly kinda fun, it added an extra objective, and I wish more maps had done that. 2) The new Black Hole COs, for sure. They add much more personality to Black Hole as a villainous entity, and I enjoy how they end up being foils of some of the other COs. The less said about Clone Andy and Sturm personality-wise, the better. 3) Ooh, that's a good one. My favourite map was probably T Minus 15, felt fair but challenging and tightly-timed. Shout-out to A Mirror Darkly, too, also a great map. My least favourite is an easy choice: only two maps took me more than 10 attempts to do deathless. One was Final Front, which, you know, I was expecting to take a long time. The other one was mother loving Show Stopper. gently caress that map.
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Feb 26, 2021 13:56
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Do you decide which unit is which as you deploy them, or when you're compiling the post? How on earth do you keep track?
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Feb 26, 2021 16:57
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Remalle posted:Do you decide which unit is which as you deploy them, or when you're compiling the post? How on earth do you keep track? So, my process for characters is that I play through the map first, then assign characters to each unit I deployed depending on their strengths. This lets me do specific narrative things, too - say, if I notice that one specific infantry killed a medium tank in a map, I can make that infantry unit Vanessa, since narratively it fit her best. Furthermore, if a unit dies, it gives me some degree of choice over who that unit is, though I try to keep this to a minimum because it feels a bit like cheating. As for keeping track, once I've decided on a map's deployments, I start writing, and uh, basically play it by ear. The hardest part is two-part updates, because I almost always need to reread the previous part to remember which units everyone was and where they were. I probably haven't got it right all the time.
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Feb 26, 2021 18:20
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Final Front is certainly a stressful map, between the time limit and everything Sturm. That last turn looked really dicey if not for the bomber making it through! I like the varied mission objectives in this game, but looking at them in retrospect, it does seem a bit unfortunate how many missions end up boiling down to "sneak a bomber or indirect past overwhelming enemy forces and destroy the objective tile". At least they do feel somewhat different, between cannons, lasers, and finally the (misleadingly named) Death Ray. Have you looked at the Hard version of Final Front? Weirdly, most people think it's easier than this one, because the Black Cannons face away from you (so they cover the Deathray area, but you can just destroy them with indirects or bombers without putting any units in firing range). I was pretty surprised you chose Colin for this map, I've never liked using him against Sturm because Sturm's stat boosts make Colin's penalties feel even more crippling (and this seems like it'd be even worse in a run like this). It worked out for you, clearly, but what was your thinking there? cosmicPostman posted:Thank you! In total, 6 permanent casualties. Out of curiosity, do you know what the number was if you include all the "deaths" where the character in question had an out? Still, quite the accomplishment either way.
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Feb 26, 2021 18:43
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If My Dude (or any of the troops, for that matter) was put into a CO position, any ideas what their CO power would do?
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Feb 26, 2021 18:46
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Explopyro posted:I like the varied mission objectives in this game, but looking at them in retrospect, it does seem a bit unfortunate how many missions end up boiling down to "sneak a bomber or indirect past overwhelming enemy forces and destroy the objective tile". At least they do feel somewhat different, between cannons, lasers, and finally the (misleadingly named) Death Ray. This is the main reason why I rate Final Battle more - capturing the HQ/routing is a much more challenging task which requires getting an infantry to the HQ as well as having so much terrain control that you can block Sturm's cities. This map... doesn't have that. Just one tile, and once it's dead, you win. I didn't even need to take out the cannons to win. Explopyro posted:Have you looked at the Hard version of Final Front? Weirdly, most people think it's easier than this one, because the Black Cannons face away from you (so they cover the Deathray area, but you can just destroy them with indirects or bombers without putting any units in firing range). Yes, actually, I saw Paul.Power's LP where he did. I think I'd have preferred that map, honestly, but then again, "no casualties" is a very different ball game to just "beating the map". As for Colin, I put the final map characters up to a vote, and, uh, Colin came third. For some reason. I fully agree that Sturm's stats make his penalties feel worse, and had I been playing the map normally I probably wouldn't have used him. Explopyro posted:Out of curiosity, do you know what the number was if you include all the "deaths" where the character in question had an out? Still, quite the accomplishment either way. I don't, actually! Off the top of my head I think it's 5 additional deaths - Dimitri in T Minus 15, Rose in Drake's Dilemma, Mulligan in Great Sea Battle and Final Front, and Zlata in Final Front? I don't think I'm missing any. Guthix Curnir posted:If My Dude (or any of the troops, for that matter) was put into a CO position, any ideas what their CO power would do? Funny, I have actually played around with plans for my dude and Rose, as it happens. I'll dig out my notes. My dude CO Abilities Can only deploy 1 of each unit per map. Infantry can act again after capturing property. Base repairs cost 0. CO Powers (3 stars) Operation Damage Control: All units receive a 5% damage boost for every allied unit within 2 spaces. (6 stars) Operation Ultimate Disrespect: Infantry units receive a 50% ATK boost for one turn. All units receive a 5% damage boost for every allied unit within 2 spaces. Rose CO Abilities Battle copters and medium tanks have +1 move. APCs, transport copters and landers have -1 move. CO Powers (3 stars) Genius Planning: For 1 day, luck does not affect damage. (Includes this CO and opposing COs.) (7 stars) Prodigial Planning: For 1 day, luck does not affect damage. (Includes this CO and opposing COs.) All damage this CO’s units take is turned into funds, and all damage this CO’s units inflict does not affect the enemy’s CO meter. The idea for my dude is that he wants to keep unit deaths to a minimum, hence only deploying one of each type and base repairs being free, and his units gain a strength boost from being near each other. Ultimate Disrespect is obviously a reference to my penchant of making infantry kill tanks and other things they're not supposed to. Rose's design was mostly focussed on her strengths (battle copters and medium tanks) and since her whole deal is that she's so good at battle that she can account for the enemy's luck, she basically negates the luck factor during combat with her CO Power. Thanks to SMaster777 for helping me out with these, he offered some ideas and feedback when we were discussing this a while back.
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Feb 26, 2021 19:22
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Sorry I haven't been chatting much lately, the endgame kinda speaks for itself a bit I feel (one thing I will say is that I almost feel like the Hard Campaign version of this map is easier, or at least more foolproof. Though probably more casualty prone than your remarkable effort!). I do have a question though: what campaign rank did you get? Because if it's A or better, there should be a nice... surprise waiting for you in Battle Maps .
Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Feb 28, 2021 |
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Feb 28, 2021 22:31
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I actually was one of the people who chose Colin. Even with Sturm's advantage Colin's rapid deployment tends to be able to counter what he can throw at you. There's some particularly cool cheese if you deploy him on the Western front since he can capture one of the bases there very quickly and make things a huge pain for Sturm. Incidentally in my playthrough inspired by the LP, this is the only map where I didn't land an S rank, but in my defense I got an S for the campaign score and decided it wasn't worth the pain. In terms of questions: Which of the new armies was easiest / hardest to write and why? Who is your favourite character from your own creations? If you could improve one thing about AW2 what would it be? (My own opinion is zoom distance, most of my unit losses on my run were because of a laser halfway across the map that I didn't spot.)
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Feb 28, 2021 23:34
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Paul.Power posted:Sorry I haven't been chatting much lately, the endgame kinda speaks for itself a bit I feel (one thing I will say is that I almost feel like the Hard Campaign version of this map is easier, or at least more foolproof. Though probably more casualty prone than your remarkable effort!). I do have a question though: what campaign rank did you get? I'm gonna cover campaign rank, and the map ranks/thoughts, in the credits, don't worry! I do like nice surprises, though, I'll have to go check that out... Natural 20 posted:I actually was one of the people who chose Colin. Colin definitely isn't bad for this map, and he's definitely the best BM choice for sure. Grit might be useful but Sturm's units come way too quickly to set up a good ranged offence, and Olaf is, uh, Olaf. Doesn't play well in team battles. 1) Ooh, interesting. BM was definitely the hardest to write, because none of the army were characters from AW1, so I had to write everybody from scratch. I think it worked out pretty well, a lot of BM characters are now some of my favourites. I particularly enjoy Dimitri, though according to the votes, so does everyone else, hahah. The easiest was YC by a long shot - Rose is Rose, and I already had a lot of arcs in YC planned out before I even started AW2 (Kyril, Vanessa and Lysander/Sofia's stories in particular). 2) If we're talking about everything I've ever written, honestly? Probably Ruin. She's a joy to write, and she's the tertiary protagonist of a novel I'm writing at the moment. AW2 has been a nice character study in that regard. Going off AW characters, I've got a lot of favourites, though a few of my absolute favourites are the less central characters (Von Panzer, Diana and Raynald of Châtillon spring to mind). The character I most enjoy writing, without a doubt, is Rose, though. 3) Hm... zoom distance is definitely a thing on bigger maps, I agree with you there. My one improvement (though I am well aware that it is specific to me) would be having CO Powers fill up by something other than damage taken/dealt. I've talked about this a bit in the past, but with the way that I play, I basically barely ever get to use CO Powers or SCOPS because damage I take is minimal, and damage dealt doesn't fill the bar up fast enough. I'd have liked the chance to use them more often, because they are really fun to use.
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Mar 1, 2021 08:32
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Congratulations on finishing the game! And with so few permadeaths too! With My Dude away for most of the game (Murder Inquiry), it gave the chance for the characters in each nation to shine, a lot of snarky commentary, and a fun murder mystery to unravel. How did you come up with the concept, and did it play out the way you wanted? This is a nitpick in the grand scheme of things, but why don't you deploy more infantry to speed up early base captures? They basically pay for themselves; capturing a city just 1 turn earlier than w/o the infantry is already 1000gp.
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Mar 1, 2021 08:54
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Nat 20's questions actually got me to think of one that I haven't already heard via our discord chats! Aside from Roland, were there any map events and/or unit deaths that caused you to have to alter your unit arc plans? (Context for the room: Roland was intended to be a main for GE, think like Dave or Alfonse in OS... but then a cruiser blew up and "OH CRAP I ONLY HAVE ONE CRUISER UNIT!!!!!" happened.)
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Mar 1, 2021 10:00
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NeoRonTheNeuron posted:Congratulations on finishing the game! And with so few permadeaths too! Thank you very much! I'm pretty pleased with my performance, all in all. 1) This is a very good question! So, whilst I was LPing AW1, I began a running joke where every time a generic-looking male protagonist in a game was prompted for a name, I went for "my dude". Skyrim, Persona 5, Dragon Quest IX, Fire Emblem, etc, it was a running joke amongst my friends. (Still is, honestly. Started Bravely Default 2 with yet another my dude the other day.) Eventually we began to wonder if this "my dude" was the same one from Advance Wars, and if he just went to different worlds, but we eventually decided that they're all different people who all just happen to be called my dude. A friend asked me if they were all friends, which inspired me to write a short piece called Dudecon about, well, their party. This eventually became the Dudecon scenes you guys read in AW2. When AW2 came around and I discovered my dude was no longer present, I decided to make Dudecon a more important part of the plot, and created Ruin as a comic foil for him. Ruin and my dude were intended to be representative of the two 'styles' of readers that I have - those invested in the story and characters (my dude) and those invested in the strategy and gameplay (Ruin). It's why they have such a snarky relationship with one another, because they're both there for different reasons. My only question was as such: who the hell is Ruin, and why is she invested in the my dudes and Advance Wars? Eventually I settled on her being a time-and-space policewoman solving a murder, but there were a few other options during my brainstorming. Initially Ruin was going to be more of a lovesick character who met a my dude long ago and fell in love with him, but now can't find which my dude it was. I, uh, scrapped that, since I felt strait-laced Ruin was a better character overall. That said, once I'd settled on the murder, that too became... interesting. Fun fact: the original murder plot had a completely different murderer, victim and motive. Initially I was going to have Ruin interview multiple my dudes (Commander, Scout, Hell, etc.), with each interview being an LP of the related game (AW2, Dragon Quest Monsters, Disgaea, etc.), with the murder plot slowly being revealed through each one. This sounded good until I realised that a) 90% of the my dudes come from long-rear end RPGs and b) I'd be making LPs for literally the next ten years, and nobody was gonna stick around that long to solve the murder. So I tweaked the motives, found a new killer and victim, and kept the murder plot contained within AW2. As for it playing out how I wanted, yeah, pretty much. I got everything I wanted done: the murder was solved, Tina came back in epic fashion, my dude came back in even more epic fashion, the armies all got their time to shine... I'm really pleased with how everything turned out. Sorry that answer ended up being so long, but I hope it was interesting! 2) Generally because I either feel like I don't need that much money, or because I aim to deploy fewer units where possible so that deployment limits aren't massive. I only have 5-6 infantry for each country, and many of those are usually deployed as different units, so I'm limited on my infantry, usually. SMaster777 posted:Nat 20's questions actually got me to think of one that I haven't already heard via our discord chats! Hm... Roland was definitely the main aborted arc of the game, that was a surprise to me as well as everyone else. Mikhail was probably the other major one - I was going to do more with him and Olga's relationship and their past wars, but he kind of cut that arc short. Also, just because I'm curious, I've got a question for you guys: what did you make of Ruin as a character? Adding a new commentator was always a risky move, and though the general vibe I get from you guys is that you like her, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts in more detail.
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Mar 1, 2021 17:28
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Ruin is amazing and excellent. I personally imagine her with a kind of posh accent for some reason but she and my dude make a great comedy duo between her straight-laced professionalism and his irrepressible casual attitude.
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Mar 1, 2021 17:33
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Interview 49 - “Their Finest Hour: Results” Oh boy, oh boy! It's time for the results! Correct. So, remind me, the goons all voted for their favourite characters? They did indeed, and I've got the list of results right here. The top 10 soldiers in each country. Shall we? Alright. Let's do it. Orange Star, first? ...Nah, let's keep them guessing. Blue Moon! Hm. OK. In the #10 slot we have... ah. It's a joint 7th place between four characters. Olga! Well, people do love their jaded veterans, and after losing Mikhail, Olga certainly got jaded, huh? So it would seem. Funny you should say that though. Also in joint seventh is Mikhail, alongside his partner in battle. Rather sweet, don't you think? Aw, that's adorable. Good job, Mikhail! ...No, seriously, I wasn't expecting any of the fallen to make the top 10. Next, still in joint seventh, it's Ivan! Well, he was the member of Dimitri's Mercenaries with the most chilled-out attitude; I guess that's what the people like. He is a bit more fun to watch than Boris, it must be said. Next we have Diana, the last person in joint seventh. Oh, nice! She was the one who super hated Dimitri at first, right? Indeed. Seems like people enjoyed her slow realisation that he was worthy of her respect. God, people love redemption arcs. They eat that poo poo right up. In sixth place, we have the berserker, Klara! Going wild in the middle of battle is definitely cool, but man, she scares me a little. Well, scary or not, she's certainly popular. We've got a joint fourth place next, between two characters! Correct - first we have Fenya. Her care for her brother, and her subsequent quest to befriend others... I suppose it's quite nice to see. Fenya's pretty cool, gotta say. You have a sibling, right, Ruin? My sister, Misery. I can understand Fenya's desire to want to look after Felix... who unfortunately doesn't show up on this list. The other joint fourth place is Alina! The peerless leader of the Snowbound Free Company made a big impression, apparently! She went to fight an entire war just because she thought Eva was cute. It reminds me of you fighting a war on Nell's behalf. Eh... eheh. OK, we might have a couple of things in common... Our #3 is Zlata, the spunky sidekick and new member of Dimitri's Mercenaries. She loves tanks, and apparently people love her. Get you a girl who loves tanks. I'd normally question that logic, but... Tina, Zlata, Nell... there's quite a few girls who love tanks and are in relationships. Second place is Ludmilla! ...Tits, I'm guessing. I think that's underselling her. She's a strong and competent character in her own right, who is comfortable with her sexuality and progressive in her views. Is that not worthy of the people's admiration? They were horny, Ruin They didn't even know what she looked like until now Anyway, first place? Right, yes. No surprises here. It's Dimitri! Man had a hell of a redemption arc, and he's just insanely badass to boot. It probably helps that he had the most screen time in Blue Moon. ...Well, yeah, OK, but he's still very cool! He tanked some meteors in the Final Battle in Advance Wars 1. That's where his nickname, "The Meteor" comes from. Nobody calls him that. Anyway, shall we move on to another country? Yeah! Yellow Comet next, let's do it! Alright, alright. In tenth place we have Dymek, the rowdy and loud soldier. Hey, he might be a bit uncooperative, but he defended Andromeda when Iago was being a dick about it. He gets a couple of cool points for that. ...What the hell are cool points? You wouldn't understand. Anyway, in joint eighth, we have two lovely ladies - first up is Sofia! Ah yes - Lysander's real mother. That was a rather touching arc. Agreed! Some parents will do a whole lot for their kids - just look at Red and Lucy. Though I guess you never got to meet Red, huh. Unfortunately not. The other joint eighth place is Minerva. Oh, the one that's super into Kanbei? Th-there's nothing wrong with having a c-crush on a superior officer! Oho! You're blushing. Ruin, don't tell me... Quiet! Let's move on. In seventh place, we've got Khepri, the excitable ray of sunshine. She was rather upbeat, and a very determined soldier too. She seems reliable. Next we have joint fifth place, this time between two young men. Firstly we've got Lysander. Ah, the debonair rogue who turned out to be a bit of a mummy's boy. What a delight. I wonder if he ever managed to seduce a lady with his mother hanging around him all the time? Our other fifth place is Kyril. I'm glad he ranked highly - he was a brave soldier. When Kanbei didn't give him any respect, he loving went out there and EARNED it. I can't not love the guy. #4 is the delightful Peregrine! It's a shame her greatest moment happened after the voting closed - she might've gained a few more votes after being the one to lay the final blow on the Deathray. Fourth place is rather good, I'd say. She's certainly earned it. With her devil-may-care attitude and love of bombers, she's a girl after my own heart. I think it's just the fact that she swears almost as much as you. Next we have Vanessa, taking third. The talented tactician of Yellow Comet certainly had a redemption arc. It's like I said, people love redemption arcs. Vanessa turned into a properly amazing tactician, and hell, she killed a medium tank on her own! As an infantry! That's true. Her combat prowess is just as impressive as her tactical ability. Second place goes to the wonderful Andromeda! After such a daunting start, and with nobody really wanting to befriend her, it was super nice to see Rose introduce her to new friends over the course of the campaign. Her manner of speech might be a bit strange, but she's a nice girl, certainly. Her and Peregrine make an interesting pair. Well, I think we all know who's next. My, my, is it so obvious? Of course, the winner of Yellow Comet is Rose, the Desolate Flower. How do I even sum up why people like her? It's easy: there's nobody else like Rose. You're right. Rose is in a class of her own, and the way she's grown up throughout her last campaign has been quite wonderful to see, I imagine. Oh, absolutely. Rose has blossomed amazingly well. I genuinely really respect her as a colleague. Plus, she's adorable. What's not to love? Let's move on to Green Earth, shall we? In tenth place we have the irreverent and perhaps a bit strange Quincy. I never know what to think about Quincy, but I guess that's part of the fun. I think she enjoys being inscrutable. Perhaps that's why she hangs out with that masked person, Harlow, all the time. Next up we have Lorelei, the herbalist from the Old Guard. She certainly looks good for her age. I was going to say the same thing. Wonder if she's got any herbs that keep you young..? In the #8 spot we have Conrad, the brother-in-arms of the cheerful Petra. He learnt some valuable lessons throughout this campaign, but I think they've made him a better person, as well as a soldier. Oh, absolutely. He definitely seems happier these days - even if he tries not to show it. Joint fifth next, shared between three soldiers. Firstly we have Wallace. I'm... not too surprised to see him up here. After what he went through? Absolutely not, the man deserves a bit of love. He fought hard, though, in every battle. Guess losing a son would do that to you. The second of our #5 soldiers is Sebastian! The man who got super-laid by Ludmilla the night before the final battle. And also had that pretty rough breakup. If you ever say the words "super-laid" in my presence I will personally make sure you never have sex again. Bold of you to assume Nell would put out before we're married. Anyway, we're getting off-topic. Sebastian certainly went through a lot. This campaign saw the start of many new relationships, but we must always remember that some relationships ended, too... It was probably for the best. I'm sure Seb and Adelaide will both figure it out eventually. The last fifth place is Edgar, the commander of the Old Guard and father figure of Eagle. He's certainly a fearsome flyer. Yeah, that sea fortress battle was quite something. It's nice that he makes the effort to train the new soldiers, though! I'm hoping to see whether Petra can become a CO alongside Eagle. Oh, speaking of, Petra's next - fourth place! And I'm not surprised. She's a brave soldier who impressed Eagle himself, was personally trained by Edgar, an incredible pilot, and an all-round bundle of fun. Reminds me a lot of Lucy, actually. Mm, she's certainly made quite an impression on people, it seems. I'm glad - I enjoyed her antics during Green Earth's campaign. In third place we've got Howard, the boyfriend of Mulligan - and I do believe he only moved to Green Earth recently? Yeah, he lived in Orange Star before that. He was always super stressed and had a smoking habit, but it seems he's become more chill. And his relationship with Mulligan is working out. Aren't they the cutest? They're certainly a tightly-bound pair. Howard's certainly been making an effort to improve himself, which is nice. #2 is the bodacious beauty, Cassandra! An insanely badass woman, I think it's best to say. I'd try and put it more eruditely, but honestly, "insanely badass" is accurate. She still has her more human moments, though. She's definitely carrying many burdens. But she overcomes them. That's what we love about her! She's always got Mulligan and Howard to support her. Ah, yes, she calls him "Mull", doesn't she? Yeah, and from what I've heard, nobody else is allowed to call him that. Dave called him Mull back in the previous campaign, and apparently Mulligan just totally blanked him until Dave used his full name. Funny, speaking of Mulligan... Mulligan is, of course, our winner for Green Earth. His relaxed nature, his determination to give everyone a second chance... not to mention his relationships with Howard and Cassandra. Is it any wonder that he got the most votes for Green Earth? Nope! Apparently everyone loves him, and who wouldn't? He's a cool guy. Anyway, my dude, stop torturing your readers and give them the Orange Star results. No more delays. Alright, alright, let's go... We start Orange Star with a joint ninth place, firstly with Von Panzer! I personally loving love this guy - he is the tankiest wall I have ever met. Give him a point to defend and he just WILL. NOT. DIE. That is rather impressive. What's his story? Apparently, he was a mercenary working for Black Hole in the last campaign, but he defected after he saw what horrors Sturm was forcing them to commit. So he joined up with Orange Star and helped defeat Sturm! The other ninth place finisher is Fleur. She's rather underrated, I feel - a graceful and intelligent young lady who has supported her younger sister wonderfully. You feel a big kinship with her, huh? Taking care of your own little sis? I suppose so, yes. I like Fleur. Next up we have join seventh - the votes were pretty close for the Orange Star cast, to nobody's surprise. It's Michael! Gotta love Michael! He's a curious fellow. Everyone around the barracks seems to like him, though. Yeah, he gets on with basically everybody. It's just nice to see him able to become himself, you know? Guys should be able to do girly stuff without it impacting their masculinity. Anyone who's helped beat Sturm twice can do whatever they want, I think. Who on earth would challenge them? Hah! Very true, they're all pretty respected warriors at this point. Next up we have goddamn, look at that loving jawline Alfonse! He shares seventh place with Michael, and hell, he deserves it. Did you know that at the start of the previous campaign, Alfonse was completely new to war? He could've fooled me. He approaches war like a professional now. He's taken a couple of levels in badass, as TvTropes would say. I should really make a Let's Play Advance Wars page for TvTropes, come to think of it. I don't know what that is and I'm not going to ask. Next we have two soldiers in joint fifth. There's lots of joint placements in Orange Star... anyway, it's Lucy. Lucyyyyy! What a gal, she's a real favourite. I'm surprised she's joint fifth, though I guess Orange Star's top 5 is a competitive place. It certainly is - you'll see what I mean in a moment. Yeah, Dave is our other fifth place winner! Best drat soldier I've ever met. This man is, quite simply, a loving hero. I'd be inclined to agree. Your Orange Star soldiers all seem really heroic - you've trained them well. Hey, it wasn't me. They were badass all on their own. Dave is certainly a good example of that. We have three soldiers in joint second place; I thought this might happen. First up, it's Tina. I don't think anyone is surprised to see her in joint second. Woo! Yeah, go Tina! She must have made quite an impression on the soldiers - she only appeared in two battles of this campaign but everyone spoke of her like she was a legend. Oh, absolutely. You should read Let's Play Advance Wars 1 sometime, you'll see what I mean. Our second, uh, second place finisher is the excellent Fliss! A newcomer, ranking so highly? I'm genuinely impressed. She was very sweet and nice throughout. I suppose her relationship with Fleur contributed to her popularity, too. I am fond of Fliss. Same here. I look forward to seeing how she progresses - you never know, next time she might become a devil-may-care badass like Alfonse did! Heh. Perhaps. Next, we've got Selena. Aww, she came joint second too? I was hoping she'd win. Still, not a surprise to see her ranking this highly - everyone loves a bit of Selena. You're only saying that because she pines over you. H-hey, she only does that in private. In public, she likes to flirt with me and make me all embarrassed! Besides, I like her for reasons other than that. She's the head bitch of Orange Star, one of the best soldiers I've ever seen, and the emotional glue that holds everyone together. I... suppose? She does seem like someone I could be friends with. I think we've gone through all the major Orange Star characters, right? Dave, Selena, Tina, Lucy... who could be first? Ingo? Lemme take a look... Oho, but of course! It's the breezy, easygoing seafarer, Rin! I... can't believe she actually beat out everyone else. First place! To be fair, she only won by a single vote. I think what we can glean from this is that everyone really loves the Orange Star soldiers. Rin is just the favourite of those, it seems. Good on you, Rin. After that impressive display in the Yellow Comet map where you survived a bomber, I gotta say, you're pretty cool. Fully deserving of the top spot, even if I'm a little surprised. Quite. So... that's all for now, then? Yup. Next time it's credits and finale time. We're all done here, Ruin. Well, I shall look forward to that then - even if we won't be commentating over it. Goodbye for now, my dude. Later!
cosmicPostman fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Mar 16, 2021 |
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Mar 3, 2021 18:45
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Interview 50 - “Credits" Alright, ladies and gents. It's been a long road, but we're finally at the end of the LP. Before we get all morose about it being over though, we do have the credits, campaign score and soldier credits. So, let's get started! First, the campaign.  Most of the Orange Star battles were cake, though I guess it was the tutorial. Nice tutorial, though, bit more succinct than AW1.  And to be fair, the maps may have been simple, but they weren't bad, per se. It was a pretty nice introduction to the 3 COs once again, plus their new CO Powers and SCOPs.  Judging by the day numbers for these missions, wow, most of these maps were shorter than I remember them being.  Then again, some of the later maps are only longer because you don't get any predeployed units. Predeployed units really speed a map up, I prefer them - though some bases never go amiss.  Hm. This mission's spelt wrong. Should be "Dipshit's Time".  3 days? Wow, I do not remember how or why that was the case, but well done, past me.  This was the lab mission, if I recall. I really enjoyed the lab missions, honestly. Finding them and then beating the subsequent mission was pretty fun throughout, and, well, Neotanks as a reward was pretty awesome. ...Though not that useful on most occasions.  I am enjoyed all of these S ranks, though. I don't remember how well I did in future countries, but it wasn't a perfect record like Orange Star.  Oh, I really enjoyed Toy Box. A chaotic, silly map and a fun fight with Lash. Probably one of my favourites of Blue Moon.  Though, thinking about it...  I actually like a lot of the Blue Moon maps. I'd say they have the best maps overall, they're pretty much all good. I can't think of any duds, per se.  Plus, they're arguably the only side with two really good COs - Colin and Grit. Sami/Max arguably for OS, and Kanbei/Sensei arguably for YC, and Jess/Eagle arguably for GE, but Grit and Colin have no arguably about them. They're just really good at what they do.  I actually enjoyed this map. I know. I enjoyed a Fog of War map, but man, this is how you do a Fog of War map RIGHT.  Also a good map! See, Blue Moon's got plenty of decent maps. The only map that's 'meh' to my knowledge is the factory mission.  Pfffthahahahahahah  Yeah, this one. It was pretty tough, and not super fun? But like, it was alright, and it wasn't unnecessarily huge like some of the other factory missions.  Ah, Sensei. Gotta love him. I certainly enjoyed his unique playstyle, even if it was a bit of a nightmare in terms of character creation...  Contender for the most fun map in the game, this. Not the best, but man, stomping on everything with Rose + missile silos was just so cathartic.  gently caress you.  Ah yes, the map where Rin almost died. This one was tough, but fair.  All predeployed Kanbei maps are good maps. 'Nuff said.  This was a good map, too, just slamming Lash into pieces with indirects. I wish Grit had a map like this - Tanks!!! is a taste of it, but it's over too quickly to properly enjoy.  Yellow Comet's maps were good too - I mean, they're the only country that didn't lose any soldiers, so obviously I was doing something right when I was playing these maps.  And a huge sea battle to round it off with. This was probably my least favourite factory map - it wasn't bad, but it was so easy to sneak a battleship in for a quick kill, and Adder's deployments barely matter since the factory front is so far away from the action. I wish it had been a bit harder, honestly.  Jess! Jess is fun. Strong artilleries and medium tanks... you know how I feel about them.  Eagle is fun! Fog of War is not. This map was mixed.  I did actually kind of enjoy this one, though.  And this one annoyed me for a bit, until I got that excellent deathless run. It was pretty fun to figure out how best to approach the sea fortress - I'd love to see more puzzle maps like this.  Narratively, To The Rescue is fun, but in practise, wow, I absolutely decimated this map on my successful run. Bombers, man. Bombers.  The volcano was cool too. Not quite as exciting as I was hoping, but still a fun map nonetheless.  Meh.  Ah, now this. This was fun; definitely a tough and stressful map, but it makes good use of all 3 COs, and I think it's the best factory mission of the lot. I'm glad they weren't all that hard, though... this one took more than a couple of attempts.  Sturm 1 was... really underwhelming. But Sturm 2...  Very tough, and a great map to end the game on. I kinda wish it wasn't just a sneak-a-bomber-in-and-kill kinda map, but it was still fun to face Sturm at his full power again. I do prefer Final Battle though. Now that was a loving map.  Oh, and now the credits have begun. But these are the regular credits... we want the Let's Play credits. No video, unfortunately, but please enjoy some fitting music as we enjoy the end of the LP. Like a fine wine, we can savour those last few drops before we all get on with our lives. (Yes, I know this is the AW1 credits music. I prefer it to AW2's credits music.)                                                                                                                    *** And there we have it. Couple of fun numbers for you: total number of screenshots this time around was 5726, a lot less than AW1. Though I did start screenshotting more efficiently, which might be it. Top 3 parts with the most screenshots: Interview 2 - 208 Interview 1 - 207 Interview 5 - 194 Top 3 parts with the fewest screenshots (discounting the written updates): Interview 17 - 42 Interview 14 - 71 Interview 35 - 77 And, well, I think that's everything I got. As I said, I'm taking an extended break this time around so I don't know when I'll next be doing an LP. Obviously I'll probably do Advance Wars: Dual Strike next, but like, probably in a year or so. I'll comment here if and when that starts up, so watch this space. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining me on this escapade. I've really enjoyed my time with these two games and all of you guys, and I'm so thankful for all the support. It's been a pleasure. cosmicPostman, signing off for now. Edit: Forgot campaign rank, sorry!  Alright, NOW we're done. cosmicPostman fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Mar 5, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 18:36
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 Well done. EDIT: Update on previous page.
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Mar 6, 2021 04:40
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Excuse me while I laugh about this, I assume you haven't yet played AWDS.
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Mar 6, 2021 05:15
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I love the character art! Thanks for a great LP!
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Mar 6, 2021 07:49
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I hadn't really noticed before but the art in the ranking screens is pretty cool.
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Mar 6, 2021 08:42
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Rorac posted:Excuse me while I laugh about this, I assume you haven't yet played AWDS. I have not played AWDS, but I wanted to leave a couple of sequel hooks here and there, hahah... Quackles posted:
NeoRonTheNeuron posted:I love the character art! Thanks for a great LP! Thank you, it's been a pleasure! Also, very good point: The soldier art, just like last time, was done by my good friend. You can find her on Instagram at @miss_akat, please give her a follow for her amazing work. The my dude/Ruin art was done by my friend Bridget, who you can find @bridget_emily_illustration. She deserves some love too! cosmicPostman fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Mar 6, 2021 |
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Mar 6, 2021 09:25
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quote:Alright, NOW we're done. Saying that, this definitely means you're not done because My Dude absolutely needs to check out Battle Maps. Getting an overall A-Rank or better in Campaign unlocks Nell as a playable character. Getting S unlocks Sturm. Although I guess you cover that in his epilogue, sorta. Just that it was a big deal in the first game LP
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Mar 6, 2021 09:49
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cosmicPostman posted:I have not played AWDS, but I wanted to leave a couple of sequel hooks here and there, hahah... Off the top of my head, some sequel hooks I'm seeing are... Any mention of Green Earth's "Stronger Than A Neo" weapon (Megatanks) Literally Rin's epilogue (She's gonna be a land unit in AWDS which means she'll be in the party more!!!!! My Dude's epilogue (Seriously, Rachel got namedropped) Anyway, congrats on the successful LP! Gonna be a boring hiatus, but after two games back to back you've earned a little break. Even if I've seen how much you've been brainstorming behind the scenes....
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Mar 6, 2021 09:57
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And with this, you have succeeded in converting one Intsys game into a different Intsys game. Well done. (I kind of want to suggest, as a capstone to the LP, doing one or two War Room missions as Nell since you should finally be able to play as her, but if you're tired of all this then fair enough.) AWDS would be really interesting to see, especially with all the wacky nonsense that game does. That said, I think AW2 was the high point of the series, the later ones never really quite measure up in comparison.
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Mar 6, 2021 21:59
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Paul.Power posted:Great job on the overall S-Rank! I'm actually pleasantly surprised because with the number of missions where you (entirely understandably) sandbagged score to minimise deaths, I thought it'd drag you down to at least an A. Thank you! I was also expecting an A, but I guess all those S ranks early on helped out. The missions probably shouldn't have been equally weighted, but hey, I'm not complaining. And yes, I'm definitely intrigued to check that out - I will probably do so in my own time, though. I'm very worn out, and I would rather end it now than keep it going when I really ought to take a break. That said, the War Room and other things like the Advance Wars By Web fights, I will probably do at some point, in its own thread. I'll update you if and when that happens. Explopyro posted:And with this, you have succeeded in converting one Intsys game into a different Intsys game. Well done. I am curious to see what AWDS is all about, based on what little I know of it. But yes, I may revisit the War Room but at the moment I'm satisfied with having beaten the campaign. (Plus, real life is getting busier in the first half of this year, so it's a good job I finished AW2 when I did.)
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Mar 7, 2021 10:51
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The best description of awds I can think of is "boy, if you thought X was broken before..."
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Mar 7, 2021 16:28
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So, I know I said I was going to take a year off, but I think we all knew I was lying. Next LP has begun - link below, feel free to check it out! Let's Play Advance Wars: Dual Strike
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Sep 24, 2021 13:37
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