Copter Tactics Rematch

This is a rematch between Olaf and me, and HQ captures aren’t allowed this time! Can we survive?

I’m going to skip Nell’s briefing since you’ve already seen it. We’ll also skip the dialogue and tutorials at the start of the mission. Our goal this time is simple: survive at all costs and defeat Olaf by eliminating his army!

Day 1 is pretty much the same as before. But let’s go over our strategy again.

Our first day is pretty much the same: pull back and tighten our defenses. There shouldn’t be any surprises, so let’s see Olaf’s move now.

Olaf did use the same tactic and attacked our infantry with both of his tanks.

The rest of his army moved the same way as well.

As before, we’ll pull back the weakened infantry and eliminate Olaf’s tanks with our artillery and tanks.

And that’s about where the similarities end. Instead of capturing the HQ, we’ll pull back the infantry and the T Copter.

We’ll also pull back our B Copter because we don’t want Olaf’s Md Tank to engage it. Then we’ll move the infantry down so it is closer to our defensive line.

Olaf’s onslaught has begun!

Last time, we just captured Olaf’s HQ and were done with it. We didn’t need to worry about any of Olaf’s medium tanks. That’s no longer the case! Now we have to deal with them properly.

We’re going to focus on the one next to us to minimize the damage our units take. By weakening it with our artillery first, we reduce the counterattack damage and preserve our units as much as possible.

We also need to deal with Olaf’s Battle Copters.

Our only option is to use our own Battle Copter.

Copter battles use machine guns, not missiles! So don’t worry about ammo when fighting enemy copters and infantry. Anyway, we can optimize the positions of our remaining infantry to brace for Olaf’s next onslaught.

Remember, the enemy tends to focus on APCs and T Copters. We can set up a little trap to preserve our combat units and eliminate the copter with our infantry.

We’ve set up a little pocket for Olaf’s copter. This spot is just within range of Olaf’s B Copter, so it can reach our T Copter while our infantry attacks it from three sides. We also blocked the forest tile with our infantry to force the engagement point. You may have noticed this pattern by now, but forcing engagements in a favorable position is a tactic we’ll use often.

Olaf started by falling into our trap!

Even Nell is happy after that exchange! Also, just like an APC, a T Copter is a single entity.

Everything else is pretty much as expected. Olaf pulled back his medium tank to repair. That’s bad news for us! Furthermore, his artillery is in range to bombard our units on the cities. Double bad news! His remaining two medium tanks are closing in. Triple bad news!

The goal today is to improve our situation and make our bad news less concerning.

First, let’s spring our trap and defeat Olaf’s Battle Copter. To maximize our firepower, we can move one infantry forward to hit Olaf’s Mech in the forest, then use our three remaining infantry to finish off the copter.

Infantry doesn’t do much damage to a Battle Copter, but with enough attacks, we were able to defeat it. You may also have noticed that I attacked with the lowest-HP infantry first. Until now, we always attacked with our highest-HP unit first to maximize damage and minimize retaliation damage. However, there are exceptions. In this case, we don’t deal significant damage to the copter, and its HP is low enough that its retaliation damage won’t matter much. We want to preserve our full-HP infantry, so we attack with our lowest-HP infantry first.

Anyway, let’s move on to our real problems at the front line.

Our only unit that can reach Olaf’s artillery is our Battle Copter, so that will be our solution to the artillery problem. Next, we’ll rotate out our tank for a full-HP Mech. Along with our own artillery, it should be enough to deal with the immediate medium tank problem.

We did pretty significant damage to the artillery and the medium tank. Neither is eliminated, but I reckon neither is a threat anymore.

Finally, we’ll move our APC up. This will resupply our artillery and serve as a target for Olaf’s artillery, helping preserve our fighting forces.

We had no way to stop Olaf’s medium tank from being repaired. That’s very unfortunate.

Olaf’s artillery attacked our APC, his medium tank attacked our Mech, and he moved the rest of his medium tanks up. While this isn’t good, it’s still within our expectations.

What I didn’t expect was Olaf merging his 4-HP medium tank with his 2-HP medium tank. This may seem like a good way to keep fighting, and it can be useful in some situations, but it’s a terrible move here. Olaf is attacking into a choke point, and he has two fresh medium tanks approaching. He could have rotated out the damaged tank to repair while the full-HP tank continued the push. By moving his damaged tank away from repair and into the front line, he solved one of our problems: we don’t want him to repair his medium tanks.

Today, we’ll focus on weakening Olaf’s medium tanks and try to split them up.

We’ll begin by punishing Olaf’s mistake of joining his medium tanks. Take that! We’re down to half the initial number of medium tanks.

Next, we’ll weaken one of the two remaining medium tanks with our battle copters. That’s about as much damage as we can do to them, though.

Finally, we’ll maneuver our remaining forces forward. We’ll keep the APC in the same spot to attract Olaf’s artillery fire. We’re also sending our T Copter over to set up bait for Olaf’s medium tank and split up his forces.

Olaf did everything we expected this time. However, our T Copter is now weak enough that it can’t withstand another attack. We still have our APC bait, though.

Today is pretty much the same: continue chipping away at Olaf’s units.

We begin by weakening Olaf’s medium tank in our artillery range.

Aside from that, we’ll do as much damage as we can for now. The choke point is both a blessing and a curse. It severely limits our offensive power in the same way it limits Olaf’s.

Olaf continues to pound our APC with his artillery without making any progress. He also attacked our Battle Copter with his 9-HP medium tank, without much success. Finally, he merged his medium tanks again. Now he’s down to his last medium tank!

Today, we’ll clean up Olaf’s remaining forces and set up the kill on his final medium tank!

First, we’ll take out most of Olaf’s half-damaged units to make some space.

Then we weaken Olaf’s remaining units to set up the kill tomorrow.

Finally, we’ll set up our bait for Olaf’s medium tank and lure it into range of our artillery. Tomorrow should be the final day of this operation!

The only thing Olaf did today was walk straight into our trap, just as expected.

Let’s wrap it up!

We’ll first clean up Olaf’s mechs and make room to fight Olaf’s medium tank.

And finally, we can eliminate Olaf’s last medium tank with our artillery, tank, and Mech. See? That wasn’t so bad. We didn’t even lose a single unit!

Amazing! I have to admit, I didn’t think you could destroy them all! Keep up the good work! Outstanding!

All of my beautiful units… gone? Impossible! Nell couldn’t possibly do this on her own. Grrr… This isn’t over yet!