In the previous chapter, we acquired an artillery and an APC. We used them to fend off Olaf’s attack once more and launched a counterattack to wipe out his forces. Olaf has a secret weapon, though. What could it be?
Sure thing, Nell. Let’s review what we learned and use it to crush Olaf once more!
THE BRIEFING
The Coral Fortress is surrounded by mountains, so it’s hard to imagine that There are many enemy units there. Still an entire company is gone, so… The point is, we can’t afford to lose that territory.
We didn’t receive any intel from the recon on what took them out? Some recon they are… Their job is, well, reconnaissance, not fighting!
Time to get going!
Day 1
Question marks?!
That explains what happened to the recon units that vanished… Even with your units, I don’t know if we can win.
Medium tanks sure sound scary. Are they the ultimate invincible unit? What about heavy tanks? Do they exist?
You don’t win battles with just a show of force, though. You know that by now, right?
I mean, you could win a battle with a show of force. I’d love to do that, but we’ve always been behind in firepower, so… there’s that.
I’m going to leave this one up to you. Do you want any strategic hints?
From the beginning? Are you sure you aren’t just trying to run away from the medium tank? Well, I guess this is a test of our capabilities after all. Sure, let’s hear your strategic hints.
Just be sure you don’t move into their attack range. Do you remember how to check a unit’s attack range? Move the cursor onto the unit and hold the B Button.
Wait… So you made a big deal out of medium tanks and then told me to ignore them? Why do you do this to me?
First, take out the enemy units between the rivers. Try to make the most of your tanks, mech units, and artillery.
The river will protect you from all but the enemy’s infantry, so don’t worry.
Good luck!
Okay, Nell. Thanks for your advice, but I’m not going to follow it.
STRATEGY — OPERATION TITAN SLAYER
We have some pretty big disagreements with Nell about our strategy this time. Let’s start with what I agree with her about: focusing on the four enemy units between the rivers. That’s about it, though. The two neutral cities to the south serve no purpose because we don’t need the funds, and we can’t use them to repair our units. If enemy infantry moves in that direction, sure, I’ll send one infantry unit south to defend them, but there’s no reason for us to capture them. Similarly, there’s no reason to capture the enemy cities to the southeast. They’re too far out of the way!
Instead, here’s our plan. We’ll concentrate our forces in the middle to overwhelm and eliminate Olaf’s forces there. Once that’s done, we’ll keep pushing forward to bait out Olaf’s medium tank and destroy his remaining forces. That’s right: contrary to what Nell is trying to convince us, a medium tank is not invincible, and I’m going for annihilation.
For our first phase, we’re going to try to overwhelm Olaf’s forces in the middle section of the map. Now, you may be wondering: the bridge right in front of our tank forms a perfect choke point! Why aren’t we using it to minimize our losses? Well, it’s because defending and counterattacking there would take too long. Remember, we’re also evaluated on speed. So let’s see what we can do on offense. We outnumber Olaf’s forces, so it makes sense to go on the offensive this time.
We want to avoid moving any units into Olaf’s artillery range. Luckily for us, our tank can move just far enough onto the neutral city to attack the enemy tank. Since this position is safe from enemy artillery and no other units nearby can threaten our tank, we’ll commit to this attack. To back up the tank, we’ll also move the artillery as far forward as possible, load a mech into the APC, and drop it off on the city. This mech is also safe from the artillery’s range, and it blocks the enemy tank’s path to our APC and artillery, protecting them.
The mech, artillery, and tank should be sufficient to hold off the enemy counterattack. Let’s move the rest of our infantry and mechs so they don’t fall too far behind.
Like I said, we’re not going after the two neutral cities to the south. However, if Olaf sends any infantry that way, I can still get there first to fend them off. Now then, let’s see what Olaf will do.
Enemy Day 1
That’s not true, Olaf. We were just talking about it.
You’ll soon tremble before the power of the mightiest ground forces ever!
Spooky!
Yet, for some reason, Olaf didn’t even move the medium tank. He moved every other unit forward but didn’t attack. What’s strangest to me is that he moved his artillery within range of our artillery, mech, and tank. Did Olaf think artillery units are like tanks or something?
Day 2
Today, we’ll fight off Olaf’s forces at the front and have our infantry and mechs play catch-up.
We’ll begin by destroying Olaf’s damaged tank and his artillery.
Goodbye to Olaf’s tank and artillery! But now, we need a plan to deal with Olaf’s second tank.
We want to bait it into our artillery’s range. Given our units’ positions, the spot that makes the most sense is the tile west of the mech on the city circled in teal. Remember, the AI loves targeting APCs above all else for whatever reason, so we can move the APC north of the trap location to bait out Olaf’s tank. That location happens to be a city, which also provides a substantial defensive bonus to our APC! Furthermore, we have one infantry unit within range of the APC, so we might as well use it to boost that infantry’s movement and drop it off closer to the frontline. Every tile counts!
Let’s move the rest of the infantry and mech forward as usual. Their main job is to clean up enemy stragglers while our mechanized force keeps pushing forward. Also, I sent one infantry unit south to intercept Olaf’s infantry in case it crosses the river.
Enemy Day 2
Yes! Our bait worked! This is also the first time we’ve seen an APC in combat. It’s interesting that an APC is a single entity, unlike other land units.
Olaf also moved his mech forward and captured the city by the bridge with his infantry. The city doesn’t matter, but its healing effect makes that infantry annoying to take out. It should be fine, though. If we’re lucky, we can destroy the infantry in a single day, so the healing won’t even take effect.
Day 3
All right! The aim today is to take out Olaf’s second tank and move up the infantry and mechs. We’ll need to prepare for Olaf’s medium tank soon.
We should take out Olaf’s tank with the artillery and mech. After that, we can have our tank and infantry take out Olaf’s infantry on the city. Infantry deals negligible damage to tanks, and because we’re attacking first, the counterattack will deal even less damage, so we shouldn’t take much damage in return. This also softens up the infantry for our other infantry unit to clean up. The infantry on the city isn’t a guaranteed kill, but we have a pretty good chance.
Also, the only reason this infantry can reach the enemy infantry on the city is by taking a ride in the APC. I told you: every tile counts!
There goes Olaf’s second tank squad.
And we got lucky and eliminated Olaf’s infantry squad on the city too! No healing for you!
The rest is just moving the infantry and mech forward. We’ll load the mech into the APC and drop it off at the bridge. This tile is safe from enemy mechs. Then we’ll advance the rest of the infantry as far as possible.
Pretty much all of Olaf’s forces between the two rivers have been eliminated now. Our troops are still healthy and making good progress toward Olaf’s medium tank and HQ.
Enemy Day 3
Olaf couldn’t get anything done at all today. He’s just sending his infantry and mechs to their doom at this point.
Day 4
The goal today is to clean up Olaf’s infantry and mechs and start setting up our forces to fight against Olaf’s medium tank.
Remember to use the unit with advantageous terrain to attack first!
A lot of infantry combat today!
We’re not ready to engage Olaf’s medium tank yet, so let’s move our mech and tank to just outside its threat range. We’ll need artillery to fight Olaf’s medium tank, so let’s move it as far forward as possible. As for our APC, let’s resupply our mech since it’s low on ammo. That’s also a position where we can load the full-HP infantry unit circled in teal. That infantry is important for our setup tomorrow.
We’ve pretty much cleaned up all of Olaf’s forces now. However, Olaf still has his medium tank. Is it as scary as Nell claimed?
Enemy Day 4
Again, Olaf couldn’t do much today.
Day 5
Today, it’s time to set up our trap for Olaf’s medium tank! But first, let’s finish off his remaining mech.
Let’s get to it.
With that out of the way, let’s set up our trap.
STRATEGY — DAY 5 PLANNING
The first question we need to answer is where we want to engage Olaf’s medium tank. There are a couple of requirements for this. We need a location where Olaf’s medium tank has only one direction from which to approach us. This allows us to know exactly where it will be. If there are multiple angles of approach, we’d need to set up our trap to cover them all. Personally, I want full control of the battlefield, so I want to limit the approach to one direction.
These two tiles circled in teal are the two locations that meet this requirement. Of the two options, the plain is preferable because it provides one star of defense, so the obvious answer is the plain right above the southern city to maximize our infantry’s survival rate.
To ensure we can defeat the medium tank, we need both of our mechs, our tank, and our artillery within range. So we need to maneuver our army a little so they can all reach it tomorrow.
First, let’s move our full infantry squad to the trap location. It will be our bait. We deliberately chose a full-HP infantry unit and the plain to maximize its survival rate.
Then we’ll move all our units so they have a path to engage the medium tank tomorrow.
The trap is set. Tomorrow, we’ll see if Olaf takes the bait.
Enemy Day 5
Yes! Our setup worked! Olaf’s medium tank engaged our infantry! Boy, that’s a lot of damage. We did get lucky there. This is a good time to talk about the medium tank’s Intel, though.
INTEL — MEDIUM TANK
The Medium Tank costs a whopping 16,000G. It’s the most expensive ground unit, and it deals significant damage to all ground units. As a result, only indirect, aerial, naval, and other medium tank units are effective against it. Medium Tanks are typically too costly to deploy in PvP, but they’re great against AI opponents. They can easily spearhead an attack into enemy lines and create an opening for the rest of your troops. They’re also great at defending choke points because only a few units are effective against them.
Anyway, Olaf’s medium tank is within range of our artillery, two mechs, and a 9-HP tank. Surely, with all this firepower, we can take it out, right?
Day 6
Before we engage Olaf’s medium tank, let’s pull back our infantry!
Now, I’ll give you some advice for the future. It’s not impossible to stop medium tanks with artillery, but it’s tough.
Uh… I think we can manage.
Uh… The medium tank already crossed the river.
Then try to Capture the enemy HQ. If the tanks do get across… Well, like I said, concentrate on the enemy HQ. Capture the HQ or defeat all the enemy troops to win! Good luck!
Well, what? Also, it’s kind of late to capture the HQ now. We’re already committed to destroying the medium tank, so let’s just do that. It’s faster than capturing the HQ.
See, that wasn’t so bad!
What do you mean? It wasn’t even close!
But now that Olaf has Md tanks, our current tactics won’t suffice. I’ll have to ask central command to send us some, too. Keep up the good work!
That’d be great! I’d like me some medium tanks too!
What?!? Even my medium tanks were defeated??? THAT NELL!!! Hmm… But it doesn’t look like she has any medium tanks ready to use… Ha ha ha! I’m sure I’ll enjoy our next encounter!
Wait, what? How do you know we don’t have any ready? Nell hasn’t even asked central command yet. Do you know something we don’t?
RESULTS
Oh well, I’ll leave it to Nell to sort out the medium tank situation. Today, we used what we learned in the past to defeat the powerful medium tank Olaf deployed and recapture the Coral Lagoon region.
By the way, it’s possible to finish this mission in five days by capturing the HQ. See if you can do it!
Next time, we’ll get to play around with air units! Fancy!
LOADING TRANSMISSIONS…