In the previous chapter, we stormed the Spiral Hills, severely crippling Olaf’s defenses and capturing his HQ, forcing a retreat. This time, though, Olaf has sworn to take command personally. The war between Orange Star and Blue Moon is escalating!
As long as the unit is not destroyed, it can recover to full health and fight another day. This is critical to building an advantage and snowballing toward victory!
THE BRIEFING
But all of our commanders are caught up in other campaigns. So there’s no one available to lead the Orange Star Army against him.
Ophelia, it looks like it’s up to you to defend Orange Star.
Well… To be fair, you are the commanding officer. I’m just an advisor. But go on.
Let me brief you on the current mission. Our troops en route to the Lost Fortress have been waylaid by Olaf. It’s up to you to join up with them, beat back Olaf and secure the area.
Oh boy! Olaf actually fought back successfully this time? Serious Olaf sounds scary.
We need the Lost Fortress! Move out!
Day 1
It looks like he understands the importance of holding this area. Almost all of our units heading for Lost Fortress have been eliminated.
Dang! Serious Olaf seems scary. Do we stand a chance?
We must repair them in order to have any hopes of winning here. So first, let’s pull those two units back here and patch them up.
Of course.
This tank unit will now recover two HP for every turn it stays here.
Just a reminder, it’s not free!
Would you select it, please?
its movement range. There’s nothing we can do about that. Let’s get it as close to a city as possible and begin repairs next turn.
To be honest, I find this weird. I thought I was the advisor and you were the CO. Not the other way around. But sure, I’ll move the tank per your instruction.
But we can’t stop there, can we?
Place the cursor on a unit and press the B Button to check its attack range. The area it can Fire upon will appear in red. Well, what to do now?
You tell me, since you’re role-playing as the advisor.
How about giving it a little assistance? Let’s deploy other units around it to prevent it from being attacked. This tactic is called building a defensive wall.
Or, more commonly, they’re known as meat shields or sacrificial lambs. They’re actually pretty common in competitive play.
Our available units are…
Our heroic mech from the previous skirmish, the one that defeated two infantry squads, two tank squads, and crippled one more tank squad? How dare you use it as a meat shield! But alas, tanks are strategically more important than mechs, so I’m okay with sacrificing mechs to keep tanks alive.
It’s okay, Nell, you can say meat shield. I won’t judge.
Poor mechs.
Enemy units can’t cross allied lines and vice-versa. You can see why a defensive wall is such an effective strategic tool.
Since we have two mech units, we should be OK for two days.
Whoa! You’re thinking about sacrificing the other mech too! Such a cold-hearted woman! Also, I don’t think that’s a good idea.
So, move the mech units up, and then deploy the infantry as you like. Press End when you’re finished.
I’m not used to this much freedom!
There’s not much to plan here. We’ll just advance all our units. One thing to call out is that we want two infantry squads in the south to intercept Olaf’s southern infantry squads.
ENEMY Day 1
Wait… so what were the forces you were fighting before? You know, the ones you almost wiped out?
It looks like the group that’s been giving me such trouble, too. But… they don’t even have one decent tank unit with them!
I mean, I almost destroyed three of your four tank squads back at Spiral Hills, and you only have two this time. Actually, are those the two tank squads that got away?
I’ve nothing to fear from these ragged fools. Prepare to be routed!
So this is what I meant earlier when I said tanks usually beat mechs. Even though my mech is on a two-star wood tile and the tank is on a zero-star bridge tile, the tank will do enough damage to make the mech ineffective at fighting back. And in case you were wondering, here’s the intel on roads and bridges.
INTEL — ROAD AND BRIDGE
Roads and bridges are basically the same in that both provide no defensive benefits and cost 1 movement point for all movement types. This makes them by far the easiest terrain to travel on, but the worst to fight on. So use roads to travel from base to the frontline, and fight in forests, cities, or even plains.
Day 2
It’s your turn.
There it is again!
This is why I said I’m not sure I agree with the plan earlier.
It looks like we’ll have to Join these two units together.
Okay boss!
But… there’s already a unit there! How can we…
Wow! I’m still down a unit, but this wounded unit is almost back in action!
When two units Join, they combine their HP. Of course, now there’s only one unit, but… I know that two units may seem better than one at most times, but running around with low HP is very risky. I recommend using Join when you feel it’s necessary.
Indeed, joining units is quite important for avoiding losses!
INTEL — MERGING UNITS
Join is quite important for keeping your technique score up in campaigns because it doesn’t count toward your unit losses. This allows you to keep fighting by combining your reserve troops with your active units, letting you stay aggressive instead of waiting for repairs. In a way, it’s a form of Blitzkrieg.
You might also wonder what happens if the combined unit ends up with more than 10 HP. Don’t worry—the excess HP is converted into funds and added to your bank. The unit itself can still only have a maximum of 10 HP.
However, Join is less useful in competitive play because you’re down a unit afterward, and you can’t immediately use the unit you merged. Because of this, it’s often better to use a low-HP unit as a meat shield, similar to what we did with the mech.
I’m going to leave the rest of this mission to you. Do you want some strategic advice?
Whoa! Already? It’s only Day 2! But I suppose some advice wouldn’t hurt.
The tank unit will have full HP and be ready to go on the next turn. First, use your mech and tank units to destroy the enemy tanks. If your mech units take too much damage, use Join to merge them. If you can just get rid of Olaf’s tank units, you’ll surely win. As long as you keep your HQ from being seized, you can’t lose. You can also win by Capturing the enemy’s HQ, but it’ll be faster to defeat all of the enemy units. Good luck!
Pretty spot-on, I’d say. And like she says, it’s not always faster to capture the HQ! I agree with Nell’s assessment. The mission is pretty straightforward.
STRATEGY — OPERATION IRON TEMPEST
The strategy we’ll employ for this mission is the classic counter-offensive. Specifically, we’ll make our stand by the bridge and try to eliminate the enemy tanks. Once our infantry catches up and our tank is repaired, we can launch a counterattack to attempt to wipe out Olaf’s forces. As Nell mentioned, it’s faster to defeat all of Olaf’s units in this mission than to attempt to capture his HQ.
The goal today is to withstand Olaf’s onslaught. So we need to continue to fortify our position by the bridge.
We’ll start by rotating out our damaged mech squad with the fresh one. Note that we aren’t pulling back the mech to recover its HP.
Now our mech is exposed on the side, so we need to cover its flank with our infantry.
We also have to cover that infantry’s flank with another infantry to keep it from getting double-teamed. Let’s see how Olaf reacts to our wall.
Enemy Day 2
Looks like instead of engaging our infantry on unfavorable terrain, Olaf decided to move the infantry north to capture a city. Honestly, that’s a better move than attacking my infantry.
He also pulled back the weakened tank, which is good. But he decided to attack my mech with his full-HP tank squad. He did win the trade, but I don’t think he’s going to like what happens next.
The rest is pretty quiet. He moved up the mech and infantry, but didn’t attack with the infantry. Olaf is going easy on us, it seems.
Day 3
Our mechs took a beating, but they did their job. It’s time for the counterattack to begin!
Let’s move our mech out of the way for the tank and try to eliminate Olaf’s tank with our own!
With the help of our trusty mechs, we were able to eliminate that tank! This is why we never retreat and keep pushing forward!
And now, we have a clear path for our infantry to attack into Olaf’s mechs.
Unfortunately, our northern mech is exposed, but we can probably get away with it since Olaf is going easy on me.
Enemy Day 3
As expected, Olaf prioritized capturing the city. If I were him, I would have stopped capturing and killed the 4 HP mech.
Day 4
Time to mop up Olaf’s infantry and mechs! Do you see a way to kill all of Olaf’s infantry units today?
STRATEGY — DAY 4 PLANNING
To kill all of Olaf’s infantry units, we have to utilize all of our available troops.
This means the only way for our circled infantry to attack Olaf’s mech on the city requires moving our circled mech. So we will use these two units to kill Olaf’s 5 HP mech on the city.
We need our healthiest units to take on Olaf’s full-HP infantry, so that will be our tank and the 8 HP infantry.
This leaves our 7 HP infantry and the other 4 HP mech to clear Olaf’s other mech.
Remember, if a problem seems too complex, break it down into smaller tasks and solve them one at a time. Often, the problem will solve itself as you keep solving the smaller tasks!
We begin by clearing out Olaf’s 5 HP mech on the city. Make sure to attack with the 4 HP mech first!
You may be thinking: Ophelia! You’re supposed to attack with the highest-HP unit first! Well, there are always exceptions to that rule!
Next, we eliminate Olaf’s other 5 HP mech on the road.
It’s still better to follow that rule whenever possible, though.
Finally, we try to annihilate his last infantry.
But we got unlucky. Not only did we lose one tank, but we couldn’t wipe out that infantry squad! Come on, Nell! Oh well, a 1 HP infantry unit won’t cause us any problems, and we can wipe it out tomorrow.
Also, the position of the tank is important. A 9 HP tank should still be enough to defeat Olaf’s 4 HP tank, even if his tank is on a city, and we have just enough movement range to reach it tomorrow! But before that…
You didn’t think I’d forgotten about you, did you?
It’s pretty much over now. I wonder if it’s possible to do this mission in 4 days. Maybe I’ll leave that as an exercise to you!
Enemy Day 4
Olaf just resupplied and repaired his units. Nothing happened.
Day 5
Not much to say. Let’s end this.
That’s a wrap!
Retreated with what?
Capturing this area was vital to our strategy. You did a great job! Keep up the good work.
Nell? So, she does have her hand in this! That explains why this little group has been such unexpected trouble. This is unforgivable! Next time, I will give them a display of true might! Mark my words!
Whatever you say, old man. Also, come on, we’ve already fought on four occasions, and only now have you found out that the opposing CO is Nell? Please… I bet you don’t even know I exist.
RESULTS
I did get a perfect rank while taking five days to complete the mission. However, like I said, four days is possible. When you engage Olaf’s first tank with your second mech, you can finish it off with your low-HP mech so it can’t run away. Due to how passive Olaf is, you won’t get punished for bad positioning of your mechs.
Next time, we’ll look at an interesting unit called the APC. Do you know what it stands for?
LOADING TRANSMISSIONS…