Hard Campaign Guide
Mission 23: Sea Of Hope
Difficulty:
Recommended Player COs: Sensei, Sami
Enemy CO: Adder
Perfect speed limit: 18 days
The heavy focus on using air units to rush to the enemy lab makes Sensei an
obvious choice for this mission. You can win this map either by capturing the
lab or routing the enemy. Both require the same strategy, though, and it
probably won’t matter in which way you win. I’d recommend to keep both options
open, so you can still capture the HQ even if you have trouble routing the
enemy. I doubt that routing will give you that much trouble though.
You’ve been given the help of a small OS force controlled by Sami. She’ll be
able to deal with a lot of units that are heading for your base. Her
usefulness drops later on during the mission, though, so use her B-Ships as
much as you can. She’s especially handy for taking out the Neotanks heading to
your base early on. You’ll be able to take them out before any serious harm
can be done.
Sensei’s position is a little bit tricky in the beginning, as a couple of
Bombers will be closing in on you immediately. Your best option to defend
against them is to have your Cruiser advance to take one Bomber to low HP
(probably a kamikaze attack, though), have only one Bomber move to Sami’s
forces and have her Cruiser take out that one before it can destroy more than
one B-Ship and have the remainder taken out by an A-Air. Use some Infantry to
lure the Bombers to the small island with the port and the airport and take
them out from there (also be sure to capture the properties here as fast as
possible). Sami will have dealt with the Neotanks by now, removing the only
real threats in this mission. From here on, it’ll be all about mass producing
air units, specifically Bombers, and take out everything in sight. Eventually,
you’ll reach the island with the lab, where Adder has gathered a large portion
of his army together. Just watch out for the Missiles and A-Air when you’re
going to land an assault here. You might be able to jam a T-Copter through and
have it capture the Lab while using other air units to prevent Adder from
attacking the Infantry/Mech, but you’ll probably rout Adder just as soon as
you can pull this off.