Hard Campaign Guide
Mission 18: Show Stopper
Difficulty:
Player CO: Sonja
Enemy CO: Adder
Perfect speed limit: 38 days
This mission starts off tricky as Adder will have a good amount of units ready
to attack you, while you have only a few forests to hide in and no choke
points to take advantage of. So this means that you’ll just have to hold off
Adder with whatever means you have until his initial assault is over. After
that, you can slowly advance and complete your objective, which is destroying
the 8 minicannons surrounding the giant fortress. HQ capture is also an
option, but since the HQ is all the way to the northwest and guarded with
B-Copters to boot, destroying the cannons is a lot quicker.
Your main concern when keeping Adder at bay will be guarding the two neutral
bases. As long as Adder can’t capture them, you can outlast him easily enough.
It’s possible to send an APC with infantry toward the northern neutral base
and capture it before Adder arrives there to stop you. To accomplish that,
you’ll have to build an APC from your northwest base and an Infantry from
another on day 1 and drop it off in the forest three spaces south of the
northern base. You’ll have just enough time to capture it and get the Infantry
safely back to a forest. You can guard it by placing an Artillery in a nearby
forest. Most of the time, Adder won’t spot it and you can pick off the Mechs
heading towards it. Don’t bother deploying anything from it yet, though.
That’d be basically suicide at this point. The APC you an use later on to
ferry an Infantry towards the neutral base to the west, but only attempt this
once you’re sure the road is clear.
Adder will immediately send a Bomber assisted with three B-Copters towards you
from the west. Build two A-Air to deal with them, but keep them pretty close
to your base, so the Bomber doesn’t get first strike. He’ll also have a few
Recons near your base that will move in to strike. An A-Air together with a
Recon of your own can take them out easily enough.
The rest of your build pattern will be pretty straightforward. You’ll mainly
deploy Tanks and Artillery at first to repel Adder’s ground forces. Then, when
the coast is clear, send som infantry to capture the remaining properties
before advancing west beyond the mountain range. At this point, you’ll want to
have a couple of Rockets and MD Tanks. Carefully use forests to hide and
Recons to scout ahead. You’ll quickly discover that Adder has a pair of
Rockets guarding both passes. Both are placed on cities, one on the north and
one on the south. Also, in the north is a B-Ship tactically placed to make
your life miserable. Use a pair of Rockets of your own, placed in forests to
take out the rockets. For the B-Ship you’ll need a couple of Artillery and the
Rocket that took out the northern Rocket and maybe an MD Tank for the final
blow. Try to distract it by having an infantry attempt a capture at one of the
cities. The B-Ship is likely to attack the infantry instead, allowing you to
blow it to bits with your indirects.
Once these units are down, the Minicannons are safe to destroy, using mainly
MD Tanks. Or are they? Nope, Adder still has some units positioned near the
cities to the west. Among those are a Neotank, an MD Tank, yet another Rocket
and yes, another B-Ship as well. The best way to get rid of them is to use
your MD Tanks as bait for the Neotank and MD Tank by advancing them forward
slowly until they attack you. Preferably you’ll want them to attack while
Counter Break is active. Have some indirects and fresh MD Tanks stationed
behind them to take them out. To take out the B-Ship, use the same strategy as
with the previous one by having one infantry work as bait by attempting to
capture the western one of the two cities south of the fortress. At the same
time, move your indirects into position and blast it into oblivion next turn.
The Rocket is hiding in one of the forests. Use some tanks coming in from the
north to flush it out and kill it. It’s probably in a forest just west of the
fortress.
Finally, there are still a few B-Copters guarding Adder’s HQ. Watch out not to
move in their range with anything other than an A-Air, as they will attack you
as soon as you move into their range. Also, the southwesternmost city should
be captured, as this is the city which holds the secret Lab Map. Make sure to
get it before you smash the final minicannon. Once you get it, destroy the
final cannon and complete the mission. Phew.