Hard Campaign Guide
Mission 27: Sinking Feeling
Difficulty:
Player CO: Jess
Enemy CO: Lash
Perfect speed limit: 15 days
This mission isn’t nearly as hard as the mission difficulty indicates, so
don’t feel intimidated by it. Your objective is to get rid of all the nine
B-Ships within 17 days. However, if you want a perfect speed score, you’ll
have to finish it in 15 days. To do this, you’ll have to advance quickly and
build a lot of indirects, since those are practically the only things that can
damage these ships properly. Also, Lash will be sending some air units your
way after she manages to capture the airport in the far north. For that,
you’ll need to keep your A-Air alive in order to deal with them.
First off, you’ll want to capture the port with your Mech. After that’s done,
build a Lander, load the mech into it and ferry it to the small island in the
west. The lab map is located in the southernmost city of this island, so be
sure to head right for it and capture it. After that, have the Mech capture
the other properties.
Once you accumulate enough funds to build a B-Ship, build one. You’ll want at
least two in order to destroy the enemy B-Ships. Have the first one you build
take out the Rockets southwest of the B-Ships before moving into range of the
B-Ships. Don’t forget to watch out for the two Subs.
The rest of the units should move east. Between the river and the sea to the
northeast, you’ll want to build a wall with your Tanks and MD Tanks in order
to face Lash’s largest assault. Use the one city you have in this corner to
your advantage, as it’s providing excellent defense. Stick your indirects
behind your tank wall and deal with the enemy assault as best as you can.
You’ll charge Overdrive in the process, which will allow you to plow through
the enemy units and move onward.
If you can get a Neotank down to 1 or 2 HP, that’s great. Don’t kill it, just
have it retreat to the northern cities to heal. This will drain Lash’s funds a
great deal and will stall her air unit production.
Now, have the Infantry loaded in the APC and move it towards the eastern base
along with your A-Air, remaining Tanks, MD Tanks and the Recon. Destroy the
few Infantry Lash has here (the one capturing the base and probably another
one which she built) and capture it. Also have one Tank deal with the
stationary Artillery protecting the neutral properties in the southeast so
your remaining two Mechs can capture those. Move the Rockets south of the
southern minicannon so it can take it out. Then have it move towards the
B-Ships along with the Artillery.
Keep a close eye on the range of all remaining enemy units and the remaining
minicannon. The air units can be annoying, but can be dealt with. The copters
can be blocked by putting A-Air in front of them. The Bomber Lash will
eventually make can be lured down if it doesn’t like to close in. Your Recon
(at full health) placed on one of the cities is excellent bait for it, for
example. If you manage to bust it down to 1 or 2 HP afterwards, it’ll go back
to the airport to heal, keeping both the bomber and new air units out of your
hair for probably as long as you need to finish the mission.
If you already have two B-Ships deployed, you can build some Rockets and
Artillery from the base in the east that you captured. You’ll want some to
deal with the B-Ships. Use one to destroy the minicannon (maybe with MD Tank
assistance). At this point, you might also want to take out the remaining
Rockets with your two B-Ships and the Artillery with Tanks or A-Air. Now all
threats have been removed (maybe there’s still that healing Neotank; keep
hitting it so it remains at low health or destroy it if you sent back the
Bomber). Finish off the B-Ships and clear the mission.