Hard Campaign Guide
Mission 22: Crystal Calamity
This is a strategy for the beginning of the map, focused on getting
the silos quickly.
The three armies will act more or less separately. The southeast Black Hole base
will be blocked off early with this strategy, so Orange Star doesn’t
really need to
provide rocket support.
This strategy uses no skills, and should allow you to get 300 points
and destroy all four Oozium, the Black Cannon, and the pipeline as
well as the Obelisk for a total of 525 points, 1050 after the HC bonus
is applied. It should also be possible to do the map without tags if
you want.
Orange Star:
Basically, you use an APC and infantry on the first day to get the
western silos before Black Hole starts crowding you in. The east
silo can be gotten at your convenience, of course.
I recommend using Eagle on this team.
Day 1: Build an APC in the southwest base, infantry
in the other base.
Move one of your tanks into range of the enemy tank; this way, you
can destroy it with artillery, the neotank, or whatever.
Day 2: Destroy the enemy tank.
Load the infantry into the APC. Move east of the southernmost
mountain and drop the infantry onto it.
Build two infantry.
Day 3: Launch the missile next to the mountain.
Move a tank in range of the Megatank. Move your artillery in position
to hit the Megatank afterwards.
Capture the nearby cities with your infantry.
Day 4: Megatank attacks. Hit it with your artillery and Neotank.
Move the infantry west. Finish capturing cities, yada yada.
Build a rocket.
Day 5: Launch the remaining western missile. Okay, that’s two out
of three, if you haven’t already found time to launch the third.
After getting the missiles: Save up for a couple of rockets and bombers, with
a few copters and infantry in case Technique looks bad.
Try to charge up Lightning Strike. A tag is even better. Destroy as many
units as you can for Power, including any remaining Ooziums, then blow
up the Black Obelisk. Blow up the pipeline either when you do this, or
just before to let the Black Hole units in to help you finish charging up.
You might be able to pull this off even with Lightning Drive if things get
desperate – one rocket attack and one bomber hit will destroy the Obelisk
in that case. If you can manage that, and destroy enough units for Power
during the two turns, then go for it.
What you need to do here is finish off the tank, neotank, and artillery
quickly. This is a pretty simple task. Pretty much any team can handle
this; Olaf/Drake is probably the most helpful pairing, for their
devastating tag.
Day 1: Build an infantry and move the APC three south of it.
Capture the port with the north mech.
Move the other mech towards the lander.
Move the tank on the city. (This is to lure the other tank into attacking.)
Move the Mid Tank and artillery as far down and to the right as
possible.
Day 2: Load the mech into the lander and drop it on the island.
Finish capturing the port.
Move your tank back a bit.
Destroy the enemy tank with your mid tank.
Move the artillery behind the mid tank.
Move the APC down and to the right.
Build an infantry.
Day 3: The Neotank and artillery will approach. Keep the Mid Tank in
front; in my experience, the Neotank plays more cautiously with the
normal tank in front.
Launch the missile on the island.
Move the infantry all the way south.
Move the mech on the port two west.
Build a rocket.
Day 4: The Neotank should attack your Mid Tank. Hit it with your
artillery, then your Mid Tank. Move your tank around the other side.
Move your APC near the tank, outside of artillery range.
Move the rocket south and east.
Begin capturing the city with the infantry.
Build an APC.
Day 5: Finish capturing the city.
Attack the artillery with your tank.
Move the newly-built tank south and east.
Load the mech into the old APC and head south.
Move the APC south and drop the infantry in range of one of the silos.
You’ll have these missiles in just a few turns now.
After getting the missiles: Capture what you can and get a battleship out.
Use it to destroy the Black Cannon.
Use indirects to soften up the incoming Oozium, and get some strong directs
in to destroy it.
You can finish these up on Day 3 if the enemy cooperates. The tricky
part is being able to stop the mech from capturing the airport afterwards.
The recon serves as bait to do that, and then stops up the base for good
measure.
It will be VERY helpful to use Sasha here for Market Crash. You can stop
the tag for the whole map if you mostly build just infantry to save up
money.
Day 1: Save here.
Move both infantry down three. Move the missiles down all the way.
Move the recon all the way along the road. Move one anti-air between the
two infantry, the other above the first anti-air, and the tank west of
that anti-air. Build an infantry.
Day 2: You want the copter to move east of the southernmost silo, and
the bomber below it. It’s also nice if the Oozium doesn’t move to block
your infantry from taking the silo, but if it does, that only slows you
down a day. I think you can manage to handle things in that case, so
I’ll be optimistic and assume the Oozium moved north.
Save here if things went your way. Do this *before* attacking anything.
Launch the one silo you can reach.
Move the other infantry south two. Capture the base with the newly-built
infantry.
Move the recon all the way south. This way, the mech will attack it instead
of capturing the airport.
Attack the copter with one anti-air, destroying it, and the bomber with
the other.
Move the missiles all the way south; make sure the stealth has a clear path
to it.
Move the tank pretty much anywhere in the general area of the silos.
Build an infantry. (Sasha can afford to do this and still make a fighter
next turn.)
Day 3:
Make sure the recon survived and nothing was built from the southern
Black Hole base.
If not, start from the last save.
Launch the last two silos. You’re safe now – or will be next turn, if
the Oozium got in your way.
Destroy the mech with the healthy anti-air.
Move the recon onto the base. You’ve blocked it up, and the enemies will
usually just ignore it.
If the bomber didn’t retreat, move units to prevent it from being able
to reach the recon.
Build a fighter from your south airport.
From here:
-Launch the last missile on Day 4 if the Oozium slowed you down.
-Destroy the stealth with your fighter, finish off the bomber if it’s
still in the area, and weaken the recons with your tank and anti-air.
-Build *only* Infantry, at least until you get off a strong Market
Crash. You’ll probably want a bomber in case some Neotanks come your
way, but that shouldn’t happen for a while.
-Capturing the airport east of the pipeline will be useful, mainly to
keep Black Hole from using it. It’s in Black Cannon range, so be sure
to have another unit move in range to divert the cannon fire.
-Destroy the Oozium with infantry. You shouldn’t lose more than one
that way.
-Market Crash is your top priority. If Koal and Kindle can’t tag,
they’re a *lot* less dangerous here.
Strategy by Dragon Fogel. Map image by Tsuruya.