having looked at the strategy for this level i was convinced i do better so here is my revised and hopefully improved strategy for doing this level
BETA7
this mission is relatively simple however the start of it can be a little tricky as you have to wait 5 minuets to get reinforcements and at the start you will be unable to move out of your landing zone with out getting bombarded by artillery in addition to this within 2 minutes of landing you will come under attack from ground units you may also be attacked by a squad of lancer VTOLs
due to this the tried and tested methods of steam rolling your enemy simply wont work here as you wont be able to bring in enough units quick enough and beside even if you could you would end up taking substantial causalities by the time you blast your way through there defenses and as we want to avoid the unnecessary loss of experienced units we need to think out side the box in terms of the strategy employed
so how are we going to crack the collectives defense and allow us to secure are landing zone with out getting bombarded I hear you ask simple vtols I know on the face of it this sounds insane but there is method to the madness
normally I would never advocate bringing in a squad of vtols as your first group of units on a mission however in this instance it is a necessity because its the only way you are going to be able to take out the collectives eyes and allow you to get out of your landing zone without getting bombarded and loosing units
so what we need to do first is go into the design window and design a bunker buster python vtol then produce 10 of them (you will see why they must be heavy body vtols when you arrive)
these are going to be are aerial demolition squad and it is these units that are going to clear out the area and make it possible for us to secure a beach head from which we can proceed to take down the collective
once you have 10 make sure there set to do or die and hold fire then load them into your transport and take off
the reason for setting them to do or die is because you don’t want the computer countermanding your orders because once they have fired there pay load they wont be able to land at your LZ until you call in more units and secure the area as they will get attacked by ground units
so once each unit has expended its ordnance we are going to park them atop the ridge a little way south of are landing zone they should be safe there from counter attack by ground units as there is no way for ground units to get up there
the reason for setting them to hold fire is because each vtol will only get 1 shot and we don’t want them attacking the wrong target and wasting there pay load we also don’t want them attacking to soon and missing the target
once you land call for reinforcements I'd recommend 3 tracked heavy cannon python tanks and 4 tracked lancer pythons and your tracked python commander and 2 trucks you could use lighter units but given that you have to wait 5 minutes for additional troops that could make fending off there attacks difficult which is why I recommend heavy combat units for defending your LZ
with that done select only 1 of your vtols and fly it south to the little hill just out side your landing zone this should be enough to reveal there sensor tower and counter battery tower
attack and destroy the sensor tower first you will take some AAA doing this but don’t worry about it if you followed my advice and made them heavy body python vtols they wont be able to shoot you down as long as you don’t hang about to long
select a second vtol then target and destroy there CB tower
Note: Its Critically important that you make the scanner tower your first target if you don’t when you try to park up on the ridge line the artillery will get you and you will loose your unit
next we want to make the airspace around are LZ a little safer so the next 2 attack should be made on there AAA batteries
After each unit has expended its ordinance fly a little more south and park the vtol on the ridge line out the way of any of there units don’t want are expensive bombers getting blown up if we can avoid it
next we need to stop the collective from calling in there squad of lancer vtols from off screen as these can be a real pain in the backside so are 5th attack should be directed against there command centre
around now the collective well send a few ground units to try and attack your remaining vtols so select all vtols and park them up on the ridge line out of the way of there attacks
you might also get the LZ compromised message don’t worry about it this is just there ground units looking for your vtols when they realize you are no longer there they should move away
target number 6 the sensor tower in the south west corner of there base that you revealed when you took out there command center
provided none of your shots missed then you should have 4 shots left so lets see what other choice targets we can find
target number 7 the sensor tower in the north east corner of there base
targets 8 and 9 are to the south of target 7 the sensor tower you just took out and due east of the collectives command center roughly half way down the eastern edge of the map
at this point the collective are effectively blind and the effectiveness of there artillery has been drastically reduced as they can't shoot what there cant see so it's just a case of being patient and waiting for enough troops to arrive to allow you to crush the collective and finish the level with there eyes taken out and there vtol reinforcements stopped the rest this level should be a breeze
once your reinforcements arrive set up a repair bay and a few turrets to help you defend your LZ while you wait for additional troops you might also want to build 10 vtol rearming pads to get your vtols rearmed and repaired then they can go on patrol and demolish all there turrets (starting with there artillery) while waiting for additional troops
be sure to leave at least one turrets up though so you can use the rest of the level timer to conduct research
hopefully if all goes well then you shouldn't have lost any units or structures
I'm using ver: 2.3.7 (normal difficulty) so I'm not sure how this would work on hard but that something I'm going to take a shot at once i completed my current game