Boss Contract: The Ace of Clubs

Contract: Bringing Down The House

Video Walk-through

Calling in extra Allied soldiers will be a big help in taking down the Ace of Clubs, although you can still do it solo fairly easily.

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Your first Ace contract takes place on a heavily fortified island where the Ace of Clubs has holed up, inside a fortified building known as Song Tower. You have two primary and one bonus objective here: the primaries involve clearing out three NK radar jammers scattered around the island, then using your satellite signals to track down and verify the Ace of Clubs. The bonus sees you clearing a spit of land on the southwestern edge of the island and ensuring that a supply helicopter can drop.

Your first goal, though, is to survive your landing, which will take place while you're under fire from NK forces. If you don't want to deal with dispatching the group of enemies at your landing zone, just head down to the water and use the small slope there to protect yourself from their fire. If you do happen to chew through them, then you should be able to grab one of the jeeps nearby and use it to disguise yourself, allowing you to roam the island at your leisure.

Bonus Objective: Whichever your tactic, you'll almost definitely want to head to the bonus objective marker immediately after you arrive. It isn't necessary to complete the mission, but obtaining the help of a half-dozen Allied soldiers will make your life much easier. Unfortunately, the zone is guarded by a half-dozen NK troops, as well as a couple of helicopters. These latter will be the tougher part of the equation; if you want to take them down, you'll probably have to use the AA vehicle nearby, as helicopters are quite able to dodge RPG fire unless you're at close range. If you do use the AA vehicle, be sure to take down the choppers before killing the sixth soldier on the ground, as that will trigger the arrival of the supply chopper.

This APC will be helpful in getting around the island without having to worry about rifle fire.

When the supply chopper comes in, you'll be pleased to note the arrival of the aforementioned soldiers, and an Allied M1126 APC Delivery will be granted to you; use it immediately to grab a pretty serious armored vehicle, which should let you withstand anything up to enemy RPGs (which are unfortunately rather dense on the island, meaning that you shouldn't run right up to concentrations of enemies).

First Objective: In order to kill off the three jammers, you're going to either need some better equipment or use your Cluster Bomb or Tank Buster special attacks. Unfortunately, most of the jammers are situated in positions such that you're required to get awfully close before you can use these attacks, meaning that you'll be in their zone of signals interference, meaning that you won't be able to select said attacks. Thus, you'll normally be forced to leave your vehicle and use either an RPG or a bunch of grenades on the jammers to take them out.

Having a tank at your disposal will be quite helpful while dealing with these jammers.

The most palatable alternate here is to get yourself a tank. There is indeed a T-54 guarding the southeasternmost jammer; if you can get in close, either on foot or in a North Korean vehicle, you should be able to kill the gunner atop it, then hijack it by getting underneath the turret. This is the best bet for killing the rest of the jammers without taking an absurd amount of damage. Your Allied friends won't be able to come along, but you will be able to retain one of them to man the gun mounted atop the turret. The main problem here will be avoiding the RPG rounds that will periodically come your way, but if you wait long enough to get disguised as a North Korean, you'll be able to place the tank in such a manner that you can fire off around, blow a jammer, then run away before the NK troops even know what's going on; just keep an eye out for officers, who'll use their X-Ray vision to see through the tank walls and figure out that you're a vicious mercenary.

Another alternative is to grab a helicopter. There's a semi-hidden airbase on the northeastern end of the island, to the southeast of the northernmost jammer. It's well defended, with a couple of machinegun emplacements and a barracks that will endlessly spew out soldiers, and the helicopter will also be manned and flown away as soon as the soldiers within detect your presence. Your only real hope of getting it is to enter the base in a North Korean vehicle, park it next to the helicopter, then jump into it as quickly as possible. This isn't as preferable as the tank option, though, since the NK troops do have a bit of anti-air scattered around the island.

Whatever your techniques, you'll have to destroy all three jammers before you can acquire Hwangbo's transmitter signal.

Second Objective: After you locate Hwangbo, you'll be given a Bunker Buster special attack, which will be just what the doctor ordered to destroy Song Towers. If possible, try to use the laser designator from the northeastern corner of the island, as this is where Hwangbo will run after the Tower is destroyed; how he manages to survive the destruction of such a huge building is anyone's guess, but survive he does.

Kaboom! Somehow, the Ace of Clubs manages to survive this blast, allowing you to capture him alive, if you wish.

After you blow the building, a few enemies will spawn in the form of a helicopter or two and some more jeeps, but your primary goal is to track down Hwangbo before he reaches the helipad. If you're already standing between him and it, this should be a simple matter of waiting for him to come to you before knocking him senseless and calling for an extraction. Although you may have a few enemies in the area, you should be able to call for the extraction right away. Since evac choppers are equipped with miniguns, they'll be able to defend themselves while they settle down, and the mission will end as soon as you load the Ace onto the chopper, meaning that all you have to do is ensure that they can safely land. If necessary, leave Hwangbo on the ground while you take down any nearby enemies before calling in for the extraction.

Alternately, you can of course just pop Hwangbo in the head with a bullet and settle for half of the bounty. His bounty isn't big enough to warrant too much trouble, especially since a death here means that you'll have to go through the rest of the mission all over again.