Mission 25: Lab Rats

This is another mission where you appear to be hopelessly outnumbered at the start, but then reinforcements arrive to give you a better chance of winning. Unfortunately the enemy army starts out with a huge advantage in terms of their army strength, and they also begin with a huge number of cities under their control, which will let them build up rather rapidly. A whole mess of things need to go absolutely right for you here if you want to win, and how events play out will also depend on the quirkiness of the AI. Sometimes it will be very timid and sometimes it will be absolutely punishing, so there's a frustrating amount of variability to this mission that will probably make it frustrating.

Your basic goal over the first ten days or so is to make a stand at one of the factories in the middle of the map while hopefully preventing your enemies from taking the other nearby factory. You'll need to marshal all your resources toward this goal, however, and be very, very careful to avoid taking unnecessary losses. From there, you will have to attempt to slowly slog your way across to the west. Once you get a bit of momentum on your side, you should be able to push through relatively easily, but surviving until the 15th day or so will be difficult. The enemy CO, Tabitha, is incredibly nasty, and makes whatever unit she's in almost invincible.

It's important to note that you shouldn't attack any of the meteors yourself; leave them alone and let the enemies come to them. Doing so will force their units to come into range of your missiles and rockets.

Day One

You have a duster near the enemy base. Use it to attack one of the enemy bombers here to weaken it.

The rest of your units should focus on the enemy missiles. The easternmost missile is likely unkillable, as your tank and duster combined can't take it out, and it will repair itself each turn after that. The westernmost missile unit can be attacked by the nearby anti-air, though, and the central missile unit can be approached and taken out by your mid-tank nearby.

Elsewhere, you can move the tank to the east around the lasers and have it head for the factory a bit to the west; it'll act as a good little roadblock for the enemy forces later, or it can act as an insurance kill on the center missiles if your mid-tank gets taken out by a bomber. Your mech unit needs to head south into the mountains, towards the airport there. The mid-tank in the middle of the map can start taking out the enemy tank.

Day Two

Begin attacking the western and central missile units here. Start capturing the airport with the mech unit, and have your duster attack the bomber unit it attacked on day one again.

Day Three

The cavalry arrives, and you can actually start doing stuff now! Complete the kills of the missile units and capture the airport first off.

What happens now is that you need to rush towards the first factory off to your east while capturing as many properties as you can. There's a significant amount of variation in what the computer will attempt to do to you, but for the most part it will keep moving slowly and attempt to destroy every meteor it sees, which will give you a bit of time to move your troops out to the east.

The enemy fighter should still be a bit to the rear of the map, so move your fighters out to the east, using them to block access to the meteor near the middle factory, such that enemy bombers won't be able to come along and hit it. One of your bombers can hit the northern meteor near your base, and your anti-tank can finish it off, allowing your rockets and missile units to begin heading around the lake. The other bomber should simply head off behind the fighters. Your w-tanks can start heading south and firing on the meteor there to bust through it.

Your infantry units should all start capturing properties, starting with the factories. The mech unit in your base needs to be loaded onto a t-copter and moved over near the factory across the lake. (The other mech unit on the airport should just stay there for the moment.) That should be about all you can do this turn; just start moving stuff to the east as rapidly as possible.

Day Four

Get in the habit of checking the attack ranges of the enemy fighters, bombers, rockets, and missiles now. Positioning is key if you want to hold the center of the map, and avoidable mistakes need to be, well, avoided.

You should have captured the airport on your last turn, but don't build anything there yet: simply keep your mech parked on it. Go back to the west and complete your captures of the factories and cities you started on. Bust through the southern meteor with your w-tank and continue to move all of your units to the east. Start capturing the central factory with the unit you airlifted over.

In the center of the map, check the missile firing range of the enemy missiles as well as the enemy fighter. If you can get any clean fighter attacks on enemy bombers, go ahead and nail them. Move your bombers around the plasma beam in front of the factory that you're capturing, again making sure that they're not in range of the missiles or fighter. They don't need to attack anything yet, especially not the meteors; they simply act as a bit of a deterrent here.

If you have any remaining tanks in the central area from your starting units, use them to slow up the enemy advance. If you can place one on the nearby factory to block it off for a turn, do so.