Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising -- Campaign Mission 4: Lash Out
0These links are also definitely not traps:
twitter.com/yuugijoou
discord.gg/bKT9pRW
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At long last, the (Wars) World Map reveals its true purpose! Nonlinear progression is here! And not like the previous game's campaign... don't worry, you'll get to pick, choose, and do all of the above! And there's no bizarre conditional nonsense that'll lock you out of options you never knew you had! At least not in the same fashion as what came before... this will be a totally organic experience! (No added pesticides or preservatives!)
I'm still a bit worried that our previous engagements are totally gone from the map now, but perhaps I'm overreacting and shouldn't worry so much when there's still a veritable buffet of warfare opening up before me!
Unfortunately, the fact that there's no linear progression... but the game insists on retaining a numbered mission count, ANY of the three choices ahead of me could be "Mission 4"... or 5... or 6! I may yet have to rethink numbering convention I've chosen to all too happily march into. It was a trap all along!
Hey, wait, on this one... that portrait doesn't look like Flak! We're totally going there, immediately!
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Campaign
Mission "4": Lash Out
What's with this sassy... young child?
Meet... my favorite new CO. (My new favorite CO?!) This is Lash. I don't know what her deal is except that she's sassy and mean and wants to wreck shop. As long as she gets to do the science or whatever.
I... might at one point or another have used her theme tune as a ringtone, back when phones sounded like phones and people didn't just put them on silent all the time to avoid making a fuss or having to have people know they know other people.
I'm going to be honest yet again and point out that I didn't really grasp Nell's reaction to these interactions... but I'm going to chalk it all up to comedy and ignore its unfortunate implications. Especially since it's a really minor case... she's just a stickler for military decorum and protocol, that's all!
I mean, in proper fairness and full recognition of probable war crimes already in progress with no signs of stopping... ... ... the game is wisely prudent about avoiding talking about the actual ages of their characters.
Despite its literal German etymology and common tendency to loosely translate it as "child prodigy," a "Wunderkind" just as often simply means someone who finds alarming success early in their adult careers as well.
Now bring me that one so that I might have the pleasure of actually visiting physical harm upon her myself.
Um, anyway. Time for more LEARNING! ...and war, I guess. If there's time.
I'm sorry, Nell... "nothing we can do"? This is an absolutely tiny engagement and she has a... well, sizable head start on capturing that Base... but I think a little time in the War Room would make it clear that there's PLENTY of things you can do even to production facilities that have fallen under enemy control.
While she probably means specifically that last part, it's not even close to the end of the world. Sure, it'd be better if we could use it ourselves... or at least ignore it without penalty... but it's a pretty choice piece of real estate anyway, and we're going to be making a big fuss over there regardless.
We've also got quite an array of naval units showing up for the first time in this campaign, so naturally Nell will want to talk about them a little bit.
Oh right, that T-Copter... yeah, I don't know how it got there or why we're content to just talk about it, but I guess we SHOULD do something to help out. (Nell literally won't let you do otherwise! ...which is neat! No, I totally just wanted to demonstrate that... I didn't get swept up playing with my toys. I'D totally never leave one in such distress, so naturally it never occurred to me that I'd have to fear the direct repercussions of such!)
Personally... while it's a neat detail that will certainly come in handy sometime or another... as Nell preemptively points out, it's wholly unnecessary to put the chopper in the Cruiser. Doing so wouldn't be especially problematic in the short term, but eventually it'd result in a wasted turn of inaction for the T-Copter itself. I'm not super worried about the Cruiser's precious time, however... because it only really has the one job...
Submarines have only one real primary job, and that's putting insane amounts or pressure and paranoia on the other vulnerable boats: namely Battleships and Landers. Lash doesn't have either of these, making ours feel a little bit... less than useful here.
For one point, they're totally right that the Lander is critical... but something that set back my Wars education quite a bit was the lack of stress on its real power: unlike other transport units, it can carry ANY ground unit. Not just footsoldiers.
The presentation of an apparent time limit is one thing, but I don't think there's enough of an opposition here to detain me even close to that long.