Battlezone 1

This is a thread for anyone out there who is struggling through the Instant action missions.

Just completed Wreckers. What a mission.

Starts off with a modified Unit Factory being dropped to a base which has no build capacity, the factory can even build recyclers and scavengers (with the loss of walkers and Howitzers, something that really hits you later on).
First job refit the base and defend it. (moderately straight forward as the turrets have been modded to move faster, deploy faster, turn faster, have more ammo, two hardpoints and SP as standard (worth every bit of the 11 scrap))

The objective of this mission is to investigate recent CCA Day wreckers which have been way more powerful than normal, this is done by relics stolen on mars.

The recapture of the relic is ok, just watch the alien day wrecker turrets, they chuck them out at a fast rate and can decimate any close range attacks in seconds as after the first goes off you can't escape.

Ok, on to reducing the CCA base down. This has taken me a few days, I had to take out all the surrounding turrets and day wreckers turrets using a lone bomber (or 10).
Their unit scrap consumption has been lowered to make it more difficult, and as such scrap is hard to come by, if they don't attack you first....

They also have a base with two MUFs and upwards of 40 offensive units inside, I accomplished this by taking over one of the MUF sites to the North west of the main base, moving my factory in and inviting attack waves on to this outpost. Once they started to slow down and I had more scrap I took on the main base using waves of tanks with turrets as a fall back point, this still took several waves and a few day wreckers to soften them up, inbetween attacks the CCA used the scrap I left behind to amass more attacks, which did have the added benefit of moving it all from outside their base to outside mine.

Eventually an attack pushed close enough to the CCA recycler to destroy it, I'm sure their bombers actually finished it off.
Without the Recycler they pushed all remaining units out, I then strolled in with a few bombers and finished off the last MUF.

These Missions are rocking, and really stretch the strat skills, and I'm really pleased I can actually win them. Next up is Hell's Gate 2!

haha yeah wreckers is hard. i got freaked out by the DWs destroying my base, so i hunted them all down. took me awhile to find them all. then i had to wait until i could build up a sizable force of bombers and tanks, while dropping every day wrecker i could on their base. once they were outta guntowers i charged in and wiped them out

if you havnt played hellsgate 2 yet....that is the hardest SP mission i have ever played except for the 7th chinese mission in TRO. features one of the largest and most powerful CCA armies i have ever seen, and scary new weapons. the map is one of the best designed that i have ever played with a VERY interesting enemy base. but good luck with it, and if youve already beaten it, congrats.

That's the one with the long canyon right?
I did that by sniping the bombers lying in wait on the route north, building a sizeable defence (quickly). Then using a light tank, (the readme recommends them as they come with rocket bombs. Then I picked off the Golems one by one using the rockets, when they got my tank I would use the sniped empty bombers. This was hard. But if you kill the golems the grendals following them sit still unless attacked.
The enemy attack waves are easy to push south down the canyon at first, but I couldn't push into the enemy base.
SO I went around the back of the base, and rocketed the place to bits, soon there was nothing left.
Took me days.

The only IA Mission I am having real trouble with is Hell's Gate 2. No amount of build time in the world can prepare you for this assault. Normally Golems start firing when they come within 200m of their target. NOT THESE! They fire at full 300m, making Gun Towers useless. Not only are there many modified Golems, this is complicated by their bomber escorts. I've tried mixing and matching my offensive forces. No matter what I build or how I command them, the CCA wipes them all out and annihilates my base. Defense or no defense. This mission is serious business.

In this mission:
You have a modified Black Dog Squadron.
You have NO HOWIES.
You have NO MORTARS.
You don't have MAG CANNON. (not that I usually use it, but I occasionally find orange mags good against Golems, as they reach 300m)
Your Pilot has 100 sniper rounds or 50 minigun rounds in addition to plasma rifle, but I haven't seen that come in handy at all for me yet.

I tried slowly picking off some of the forces in a lone bomber or rocket tank with twin rockets from 300m and reloading, but that didn't work out so well.

If you know an effective tactic for stopping this devastating attack wave, do tell!

The Light tank.

Don't scoff, it's cheap as chips, and has a Rocket bomb as standard. Don't defend the base at the base. build a minimal defence at the top of the canyon. then take on the Golems head on at long range with rockets. If you don't fight them first then the numbers will overwhelm you by the time they get to your base
As the Golems are under a 'go to' order they'll ignore your presence on the whole, take them on with rockets, and snipe out the Bombers. They won't attack you unless you destroy the Golem they are told to follow, each Golem has two I think.
Be prepared to lose tanks. But if you snipe the Grendals waiting in the canyon at the beginning of the mission, it will save you time. Snipe them as you travel north, leave Navs at each and use the Golems when your light tank bites it. (which it will repeatedly) advantage of using cheap light tanks.

Also the zoom in option is really useful to get accurate shots.

EDIT: Just tried it, due to some lucky sniping I got all 4 of the Grendals waiting in the canyon. I then recycled the units, built a base. (defences were done over satellite) as soon as I had got the 4 grendals sniped I returned to the southernmost one and hit the Golems. Destroy a Golem at extreme range (300m) then pull back and hit the Grendals as they come at you. Repeat this. If you run out of ammo or a Grendal, pull back to the next one, and repeat. I used all 4 Grendals up and 2 light tanks to get all the Golems before they reached the GTs.
What killed me was trying to push to the middle geysers too early. The attack wave hit me before I had the GTs in place.

Ah, I was always destroying those 4 Grendels. I'm always getting better at sniping, so sniping those 4 bombers shouldn't be a problem, especially with 100 rounds... maybe I'll record some of my attempts. A video is sometimes better than a walkthrough or a tutorial. I have already done recon on the base while driving a stolen unit. There sure are a lot of snipers in the base. There must be a long range hangar somewhere, because after I rammed one of the snipers a few times, I heard the sound of him getting repair and he wouldn't die. Then I rammed him full speed and he died. If you're in a stolen tank and you haven't shot at anything or hopped out and re-entered, you're "hidden" from the enemy. The snipers and all other enemy units will ignore you until you give yourself away by hitting another unit with your weapons or hopping out of the tank and getting back in. You can take advantage of that and roadkill the snipers as doing this will not give you away, and you can get rid of all the snipers without risking your life. I did that in "The Gorge" mission before destroying the base. I stole a Stoli and ran over all the snipers at the end of the canyon in that mission.

@furykiller:
If you're having trouble getting past Chinese mission 7, you should see the video I made of it in the single player videos thread in the Strategy section. I did something in the mission that might be considered "cheap", but I DID beat it without saving.

In the base there is a Lemnos factory building. It heals everything in the base. I'll work on a video later, Haven't tried hard yet.
Those 4 grendals can be sniped easy, you can hit them before they see you. they're sitting ducks!

Tried Hell's gate 2 on hard. Think this was what the setting was when I first did it.
Notable difference is those 4 bombers react to your presence at a longer range. so I had to snipe them as they were coming at me. I suggest saving at each one. When there are two together I suggest walking close, and sniping them from slightly above. If you walk towards them and get 2 perfect snipes. they won't react.
This time, as soon as all 4 had been sniped I took one and began to attack teh Golems. They don't shoot at 300m, unless you get sloppy, but the bombers following them are better shots. It took more ships, and the attack wave actually reached my GTs, but by this time there wasn't many left.
Conclusion, Grendals and Bobcats FTW

Oh, and by the way. it gets even more difficult.

Well, I was too stubborn to decrease the difficulty, so I managed to stop the first attack wave on hard and I recorded it. I'll put the video up next time I'm on fast Internet.

I figured out what the deal with the Golems is... Venus' fog playing tricks on me. I had targeted a Walker that was behind others and I didn't see the others, so when I got 300m away fom my target, the closer Golems which I couldn't see blasted me to smithereens before I could see what was really happening. That's what I get for not paying attention to my radar. Apparently when I target something, it prefers to target the farthest unit, not the closest. I kept the APC I started with, and used its Attack command menu to show me the available targets, and kept pressing T until I targeted the Golem in front of all the other units. I was then able to destroy them with ease using 4 sniped Grendels, and Bombers from my Unit Factory. I initially tried the Light Tank, but found I really needed dual rocket bombs to destroy them quickly enough, so I built Bombers for 10 scrap each instead of Light Tanks for 6 scrap each. The 10 scrap bombers can be worth it, they have 19 dual rocket shots. I threw a few AI bombers at the attack wave here and there and built a few Gun Towers via satellite.

After I stopped the 1st attack, I stopped recording and made a save point. I'll try the rest of the mission later.

"In this mission:
You have a modified Black Dog Squadron.
You have NO HOWIES.
You have NO MORTARS.
You don't have MAG CANNON. (not that I usually use it, but I occasionally find orange mags good against Golems, as they reach 300m)
Your Pilot has 100 sniper rounds or 50 minigun rounds in addition to plasma rifle, but I haven't seen that come in handy at all for me yet."

you also have no comet cruise missle or day wrecker: my usual strategy for difficult enemies.

sniping the bombers tho, that it an interesting idea. never heard of it b4. ive always charged them. granted, i havnt played on hard yet.

my tactic has always been to rush to my base and take out the bombers on the way. as soon as i get there, build a MASSIVE defense via satalite, and arm my grizzly w/ double sp stabber and a thumper. i then use 2-3 minelayers which i am constantly reloading to mine an area far enough down the canyon to be away from my GTs, but still keeping the miners safe from the golems. eventually, ill call everything back to base and wait for the mines to take their toll. as soon as they have, ill start thumping like crazy, run back for amo, and run forward and do it again. ill take shots at any golem i can. by repeating this strategy i have managed to hold of the assault fairly well. my trouble has always been when attacking the CCA base. those hadean stabbers combined w/ the snipers is just too much. i ended up picking off just enough defenses that i could run in and kill the snipers, and then brought in a whole army in the back way, and took out everything inside. once i could get close to the gate, i would knock out those biometal pipes.

i had no idea about how if you steal a tank and dont shoot or hop out, you wont get shot at. thats very useful to know:)

Yeah, I forgot to write down Comets and Day Wreckers.

Stuff that you don't get to have in Hell's Gate 2:

Mortar, MDM Mortar, Splinter (Tanks have Pop Gun)
Mag Cannon, Comet, Bolt Buddy (Bolt Buddy isn't really useful in my opinion)
Day Wrecker
Howitzer

I tried thumping the attack wave, that didn't work out for me. Is it just me, or do the Golems on that mission shoot at Gun Towers from 300m? In my early attempts at that mission, I was building a massive defensive line with many Gun Towers and multiple power sources and an army of tanks only to see the towers annihilated before the enemy came within their range, and my entire army of tanks shot down before they even saw the enemies and began to shoot. I had them set to follow me and I was trying to defend my towers. It was an epic failure.

I took out the pipes and the snipers on foot, I jumped into the base and found it easier to outrange them and snipe them. took a fair few saves. I can't remember how I got the pipes exactly, Think it was a plasma rifle job. This level took me days.

im now working on the mission on hard, and i didnt have the problem of having the walkers shoot at 300m range, at least at my GTs. however, thumping also miserably failed for me. when i used it b4(on easy mode), it still took multiple thumps in sucession. but i was able to defend my towers on hard mode by sniping the bombers and picking off the walkers before they were close to my towers, then using bombers i had built at my base to take out the rest. when i was picking off the golems serveral were only 250m and still not shooting at me.

my GT tower line consisted of only 2 L-powers and then 2 lines of 5 GTs back to back..

now im stuck on taking out the snipers, and ive discovered baldricks trick on going in on foot. thats an interesting idea about taking out the pipes on foot. guess thats where the minigun and all the amo helps

Here's the video of how I stopped the Golems and bombers in the 1st attack wave for the very first time ever:
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]
Something unexpected happened. I told my constructor to build a power and then the power and the constructor got destroyed and I still don't know what destroyed it because I saw my constructor explode via satellite, but didn't see the enemy unit that did it. I later rebuilt the power, and got 3 GT built.

I'll try infiltrating the base on foot and taking out those snipers and maybe those pipes too. May the force be with me!

the pipes on foot are ridiculous. right now im working on the mission on hard. still. ive worked on it every day since i first posted on this topic lol. im driving a stolen czar that comes stock with one hadean stabber. usually one can sneak into the crater thru the upper entrance and by carefully picking off a guntower and a tank or 2, you can drive around the upper rim of the crater and squish most of the snipers. from there, i grabbed another hadean stabber powerup and the MDM. both of these can be found at the back of the base. i left, switched vehicles and came back with a LT. i grabbed the comet and another hadean stabber. from there, i wore down the base defenseses, and took out the remaining snipers on foot. after this, i took out the pipes with comets. i found they actually suck miserably cuz of that factory. now im currently working on pushing my army closer to the entrance so i can take out the rest of the base. the only thing that keeps me going is all the scrap that you get.

i hate it when a pak deploys out of the active range of a GT but within the range of its hadean stabbers, and then takes out everythn.

any more hints or tips?