Ch 2-B Combat "3 x (S = d / t)"

Things are pretty grim by the time our scrambled units arrive in the combat zone and since we're in a very open sector of space there isn't much cover between us and Side 7, things could get ugly...

The attack on the Side 7 is well underway but there doesn't seem to be any sign of Char amongst the Zeon forces, just a unit of ZakuIIs and a Musai maintaining a peremiter guard around the area. The matter is only complicated some more when a new mobile suit enters the fray emerging from Side 7, but it's not a Zeon unit, it's some brand new white mobile suit.

Communication is established between our forces and the federation pilot who turns out to be just a civilian, Amuro Ray. It looks like the Federation are relying on some show of power to prove they're not pushovers and Amuro's caught up in this mess. Anderson and Jean resolve that they'll need to protect the white mobile suit whilst it fights or the Federation will be looked upon as a laughing stock.

Deployment
Friendly Forces
-Verein Zero
---Anderson
-AG-01
---Jean
-4 x Units of your choice
-Gundam NPC
---Amuro

Enemy Forces
-5 x ZakuII
--- Zeon Soldier
- 1 x Musai
--- Doren

Note that your third optional unit to be deployed will be put to the left of Jean since they can't be ontop of Jean.

Win Condition
Another straight forward clean up job with some additional USEFUL assistance. The gundam's better armed than the alternate route, head vulcans, beam saber but this time Amuro has a nice and powerful beam rifle as well.

The gundam can handle the first Zaku that comes at it but if you move slowly for this one he'll be engaged by two or maybe even three if you're moving at a super cautious snail pace, the Gundam won't be able to handle three at the same time.

Throw caution to the wind by sending over one unit with flash or send Anderson with Attention to...well...grab the attention of the Zakus and give Amuro a fair fighting chance and he'll provide some great covering firing when he's done killing his target.

Engaging
Initial engagements with the ZakuIIs can be dicey at first, there isn't much cover in the area short of a few scattered asteroid fields down south-westish of our positions where the skirmishing will take place.

Side 7 is capable of providing a quick refuel job but it's positioned well out of the main combat zone so that's a moot point.

The Zakus work on a same sort of level as empty load Vereins except with a sturdier health bar, are better adapted for space combat and are also classed as medium sized opponents. They'll be taking noticably less damage than the E.Y.Es if you're inappropiatley equipped for space combat.
They're also armed with Zaku Machineguns and a Heat Hawk.

The Zaku Machinegun has a negative modifer to accuracy which means even without SP commands or defensive terrain to take advantage of these range 1-4 post movment weapons will have a hit rate of just over 50-60% with damage hitting at about 70-100 depending on how armored up your units are.

The real danger comes from the Zaku Heat Hawks which'll reliably hit and with a bit more damage tacked on. Fortune smiles on us though, the Zakus are slower than our own units and keeping the Zakus at bay is an easy job.

To make things easier Zakus are weak to beam based attacks as displayed by Jean's opening attack with a Beam Shooter.
Ouch. Critical hit. If you've got beam shooters, beam handguns or even beam based close combat weaponry the Zakus should be a simple push over.

As with the E.Y.Es the Zakus will drop scrap metal which'll auto sell on the military market for cash on critical melee hits. On super rare occassions you'll cleave off some Super Hard Steel Alloy armor instead.

The Musai is our first capital ship target and is classified as double large. That means it's attacks will hit really hard but not often and any attacks we hit with will scratch the paint even with it's horrible armor rating of 20.

The Musai comes with two range 2-5 attacks. Type-145 missiles which will do the most damage. You don't want to get hit by this attack as it's more of a ship to ship warfare weapon but Doren's so awesome he doesn't care that he's trying to hit suits with them. I believe they can be intercepted and possibly slashed away.

After expending missile ammunition the Musai will switch over to the Mega Particle Cannons and start spamming those. They're a little weaker than the missile attacks but the Musai can keep firing these almost indefinetly but at the same accuracy rate. Durr hurr hit small units with anti-ship weaponry hurr durr.

Things aren't any better if you get up close at ranges 1-3 as the Musai will fire off bursts of anti-suit missiles which are much more accurate and are still painful as hell.

It's up to preference on how you engage the Musai, you can do it at range and risk getting hit by attacks that can shave off well over 200+ in damage or you can resort to close quaters and take lots of little hits.

There's nothing to steal off the Musai with crit melee hits.

As of the Stage 6 update all Zakus are now highly resistant to bullets but have taken on an additional weakness in the form of slash attacks. Melee attacks and any beam weapons are now highly prefered.

Optional Flag Event 1
Things can be pretty tough for an untrained civilian getting tossed into the deep end when it comes to mecha combat. At least the TTF have had some form of training. Moving Anderson next to Amuro gives you an option to talk to the poor guy and give him some words of encouragement. This optional event can be done at any time in the mission but be sure to grab it as it makes Amuro think a little more highly of the TTF.

Optional Flag Event 2
If words from Anderson aren't enough Jean can unleash her own brand of encouragement. A short exchange between her and Amuro will give our mobile suit pilot prodigy a good opinion on mercenaries, heck one of the best ones is a cute girl. Another event that can be done at any time during the mission and you don't have to burn an attack action to do it just put Jean next to Amuro.

Event 1
At the start of turn three a new friendly unit emerges from Side 7. It's the Federation's new battleship White Base currently under acting captain Bright Noa. It looks like we're going to have some help in taking down the Musai.

The White Base and her crew however pick up more Zaku's in the area which deploy right in between the TTF and the Musai and one of them's THREE TIMES FASTER!

Battle Mastery
Battle Mastery here is going to be hit or miss but thanks to the general flow of battle you'll probably have all your units lined up right where you need them. We're getting off lucky again as Char's custom ZakuII isn't three times faster than his fellow soldiers with only 20 more speed tacked onto it. Speed 120 would just be silly (But so CHAR).

To make up for that fact Char is level 9 and his suit comes with a kick attack (YES) instead of a heat hawk and a few levels in shield block so he can use his ZakuII shield to cut down the damage he takes.

His attacks will chew up your units very fast unless you burn SP so ignore everyone else on the field and dogpile him with support attacks. A well equipped Jean can go toe to toe with Char for a while, which'll result in an epic firefight between the Golden Star and the Red Comet.

As long as Char is preoccupied with you he won't give a damn about Amuro, so it's more of a race against the Gundam. You'll have about three turns before Amuro can finish off a Zaku/move close enough to open up on Char.

If you're finding it difficult to meet this deadline try the level again and leave two of the starting ZakuIIs behind for Amuro to clean up or if you have Rane on the field Fetter the Musai whenever you can to mess up Char's deployment.

Event 2
Bringing the Musai down below 2000 hp will force Doren to retreat. There's no real way to destroy it at this stage but at the very least this pain in the backside is out of the way.

Event 3
If you let Amuro engage Char or if you shoot Char down things go onto auto pilot. Char and Amuro will be fully healed, rearmed and engage in their own little battle with Slender and Ryu Jose getting involved as well.

The white mobile suit's brand new beam weaponry far surpass that of current technology and it shows when Amuro takes out Slender in a single shot forcing Char to retreat with his tail between his legs.

If there are no more enemy units on the battlefield it's mission done otherwise it's case of cleaning Side 7 space up before we can congratulate Amuro on a fine sortee. Gee he must be a natural or something.