Ch 3 Combat "In Ackbar We Trust"

We're in the combat zone and everyone is launched for this one. Even our luxury culinary cruise ship is in the area ready to provide what support it can but low and behold our suspicions were correct...

Three ships is alot more than we were expecting and they're all well armed as well. Either way that doesn't change the fact that there may still be a hostage onboard one of the vessels and as long as it's just those three capital ships we should be fine.

Then the Tessaract's shields drop, in fact the entire ship is rendered inoperable, it's a complete sitting duck and something's jamming all it's abilities.

Friendly Forces
- Tessaract
--- Natalie
- Everyone else in their unit

Enemy Forces
- Hellfire
--- Stevan
-2 x Armaden
--- Pirate Captains
-9 x Leoship
--- Space Viking

Deployment of your own forces is exactly as picture above. If you have the Geves with you then Keeruu is located right in the middle of the Zaku and the AG-01.

Win Condition
The incoming fighters need to be delt with before we get through to the Hellfire but at the same time we need to keep an eye on Natalie in our ship. The Tessaract however has a massive amount of hitpoints and Natalie has the SP Command Trust which lets her heal a third of any allied unit's maximum hp including her own so she'll be perfectly fine where she is.

Engaging
There's little cover between us and the enemy fleet. There is a large asteroid field stretching in from the north east of the map towards the center but for this battle it's almost entirely ineffectual.

Since the Tessaract is our carrier we can board it and get fully repaired if things get hairy though it'll cost any boarding unit 5 morale and it won't refill our energy or restock our ammunition.

Whilst boarded we can also change over any of the items on our units, this includes weapons, different armor plating or brand new consumables if we use them in the battle. This is where having a good stock of equipment lying around will come in handy.

The Leoships are nippy little fighters that could have been dangerous if they weren't piloted by complete and utter morons who are only able to pull at most a D rank modifer for space which helps throw some of their evasion out of the window and amplifies their already fragile nature. Not even level 8 can save them.

They're equipped with two attacks, a 4-Way Machine Cannon that'll at most tickle your units into submission with a post-movement range of 1-4 . At most the cannons were hitting my well equipped units for a little around 40. One even critted Hotariko for just 38.

The real danger happens when you reduce a Leoship below 1/4 of their maximum hit points which'll enable them to use a kamikaze attack. Kamikaze attacks are a point blank attack which'll take out the Leopship but have a good crit chance with 300 attack power. This can hurt.

It's often better to avoid attacking in your turn if you're not guranteed to kill the unit and to counter attack instead during the Enemy Phase. This way you'll only get a dose of Machine Cannons and not a crazy space viking in your face.

Leoships controlled by AI are lower in level but their Terrain Stat for space is a B, much better than that of the Space Vikings so they're a little more deadly.

The Armadens will be completly ineffectual for this battle so don't worry about them at all.

All the enemy units in this stage drop nothing with melee critical hits so you're not missing out on anything if you stick to range attacks.

Event 1
On enemy phase 2 the two Armaden battleships retreat from the battlezone. Suddenly things are much more easier maybe our show of force might have detered the pirates. Either way now it's just us, the fighter and the Hellfire.

Event 2
Shooting down five of the Leoships will trigger this next event. We're really overpowering the pirates and it seems we're being hailed by the commander of their forces.
Weird, it looks like we're the ones winning here. The real trap is now sprung and the two Amardens that retreated previously have completly flanked the Tessaract from above and below. Each capital ship also deploys 9 more Leoships as well.

Piority switches from offense to defence as Anderson is moved directly next to the Tessaract only for him to get jumped by two more Leoships (Oh god there's hundreds of them). After a brief exchange of gunfire and dirk swinging Stevan reveals that these fighters are being controlled by much better AI and onboard one there is a hostage. Sneaky bastard.

For now you'll be unable to take on the AI Leoships but the ones still piloted by the pirates are fair game. It's up to Rane to find out where the hostage is.
Event 3
As soon as a Leoship targets Anderson the next event will trigger. The Tessaract has picked up another unit closing in, it's pretty small, maybe another fighter? Things just seem to be getting worse.
Reinforcements! Though it isn't officialy on our side contact is established with the new unit and it's assitance requested. It's ANOTHER cute girl in a mecha and it looks like she has a beef with the pirates as well. She drops one of their capital ships in a single shot and Rane locates which of Leoships the hostage is in.

Anderson will grab it and take it onboard the Tessaract and leave everyone else to the clean up of the remaining pirates.
Battle Mastery
The objectives have changed to annhilation now that we've rescued the hostage and the battle mastery makes itself known. All pirate fighters now will make a beeline for the Tessaract and the remaining Armaden will start making a move as well.

The Battle Mastery for this stage is pretty easy and readily obtainable with Emma's mercy around. Chip the Hellfire's health down gradually to a little under 100 and then just sit around waiting for Stana to fly in and pick up the kill.

Depending on how quickly Stana spams her energy draining attacks it may take a few turns of her generating energy to get around shooting the Hellfire down so be patient.

Event 4
Being engaged by the remaining Armaden or attacking it will result in Anderson making a dynamic entry with a new frame mounted on the Zero destroying the capital ship in one shot.

The Hellfire out of options will now either start moving at full speed or engage any nearby targets whilst constantly deploying two Leoships every turn. We're now on the home stretch.

Engaging the Hellfire
It's worth noting that a good portion of your units have some words to say to Stevan when they attack. Anderson, Hotariko, Jean, Ray, Stana and Yohko all have something to say, but Hotariko's is the bestest.

The Hellfire is a large class unit so it's a little easier to dent compared to the Musai but it's also flying around with an S Rank in space and Stevan has counter which means he'll reguarly go first with his counter attacks.

There's no dead zone when it comes to the Hellfire but it's primary anti suit weapons the turret machine cannons have a post-movement range of 1-2, are well stocked with ammunition and pretty accurate.

With a post-movement range of 2-6 the Hellfire also comes with a Laser Cannon which is obviously beam based and as such can rip our Zaku up pretty badly. It is however geared towards anti-ship combat so it's highly inaccurate so engaging from 3 squares and beyond might be much more suitable.

Be careful though, the Hellfire's Laser Cannon critted a defending John for 178. That's a big number.

If you need time to fix up your units again Rane comes in hander with Fetter to buy you a few turns of putting things back together.

Event 5
As the Hellfire is eventually sunk Stevan gives us a good old bad guy monologue before becoming space dust. Everyone's exhausted, but not so much that they can't thank Stana for her timely arrival.

At the very least we can invite her onboard, repair and refuel before she has to go and there seems to be something Natalie wants to discuss with Anderson.