Ch 4 Combat "Earth Defence Force 2017"

Giant bugs? All those memories from EDF are flooding back to me and we don't have an AF-20RAR between us. Speaking of funky military designations it's our first run in with an Armored Core unit and it is just swimming in abreviations and numbers...

Deployment
Friendly Forces
-Verein Zero
---Anderson
- Noir
--- Unknown Raven (BESTEST MUSIC)

Enemy Forces
-3 x Giant Bugs with Anderson
-3 x Giant Bugs with Raven.

Nothing fancy about the deployment in this stage. It's just Anderson on his lonesome competing against the Unknown Raven.

Win Condition
Trying to beat the Raven in his AC Noir is made pretty difficult by a combination of him being level 15 compared to an Anderson who might be skirting level 10, maybe even level 11 if you grind like crazy. Things are further complicated with the AC Noir being probably one of the best units in game so far with a combination of damage reducing equipment, KARASAWA KARASAWA KARASAWA, and an incredibly high movement rate complete with overboost.

Then everything hits an 'impossible' wall due to phase order as well. Because the Raven is considered a neutral target it goes after getting a full round of counter attacks weakening his set of bugs. Even with you doing the best you can this often puts the Raven a whole phase ahead of you which he'll stretch even further with his ability to reach the second target square in a single turn where it'll take us two unless we start moving early and risk not killing our intial starting targets first.

There's a small chance of earning a phase back when we hit the second square in actions but by then the Raven will of had a turn or a turn and a phase ahead of us.

All in all, don't go busting a nut over trying to beat the Raven in this test. The odds are so horribly stacked against you there's little point in trying. Just focus on the battle mastery.

Engaging
The giant bugs aren't so much of a threat. They're more adorable versions of the Leoships in the previous level except they can really stack up damage quickly a little later on.

It takes about two hits of an average weapon from any of the two available Zero frames to neutralize a bug with a base 100 morale. By the time we're skimming 140-150 with an active attack booster this can get reduced to a single shot/wrecking ball which really helps.

The giant bugs have an effective range of 7 squares, with a combination of movement 4 and a single post-movement attack with a range of 1-3 squres. This single attack is a gentle soothing spittle called acid spit which'll only gently carress the Zero but burns away half the armor value of any hit unit for a turn. Awesomley this effect doesn't stack otherwise we'd be pretty dead pretty fast.

The giant bugs have nothing stealable on them unless you want to outfit the Vereins with giant ant legs or something but I wouldn't recommend that.

Battle Mastery
The battle mastery for this level will require a fair bit of thinking ahead from the start to finish. It's quite possible to get this all cleaned up by the skin of your teeth dead on in 13 turns but just some general thinking will help shave this down to 10 turns or less.

With the Molior it's often better to use your single attack to fire off the grapling hook over getting off a wrecking ball shot. Statistically killing a bug in your phase isn't any different than killing it in it's phase with a counter shot. It's more economic and easier on your energy levels to pull a target to you and counter kill it with the mechanical knife instead.

When we're onto the stage with your additional reinforcements Anderon's role will switch to that of pumping out support attacks. You'll want to have some energy left over for wrecking ball for this or even drop the molior frame for the inexpensive Nibel Dirk attack.

The key is to always think ahead a turn or two, making sure you'll have at least enough targets in range of an unmoved Verein Zero equal to Anderson's Helper level and another target in range for Anderson's attack.

Event 1
Clearing up your first initial set of bugs and moving to the target square will spawn four more giant bugs all around the target square. You'll probably be beaten by Raven to this so you'll know it's coming up.

Event 2
After all the bugs have been cleared up (Raven will help you with this if you're a little too slow. What a show off.) Anderson will admit he's been completly outclassed. The combat prowess of the NEXT and it's mercenary pilot just too much for someone relying on manual EVERYTHING and the age old frame-slot system.

In good old "It's only a simple test" fashion all hell breaks loose when more of the bugs escape captivity and flood into the test zone. A restraining team in clunky old walkers attempt to control the situation only to be obliterated by a ravenous horde of gnashing mandibles.

Things are pretty bleak now that this new massive wave of bugs have popped up and the battle mastery might seem neigh unobtainable. Raven in his Noir however knows what to do and is willing to get into the fray (ammunition costs be damned!) with us.

Event 3
Thinning out the numbers of bugs will trigget the next event, reinforcements have arried in the form of Jean, Ray and Bruno (Emma as well if in a good relationship with Anderson). They're not piloting their original mechs though, they're in the same clunky walkers from before.

The Arophoros are pretty well built units capable of taking punishment. Their only offensive option is a post-movement range 1-4 glue gun that will completly freeze up an ant for a whole turn and as such is much more effective than the collection of shock weaponry available to us in the military market.

More importantly the Arophoros can repair as a post movement so if Anderson's hurting we can get him back up to a much more safer level.

A king bug will also rear it's ugly head out of a nearby hole but it'll sit there smugly watching it's minions get chewed up. Any attempts to attack it will result in a lost action.

Event 4
Destroying the last giant bug leaves us with the King Bug who's pretty pissed at what we've done to it's peons. Raven can't help us due to his AC running out of ammunition (Must have left his laser blade in the hanger) and it's up to the Tsukuyomi Task Force to do it.

I guess I'll help as well. Everything's pretty much on auto-pilot here. If Emma's around you'll get a few extra lines of dialogue. If Emma really likes Anderson then we'll get some extra D'AWWWWW lines mixed in with the extra stuff. Indeed she is the most "adorable jailbait" ever.