Bethany Plays: AWDoR Chapter 13: But Not Too Keen

Nice, we've finally got some properties again! I must say, it feels loads better to have a Plan B.

I don't think I like that title, though. When a "Strikes" title is about someone other than a main character, it's usually a villain.

We begin with Greyfield receiving a report.

...The part that confuses me, though, is that Greyfield was already aware of the results of last mission's battle. He talked to Will about them. Perhaps this is meant to be a different battle in between? I dunno, I'm not really getting that impression with the setup of Will insulting him.

Hearing the story told that Brenner is the one winning this war Greyfield fancied irritates him.

Despite, you know, Brenner being recruited for his capacity to win things.

"You know... where you ordered them to be..."

Greyfield's massive ego boils to bursting point, and he declares that he will attach himself to the conflict and acquire a shiny medal for himself no matter how many bullets he doesn't fire.

Davis gets a rare moment where he actually exercises some thought of his own as to how this will turn out.

Armies need to trust that their leaders know why they are shooting. They do not need to be micromanaged on how to fire a gun- that's what basic training was for.

And "right on it" is completely accurate, because this is exactly the pace of the chapter. I am skipping absolutely no dialogue or establishing narrative.

Brenner's taking command this time, incidentally.

This mission will be our introduction to ports we can build from, and we are given a lot of income with which to build units. Navies are expensive.

"May be". Pushing past enemy production does require a bit of extra oomph.

"Funds?" Double checks SHE'S NOT KIDDING? We do actually start with an extra 10K funds than our starting properties owe to us. The idea of "starting funds" is basically untouched in the Wars games, and this is the mission where we actually see it take effect?

When Greyfield is trying to glory-hound us?

...I guess he is trying to claim credit, what better way than to pass it off as us only getting units because he paid for them...

Well, we're going to need that money for our navy, and what better way to learn how to island hop?

Here's our mission. We start pretty close to our opponent, although they do possess a surprising quantity of Missiles for a map with no air units or airports. Greyfield has two gunboats and an APC. He will resupply his gunboats, but he sure as hell won't be shooting them again.

Here's our port tiles. Exactly what one might expect, but you never know. Anyway, let's see what Lin has to say about this mission.

...Once she shows up, at least.

So what have you been getting up to while the plot was passing an indeterminate amount of time...

Apparently, hanging around with Isabella.

Isabella vicariously trying to spend quality mother-daughter time with the closest thing to a mother in a two hundred mile radius.

Credit where credit is due, Lin is trying.

Either she didn't have mother-daughter time with her own mother, or she's been in an army too long. Still, she's putting in an effort to be what Isabella wants her to be, that's more than she was doing before the timeskip.

Says the person who adopted Isabella in the first place. Perhaps we should be asking why Isabella keeps trying to get her family time in with Lin and not Will in the first place.

Lin handily puts him in place.

That's why they're there. While Greyfield's gunboats are only going to fire one shot because Greyfield is lazy, our gunboats are going to keep their gunfire to a minimum because they'll be too busy ferrying infantry to find the time.

Greyfield's plan to steal the glory will involve actually interfering with our tactics. Because of this, the War Room does have to mention what that entails and the counterstrategy. I'd tell you more about the specific mechanics, but honestly, they're bizarre for their own reasons.

Will actually comments on the strategy this time. And here I was about to declare it noncanon.

...Wait, Carriers? I... almost overlooked those units. Good thing I didn't, then!

Seaplanes, too? Well, once I see what's going on here, we can adopt that strategy for sure.

One of them will figure this whole "makeup" stuff out. No idea which one, though. Wish them luck in finding out.

We've got our own business to be getting on with...

And Lin has decided on hers. Glad someone doesn't have to listen to Greyfield.

Funny thing is? None of Will's alternate CO colours actually change his hair colour. It's pretty common for them to do so, but in this case, no, all Will gets is a different jacket colour and tie. Somebody's attached to that shade of brown.

Here is the Carrier. This thing was sidegraded rather heavily from its debut in Dual Strike, and it was such a terrible unit there that it's mostly an upgrade. In Dual Strike, they were naval Missile platforms (3-8 range) that could carry and resupply two planes (an upgrade on Cruisers only covering copters). Both of these gimmicks sucked on the units that originally had them and were made even worse by being on a naval unit. Here, it lost the "being an indirect" gimmick and gained the ability to build its own air units. We'll see what those entail once I figure out how they work (it takes me a few turns), but when I said "sidegrade", I mean "OK, technically, the fact it's no longer an indirect qualifies as a nerf, and that's where the problems end."

First order of business? We need to capture properties, let's get infantry on the island where properties exist.

...This was clearly me being cunning in not having my battleship remain in range of the enemy's Rockets, but those are clearly Missiles.

Made up for it by scoring an exact KO. Coin flip coming up heads.

This has plenty of time to Dive. It's going to stay underwater all mission, until the end when it's done.

My Lander starts ferrying that APC to its destination. You always have to start plans a few days before they pay off in AW.

"An existent one" in this mission. I do not build a seaplane this turn, because the option didn't come up and I wasn't sure why. I figure it out next turn.

Here are our naval unit prices. Compared to the Wars World games, Battleships took a 3K discount, Carriers 2K, Cruisers 6K, Landers 2K, and Gunboats 1.5K compared to Black Boats. Hopefully these cheaper naval units translate to me actually considering buying more than just Battleships. No guarantees.

I'm also going to keep Greyfield's theme for a mission where he's not just three units, but that is Greyfield in command of the yellow units personally, and I'm actually liking his theme.

"Build me a property from wholecloth! Shower me in riches!"

Greyfield has satisfied his bloodlust for one mission.

Much like the start of this mission occurred with no exposition, the beginning of the enemy's turn occurs with no banter from our opposite number. His name is Gage, and his (pretty good) theme is called Proud Soldier. We'll get a chance to hear what he's like from his own mouth this mission, but "not bantering with us at all before opening hostilities is completely character" is a perfectly serviceable summary.

His turn largely consists of tucking in his anti-airs.

There we are, figured out the "build seaplane" button. A carrier cannot Produce and Move on the same turn (in retrospect, duh, have you ever built something on a moving vehicle?), and that was why I couldn't do it last turn. It'll be a while before I get some Seaplanes deployed and inspected, though, we can't have them deployed on the same turn as they are built.

Just like every other unit, I suppose, but we can't even look at them while they're fresh off the line.

The infantry's first action is to capture a Factory. In the Wars World games, this is because you want to be building new infantry to finish up the captures. Here, where you're penalised for overbuilding, I think the one infantry capturing the entire island is fine, but old habits die hard. And you never know when a unit needs building.

My Sub weaves through the rapids to plot out its opening salvo against those units over there.

It doesn't get super far, and the other ships aren't exactly hanging back here.

Also, something worth mentioning now, because it's going to be relevant later: technically that channel between those two landmasses is a chokepoint. Notice how there's a beach next to the carrier and one north of the cruiser. Any proper ship seeking to pass through there needs to pass through a specific stretch of ocean tiles three squares long.

My lander unloads the APC here, although I do plan on putting it on the western island like Lin suggested. Later, though.

Gunboat moves north, contemplating using this time to fire.

My other Gunboat goes back to shore to pick up a freshly built infantry.

Greyfield's turn is spent finishing his Temp Port and withdrawing his Gunboats for resupplies.

Gage starts by capturing a few properties.

His navy shuffles around in the chokepoint, and his carrier builds a seaplane of its own.

At the beginning of this turn, Greyfield has a line in which he asks an unseen informant to report on... a unit that you are currently using. I can't find much information on how the unit type Greyfield selects is chosen, but it will always be a unit type you actually have deployed, and empirical evidence is that he'll favour a unit type you have a lot of. You should take note of which unit type he says today and act in preparation.

I... don't know why he picked Rigs. Like... yeah, an army marches on its stomach, but Rigs are where my army's strength lies?

That's a problem for tomorrow. Today, my infantry are capturing properties.

This Battleship continues being annoyingly positioned, but even harder to shoot at.

The Sub moves closer, and my other units move about. I still haven't deployed my seaplane- that must be done before the Carrier Moves. Unlike with Producing a Seaplane, it doesn't exclude Moving, but I still missed that detail.

My lander moves to the other side, and the APC resupplies it.

Prepare for Greyfield to never move from this spot again.

Gage finishes capturing those properties. He can make bids for others, but he'll need his Landers for that.

Seaplane deployed.

...NRA? In context, I think that's meant to be "New Rubinelle Army", but that is a load of connotations to dump on us.

We have more important problems, though. Greyfield's massive ego has gotten to the point where he's literally threatening us to make him look like he's doing a good job.

One does start to wonder why we even bothered showing up if Greyfield wanted command so badly, but there's nothing we can really do from here to let sounder minds prevail.

...They're going to go around this point, but uh... that guy is meant to be an NRA soldier- ie Greyfield's- and not one of ours.

Their point is that Greyfield's "penalty of death" is meant to apply to the entirety of the Wolves, but "the entirety of the Wolves" is not a group that contains the NRA guys. They really should've switched out the NRA guy for a Wolf.

I think it's less you in specific and more the idea of someone better than him in general. Not that you in specific hasn't emasculated him one too many times.

Will, correctly, figures that him inflaming Greyfield by calling him insane to his face didn't help, but Brenner tells him blaming himself isn't going to solve anything.

Brenner decides to obey this order, and the way this works in game is that the player won't even have the option of disobeying.

So how does the game manage to mechanically integrate Greyfield's interfering orders?

At the beginning of the turn (I believe after resupplies!), Greyfield will order the unit type reported on the previous turn to halt (it's always halt, he won't have them run off into danger or anything), and all units of that type will automatically have their turns taken away. As interference goes, it does a good job of making the player feel the same frustration the Wolves are feeling, and can easily cost you those units if they're in the wrong place, but the turn of warning you get makes it relatively forgiving and, as Lin pointed out, having a diverse unit roster makes this less of a problem than it could be. I also got lucky.

My infantry have not been ordered to Halt, so they continue their Captures.

Anyway, since Gage has so helpfully deployed a Seaplane for me, it's time to take a look at what they can do. And whoa that's a lot of red up arrows. The Seaplane is a bit of a rebalance on a unit type called the Stealth Fighter from Dual Strike- it is unable to conceal itself, but it keeps the ability to deal solid damage to any type of unit and the low fuel. It has also been given a low supplement of ammunition, making them feel dependent on returning to their Carriers to reload. This actually helps buff navy quite a bit- by making them actually air instead, yeah, but the way seaplanes can fly off a carrier and immediately fire an attack gives Carriers + Seaplanes a completely different character to Bombers.

As an aside, the mission that introduced Carriers and Stealth Fighters in Dual Strike gave you seven Carriers with Stealths loaded on each one, with the problem being that they were all stuck and couldn't unload until you reached them with their other units. I wonder if making the Seaplanes explicit Carrier units was related to that introduction.

Less helpfully, Gage has actually cleverly positioned his Seaplane with a good vantage point over my army, but out of range of retaliation. That was smart of him.

And my Seaplane can't even do anything. I elect to keep it in the carrier for now.

I take the incoming hit to the Battleship on the chin in order to sink its opposite number.

I also build another infantry. I think I'm kinda hoping Greyfield orders the infantry to halt, although ideally he goes for Cruisers or something.

Nifty, a hiding spot for my Seaplane! I'm not sure why that Carrier can fire on those three squares in the south- to do so, it needs to be positioned south of the submarine, and clearly that's not an option. The reason there's a blindspot is because the only square the carrier can shoot into it is the one occupied by the submarine

I'm occupying it anyway. This is a nice safe space from all the units I'm afraid of.

Especially when I protect the east side.

I build another Seaplane, and finally manage to snap the small popup image you get to prove you did.

They'll be getting resupplies every day.

On the first day after Greyfield gives an order, Gage will pipe up to have his first line of dialogue, observing that this looks very strange from someone who didn't hear Greyfield's perspective.

The conversation isn't long, as is Gage's preference. Honestly, I consider the next scene with Gage in it to be such a great character-establishing moment that having Gage show up now feels odd. Perhaps this scene could've been moved to afterwards? It does tie in better that way...

The Seaplane shoots my Battleship, as predicted. I have a plan for that, but I won't deny it bites.

This Mech is loaded onto the lander to be unloaded over on that island. I saw those properties first! Mine!

And then Gage's Gunboat sails up to me and collides face-first into my submarine, ending its turn prematurely. It had no reason to do this- if it wanted to shoot my cruiser, there was another route bypassing this tile. Stupid random chance and unobservant pathing.

Gage builds another Seaplane, and hides that damaged Cruiser from Greyfield's opening salvo in port. Remember, Greyfield didn't finish that off.

My cruiser gets the chance to show off that it's good at being an anti-air unit. It's good for something, at least.

One infantry continues capturing, while the other goes off in the Gunboat.

The APC, now that Greyfield has given it leave to act under my orders again, goes into the lander.

I want this Carrier down, and these two manage to scrape together a KO. I only needed an extra 4 points of damage, but that sure felt risky. If I didn't sink it, that's a perfectly intact Seaplane that could've come at me.

The Submarine is more than able to get rid of this gunboat. Yeesh. What did they feed you?

I notice that all the anti-aircraft units Gage has are over there, and I send my second Seaplane to finish this Cruiser before it can do its repairs.

This is a neat demonstration of the fact that the Carrier can move after launching a Seaplane, really.

A closer port! I may need to build some more ships, and they will probably come from this port instead of the one back home.

I spent a lot of time considering whether to land an infantry on that island or wait until later. It's impossible to place an infantry on that island without putting it in firing range of that Mech, and while it will probably begin a capture, I'm not taking that chance.

It decides it wants that property. Help yourself.

This is the turn in which Will attempts to make contact with the new Lazurian commander, and the turn we get formally introduced to Gage.

For a certain degree of "introduced".

After some time, Gage finally acknowledges that Will is trying to talk to him. There's a reason you're expected to announce your presence when you're being contacted by non-visual mediums.

This line is probably the perfect encapsulation of Gage. Having already decided he's not interested in Will, he sees his time being wasted and decides not to be dealing with it.

Will, no less determined to get a real answer out of someone, sees a new person and immediately asks the question.

Gage shuts him down flat. He not only doesn't know, he doesn't care to know.

To Will's shock. He was still in training, and they didn't entirely manage to beat his self-preservation instincts out of him yet.

Gage, on the other hand?

Gage's preservation instincts are entirely in Forsythe's hands.

...You know, just because your boss actually has a head on his soldiers doesn't mean this isn't a particularly worrying school of thought to have in Greyfield's army.

Gage does not like conversation. He felt he said everything he needed to say, and ended conversation there rather than waiting for Will to come to the same conclusion.

Hopefully our rhetoric will be more effective on cities.

I believe this is when I noticed where Gage's Factory is. I wasn't sure if he had one until this got a bit too suspicious. This should be fairly easy to shut down, though.

We can also see the unit that's currently loaded into that lander (a tank) by hovering over it. Surprised it's still in the lander, though.

Right, I don't want Gage's income getting any higher, and I want to start setting up myself.

Lander unloads the APC for setting up that port.

Irritating. Don't have anything left to finish the job.

Right, you're limiting my naval options, and I've had enough of that.

It also blocks this recon from getting to the south shore! Ultimately didn't wind up landing on it, though.

And I built another Battleship, to reinforce the dented one. Looks like we're going to need more of them.

...Or not. Greyfield's eyes are at least functional. Shame about the other parts of his body.

Oh well, Battleship does something useful with its one turn.

...In hindsight, not sure why the other Battleship went for that lander.

Well, working on that port now.

Ah, that explains it. The Sub needed a refuel. It'll get one for free next turn without the Rig even needed to break a step.

Seaplane starting on this tank that annoyingly unloaded.

I'm the one capturing these properties, Gage!

I notice this seaplane is getting low on fuel, so I send it back to the carrier to be resupplied.

And the Gunboat deletes this lander and its two units of cargo.

I build a second Carrier to add some more Seaplanes to the mix. I think having a second one was better in the long run, but there was one assumption I had a problem with.

Cruiser takes out the Lander. Something had to.

Not sure what this is picking up, but it has literally nothing better to do.

Annoying, but I was out of units to stop it from happening.

They have one more special dialogue for the second time Greyfield shuts us down, but after this, it's generics.

I feel like, if we're describing our commanding officer as being as much of an obstacle as our opponent, we have bigger problems we should be thinking about.

After this battle is an acceptable time to think about them, though.

Honestly not even sure how helpful those would be. Getting rid of the tank, yeah, but that's about it.

This Carrier's working on the replacements for the Battleships.

So long as the infantry doesn't drop below 8 HP, all this costs is a little cash and a turn. These properties weren't entirely essential anyway.

Missiles have moved forward. That's going to make things spicy for the seaplanes.

This looks like a good place to set up.

I can start capturing some properties here. It will, strictly speaking, count as a foothold.

The submarine's job is to shut down those ports. Shouldn't be too hard.

Not only is this a place to make resupplies, but it also makes this chokepoint more manageable by turning that beach into a port.

Now you stop harassing my infantry.

Last of these properties now coming in. It takes time, but the faster we do it, the more value it gets us in total.

Lander floats up, and loads this infantry for another landing.

And I have time to build a unit to use as backup. Hm... I can build anything here...

Rockets sound like the unit I want to pack. Perhaps a tank would've been better in this situation, I always prefer my indirects.

How's Gage going to get out of this one?

Apparently, by pulling back his missiles and condensing his units into an easier pile. Thank you, Gage!

...Huh. Can I not put my submarine in an enemy port? That's weird.

Oh well, the Seaplane can cover the port. I'd rather have both shut down, but that's not really an option yet.

...This is going to be a problem.

Oh well, we can move the infantry somewhere else. Get a start on that capturing those properties once we get our foothold there.

Here's the part where my battleships corner Gage by going into that inlet rather than going around. I guess I was worried about Gage hiding in the north-west.

It'll heal that dent off automatically and can get started on the other two easily.

This one's done. There's a gunboat free to lug it forward, if it has the time.

Lander takes in the rocket and moves forward.

We are now at the point where we need to think about where that AA is set up. They'll be a unit the seaplanes want no part of.

Second Carrier builds its second seaplane. Overwhelm them with the numbers.

Carrier... going around the peninsula. Once again, setting up in that nook like there'll be fighting happening in it.

Gage is happy to hide in the northeast.

We'll see where we can get this gunboat to make a landing.

OK, you're just feeding money to the sub at that point, Gage.

Particularly since my seaplanes now basically have free range here.

Pew and pew. I'm now basically free to move around unimpeded on the property side.

And I've landed my infantry on the port. All Gage can do about it is that Mech.

...This Battleship is out of ammo. So much for shooting it down.

Oh well. Landing these units here, getting ready for the push forward.

Joining up the Battleships, making a good supply of cash.

Moving this Carrier closer to the action, for a Seaplane blitz when I'm ready for it.

And there's a replacement battleship for the join I did.

Hm, didn't even dent my infantry! That's nice. Gage is pretty screwed once that tank goes away.

Battleships again? Care to pick a unit that I actually significantly care about, or are you too dumb to even manage that?

These Missiles are covering each other, but basically nothing else.

Infantry captures a city, but I've got designs on more.

Sure, it puts a seaplane in range of the AAs, but I do kinda want it baited forwards anyway...

And this lets me blow up that Medium Tank before it even registers that it's a Middie.

The Factory is now mine. And what's Gage going to do about it?

This seaplane needs its resupply.

This other one can handle the Mech and deny Gage any sort of ground here.

Battleship is free to dent this Missile and let the Seaplanes get more freedom of movement.

Not sure where this APC is going, but it'll be useful somewhere.

Gunboat stops for resupplies. I think I can land that infantry on that beach.

AA gleefully takes the bait. Don't have much to counterattack with, but, well...

I'm happy with how much of that unit survived.

And yeah, the Battleships... well, there goes that plan for the AA?

Yeah, the Seaplanes could do it on their own. I've got one less of them, but I have an acceptable number left.

Officially captured property. No more land units out of Gage, although what I'll be building remains to be seen.

My other infantry changes its mind and goes for the port, to make sure Gage doesn't build new units of any kind.

APC is ready for resupplies!

My fleet of seaplanes lines up.

And wow these units don't have much they seem interested in doing.

Not that these ones have much they can do with the ports shut down. Another downside of navies.

They're just wasting supplies while the land units secure the win.

The carriers just consider where the best spot to be a resupply base is.

Oh hi, I stopped blocking that port and a unit got built over here!

Well, at least the submarine has work now.

Infantry will be ready to leap in once it's done.

This is just for insult to injury at this point.

Battleship gets back to work on this missile. Greyfield's orders prevented it from doing a one-two punch, but there's only so much the missile can do here.

Shame neither missile truck can go down, really, but there are a surplus of seaplanes ready to finish the job.

The infantry is a formality, really. I'm winning by rout.

Rocket is here, to finish off this top missile and make sure the seaplanes are sufficient.

Battleship is free to handle this guy.

And making sure we don't get any funny ideas this turn.

Oh hey, you're still here! Well, I guess it's good for completion.

Which makes this carrier pretty useless where it is.

This carrier, in remaining stationary, demonstrates a feature I had failed to notice until this exact point. Remember when I showed you the stats on the Carrier? It can only carry two planes at a time... but it has the Material to build four. I could've had more seaplanes swarming the map! Probably didn't have the funds for them, admittedly, but what else am I saving for? Battleships?

This missile is the only one that gets to shoot. All my seaplanes are in the range shadow of the other. This is honestly part for the course for missiles.

Rocket shoots these down.

Dented Seaplane covers for this one.

Battleship comes in to take out the first half of the Middie's HP...

...And shoot. I'm out of ammo.

Good thing I lucked into building this extra seaplane, then! I think that's sheer dumb luck. The best kind of luck, though, and welcome after last map.

After losing to us, Gage remembers how we tripped over our own feet, and decides that, since he lost, we were probably doing something right. Right for the wrong reasons there.

That one is right on the money. You don't want to get caught by Greyfield.

Now that's a score I can be proud of. Who knew I was better at the game when there is production to lean on to ensure I have the right units at all times?

"We will not be stopped by some two-bit has-been."

Stats. Look at all these ground units I didn't use.

Now the time comes for the news to reach Greyfield's ears formally. You know, as if he weren't there personally.

The soldier quickly realising that making sure Greyfield's ego is sufficiently massaged is going to be important for his career futures. Probably a red flag, not that Greyfield is the one who needs to notice.

Greyfield putting on either his "kicked puppy" look or "just kicked a puppy" look.

It only lasts long enough to be dismissed as a trick of the light, or at least it does in-universe. One of those things it's hard to portray in portraits.

I think you need a longer moustache in order to twirl it. Good luck with that painted on strap of hair.

Meanwhile, before we head off from this battlefield, it seems the plot has finally seen fit to squeeze in some Isabella lore!

Now, this man isn't her long lost relative or anything. I feel like we'd want buildup if it was that.

Isabella has no memory of this place being a city, bakery or no bakery.

You're going to have to be the one directing the conversation here.

Unfortunately, his familiarity is limited to "passing acquaintance". Were Isabella's hair not so distinctly coloured, I have my doubts he'd actually remember her at all.

Fortunately, this passing acquaintance actually does point us in the direction of a group of people that might be more informative.

Well, OK, that does require they still be around, but still.

...Yup. They're dead. So much for-

Oh.

...Actually, that's worse. Can we go back to the world where they were dead? Dead families leave behind memory-awakening mementos. Creepy families leave behind trauma buttons.

Trauma buttons and people who refuse to talk about the subject. Although this is certainly the politest way to avoid that subject I've ever seen.

Bad rumours or not, information is information. We'll judge for ourselves how accurate they are when we meet them, at least give us a baseline.

...Well, that certainly tells us plenty about them. Raises several more questions, yes, but those are some interesting questions.

...I don't even know what accent this is. Was it really so integral to his character that they had to reiterate it?

Probably textbox timing issues in the translation, honestly.

Isabella walks away disheartened by the revelation. We can't all be enthused about the subject of untangling our family history.

"Oh no, this is a sensitive subject! Time to dig deeper!" What a hero.

I can't explain the tough guys turning up in bodybags (other than the types usually wind up crossing the wrong person in the end), but I think that second one was just kids touching things with innocent curiosity.

Isabella has certainly caused neither anomaly in the time we've known her.

I'd probably have suggested talking only to Will and letting him judge whether Isabella ought to hear it, but he'd probably have martyred himself no matter which option he took. Still, so much for being tactful about the subject.