Our next map is a bit of an interesting one, with a bunch of meteors and plasma at our backs, no HQs, and... wait a second, am I seeing that right? Yellow opponents?
Well, I suppose it's not like the Lazurians have much in the way of resources here.
...Were these two not there? It feels weird for one of them to know but not the other.
Tasha, of course, is ready to start shooting. Gage points out that right now, they're victims, not capable of enacting their own vengeance.
Tasha then jumps to this conclusion. As conclusions go... honestly, it's not that far out of line, either. Greyfield was certainly not planning on letting any Lazurian keep breathing.
Will steps up with his hero defence of Brenner, and it sounds a heck of a lot more limp when we've already seen Brenner fail at exactly this.
Although it does kinda feel like this is a line where Tasha was here to witness Brenner's futile efforts.
Gonna be honest, we're doing a really shit job at convincing her Rubinelle is capable of doing good things.
On the positive side, Tasha does at least know Will means well. That's about it.
Will tries, once more, to convince Tasha of Brenner's good character.
Gage tells him something a bit more practical, if still pessimistic about Brenner as a person- Brenner can mean as well as he wants, that's not going to make Forsythe any less dead, and Tasha and Gage any less condemned. Brenner being a good man isn't much comfort to a dead man.
Brenner comes along to get Will to stop embarrassing himself.
Look at him. Crying to Dad about how mean these bigger kids are.
Tasha, as an actual adult (even if she doesn't express it sometimes), talks to Brenner in a productive direction.
Although I'm not sure how not having a straight answer to this question is worth being shot over. It's the follow-up questions that are the problem here, Tasha.
Brenner does give her the straight answer. Well, OK, I'm not sure I'd call Forsythe executed, but the mens rea was there.
Yeah, perhaps that was to be expected.
Gage, fortunately, asks the real heavy question, and the one that will matter to the Lazurians.
I'll be honest, in a military court of law, I'm not 100% sure which of these people will actually be judged as guilty of the crime. Greyfield, for sure, he's definitely guilty, but I think soldiers get a little protection from being punished for orders received- so Waylon might be able to argue his way out of it. Depends on how far the whole "no forgiveness for war crimes" extends- hopefully it doesn't cover this one. Brenner is almost certainly legally absolved of any guilt here, but he bears the moral guilt wholeheartedly- because clearly he's the only person who had a hand in Forsythe's death who actually regrets it in the first place.
Brenner accepted Forsythe's surrender the way a true soldier should. His only mistake was assuming that was the game being played.
It's a big mistake, given Greyfield had red flags flying free, but it's still his only one.
Brenner's not having this conversation for his own benefit. If anything, the only reason he's having this conversation is to absolve Will of guilt. Or whatever the equivalent mess he made was before Brenner showed up.
Brenner's presence is purely practical. He probably would've led with this if Tasha and Gage weren't bullying Will.
Brenner figures, if he missed the perfect time to resign, now will be next best.
Man wastes no time. Those six hours are probably being reserved for setting up a big enough execution range.
...Wonder if Greyfield is going with firing squad or hangman's noose. The latter will be a lot more tedious to set up.
Brenner has decided that, if it's too late to save Forsythe, it's not too late to save Tasha and Gage.
Yeah, it really is that simple. They either escape on their own, escape with Brenner, or go to Greyfield and die. And if they wanted to do the first one, they'd have done it by now.
Brenner asks if Tasha is ready to do Forsythe's job.
She's not, but she's not coming from nowhere.
Gage, of course, knows what the sensible questions are.
Brenner tells them which direction is the sane one to run, but admits he's gotten little further than "run".
Brenner, the man who doesn't turn away any civilians, telling the Lazurians to abandon them. Admittedly, that's probably because they'd do it of their own accord and Brenner's more or less saying "no hard feelings".
Someone's got to slow down Greyfield, and Brenner has decided that he's putting his neck where it belongs.
I love the question sidestep. Admittedly, there's probably people under Greyfield's command who don't deserve to be shot at, but the Lazurians have the same trait, and right now, Brenner will feel more guilty about the latter.
There's only so much forgiveness we can give to the people who will be shooting at us anyway.
Tasha, Brenner's not asking you to put an end to the Rubinelle/Lazuria war. He's asking you to take your one chance to make sure Lazuria doesn't end here.
The map loads, and wow, that's a lot of yellow units. That circled red unit is very interesting, though...
Although this is certainly a comment about the highlighted unit. It really has nothing to do with it other than the fact that the red and the blue units are on a team.
The right thing. I know you don't know the meaning of the words, but try your hardest.
I can only wish to have made my resignation this badass.
You'd kill everybody if you could, wouldn't you?
Brenner decides, now he doesn't have to pretend to obey Greyfield, that he's got a few more things on his plate to dish out.
Namely, Greyfield only got as far as he did on the back of Brenner, and Brenner's telling him to figure out how to keep it up without him.
Oh come on. There aren't enough units in range of Brenner for him to die on Day 1.
This is our wincon- we need to get one blue unit to stand on the blue property.
Tasha still hasn't figured out how to feel yet, so Gage will be taking command of the blue units. This mostly means he gets the theme music.
Brenner is taking command of the red units, and today, it's finally time to take that literally.
So, you know how each army has been commanded by a different character, but this difference has been entirely cosmetic up until now? We have finally been given the mechanic that makes a Brenner map different from a Will map. And we only get like 25% of the mechanic here! Next map will formally tutorialise how to get the full use of it.
Here's our map. A lot of very scary yellow units to the east, alongside two factories, but a token force to the west. Our goal is pretty self-evident.
The unit with a medal icon in the middle of the map is a CO Unit, so named because Brenner, personally, is operating it. A CO Unit is automatically upgraded to Veteran status, and generates a range around it that causes units in its faction in range to receive a bonus +10% to both Offense and Defence, as well as a potential further bonus. The exact strength, the eligible types of units, and the range of the area depend on the CO, and are the main differentiating factor between each CO.
Now that the CO mechanic has been unlocked, we are now capable of opening the Commander Info option and seeing these little bios about our COs. Granted, it's just a short blurb and a quote that summarises their character (the Wars World equivalents had "Hits" and "Misses" that added a little extra character), but still. This feels like it could've been available before now.
The bottom screen highlights Brenner's CO Effect and Power. You can ignore Power, that won't come up this mission- although it's funny to note that Brenner's power is nearly identical to that of Andy, the inexperienced new CO in the Wars World games. It feels more fitting on Brenner- it was justified for Andy in the sense that he was a mechanics whiz, but it has a different vibe with Brenner and this game's tone. Especially with the Japanese and European names of his CO Power- Search & Rescue and Lifeline, respectively.
Anyway, let's explain the mechanic we do get to play with, the CO Zone. Brenner's CO Zone is 3, meaning that it will affect all units within three tiles of Brenner's CO Unit, and Boosts "All units", meaning any unit type is eligible to receive the bonus. The bonus itself is 2 stars of defence, or +20% Defence. The Wars World games would be terrified of a number that large, but DoR changed the defence formula so it's not so bad. Still, stick around Brenner and you'll be a lot harder to pick off.
To match our new introduction to the CO mechanic, a new UI feature has also been added to the top screen. The mechanic this UI feature is for won't be relevant to this mission, but it is related to COs.
The bios for our ally and enemy. I'll save showing off their abilities as COs for when we'll see them in action, but it's worth mentioning that neither Gage nor Waylon will be boarding a unit this mission. Waylon is capable of boarding a unit, but even if his AI is allowed to, there'd be no point in it.
Speaking of options that appear in our menus, we might as well see what's going on in the War Room. This is not a mission that wants a lot of comedy, and they've decided the best way to keep it to a minimum is to bring in Gage.
Gage, ever the practical one, doesn't mince words on bad blood. He agrees that Brenner's assessment is correct, says so, and then doesn't try to muddle the matter.
"This is the purpose of these things. You're new here, so I thought I'd bring you up to speed."
This is probably the closest they get to comedy here. Granted, Gage having spoken four words total in this conversation is amusing, but still.
Yeah, that's a clear first step. That plasma needs to go- I think it's impossible for Gage to get where he needs to go without it cleared.
Anything that has a chance of blowing up Gage's recon is Problem #1.
And we're going to need to wall off the east ones from joining them as problems.
Gage knows his job, and he'll just go ahead and do that.
Brenner is happy to operate knowing Gage will do his job.
The rocket's range. We're going to want to keep Gage out of it more than we want to stay out of it ourselves.
There's only one available tile to attack it from, and it's going to have a chance to fire.
This mission also introduces us to weather. Weather isn't going to be as big a deal as it was in the Wars World games, but it will crop up from time to time. In AWs 1 and 2, snow was half movement (although it varied on terrain- roads were actually pretty clean during snow), while in AWDS, it doubled fuel consumption. DoR has gone for a notable but much more subdued effect, as per usual- just a flat -1 to whatever movement is otherwise entitled. Not sure how they calculate that with things like half points, but it's probably easier to predict than AW2 snow.
It does mean this Mech is unfortunately unable to be loaded into his APC turn 1.
I will admit this mission is just precise enough that I had to adopt a few strategies. It turns out you want this Mech moving fast enough that you move the APC closer turn 1, rather than wait for the Mech to reach the APC.
...I think you might get further the other way around, depends on how the enemy AI works.
Likewise, this AA can only shoot the Copter from the south, and not the west. At the very least, it can still shoot it.
Shooting an enemy while inside Brenner's CO Zone gives us Brenner's trademark quote, as well as a tutorialisation on the mechanic we're not going to benefit from.
This is the equivalent of the CO Power Gauge from the Wars World Gauge, and has a similar effect here. You get 1 notch in your CO Power Gauge per 5 damage dealt, roughly, but the damage must be dealt by having your unit attack from inside the zone (the enemy unit doesn't have to be, but you do). Unlike in the Wars World games, there is no balancing between COs who have stronger or weaker abilities- all COs have the same 12 notches.
This is the tactic that is very obviously borrowed from someone who's spent a lot of time ironing out the S Rank. Moving these two specific units in this specific manner is AI manip, and you really want to be doing this sort of thing this mission.
I am using my infantry as bait in order to prevent Gage from getting shot by that Rocket.
This AA's job is going to be that Mech. The units behind me are not my problem.
Gage moves his units west. Most critically, he moves his recon along the south road. The placement of my units was done to force him to go this route- letting him take the middle road is a recipe for a rocket to the face.
This is the first time where we get Waylon to play his theme for longer than two seconds, so the time has finally come to introduce his theme, Flight of the Coward. The song actually spends two seconds playing a musical cue decidedly at odds with the rest of his theme's tone, timed such that that's pretty much all you'll hear of it in his first two appearances. There's something kinda cool about the way they used that music piece, but good luck conveying that in a text medium.
Waylon mostly shuffles his units, not getting too close, but it turns out poor Gage takes the hit anyway. At least his recon's mostly fine out of it.
Brenner is going to keep his tank stationary, and if you're playing the slightest bit well, you are about to abandon his CO Zone for good. So much for that mechanic. We'll see more of it next mission.
Right now, we don't want this thing shooting a second time.
This artillery is our next problem, but mostly, we want to begin blowing up that plasma as soon as possible and the artillery is second fiddle to that.
Honestly, this Mech isn't the worst thing in the world, but it can decide to shoot at me at any time.
Everything is capable only of filing closer to the plasma wall. And away from Brenner and Waylon.
Gage does his own shuffling. All we really care about is where his recon is.
At the start of Waylon's turn, Will starts getting some bad vibes, and tells Brenner now's the time to bring his tank to this side of the field.
Waylon has a correct assessment of the situation, but has completely misread the motives to make them more about himself. As he is want to do.
Brenner politely suggests Waylon put his money where his mouth is and let Brenner share his opinions with fists.
Waylon's pretty sure he knows what happens if he lets Brenner do that.
He's significantly less certain about what it is that motivates Brenner.
Brenner basically tells him he's got no human decency by saying that there is no possibility of Waylon catching on.
Waylon doesn't realise that's insult. Or worse, doesn't care.
Now, I don't think Waylon intended to communicate the idea that he would be the one putting Brenner in said grave, but I don't think he was not communicating that, either.
This one's a classic. Brenner would die here before being Waylon, every time.
And Waylon would rather do the shooting every time. No doubts on either side. And no doubts about which one we'd rather be working with.
So much for "all units", huh, Waylon? Three war tanks not enough for you?
The shooting at Brenner begins.
Our shooting at the meteor follows. We need to have it gone before Brenner does.
Look, if you can kill people who aren't a threat-
Admittedly, there aren't a lot of places to put this guy, but it does make sure the artillery doesn't get any funny ideas.
It remains to be seen what funny movement happens here.
Gage shoots at this infantry, standing on one of my properties. This is a particularly interesting thing thing for Gage to be doing, but for now, it's enough that he's not standing in artillery range.
And it means I'm not losing that property. Not that I entirely cared.
The infantry survives. For now.
The tank does not.
When Brenner's Medium Tank blows up, there is an exchange where Brenner explains what this means for him. There is actually an alternate version of this scene that conveys the same information if you happen to win the map before Brenner's unit blows up. Nobody's ever going to see it.
Brenner has no intention of regrouping with Will.
Ever.
Lin realises exactly what's about to happen, and lets her guard down just enough to try and take Will's side here.
Brenner, in turn, lets his guard down enough to show Lin that he's put some thought in what's going to happen. I'm not entirely sure what he wanted to tell Lin, but somehow, I get the feeling it's more along the lines of "thank you for standing by me no matter what" than "I wanted a closer relationship".
He more or less tells Lin that she knows everything going through his head right now, and that he's not going to waste valuable time vocalising those thoughts for her.
Lin, for her part, knows full well this is the last time they're ever going to talk to one another, and says her goodbyes in her own way.
We're going to do our best to make sure that Brenner's time was not wasted.
Because now Waylon's units are going to be charging us.
Fortunately, they prove to be as gun-shy as ever. Their own fear of my positioning will keep them at bay.
The Mech gets to be the one to destroy the meteor, leaving my mobile units free to establish their foothold.
We need to be using that bridge tile behind you.
The APC moves to protect the units behind it, doing what it does best in AW1: Be a meatshield the AI loves to target.
This is a funny mechanic added to DoR- unlike in the Wars World games, if an allied unit is standing on your property, it will be repaired same as a friendly one. I probably should've checked to see whether this used our funds or Gage's, but on this map, it's not like either of us need either.
Waylon lands some nice hits on me, but this is a recoverable position.
I can still attack into positive matchups.
These units will be the ones dealing with the recons. So long as the other units hold the line, it doesn't matter how many of them there are.
Gage manages to slip in behind me. Exactly where I want him.
Waylon doesn't do anything really smart with that opening I left. Sometimes the AI just lets you get away with stupid ideas like this.
Infantry backs up to heal. Yeah, good luck with that.
APC goes to heal too. Even more luck with that.
I think the tank just couldn't reach the recon. There was no reason not to shoot at it.
This traps the recon where it is. Gage now only has one unit to worry about.
Yeah, that was to be expected. I don't think we really care about that.
This recon is in the way, though. Tank does most of the work destroying it.
AA finishes off this one, though. I feel like it might've been served going north, but I doubt it'd reach anyway.
I call this a defensive line?
Gage finishes the recon. I think we win next turn.
Which is good, because now Waylon's getting my cities.
This is what his army looks like on the part of the screen that doesn't matter. Brenner stood no chance.
I don't have much to do but not die. This is just on the principle of the thing.
I'm putting my line here. I'd prefer the Mech to not be at the front, but there's only so much to shoot at me.
You go, Gage. I'm sure that'll help you.
Waylon continues his capturing.
This is the only unit that can reach my Mech. I'm good, but it feels bad.
Didn't wind up managing to blow up the meteor. Shame, but we don't need it.
My retreat is purely habit. But I do feel like I've done a good job of it.
Gage's recon gets to the end, and victory is achieved. Hopefully we won't have to steal other ideas to win later maps.
Lin takes charge, in a move that's fairly clearly "Brenner's never going to do this again."
Lin tries to make sure that Will figures that out as fast as possible.
...Huh. Looking closely, the "WIN" text is surrounded by a blue background, not red. I think that means it's determined by the faction that wins the mission, rather than being flat red. Not that we'll be seeing it red ever again.
I'm not really sure you can get a decent win if you let Gage's recon die- sure, the infantry can theoretically make it, but that'll be like pulling teeth and, if the recon dies, the infantry's surely not far behind. The Technique and Power scores are worth the appraisal, though.
Brenner is still the one to speak on this screen. I feel like this was a perfect opportunity to let Gage get the victory line, although it's not like he'd be particularly talkative.
The information on these screens feels really irrelevant.
"Base camp" feels like a weird term for it. But it's where we are now, and it's not like we're ever going back.
"Do you think they're ever going to stop?"
"Not likely."
Yeah, good luck with that.
Wow, Lin wasn't kidding.
You can practically see him sitting at a table, staring at a radio, yelling into it at odd intervals. The poor kid's maybe slightly insane.
If nothing else, his efforts are not in vain.
...Are you sure you want to be telling him your exact co-ordinates? I mean, does Will even know his own?
Brenner gets a nice bit of full-body art here, although he looks quite rough. That sure is backed up by his words, though- Waylon's been finding plenty of time to shoot at him.
What are you talking about, this was exactly the plan. Not surviving is unfortunate, but pretty clearly a known outcome.
Meanwhile, it seems like Greyfield's day isn't going any better. Small comfort.
Oh, never mind, he's just throwing a tantrum because he's not looking at Brenner's dead body right now.
You mean you haven't even tracked him down? No wonder Greyfield's angry.
"Not even reality will get in my way!"
That'll get Brenner dead faster, I'm sure.
Oh. Caulder's been playing both sides, of course he has.
It seems he was thinking the same thing about Greyfield being far more receptive to his temptations than Forsythe.
I don't think I like these two talking to each other.
Davis notices that Greyfield is planning on destroying all the life in an area, and also that "all the life" includes New Rubinelle forces.
Such a trifle is beneath King Greyfield the Mighty and his massive ego.
Davis realises exactly what side he's found himself on.
There's something mildly interesting about the fact that the character who ultimately pulls the trigger is a character that has not yet appeared in the story. With that in mind, I do also have to wonder if us not being introduced to Penny by name is also meant to imply that she is Tabitha here. Then again, it's not like we're really thinking about the girls before they get names or established characters.
Back to Will, and he's already coming up with a bad idea. They need to get the Lazurians away, and don't really have the manpower to spare anyone to return for Brenner even if his position wasn't spicy.
Brenner knows full well any man who comes for him is a dead man, and tells Will to keep the dead men to a minimum.
Will tries his best to act like this is ending any other way.
And Brenner resorts to lying to get Will to back off.
...Leaving things to Will? Well, that's one way to get him to step up in the right direction...
It's not going to work, but it was a valiant effort.
...That'd be a startling thing to hear on the radio in the middle of this conversation.
Captain Brenner looks up, at a bright light over his position, and decides that, for his final moments, he's seeing something he hasn't seen for over a year.
Before whatever weapon that Caulder cooked up lands on him, wiping out everyone within miles of his vicinity.
The only way to be sure.
I don't think that radio works anymore, Will.
Next time: Figuring out how to make sure the rest of us don't join Brenner.
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