Now then... it's time to get into what is often considered the worst mission in the game. Strap yourselves in, folks.
It's time for Waylon to show his stuff.
But before we get into the bad news, we actually get a freebie spot of good news!
..."Vaccine"? I'm... not 100% certain that a vaccine can do that, but I believe this is a question only of terms- and given Creeping Derangea isn't a virus, I think we can take it as a given that the other things that get involved aren't what they are in conventional medicine.
And some bad news to temper the good. "Common ingredients" is one thing when it comes to, say, how easy the ingredients are to create. In the post-apocalyptic world where the law of strength reigns, that no longer necessarily reflects how easy the ingredients are to get your hands on.
Lin has an alternative theory on who stole all the ingredients.
Good theory, Lin. My question is, who told Greyfield how to make this preventative? Dr. Morris only just invented it!
Will starting to get very annoyed with this man.
Lin reminds him to focus on planning first, and let the emotions get the better of him later, when we actually have them in our sights.
Let's put our attention on Greyfield.
They do a flashback to some of Brenner's words from Chapter 2. I had to double check to make sure this actually cropped up.
Our goal should always be the simplest possible thing, that way we can focus on achieving it rather than making sure we're not being caught with our pants down.
"I've heard about this- it's called flashbacking, and it's when-"
Or Will can explain it.
Part of taking on Brenner's mantle is actually making sure you're still idolising Brenner. Although I'm sure Will could easily just imagine something Brenner might've said and no one could correct him if he never repeated the exact words.
...Are you sure the correct interpretation of "help" was "help your mental state"? Sounded more like a "help do Brenner's philosophy" kind of question.
Will has chosen violence today.
...You mean you haven't been doing that already? Moderately judging you. Similar to last map, though, those blue units are not under player control. Unlike last map, though, they have a CO.
...Then what do you mean Lazurians spotted them? Our "rear" (which is to our east) is closer to the Rubinelle coloured units.
Hi, Waylon. You may be a coward on all possible levels, but let's see how much fun you're having being shot at.
We're playing as Will again, of course. I kinda hoped I'd get to play Tasha to fight Waylon with.
Tasha does happen to be the Lazurian CO. She has no infantry or starting production tiles, though, so once her units are destroyed, she's out. She does have a HQ, though, so it is theoretically possible for her to deploy. Not that she has the units that are buffed by her CO Zone.
Here's our map. That's quite a lot of air units Waylon has already. And here we are with one AA.
Even worse, he's infested the tactics room.
Must be hard to find a barber around here. No wonder he's so keen to keep it in shape.
It's called caring about the well-being of your units. Something you wouldn't know, character in an Advance Wars game.
...I feel like the war room is the one place in the entire camp that shouldn't be neutral ground.
Waylon can't even have decency with decency.
Will, for some reason, changes his mind. Or was at least planning on capturing him.
At which point Isabella shows up and somehow completely missed Waylon. In case you thought this place made any sense.
...Honestly, given what Will was saying in the opening to this chapter, I'm with Isabella on this somewhat.
Ground AA units are cheaper and more effective than the air ones. Although we want those pretty quick too, with all these mountains around.
The upper one has too much rough terrain in the way for it to be an effective passage for missiles. AAs can fake it, but just use the lower one.
Not sure what we're using them for, but nice to have for HQ capturing ambitions.
This battle is won or lost on air superiority. Now is the time to figure that out.
Never let it be said Isabella is an idle love interest.
Although she seems content to have her fun in here rather than the main story.
Now then, this is Waylon's proper battle, where we'll be engaging his units correctly. So what does he bring to the table?
Eagle's air units were famous for two things- the Lightning Strike, and also their defence making it harder to oneshot them with AA. Waylon's here to rep the second half of that while Tasha focuses on the offense. A map like this feels like the perfect time to bring Tasha, or even Gage- use Fighters and Missiles to keep him pinned. But we're stuck with Will and his AAs.
We're capturing the factory first, but it turns out that's because it's the property we're in range of. The Mech is going around the airport to try and reach the back factory in a hurry.
Bike is going to capture some of these south properties.
AA is going to make a start on fortifications.
Well, I'm never going to choose another time to capture this property.
Tasha mostly gets up to some pulling into position. Her units simultaneously are a huge boon to our opening and largely inconsequential. That Missile on the HQ never moves for the entire mission, and I suspect its job is being our goalie- preventing Waylon from T-Coptering over here.
If a T-Copter gets that close, the infantry was probably dropped.
The Flight of the Coward now bears down upon us.
...Is it possible for a villain to hit himself with retirony?
Waylon's turn involves a lot of scooching forward- bearing down, but making sure not to be easy pickings for the AA.
This Bomber is the only unit we care about for now. The dusters won't do much and the Fighters won't do anything until I even have an airport.
For now, I'm just working on seizing the means of production.
I think this tile is a good place to stick around. Not sure what I'll be shooting at, but I'm going to have to choose soon.
Tasha's backing up the infantry.
Not that it's going to be enough. I was saying about the Dusters not really being a thing?
Waylon has... ideas. There's a reason you don't build planes in a hurry.
We actually haven't seen Waylon at all since he hunted down Brenner in Chapter 16. This is him learning Will is in charge now.
Waylon figures this is going to be an easy round 2.
Will sounds ready to strangle him.
...What girls? Who's willing to have sex with an active pandemic loose in the ranks? I'd also question the food and the drink, but frankly, this might be a question of Waylon feeling superior for the quantity he possesses rather than the quality.
Waylon actually presents the scenario that the Wolves will be spared if the Lazurians go. Given you shot a man in cold blood during peace talks, we trust you as far as we can throw you.
Will makes a bid to do what Brenner did not.
Much to the surprise of a man who must be lacking in imagination to not understand why that might be.
"And you had your shot in the war room. And you STUNK!"
Toy soldiers? That's a fun one. Probably just an insult to Will's youth.
It's an argument Will entertains, at least.
...You know how Greyfield seems to fancy himself as some kind of god? Waylon's already treating him like one. Waylon is very late to his own humanity.
Will may be engaging with Waylon's argument, but it's not because he thinks Waylon's got the right idea.
It says a lot about their respective characters that these are the activities they seek out.
Waylon starts to realise what Will is going to tell him next.
Will doesn't care whether or not Waylon calls him a hypocrite. He's not being a do-gooder for external approval. He's doing it because leaving the world with more lives than he went in with is the thing that brings him personal satisfaction.
And why should his own personal satisfaction count against his actions?
Waylon covers his ears and pretends he's right anyway to walk away believing he won the argument. A man's gotta do something to sleep at night.
Bold words for someone whose turn it isn't.
Of course, I'm still working on getting my means of production online, so what do I know?
This isn't even a win for me with all these Fighters around.
One of my factories is working, at least. We're going to be deploying a lot of AA.
And hoping Tasha's go the way that helps me.
Bomber's down here, being a pest. Still, the missiles are over there.
Somehow I don't see this working.
Although that's a happy sight.
This one's much more precarious. Look at those two air units to only one AA.
Bye, duster. It'll be quickly replaced.
This one isn't so quickly destroyed, though.
Waylon's going to be scary when he gets his income. Fortunately, he'll have to wait for it.
Yeah, this is going to end poorly.
Fortunately, Tasha has thrown her tank in defence of my bike. How selfless of her!
Not that the bomber even destroyed it anyway. Even on the offence, he's a coward.
Means I can get on with this freely.
This could get very exciting fast, though. At least I have backup AA.
On both sides.
I think it's better if I abandon the centre and bring all my AA together, though.
At least the north side has its ducks in a row.
Look at all those planes hiding in the mountains. I hate it here.
I put Will in an AA. This is exactly the kind of unit he needs.
Knowing Waylon, this bike is going to be just fine.
Once the AA gets Will, I think we might be able to hit back.
Wrong base? Maybe. But I need these things now.
And this base is currently being used for more capturing of the properties in the south.
Tasha retreats. This AI is starting to be a bit of a pain to deal with.
Waylon's going to start seizing these. I don't think we have much say in the matter.
That's the Copter. Well, so much for these.
At least the Bomber is finally somewhere where I can shoot at it.
I'd rather you didn't come back.
Getting to work claiming these properties to replace the ones in the middle.
And shifting these missiles so I can get back to building. Without answering the Copter? Not sure why.
At least build an AA.
These missiles are getting the short end of it.
At least Will is here to make everything more explody.
Just look at the comparison. We need Will here.
"My missile got all dented, can I have a new one?"
Might actually make Fighters from here, where they won't be immediately shot down.
For now, it's infantry here.
...Not sure what you're doing up there, Tasha, but it doesn't look like it's going well.
I am rather pleased that Waylon's heavier material is going in that direction, actually. I don't have any units up there, so they're wasting their time.
...Of course he has.
Well, at least I have a core to defend with and not just a single AA.
Get off my property.
Since Waylon's bringing more than just air units, I'll need to prep my anti-ground units. With all these mountains, indirects are the way to go.
Although look at me not building from the back base.
There is one thing I notice going on, and I have a plan for that.
The time has come to deploy an air unit. This one has one specific goal.
One of these targets was better chosen than the other.
And Waylon continues this dance.
Don't mind if I seize this property.
Range on the bomber. I don't think it's going to be coming in while I have these AAs.
So I may as well try to claw a foothold.
And I'll want these back, as hard as it is to believe.
The Fighter's job is to keep those units up north exactly where I want them.
Right, nice little front, and Will's not even part of it.
I'll actually want that Fighter shooting at things, so I deploy a Duster to fill its blocking duties. All the benefits of being a plane without any of the drawbacks of "having more important things to be doing!"
That tank is not long for this world. The AA is refuelling on my city, though.
Duster takes the tank's place, and I notice that somehow, the tank went ignored by the middie.
Let's see it ignore this.
Reclamation!
...Well, this is going to go badly. I need a better plan.
This was not one of those.
Really, I just need more footsoldiers to counter the anti-tanks.
Yeah. That's what I forgot there.
This is also going to be an issue depending on whether or not it charges.
Hahahaha poor Fighter.
Out of range of its tiny movement!
Missiles on the better base this time.
Tasha gets rid of that inf.
And hides her missiles here. For some reason. Probably fuel.
Well, this is going well for Tasha.
Shame, the Fighter made it back for resupplies.
Going aggresive given that I don't have a plan for the two anti-tanks that can fire on that square.
This arty and duster are going to have fun for the rest of the mission.
This Missile is not having fun now.
Fighter withdraws to keep this plugged, and because I'm insistent on my charge forward. On the plus side, power score?
I think I planned on this bike being able to shoot the anti-tank.
I need a real weapon against anti-tanks.
Also a temp airport.
This feels like a bad idea.
At least I have more.
And Tasha's helping!
Fortunately, Waylon decided shooting at my capturing Mech was a better use of his time than shooting at the AAs bearing down on him.
We continue hanging Fighters outside the missiles and the Bomber somewhere ridiculous.
...
Well, Waylon has deployed. That unit is now priority one.
Time for the unit shuffling.
I have my Missile range overlap working. Just need them somewhere useful.
This continues to be the funniest thing ever.
At least I'm free to get that property captured.
Mech finds a change to load into the APC while it's on its way.
Waylon's range. My new Bomber should stay out of it.
Still hopeful.
Bomb this, bomber.
And another Fighter, because I can see air superiority is about to become important.
And that AA can no longer help me with that.
That Mech has clearly seen better days, too.
Waylon has tucked himself in the middle of all those units. And he has two Bombers right next to one another, that's not scary at all when Waylon is supporting them.
OK, you need to go away.
But also your death gives Will a boost in CO Zone. That might be more important.
Now this is supported by that. And it still stinks.
Well, OK, focus on continuing this dance first...
...That... qualifies as better?
At least these two know what they're doing.
These two move aggressively and plan to make Waylon do things somewhere else.
Because dear gods his aerial denial.
And I need other units to help me get rid of my problems. Although I'm not sure what that tank is for right now. AA, it looks.
Middie stays where it is to ambush an infantry. If I pushed it back any further, it might actually be a threat again.
Oh great, two-pronged assault.
At least the Bombers got drawn in, question mark? And Waylon retreated, too.
Let's get started picking off these air units.
Will is very good at that job.
Seriously, this isn't a oneshot? Waylon doesn't have passive air unit defence, guys.
Mech unloads. Now to figure out where the temp airport goes.
This capture is reinforced.
And I continue to try and hold this chokepoint bravely.
Take that.
Waylon almost has a plan for the comedy duster.
Which is saying a lot, because it's a duster, what's it doing?
I think this is the most I've ever built missiles.
...Tasha, what are you doing?
There goes my bike.
I think what Tasha is doing compares to what is going on with Waylon.
This one's mine again.
And this Fighter has happily parked itself in Tasha's missile range. Let's see if we can avoid shooting it down this turn.
This AA will be the real threat.
First bomber decides to deal with a Mech instead.
And I place my temp airport here. Best option.
The duster flies in to reinforce the main front now that this middie is done for.
Ultimately, I decided the extra CO Zone and position was better than letting Tasha shoot it down.
Because I sure didn't move anything into that square.
More Bombers. They'll get reinforced by my CO Zone when I'm on the offence.
Tasha hides her AA behind my arty. For some reason.
It does not go well for me.
More units moving in close to me.
Especially Waylon.
Out of range of Tasha, sadly. That chokepoint Fighter is going to be a bigger issue that I can't leave for her.
This Missile can shoot at Waylon, though! Doesn't even oneshot.
And blowing it up is like pulling teeth. To be fair, these are damaged units.
I pull back slightly with Will. That anti-tank is a pain in the neck.
At least this is ready.
Because this doesn't seem like it.
This AA realises it's better served coming up around here.
It's hilarious, putting Bombers in Fighter range.
And making more to come.
Thanks, Tasha!
...Thanks for trying.
If nothing else, better you than me.
Bye, duster! You technically accomplished things.
...Waylon's back already?
And Waylon's also gotten deep in this chokepoint.
Waylon you dolt, stop thinking you're too good for missiles.
I decide now is a good time for Rally Cry. I'm a little short on units to use it with, but the move range could come in handy.
Particularly in the back.
Doesn't do much for these two.
Really need these gone while I have Rally Cry up.
Because why is it still so difficult? Struggling to get that counterpush going.
At least this is a start.
Bomber doesn't even get to the fighting.
APC finds a good chance for this.
We're getting to the part where we want to consider winding down for our technique score, but I still feel like I need things.
Especially with shots like this.
And that, especially.
Waylon gets a kill! But he doesn't move.
Remember where he parked?
Will shows that Copter what for.
The AAs are already starting to get replaced. Although that anti-tank has retreated. I think it ran out of ammo.
This is the time for a counterattack.
And the less I hear of you, the better.
FREEDOM!
And destruction, too.
From the oddest of sources.
New missiles reinforce the old.
And I decide to buy another Duster, for some reason.
Tasha continues to be "helping".
Even if her units were on the front lines, I'm not sure what they'd be doing.
The AAs are starting to get a mite ridiculous.
Still, gotta cover everything.
Including these guys.
Bombers trying to minimise the damage they take.
We need to get these bases covered.
Waylon's running out of units.
Although a fresh AA sure is a unit there...
It did not choose its target correctly.
Will arrives. Probably should've moved that top AA for better positioning of the Zone, though.
At least it covers this one?
This one is covered.
And the one HP Bomber finds a new home as a paperweight.
I'm starting to see a path to a HQ Capture.
Time to get all these properties nice and covered up.
This is for Power score. We're going to need it.
I'm starting to think this guy wasn't necessary.
This Anti-tank is the only thing Waylon has deployed.
And I win next turn. So, can I defeat it this one?
Not sure why I'm doing it like that, but it turns out the answer is yes. Thank you, Will.
I guess that makes us even, then.
And yet you fought back just as hard. The coward doth protest too much.
Will does worry about himself. If he abandons people, he's not going to be able to look at himself in the mirror. And that can be just as deadly as anything else.
And, of course, one day the world won't be reduced to ruin.
That is the last we will ever hear on the subject of Waylon. He just completely vanishes from the plot from here on. I don't think the man deserves to have people care what happened to him.
Just barely snuck in with an S Rank there. A few precise Power shots helped shore up all those units I lost, and it turns out this is exactly as long as they expected me to take.
Will's hungry for vengeance. With a side order of having had enough of running.
Those are some ugly, big numbers.
Still, glad that's over. That took way longer than it needed to.
And from the sounds of things, we're not done.
Hopefully they're a friendly. Although we clearly have enough of those...
...Avoidant one, too. Something's telling me not a friendly.
Oh. Never mind. Definitely not a friendly.
Did you notice Will has never met Caulder yet? He's mostly been fine to sit around being the devil on the shoulder of whatever villain we've been fighting, and as long as he doesn't get on the radio, Will never has to learn a thing.
...Eh, that's not that old news. But I think this is the first time he's shown up since that came up.
I mean, it's never a bad idea to take some notes on your surroundings. It lets you think about things in a less stressful situation.
The problem is that he's not stressed right now.
He makes it sound like he's engineered this entire situation as part of an experiment.
Don't worry, he's not a complete monster. Just an opportunist. Just like Greyfield, making "the most" of a bad situation.
Well, at least he's enjoying himself. I know hard-nosing into the grindstone can wear your spirits down even if you enjoy the thing you're doing.
There's a certain... character, in the assumption that removing society will "reveal the true nature of mankind". Society, after all, is our true nature- second to our ability to create custom tools for the purposes of achieving things our bare hands alone could not, the ability to co-operate with other humans for mutual benefit is what got us to the top of the food chain. Trying to judge humans without one of their defining characteristics is like trying to judge a CO by his ability to win a one-on-one battle to the death- sure, on paper, we're using the same skills, but you're really telling on yourself what you think is the important part of the job here.
See, the thing is, you don't even need to wipe out 90% of all life with meteors to observe these in action. The mere risk of losing the safety nets associated with participating in society will get people to rush to their base instincts pretty quick. And hey, it's only twelve years until COVID.
"Fascinating" is supposed to be a character catchphrase for Caulder, but I think this is the first time they ever actually have him say it. To be fair, he hasn't really been in the story yet, but still.
Hilariously, looking over the script to make sure they actually keep using it, this is not the first time the word "fascinating" has been used- that would've been the War Room for Chapter 12, where Lin used the word to describe Isabella's lecture on strip-cleaning a rifle.
Caulder is implied to have given the Lazurians all their units, which is why they share the same unit designs. You'd think the NRA would be doing the same thing, but...
I dunno, mate, the scientific approach is to record the reality that there will always be men who think society is the way to go. Rejecting Forsythe as merely bad data is very close-minded of you, Doctor.
A scientist that participates in his experiment is not a very good one.
Yeah, stop lying to yourself and admit you're just another Greyfield.
Eventually, Caulder realised that, if he wanted someone to murder people at the drop of a hat, he needed to actually go to the guy who had personal issues and was willing to murder people at the drop of a hat.
You'll usually find there are warning signs for this kind of behaviour.
...
Oh gods the madman has given the slightly less/more mad madman access to weapons of mass destruction we are so screwed
Will starts to realise an uncomfortable truth about talking to this man.
Dr. Morris did ask this back in Chapter 6, but so out of left field that Will barely had time to comprehend the question. It did, however, immediately precede Caulder's first appearance, so it's not like he was coming out of nowhere. Well, from our point of view. It's up for debate if Will even noticed the difference between Penny and The Beast.
I think we both know you don't know the meaning of the word "objective".
Although anyone else want to introduce this guy to the Mayor?
You can study what interests you and still be objective. It just requires choosing experiments about your interest and accepting when they don't give you the results you expect.
"Now I feel negative guilt about turning you into new and fascinating forms of matter."
You've got to stop telling people you don't like talking to to wait. You don't have to keep the conversation going.
As it happens, Caulder does have something of value to say.
And says it directly in Isabella's direction. If you've been paying attention, you might have noticed that Penny and Tabitha have the same hair colour as Isabella.
And while that's not the same colour as Caulder's, Isabella has connected this exact suggestion to something a baker told her earlier, about the man that made everyone uncomfortable and his daughters...
I'm not sure Caulder actually did anything, I feel like he's just doing this for kicks.
Especially given the follow-up about how all of us in general are pretty doomed because of Greyfields access to these WMDs, not just Isabella in specific.
With that said, something physical is going down with Isabella. Little hard to portray with portraits, though.
Fortunately, whatever it was, it's either temporary, or Isabella's happy to let Will in for it.
...Oh. It's worse than just the resemblance.
Fortunately for all of our sanities, it's not that Caulder has been getting access to Isabella behind our backs, and more that Isabella has a memory of some sort of Caulder that's breaking through her amnesia.
Fortunately is a relative term.
It's certainly not one Isabella's going to put much stock in.
We even get a scene where we get to talk to Lin and Morris about what Caulder's appearance represents, and it turns out that Dr. Morris recognises him. I wonder if Dr. Morris was thinking of him when he posed the question of pure evil.
Only by reputation, as it happens. Although it seems his reputation has preceded him.
It seems that the scientific board did take notice of Caulder's inclinations and unusual definition of the word "objective" and decided (rightly) that he didn't deserve a license.
Unfortunately, you don't need a license to practice medicine. You just need a license to get people to trust you know what you're doing.
And Caulder doesn't even know what he's doing, what hope do us mortals have?
On a list of people Dr. Morris was hoping to never hear about again, Dr. Caulder is a name that ranks on level with, if not higher than, the worryingly fascist politicians that might've been public figures at the time. At least those guys are scary only with access to numbers.
As it happens, the name "Caulder" is also prominent in the kinds of circles Lin knows. And having his name turn up in Lin's mouth is about five times more terrifying than hearing it from Morris's.
Sometimes, you just have to admire the fact that IS legitimately named the villainous faction after themselves. Didn't even change a word beyond adding the "Defence" for the military applications.
They let their "build bigger guns" guy be the same person as their "maintain supply lines" guy? Somehow I don't think Caulder was the problem here.
You never like it when somebody has an incentive for war to continue. This leads to them actually attempting to engineer it.
Dr. Morris losing respect for the man. Somehow. Those unethical experiments were probably still happening, just with subjects that were trained not to tell him no.
Will drops the real bad news.
Dr. Morris hopes it's a conventional WMD and not actually something that turns us into something unpleasant first. He can't put it past him.
Fortunately, Isabella's autistic expodumps extend even to Dr. Caulder's various mad plans.
At least we know where she found all those books.
...This is probably some kind of translation thing. "Caulder Missile" tells me nothing about what's going to happen to me if it hits me, all it tells me is that the guy who built it has a giant ego and wanted me to know who built it.
Given the fact that they talk about the existence of Caulder Missiles in a parallel with what real world nuclear warheads are used for, I can only assume that the Caulder Missiles are either a) nuclear and they're just not using the word directly or b) somehow worse than that. Nuclear radiation is the number one way to make this apocalypse worse than it is.
Unlike real world nukes, where the idea is that, if one side shoots them, the other side has enough time to fire their own before they land and spite their aggressors, the fact that both sides were stupid enough to give the same man the keys to both means that that man can fire them whenever he feels the situation has gotten too hot.
Given that the man in question is Caulder, I think "the two nations are fighting too much" is the last moment that would cause him to press that Big Red Button.
Not only has Caulder given that button to Greyfield, but Greyfield is so convinced of his divinity that he wants to push the button too. So far, our biggest mistake seems to have been leaving those two unattended long enough to talk to one another.
It's not even a riff on the word.
If you were happy to drop the wordplay, I think the metaphor you're looking for would be "making the meteors look like dust bunnies."
All three of them, really, Caulder, Greyfield, and Dr. Morris.
...No thank you. Tasha plays more to the strengths of the air unit.
Next time: Taking matters into her own hands.
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