Battlezone (Activision)/A Nasty Surprise

"With the radar array destroyed, we landed a massive force on Venus, and quickly moved to gain control of the relic. We were cocky, thinking we'd march right through the Soviet lines. We were in for a major surprise."

MISSION OBJECTIVES:
 * Establish a base.
 * Penetrate the CCA defenses.
 * Capture the star port relic.

ENGINEERING REPORT: Our engineering team has developed armored personnel carriers (APC) to help take out the base's fixed emplacements. The APC's have no weapons, but they have bio-metal armor that will equally distribute damage across the craft. They will withstand substantial damage when transporting troops into position for attacking hardened targets.

Walkthrough
This is a fairly straightforward mission, now that you have access to just about every tool the NSDF has to offer. You start with a recycler and a construction rig. The only loss condition on this map is losing the recycler, so begin by setting up gun towers to secure your position. Don't forget to put down three or four scavengers to get your economy going. You'll be accosted by one or two flankers or czars; take these out while you set up your gun towers. Once your gun towers are set up, build a scrap silo or two to increase the efficiency of your scavengers.

Continue to build forces for now and turtle up. Consider putting down some proximity mines along the three main routes to the base - a few future enemies can be particularly vulnerable to them. Eventually, your allies to the south will report only moderate fighter resistance, wondering if the Russians even want to fight. This should mark the point by which your defences should be intact - have at least two gun towers per defensive position. You'll need their help in just a bit. After a short while, your ally will report being attacked by craft of unknown origin. The recycler Colorado will end up being destroyed. The forces that destroyed the Colorado will then begin heading in your direction - this is what you built the gun towers for. Your superiors will drop nav beacons around the unknown craft the Russians are deploying; activate them to see your new opposition.

The new CCA Golem walker is extremely slow, and extremely strong - it packs two flash cannons as its primary armament, making it almost equivalent to your gun towers. You can take advantage of a few of its weaknesses, however; firstly, it cannot strafe effectively, so if you can use the terrain to get out of its line of fire, you can deal with a single golem on your own. Should you encounter difficulty, however, lead them to the gun towers, which should be able to handle the golems. Any other forces you've built up to this point should help as well, including bombers - golems are huge and sluggish, making them easy targets for rocket bombs.

There are three golems to deal with - each will take a coordinated push to deal with, but none should remain a problem for your gun towers. Use the armory to heal the gun towers by flinging them repair powerups.

After you've destroyed the CCA golems, the enemy should relent, and you can start building an attack force to destroy the CCA base to the south. Your attack force should consist of a number of tanks and an APC or two. The APCs are notable because the infantry they deploy never run out of ammunition - making them perfect for destroying targets like the enemy recycler and mobile unit factory - both of which must be destroyed to win. The CCA recycler and unit factory are protected by three gun towers powered by a number of lightning power plants. To destroy these hardened targets, you can use howitzers, which are slow and don't deal huge amounts of damage, but will destroy the entire base eventually; or you can use bombers, which are faster and deal more damage, but may run out of ammunition. You can also use APCs, which have enough health to withstand a gun tower long enough to deploy its troops, which will then shred the target. The APC will typically not make it back to base to rearm, however.

Whether you whittle down the CCA base with artillery, or blitz into them with either bombers or APCs, destroy the CCA unit factory and recycler.

If you haven't visited already, you'll need to go to Styx on the area map. This relic is what the CCA used to develop the walkers, and now that it's in your hands, you'll have the final NSDF unit unlocked for the next mission.