I’ve gone 19 stages without spending any Pilot Points (PP) to upgrade my pilots, but I now have enough to spend on some great skills.
First, Lockon gets Hit & Away. For a sniper guy, it’s kinda amazing how he doesn’t have this skill to begin with. It’ll let him get in position much easier.
Aoi gets Continous Action as well, because it’s the fucking best skill in the game. It’s rather expensive at 300 PP though, so no other people can afford it at the moment.
第20話：砂塵に舞う悪意
Stage 20: Malice in the Sands
We get 15 starting units, along with Exia, Virtue, and Wing.
There are 11 starting enemies, and the SR point is yet to be revealed.
I took the liberty of equipping Chirico’s Scope Dog with the Red Shoulder parts from a few missions ago. It might reduce his mobility slightly, but gives him a whole lot of other weapons which have great range too.
Turn 1 is mostly spent moving into position.
Turn 2.
End of turn 2. My army has almost reached the desert base.
Turn 3. After the initial enemies are defeated the real game begins.
Oh its Wufei.
And it seems that all the factions that CB pissed have decided to join up. OZ are at the north, HRL are to the west, Union at the East and the AEU at the south. And there are no less than 5 bosses, being Soma, Suzaku, Patrick, Graham and Sergei.
And we have to destroy them all within 3 turns for the SR Point.
Good time to Power up with Zero’s Tactics.
I let Mazinger go apeshit on the Union.
End of turn 3. I’ve left the 2 groups at the bottom alone for now, I figure they’ll come up by themselves.
After a few kills (this is in the enemy turn), there’s an event.
Oh great. Another 7 Scope Dogs.
And It’s our good friend Ali in his Giant Enemy Crab, who goes straight for Setsuna.
Tieria purges Virtue’s armour to become Nadleeh to save Setsuna. He attacks Ali but any damage he caused is healed afterwards 🙁
Poor Chirico still isn’t having any luck with the ladies and gets capped in one hit by Soma.
Turn 4.
Blowing up Zechs gets you a Gundanium Armour.
Suzaku will always go for Karen, as long as she’s within range.
End of turn 4.
It’s turn 5 and I’ve cleaned out most of the trash, leaving the bosses.
I’ve managed to take down mostly everything by the end of turn 5.
Soma goes after the Macross Quarter during her turn.
IMMA CHARGIN MA LAZER
IMMA FIRIN MA LAZER
SHOOP DA WHOOP
Turn 6. By this stage my men are totally dry of SP and it took quite a fair few resets before I could actually make it through the enemy turn without losing a few units.
SHORYUUKEN
And Ali’s face gets melted.
I pay Graham back with the ‘Setsuna Special’.
No SR Point. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Missed it by 1/2 a turn.
After the stage, a huuuuuuuuuuuge enemy force shows up.
Cue Heero self-destruct sequence, which brings the stage to an end.
I end up replaying the stage with better planning and manage to get the SR Point. Here are some tips:
- You don’t get timed for the SR Point until you destroy the inital enemies. This means you can take as long as you want to position your team in the best positions before you kill the last enemy and spawn the reinforcements.
- Make sure you save before you destroy the last enemy so you can adjust your placements if you need to. Try to get support attacks so you can get more damage in as soon as they appear.
- Make sure you destroy the last of the initial enemies in YOUR phase. Otherwise the enemies will appear in the enemy turn and you will lose 1/2 turn to get the SR Point.
- Don’t use any SP until the reinforcements appear.
- After the reinforcements spawn, 2 or 3 kills will trigger an event where Ali and the Scope Dogs appear. They appear in the top right corner of the map. Another event will occur where Tieria will move to wherever Setsuna is, and change into Nadleeh. Try to get this event on the first turn the reinforcements spawn so you have more time to deal with them.
- The bosses will always target certain units. Ali/Graham will always go for Setsuna, Suzaku will always go for Karen, and Soma will always go for Allelujah. If nothing is in range, they will head straight for your battleships.
- Don’t leave any units with crap range or low attack power lying around. Enemies will attack your healers and weak units, and if they do, it’s GG because you need to deal maximum damage every turn on every counterattack if you want the SR point.
- Ali has a status attack which paralyzes a unit for a turn if it hits. Make sure you have flash activated or have a good chance of evading before you attack him. You can’t afford wasting a unit without causing damage.
Wow. What an epic stage, and the hardest one so far. I guarantee most players doing this stage for the first time will have trouble. There are double reinforcements, lots of bosses with tons of HP, and they all have high accuracy and evasion. I’m lucky my Crow has the cheap 10SP for the 100% accuracy on allies seishin, without it, I would’ve been totally screwed.