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| “ | After defying him in Singapore, the Chinese have now dared lay hand on Yuri's most precious Creation, and lured PsiCorps forces into a trap deep in the lands of Kashmir. Yuri sends his new weapon to destroy the Chinese war machine and make sure they threaten his plans no more.
—Mission description |
” |
Operation: Machinehead is the eighth Epsilon Act Two campaign mission.
Contents
Briefing
Yuri's Message: "The Chinese army is large, and their technology formidable. If left unchecked, Proselyte, they could pose a danger to my plans. I thought they would focus their efforts on the Russians, but their attack on our facilities on Totoya Island calls for retribution. The Chinese's continuous refusal to fall back has left me with no choice but to deploy more of our forces in their country.
Days ago we've received intel the Chinese had a facility in Kashmir where they were developing new technology by utilizing research they acquired after their invasion of Japan, from Kanegawa Industries. I could not have foreseen that this would instead be a trap to lure the Soviet and our forces to Kashmir, just to annihilate them, of all things, in a MIDAS explosion. While the Soviets are quick to believe everything perished in the explosion due to their negligence, our psychic apparatus have seen through this facade. After the detonation, the Chinese scientist by the name of Yunru, who headed the facility in Kashmir, managed to utilize advanced hacking techniques, as well as manipulation of the seismic activities in the area, to make keeping track of her latest creation, a fully automated siege machine, impossible. Technology such as that, and anything else Yunru could create, would be far too dangerous to let loose on our world. While it is most curious why Yunru attempted to destroy everything in Kashmir in such a disproportionate way, let alone how the Chinese managed to get their hands on a MIDAS bomb to begin with, the Centurion Siege Crawler must fall, and its creator alongside it."
Objective 1: Capture all Chinese Airbases.
Objective 2: Wait for further instructions.
Events
Initial assault
The rest of Epsilon forces had tracked down the Chinese war machine, the Centurion Siege Crawler and found that its creator Yunru attempted to fake its death, after using the last MIDAS bomb to annihilate a large bulk of Epsilon forces in Kashmir, she tried to hide the Centurion by the tunnel network. Due to the Chinese forces having a numerical superiority in this region, the Proselyte decided to use his unorthodox tactics to destroy it. His advisor, also pointed out the largest airfield of Chinese here, required the Proselyte to eliminate enemies around the 4 Airbases and capture them. Next, the troops from the east were handed over to the Proselyte, including Epsilon Elites, Viruses, Duneriders, Lasher Tanks, Gatling Tanks, Marauders, Magnetrons, a Mastermind, and several Epsilon Headquarters' Shadow Tanks, which are the only forces Epsilon remained there, but the advisor said that more would come. The Proselyte began to take action after hearing this.
The enemy’s Chinese commander reacted quickly and dispatched a large number of troops to block the Epsilon task forces in an attempt to immediately clear them, but he eventually failed: The Proselyte used Mastermind to control many enemy units and bring them deep into the base to go to die, and Magnetrons destroyed the defenses. When the Mastermind was damaged, he sent the newly arrived Stingers and Engineers to repair it, and combined these units together again.
The enemy commander gave up protecting the outpost but deployed more reinforcements. There is a unit that bothered the Proselyte and his advisor: The emergence of these infantry armored powersuits led them to believe that China is indeed developing some new technologies. When the reinforcements were completely destroyed, the Proselyte captured the Tech Reinforcement Pad at the outpost and then let the mind-controlled forces push forward as a bait to attract Hammer Defenses' firepower. Magnetrons took the opportunity to dismantle the Hammers.
When the Proselyte attempted to send some troops into a tunnel-like hole, he discovered something strange: it was not actually a tunnel, but it was purely a cave, and thought that those Chinese troops that had swarmed before were hiding here.
Yunru's games
At that time, the advisor reported the news he attained just before: they had updated the latest location of the Centurion, it was near a Chinese outpost on the other side of river. Seconds later, the Proselyte found that Yunru escaped the Centurion. He thought this was a great opportunity to destroy the Centurion, but it wasn’t long before he discovered that Yunru had redeployed her defense around the hole he had just made and tried to get his troops back; even worse, he found himself the Battlefield Control System was being hacked and there was a possibility that it would not be able to command the battle. Fortunately, this problem lasted only a few seconds, but he lost the ability to track the Centurion. After retreating, he was slightly angry that Yunru's tricks could not change her fate and insisted on the next fight.
Yunru activated both Iron Curtain Device and EM Pulse simultaneously at the same time, and commanded the overwhelming reinforcements to rush toward the group of Epsilon troops, even the Chinese forces deployed a new Tech Missile Silo, and she said:
| “ | "Greetings. The Soviet General is out of this game, I think it's time you were too. I should've known it'd take more than a big explosion to take care of your mind reading.
—Yunru taunting the Proselyte |
” |
The tough battle caused the Proselyte to suffer a small amount of losses, however, during the retaliation, he got 6 Stalkers from Epsilon HQ. Then he repeated the actions he had taken to destroy Hammer Defenses. After annihilating all reinforcements, the Proselyte directed his troops to advance on the slopes. On the uphill, he found some unidentified vehicles on the right, which appeared to be an advanced one than standard Soviet design. Unfortunately, he found those vehicles could neither be captured nor mind-controlled, as they were unmanned and unarmed.
After effectively clearing a forward checkpoint, the Proselyte encountered another dilemma: The westbound route was blocked by Hammers, shielded by Iron Curtain. At the same time, his Tech Reinforcement Pad was also blown up by a missile fired by Tech Missile Silo. He had no more troops available. In order to get through to the road to the airfield, his advisor thought of a solution.
Pulling the plug
After locking down the position of the Tesla Reactors inside the airfield, the advisor deployed two Infiltrators, two Hijackers, and four Initiates in the lowland not far away. The Proselyte thought of his own tricky trick about how to use this seemingly insignificant army: let Initiates garrison the houses in the village, and then let Hijacker draw the Attack Dogs and let them into the range of the Initiates. When the dogs were all eliminated, two Hijackers began their work: stealing two vehicles from the enemy garrison to attract the attention of other troops.
A Hijacker was eventually selected to steal an elite Nuwa Cannon and immediately used it to annihilate the dog near the Tesla Reactors, but failed. Another Hijacker began his decoy tactic again: lead the dogs to Initiates and succeed. After the dog was completely annihilated, Infiltrator took the opportunity to enter a reactor.
Securing the airbase
The troops stationed at the outpost of Hammers immediately abandoned their defenses and rushed toward the task force desperately. The Proselyte focused on the priority of destroying Terror Drones, and then used mind-control tactics to deal with the other units. At this time, the reinforcements on the southwest bank also arrived, including 4 fully-functioning Basilisks that is useful to eliminate enemy infantry and defenses from a long range. The eastern task force encountered a tenacious resistance after the downhill descent. The task force in the west actively opened up a reunion. He was troubled by the continuous missile attacks during this time, so he activated the Kinetic Barrier - a proselyte from Epsilon HQ gave him a lot of their support.
After the resistance was suppressed, the eastern side finally entered the airfield and found a number of Foxtrots and Dustdevils parked on the runway, as well as an Iron Curtain Device to the east. The Proselyte did not hesitate to destroy the...oil drums next to them. His advisor at this time prompted him not to destroy the production buildings near the Airbases that could provide resources. After hearing this, he decided to capture them. After destroying the troops and defensive buildings here, he found War Miners and several abandoned Ore Refineries and used them. Finally, Engineers successfully landed airfield.
After ensuring safety, the rendezvous task force searched for resources available in this area and then discovered two more abandoned refineries. In addition to capturing Airbases, Engineers also captured Tech Oil Derricks and a Barracks so that more engineers can be trained. After capturing 3 Airbases, the Proselyte built 9 Foxtrots in advance.
Search and destroy
The advisor required him to built 4 more Foxtrots after he built most of them, while the advisor was helping search for the new location of the Centurion. Unexpectedly, annoying enemy reinforcements came again, but this did not affect the Proselyte's mission. Surprisingly, the Centurion had been found: it was still in its original position and had not moved one bit. The Proselyte thought that Yunru was overly confident. After the 16 Foxtrots were assembled, they quickly departed and broke the AA defense blockade and then focused on the Centurion. But the cooked duck flew again: Yunru covered the Centurion with an Iron Curtain, which showed that she must anticipated this - there was another Iron Curtain Device. Even Yuri couldn't stand up to this maddening situation: he personally authorized instructions for the next move.
After learning about Yuri's plan, the advisor confidently claimed that no matter whatever conspiracy would not stop them, and said that since the Chinese Air Force had been dealt with, landing "her" will become stress-free. Third, another proselyte will participate in the cover action. The Proselyte himself must destroy the Iron Curtain Device and the Centurion as quickly as possible. His advisor quietly waited for the arrival of the frantic moment...
Beauty and the Beast
Soon, Libra arrived, began her second operation. At this point the Centurion fled into the base and waited for the construction of the tunnel to complete - perhaps the MIDAS explosion had shaken the structure of the tunnel, which was why Yunru had been waiting. As Libra headed southwest, the advisor found that the entrance to the enemy base was guarded by several new Iron Dragons which were shielded by the Iron Curtain and Libra couldn't reach them and demanded the Proselyte to use Foxtrots to destroy them. But at this time he made a mistake similar to someone who was one of his colleagues in a certain way (or was merely misled by Yunru's intelligence): The completion of the tunnel was 5 minutes earlier than expected, but there was still a lot of time left.
The number of enemy forces was very numerous that it was so terrible that another proselyte's forces was destroyed prematurely. It took Libra a long time to destroy them all. Then she found the Iron Curtain Device on the southwest side and destroyed it. After the device was destroyed, the Iron Dragons became vulnerable to airforces, and the Proselyte quickly ordered his Foxtrots destroyed all of them.
Although the Iron Dragons were completely destroyed, the advisor found that the Centurion was still covered by an Iron Curtain effect. He concluded that there was also an Iron Curtain Generator inside the Centurion. However, after a while, he excitedly told the Proselyte that Libra's anti-gravity field could easily destroy the Centurion that was still invulnerable. At this time, Yunru's troops deactivated the main defenses. Perhaps under the fearful atmosphere created by Libra, they gradually realized that their resistance was useless.
The Proselyte directed Libra into the base. The advisor constantly used the missiles bombing base to support him, and also given a lot of cash supply boxes. Libra was killing the garrison troops around her. The gravitational field was released, the Centurion was overturned and finally destroyed.
Psychotic psychic
The results of Yunru's tampering of Libra's CAS
After the Centurion was destroyed, Yunru was spotted heading to another tunnel entrance not far from the Chinese base. The Proselyte quickly sent Libra to intercept her, killing a Heavy Trooper and two Conscripts in the process, but just as Libra gets close to Yunru, the latter used her Immobilizer to tamper with the former's Cerebral Amplifier/Suppressor, causing Libra to went berserk and releases a storm of unstable psychic energy as Yunru escapes in a Halftrack and flees into the tunnels, all while three Heavy Troopers move in to capture her.
Aftermath
| “ | This did not go as well as I expected. The Centurion Siege Crawler was destroyed, yes, but Yunru managed to incapacitate Libra and escape into the tunnels again. We will have to send more forces to Kashmir to keep chasing one and retrieve the other...
—Yuri's message |
” |
Although the Proselyte managed to destroy the Centurion, it was a hollow victory as not only Yunru managed to elude him, but she also managed to make Libra go berserk. Disappointed by this outcome, Yuri choose to deploy more troops to keep pursuing the young genius as well as pacifying Libra.
Not long after, the Epsilon experienced more trouble after Yuri realized that Rashidi and his Scorpion Cell are betraying them. Yuri sends the Proselyte and Libra to punish Rashidi and the Cell for their treachery.
Difficulty changes
Casual
- Starting credits: 30000
- 2 additional money crates will appear on the map.
- Some Tesla Coils in Foehn base will be removed.
- 2 more Magnetrons will be given to the player.
- More Masterminds (1 more than in Normal difficulty) will be given to the player.
- A speed upgrade crate and a firepower upgrade crate is stationed at Libra's landing zone.
- Number of missiles Epsilon launched towards Foehn base will be increased, and the player will receive more reinforcements after missile attack occurred.
- 8 Tech Nuclear Plants in Foehn base is not controlled by enemy.
- The number of enemy guards along the way, enemy attack forces during defending Airbases, the intercepting forces towards Libra are the least in this difficulty, while the player's reinforcements from bottom left are the most numerous.
Normal
- Starting credits: 25000
- More Masterminds will be given to the player.
- A speed upgrade crate and a firepower upgrade crate is stationed at Libra's landing zone.
- Number of missiles Epsilon launched towards Foehn base will be increased, and the player will receive more reinforcements after missile attack occurred.
- Foxtrots parked in Foehn Airbases will attack the player.
- The enemy will send Iron Dragons protected by Iron Curtain to attack the player's troops when the approaching an enemy's defensive point.
- More Attack Dogs will patrol the base that required to infiltrate.
- Enemy will send large amounts of Terror Drones to hunt libra.
- Time before completion of the tunnel will be shortened by 5 minutes suddenly.
Mental
- Starting credits: 15000
- Less Stingers carrying Engineers will be sent.
- Foxtrots parked in Foehn Airbases will attack the player.
- The enemy will send Iron Dragons protected by Iron Curtain to attack the player's troops when the approaching an enemy's defensive point.
- Enemy will send large amounts of Terror Drones to hunt Libra.
- Time before completion of the tunnel will be shortened by 5 minutes suddenly.
- Enemy will activate a Tech Missile Bunker after the mission started for a while, and the player will receive the warning.
- Some of tech defenses is controlled by enemy initially.
- The number of enemy guards along the way, enemy attack forces during defending Airbases, the intercepting forces towards Libra are the most numerous in this difficulty, while the player's reinforcements from bottom left are the least.
Easter egg
- Use Libra's gravity field to destroy two fishing boats on the river will get a one-time use of the Rage superweapon.
- Destroy a Buddha statue located at bottom left corner of map will get some crates.
Behind the scenes
- Prior to version 3.3.5, Yunru will emerge from the Centurion when the latter is destroyed, and flee to the top left of map. However, the tunnel there is blocked and under repair, she was actually unable to go through there.
