How to beat CROSSHAIR CRISIS

[Jgeronimo]

Im stuck in this challenge, can someone help me, My soldiers are Angela Merci, Strategic Rick, Hipster Dave, Dee Hatlacker, and Specialist Suds.

[Warchest_Andy]

CROSSHAIRS CRISIS “Where cover is your friend and exposure is your end…”

PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU WANT TO AVOID A SPOILER FOR THIS MISSION!

This actually isn’t too bad a mission if you have an effective counter-sniper (Juan with Botherer ftw!) or you use Kate’s poison DoT to make the AI cry for not bringing a medic. With normal toons and Hooah AR’s though you have a whole different level of challenge ahead of you.

I couldn’t duplicate your lineup exactly. I have literally just amassed enough coin to buy myself a Hatlacker but I don’t have enough for a Suds (random opponents don’t seem to appreciate that they are supposed to play quickly and let me win! ) so I put Spud in his place and banned him from using his rocket launcher. In this game he acts exactly like Suds without any C4. I also assumed worst-case scenario and made him turn in his Biffo LMG for a Hooah as this is what Suds would have by default.

My version of your team looked like this:

Strategic Rick - Hooah, Health Crate, Artillery, Deployo-Cover
Dave - Hooah
Spud - Hooah
Hatlacker - Stumpington
Angela - Awuga (although she never fired it so it could have been a Cold Automatic or a marshmallow gun and been just as effective)

This came to 25/26 Squad Points and represents the minimum you must have available to those toons. If you have access to a Biffo LMG, put it on Suds and you’ll have a much easier time.

Golden Rule: Always, always, always finish your turn in green cover until most of the enemy toons are either dead or in full retreat and you can be absolutely certain that you can survive whatever they throw at you in their turn. Even then, stay in green cover except in the direst of emergencies.

General advice: The tricky part of this mission with your team is not so much avoiding damage because there is plenty of shelter at your end of the map. The difficulty is in doing enough damage to the enemy to kill them or rout them before they win via Take & Hold. Their guns have more reach and greater damage output so it won’t be easy; be prepared to try more than once!

Select Health Crates and Deployo-Cover to distract the AI and take some heat off of your toons at critical moments. Always put these in yellow cover if you can and preferably in places where the enemy will have to move before shooting at them as this will drain them of AP and limit the damage they can put out. Use Rick’s Artillery (and Dave’s grenade) when you can get solid hits on at least three enemies, or use them to blast enemies out of cover or one tile closer to you so that you can shoot them with multiple toons.

Be very wary of enemies moving up on the flanks to points where they can shoot around your cover (Dave’s position is the most vulnerable). Be especially careful of the Pete with the Avenger as the knock back from that gun can push Dave out of cover and if that happens, he’s dead. It is better to retreat to Angela’s location for a turn or two rather than get him killed. The good news is, enemies moving up that far can be hit easily so you can usually shoot them up a bit and either kill them or force them to retreat in their next turn.

Angela basically does nothing other than act as a healing station. If anyone gets hurt, move over to the safe area behind her and get some healing. You don’t want anyone out on the front lines with low health.

Turn 1: Move up!

Turn 2: Push Rick forward as shown and use Artillery at maximum range to hit the enemy Rick and both Petes. You’ll also push one of the Petes back a tile, buying yourself fractionally more time before he can start shooting at you.

Pop out with Dave, take a couple of shots and pop back in. Move Hatlacker round the corner, deploy his shield in the safe cubby then move him back. Get everyone else to the positions shown.

Turn 3: Continue to pop out and shoot enemies who are near enough. If Rick can hit someone with the Hooah, use that. If he can’t hit anyone with the Hooah or if he can do significantly more damage with Artillery, use that instead. If Hatlacker’s shield draws some fire away from your toons, have him meet it half way, repair it then return both of them to their starting positions. Everyone should end the turn pretty much where they started.

Turn 4: This is where things will start to heat up. Shoot with anyone who can acquire a target. You will have enemies in the capture area by now (so they will be building towards a T&H victory and you need to watch that closely) and it is likely that some enemy toons will begin creeping up the flanks. In the screenshot below you can see the enemy Rick at the bottom and a Pete at the top, both in a position to threaten Dave next turn. I have thrown out the Deployo-Cover to block Pete’s LoS to Dave and a Health Crate too: note that you should deploy these in yellow cover if at all possible. These two items absorbed literally all of the shooting from the entire enemy team in their next turn and most of the enemy toons left themselves exposed to return fire. Since four of them were reasonably close together I used Dave’s grenade in my next turn.

Turn 5: Things were literally getting too hot for Dave now so after tossing his grenade he moved over to Angela for a quick hug. Hatlacker’s shield has moved into the centre to draw as much enemy fire as possible next turn. Spud has moved to where the shield was to give him better opportunities to shoot. Note the Health Crate in Dave’s old spot - another distraction designed to tempt the AI into range.

Turn 6: Dave is now back in position but only because it was safe to return. Hatlacker’s shield is pretty beaten up but it did its job. Keep popping out and shooting or use Artillery if it will give better results. Throw out a Health Crate as a distraction if you need to. You should have several enemy toons on the run by now but keep pouring fire into the others.

Turn 7: Here I had to break the Golden Rule. If I didn’t put someone in the capture area this turn the enemy would have won via T&H. Most of the enemy were either dead or retreating at this point and a quick look at the ones that were still active confirmed that they could not possibly kill Rick in a single turn so he ran into the capture area and pretended nobody could see him. The whole team surged forward, firing as it went but the others all finished in some form of cover. Angela moved up to let her healing aura do its stuff next turn. If you still have one and Rick has AP left you can throw a Health Crate down somewhere close to an active enemy in the hope that it will make an irresistible target. As it turned out Spud took some fire instead of Rick but the fact that he was at full health meant that he could soak it up without worrying, Maybe they really couldn’t see Rick after all.

Turn 8: With the bulk of the enemy dead of in full retreat, this turn was about getting into full cover again while taking possession of the capture area. Spud has dropped back a bit until Angela has time to heal him.

Turn 9: Find good, safe positions and wait. Don’t pursue the wounded enemies; let them come back to you on terms that you dictate. Have Angela start healing those that need it. If anyone has a shot, pop out and take it. Otherwise just hunker down.

Turn 10+: With only the enemy Rick left alive, Angela convenes a group hug. Those not needing a hug wait patiently for Evil Rick to get stressed about the good guys winning by T&H and come running back into range…

… which he always will, because AI’s are like that. Hatlacker got him with his first and only shot of the game.

You can definitely win this but it is not going to be easy! :eek:

Good luck!

tl;dr.

[Warchest_Andy]

Addendum: I had a think about what I might do differently if I had a Suds. I think I would try Suds in the forward position instead of Dave and make a point of throwing his C4 down early in the game on the other side of the wall that he hides behind. You are guaranteed that an enemy will move there at some point later on and they are hard to shift from that spot. The ability to hit them for ~70 damage without exposing anyone to return fire would be a real boon.

Just remember that Suds is not as nimble as Dave so you need to be very alert to danger and move him to safety (Angela) quickly if necessary.

Let me know if you win!

Edit: I picked up a Suds today and he does well in that forward position. The C4 trick works perfectly, although you have to throw the C4 down as you pop out to shoot as you can’t target that spot from behind cover. I got an easy 71 point hit on the Pete with the Avenger, which was nice.

With Suds up front I went with this arrangement:

Dave’s greater mobility allowed him to pop out further from that rear position so the team’s damage output was higher. I had the enemy on the run sooner as a result so they only managed three points towards a T&H instead of four:

Other than that I used the same approach as described above.