The Rust - Ernie Island early game battle?

[TBLackey]

IMO this is the hardest battle in the game. x5 AK-47s plus x2 HiPowers, versus the very limited resources that you have early game.

What is the best strategy to win this battle?

[uncle nick]

Use the highground near the tower. Take cover behind the rocks, pop up to take pot shots at the enemy, then pop back down/take cover. Setup overwatch at the cliff edge. Let the enemy climb up the cliff onto the top level, so your overwatch will mow them down.

After the enemy is sufficiently thinned out, then climb down to take care of the rest.

For the underground section, shoot the enemy at the top level. Then bait the enemy into gathering around the bottom of the lower staircase and then toss grenades down at them. If you need more grenades, suggest to hire Barry.

[Trolleur_Durden]

The high ground near the tower is by far the best fighting position. As uncle nick said, switch between crouched and prone to shoot at enemies and lob grenades generously when the enemy gathers at the bottom of the small cliff.

[BT]

Originally posted by uncle nick:

Use the highground near the tower. Take cover behind the rocks, pop up to take pot shots at the enemy, then pop back down/take cover. Setup overwatch at the cliff edge. Let the enemy climb up the cliff onto the top level, so your overwatch will mow them down.

After the enemy is sufficiently thinned out, then climb down to take care of the rest.

For the underground section, shoot the enemy at the top level. Then bait the enemy into gathering around the bottom of the lower staircase and then toss grenades down at them. If you need more grenades, suggest to hire Barry.

+1

You can just pop up, shoot and hide back using the stance to stand and shoot before to crouch/prone and hide from enemy sight.

If they go around, you can usually mob them as they will come 1 by 1.

You can also abuse sneaking when you are not visible, this will usually prevent enemy to shoot you on the next turn as they have to come close to see you first.

[GreenDragon1776]

In case you don't have sufficient firepower as you prefer to play with a very small team (1-2) you can also withdraw from the sector, heal and attack again. If you use the militia mod which provides a shop, you can also equip better once you've trained the first militia at Ernie village. Note, that if you do not talk to neither NPC in the village, the first attack squad from the outpost doesn't trigger, which gives you sufficient time to train all militia in the village before. If you get all the guys in front of the bunker before the timer is at 0, also their reinforcement wave doesn't happen. You can achieve that by equipping yourself with 40mm HE and grenade launchers first. If you can't afford equipment but are ok with mods, add the mod "Custum Settings" and select a higher starting money to get a full equipment and roll into the rust like a tank. That all said, this is only if you're not up for a challenge and just want to have fun...your way. ;)

[Ceredh]

In this area I found the first encounter, against the "family", the most difficult. It was actually the only time in all vanilla playing here that I had a dead merc by gunfire, instead of a melee crit. After I learned to solve the first encounter by dialogue, the Rust became much easier.

The fight against the camp soldiers is relatively easy, as described above, when you occupy the high ground and flank from the left. However you should have at least two rifles in my opinion. One you get in the second map, and if you don't want to rob from the grave, you could hire Kalyna for a second rifle, she is not of great use later but is ok at start.

In the dungeon I let the enemies run into massive overwatch at the top of the stairs, as using Barry's grenades seems a bit too easy/cheesy for me.

[Luke4444]

Originally posted by TBLackey:

IMO this is the hardest battle in the game. x5 AK-47s plus x2 HiPowers, versus the very limited resources that you have early game.

What is the best strategy to win this battle?

I try to have my mercenary in multiple position for flanking and I use explosive on the group near the fire but yeah this battle can go wrong with a few miss shots . try to get stealth attack to begin the combat vs AK47 guys with the gewehr

[CharlieChap]

There are multiple ways to clear this level. If you have a shotgun (Barry) and melee fighters like Igor or Blood and pistoliers like Fox or SMG armed characters, stealth, move & fire & grit make attacking through the woods an effective approach also although it can be more of a white knuckle ride,,,( also more entertaining imo).