Defense of Panzyr is one crazy overtuned mission

[Eldiora]

So I am on redo 7 now. This is totally crazy, does anyone have any tips on that?
I load 2 Heavies and 2 Assaults. The APC's can simply reach the mission goal in 2 rounds at the beginning, it takes me at least 2 mechs to destroy one most of the time.

Then the side objective. How do you save the barracks? It takes me 3 rounds of sprint from the beginning to get up there but the apc is already there on round 3.

I tried going with lighter mechs, but there are 55 ton mechs up there that squash my light stuff.

[Holzinternet]

I have performance prob at this mission. Microstutters, lags and it takes minutes between the phases. Had some minor bugs along but this missions i had to abort. Was not playable.

But nice to hear that i am not the only one that rubs his ears about this mission.

[Wojtek the Bear]

1 Assault (assuming Highlander from story mission?) Can take out most light mechs and vehicles in one turn.

1 Light w/high movement/durability. I used a Firestarter. Make sure this is first in your lance assignment order in pre-mission, it will line up on the left side of map.

1 Medium. I used a modded Wolverine. This can be used for stomping vehicles near base and long/medium range engagement

1 Heavy. I used a Jaeger but any heavy with decent movement and power, like a Dragon will work.

Have light on left, charge up the hill. Jump jets are key too. I used DFA on the APC going into the barracks.

The assault mech can sit in the middle, taking out the light/medium mechs that charge. The heavy can go right and stomp out the 2 APCs that charge from that directiong. The medium can go back/left to handle those APCs.

I got beat up but completed all the objectives.

[hammerinn]

Grasshopper. 7 mlas, 6smlas.
Pop pop pop..
My highlander has ac20, 2 srm6, 4 mlas 3 smlas i believe.
Same deal.
Easy mission for me.
1shot 1 kill

[My Own Treacherous Hand]

The reason the APCs are able to move so far in a turn is that they are using road tiles. If you position a mech on the path, it will slow them considerably.

[DarthPhallus]

Originally posted by nilus:

You can block the APCs from entering the base with your mechs. Just put one in each door way and they won’t be able to get past.

Then send a fast unit with jump jets up to the hospital to take out that one APC

Once you realize your mechs can block the missions is a lot easier

This post wins the internet today.

Blocked the gates with 2 assault. Don't forget melee does double damage to vehicles.

[Ģ◊иℤ◊⚡ℤ∀муpΛй]

its the mission where i lost my best pilot but the reward was worth it, bring in only heavy mechs, and stomp the tanks if you can.

[Bloody]

restarted this as i wanted to save the officers ( failed and went meh they were only worth 10% ).

2 Assault mechs ( King Crab with 4 LRM15s and multi target ) Atlast with AC20 , SRMS and MLs , positioned at the 2 APC entrances, killed all the Apcs in 1 volley with or without Precision strike.

Black night and Kintaro with SRMs handled all the Mechs easily. They actually give yo their back side and so the Kintaro ended up with 5 kills, all from 1 alpha.

[1nf0calypse]

Ignore the barracks, keep up high evasion and concentrate on the APCs before taking out the mechs. I had to destroy two APCs with death from above, which I usually do not do, but in this case it was worth it.

[Shrinkshooter]

This is my problem with maybe half the story missions. They generally aren't structured to allow you to creatively come up with your own solutions, you're railroaded into approaching a certain way. Going in blind, you're more likely to lose than not, and once you've analyzed the mission, you walk into it with your power of future-seeing and blow past it. Even then, they're balanced very poorly.

Take for example the Liberate Panzyr mission. If you kill all the vehicles quickly (in 3 turns or so) which is the goal according to the game itself, and you DO NOT have a mech standing on or near the road leading down to the spaceport, the enemy side will engage the now friendly turrets before they have a chance to fire on the enemy, leaving you severely gimped against a much more powerful force (weapons wise). However, if you're sure to place a mech or two on the road before you kill the vehicles, the enemy side targets you over the turrets, and the turrets tear up their rear armor, making the fight MUCH easier.

A giant landslide in difference, and it is not anything you could know the first time you play the mission. You need to stumble upon it blindly. No mission should have such a gulf in difficulty based solely on one trigger.

Even worse, if you did not manage to attract the attention of the enemy before they started shooting down the turrets, their force is relatively unscathed, making it impossible to go through them in order to gain line of sight on the control building. You can take the long way around and hope they don't shoot you in the back, but the mech better be fast and have jets; this mission however tells you straight out you're fighting against an entrenched force and to expect serious resistance.

I ALWAYS brought a scout mech with me on every missions except this one, specifically because the game said I'd need my "best mechs" to fight against serious opposition. Then, of COURSE, the brilliant designers put a time limit on it. Up to that point, it's the one story mission that needed a fast mech more than anything. It's little details like these that really get under my skin. As randomly difficult as the generated merc contracts are, I find they're far better "designed" than anything in the main storyline, and that is quite saying something.

[Edraii]

I don't remember what mechs I were using when I did it, but I remember restarting once and managed to save the barracks. I'm pretty sure I was running a certain assault and 3 heavies.

You basically have to have a fast heavy/medium sprint up that mountain to get the vehicle within sensor lock range, and another mech to go with it to snipe it by jumping up the cliff/firing missiles on the turn before it gets to the barracks. You need to use fortify to get that snipe shot off before it can move if you have a heavy.

Meanwhile your remaining two mechs have to clear the other APC's commin' for your base. It's doable, but requires those exact steps pretty much.

[Deus Ex Angel]

I had to redo this one several times too because a few APCs had buggy(?) movement speed when Kamea talks, and they entered the control center in the same time. But it is still doable. I found the capture three silos mission considerably more annoying.

[Carcharodon40k]

My game plan was to block the entrances north and west with heavies, I had the west side covered with LRMS, I made a custom medium mech with a front/right side loaded armor and matched it my gutsiest pilot with sensor lock. Since I knew what the apcs are gunning for it was just a matter of stepping on them when they reach my chokepoints. The side mission was a bit trickier since I was forced to rely on RNG after spotting the APC after rushing it with my custom mech. I had a close match but I pulled through after 5 tries.

[manceres]

Beat it but let the soilders die as it was to far to walk. I stuck around the Command center. As soon as an apc appeared I pounced on it. I 2 mechs north and 2 mechs west. I think it would be possible to make it to the Hospital if you sprint even with a heavy and ignore all enemies but i beat it and had no desire replay to see.

APC's i think are bugged as they were moving faster than normal for their tonnage.

[DarkFenix]

My setup was 1x King Crab, 1x Highlander, 1x Awesome, 1x Orion. None with JJs.

I sprinted my Orion and Highlander up the hill towards the barracks immediately on turn one, ignoring the Jenner coming from that direction (not like it has any threatening firepower). The King Crab spawned west and had AC/20s so it was perfect for dealing with the western APCs, the Awesome spawned east so it got the job of dealing with the eastern APCs.

Problem was that the Awesome's firepower is... well, less than awesome. Called shots are the answer, I destroyed the first APC on the right with a called shot (vehicles are easy to kill when your shots are focused on one point), and by the time the second arrived it was within melee range.

My Orion has a sensor lock capable pilot, on its third turn up the hill (two turns just spent sprinting) it got within range to sensor lock the APC up there, and my Highlander (which had 2x LRM20) was able to kill it in one (it's only a 10 ton APC, very fragile).

After that it was just a case of mopping up, nothing the enemy sends is particularly heavy, the difficulty is in you having to scramble around killing APCs.

[Imion]

I also did this with 2H and 2A, all of which were capable of alphaing an APC ( or just step on it). But yeah, the secondary goal is nearly impossible (pointless anyway), and once you mnage to bring the turrets up, the tide has already turned and you won't need help to mob up the rest. I whis they would stagger some of the enemy mech's assault by a turn or two.