Badlands - Living to it's name. HELP!

[Rupert_The_Bear 10]

So I managed to take Novy Sobor even without the NAPA guys ( You can shout for help a bajillion times they won't show up). I first ran across the field to the strongpoint to the left when you look at the town from the woods where you start. Then a bunch of blokes ran towards me but they are pretty easy to take out. I met 2 UAZs in town. One was directly by the church. Take this one out first because it stands pretty tricky and can spot you from there all across town. The other one was driving around somewhere.

I took Novy Sobor, the APC came, HQ built and I got the task to take Stary Sobor and a few other places.

And that's where I am stuck. I went to Stary Sobor with a group of guys (2 Medics, 2 RPGs, 1 BRDM 2) we took the Strongpoint, took out 2 UAZs driving towards us and then, all of a sudden half of the russian army arrived. At least 2 BTR-90's, 1 URAL and one or two Vodniks and a few guys. I managed to take out one Vodnik and the Troops, at least some of them. But the BTR are giving us hell always killing me or somebody else of Team Razor and they always kill more or less everybody else.

How do I get past this? Do I have to take the other towns first? Or do I have to take Stary Sobor directly without taking the strongpoint?

Sombody please help, this is really getting frustrating. Thanks in advance.

Greets Rupert.

[Ferrando 10]

So I managed to take Novy Sobor even without the NAPA guys ( You can shout for help a bajillion times they won't show up). I first ran across the field to the strongpoint to the left when you look at the town from the woods where you start. Then a bunch of blokes ran towards me but they are pretty easy to take out. I met 2 UAZs in town. One was directly by the church. Take this one out first because it stands pretty tricky and can spot you from there all across town. The other one was driving around somewhere.

I took Novy Sobor, the APC came, HQ built and I got the task to take Stary Sobor and a few other places.

And that's where I am stuck. I went to Stary Sobor with a group of guys (2 Medics, 2 RPGs, 1 BRDM 2) we took the Strongpoint, took out 2 UAZs driving towards us and then, all of a sudden half of the russian army arrived. At least 2 BTR-90's, 1 URAL and one or two Vodniks and a few guys. I managed to take out one Vodnik and the Troops, at least some of them. But the BTR are giving us hell always killing me or somebody else of Team Razor and they always kill more or less everybody else.

How do I get past this? Do I have to take the other towns first? Or do I have to take Stary Sobor directly without taking the strongpoint?

Sombody please help, this is really getting frustrating. Thanks in advance.

Greets Rupert.

Press CTRL + SPACE, this will take you into HIGH COMMAND mode and allow you to command NAPA units. They are called up with F2-4.

When you take the first village, deploy the HQ. Order Razor somewhere safe and leave them there because you won't really need them and they tend to die. The following concept worked for me and my side suffered 3-4 casualties max:

Wait a while for your money to build. I like this mission because there is no time pressure. Recruit AT specialists only, as you will support them with a BRDM2 and NAPA have enough riflemen.

In Stary Sobor, concentrate on the strongpoint next to the city HQ, on the main road. The idea is to take that strongpoint and the city, then go into city menu and select 100% resources for defence by clicking on the slider. This will make AI build heavy units dedicated to defending the city. You won't have access to those units though.

Once you've done that you can build defensive structures around the strongpoint (such as SPG-6 or ZSU23. Have your AT specialists deployed around the city center. You should buy AT weapons for yourself too.

Now you can wait for the counterattack.

BTR 90 is your main concern as it is something that a BRDM cannot handle. With patience you should be able to ambush it somewhere. RPG18 or 2 RPG7 rounds should do the trick. Vodniks are not that much of a trouble.

I had it easy because in the previous mission I took a Kornet AT missile of a dead Russian. Kornet is AWESOME :cool:

Don't be concerned if the enemy retakes a strongpoint or two. The AI will continue to build/send defensive units into the city that will harass the enemy. You should only hold the city HQ and the adjacent strongpoint.

What you should also do is to use NAPAs in support role. Use AT guys because you can recruit more of them whereas NAPAs don't spawn and you can't reinforce NAPAs. Also, order all of them crouched (7, 7) and put them in danger mode (7,2).

Overall, if you increase the city defenses in the city menu and deploy your AT guys around the HQ and that strongpoint, you won't have problems in fighting off the counterattack.

Edited September 21, 2009 by Ferrando

[Rupert_The_Bear 10]

Thanks for your help. That worked. I tried to ambush it with a RPG which I bought back in Novy Sobor but it just rushed out the town on the field and started to fire granades at me. I've just sent a bunch of AT guys and s BRDM as support on it and meanwhile I took care about the "Protect Vishnoye" task.

Thanks again for the tricks.:cool:

[highfly 10]

Hey,

how do you damn do it, after take the first village and building you first base for these stupid supply trucks not to follow you like a shadow ?

I mean the main danger on the field for my men is our supply trucks who take great pleasur driving over us, not the ennemy!

Not to mention that they sometimes stop, but if you dare to get in "gear" menu of the truck, bam it goes away... I guess there are programmers with great sense of humour at BI!

When I build a nest or defense, do I need to put one of my men inside or will it be manned automatically after some time ?

You say to ask razor to stay somewhere, any way to take them out of team so I can buy more units to replace them to attack 2nd village ?

also the other groups (in high command f2, f3, f4) are they just one man each ? can I buy units for these groups ? If so, how ?

sorry for all these question, but this best game ever is the worst game ever... and is shame for documentation, don't know if the boxed copy has a manual, I have Steam, but nothing really helps, event not the tutorials. They learned me I could buy a barrack, but they never explained that i NEEDED one to buy more units... btw they never told me you COULD buy units... Real tough learning curve, but great once you get it... One of those games you should not play before you have finished it :j:

Edited September 22, 2009 by highfly

[Rapier 10]

When you take the first village, deploy the HQ. Order Razor somewhere safe and leave them there because you won't really need them and they tend to die.

LOL, I dismiss them the first chance I get. I rather have "expandable" troops under my command. This whole idea of commanding 3 guys (taking up 3 slots) while doing this RTS thing is such a waste and it becomes baby sitting, because these guys get shot faster than a rookie trooper out of the factory.

[maturin 12]

You're best bet for taking Sobor is to buy a BRDM, hide Razor and it behind the warehouse and then buy or loot an RPG. Those APCs have no chance against AT in all those buildings.

[highfly 10]

LOL, I dismiss them the first chance I get. I rather have "expandable" troops under my command. This whole idea of commanding 3 guys (taking up 3 slots) while doing this RTS thing is such a waste and it becomes baby sitting, because these guys get shot faster than a rookie trooper out of the factory.

but how do you dismiss them ??

[Ferrando 10]

C'mon guys it's easy!

There are no time constraints in this mission nor is the enemy trying to overrun your base! So don't worry too much about defensive structures. Use city menu slider to channel 100% towards defense. This will make the cities you take virtually impossible to lose. Don't worry about economics, this is not Civilization! You maybe need 2500 USD max for this mission which you will generate in about half an hour after you have built the HQ.

This means you have all the time in the world to build resources, recruit a sizeable force and position them to take these villages

No need to loot the RPGs when you can buy them at any strongpoint you have captured.

Don't stand on the road so the trucks won't hurt you. You shouldn't stay in one place for long anyway, always be moving!

And yes, if you build defensive structures you need to assign a "live" soldier to man those.

You "dismiss" Razor by simply telling them to move behind any barn/house/doghouse/outhouse in Stary Sobor so that you don't need to babysit them.

Sadly, in Badlands you cannot reinforce NAPA squads so take good care of them. Use the troops you can recruit in Barracks, you can command up to 8 of them...F5-F10 then press F12 to access 2 more with F1 and F2 again. Just be careful when you give Regroup orders to not include Razor. Try experimenting with Team Assignment commands to create different teams (white, red, blue) although it is not very useful.

In previous versions the game allowed (or was bugged to allow) construction of a Heavy Factory. Alas, not in 1.04! So then it was even easier.

Patience is key. Take your time, use the AT teams that you can expend at will. My advice is to build 6 AT specialists and support those with a BRDM that you will command/drive/fire from. Use NAPAs as backup/covering fire and as soon as you defeat the counterattack send them to forrests near Rogovo to stage the next attack. Use similar tactics for Rogovo that I outlined in my post above.

And finally,

the toughest battle is for Stary Sobor. You will also have a hard time in the side quest, which you should accept because you need all the evidence in the subsequent mission. Other than that, it's plain sailing.

Edited September 23, 2009 by Ferrando

[highfly 10]

Don't stand on the road so the trucks won't hurt you. You shouldn't stay in one place for long anyway, always be moving!

You "dismiss" Razor by simply telling them to move behind any barn/house/doghouse/outhouse in Stary Sobor so that you don't need to babysit them.

thanks for that!

but my question was if it is possible to take them OUT of my team, so I can buy other units to replace them. Till now I "dismiss" them by manning MG nest at base, but this is not what I call "dismiss".

For the trucks, that's a pain in the ... When building my base and defences, I'm stopped, so are my men, but the trucks keep driving around like crazy and kill my men, so I had to put them inside the QG for them not to die... stupid.

Then when attacking second city, those trucks keep coming, they don't care if you're on the road, they come and drive over you. Yesterday I shot one of them cause he killed one of my men again... The other one found very funny to stop right in front of my MG nest, making it impossible for it to see anything and fire...

Those trucks should join you only when called, then come to where you are and fully stop until you call them again.

[Rupert_The_Bear 10]

I've got another question a bit about this mission and dogs of war. I managed to succes in this mission but:

I drove to the mill next to Vishnoye to meet Prizrak and let my guys do the rest with conquering the last town. They finished first and I was still in the middle of the conversation with Prizrak and I didn't get any chance whether to kill him or not and in Dogs Of War he speaks to me at the beginning but it worries me that the tags of the guys of Team Razor are red, so I wanted to ask, can I load a savegame from Badlands, without replaying the whole mission? I just wanted to return to a point, where I conquered 2 towns and did not gave the order to attack the third one. Is this possible?:confused:

[Ferrando 10]

I've got another question a bit about this mission and dogs of war. I managed to succes in this mission but:

I drove to the mill next to Vishnoye to meet Prizrak and let my guys do the rest with conquering the last town. They finished first and I was still in the middle of the conversation with Prizrak and I didn't get any chance whether to kill him or not and in Dogs Of War he speaks to me at the beginning but it worries me that the tags of the guys of Team Razor are red, so I wanted to ask, can I load a savegame from Badlands, without replaying the whole mission? I just wanted to return to a point, where I conquered 2 towns and did not gave the order to attack the third one. Is this possible?:confused:

Nope. You'll have to revert to the beginning of Badlands and do it all over again. Do both sidequests before you conquer the last village. While you are at it you can concentrate all the troops in Rogovo and then just order them to capture the last village once you're done with the priest and the Vishonoye.

Arma 2 is buggy! You need to save often!

[Rupert_The_Bear 10]

Nope. You'll have to revert to the beginning of Badlands and do it all over again. Do both sidequests before you conquer the last village. While you are at it you can concentrate all the troops in Rogovo and then just order them to capture the last village once you're done with the priest and the Vishonoye.

Arma 2 is buggy! You need to save often!

Hm...thats bitter. :( But thanks for your help. I will either play Dogs Of War as it comes or really do Badlands again and try to make it different.:cool:

[highfly 10]

I've got another question a bit about this mission and dogs of war. I managed to succes in this mission but:

I drove to the mill next to Vishnoye to meet Prizrak and let my guys do the rest with conquering the last town. They finished first and I was still in the middle of the conversation with Prizrak and I didn't get any chance whether to kill him or not and in Dogs Of War he speaks to me at the beginning but it worries me that the tags of the guys of Team Razor are red, so I wanted to ask, can I load a savegame from Badlands, without replaying the whole mission? I just wanted to return to a point, where I conquered 2 towns and did not gave the order to attack the third one. Is this possible?:confused:

I think not, it seems you can reload a savedgame while playing the mission, once finished, you can restart. Anyone correct me if wrong, but that's what I experienced.

[Rapier 10]

but how do you dismiss them ??

Select them (F1-F4) or with the spacebar (all of them) then click 0 (zero) and select "communications" then it will have a list and on the list there is an option (disband selected). You can do this with all your troops you got under your command and they go on their own ways.

But warning. If you dismiss them you can't controll them anymore and even then if they end up getting killed , the mission fails and ends.

Sometimes it's best to just order them to stay somewhere out of the war, with the "stop" or "wait for me" command.