Stage C3: The Bird That Danced on The Moon
This next level begins the Crossbone Gundam sequel "Steel Seven" arc, which is basically the 1954 "Seven Samurai" IN SPACE, although the plot is closer to the 2016 Western revision "The Magnificent Seven". We'll get some Gundam Wing and Victory Gundam, alongside some Gundam F90 and Gundam Sentinel cameos.
Anyway, it set some time after the plot of Crossbone Gundam, and protagonist Tobia Arronaux is a lot older than he was back then, but yet another asshole from Jupiter wants to fuck Earth's shit up, so he headed over the SNRI lab on the moon for some help in taking them down before they hose over Earth.
We meet Minoru Suzuki, a short old dude who has balls of steel and of the "Steel Seven" Tobia will gather to pull Earth's fat out of the fire, he's the smart guy of the team.
Our hero.
Minoru is a test pilot of the experimental F99 Record Breaker (which will succeed the F90/F91 Gundams, which the Crossbone Gundams are further derivatives of), which has a Minoksky Drive, which can head to Jupiter by itself according to the design specs.
Before I go on, funny thing about that: The Minoksky Drive is something a blatant plot device made to speed the plot the fuck up, because it's Gundam's version of Star Trek Warp Drive (though it's really more like really, really fast impulse speed compared to the quarter impulse most UC tech was stuck at, this is more closer to 1/2 to 3/4 full impulse), and while it's barely feasible in late UC, it's still something a massive jump in tech from baseline compared to everything else in UC Gundam at this time, so it's fair to say the writers were concerned it could be seen as massive ass pull writing wise, which is why it really only shows up in the Crossbone stories and which it's conspicuously absent in Victory Gundam, as these beefed up Minovsky engines were made in limited numbers, and by the end of the Crossbone stories, damned near all of them and their associated designs went up in flames, many times literally. In fact, most of them get blown the fuck up in this very stage.
However, this story also ties in Victory, as what little was salvaged from the F99 became the basis for the "Wings of Light" used by the Victory Gundam and its successors.
Anyway, Suzuki says it's possible for one person to spend a week in cockpit and fly to Jupiter in one go, but points out the stress of being in a MS for a week traveling over half the speed of light would be very taxing.
And Suzuki knows exactly why Tobia is so crazed to do this despite the risk:
In short, the lunatic who currently runs Jupiter is building a massively improved version of the Solar Ray from the original series, only this version can glass Earth all the way from Jupiter.
And now we meet Europa Dogatie, step-mother to Bernadette Dogatie from Crossbone, and, unlike most of her family (her daughter also excepted), she's not a bloodthirsty loon and she wants to stop this shit before they can do what the late Crux Dogatie almost pulled off in Crossbone.
She, like Tobia and Minoru, is also part of the "Steel Seven"
Anyway, Tobia is willing to put his life on the line to try this shit, but Minoru thinks tossing you life away is fucking retarded:
He then clarifies he's against the idea since the stress will likely either kill Tobia or leave him a comatose vegetable, thus rendering a speed run to Jupiter pointless if all he's gonna do is crap out before they reach the colony laser.
And then Minoru lays out an excuse to basically retread the Seven Samurai plot in the UC Gundam verse:
He says this is basically a suicide mission, there chance of survival even if they win is basically nil, but before he can say he's gonna work to improve their chances, the SNRI base gets attacked:
He then orders the F99's to emergency deploy, and their squad leader is ready to kick some ass:
Mitch here is the fourth member of the 'Steel Seven", we'll meet the other three in a later level.
Tobia deploys soon after, and as he does, a bird like unit shows up while a sweet ass guitar rock riff plays, and it effortlessly destroys two of the Record Breakers.
And that's when the pilot lols at the lack of challenge:
Meet Gundam's version of Batman's Two-Face, and he's also Europa's younger brother on top of being nucking futs.
His name is because he's the "dark half" or "shadow" to the guy who currently runs Jupiter, and you can probably guess his name from that.
Mitch meanwhile is worried that Callisto will make him a priority target (which he will), and said jackass is all "lol, you can't do shit to my Cornix."
It's at this point we can deploy:
For this map, speed and power are of the essence, as Phase 1 forces you to keep someone alive, Phase 2 forces you to kill a shitload of high defense goons in a certain number of turns, and Phase 3 is when they finally ease up, but the first two phases require planning ahead.
This is not too hard, as all you need to do is cripple the Cornix and let Tobia get the kill. The hard part is keeping Mitch alive, as he's AI controlled and a tad suicidal, so work fast.
The enemy goons are two nine man platoons of Amakusa, asshole that look like green-grey Gundam mockeries with one eye blown out and even have similar weapons to the RX-78 Gundam. Worse, these assholes can take a fair beating and will help the Cornix in fucking your shit up, so kill them ASAP (they will all retreat after this phase if you didn't kill them all)
The Cornix is a speedy bastard, and it will home in on Mitch ASAP, and it's strong enough to kill the hell out of Mitch easy if you let it, so don't
Also, make sure you don't piss away all your troops, Phase 2 will force you spread them around some.
At the end of the phase, even though Tobia takes the Cornix down, Callisto gets the last laugh as he fries the final Record Breaker as a parting fuck you. Mitch manages to survive though.
Europa then tries to convince her brother to stand down, and he reveals he's dead set on glassing Earth and he doesn;t give a shit who doesn't like it, family included.
And that's when a shitload of Virgos appeared all over the Moon, and Callisto nopes out of there, but adds "those look like machines I heard are called Mobile Dolls. Have fun trying not to die."
As he does this, Tsubarov Bilmon, a member of the Romafeller Foundation (the guys who control OZ, their military branch) shows up, proud of his creation:
The short version is he saw the shit going down on the Moon and decide to let his toys break shit just to test them out.
However, this was from the time in the show that OZ split into factions, those who backed the Mobile Doll project, and those that opposed it, led by Treize Khusrenada, and his adjutant Lady Une shows up to tell Tsubarov to fuck off with that shit:
She tells him he's a pussy hiding behind AIs to mask the fear of facing people on the battlefield, and it's basically a way to dodge the responsibility of ending human life by letting proxies do it, which is why Treize considers Mobile Dolls abhorrent.
Tsubarov tells her to shove her complaints up her ass, and that's when some Gundams show up to join this party:
Basically, they are helping the Treize loyalists because while OZ is their nominal enemy, both the Treize loyalists and the Operation Metoer Gundam pilots hate the Mobile Dolls even more.
This just pisses Tsubarov off, and he tells the Mobile Dolls to make the Gundams a priority target.
This isn't too hard honestly, so long as you got strong units capable of doing damage to multiple enemies and can quickly pour on the pain, as you got 24 Virgos on all sides of the map, and while they are fairly strong against beam attacks, anything else that is sufficiently strong will overwhelm them, so if you got stuff like the Gundam DX Falcon, Turn A (Full Power), or a really strong mobile armor like the Devil Gundam, the challenge is not very hard.
And so long as you aren't a dumbass, you can keep the OZ guys and Gundam pilots alive and have them score some kills too.
Virgos are slow moving artillery, so in close beatdowns put them at a disadvantage. Their Planet Defensor skill is annoying as fuck, so having stuff like funnels and other powerful attacks helps a LOT.
If you got the secret, Bosch from Gundam F90 shows up in his frankly crap ass Gundam F90 Zeon style reskin with some RF Zaku reinforcements, and while his unit is laughable and easily destroyed, I like his catchy theme tune.
Once you achieve this condition, the Zanscare Empire deploys it forces, and we get to see Chronicle Asher not wearing that goofy mask of his:
This guy was Chronicle's military mentor in the academy, and even though Chronicle technically outranks him now, Asher still defers to the guy.
Anyway, they are hear to hunt down the League Miltaire battleship Reinforce Jr, and prepared to deploy if it shows up.
Asher orders a Gedlav recon squad be sent out in advance to suss them out, and Arbeo reveals he's got a bonus in stock in case.
Enter Brohho, a guy who just screams "bar bouncer".
Asher warns him the Victory Gundam is no laughing matter, and our thug friend replies his Doggolora is built for such an exigency.
It's basically a new form of mobile armor, and Arbeo hopes to get it mass produced sooner or later.
He deploys his serpentine MA, and tells the troops to not make the Motorad Fleet look bad.
Some Gedlavs deploy, one ridden by League Miltaire defector Katejina Loos.
The other by Lupe Cineau:
Bit of an info dump on Lupe. While she's arguably one of the less assholish Zanscare officers, she's also a possible pedophile.
Why do I say that? Well, she once got naked in a bubble bath with a twelve year old boy and tried to feel him up to find out if he was a Newtype or not, even though that's NOT how you'd figure that out.
Seriously, Lupe, what the fuck?!
This is also around the time Katejina's defection was a but a ruse, or so she planned it, but she eventually went native and became a full bore Zanscare loyalist.
And that's when the Reinforce piloted by Robert Gomez shows up:
The V2 Gundam sorties with Uso Ewin piloting it, and he's soon joined by other members of the League Miltaire, with a V-Gundam Hexa, Gun-EZ, and Gunblaster.
This is not really all that hard. All you have left are any remaining Virgos, the Gedlavs, and if you got the secret, Brave Cod from Gundam Sentinel shows up in his Gundam MK-V, flanked by some Xeku Eins as support.
(Like Bosch, Brave Cod has a sweet theme song)
None are overly hard if you've done well so far, and while the Doggolora is tough and hits hard, it's slow as molasses and any master unit combined with a shitload of support fire can take it down pretty fast.
Once you get OI, Tobia, the GW allies, and the Victory protagonists all turn on you.
Take down Arbeo's Adrastea if you want some spare Zoloats, and take down the Reinforce to capture its units as well.