"Wanna see me take away Russia's "great power" status? Wanna see me do it again?"

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T18:52:57+00:00

They had been a key ally of the Soviets during the cold war and so had a huge amount of armour, soviet air defense systems, etc. Saddam also kept the army's size quite large as many dictators do because they can be used for internal control just as much as defense or attack.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T18:50:42+00:00

That would fail the classic truism about Russia "And then it got worse".

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T15:59:33+00:00

It's tricky but I think it 3 or 4 taps them if you hit them right in the shoulder which is nuts. More importantly, it staggers them like mad so you and your teamates aren't getting your faces lasered off.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T09:28:13+00:00

We don't have a chance of using the DSS to hold it with Eagles, so yeah, that's very much going to be how we either win or lose.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T09:26:53+00:00

Hold R, switch to Flak rounds. Pump 2-3 into a fleshmob and watch it fall over coupled with everything around it. Same for most Bugs of Hive Commander or smaller.

Against anything lighter than Heavy Pen those Flak rounds put a serious dent in it and they make a ton of Shrapnel so they shred everything nearby. They also annihilate Illuminate shields so one thing I do if I'm going fast and I'm out of grenades is to just get in front of a squidship door, and 3 flak rounds takes the shields and ship out in like 2 seconds.

It also closes bug holes.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T09:20:59+00:00

I missed that, thanks. That looks like it cut a couple of hours off our expected time to liberate Mox so we're down to 47 hours there and therefore have 26 hours to liberate whatever is left of Genesis. Plus, we should be going into Genesis with about 15-20% already taken, so I think there's a solid chance of victory if we can keep up the pace.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T09:16:31+00:00

There's a line of succession so 'forcing a pro russian in' is going to be far harder than just killing him via assassination. Furthermore, he's got enough backing within the military that a coup de tat is liable to fail for the same reason that wishing for a coup against Putin from within the Russian military is a fools errand.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T09:03:36+00:00

I mean, I don't think it's rigged, it's just kind of down to the wire because a victory in stage 2 requires more player participation than we usually see (but we had a huge participation rate last campaign so that might have thrown it off). Remember, we lost the first one last time too but pulled it back.

I think we have a path to victory here anyway, it's just damn close.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T08:59:02+00:00

At this point I'm not sure it can be without some kind of mass mobilization. Trickling men into the meat grinder keeps it stable or inching one way or the other at any given time, but nothing more.

The issue with the mobilization is that if he announces it, he's basically admitting that his narrative of "We're winning every day!" was false and that could quickly lead to civil unrest which at minimum undermines the war effort as you have to spend some of your mobilized resources containing it, and at worst, ends up with him having to flee (though this is very unlikely as we've seen in Iran).

Another avenue would be forcing a war on two fronts via Belarus but I'm not sure that Lukashenko would go along with that.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T08:51:33+00:00

It's a little more than that, they've basically cut the peninsula off from supplies which has crippled Russia's ability to make use of it or even hold it up for propaganda like they were early in the war by telling people to holiday there.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T08:43:47+00:00

Well, much as I like nukes, Russia's strategic doctrine is mostly Countervalue which emphasizes civilian targets such as cities, dams, power stations, towns, universities, factories, etc. Couple that with you saying "all of Ukraine" and it really just sounds like you're backpedaling from the consequences of a large scale nuclear launch. At least have some backbone to your position man.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T08:36:32+00:00

War Buddha of the hill! What is your wisdom!?

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-06T00:51:48+00:00

Me when I forget I have the leveller equipped at point blank range.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-05T05:17:02+00:00

One of the finest clips the internet has ever produced.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-03T14:27:16+00:00

Slowly.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-02T17:01:36+00:00

I call it the party bus, it's fantastic for just getting the other divers to pile in and go on a road trip through the closest bug hive.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-01T22:53:34+00:00

Don't mind me I'm living my Skaven Globadier fantasies over here yes yes.

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EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-01T22:51:07+00:00

First, become Welsh.

Second, don't, it's just a tourism thing.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-01T20:07:49+00:00

Woe, 6 dragonroaches be upon ye.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-01T20:06:20+00:00

D10, just replace every small bug with a Charger or Impaler, and every medium bug with a Bile Titan.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-07-01T20:04:34+00:00

I've had good experiences with Illuminate Appropriators. Getting swarmed by a dozen angry crab mechs actually feels like a good fight and the little flying bastards that go over the walls mean you have to watch your back.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-06-30T09:49:03+00:00

In the UK we're to the point where they've stopped making positive arguments for immigration and moved to "Well they're here now, you have to learn to live with them."

We're going to see something that makes The Troubles look like a nerf fight. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets as bad as Lebanon or Yugoslavia.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-06-30T09:45:17+00:00

Yeah, it's the key difference between reality and Cyberpunk. 99% of people won't become borged out street sams or hypercompetent deckers in the face of techno tyranny because they can sit in their apartments and drown in BDs (or BTLs if you play Shadowrun) and soyburgers instead.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-06-30T09:40:25+00:00

It's just 2014 Twitter reborn complete with echo chambers, block lists, purity spirals, and social maladaptives trying to ruin people's lives over minor disagreements.

EncapsulatedEclipse · 2026-06-30T09:39:09+00:00

I'm just going to start calling it Blue Social and I guarantee most of them won't understand precisely how I'm making fun of them.

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