Wasteland 2: Going Offensive

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

The coordinates where God's militia sends pilgrims to "evolve" prove to be the correct base, as the remnants of Angela Deth's chopper are found nearby. Not wanting to pussy-foot around, Malice takes the team on a full offensive strike - blowing away the weak minded pilgrims and the swarms of robots within. Their boss proves a bit trickier with rockets that knock down Malice and Scotchmo, but Brother Thomas also turns out to be a good doctor.

I'm sure getting to use this picture a lot!

Once cleared, they receive a transmission from Matthias, the leader of God's Militia, who reveals he is the one behind the robot threat and that he is already attacking Vargas at the old Ranger HQ! Worse - he's deploying a virus over the radio that will somehow turn people into synths (uh, sure)! The team scrambles on the convenient, functional helicopter left behind which Malice flies it right back home over the mountains.

Landing outside the HQ the team meet up with Vargas and the few remaining rangers. Matthias and his bots have already taken the base, but Vargas has a plan. They just need to get in and arm the nuke kept in the storage hangar below. It's the only way to be sure the virus doesn't get unleashed on the world. The Rangers grimly load up on ammo one last time before marching back into the breach. A breach guarded by a scorpion bot!

Insight: Reload your weapons after every fight. All of them!

Wasteland 2: Grave of Airplanes

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Damonta is a town in the middle of an airplane graveyard. When the squad arrives it is also being turned into a robot base with most of the residents killed or trapped indoors and the old warehouse having been turned into a machine factory. The Rangers rescue those they can but while pushing forward to the factory, Red is filled with holes from a surprise turret. Glenda is unable to save him.

Damn robots!

Inside the factory they encounter the robot leader "Tinker" who unleashes an ambush on the squad. Pump's heavy machine gun keeps them at bay while the rest throw grenades to clinch victory. With Damonta saved, the team install the final repeater relay on the local radio tower so that HQ can start triangulating the source of these robots. Their job done, they descend from the mountain - finding that the Canyon of Titan has gone to hell, now controlled by the forces of chaos.

Frances decides to let them wipe themselves out while they revisit the Red Skorpion prison. This time, armed with better gear and having enough robot parts and know how to build a one shot attack droid that destroys the gate turrets - the squad storms the prison and eradicates the last of the Red Skorpion gang and reclaiming their territory.

The victorious unit then marches back to the Ranger HQ with heads held high, and are immediately called to the situation room by General Vargas. On the radio they hear Angela Deth and her new squad already airborne and scouting towards the ocean on the other side of the mountains. "We found them," Angela says through the static. "A whole army!"

"We've been spotted - incoming!" yells another voice just prior to an explosion.

"Mayday, maday, we're going down! I repeat we're going down! We're ... aaaaAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! *static*"

This the last they hear of Angela Deth.

Insight: Spread out when fighting the spider-bots, they have area attacks and can leap over your formations / cover.

Wasteland 2: Mutually Assured Destruction

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

With Red's upgraded radsuits the team continues East and while crossing an abandoned railway are attacked by wheeled, tracked and spider-legged robots! The mechs are quite bullet resistant and cause a bit of damage before being destroyed. Fortunately it's nothing Glenda can't fix. Upon reporting this, Vagras summons Angela Deth back to base for reassignment while the rest of Frances' team pushes on to the Canyon of Titan.

A soldier from the Diamondback Militia meets them early on and asks for their help in removing the mad zealots who control the region with their "god" - a nuke. Frances agrees but knows the Diamondbacks will likely be just as bad if they had such a weapon at their disposal. As such, they play nice with the polite monks first, despite each of them being strapped with a high explosive vest. Monks of mutually assured destruction.

They wear nuke S-Vests.

Their system of requiring a suicider escort keeps everyone in check, but is really inconvenient when trying to sneak into their temple so Malice shoots their assigned monk in the back of the head for a clean kill once they get close. Pizepi then manages to hack their back door code which lets the squad inside - and ensuring to kill patrols at a distance.

Eventually the team reaches the nuke silo and Pump opens the panel to deactivate it only to find...

"It's a fake," comes a voice from behind. A priest with a large group of shooters.

He then cuts the tension by asking the team for help in retrieving a live nuke from a not so nearby silo so that their god becomes "real". They are the only ones he can ask as they are among the few who know the truth. Rather than risk a firefight where they are in the open and out numbered, Frances agrees.

Reaching it is easy thanks to Vulture's Cry's tracking and inside is a single monk, the one who found the place. He is conflicted - not really wanting this weapon in the hands of his cult. Frances agrees for real this time and Pump disarms it. They then tell the monk to spread the truth before leaving and pushing onto Damonta.

Insight: A high outdoorsman skill can save you the annoyance of random encounters.

Wasteland 2: Side-Tracked

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

On the return trip from Darwin, the squad runs into more farms affected by the Ag Center virus and cleanses them and upon gaining official confirmation that the virus is no longer spreading, both Angela and Frances take the cure just in time before transformation into a pod person is irreversible!

They also clear out a nest of honey badgers from a local mine, saving a few miners and gaining another Ranger Cadet - Takayuki the bruiser. While restocking ammo and water at the Ranger HQ Vagras tells Frances of another radio tower at Damonta up on the Eastern mountains, but getting there would be tricky due to the high radiation.

Vicious critters!

Vulture's Cry knows someone who might be able to help with this, a tinkerer named Red of the Red Skorpion gang. The team travels to the outskirts of their prison base and while Red himself is rather helpful and joins the team, the Red Skorpions are clearly scum bag slavers. Finding a whorehouse of slaves is the tipping point which leads to all out warfare against the Skorps.

A slow and steady advance wins the day for the Rangers, pushing the slavers back to the prison itself. Massive auto-turrets at the gate prevent any further advancement though, and Frances is forced to leave the enemy survivors to recuperate while her squad gets back on mission.

Insight: After the first timer for Pod Infection runs out it moves to a second "Acute Pod Infection" stage that can't be cured. If you have spare cure vials, make sure to use them before that second lethal stage occurs. I believe you get more if, like me, you save Highpool instead of the Ag Center.

Wasteland 2: Darwin

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

After braving an irradiated valley the squad reaches Darwin City only to find it inhabited by zombie like ghoul-mutants! Slow but sturdy, these take a lot of bullets to put down - even with Provost's extra gun. Luckily Angela finds a small side street for the team to dodge most of the horde, and are led by Provost into a strange bunker. Inside, another ghoul - this one still friendly - stands among the remains of a robot man.

The ghoul says the robot deployed some sort of device on the lower floors, causing his kind to go mad and asks the Rangers to switch it off. Frances agrees. The basement is crawling with more zombie types though whom the team avoids via use of air ducts, but still have a shoot out against automated defense turrets guarding the cage of one peculiar green mutant dubbed "the Night Terror". Frances sets it free and it childishly decides to tag along.

It likes "candy"...

Eventually they find the corrupted generator and destroy it, freeing the zombies from their madness. One of the ghouls, Pizepi Joren, is so grateful she offers to join the team! She is accepted, as Provost stays behind to search for whatever it is he is looking for. With their task here complete, the squad heads back from the valley towards the Ranger HQ to rest and re-arm.

Insight: The Night Terror is an excellent bullet sponge, but doesn't help in any other way.

Wasteland 2: Wreck-It Ralphy

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

As the radio tower in the Ag Center had been crushed by a mutated tree, the team journeys elsewhere to find another tower - stopping by a diseased farm to cleanse and cure it. Eventually they reach the Rail Nomads camp, and save the boy Ralphy from drowning. Both he and the local drunk Scotchmo are interested in joining the Rangers, and are accepted.

It turns out the Rail Nomads are in the midst of a civil war with the track laborers using dirty guerilla tactics and mines against the oppressive and powerful train engineers whom Ralphy is a member of. Unfortunately Frances deems the engineers to be in the wrong and during a heated discussion between the two leaders, gets Scotchmo to lob a grenade at the engineer representatives  while the Rangers gun the rest down, basically winning the war for the laborers.

What every peace talk needs... a grenade thrown into the middle! HELL YEAH!

Ralphy cannot accept this and tries to then solo the entire team. Pump breaks his neck and stomps on his face. While the situation is resolved, the fighting destroyed the radio tower. Cursing under her breath, Frances consults her map again when a strange man called Provost approaches the team and talks at them in strange tongues. Glenda works out he is asking for an escort to some place called Darwin. Provost nods and points a finger at the map.

Insight: Giant Toads can eat the weapon you are holding. This can be annoying if you don't have a backup one ready.

Wasteland 2: Dam Choices

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

The squad finds Highpool under attack by a crew of Wreckers led by a woman with cybernetics. Despite the Wreckers holding superior numbers they are no match for the rangers as Malice kills the lead Wrecker with his auto rifle. Just for good measure, they also wipe out the Wreckers at their nearby camp to ensure no enemy reinforcements will arrive. Deth nearly takes down the whole place by herself!

Unfortunately explosives used during the battle have damaged the dam, so the team is sent in for quick pressure repairs while fighting off the overgrown roaches living within and once secure, they are allowed to install the repeater on the radio tower in town. Seeing the good they did, Vulture's Cry, a scout sniper offers to join the team. They accept.

Yuck! Those things grow big down here!

Frances then leads the team immediately to the Ag Center to find that a plague has been released causing the plants and fauna here have mutated into horrible man-eaters while other staff have been turned into monstrous and violent pod people. There are no civilian survivors. In a bid to contain the threat the Rangers cleanse the place with gun fire, finding and killing the cybernetic saboteur behind this outbreak and retrieving a few vials of "the cure" to put into the irrigation system.

Alas, during the fighting both Angela and Frances were infected by spores and in a few weeks will no doubt turn into pod people themselves if they don't drink the cure. Both refuse to until the outbreak is confirmed to be contained.

Insight: "Ambush" is like over watch. If an enemy walks into range you will fire - very handy!

Wasteland 2: Re-Activation

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

A few years have passed since the defeat of the Calculator and since that time the Brotherhood expanded greatly, with Frances seceding to the younger General Vargas who renamed the Brotherhood to "the Desert Rangers" while she retired to animal husbandry. Despite his talent the Rangers began losing their footing in the region during his command and a recent gruesome death of one of their scouts has led Vargas to request Frances back onto the field once more, as it seemed this man was killed by a robot!

Squad assembly commence!

So Frances reassembled her robot killing team of Pump and Malice. Glenda, having trained in medicine joins too, as does Angela Deth - the dead scouts lover. Their primary mission is to install repeater relays on the radio towers that have gone dark, starting with the one the scout was killed at. A metal leg found at the site confirms their worst fears, but where are the machines coming from?

Installing the relay the squad immediately receives distress calls from two locations: the Ag Center that provides most of the regions food, or Highpool which distributes most of the water. Frances opts to head to Highpool first.

Insight: When making characters, put some points into the AP generating stats or you will feel like a turtle in combat (as I did)!