Northern Strike Tactics - Preparation for the Impact

**Lyramion** · 06-29-2009, 06:18 PM

Since (hopefully the first in a long series) of Wednesdays is really close but some people have almost no experience with Northern Strike, I will put together some nifty things to let us start out at a good level.

NS Podlauncher:

Facts:
- 3 Visual Entrances but only 1 Soldier may be in at the same time
- Autoactivation after a few seconds so you cannot occupy this for yourself and grief the teams
- Both sides can enter it. Possible quick escape route for Assett Squad.
- You will gain more distance by turning yourself 45° sideways and moving diagonally! Similar to the PAC Tank.

The distance you can go from the PAC Main on Bavaria:

The distance you can go from the podlauncher on Leipzig:

Additionally you can reach the monorail on Leipzig with it. Eiher for an attack or for defense. You are able to drop a whole lot of nasty things into the path of a Goliath from up there.

Port Bavaria Hangarbay Knowledge:

These are hotspots of the action that can decide the battle all too early. there are a few important keypoints to know to up your chance of a successful attack or defense.

- First this is an easy way to reach the roof of it from the back. Very useful for defense. You can mow down people landing on the lower roof:

- The next point is very important and can give you a cutting edge on the attack. You can drive up the APCs firther and park them on the top. This way you can pod all the way on top of the roof! Remember to fly at a 45° angle and use W+ AorD for more distance. There you can fall into the defenders back or even make your way further into enemy territory:

- The last point is also very important since even when you take the flag you might face an endless rape by the walker - that spawned for you. For example on the 64 player version there will spawn a Walker on Western and Eastern docks the instant you take the flag inside. This is a very uncomfortable design for the EU team but you have to prepare for it:

One Sided Vehicle Spawns:

Map Overviews:

Port Bavaria:

Leipzig:

Remagen:

As you already learned on the Bavaria Hangar section there are flags that spawn Walkers for EU only. They are marked blue in color on these maps. If the defending team notices they are losing the flag they might lurk and try to steal those vehicles from unknowing unprepared EU soldiers.

Walker Summary:

- West Bridge Walker on Leipzig
- East and West Dock Walker on Bavaria
- Square and East Bridgehead Walker on Leipzig

At the same time the Speeder Spawns go away once the EU team took a flag. This is a key point in those maps. As the game progresses the PAC side will get fewer and fewer armor while EU will gain more and more. Matches of Remagen can start with the PAC having 10 pieces of Armor while EU having 5 - then end with EU having 10 including 5 Walkers stomping around and PAC being down to 4.

Remagens Roflcopter:

This will only spawn for the EU side should they take west bridgehead. This piece of armor is also very likely to get stolen. Whichever side gets a competent pilot in this thing will have a hugh advantage on this map. You will basically have access to every flag on this map with the other team being left with nothing but SAWWs and AAs to hunt you.

**Lyramion** · 06-29-2009, 06:23 PM

The Hachimoto Speeder

Facts:
- Pilot Seats Gun is very weak
- A Speeder has a speed boost. Activate it with the shift key.
- A Speeder is also faster using 45° movement as already mentioned on the PAC Tank and the Pods
- Gunners primary weapon is the mortar. It has almost NO splash damage! It also overheats very fast but will instakill you on a direct hit.
- Gunners secondary weapon is the TV missile. You switch to it by pressing the right mouse button. The damage is weaker than the Gunships. It does about 50 to a Walker. The TV is also very unsensitive compared to the Gunship TV but this makes it easier to hit for unexperienced Gunners.
- You are very vulnerable in this vehicle. The Gunner is often a victim of Snipers as well normal infantry as almost his whole body is exposed. The pilot gan be shot out easily from the side.
- It´s good for the Pilot to be a medic to make his Gunner more durable
- IMPORTANT! A Speeder CAN NOT outspeed motion mines even with its boost! To get rid of motion mines you need to find a corner and take it very tight while your speed boost lasts. If you still hear a loud beeping your best bet is to jump out nd hope it will only catch flames. On a motion mine impact the Gunner will almost always die. The pilot has about a 50% chance.

Almost 2 years ago now I made a movie about advanced hachimoto TV shooting:

LINK HERE!

You basically compensate for the hachimotos weak defense in blocking the line of sight of the vehicle you engage.

The Goliath:

Facts:

- A Goliath cannot be entered by PAC Soldiers. It is the only protected vehicle in this game. But they can of course wreck havoc on it if no EU soldier is around.
- Main Seat has a shotgun as primary and a motion mine launcher as secondary weapon. The motion mines launched by it behave a little different from nromal mines. They will not follow targets BUT they will detonate on impact even if they haven´t yet touched the floor. So always try to score a direct hit with them. Those motion mines are the only AV weapon of the Goliath.
- F2 and F5 seats have some sort of plasma gun. Very effective against infantry and a good amount of splash damage. They overheat quickly and also regularly run out of ammo. Their downside is that they only have a fire arc of about 200°, leaving them with a big blind spot
- F3 and F4 seats have normal machine guns as the EU Tiger uses it. Their arc is about 300°
- Self regenerating Armor but can also be manually repaired.
- 7 Panels that dermit the regeneration Speed. 1 Front, 2 on each side and 2 on the back. Panels can be destroyed by RDX and other (anti)vehicle weaponery.
- A Goliath will instantly die to 10 RDX packs no matter the panels
- An Orbital Strike is not able to kill the Goliath. It will only bring it down to about 70% with full panels.
- Motion mines that hit the Goliath from the front will do no damage. Motion mines hitting the sides and back can take out panels.
- Automatically heals infantry close to it
- IMPORTANT! A Goliath CAN be EMP locked!
- VERY IMPORTANT! A Goliath is a spawn point! If you are able to try to free up the F3 or F4 seat for spawning people! This would never work on a pubby server - there the Goliath is always filled up with people trying to get their NS vehicle badge. But on TG we could make this work. The guns on those seats aren´t very strong and soldiers being able to spawn in is priceless. If you just spawned in on the Goliath be nice and jump out for the next guy!

Sneaky Remagen:

This tactic is more important for the 32 player version of this map but can also be applied on the 64 version. If you are EU you can go down the bridge and sneak to some of the PAC flags out of bounds and up the stairs:

**Zoraster** · 06-29-2009, 07:00 PM

Awesome lyra. One obvious point: east dock on bavaria is the number one thing to make sure you defend as PAC. It gives the goliath and a walker and is relatively easy to defend so long as enough people are positioned there. Once eu gets a single flag in bavaria it tends to be hard to get bleed back as pac, so dismissing the first push on defense for as long as possible is crucial... So long as that doesn't mean losing east docks.

I don't really have tactical wisdom for the other two maps as it always seemed to be a mixture of flag hopping and freaking out about the goliath, but hopefully I will feel differently when the night is done!

**Lorax74** · 06-29-2009, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lyramion

The Hachimoto Speeder
Sneaky Remagen:

This tactic is more important for the 32 player version of this map but can also be applied on the 64 version. If you are EU you can go down the bridge and sneak to some of the PAC flags out of bounds and up the stairs:

No problem wit the rest of it, but did you really have to share this one? At least you didn't tell everyone how to live long enough to make it to that second set of stairs...

Mr.Ander50n · 06-29-2009, 08:18 PM

I can't emphasize enough how important it is on Bridge to not let the EU team get the transport! It is uber deadly on this map, since it is the sole piece of air transportation, and a roflcopter squad on this map would wreak absolute havok on the ground armor and infantry, and would be very difficult to take down, due to the large amount of buildings to hide behind (not to mention access to rooftops and surprise attacks on back flags).

On Liberation, it is extremely difficult to prevent EU forces from breaking through the first two bridges, due to the large amount of cover and buildings. Mines should be laid down, as well as a few ids'es around corners. APM's are also very useful to stop those SL's who like to cloak by the first flag and squad bomb west bridge/main square (aka me).

Also, another thing to note on liberation is the placement of the rorsches. Every base except for west bridge has two rorsches which are very nicely placed to cover all of the attack points from the EU force. Utilizing these against armor will almost always yield a victory, since there is almost no way a single armor can destroy both rorsches without being disabled or blown up by one of them.

Also, coordinating rorsch shots on incoming armor is useful. If a squad is defending fuel depot, for instance, and a walker comes around the corner, counting to three before firing will guarantee you two hits, as opposed to one, then a shield. If well aimed, it might also destroy the walker.

The goliath really isn't much of a problem on liberation, since there are so many places to hide and throw motion mines or projectiles. However, on Bridge, it is a force to be reckoned with, granted the rorsches have been destroyed, or are taken out quickly. There are a few rorsches (particularly around the bridge) that are very nicely placed to snipe any armor coming over the bridge. Other than that, there are not many places to hide from the goliath if it approaches from the main road.

Greyed · 06-30-2009, 02:39 AM

Another point on the Goliath, the RDX charges do not have to be on the Goliath to take out the panels. As mentioned above on Liberation where the quarters are tight if you know where the Goliath is heading you can spread RDX around, wait for it to lumber into the kill zone and pop a few panels with one safe hit. My record is 4 panels in one ambush when the Goliath was puttering into the PAC homebase. Made it far easier for our walker and engies to take down.

Unlike APCs the Goliath's gunner spots are not pod spots. Just fair warning.

Also while an orbital cannot kill a Goliath with full panels often 2 orbitals can. If I am not mistaken orbitals can kill panels. At least when I did hop into the PAC CO seat I was able to down the Goliath twice in a single round with two EMP+Orbital combos.

Lunien · 06-30-2009, 09:27 AM

Small Tip: On port bavaria, the couple of titans for PAC (particularly the eastern Titan), you can get on the roof via the paths that are recessed into it - no screenshot...its just a darker grey area on the roof on the sides of the titan. If you have considerable stamina meter just sprint and repeatedly jump, you'll get on to the roof.

Oh, also, for Goliaths, you can crawl under them from behind, I find it useful when I want to plant RDX, although there's a decent chance you get run over.

MMB+MM works best though against Goliaths IMO. Plop 5 MM down around a corner
throw MMB when the goliath is near, and get your AV weapon ready, almost sure kill.

**Lyramion** · 06-30-2009, 09:58 AM

Quote:

you can crawl under them from behind, I find it useful when I want to plant RDX, although there's a decent chance you get run over.

Make it an EMP lock and you win

**RoadWarrior** · 06-30-2009, 10:53 AM

Don't forget about the Rorsche's, many are well placed and very effective in taking out Goliath panels from far away. Often I have knocked out 2 or 3 panels while the Goliath is approaching, stopping it's advance and making that spawn point ineffective. Knock out enough panels and an Orbital will take it out.

N.B. Forrest · 06-30-2009, 11:58 AM

Did not know about going up the front valleys on the hanger bay. I thought you could only get up the indented sections on the sides.

Regarding the Goliath, I find that most teams get very overconfident when using it and with the excellent Rorsch placements (for a change) on all three of these maps, they can be taken out very quickly.

Some of favorites include:

Leipzig:
West Bridge and Main Square - very good fields of fire. You can easily take out at least 3 panels before the Goliath gets to you. Main Square is also great for infantry sniping if the other team has West Bridge

Remagen:
Both Bridgehead Rorsches are deadly. Very open fields of fire. The elevated East Bridgehead is almost impossible to knock out due to the bridge suspension structure. West Bridghead, well, a good Rorsch gunner, a couple good infantry squads, and your armor can pretty much stalemate the battle right there.

As for the Square, another good field of fire that can engage both the armor coming from the EU base, and snipe infantry spawning at the adjacent spawn site.

Bavaria:
My favorite Rorsch emplacements are the ones at the PAC main base. The left Rorsch is elevated and you can hit Walkers over the tops of buildings coming from West Dock. It's also handy for hitting vehicles moving from Living Quarter to Barracks.

The right Rorsch is one of my favorites. In almost every case, the Goliath will go to Barracks first and while there is a pesky cargo container blocking a lot of your view, the Goliath is too large to be fully concealed behind it. I find that you can just hammer away and the Goliath gunners either can't figure out who is hitting them and/or their guns are blocked by the container. That and a little infantry support at the flag = dead Goliath.

Also, and this applies to all maps, I've found that you can see and target the glowing panels long before you can actually see the Goliath. Pretty handy bit of info.

In general:
Very good point made above about the Goliath being a spawn point. Most pubbies covet the Goliath positions - especially 1,2, & 5 - and will not give them up no matter what. I've taken out full strength Goliath's rolling right in front of me at West Bridghead on Remagen and I've simply sat there firing round after round laughing at them. All someone had to do was jump out and shoot me, but no one did. Great way to pick up 5 kills.

I need to confirm this to be 100% certain, but I think the magic number for Goliath panels is three. It seems that once three are taken out, it can't repair faster than the Rorsch reload speed.

There should always be a support in the Goliath who can throw an IDS on it - very handy on Leipzig - and jump out and throw down a supply crate when the 2-5 positions run out of ammo.

Dillinger · 06-30-2009, 02:37 PM

Killer post, this was info I desperately needed since I just bought NS yesterday. Great info in this thread, thanks all.

**YdoUwant2know** · 06-30-2009, 06:57 PM

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Lyramion again.

TheDarkPenguin · 07-01-2009, 04:03 PM

Lyra deserves tons of rep for this...

wowsers!! Anyways, thanks for the guide!! I learned many new things!!

SharinganTH1422 · 07-02-2009, 11:30 AM

Don't have NS, but through the quick scroll through the thread I realised how much you did in this guide.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Lyramion again."

First time I've gotten this message for anyone, yay.

**Mixa** · 07-02-2009, 11:51 AM

Lyra needs alter profile for the extra rep... Yeah well excellent guide but its lyra, every post should automatically get +2 rep!

EMP blocking Goliath was extremely hard, besides the fact that I died 20 times from Goliath yesterday even though I destroyed it twice

Oh yeah you think that more RDX on the back could destroy it with less than 10RDX? I finished it off with 5 on the back, though final fix panels got blown in progress as well!