A note from the General

BOOOYAHHHHH!

Greetings faction members! This is General Freeman and I wanted to take some time to address you!

First, I have heard lamentations that we loose an occasional war. I want you to belay that feeling. In my mind, each "war" is really a set of skirmishes. The real measure of our winning this war is our glory and movement up the ranks of the leader boards! In this, we have been outstanding. Do not let loosing a battle frustrate you. Do not let your defensive losses frustrate you. It's very hard to win a defensive battle (one where they attack you) and if you look at the numbers of members of other factions. the number of defensive battles won is very low. So, don't sweat those losses.

For all of the older members, you have done a great job. You have moved up the ranks, learned great lessons and have brought honor to the Black Sheep. For the new comers, I have been impressed with your fighting and the glory you have brought the Black Sheep. Welcome to the Black Sheep.

I want to thank Col. Lori for doing an impressive job our there. He has really taken care of the Black Sheep as I have been away and I am thankful to her for her amazing work of keeping this unit together, and making it stronger. BOOOYAHHHHH!!

New members, you have a tall wall to climb that has been built by the older members. The Black Sheep was and is about family - and I consider many of the older members to be part of my extended family. Watch out for your fellow Black Sheep.

Some older members have disappeared. I've not seen them in a while and they don't seem to be fighting. I hope they will return!

A couple of facts you may - or may not - know. If you loose a defensive battle, it does not cost you unit lives. So, don't sweat that. It might cost you some power ups, but that's not the end of the world.

Don't forget to call for your allies to assist you (the distress calls). This can help you to win many more battles.

I have what I call my "Order of Battle" - this is how I approach every battle. Let me share my "Order of Battle" with you and maybe it will help you win more battles or at least you might take something away from my strategy.

Order of Battle
Note - most of my units have fused power ups. I normally have them armed with napalm at +160. So this gives me an extra 160 offensive points that does not show up on the board. That's why I use about 40-50% of my offensive number as shown in #3 below. Adjust accordingly.

1. Notice the opponents defensive number.
2. Approximate the opponents offensive number based on the units they have deployed.
3. Deploy resources that equate to about 60-75% of enemy units defense number and about 40-50% of enemy units offensive number.
4. If needed - call in a distress call.
5. Now, I use power-ups liberally during battle, but not without strategy. If I am seriously out gunned then I will do the following at the start of battle:

• Deploy one titanium armor II. If I'm really outgunned, I may drop 2 or 3 of these bad boys.
• Deploy one emp attack II.
• If I need more help then I deploy an explosive shell II.
• If I need more help then I start dropping nukes at will.

You need to understand how the battles work. Notice that each power-up has some value attached to it. The nuke, for example, is 220 offensive points. Thus, if your enemy has deployed 2 units with a total of 200 defense - if you drop the nuke, the battle is over. If you have an enemy with 2 units at 400 defense, the nuke is only going to cost them about half their battle power.

Having deployed your units - continue the fight. Make sure you click on all of the boxes and mines. If the enemy sends missiles your way, touch them to destroy them before they hit your units. If your unit lights up blue or red, click on that unit as soon as you can. Blue will give you more power for a moment, red gets you out of the way of nasty power-ups from your enemy.

If your enemy is deploying an emp attack, you will see a little vortex kind of thing above your units. Quickly swipe the vortex and you will take out the power-up.

If, during the battle - you start loosing - liberally deploy more power-ups. Power ups accumulate in value - so if you drop 3 armors then you will have 150% of your defense for 10 seconds (whereas one armor is 50% of your defense for 10 seconds).

Note that I use a lot of power-ups. This means you have to be creating then at a pretty good clip to replace them. If you look at my base you will see that I have a ton of power-up production and lots of boosters around them to speed up the production rate. I can produce a ton of power-ups on my base. Yes, it takes time to build up to that level. To compete in 5 battles of 3 wars you will need the following (at a maximum) to use my strategy. Note that these are on the high side because often you will get enemies that are much weaker than you are. So, weigh your strength against theirs before you use the full power-up attack strategy.

15 Titanium Armor II
15 Emp Attack II
15 Explosive Shells
5-10 Nukes

I can build all of these in something like 3 hours or less (and have lots of extra building capacity).

Build the biggest units you can build, and get those power-up's fused onto them.

More later troops! Keep up the good work.