Lightning War

## Description

Finish the first 2 Corporate Islands in under 30 minutes with the Blitzkrieg squad

**Lightning War** is one of the Achievements in Into the Breach.

## Strategy

Your main priority for getting this achievement is to clear missions as fast as possible, while keeping enemy actions as low as possible and your Grid Power high enough. Only the first two Islands (any two of them) need to be completed for this achievement to trigger. Neither successfully achieving bonus objectives or winning the game are required.

Since you'll be playing quickly, it is likely that Reputation will be scarce after completing the 1st island, so familiarize yourself with the Blitzkrieg Squad's abilities and positioning specifics before attempting to get this achievement.

### Preparing

When you are ready, tweak the following settings under the Options menu:

* Turn on the timer. This will allow you to track the time left.
* Turn up enemy movement speed all the way. This will save a lot of time between turns.

The achievement itself is based on the in-game timer. It stops when you enter the pause menu (press Esc). If you use a reset, the timer will be rolled back to the beginning of the turn as well.

Particularly helpful pilots to start the timeline with;

* Kazaaakpleth to give the Hook Mech a much needed offensive option, which speeds up clearing Vek.
* Camila Vera with the Lightning Mech, as being immune to Webbing and Smoke helps speed up deployment to bait webbing Vek. If Camila has an extra Core, spend it on the **Building Chain** upgrade immediately.

While not impossible, it is very difficult to get this achievement on Hard and Unfair. Consider turning down the Difficulty to Easy.

### During Gameplay

You have 10 missions (4 generic missions + defending the HQ on each island) to complete in under 30 minutes, which roughly estimates to 3 minutes per mission.

To minimize the amount of time spent per mission, you'll want to limit enemy activity as much as possible, as this is where most of the time wasted goes. Block emerging Vek as much as possible, taking advantage of the Rock Accelerator; the less enemies that spawn, the fewer enemy actions there are to go through on their turn.

Hover your mouse cursor over an island to see the enemies. In particular, consider avoiding islands that have the following enemies;

* Blast Psion, as the explosive decay effect spends several seconds per turn exploding each enemy on death, and can waste a lot of time added together if it isn't taken out fast enough.
* Smoldering Psion if using Advanced Edition content. In a similar vein to the Blast Psion, the Smoldering Psion also causes enemies to explode in flames after dying, which also wastes time each turn if it's not taken out immediately.
* Burrowers on the second island. While they aren't necessary difficult for Blitzkrieg to deal with, their movement animation is the slowest in the game and they take several turns to take down. As such, they end up wasting a lot of time.
* Spiders and the Spider Leader; these are not as slow as the above ones, and Blitzkrieg has a particularly good matchup against them. But they can still waste a lot of time with their egg throwing animations. The former are notorious for webbing multiple Mechs and messing up deployment as well.

That said, the aforementioned Spider Leader, as well as the Large Goo, allow longer chains with the Electric Whip and keep emerging enemies at bay.

Keep an eye out for freezing weapons. They are very useful at neutralizing and nullifying strong enemies instantly, leaders in particular, and preventing them from performing any actions. They are similarly useful for freezing and protecting allied NPC units that perform actions on their own (such as the Supply Train), so freezing them in place will also save time.

### Choosing Missions

The fastest mission to take across most islands is **Defend the Train**, as it lasts 4 turns instead of 5. It's fine if the train is damaged for this achievement; this will prevent the train from moving in future turns which also saves time. In general, prioritize protecting Civilian Buildings over anything else. The achievement can still be gained even with failed objectives, which also helps bypass the bonus reward screen at the end of an island and saves time.

Below are the fastest to slowest islands, with their island specific fast and slow missions noted.

#### R.S.T. Corporation

Particularly fast missions include any mission with the **Cataclysm** and **Sandstorm** (Advanced Edition) environmental effect. These only last 4 turns, and blocking spawns is highly encouraged to completely negate enemy actions through their entirety, as the environmental effects cancel them out.

Slow missions that should be avoided include those with the **Seismic Activity** and **Lightning Strike** environmental effects. These queue individually on different tiles in the map, and they take several seconds to go through per turn.

#### Archive, Inc.

The fastest mission by far is any that has **Tidal Waves** as an environmental effect. Just like train missions, it takes 4 turns instead of 5, and has a similarly favorable effect to Cataclysm's. If Advanced Edition is turned on, then **Defend the Armored Train** is similarly quick.

Slow missions that should be avoided include **Use 3 Repair Platforms** (Advanced Edition) and any mission with the **Air Support** environmental effect. The former's repair platforms have a unique repair animation, enemies included which can trigger it and waste time additively. The latter has a long animation for the plane flight, which wastes a several seconds per turn.

#### Detritus Disposal

The A.C.I.D. status effect present throughout this island can be beneficial for Lightning Whip's damage scaling, and is a fine backup option if R.S.T. or Archive end up having an unfavorable enemy you'd like to avoid.

However, avoid missions with environmental effects in this island; all of **Teleporters**, **A.C.I.D. Lakes** with spawning enemies, and particularly **Conveyor Belts** can all waste time with their animations each turn.

#### Pinnacle Robotics

This is the only island without a possible Train mission, and all of these missions are guaranteed to last 5 turns as a result. Furthermore, some objectives like **Defend the Robot Factories** and the **Ice Storm** environmental effect waste further time. It is recommended to avoid this island completely for this achievement.

### Further notes

* Spend as little time as possible in the Corporate Store after the first island. Restore the Grid Power to an acceptable level and proceed to the next Island as quickly as possible.
* You can bypass the victory screen by pausing the game when the last turn finishes resolving (as soon as the UI disappears), and then selecting *Main Menu*. From here, select *Continue* and you will be brought to the mission summary screen, which skips the victory message and overall saves time after every mission.
* You can also take a screenshot of the battlefield and pause to evaluate your next moves. *Note that this completely removes the challenge of the achievement.*