Up Close and PersonalA Spotlight on The SSU Hero Pack for Dust Tactics
“I do not seek glory, Comrade. I seek only to serve where my talents are most useful – at the front.”
–Sergeant Diana Bondarenko, aka Red Yana
With just over a week remaining before the next wave of Sino-Soviet Union forces storm retailers everywhere, it’s time for us to take another look at the SSU Hero Pack for Dust Tactics.
Red Yana
Last week, we explored how you could bolster your SSU forces with the legendary tactical acumen and steely resolve of Senior Sergeant Yakov Pavlov. Still, while that Legendary Tactician can help your army survive an engagement with hostile forces, then seize the initiative at just the right moment to strike, your army still needs its strike forces. Yakov can’t lead them all, though, and today we look at another hero of the SSU who just happens to be an extremely capable leader of soldiers.
A full-time member of SMERSH, the SSU’s military intelligence organization, Sergeant Diana Bondarenko, also known as “Red Yana,” proudly serves her country at the front line, where the action is. A veteran of many battles, Red Yana possesses unnatural strength of will and has been rewarded for her successes with the opportunity to field test the prototype of an automatic grenade launcher that could someday become the standard issue weapon for all SSU soldiers.
The grenade launcher is a powerful anti-squad weapon with the ability to blast through the hulls of some lighter walkers, but it’s Red Yana’s Fighting Spirit, not her weapon, that improves every squad she joins.
Fighting Spirit
Amid the urban battles of Zverograd, Red Yana seeks every opportunity to pounce upon unsuspecting Axis or Allied forces. In a battle where squads can use terrain to great effect as they close upon their foes, Red Yana makes a natural commander for the SSU Close Combat Squad, the fakyeli. The fakyeli carry a devastating array of weapons, capable of dealing death to squads and walkers alike. With their shotguns, molotov cocktails, and sulfur thrower, an assault from the fakyeli can spell instant death to most enemy units, but none of their weapons allow them to attack from farther away than Range 1. Then, even at such short distance, the squad’s deadliest weapons, the sulfur thrower and molotov cocktails, can be tricky.
Enter Red Yana. As with all heroes, her mere presence in the squad can help the fakyeli press through the first incidental fire as they bear down on their opponents. Then, her Fighting Spirit can change the course of an entire battle. Pitted against a key walker, the fakyeli need their sulfur thrower to hit. Sustained attacks are rarely an option for a squad that needs to fire at short range, but while they’re bolstered by Red Yana’s Fighting Spirit, the fakyeli can both charge into position and hit their target a solid majority of the time.
Hit your target. Destroy the walker. Prevent it from launching artillery fire at your key units. Win the battle. That’s how a hero wins the day.
The SSU Close Combat squad is already available at retailers everywhere, and Red Yana will shortly be available to lend them her strength and expertise. Look for the SSU Hero Pack and other Dust Tactics expansions to land on store shelves worldwide later next week!
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Up Close and Personal
