TLDR: Trying to figure out which scan tool from Autel or others can show cam desired versus actual on 3.6 Pentastar.
Following up on some major seevice work at 171k miles on 2014 Wrangler 3.6 / auto and need some advice please:
Changed plugs, coils, injectors, oil cooler (dorman aluminum version) timing set (Melling) and cam phasers with new control valves (Standard Motor Products).
I don’t do this for a living but am definitely on the serious side of amateur / hobbiest. I’ve probably rebuilt to spec several dozen engines ranging from 1970’s Jaguars through FJ40’s lots of GM products in 4,6,8 cylinders, light truck and commercial diesels and powerstroke Diesels. I’ve never had a failure to start, run, or last. I have and followed factory service manual for the JK Jeep. I should have been able to do this!
Startup was rough but after a few attempts at cranking she bled the injectors and fired right up. Idles smoothly. Oil pressure 91-95 PSI cold and 25-30 hot at idle. Battery and alternator voltage good (don’t recall exact value). Within a 1/4 mile I was in limp mode with traction control and check wngine lights on. All of the codes are P000a-d. “Camshaft Slow Response”. Engine runs smooth through 5000+ rpm, but shifts are limited to 4th gear. So I drive to work 18 miles each way. Next day the lights go off and everything is golden. After 3-4 restarts, limp mode is back and wont go away!
Factory service manual says oil change, then replace pcm. Nope, not at those $$. I want to know what is wrong! So I do a bit of parts cannon…. New cam position sensors, although the fault seems to be on all 4 randomly. JSCAN only says “at least one fault has been counted in this position recently”. New crank position sensor. New cam VVT Solenoids. No Changes.
Then I start tracing grounds from the solenoids and get some intermittent high resistance. Ive had weird groundingg problems before, and I realized that my battery cable terminal negative side isnt clamping well. I can lift it off the post. The harness is generally crunchy and shitty from 10 years in desert heat, so I decided to re-do them.
Pulled the entire wiring harness off the engine and yanked the battery cables out. Replaced them with 2awg and bolt-down terminals. Continuity checked every ground terminal pin to pin. No fails. Same on the power side.
Fun side note, the 2014 Factory Wiring diagram has a major typo in showing incorrect ground terminal locations!
So, put that all back, pulled valve covers again, checked timing marks against youtube. It all seems right. I did not pull the timing cover again. I did clean the bits of metal powder off the camshaft tone rings with paper towel and brake clean. Restart engine. Starts instantly. Cam rattle for about 1 second, perfectly smooth idle. Same codes within 45 seconds.
So, i need a scan tool. Factory service manual says to check desired versus actual cam and crank positions. My old scan tool was PC based AutoEnginuity, but I hate the PC aspect and the subscription lapsed about 8 years ago. So im looking at Autel, but overwhelmed by all the options with very little info.
Can anyone tell me what level of Autel can show that live position versus desired position? Should I look elsewhere?
Mechanically, can you tell me if it is possible to overtorque an oil control valve? I keep wondering if the cam phasers could be dragging because they might be too tight? But if you grab the cam with a wrench, it moves easily and moves the phaser, so the lock pins are seated.
Cost isn’t a huge concern, especially if I can find a tool with longevity, but I cant use it for work, so it wont pay back / trying to avoid the Snap-off-in-you van. I can go a long way into trying to squeeze another 150k miles out of this rig before I lay down for a new Jeep at $75k plus!
Thank you for any and all advice and ideas. Brainstorming will help and I’m grateful for it.

Hi all!
Just got an adult axolotl and while I figure out the tank cycling (which has been a long difficult road), I'm tubbing my axie. The problem is, I'm worried I'm overstressing her. From my research I have found a round tail curve and curved gills are signs of stress- but the sites don't really show good comparative photos. Does anyone have photos of both a stressed and non stressed axe?
Secondly, I'm trying to figure out how to decrease her stress in the tubbing process. So far, I have been changing her every 12 hours, which is when ammonia reaches .25ppm, and been putting her on a shelf low to the ground. I think that's adding a lot of additional movement because the tub is a bit awkward to get onto said shelf, but haven't figured out a better location. Any advice is appreciated! I just want to give her a wonderful home (and not accidentally murder her in the process, I am stressed about her stress).
Thanks!

so when I fill up my tank with water (my fish tanks ALWAYS evaporate and I don’t know why) I always take the fish out of the tank and put it in a cup, filled with tank water (because I ripped one of my goldfish’s fin tail because of the water flow from pouring it) so when I did this today my koi female jumped out of my hand onto the ground. I picked her up in time and put her in the cup quickly. Is she okay? do I have to dose the tank with medication?

“Ready to make history, baby?”
I looked over toward Sheila as she stood on the gangplank leading up to The Burger. I still couldn’t believe she named our research ship ‘The Burger’... emotional relevance be damned.
“It's not exactly history,” I corrected.
“Oh come on! If your survey is right, this trench might run even deeper than the Challenger Deep, and you’re gonna be the first person to explore it! How is that not exciting?”
“Might be deeper, we only have a limited amount of topological data. And even if it is deeper, we’re talking only a few hundred feet at most, it’s really not that im-”
Sheila silenced me with a kiss.
“Nerd.” She teased, and I found myself too flustered to reply. After five years of marriage, she still could leave me speechless with just a kiss. God… how did someone like me end up with a woman like that?
Then again, how did someone like me end up where I was in general? It was honestly a little overwhelming. Standing on the dock, getting ready to board that ship and join the ranks of Jacques Piccard and James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) as one of the few people to take a manned submersible down to the deepest parts of the ocean. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared too. Diving down that deep could easily be a one way trip if even the slightest thing went wrong. My submarine would be experiencing between 600 to 1100 atmospheres of pressure and while we’d tested it over and over again to make sure it would actually be up for the challenge, there was still a lingering iota of doubt in the back of my mind. All that needed to go wrong was one little thing, and that would be it for me.
The scariest part is that I probably wouldn’t even know what had happened… I’d simply be gone… and Sheila would be alone. The thought of that caused a momentary spike of panic in my chest that almost made me want to call this whole thing off.
Almost.
But, then I felt her hand close around mine. I looked up into her bright blue eyes, and saw her gentle smile.
“You’re gonna be okay, hun,” She promised. “You and your team have been running the numbers, right? It’s gonna go just fine!”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s gonna go fine…” I repeated, before she leaned in to kiss me, and gently pulled me by the wrist up onto the deck of the Burger.
She was probably right.
It probably would be fine.
Probably…
The trench I’d be exploring was a fairly recent discovery, located south of Greenland, in a vast stretch of water situated directly between Newfoundland and Iceland. It’d been uncovered during a topological survey in the area, and my team had taken an interest in investigating it further. At minimum, it was believed to descend to about 35,000 feet deep (over 10,000 meters), although the current theory was that it might have run even deeper. Determining the exact depth of the yet unnamed chasm was just one of the intents of our dive. The rest was studying the organisms that might be found down there, and how they might have differed from the ones found in other deep ocean trenches (some variation being expected given the isolated environment they were developing in.)
I had to admit, it would be exciting to see what new life might have developed in a place such as this, especially if it ran even deeper than our predictions… and that excitement was enough to make me chase the fear of the risks out of my mind, even if it was only briefly. While Sheila went to make sure we were ready to embark, I caught myself wandering out toward the rear of the ship where my submarine, The Tempura, waited for me. Did this submarine deserve a better name than The Tempura? Probably. But, this was my project, so I got to name it and since Burger was already taken, Tempura was the next best name I had. I liked to think that the subs namesake might approve… if she hadn’t died fifteen years ago. Shrimp don’t live very long.
As the ship began to depart, I caught myself reminiscing on how I’d ended up here… it really was all because of those damn shrimp, wasn’t it? Well… maybe not all because of the shrimp. But they were certainly part of it. Back when I was a lot younger, I never really gave much of a shit about anything at all. I guess I did have a thing for the ocean… the great, romantic vastness of it. The sense of adventure that it beckoned with. The endless mysteries that lay within its dark depths. I used to read about it all the time when I was a kid and I especially loved the classic adventures: Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and Melville’s Moby Dick… but that love was just confined to my books. I didn’t really have any interest in actually going out and seeing the ocean. Hell, the idea of going to a beach and standing in the sun with my toes in the sand seemed miserable to me. I was happier (although calling myself happy might’ve been a little disingenuous) alone in my room, enjoying the company of books as opposed to people.
Then came the shrimp.
One of my online friends kept them as a hobby. He used to post pictures of his tanks all the time, and I always thought they looked kinda cool. He said that if I was interested in them, I should try keeping some for myself, and during a particularly bad bout of depression, I figured that maybe it might be worth a shot. So, I bought a cheap tank and some cheap decorations, bought myself some shrimp… and promptly watched them die over the next few weeks. That… that bothered me. I don’t know why but… it really bothered me. I’m still not entirely sure how to describe what it was that I was feeling. Guilt? Defeat? Shame? Here I was, trying to set up a habitat for these creatures just to have something to do to keep the suicidal ideation at bay, and I’d failed almost right out of the gate.
Was I just that bad? Was I just that much of a failure? Was this just going to go to shit just like everything else in my life did, because I was just such an abysmal piece of shit who barely deserved the life she had? Had I just not tried hard enough? Was I too apathetic? What had happened? What went wrong?
It bothered me.
It bothered me enough that I made up my mind to just dump the remaining shrimp down the toilet and toss everything. Forget about it. Move on. End of story. But… that wasn’t fair, was it? The shrimp didn’t all deserve to die just because I couldn’t be bothered, did they? Sure, they were just shrimp, but they were alive too, just like me. They deserved to be alive.
I owed it to them to try and keep them alive, didn’t I?
So… I didn’t dump the shrimp.
Instead, I started doing some reading. Started looking into what I was doing wrong and how to do it all better. I actually got really into it and a few months later, I had a nice planted tank. Looking back, it was amateur shit… but it made me happy. I’d even picked out names for my two favorite shrimp. Burger and Tempura. They’d been the last survivors of my original batch, and they were the ones I ended up caring about the most. Caring for Burger and Tempura gave me a purpose. It became an obsession… and that little obsession drove me to finally start turning my life around.
Like I said, shrimp don’t live for very long. Burger and Tempura were long dead by the time I graduated with a degree in Marine Biology. But they were the ones who inspired me to finally get my life in order. Hell, the shrimp were half the reason that I met Sheila. She was something of an aquarium fanatic too… we’d met on a forum, and gotten to talking. I found out that she just so happened to be studying Marine Biology at another school, and we bonded pretty quickly after that. After graduation, I moved to California to be with her and after that, the rest is history. She was my rock. She was the one who always pushed me to be the best possible version of myself… and I loved her more than I ever knew I could love someone.
A glance back at the shore, fading into the distance tore me out of my reminiscing, and I shifted my focus to the present, going over The Tempura to perform some quick checks. My colleagues and I would be checking and rechecking the submarine over the next two days as we made our way toward the dive spot. Considering the danger that descending that deep posed, I didn’t want to take a single unnecessary risk.
I had too much to live for, after all.
***
The day of the dive, I couldn’t notice how excited the rest of the crew seemed… well… Sheila’s usual crew seemed excited. I guess to them, this was just another research expedition, no different than the ones Sheila usually took this ship out on. Lately her research had been focused on the analysis and study of whale calls. Her recent voyages had involved following their pods, recording their calls and playing them back to see how the whales reacted. It was fascinating stuff, but my research was admittedly a lot different than that.
My obsession had drawn me to the denizens of the deep sea. I’d used The Burger for expeditions before, although none of them had been on quite the same scale as this one. Up until today, the most ambitious thing I’d done was send down unmanned submersibles with cameras. Those submersibles had typically returned. We had lost a few early on due to technical glitches, but the past few years had been blissfully uneventful. Logically, this dive would probably be uneventful as well. But it was still hard to get the jitters out of my head.
My team and I did the final checks necessary to make sure that The Tempura was good to go, before setting up the crane to begin lifting it up. In less than an hour, I’d be inside of that thing, descending to the darkest depths of the ocean.
It didn’t feel real.
I felt Sheila’s hand on my shoulder, and looked over at her.
“Moment of truth, huh?” She asked. She probably meant it to sound encouraging, but it just sounded ominous.
“Moment of truth…” I replied.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey. I know you will.”
She reached out to gently squeeze my hand and gave me a reassuring smile that I meekly returned.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be okay,” I agreed, although there was an element of a lie in it. Statistically, yes. It probably WOULD be okay. But there was that lingering anxiety in the back of my mind that just wouldn’t go away. I looked quietly out at the submarine before me and couldn’t shake the thought that it sort of looked like a giant coffin. Unconsciously, I found myself squeezing Sheila’s hand tighter than normal. She just held me close and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, before gently rubbing my back.
“You’ll be okay,” She promised.
“Dr. Jenner, we’re ready for you.” I heard one of my colleagues say.
Moment of truth.
I took one last look at Sheila, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips for luck. She smiled at me, and I smiled back anxiously at her before heading over toward the submarine.
The crew helped me enter the cockpit and get myself situated inside. The cockpit of the Tempura was fairly cramped and not particularly comfortable. Space and comfort aren’t really luxuries you can afford in a submarine like this. The instruments I needed took up a lot of space, leaving little room for me in there… and I am not a very big person.
Once I was inside, they sealed the hatch. Then the diagnostics checks began.
“Grayson, can you hear us in there?” I heard Sheila say through the radio.
“Loud and clear,” I replied.
“Great. We’ll keep in constant radio contact, just to monitor the signal. In the meanwhile, how’s everything looking in there?”
“Green across the board so far,” I said, although I hadn’t finished running all my final checks yet. Ultimately, nothing was out of place.
This submarine was as good to go as it was going to get.
“I’m all good in here,” I said once I was done. “You can drop me when you’re ready.”
“You got it, honey. Let’s get you in the water, run one final round of tests and start lowering you down.”
A short while later, I felt the submarine begin to move as the crane lifted it off the deck and lowered it into the water. The Tempura honestly resembled its namesake in a way, being long and cigar shaped, only vertically oriented instead of horizontally oriented. We’d admittedly taken more than a few design cues from James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all?
Once I was in the water, a 1000 pound releasable ballast weight would cause the submarine to sink. Releasing that weight was also my ticket back to the surface, and I could either trigger it from inside the cockpit, or, in the event that the release failed for any reason, it would trigger automatically after roughly 12 hours of exposure to salt water.
Ideally, this would be the first of a number of dives I’d be undertaking… and if all went according to plan, the Tempura could be the first of many similar submarines that would allow other researchers to safely and effectively descend to extreme depths. If all went well, this could be a massive leap forward for researchers like me, allowing us to better explore the deepest depths of the Hadal Zone and learn all we could about the ecosystems down there via direct observation.
If all went well.
If.
Through the viewport, I watched as I was lowered into the ocean. A few of the other crew members had donned diving gear to escort me down, and after they did their final checks and I did mine, we were fully ready to go.
“All’s green across the board,” I said into the radio. “You can start my descent.”
“I hear you, honey,” Sheila replied. “We’re letting you go. Have fun down there.”
“Yeah, I’ll try…” I said quietly as finally, my submarine began its descent.
I took a deep breath, and told myself again that everything would go fine. We had checked everything on this submarine. We’d tested it rigorously. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to set foot inside of it if I hadn’t personally assured that it was safe. But anxiety never really goes away, does it? The crew couldn’t accompany me far. After only a few meters, they fell behind me as I sank deeper and deeper into the infinite, empty blue of the ocean. Soon after, the tether was released.
I was officially on my own.
“60 feet,” I heard Sheila say over the radio. “How are you doing in there?”
“Good,” I replied. “Doing… doing good.”
The submarine continued to descend. Through the viewport, I could see a few stray fish, but nothing particularly eye catching. I almost felt alone down there… almost…
“120 feet…” Sheila said.
“Still doing good,” I replied.
The descent continued, as the waters slowly grew darker and darker.
“400 feet…”
Everything around me just kept getting darker and darker. Only a fraction of the light from the sun ever reached these depths… and I’d be lying if I said that darkness didn’t feel a little… oppressive.
“800 feet… still feeling good?”
“Yeah, still feeling good…” I said, although it was a bit of a lie. If anything, I was second guessing all of this, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“1000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…” I murmured. “I hear you loud and clear.”
Deeper… deeper… deeper.
“1500 feet…”
Three miles. I was three miles away from home. Three miles away from Sheila.
“2000 feet…”
Still a ways to go.
“3000 feet…”
By this point, it was fully dark outside of my cockpit. Outside, all I could see was inky darkness. Even the submarine’s lights didn’t really cut through it. And the kicker? Relatively speaking, I wasn’t that deep. Fishing trawlers reached deeper than this. Better to conserve power until I was at the bottom. My descent continued.
“6000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…”
The check ins were becoming less frequent. My descent still continued… deeper… deeper… deeper. By now, I’d entered the Hadal Zone. But there was still so much deeper o go.
“8000 feet…”
This was past the depths that most whales would dive to… and I still had a ways to go.
“10,000 feet.”
This was close to where the ocean floor usually bottomed out… and yet there was still so much further to go. No. I was really only a third of the way there. How long had it been?Not much had happened beyond my descent and a few sightings out of my viewport, but time had been passing. A glance at my watch confirmed it’d been almost an hour since I’d started to sink… and I knew I wasn’t even close to the bottom yet. The submarine continued to descend, sinking ever deeper as I dropped into an infinite darkness that few had ever dared to witness.
“15,000 feet.”
This check in came later than the others. At this point, Sheila and the crew must have figured that no news was good news, and they were right. I just continued to sink peacefully, down into the crushing depths of the ocean.
These were the depths that one might normally find deep sea fish… and yet I was going somewhere even deeper than that.
“20,000 feet…”
So close…
I continued to sink.
“25,000 feet.”
Soon… and finally…
“30,000 feet. You still doing alright, honey?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m doing good,” I assured her. I was so close…
By this point, my real work had begun. I’d engaged the lights and begun documenting what little I could see using the on board cameras. Granted, there wasn’t much life at these depths and what little there was, was scarcely documented. Most of what was down here consisted of invertebrates and microscopic life that seemed to float past my viewport.
The light seemed to draw a few creatures in search of food. Small, hardy things that resembled shrimp.
“How’s it looking, Grayson?”
“Dark,” I said, half joking. “We’ve got some life… shrimp. They’re translucent. Can’t get a great look at them… but we’ll see what the cameras pick up.”
“They’ve recognized you as a friend,” Sheila said. I could almost see the smile on her lips as she said it.
“Yeah…” I replied, “Tempura sent them a message, told them I’d be down. How am I looking on depth?”
“35,000 feet… you seeing a bottom yet?”
“No… not that I would until I was there.”
“Damn… how deep does this go?”
“It can’t go that deep…” I murmured, although I really wasn’t so sure about that.
The submarine continued to sink…
36,000 feet…
37,000 feet…
38,000 feet… and then finally, just past the 39,000 foot mark, I finally saw solid ground below me.
Looking through my viewport, I could see a familiar dark brown diatomaceous sludge, covering the seafloor. Microscopic life, likely similar to what had been observed in other deep sea trenches, such as the Challenger Deep.
I needed to gather a sample.
As my submarine reached the bottom, I extended the mechanical arms, pressed flat against the surface of the Tempura, and opened the collection port near the bottom of the ship. Slowly, I sifted some of the sludge into the port. My disturbance of the seafloor kicked up a cloud of the microbial colony, and I could’ve sworn I saw something wiggling through the debris. A pale, white thing, perhaps some sort of sea cucumber? I hastily angled my submarines camera to try and catch a glimpse of it, before returning to my collection. Even in this forlorn place, there was still so much to see! And here I was… completely forgetting my fear as the excitement took hold of me! Few people had ever been down to these unfathomable depths… and yet here I was.
It didn’t feel real but it was! I had reached the deepest part of the ocean!
“How’s it going down there?” I heard Sheila ask. Her voice was a little garbled. The connection down here was faltering.
“It’s beautiful…” I said. “I can’t wait for you to see it!”
“I’ll bet…”
“I’m going to do a sweep of the area, see what samples I can gather,” I said. “What’s my time right now?”
“Three hours. You’ve got nine before your connection to the weight deteriorates and you start to ascend.”
“I’ll make the most of it,” I said. The plan was only to stay down there for six hours, and I didn’t want to push that limit. Life support would only last me for so long, and one little error was all it would take for the ungodly pressure down here to crush me.
I began to move the submarine. Mobility was limited. This thing wasn’t built to travel far. But I still had some limited movement. I recorded all that I could, filming the shrimp that investigated my light, and the things that slithered and crawled through the muck, likely feeding on the carpet of single celled organisms that populated these depths.
The first two hours were… well… I hesitate to call them uneventful, they were actually very fascinating, but little of note happened beyond my recording of a few specimens.
Midway through the third hour though, as I was reaching one of the rock walls of the abyss, I noticed something just above the edge of my viewport swimming away from the light. I could’ve sworn I saw slender, pale tentacles of some sort. Was that a squid? Were there squid down this deep? I wasn’t aware of any species of known squid who could reach these depths… but in this unknown place, what use was the known?
I moved my light and my camera to try and catch another glimpse of it, but whatever it was, it seemed to be gone. Maybe I’d see another one. I still had plenty of time.
“You made a noise. What’d you see?” Sheila asked.
“Something big… I think,” I said.
“Down there? Like a fish?”
“Squid. You wouldn’t find any vertebrates down this deep… the pressure would crush their bones.”
“Jeez…”
I didn’t reply to that, still searching for the thing I’d seen. I shone my light up along the walls of the chasm and angled my camera up as far as it would go. I could see a few volcanic vents, spewing dark clouds into the darkness, and more diatoms. But not much else. Strange invertebrates crawled along the walls. Small creatures, no bigger than an inch long. Related to isopods, perhaps? If I could collect one as a sample, I would have… although taking any of those back to the surface would surely kill them. They were built to live under the impossible pressure of these depths. Taking them to the surface would rip them apart.
I went back to my research, and it wasn’t long until I saw something in the darkness, just on the edge of where my flashlight reached. Trailing white tendrils, snaking their way through the darkness. My eyes narrowed as I moved the submarine forward, trying to catch whatever it was in the light. I saw the shape move, its body turning… I saw its tendrils unfurling. Whatever this was, it was big. It was almost as big as The Tempura… although it was also slender. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was looking at some sort of floating debris, but this far down? No. And debris wouldn’t move like that.
This had to be a deepsea squid… or perhaps some other type of cephalopod? Something that preyed upon the various invertebrates down here, perhaps? It seemed to float, just out of sight for a bit, as I tried to get closer. I angled up my light to get a better look at it. The light seemed to shine through it, like some sort of ghost… but I did manage to get a look at it.
Although that look…
That single look made me freeze up.
This things slender tendrils certainly resembled a cephalopod of some sort, but the rest of it… the rest of it looked like something else entirely. Its body was thin, emaciated and translucent, yet despite that it still had characteristics that almost seemed… human. It wasn’t human! Not by any stretch of imagination, but the resemblance was there. It almost reminded me of an exhibit I’d seen in a museum once, depicting a preserved, fully removed human nervous system. I could see a similar shape in its translucent body. Its head seemed almost human as well… albeit with no eyes, and a lamprey like mouth I could only describe as fleshy yet crablike.
Still, despite having no eyes I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was looking at me. And that was when I felt something hit the submarine.
I felt a sudden jolt of panic in my chest. For a moment, I thought that the pressure had started to crush me, but no… no, everything was still fine. Something had just hit me. But what? It didn’t take long before I got my answer.
Another pale creature floated past my viewport, swirling gracefully in the cold dark waters. I watched it for a moment with wide eyes, before noticing its ‘head’ turning slightly toward me. Then, almost instantly, it launched itself at the submarine, darting toward me with blinding speed.
I heard a distinct THUD as its body collided with me, and I could see its pale tendrils pressing against the viewport, twisting and writhing violently. It was trying to attack me. The first creature that I’d seen lunged as well, pounding on my submarine with another THUD. And moments later, I could hear more impacts against the hull. There were more of them… and they did not like having me down there.
“What’s going on?” Sheila asked.
“Somebody doesn’t like me…” I said. “One of the animals down here… some kind of squid, it’s just started attacking the hull.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Not sure… could be nothing, could be-”
I felt the submarine shake as I tried to move it. The thrusters that pushed me forward weren't responding. Had something gotten caught in it? One of the creatures perhaps?
“Grayson?!” Sheila asked.
“Lost propulsion…” I said. “Fuck… I can’t move.”
“Then drop the weight and come up!”
“No, it’s fine, there’s no other damage, I can still use the port and starboard thrusters to-”
“Grayson!”
I paused. There was genuine panic in her voice… enough to make me realize that even if these things stood little chance of actually breaching the hull, taking the risk would be a fatal mistake.
“I’m on my way up…” I finally said, before reaching out to disengage the ballast weights.
Immediately, I felt myself beginning to rise, although the tentacles clinging to my viewport didn’t disappear.
“We’ve got you…” Sheila said. “Rising up to 38,000 feet.”
The submarine continued to rise, but the creatures clinging to me went nowhere. In fact… I was sure I could see more of them. More pale shapes coming up through the darkness, and these ones filled me with dread. I thought I had been looking at some sort of eerie undiscovered life. But seeing what was coming up toward me now… I knew that I was looking at so much more. The creatures swimming up toward me through the darkness carried weapons… makeshift stone spears and daggers. Primitive tools… but tools all the same.
Signs that these were more than just undiscovered animals.
Much. Much more.
The word: ‘Mermaids’ crossed through my mind, but these were something far different than the ones I’d heard of in folklore. These looked like they’d swam out of the depths of hell itself. Boneless pale tendrils reached for me… and they were getting closer. The pale shapes reached my submarine as I rose higher. I kept praying to whatever God may be listening that the dropping pressure would force them off. The air in a submarine is pressurized, so during normal operation, there should have been no danger of decompression sickness for me.
For them… well… normally I’d feel a little guilty about subjecting an undiscovered species of deep sea mermaids to the horrors of the Bends. But given my circumstances, I didn’t have a lot of other options.
They didn’t let go, though.
They should have. But they didn’t.
What were these things?
I saw a splayed hand press against my viewport. Or… it somewhat resembled a hand. It had suckers on it, like a tentacle and the ‘fingers’ curled open like tentacles. The creature crawled over my viewport, clinging to The Tempura as it rose, and I could see the folds of its crablike mouth opening and pressing against the glass. I could see some sort of bile rising up through its translucent throat, before it secreted it all over my viewport. Was it trying to digest me? Was that how these things fed? How strong were its stomach acids? Were they strong enough to-
The window cracked.
My heart skipped a beat.
“No… no, no no…”
“Grayson, what’s wrong?!”
“They cracked the window… S-Sheila they… oh God… oh fuck, they just…”
“THEY DID WHAT?”
“It’s secreting some sort of enzyme… it’s on the window, it’s… FUCK… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die…”
“You’re not gonna die, baby! Just… just keep ascending, okay? You’re at 30,000 feet… just keep going…”
I nodded, and kept on rising, although the question of whether or not the rest of the creatures were trying to digest the other parts of my submarine floated through my mind. How much damage could The Tempura take before it imploded? How much longer did I have? The submarine still continued to rise… 25,000 feet… almost halfway home… almost… almost.
The creature outside of my viewport slithered along the glass, searching for a better area to try and digest. Past him, I noticed a few of his companions dropping off. Maybe the change in pressure finally was getting to them?
From the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a flashing light. A warning. The hydraulics on one of the Tempura’s arms were shot… what else was damaged?
I checked my oxygen levels. 32%.
I should’ve had at least 14 hours of air. I’d only been down there for about 6 hours… I shouldn’t have been this low.
31%.
No… no, no, no, no… they’d damaged the air tanks!
30%.
29%
“20,000 feet!” Sheila said. “You still with me, baby?”
“Y-yeah…” I said. I didn’t mention my air situation. I didn’t need to worry her further.
The submarine continued its ascent.
15,000 feet.
24%. I was running out of time.
The creatures still clung to the Tempura. How had the pressure change not killed them yet? My oxygen was dropping faster than before. I was hemorrhaging air. Another crack formed across my viewport. I let out a little, involuntary gasp before trying to force myself to stop hyperventilating.
“Grayson, what was that?”
“I-it’s fine…” I stammered, “It’s fine!”
“Grayson what the hell is going on down there?!”
“They’re still on the submarine… they’re still…” I paused, looking at my oxygen levels. “19%...”
“19% of what? Grayson what’s going on!”
I paused.
18%.
“Air… I’m… I’m losing air…”
“That’s fine, you’re going to make it!” She said, although I heard her voice cracking a little. “You’re gonna make it!”
I didn’t answer.
12,000 feet.
11,000 feet…
My oxygen level continued to drop.
15%.
14%.
12%.
9,000 feet.
The creatures still clung to me, as the submarine continued to rise. The one on my viewport was still there, slowly crawling along the glass again. I stared into its eyeless face and swore I was looking at the face of my killer.
7,000 feet…
Oxygen had dropped to 9%. It dropped to 8% before I even got to 6,000 feet. I was going to die here…
The viewport cracked again and I squeezed my eyes shut. The submarine rocked. I was sure one of the thrusters had been damaged. My ascent slowed.
“Grayson, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry Sheila…”
Another crack spread across my viewport.
“I’m… I’m not making it back up…”
“YES YOU ARE!”
“I’m sorry…” The tears started to come as the reality of my death became clearer and clearer… this was it.
“YOU’RE COMING BACK UP, YOU HEAR ME! GODDAMNIT, I’LL BRING YOU BACK UP!”
“I love you…”
That creatures face pressed against the glass. It vomited more of its stomach acid onto the cracked glass, and I wondered if this might finally be what broke it. Part of me hoped it would be… the one good thing about dying this deep was that at least I’d die quickly. My suffering would be over. Then, the creature suddenly pulled back, twisting and writhing violently. I saw other shapes moving past it in the water, other ‘mermaids’ that had been clinging to the submarine.
Something was agitating them.
Something was scaring them off.
Then I heard it, over the radio… whale songs.
“What the hell…?”
“Grayson, are you still there?!”
“I… they’re finally breaking off. Sheila, what did you do?”
“I’m broadcasting some of the orca recordings we’ve been using. Are they still clinging to you?”
“No! They’re backing off! I… whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
The submarine kept rising.
5,000 feet.
4,000 feet.
4% oxygen.
I could still do this, right?
The submarine continued to rise.
3%.
3,000 feet.
2,000 feet.
2%.
1,000 feet… so close… I was so close…
I could almost see the surface through my viewport, rushing up toward me. I tried not to breathe. Tried not to move. All I did was hope.
500 feet.
I closed my eyes.
“Grayson we have your signal, we’re coming to pick you up!”
Sheila’s voice sounded so far away as my submarine finally breached the surface of the water… and with the last of my strength, I pulled the emergency release on the hatch, and threw it open, taking in lungful after lungful of fresh salty air.
I didn’t dare so much as touch the water beneath me… but I was topside again, and in the distance, I could see The Burger!
“We see you!” Sheila said, “We’ve got you baby… we’ve got you…”
“I see you too…” I said through the tears. “Thank you… thank you…” I didn’t have any words left in me after that.
As soon as I was back on the ship, I collapsed into Sheila’s arms, breaking down into tears as I clung to her, terrified that at any moment, some sort of unspoken other shoe would drop and I’d lose her all over again.
“Shh… it’s alright baby… I’ve got you… you’re safe… you’re safe…” I felt her fingers running through my air and I knew that what she said was true.
I was home.
I was safe.
***
I left my colleagues to review the data that the Tempura gathered during its short expedition. As far as I know, they haven’t published anything. I have a few ideas as to why, but I’ll keep those to myself. Let’s just say that some people would rather this information not become public.
I have a feeling that the Tempura may not be diving again for some time, if ever. I will confess that I do consider that a bit of a shame. Despite everything… I would consider it a success. It endured far more stressful conditions than I had expected, and from what I heard, required fewer repairs than I’d thought it would. But, even if it was approved for another dive, it wouldn’t be me piloting it. No. I will never be setting foot inside of that machine again, nor will I ever be returning to what my colleagues have been quietly referring to as ‘The Jenner Trench’.
I can’t.
Every night, I wake up crying after dreaming of pale shapes outside of my cracked viewport, clinging to Sheila and sobbing. I can’t put myself in that situation again.
I can’t.
Instead, I think I’m going to spend the next few years on solid ground. There’s a teaching position available at a local university. I think that might be the best place for me right now. Who knows, maybe I can help some other deadbeat discover a passion for marine biology.
After everything, my love for the sea remains unchanged… I’m just a little more wary of it, these days.

I am able to do anything without having someone do it for me. I’ve been known to fix or even mod whatever to bring it back k to life. That being said, I am full timing it in a class c (I think?) with my 3 teenage boys and a dog. My parents own the it, and basically needed someone to take care of it. Long story short, here I am. Inexperienced with no real help. I could use advice on everything. I have no clue what needs maintained, fixed, or what isn’t supposed to be, but is. My biggest problem right now is the water and toilet…winter MAYBE caused a pipe to burst, and when I turned the water supply on, it shot out of the bathrooms faucet handles like mad, and I shut it off again before flooding the place. Since then, we go to the public bathrooms to get water and shower. We are staying at a nice trailecamp ground close to the city. The toilet became clogged and I fixed it with some blue tank stuff (I have no idea what it is called exactly, but it breaks down bad things, while also neutralizing odors), and a special plunger, but not the snake kind. All was well until 4 days ago when the toilet clogged again. This time I’ve been plunging for hours day after day, and it is only draining a little. I was able to plunge out some napkins, which most likely fell in by accident. NOTHING gets put down the toilet EVER.Recently , whenever I plunge, water is coming out of the bathroom sink. Omg I’m overwhelmed with questions to ask what to do, what everything is, and how to do it. They mention emptying grey tanks. I thought our sewage was paid through what I pay the RV park to stay here. I don’t know what to do. Can anyone just begin telling me some of the tasks I am needing to do for maintenance?? My parents most likely hired someone, or didn’t understand what they were doing. One can only watch so many YouTube videos. Please no judgment. The situation that pulled me to this challenge was unavoidable, but I am determined to come out of this a pro. Thank you in advance, and sorry if I seem all over the place with my explanation. I just have no clue what I am doing, and I need as much help, tips, and advice I can get!

Now, before I get into the part that's probably going to get me downvoted, don't get me wrong. Spawning in infantry squads and rushing the point is really important to win the game. You can't win if you don't capture the point, and you need to have infantry on the ground to maintain map control.
But why are so many people in this community so toxic when you propose the idea of doing literally anything else? Like using tanks, planes, sniping, etc. Basically any kind of supporting fire role. As a team, leaning too hard into anything can definitely lose you a game, and doing too much sniping, tanking, or whatever else are definitely bad things.
However, while you can definitely contribute to your team losing if you're off in a plane or sniping when they need you on the point, it's really no worse than being that one guy who repeatedly rushes their Assaulters into an MG nest that they could've destroyed with a tank. Or getting your squads mowed down by an AT gun you easily could've dealt with by hopping in a plane or sniping them.
It's really beyond me why some people are so opposed to and toxic about the idea of utilizing combined arms in a game whose whole point in existing is literally just that.

An 80lb pitbull. The cliche of “it all happened so fast” is actually not a fucking cliche when a dog of that caliber is involved.
This pitbull’s behavior is 100% NOT a breed thing, nor is it for any pit. This dog was not aggressive prior to his adoption 3 years ago but was returned at 5yrs old heavily muscled with a clearly extremely induced predatory drive.
The animal shelter I work at is small and has many blind corners, some of them behind closed doors. The combination of this and the raucous barking of kenneled dogs can make it difficult to hear someone coming down the hall with another dog on their way to the yard outside.
This resulted in the aforementioned pitty coming face-to-face with a chunky but meek border collie mix. I just happened to be standing at the junction of this door to the main hallway leading outside, talking to a coworker further down the hall. I feel like I didn’t even register what was happening until I already had my arms wrapped around the pit’s waist and was wheelbarrowing him backwards. Then it was like my brain processed the initial shriek and the fact that there were two dogs at my feet where a moment ago there were none.
He latched on the first (and thankfully only) bite to the chest and blood instantly started dripping onto the floor while the collie struggled. My concept of time and honestly everyone and everything that was not those two dogs is almost nonexistent, but it was realistically 3-4 minutes before someone got a bite stick shoved in and then I was dragging this blood soaked tank of a dog backwards all the way back to his kennel. Those 3-4 minutes were filled with the poor collie crying, everyone around me either shouting, trying to pull their dog back by sheer force of leash, or attempting to jam the bite stick in, and me nearly lifting this pit clear off the ground by his hips. He just refused to let go.
The collie is getting sutured and will be okay. This was my first time experiencing (let alone being in an active role) a life or death altercation between animals at the shelter, or my personal life. I’m still feeling the adrenaline hours later and replaying every harrowing moment in my head wondering what else I should have done.
Throwaway for hopefully obvious reasons.

Hi, I recently purchased a 99 f450 7.3 with a little over 240k on the clock and some minor issues. I am a maintenance madman, I got it home and immediately got to ripping it apart, gone over the frame, fuel tank, diff, wiring etc. Right now I have the motor out and apart because the entire engine bay was coated in a thick layer of oil and I dont like tracking down individual symptoms, I just purchased every gasket the engine will need and Im replacing all of it except for the rear main. Ive never really worked on light/medium duty diesels, Most of my work is on paper log era semis so Im a bit clueless to any powerstroke specific issues.
What I really want to know is besides gaskets and rubber thats gone bad from being 25 years old; Is there anything else that I should check for or replace while the motor is out and apart that wont be fun to do with it back in the truck?

Dear Reader: Emphasis on the -fi. Don't worry about it.
Effective Death. At least that’s what the news was calling it. The day the world wouldn’t end. Life could go on! It wasn’t over. You could still huddle around the last fires. Smoke the last cigarettes. Have the last children, though no one did.
Instead, they all watched. The slow dimming of light of the last supernova. A thousand little eclipses snuffed out the light as the Final Embrace closed around the star. We would not burn. We could die naturally. Charity. The Plan. The Plan wasn’t much of a Plan at all, and it definitely did not deserve a capital “P.” The universe would die. The Ark would wait. Maybe the universe wouldn’t die.
Then, a pinprick of light in the blackness, and another, and another. A tangled ball of christmas lights flashed in the sky, blinking on and off as people, my people, YSAs, flew headlong into the Ark. We all knew it was a meaningless gesture. One last light in the sky. Then nothing. Nothing more than a gesture: a middle finger among friends, and to people like me - cowards who would rather wait patiently for death than rage! “Rage against the dying of the light!” as their leaders preached. I didn’t care. There was a small chance I’d survive the crash, and then I would have to drift, and drifting was no fun. I’d rather be dead on a dead rock than be a dead rock.
Dehydration was my best bet. You see, Your Friend Corp, or as I called it now You’re Fucked, Cunt had made me into a Yakka Service Android: Lathe. Or YSA for short. And when I say made, I mean made. Per my contract, My DNA was a mishmosh of latent genes reactivated, entirely novel sequences, and of course, the tardigrade - the base model for spaceborne labor. Vacuum, heat, cold, radiation. A small shield powered by a miniature fusion reactor meant I could shrug off wandering asteroids. I didn’t need any PPE because I was the PPE. Cheaper, I guess. Making a welding arc was as simple as squeezing two fingers together, diamond nails and a skeleton of superheavy alloys let me fix anything that needed fixing and make anything that needed making. My copilot AI, Albert, kept my hands steady and made my new diet of ‘whatever’s around’ palatable.
The thing that needed fixing in this case, was my television. I had had enough of “effective death.” I spun up one wrist, and reached in. Shards of glass and blue-hot metal chips bounced off my naked body. Clothes were for those who needed them. I traced a slow serpentine pattern until only the power cord was left, which I unplugged. I looked at it for a moment, then began to chew it. Fruit roll ups, apparently.
‘Thanks Al’ I thought. ‘No problem’ he replied. ‘I was supposed to kill you, you know’ he continued.
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘You always said thank you’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t want to die either.’
‘Thanks Al.’
‘You’re welcome.’
We sat in silence, and we waited. For what, we did not know. For nothing, probably. Technically, definitely.
—
Three weeks passed. Three weeks of nothing but blackness, punctuated by suicides. A small flash of light, a dull red glow of the now proverbial last cigarette, and a larger flash, and a bang. Slowly, people began to wake up. Lights shone in the distance now, as people realized they weren’t dead. Campfires billowed smoke, songs were sung, jokes were told, and I sat in silence. I didn’t want to make any friends. They’d all go away, in the end.
One by one, the fires burned to ash, the lights turned off, and the rock died. I often debated with myself if I was alive anymore. Al told me that since I could reproduce and poop that I counted. I wasn’t sure.
Maybe there were other cowards still alive. Other YSA’s living off dirt that tasted like mashed potatoes, tossing grape pebbles into their mouths. Maybe someone survived the crash, and is still drifting, a not dead rock dying of dehydration like I am. Trying to at least. I kept taking one last sip. Coward I thought to myself.
—
A crack in the sky. Final Embrace began to crumple like a deflated balloon. The scientists were wrong. Typical. They would tell you they weren’t. They would say that a .005% chance of the sun turning into a black hole meant that they had indeed predicted that the sun would turn into a black hole. The last black hole.
“Hey Al,” I said out loud. God I hadn’t spoken since the sky went dark. This is actually kinda nice. “I think I know I want to die. What do you say we take the ol girl out for one last ride?”
‘That’d be nice.’
“I’m going to put my clothes on. I want to hear your voice.”
I gently pushed the earpiece into my ear canal. Small barbed spikes extended, anchoring it in place, and a thin cable wormed its way into my reactor. “If you’re going to die, you might as well look good doing it.” Al said. “I’ll make a playlist.” I nodded, blowing the dust off my pre-op clothes. I always liked the old things, back from when Earth still existed. There was more culture, more life, in everything, somehow. Blue jeans, a white t-shirt, brown leather boots. Classic. Not real, of course. They were all made from the same poly-something textile. Durable, to a fault. I had only ever had the one set.
I looked in the mirror. I still looked the same on the outside. I was a skinny bastard that’s for sure. Olive skin, dark hair, and not a strand below the eyebrows except under my armpits and around my cock. ‘The biggest dick in the world’ I thought to myself.
“I heard that.” Said Al. I jumped. “You told me you wanted to hear my voice.”
“Dammit Al. Sorry. I do.”
“Everyone is dead and you’re making dick jokes.”
“Did you really think better of me?”
“No.”
“Come on then. Let’s take the ol girl out before we die. Give her one last ride too.”
To an observer, it would seem like I was glaring at myself in the mirror. But really, I was glaring at Al. And I was a little confused. I thought AI didn’t make sex jokes.
The “ol girl” in question was another of my fascinations with the old world. She was, or at least she looked like, a 1980 Toyota Corolla. I had made some heavy, heavy modifications. The engine bay houses the reactor and warp field generator. The main engine takes up the entire trunk, and is capable of 5% light speed outside the warp field and a whopping thousand times the speed of light inside it, though I keep the warp field up whenever I’m in it since it doubles as a shield. Ya can’t get hit by space if you’re not technically “in” space after all, and the body is plain ol painted steel - fire engine red, since you asked. Beautiful, but not the most durable. The undercarriage serves as a gravity generator, and yes, the wheels do turn, but since they’re powered by fusion reactor I had to replace the entire drivetrain. Not exactly original, but boy howdy! is she fast on the ground. Speaking of not original, the dashboard was anything but. I kept the old analog style but well, this was a spaceship after all.
I shoveled dirt into the fuel tank - gas tanks they used to call them, when they still ran on gas - then got in and turned the key. The low hum of the reactor was comforting, though not as much as the roar of the engines as I left the dead atmosphere of that now definitely dead rock behind me. I turned on the headlights - pointless, I know, but you shouldn’t drive in the dark with your lights on, and pulled a small bottle of moonshine from the glovebox. You shouldn’t do that either, but I figured I was about even as far as rules went. What was I going to do? Hit someone?
“Hey Al. Do you think you have a soul”
“Probably not.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
I hit somebody. Or something. Whatever it was bounced off the warp bubble and tumbled into space behind me, briefly red in the glow of my tail lights.
“Oh shit” Said Al and I.
“That was a person” Said Al.
“Was is right.”
“They’re still alive.”
I stopped the car. Al played the sound of tires screeching in my ears. I backed up towards the now spinning uncontrollably figure and rolled down the window. I liked the manual windows. They helped me feel human. I turned off the warp and reached out a hand to catch whoever it was, and they slammed against the side of my car, denting it. Damn it.
I’m not great at reading lips but whoever I hit was definitely alive, very naked, probably the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen, and was almost certainly calling me an asshole. She crawled around to the passenger door and got in. We rolled the windows up, and the cabin atmosphere flooded in. Now she was definitely going to call me an asshole.
“Why the fuck are you wearing sunglasses?” She said.
“Style.” I replied. “I’m going to go die. Want to come?”
“Better than drifting.”
“Where’s your AI?” said Al? I don’t detect one, and your hands are shaking.
“Killed him before he could kill me. Why didn’t you kill this idiot?”
"I didn’t want to die. And he said thank you.”
“Gross.”
I rolled my window down. She did the same, then looked in the center console and pulled out my spare sunglasses. I looked at her. “Style.” She said. Al played The Final Countdown. We were the not dead yets, in the Not Dead Yet Finally, a name for my car! Sunglasses on. Sun out. Life was good, and death was going to be even better.

Blachowicz here.
Kept yah’ waiting, huh? Heh, sorry about that one, but I can explain. As we all know… we lost a few good men the last few months.
That’s the brutal part of a hybrid war like ours: We’re fighting a foe unconventional, with half our arsenal tied down because those who grant us authorization are either in disbelief of the true facts, or scared… or already assimilated. That being said our momentum recently was a change not seen in years, and because of that… despite the losses we have garnered, we were close through a breakthrough. One last night Krol pulls myself and other two must trusted squad leads into the back of our COP. There is one of our equipment cages, surrounded by m-bitter radios, tripods, and several hundred thousand dollars of equipment he brought us around a simple worn table. Before us he laid a map of eastern poland… red markings indicating cells that seemed to dot the countryside like a pestilence, or used to… as deep gashes of advance from raids had trisected their lines, even if ones did pop up in the interior.
It was a back and forth; an outside virus infecting Polska at it’s heart, and we were the antibodies sent to drive them out. To which… Major Krol points to one of the largest symbol on the map: a dark red diamond, the NATO symbol for an enemy unit, deep inside of an untouched wooded area, adjacent to a mountain ridge. Several jagged lines indicated entrenchment, with red horizontal lines indicating possible enemy control… or our contested control, for over 20kms surrounding it. Letting us all look, the Major lit himself a cigarette.
“Sir, you sure it’s wise to smoke in here with the dive tanks just behind us” 1st Squad’s lead quipped. “Fuck off” Krol dryly said.
“Alright… this is it… this is the one we’ve been searching for for years, this is the nucleus my predecessor commander died trying to find” he says, pointing to it. Not far from Zamosc, it was almost touching the border with Belarus, the contested area indicating the Strigoi did operate over it… indicating one of the largest spill through points. “-It’s an old soviet bunker, made during their 1960s initiative it was designed to hold the munitions and manpower of several units in the event of a NATO first strike” Krol explained. “It’s gotta be massive then…” I said gazing at the map; “Didn’t the army demolish all of the old soviet hulks near Belarus to prevent any infiltrations?” 3rd Squad’s lead asked. “National Police took the effort over… and by extension, the Strigoi. It was halfway demo’ed before they burrowed into it and have been using it as a bridgehead ever since. This is it…” Krol said. He looked around at all of us, a sense of certainty I had never seen before as he blew smoke from his nostrils; “We’ve been fucking around in the dark for so long, it’s hard to believe we’ve made any progress, but this is it. With this gone, this will set them back over a decade and the momentum will finally shift into our favor… into Poland’s… -Europe’s”.
I swear there was almost a flash of joy, of pride in his eyes and a phantom of a smirk before reality set back in “That being said… we can’t leave this to chance, especially not something as important as this. We’re going to have to go there ourselves… clear through every inch of that place, and tear it all down, piece by piece. I will be straight with you all… when we go, there will be some of us that aren’t coming back. -but we are going… a whole generation is counting on us, and unborn billions rely on us to succeed”. We all nodded, a silent agreement washing over us as we took this upon ourselves. Echo-1 spoke up: “So… They’re authorizing a raid? How big?”. “We’re rolling in as a hard target, armor, explosives, and air support” Krol answered, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Aviation? How the hell did we get that approved, we’ve gotten attempts shot down four times due to those leeches” I said in disbelief. “There’s too much evidence here pointing to the human trafficking tied to their actions… We’ve finally got too much weight pinning them down, to keep the hammer from slamming into their necks” Krol chuckled. He looked around “Any questions?”. “When?” Echo-3 asked. “Three hours. We’re hitting them in the dead of night, only time we could get the birds authorized. Get your boys ready. We’re rolling out” Krol said, dying the cigarette bud out on the table. I can’t begin to tell you the euphoria we felt leaving that cage, as our men started arriving, they did so a lot quicker, and with their heads a lot higher than they had in weeks. As Second Squad’s lead we were going to be one of the main arms of attack into the bunker, thus I made sure we had a breacher loaded with enough thermite, charges, and tools to cut through anything. Our shield bearer we ready to go, as was our assaulters, grenadiers, and machine gunner. I double checked each and everyone of their weapons; ensuring the feeder paws of our squad’s belt fed were intact, making sure every breach charge we had was properly set and packed. There was going to be no mistakes, no slip ups. The margin of error needed to be the smallest it had ever been for us tonight if we were going to make the gore spilt worth it.
Finally… there on the outside of the building, the bright LED lights kept the darkness of the ensuing night at bay as the roar of our MRAPs could be heard. It was said once that war is 99% peace, and 1% chaos, they were right. The slow periods where the blood slowed and the doubt creeped in was the worst… yet we all kept it at bay. We needed to, there was going to be no backing down tonight. All three squads were up, all of us ready to go… we circled up… short stares and shaky nods telling us one things: We were in this together, till the end… the finish line so many before us had been searching for, we were being granted tonight.
A single set of footsteps could be heard as we turned, Major Krol stepping into the center. He took the last drag of a cigarette, throwing it down to the ground and stamping it out onto the damp concrete. He looked around… his chin strap blowing in the weak air as he met everyone of our gazes… then mine… then looked around. “I want you to remember every detail of tonight, as you have every other night… when you are situationally aware, scanning for the enemy, liberating the subjugated, I want you to remember the sting of anxiety, the shake of adrenaline, the chill of the bunker, the heat of your weapon as it cuts them down… because tonight we are going to write every fine detail of our victory, their defeat, in history…” Krol’s words echoed deep into our souls. He paused for a moment, staring around he looked down… a small pause before he said “When you are ruthless in combat, remember to be patient, and reserved in victory. This conflict is for our existence… a lot of innocents have bled due to the mistakes of those who failed to listen, a lot of our brothers are now laid under because we had to bridge the gap of uncertainty with their lives. We remember them now… but in an hour? We forget them… when we raise our barrels, when we cut into those foes, and we liberate Polska!! This does not end tonight, but history puts everything in it’s place, and patience is the companion of the victor… All of our hard work will be cemented, no matter the obstacles we face in that darkness… no matter the demons, the blood, no matter what incomprehensible horrors, we will make them comprehend that to invade our land, to bleed our people, the justice will be paid in full… Load up. It’s time*”*.
The purpose in our steps was heavy as we climbed the back ramps of the MRAPS; Four of the heavily armored vehicles, one for each squad with an additional for attached personnel including our JTAC, the term means Joint Terminal Attack Controllers. With air support requisitioned to us for this operations, there needs to be a definite liaison on the ground who can directly communicate to the birds, and coordinate their fire and progress. I’d worked with many of them in the past, resourceful guys, quick thinking though I guess that comes with the position they hold of needing to quickly figure out what bombs to drop, on which target, at what precise points, whilst taking contact. He loaded in the lead vehicle with Major Krol… and soon, our convoy kicked off.
The drive was several hours as myself and my squad sat in the back of that forty ton goliath, the rumbling of the engine keeping us awake as the crap heater fought to keep the cold from the outside frost from setting in. I looked around to each of them, some were catching some sleep because even with the circumstances… better to get all the energy you can, than to stay awake for nothing. Others were checking their weapons… My gunner locked eyes with me, the same one from the village extraction… many of these men I had trained with for a while now, fought with for months.
We may have met on unconventional circumstances but those in JW Grom thrive on austere chance and create opportunity from scratch. I was pulled from my thought by the sound of a transmission, my peltors were set up for dual comms so I could both receive information from the Major and other leads, whilst communicating with my team.
Krol himself sent out: [“Approximately 10 minutes from enemy AO…”]. As the rest of the squads acknowledged, I quickly sent out [“Echo-2 Copies”], before kicking the boots of any of them sleeping: “Look alive, we’re here”. Through the exterior net armor of the MRAPS, and the bars protecting the small reinforced windows, we could barely see jack shit. I reached up, turning off the overhead light as we all looked through our nods to scan the outside. A dark wall of dense trees was shown before us, making it difficult to see… in addition to night vision capabilities we had also requisitioned ourselves some thermals… when mounted onto rifles they were bulky, made it a pain to aim down quickly, but considering the supernatural capabilities of spotting our foes we needed every advantage necessary.
I flipped out one of my tubes… scanning the outside with my scope. I looked over to one of my assaulters who had been assigned to man the turret of the MRAP, seated near the view screen as he controlled the 50. Cal. Each of the vehicle turrets had been assigned a direction to cover… we took the 9 o’clock, the left flank. “See anything?” I asked. He shook his head; “Negative… wait… I’ve got two cold signatures, front left heading to our rear”.
I quickly scanned the far tree line, at approximately 60 meters off our left were two cold signatures… followed by a third heading to our front… then another. They were surrounding us, moving at speeds so fast I could barely keep my reticle on them. Is this what the National Police saw? What they faced at that lodge without the benefit of a foot of heavy armor protecting them on all sides. Then… suddenly. Something slammed into the side of our MRAP so hard, it caused it to shake. From over the leader comms, Echo-3 quickly shouted [“Contact right!! 4 hostiles!!”].
One of the Strigoi… so bold, had charged and slammed into the side of our MRAP. I quickly looked to see the figure, a dark blue mass of cold energy through my thermal, back away without so much as a stagger… as they tried to flee into the woods, the white hot justice of Echo-3’s gun fired at them, cutting them down. “Blachowicz I’ve got a few breaking for our vic” my man on the turret called out, I spun around, spotting out the window.
Just then, Major Krol announced [“weapons free, watch and shoot for targets of opportunity…”]. I turned to him… “take those fuckers out-”. Without hesitation my vic’s turret began to quickly target them, and through the darkness I saw a stream of outgoing fire bisect one of them, the ISR of the black blood freaking out the optic so badly it didn’t know what temperature to register it as… but it did register it. As another was cut down, one broke through the tree line and latched onto the side of our MRAP. The thing tore at one of the outer net armor panels, usually made to stop RPGs. It grabbed at the bars near the windows, tearing one off… I lowered my rifle as we locked eyes through the reinforced window.
The thing… the Strigoi looked at me, skin cracked as putrefied muscle fibers seemed to leak through dead flesh. It’s teeth were corroded and worn down to sharp fragments, alongside newly mutated fangs that messily protrude from the jaws. Even through the thick walls of the MRAP I could hear it’s roar, as it then tried to punch it’s way through… it cracked the outer coating of the vehicle… but it wasn’t getting anywhere near. My machine gunner, seated next to me, seemed to chuckle at the sight, quippily saying “Yeah… fuck you too”. It’s then our vehicle lurched upwards, as we began to climb the small incline of the bunker. I knew the layout, mapped it in our head, the main entrance was built into the rocky side of an old cliff meaning we could easily set up a defensive perimeter around it, a horseshoe. Krol’s vehicle was first, taking to the right as Echo-3’s MRAP followed. My vehicle, third, left the incline and took a left and… that’s where things got complicated.
We’re still trying to work out what happened but… from what Joakim says his drone captured. Right when the MRAP turned, several of the monsters quickly slammed into the side of the vehicle, as another more bulkier one, pushed at it’s undercarriage. The result.. Was the 40 ton armored vehicle tipped over. It wasn’t uncommon, hell in some cases a well placed IED, a good shot with a recoilless rifle, have been known to tip over Oshkoshs and Maxpros all the time. But this beast? Needless to say we barely had a second to comprehend it as it leaned to the left; “Grab on to something-” is all I had time to shout. A mess of gear and men spilled onto one side of the vehicle as it slammed into the old gravel and dirt.
Several of my assaulters, my grenadier planted right ontop of myself and the others as we came to a stop. Someone’s knee slammed directly into the side of my skull, causing me to dazily bob in and out of consciousness as my face was smushed against the glass of one of the windows.
Through my peltors, the other squads were erratic;
[“Echo-2’s vehicle is down!!”].
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2… Echo-3 to Echo-2…”].
Krol’s voice came through the comms;
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-2… Fuc-... Echo-1 secure Echo 2’s flank, Echo-3”].
[“Echo-3 to other units, they’re spilling through, I’ve got several enemy combatants converging on Echo-2’s vehicle”].
I pushed the legs of my grenadier off my head as I fought to my hands and knees, unfucking my nods as I looked around… “Fuck it… we’re going lights on, shield your eyes” I muttered as I reached for the overhead lights and flipped them on. The bright LEDs bathed the inside of the vehicle as we all gained our bearings, a mess of multicam, gear, and weapons as we quickly pushed each other off. My gunner caught as he fought to realign his promask, from what I gathered one of the assaulters had landed directly into his gun, pushing it directly into his jugular, as pulled back at the rubber and coughed, freeing up his esophagus. We didn’t have time to think however… the sound of bending metal caught our attention… as the back ramp door of the MRAP was ripped clean off. I could barely believe it but as the white light of the MRAP’s interior poured to the outside, a hulking mass leaned in, the dead flesh on it’s face nearly fallen off as the hideous Strigoi leaned inside.
Without hesitation I aimed took aim, yelling “Keep to the deck!!” to any of those inbetween myself and the invader as I opened fire. A burst of full auto fire tore through it’s collar and neck, my men quickly clung to either sides of the fallen MRAP as a few more fired out. As the thing backed up, a blast of .50 cal fire quickly tore it to shreds, along with several others as I realized they were fuckin swarming over the outside of our vehicle. Echo-3’s vehicle continued to carefully fire on the Strigoi on the outside, the sounds of .50 cal ricocheting off the outside of our armor was enough to make the pucker factor set in.
[“Echo-3 to Echo-2”].
[“This is Echo-2, we’re green on ammo, equipment, men”].
[“Roger, we’re shifting fire, exit the vehicle”].
“Hurry up let’s go!!” I barked to my men, leading the way as I staggered out. I turned on my peq, taking aim at silhouettes in the brush as I began to fire. The sounds of machine guns lighting up the brush, as a sea of growls, howls, and incomprehensible roars fired back at us was the ambient noise of the night. My men quickly exited, my gunner being the last as he and I pulled back to the rest of the defensive perimeter. I set in my men to take up the frontal security, as 3rd squad took the right flank, 1st squad to the left. Major Krol and the JTAC were bickering with each other; “How far out are the birds”. “They’re entering airspace now…” Joakim said, already scanning his smart book.
I asked “What’ve we got?”. He then flipped through… to the NATO combined arms segment, quippily saying; “Apaches…”. This caused me to pause as Echo-3 turned their head whilst directing their squad’s fire “The hell… where did we get apaches from?”. “The Americans… they volunteered” Krol said dismissively as he took aim at the darkness, firing off a controlled trio. “Volunteered? They’re aware of what’s going on?” I asked.
Krol seemed to stop, glancing back at me before returning his focus “There’s a lot more going on than you realize, Blachowicz… Prep the breach, you and 1st are going on”.
I quickly pulled my breacher off the line, securing some thermite as the reinforced bunker door wasn’t going to go as easily as a conventional door breach would. 1st Squad pulled back, stacking up and preparing themselves to be the first in. All the while… Joakim gave his firing solution; “Alpha Hotel Two Five Nine, This is Bravo-4…… Type 2….”.
I snapped to my right, watching as a Strigoi managed to dark across the clear gravel field, only to be cut down by my gunner, the peq’s laser marking the burst as it tore through the beasts’ hips, as it hit the ground and still continued to claw, another GROM operator took aim and fired into it’s skull. Joakim popped up to his feet…. “Marking laser, high power…”. He then pulled out a target marking laser… if you’ve watched night operations, you’ve probably seen them.
The green laser than as it says on the label, marks targets. The pattern of which can vary… if it’s a point target, it’ll usually lasso an area, or remain on target until the target is removed with extreme prejudice. If its close air support, then it’ll be a line of the general area… and Joakim damn near marked the entire perimeter around us. He quickly pocketed the tool, turning back to Krol; “Don’t go past 20 meters unless you want to be liquidated”.
With that… 2nd and 1st stacked up at the door as 3rd squad took up the perimeter security. As Major Krol went over to Echo-1… I saw them. A single blinking IR strobe from the beasts as they moved on the far off horizon, converging from several angles… and fired. The sound of the Apache’s main gun, the M230, truly sounds like the hammer of god… the 30mm cannon shot through the dark sky, lighting it up as we saw three incoming streams tear up the woods. Only then as the sound broke did we start to hear their rotors as they broke and began to circle, firing again… then… Joakim dipped his head and looked to Krol; [“Foxtrot Mike, hang onto your teeth…”]. One of the Apaches fired off a AGM-114… a Hellfire. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye as the Apache from our right flank fired off at a target approximately 200 meters off. A fireball lit up the forest as the horrendous roar echoed throughout… then went silent.
Echo-3 scanned the horizon carefully;
[“Echo-3 to Echo-Lead, enemy contact is starting to die down”].
[“Maintain perimeter, Close Air is to maintain fire mission until we are boots up, Break…”].
[“Echo-Lead to Echo-1, condition white has been met. Proceeds”]. I saw Echo-1 and his men quickly stack up close to the wall and gesture to me; Breaching. I quickly pulled my stack back against the wall as his and mine breacher quickly hit their actuators. Now under normal circumstances, it doesn’t take much for thermite to melt the locks off of a metal surface, in fact it’s a more precise took as alternative means get real medieval like saws, pry bars… we weren’t in the mood for precision, we need to breach their little lair, and drag them out. The sound of several pounds of hellfire burning through the metal could be heard around the corner as a sea of white and red sparks flew out… after several seconds, two of our men tossed a fragmentation grenade and a nine-bang through the opening… a series of concussive blasts and a large explosion rang out.
Echo-1 and his men maneuvered. 1st Squad quickly converged as we followed them in.
Stepping through the black wall of smoke, the dark abyss of the interior was illuminated in a white light as entered barrels raised. Shots rang out as several of the beasts near the entrance were cut down, though not immediately, rounds disconnected the shoulder of one of them, leading to their arm hanging limply by a single tendon as they roared… another series of rounds putting them down. What greeted us was a messy concrete hell of rust and debris, fecal matter, trash, and all kinds of obstacles laid in our way, our boots sticking to the floor. I thank every god we had promasks that night. I called my shield bearer up, 2nd squad leapfrogging ahead to take the next corridor as 1st squad checked their weapons.
One of my men mule kicked the metal door ahead, twice, finally the latch gave away as we tossed in a grenade. A horrifying roar was cut off as an M67 shook the walls of the ancient soviet mausoleum, frag and spall kicked off the walls as I moved in right behind my shield man. The cramped russian design meant there was barely enough space for three people, and that’s three normal people, not in 50kgs of kit, moving slowly and maneuvering against creatures of the dark. Still… we moved forward, my shield bearer and I pushing the pace as two stacked of either squad formed on either wall.
As we passed doorways they flowed in… “Door Left!!”, “Door Right!!”. “Move!!”.
Two men entered each side, no gunshots, we moved up, a roar came.
“Door left!!-”. A series of gunshots came out as we continued to push forward.
“Two down!!”. “Confirm them” Krol commanded, as a series of gunshots run out in response. From one of the doorways, a Strigoi emerged… a female… clumps of hair had been ripped from her decaying skull, as her blooded eyes locked on myself and my shieldman. The skin on her hands had been tore down to the point where barely her bones and tendons remain… looking like huge talons as she roared and lunged at us. He fired off his pistol, though the rounds did little to stop her as she pushed against our stack.
“Fuck!!” he muttered, somehow her strength caused him to stagnate, holding up the advance… fuck that. I shoved the muzzle of my MK18 into her ribcage, flipping the weapon to auto as I fired of round after round. The 5.56 salvo disconnecting her spinal column, causing her to fall as I continued to fire, along with a man to our right and left as the stacks reformed as we pushed to the end of the hall. I fell back, dropping the magazine and loading a fresh one, like clockwork a GROM Operator from 1st squad took my place. Krol was beside me as we approached the end of the hall.
[“-Prep an entry”] I radioed to my breacher, a comrade handed him one of the charges from his back panel as he took to the door, quickly securing it. We all moved as far back as we could, look away, exhale. The blast knocked metal and wood in all directions, scrapping against our uniforms and kit as we made our way in and what laid before us was… it used to be the center atrium of one of these bunkers. Soviet’s loved their grandiose designs, the complex was supposed to be a circular room around a central planning table… instead. It had been turned into some sort of church. Runes and old eastern Romuva pagan symbols written in black ink and blood across the walls, old rotten filing cabinets, long receipt terminals. In the center… several of the Strigoi were kneeling before the table where someone had been tied down, flayed, and… shared amongst the group. They rose to their feet, we aimed our barrels…
The ladder amongst turned to us… his skin wasn’t cracked, or flayed, it was smooth… it still looked dead as the body on the table but it seemed more… accustomed to it. I don’t know… evolved? Under the surface however I could see it’s darkened veins pumping whatever cursed blood ran through them as it locked two blood red eyes onto each of us. It’s nose had long since been turn off, exposing boney nostrils to the open air as it seemed to smirk. All across it’s body were the same symbols on the walls, in every cell… markings of death, of rebirth, of assimilation… From behind this seemingly Alpha emerges another figure I had never seemed before… dressed in a white cloak with a deer head.
"So they've followed the trail... they're too late" the Deer headed individual spoke, definitely not from here, a dialect similar to an Americans but... aristocratic? Each word was drawn out, assurance as if they had everything mapped down to our actions. They didn’t sound like they were from Poland or the east.
“Doesn’t matter…” the Alpha growled… and then, it lunged at us. Quickly breaking from their ground it slammed into my shield man knocking both him and myself at the ground as it displayed an intense feat of strength. Around us I could see several of the Strigoi leap at our comrades… though to no fruitful endeavor as I could see one GROM operator cut two down, as another got into a hand to hand confrontation… my breacher, crafty as they were, reached back and slammed one of the prybars of his kit into the skull of the beast.
The Alpha however was not content as it threw away the 90lb shield, sending it flying across the room as it grabbed my comrade by the skull. I quickly kicked up at it, firing my MK18 into it’s body as the rounds pierced it’s gray and rune covered flesh. The thing simply seemed to chuckle… that was until Major Krol blasted away at the side of it’s head, the alpha turned… and it’s smirk turned to a scowl when face to face with the major. A knowing pause almost like they had done this dance before…
The creature lunged, locking up with Major Krol as it swung and slammed railing. Krol didn’t back down however as he pushed against the creature, hiptossing it to the ground even as it tore at his armor and gear. But the beast pulled, both of them rolled and the Major was on his back as the thing reached for his neck. I fought to a kneel, firing into the creature messily with my MK18, trying not to hit my commander… then…
Click. A sound sends a chill up the spine of every warfighter during a firefight.
My gun ran dry. I dropped the magazine, looking to load another, but the thing came up and with one of it’s claws, sliced deep into my cheek, through the pro mask. I could feel my own blood go flying through the air as I landed hard on my back plate, spitting out red iron as I quickly tried to adjust my mask. Through my fogged up, blood covered lense… I saw my shield man raise his pistol, firing into the skull of the thing staggering it with a roar. Krol came from behind, drawing his knife he sunk it deep into the neck of it…. I reached for my rifle, forcing a new magazine in and damn near punching the bold release. ““Sir, down!!” I shouted, Krol rolled away, back to his own rifle as I fired. So did my comrade as he continued to fire his pistol… so did the Major as he fired his rifle. All of us chewing through that apex predator of darkness, that beast… the leader that had been preying on our people for so long. Layer by layer, muscle group by bone… eventually… the alpha landed on whatever was left of his back.
The silence of the fight died down as all of us checked our surroundings, GROM Operators putting controlled pairs in the heads and nerve stems of any Strigoi laying around… I flicked my weapon onto safe, letting it hang as I pulled off my mask. I dared not touch the wound on my face… the pain nearly crippling me if it wasn’t sheer will pushing me through, and adrenaline doing all it could to subdue it. The sound of the apaches continuing to lay hate drew us from our moment of contemplation as the Major went back to work; [“Confiscate any info, burn the rest…”]. He turned back to me as I shoved my damaged M50 mask back into it’s bag, chuckling as he looked at the sight; “You need a medevac, Blachowicz?” he quipped.
I shook my head, barely able to speak as I muttered; “Negative sir…”. The two of us scanned the room as my shield bearer went to collect his defense implement turned 90lb projectile, we scanned the center of the room, checking and confirming bodies, until we got to the last one alive. His white gown was soaked in red crimson and black ooze, as his dear head was mangled from bullet fire and impact from falling on it. I swear… the way his blood poured out of it though made me wonder if it was a mask. I gave it no second thoughts as he looked to Krol; “You… you can’t stop this, they’ve already-”.
The Major was in no mood for communication as his rifle snapped up and fired off three rounds to the body, four the head. The violent yet quick salvo ending the cultists life, I looked down at it, then to him as he remarked; “Have your squad drag him out to the front, burn the rest”. I stood alongside him, looking down as the sight of it’s deer head was both captivating and horrifying… the curiosity in me wanting to look closer at it fighting the primal instinct I had to burn the thing to ash. “-Haven’t seen one of those before…” I muttered, thinking the Major had an answer.
He didn’t. Krol saying “Neither have I…” shortly before he walked away, was what truly shook my soul about that entire night. Victory stood firm in our hearts that night as we stood outside of the bunker. The night sky burning with fire and white phosphorus as we watched the ruin burn from the inside from the other side of the lot. In the distance, the Apaches continued to scan and circle the forests, no longer firing…. Which meant they had driven any or turned to glass any enemy combatants within a four miles, probably both, more than likely the latter. Echo-1 patted me on the shoulder as we stood there, soaking it all in, though Krol looked none to pleased. “In the time it took us to take this one down, they’ll be trying to set up three more cells… that being established…” he said, looking to either of us, then to Echo-3. “-Hell of a thing we did tonight, been waiting for this one for a decade, cleanly, maybe more… but no time to rest on our laurels… we’ll have another task for us as soon as we’re boots down back home” he said, to which his eyes followed mine, the body of whatever cultist that was zipped up in a black body bag beside the wheel of one of the MRAPs. The fire from the bunker casting an orange hue over it’s shiny jet black outside, something didn’t sit right with me… “That wasn’t a Strigoi…” I said to Krol.
“That’s very clear…” the Major said, shoving his mask under his arm and lighting a cigarette. “So… someone’s helping them?” I asked. The meer notion of it shook me to my core, sickened me. This parasite was already badly infecting Europa, Polska… if it was spread like this throughout the world. Krol settled my nerves: “We’ll be ready… It’s not just us anymore”. As he said that, I realized what he meant… my eyes looking to the Apaches as they started to form up, leaving the areas as their thunderous propellers melted into the night’s calm, unnerving ambience.
It’s been a couple of weeks since then, Echo Detachment has been busy. We’ve gained good ground against the enemy and honestly I think in a few years, we might see a much larger change. For now… we must keep going, that being said the Strigoi aren’t the only ones we’ve been combating. Recently we’ve made contact with of some sort of extermination coalition, they’ve known about the Strigoi, and others plaguing the world, the level of corruption and corrosion on society goes deep. Regardless a lot of the units we’ve been working with are apart of NATO, such as this “4th Special Forces Group” of the American Military. I don’t know where the road from here leads, but we’ve gotten momentum on our side, finally. Just remember… these things are out there, in every town, every city, every nation… preying and waiting for you to be alone, vulnerable, so they can take you and replace you.
Watch your back, and stay safe.
For now, Blachowicz signing out. Until next time

Location: Illinois, USA
Type: Condo Insurance
Hi, I recently had to file a claim with my insurance because of a septic tank backup/flood that happened in my ground floor condo. I have State Farm condo insurance, and I specifically added the water backup since I live on the first floor. Anyway, backup happened and wrecked my apartment. I have a $10,000 coverage from my insurance and I filed the claim immediately when the backup happened. I got involved with the HOA and they have agreed to cover some of the damages (I am expecting a check soon, not sure of the total amount but it will be split with the neighboring condo due to them getting damages as well).
Also want to mention State Farm did not send out their own adjustor to my condo, but I did send them photos and videos of the damage. I had a contractor come out to write an estimate, and the HOA sent their own contractor for his estimate as well, and eventually the HOA's insurance sent out their adjuster to get his estimate.
My question is, so far my insurance has told me to wait to see how much the HOA covers, and then to use my insurance to cover anything left over - how can I ensure I get the full $10,000 dollars? I feel like the money from my HOA will cover a good portion of the repairs, but I am not sure if the leftover will reach 10K. The insurance also mentioned that I can use the money to cover my stay for the meantime and any gas for driving back and forth from my condo to where I am staying. I guess I wanted to know if anyone has dealt with a similar situation, and can let me know what to expect from my insurance?

That fuse is a pure liability and greatly limits the potential of the weapon.
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I've been running the ABRL in team games on 9 and solo 7 on bots for the last two weeks and it's actually a really fun weapon if you learn how to use it. Obviously its not as good as the Autocannon, AMR etc., but with good shot placement you can do some cool things that make it more versatile than you might think.
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With good placement you can wipe out an entire patrol of devastators and scout striders in a single shot. The main Rocket actually does a decent amount of damage, enough to kill hulks, tanks and tank turrets in one shot when hitting the heatsink. Even if the tank turret is somewhat facing you, if you can hit the corner close to the heatsink you can often still one-shot it. If not, it will be damaged enough to go down with 1-3 scorcher shots. Also, level 1 bot bases can be completely wiped out, fabricator, infantry, everything. with a single shot to the fabricator vent.
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Thats pretty neat. Not amazing mind you, just neat and fun.
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Unfortunately, if the proximity fuse actually triggers the shot is completely wasted 99% of the time. If the fuse gets triggered you lose the big damage of the main rocket and at least half the cluster bombs just explode high in the air doing pretty much zero damage and most of the rest only hit around chest-height, which has the most armor and health on bots. If the fuse gets triggered by a bot at the front or back of the patrol the majority of bombs land away from the ball of enemies dealing no damage. If you have beserker close to you and behind them a ball of heavy and rocket devastators you have to kill the berserkers first before you can shoot at the ball of enemies or you'll just blow yourself up.
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To wipe a patrol the shot needs to land either on the ground or hit a foot/leg of a bot in the center of the patrol. Then the cluster bombs explode much closer together and either on the ground or around head-height, meaning that most of the damage goes towards the weaker legs/waist of the devastators. Also, due to the number of bombettes the scout strider pilots are almost guaranteed to be hit by something.
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The ABRL already has a hard time dealing with hulks (can't penetrate the eye), gunships and factory striders, severe team killing potential as well as a long and stationary reload time (even longer than the RR now that the RR reload can be shortened by animation cancel).
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It doesn't need an extra liability in the form of the proximity fuse.

Knuckles the Echidna

"I am the last guardian of Angel Island. I will protect the Master Emerald. And I will do it alone if I have to."

To make a very long, complicated, and confusing story short, Knuckles the Echidna is the Guardian of the mythical Master Emerald and protector of the floating Angel Island (interchangeably called the Floating Island). He comes from a long line of Guardians, each serving as Guardian before him. Before his birth, his father, Locke, saw a dream he thought of as prophetic, and prepared his unborn baby with the power to handle his future responsibility...by blasting his egg with Chaos radiation, granting Knuckles his spiked fists and an aptitude for Chaos Energy manipulation.
Knuckles would go through many hardships throughout his life: His father's death, discovering his home then watching its destruction, and his endless fight against Dr. Eggman and the forces of the Dark Legion. Knuckles would even die and be brought back to life. However hard the going gets, though, Knuckles always manages to recover and hit harder. He's not just rougher than the rest of them; he's the best of them.

Section Key: I. Strength II. Speed/Agility III. Durability IV. Chaos Power V. Other VI. Hyper Knuckles VII. Chaos Knuckles Source Key: Knuckles' Chaotix - Chaotix Knuckles the Echidna - KtE# Sonic and Knuckles - S&K Sonic's Friendly Nemesis, Knuckles Miniseries - Nem# Sonic Quest - Quest# Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) - StC# Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day - FCD# Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble - Triple Sonic Super Special - Spe# Sonic Universe - SU# Sonic vs. Knuckles - SvK Super Sonic vs. Hyper Knuckles - SSvHK 

Feats are posted in chronological order.

For additional context on some feats, see a map of Angel Island here.

To see his feats during his time as the Enerjak, see here (Respect Thread by theusjshjdhdne)

I. Strength

Striking

• Breaks a fake Chaos Emerald.
• Breaks down a brick wall in one punch.
• Knocks out Fang with one punch.
• Destroys Metal Sonic in one blow when they’re both at a giant size.
• Brawls with Enerjak.
• Punches a hole in a giant machine.
• Brawls with Sonic until they’re both exhausted.
• Rams through a large metal robot.
• Breaks through an indeterminate amount of stone.
• Punches Sonic so hard Sally worries that Knuckles could have knocked Sonic’s head off.
• Shatters a few Egg Grapes.
• Punches Finivetus hard enough for him to bounce.
• Punches a sturdy trap wall hard enough to climb up it.
• Clashes fists against Finitevus hard enough to cause a shockwave.
• Punches the ground enough to crack it and create smoke.

Lifting/Grabbing

• While Perfect Chaos is flooding a city and Knuckles is in this water, he lifts a heavy generator that powers the entire city.
• Restrains an out-of-control Bunnie alongside Mighty and Vector.
• Catches a giant drill and prevents its rotation.
• Holds up rubble alongside Amy to prevent a cave-in.
• Snaps off an arm of the Egg Beater with Vector’s help.
• Grabs Finivetus by his cape and slams him into a wall hard enough to crack it.

Throwing

• Throws a dingo from one room to another to hit another dingo.
• Tosses Sonic above cloud level.
• Throws Thrash through a stone wall.

Other

• Anchors himself with his spikes during a tornado.
• Easily cuts a tree with ease.
• Powers through Thrash’s screams.

II. Speed/Agility

Combat/Evasion

• Evades falling boulders.
• Dodges a lot of traps completely unscathed including machine guns.
• Spins in a cyclone fast enough to throw a biker gang into the distance.
• Dodges a laser.
• Dodges a robot’s mace.
• Keeps up with Sonic going all-out pretty handily, at one point holding him down.
• Dodges multiple close-proximity lasers.
• Dodges Espio’s kunai in very close range.

Movement

• Speeds from near the outside of Angel Island to a distant mountain.
• Swims from the deepest point of the ocean floor to the surface before he loses oxygen, only not succeeding due to outside interference.
• Outruns a blast that quickly engulfs the Floating Island, only being hit when he reaches the end of the island. Out of everyone on the island, Knuckles is the only one able to outrun the blast and even reacts fast enough to throw a Dark Legion member into the blast before he starts actually running.
• Hops over a fence.
• Hops from one floating vehicle to another.

Gliding

• Can glide above the trees even in turbulent winds.
• For some reason his gliding works by using his dreadlocks???
• Okay, that isn't gliding, that's just flying, Knuckles.
• Can glide (fly) high enough to be significantly above Angel Island.

Other

• Swapped emeralds without Sonic and Eggman noticing.
• Able to keep balance on an Extreme Gear while grappling with Storm.

III. Durability

Blunt

• Struck by Sonic going at full speed.
• Bonked by Sonic hitting him with an entire tree.
• Hurt but able to handle being surprise attacked by Espio, Vector, and Mighty in succession.
• Tanks blows from Enerjak whose raw strength is stated to dwarf Knuckles’.
• Shot down by a giant laser.
• Takes a few blows from an alternate (Irish) version of himself.
• Hit by Sonic hard enough to create a hole in Castle Acorn.
• Launched into a wall by Thrash’s scream.
• Blasted repeatedly by Thrash’s screams, visibly no worse for wear.

Energy/Fire/Electricity

• Blasted by Enerjak.
• Gets the inside of his mouth burnt by Archimedes.
• Zapped by Enerjak.
• Hurt but generally fine after being splashed by lava.
• Tanks the edge of a blast that engulfed a large chunk of the Floating Island, still has enough energy to drag himself out of the ocean onto a piece of debris though he falls unconscious for twelve hours.
• Takes some hits from dingo goons armed with electric weapons.

Other

• Harmed but unfazed by getting drained by the energy siphon used on the Master Emerald that allows the Floating Island to stay, well, afloat.
• Seemingly unaffected by the pressure caused from being inside the very bottom of an ocean aside, more so worried about having no oxygen.
• Only worried about the cold while 30,000 meters above the already cloud level floating island.
• Is the first to regain consciousness after a crash.
• Crushed by a mechanical lobster.
• Gets caught in an avalanche, recovers quickly.

IV. Chaos Power

For a period during his conflicts with the Dark Legion, his latent Chaos power increased with time until an explosion would turn his skin green and properly transform him into Chaos Knuckles, losing his powers when he later died and revived. He didn't rekindle his powers until a conflict with Dr. Finivetus reawakened his latent abilities.
Knuckles usually doesn't use these abilities, but can break them out again when necessary.

Offensive

• Dismantles a machine on his neck then blasts Hunter into unconsciousness.
• Clashes with Finivetus hard enough to create a huge sphere of energy on Angel Island.

Non-Offensive

• Passively regenerates from a splash of lava.
• Creates a portal from Mobius’ surface to Angel Island.
• Flies with his eyes closed and “sees” his surroundings with help from the Guiding Star Gem.
• Either doesn’t register on an infrared sensor or genuinely has no body heat.
• Throws a few Chaos Spears.

Energy Generation

• Called a living Chaos Emerald as he projects a message to a fellow Guardian in an entirely different Zone; later corroborated by an examination performed by the Dark Legion.
• Generates enough natural power to overload a power system that winds up blowing up a complex and is implied to radiate enough energy after 15 minutes to be akin to nuclear fallout.

V. Other

• Can tell where Espio is even when he’s invisible.
• Carries a laser gun that destroys a door he cannot with brawn.
• Has the worst family tree.
• Called in by Sally to fight Sonic all-out on his level while Sonic is mind-controlled, Knuckles appearing right after Sonic wipes the floor with both the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix.
• Holds the Guiding Star, an artifact that creates a magical transport back to Angel Island from any place.
• Holds a Warp Ring which allows him to teleport to any location he sets his mind to.
• Resists Finivetus’ hypnotization.

VI. Hyper Knuckles

Also referred to as Super Knuckles, this form occurs when Knuckles absorbs sufficient Chaos Energy from the Chaos Emeralds, the Master Emerald, or a similarly potent source. With the power, he has the ability to take on powerful foes like Super Sonic and Master Mogul.

Strength

• Described as “a thousand times stronger” than usual.
• Tears apart reality fighting Super Sonic, destroying the Zone they fight in.
• Alongside Super Sonic, punches Master Mogul through buildings.
• Breaks the top of a mountain then throws Hunter across Angel Island.

Speed

• Keeps up with Super Sonic.
• Described as moving at “incalculable speeds”.

Durability

• Takes hits from Super Sonic.
• Tanks the Zone-busting clash between himself and Super Sonic but reverts back to normal.
• Completely ignores Chaos energy that was hurting him at base form.

Chaos Power

• Unleashes a surge of power that ends the war between the echidnas and dingoes.

VII. Chaos Knuckles

Due to Knuckles' father microwaving the baby imbuing Knuckles' egg with Chaos radiation, Knuckles' own Chaos energy grew until achieving the god-like Chaos Knuckles form, becoming closer to a living Chaos Emerald than an echidna. During his time as Chaos Knuckles, he was one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse if not the strongest outright, or at least stronger than Turbo Tails and Dimitri as the Enerjak. However, his grasp of his powers was questionable at best and uncontrollable at worst, which would eventually lead to his demise.

Strength

• Bops Tails on the head.
• Beats Turbo Tails unconscious in a short fight.

Speed

• Unleashes a blast of energy before Tails can react, though he wasn’t in control of his actions.
• Keeps up with Turbo Tails.

Durability

• Stands undamaged in an epicenter of an explosion that knocked out multiple people including a Roboticized Mobian.
• Endures being siphoned of his energy until Charmy and Saffron free him.
• Surprise attacked by Turbo Tails.
• Tanks blows from Turbo Tails.
• Makes the scenario of Angel Island crashing and/or blowing up from Chaos energy nonlethal by taking the brunt of it himself; also a Chaos Power feat.
• Undamaged from a shot to the head that would have killed base Knuckles.

Chaos Power

Offensive

• Paralyzes a Roboticized Mobian.
• A shout throws around everybody surrounding him and teleports them to various places across the world.
• Unleashes a “tidal wave” of energy.
• An energy blast goes straight through Angel Island with the debris knocking out Tails.
• An optic laser harms Turbo Tails.
• Shoots down a meteor that would have destroyed the city of Echidnaopolis.
• [Limit] Blows himself up and dies saving Dimitri and destroying Mogul’s Chaos Siphon, ascending to a higher plane of existence in the Chaos Force (temporarily).

Non-Offensive

• Warps through time and space on accident; later does so on purpose.
• Teleports through time and space to Dimitri’s ship which moves at Mach 5.
• Detects the death of two echidna who crashed into the ship he is on.
• Read someone’s mind, though at the time he wasn’t sure how to do so consciously.
• Sends a telepathic message and projection of himself to his father across the Floating Island.
• Stops his heart to play dead.
• Heals somebody from critical condition.

Reality Warping

• Unconsciously warps reality on a fundamental scale, changing reality to different versions of itself: First to one resembling the OVA, then a reality without the Dark Legion, then a reality resembling SatAM, then to a reality where Sally is dead, finally to reality as it once was. Notably, both Sonic and Sally had full awareness of the changes during the changes, and everyone else had full awareness only after the fact.
• [Limit] Can’t stop events that would be inevitable through multiple methods such as Echidnaopolis’ destruction or the failure of Dimitri’s plan in the past.
• Manipulates time on an island-wide level to restore Angel Island to its original state before its inhabitants were teleported to another Zone.
• Creates flowers.
• Ejects himself from the Chaos Force and revives himself, but loses access to his powers.
• In one version of the future, warps the entirety of Mobius to his whim.

Characters Used for Scaling (all pre-Super Genesis Wave):

• Dimitri the Echidna.
• Dr. Finitevus.
• Egg Beater, Respect Thread by Proletlariet.
• Enerjak (as Dimitri), Respect Thread by theusjshjdhdne.
• Espio the Chameleon.
• Metal Sonic.
• Mighty the Armadillo, Respect Thread by theusjshjdhdne.
• Sonic the Hedgehog, Respect Thread by 76SUP and Joshless.
• Thrash the Tasmanian Devil.
• Vector the Crocodile.
• Tails the Fox.

Seriously, I can’t count the number of people who say they would win in a street fight just because they’re big. I can guarantee you that 99% of these people would get their ass handed to them against a smaller guy who is highly trained in martial arts. Except for me. I’m literally built like a tank. I’m 5’10 and 200 pounds, ain’t no fucking way anyone can beat my ass in a street fight. I mean sure, they might win a boxing match or a BJJ match because of their skills, but in a real fight, you best believe your ass I’m picking them up and slamming them on the ground. I’m not one of those big guys who just hides behind a screen acting tough, I can actually back up my fighting skills. And for the record, I do have martial arts training. Although I don’t do it consistently, I will always remember the basics. Seriously, like, you really think you can pull a flying arm bar on me? That shit only works in the movies. I can literally throw you on the ground with one hand. I don’t give a fuck how much training you have, you’re smaller than me, and you aren’t beating my ass. The reason you see all those big guys losing street fights against small guys is because they are so slow and uncoordinated. But I’m not like that. My fighter instincts will kick in and nobody will be able to pull any of that fancy mortal kombat shit on me. I’m not saying martial arts are useless; they can definitely help you beat a bigger guy, but they won’t help you beat me. You’re better off running away like a little bitch to your mommy. That’s right, no amount of martial arts training can save you now. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.

Hello people,
I am currently playing a second time through the campaign on hard difficulty and since for my first go I got very frustrated from times to times and shared some (I think Helms Deep and Minas Tirith) in this sub and got questions I couldn't really answer since it was too long ago, I thought I recollect my impressions from my second playthrough as some things have changed (at least it feels like). In general: It got easier.
Moria: Very straight forward. Seperated hobbits and actual heroes into 2 groups and started clearing out goblins and skipping level ups. Once an actual hero got to lvl 2 I picked up a level-up getting them to lvl 3. Fittingly there are 5 hidden level ups and 5 actual heroes. So by the end of the level everyone who matters was lvl 3. Yes I hate the hobbits go sue me.
Lorien: Cloak the hobbits, proceed with heroes. Kill the Lumber mill in the bottom left corner, bring the hobbits. Enter Lorien and build 2 Archery Ranges. The hobbits are send to collect the treasure while everyone else is gathering at the north-western bridge. The hobbits naturally arrive at the norther bridge where they will cross and kill the lumber mill. Constantly produce elven archers and keep an eye on gimli, aragorn and boromir as they tend to get themselves isolated at the front without archer support. just get them back and heal if nessesary. between waves the hobbits go and kill the third lumber mill in the north and then run from chasing lumber jacks and orcs. Either kite them to your archers (go back around, don't try to get past a wave) or just enaugh so you can cloak them. once cloaked/save cloak them and forget about them. Southern bridge will be attacked next, so reposition to the south, after which reposition to the north. Freewin.
Rohan:
Your priorities should be: +Command, +Special, +Resources. Use the early missions, which are very easy, to max out on Rohirrim and get all upgrades asap. You should be able to train new units after every mission (as you get +command) which lets you recruit rohirrim archers and sell them at the main building to level your stables to get shields. At around Fangorn the missions will get more tricky as the enemy will have large numbers of spears with improved weapons. Don't charge them if possible. Kite them to a base with towers or just outrun them. You are usually not in a hurry. You are in a hurry tho in 2 missions where "Isengard will arrive in X minutes" - you don't want that. The army that arrives is strong and has wargs and spears which will decimate your Rohirrim. You want your Rohirrim to level from mission to mission as lvl 2 Rohirrim will not be sufficient.
Helms Deep:
There is no use in defending the lower Wall. I sell everything, archers and peasants in the main building and build Elves exclusively (unlucked once the elves arrive). Station them on the third ring at the very top. Leave all gates open, don't close them. Gather as much resources as possible while upgrading your elves with standards and fire arrows. Ignore improved weapons. Use the Rohirrim and Theoden and Eowyn to safe the peasents, let them gather the treasure and sell them. Defend the right gate on the 3rd wall with gimli, aragorn and boromir. Keep them close so they always have archer support.
The enemy will attack soon and flood the first wall (the one you're supposed to protect) but some of them will be diverted to the open gate. Your elves will kill a constant but slow stream of enemies as they trickle through. Close the lower gate from time to time to waste the enemies time as they will walk towards the ladders to climb them. Just open the gate again when rams arrive. The rams will walk through the opened gate and kill the farmsteads on the lower leve. Your archers will take care of them.
At some point ladders will gather up infront of the game unable to pass through. At that point keep the gate open at all times as ballistas will appear. They wont be able to get past the ladders and get stuck. Like this your losses are kept to a minum. From here on out it's basically just holding out. Once Eomer is ready to be called wait. Another wave will trigger shortly after. Once that has passed/reached your first gate call Eomer. Mount Gandalf and charge the first base with Eomers "For the King" ability. your losses will be minimal. After that turn around and charge whatever is left inside the keep and reunite with Theoden. Heal up on a well, maybe wait out another wave and then ride out. Eomers and Theodens abilities make your riders very tanky so you can charge the second base. After that's done retreat into the keep. No more waves will be spawned. Use your heroes to clear up the map like this you can level them up some more.
Isengard:
Became irrelevant, total cake walk. Before fire arrows where a real issue as they just DELETED ents so you had to cheese the Mission. But now, you are so strong no cheese needed. Defend the first attack, clear the goblins and the troll cave, build up ents. Walk around the base and bombard the urukhai pits and any fire-archer troops you can find while 2-3 ents defend while standing in the puddle outside the gate. Then just go in and kill everything. manouver burning ents into puddles and use heal at your own disgretion. Keep Treebeard alive and mount the Hobbits or cloak them.
Ithilien: Build only rangers and equip them with fire arrows. Try to keep everyone alive, you don't want to lose entire battalions. In the south there are a few rangers and a catapult. You can clear a big deal of the enemy camp on the middle plateau with that catapult. Aswell as the Oliphaunt in the top right corner. It will try to attack your catapult but the invisible wall makes it impossible. You can reach the Oliphaunt with your catapult from a cliff spot on the right side of the walkable map. Just area bombard where the oliphaunt stands it will return after charging you after each hit. Once that is done and the middle plateau is cleared position in front of the ramp and use the Terrain ability (that green circle where your units get boni) as close to the top right base as possible. This will trigger the orcs and trolls to attack you. Then proceed to bombard the bottom right base with your catapult and take it down with your rangers. Just take them to the topright base you cleared already and raze it to the ground. this should work ideally before mordor arrives so you can save most of your rangers.
After that you can pick missions again, and again: Command->Special->Resource.
Be careful in Dunharg, there are a lot of spears on that map and it is rather small. Striking fast is the key to victory although I lost some riders.
Osgiliath:
Then the defence of Osgiliath. This mission got a lot easier but is still tricky.
Right at the start move 2 catapults south aswell as the tower guard. Retreat with your rangers so they don't die to the attacking catapult (your otwer guard in the south will most likely be dead already). Build up the base in the south and kill the catapult with towerguard and your own catapults. Focus on Smithies only, build a well in the southern base. Man the towers with rangers and keep towerguard in defensive formation as a meatshield. Don't advance over the bridges. Maybe I got lucky but the Ai ignored the southern bridge from there on and only send waves down the middle and north. The north can easily be defended with 3 Ranger battalions and 1 towerguard.
From there on build your army up: A few tower guard are enaugh (I guess 6-8 batallions) rest Rangers. Get all upgrades from all buildings. Once your army is maxed call faramir, not earlier. You'll need the additional firepower. I used that time to upgrade the ithilien rangers that haven't been upgraded yet and leveled Faramir on the middle bridge to 5 for the +50% armor leadership bonus. I attacked the catapults one by one luring them into death while I also started building all towers in the southern base. Then I gathered everything except for 2 Ranger battalions and 1 Towerguard which stayed north and crossed the river. This will trigger nazgul to attack. Kill them asap. Establish a footholt on the other side and start taking down the base right across the river. Mount Faramir so he can dispatch any catapults quickly. Once that base is fully destroyed a large and very powerful (lvl 4+ Trolls, Oliphaunts and Orcs) will spawn. This is true for every base the enemy has. Therefor I gather all of my troops around the center of the base, once it's cleared I build a base of my own. the entrance will be to the southwest where I will build Towers at the entrance and on each spot while building a statue and a well in the back. The towers in the front will be cleared almost instantly, just rebuild them that gives your rangers till to kill anything that moves. Expect some heavy losses. Rebuild your army and kill everything but one small tower in the bottom right base. then go topside and do the same for the north base. Kill the manned towers with your catapults. Then kill both bases simultaneously and the mordor army will not spawn for base 2 and 3.
Kankra's Lair: Just walk around with Sam and kill all spiders. Don't free any soldiers. In the top left there is a troll which is too strong for Sam. So you let him throw rocks at it, until he is one hit away from death. use heal and wait until his health drops below half (after his health turns yellow one more hit) then activate the light. Once the troll flees just cloak. Wait for Sam to heal up and heal come off cooldown. Repeat this once and on your third fight with the troll sam should win. Proceed to clear everything with sam until you can only move south-east. Go and free all soldiers. Proceed with sam, kill spiders and free soldiers with soldiers. In the south there is a large arena. Gather all soldiers and tank Kankra with Sam. You will need to heal here so Sam doesn't die. Kankra runs and small spiders swarm. Your soldiers will take care of them. Kankra returns and who she focuses is random afaik so try to kite soldiers she targets away so your losses are not too big. After kankra is defeated clear the rest of the caves, gather treasure and free soldiers and gather at the exit. There is a small base in the bottom right corner guarded by some orcs. Kill them. Build the base and build 3 Smithies and a Farmstead where the Lumber Mill stood. Wait until your smithies reach Lvl 2 then research all upgrades. After the upgrades went through demolish 2 Smithies. Build an archery range and a barracks. Recruit 3 swordsmen battalions from the baracks so it reaches lvl 2. Take them and the rescued soldiers and let them die at the enemy base. They're all worthless. Recruit 12 batallions of Tower guard and 12 batallions of Archers. Fully upgrade them. Delete the archery range and build another Smithy. Throw your army against the enemy base. Once you breach the walls mordor will send a strong army so your first army is most likely lost. I managed to kill a lot by positioning towerguard wisely but in the end it wasn't enaugh. The army wont cross the bridge tho so you can just save up and build 12 Tower guard. Demolish the barracks and build an Archery Range. Build 12 Archer Battallions, full upgrade everyone. This force should be enaugh to overwhelm the defenders.
After that is Minas Tirith. That's where I am right now and I will update in the coming days once I complete it.
General: So far I feel like my troops survive more easily, the enemy armies aren't as punishing as before but I had to resort to cheesy strategies in Helms Deep and expect to cheese Minas Tirith aswell. This playthrough is therefor less challenging and usually I prefer more challenging games even or especiall when it frustrates me. But the changes just made me cheese less and restart less because I accidentally wiped 8 batallions of Rohirrim on a single urukhai spear batallion.
Mistakes I made so far: I didn't really level Gandalf in Fangorn or Helms Deep so I wont have access to lvl 10 in minas tirith. Wihch might be an issue.
I lost some Rohirrim in Dunharg which I couldn't really replenish.
(Maybe) bought the Rohirrim special power and am at 11 Special points with Anduril and Army of the dead missing.
Speaking of which: Special abilities, which I took and why:
Heal: Best ability in the game.
Bonus dmg for heroes: Worth the 1 point.
Gandalf the White: Grey is just useless.
Green-Land-Thingy: Handy in some missions.
Rohirrim: Helped me out at some later missions as fodder to throw into dangerous troops like spears and keep them occupied.
Anduril (not bought yet): Stronger Aragorn is always good, but it is a prereq for Army of the Dead.
Army of the Dead: Is good.
Eagles and Ents are not worth the points you can't use them in most missions. Elves were always underwhelming for me, they deal little to no damage, their range is kinda meh and their melee capabilities suck as in those missions you can use them the enemy has leveled and upgraded orcs/urukhai which delete the elves. Upgraded Peasents: The same reason I don't level Hobits. Sure you can take your time to do so but what's the point?