Glass Ceiling

Near the end of the first battle, the Comet's drive system failed for an unknown reason, so John decided to convert it to the Comet Bunker fixed artillery piece in the second battle. Paul gave John the reins of the Cromwell and he would operate the Comet Bunker. To keep the teams balanced, it was decided that the three artillery pieces would operate as an independent 3rd team, with only the Comet Bunker guarded by three soldiers. The mission would be to take the General's wife shopping. The mobile teams needed to pick up the General's wife in the center of the town and take her to one of the three barricades. Then, another vehicle would need to take her from there to the next barricade and so forth. After visiting the 3rd barricade (store), the team that successfully transported her from the 3rd store back to the central tower would win the mission points. Of course, the artillery were tasked with shooting anything that moved in or around the town to make things interesting for the other two teams.

The battle began with a little cat-and-mouse between the two mobile teams, where both were trying to figure out which artillery pieces and operators needed to be avoided. Team Tropic Thunder primarily focused on attacking the other tanks, while Team Cliffhanger focused on establishing and maintaining strategic positions on the field. April, Paul and Tracy were starting to show tight control over the town when one of the guns started mis-behaving. While Paul was scrambling to fix things, the mobile teams took advantage of the situation and the General's wife was picked up and taken to the first store.

After the artillery was once again working properly, the mobile teams darted around the town looking for an opportunity to dive in and pick up the General's wife, while avoiding paintballs from the other team. Furthermore, teams were moving snipers into position to take out the guards assigned to the Comet Bunker. After successfully killing off the three soldiers, the Comet Bunker went quiet for a while and Frank picked up the General's wife with his Tiger and raced out of town. Instead of delivering her immediately to the next store, he took her on a ride in the woods to confuse the opposing team.

Eventually, Frank brought the General's wife back into town and deposited her at the second store, just when most of the other team were heading back to home base. He was hoping to get Joe to make the 3rd leg of the trip with his Hetzer, then Frank would sweep in an finish the circuit taking her back to the central tower. Unfortunately, plans don't always go as expected. While Frank returned to home base to reload, Joe did indeed pick up the General's wife, but he mistakenly took her to the tower instead of the 3rd store. By the time the mistake was correct, Team Tropic Thunder basically had the Hetzer surrounded and it was destroyed just after delivering her to the 3rd store. Of course, by then the center of town was a virtual killing field, so everyone took off looking for cover.

After a few minutes, John grabbed the General's wife with the Cromwell and darted away quickly under fire. Knowing that only the last leg remained, both teams sent vehicles toward the Cromwell to either kill it or defend it. Joe's Hetzer started backing John and the Cromwell across the open field, while Will's SU-100 danced with Doug's Tiger and Frank's Tiger started to flank the Cromwell in an attempt to keep it out of town. Just then, John walked backwards into a rather large boulder and fell hard onto his back, while the Cromwell backed into the boulder and shut itself off. A timeout was called to ensure that John (and the Cromwell) was ok. When the battle resumed, shots started flying in all directions. Frank closed in on Will's SU100 along with Doug to kill off John's last defender, leaving Joe to keep pursuing John and the artillery to keep him out of town. At the moment that Frank and Doug finished off Will, John declared victory in town, having delivered the General's wife to the tower despite a hail storm of paintballs from all directions. In typical fashion, the Cromwell ran into the tower instead of stopping short of it ... seems like the Cromwell makes the driver, not the other way around.

Team Tropic Thunder won 5,000 mission points for delivering the General's wife and the second battle was over after almost 1 hour of battling.