[Commander Zane]

As did I, my latest playthrough played on Medium held significantly better results than my previous playthroughs on Very Easy (I skipped Easy).

[MatthTheGeek]

I confirm this mission is one of the harder ones in the whole campaign. However I never thought of Rockeye swarms for disarming the beam guns in this mission. It's probably the best way to go with it.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I usually unload a lot of Subach and Tempest fire into the Asar's Weapons subsystem. Works fine for me.

[General Battuta]

Won't affect its beams, though.

[Droid803]

There's no way this mission is as hard as A Game of TAG.
I always recall the Iceni gutting both the Mentu and the Sobek like they were nothing, and all I had to do was kill the bombers. I even got the Hinton out of my first run through.

[Vip]

As long as you take care of the bombers, the capships aren't that big of a problem... but the freaking asteroids are a pain in the neck.

[IceFire]

I used to write guides on how to beat missions but this isn't one that really came up that often as something I should write on.  It is a bit of a juggling act between the asteroids and the Vasudans and the difficulty ramps up quickly... but it's pretty much just a blast fest.

Key points are to eliminate Vasudan bombers (ignore the fighters except to kill an annoying one).  Knock out the heavy beam turrets on the Sobek that shows up.  Shoot at asteroids whenever you can.  Utilize your wingmen.  Tell them to focus on the beam turret subsystem and take it out quickly... then tell them to destroy bombers again.  Sometimes breaking them lose and telling them to attack all is better than guarding a target too.

I hope someone benefits from this... the mission is not impossible but it is a good tactical exercise in my mind because it forces you to multitask.

[IronForge]

Honestly I don't see what is so hard about this mission, I don't even remember it, and I remember those missions which threw lots of crap at me. This is a simple escort mission with a sobek thrown in. Whats so difficult about a sobek? Or maybe I was just lucky...

[Nuclear1]

Play it on Insane.

Trust me, you'll remember it.

[Commander Zane]

Honestly I don't see what is so hard about this mission, I don't even remember it, and I remember those missions which threw lots of crap at me. This is a simple escort mission with a sobek thrown in. Whats so difficult about a sobek? Or maybe I was just lucky...

Flying around its aft which has the majority of its anti-fighter coverage.

[Timerlane]

Wow, my account's still here after all this time.

(Speaking mostly from Hard mode, FTR:)

This mission(and on the flip side, 'The Sicilian Defense'; just shoot out the Vindicator's three port beams quickly, and watch the Hyksos pretty much finish the the mission by itself) is the reason I hate Sobeks that aren't on my side.

For me, it seems to depend on where the Asar jumps in relative to the Iceni. If the Asar ends up falling in behind the Iceni, it will nibble the Iceni to death if you don't intervene(and enjoy being a flak and AA beam pincushion if you do anything other than mass-spam Rockeyes at the cap beams from out of range). If it ends up to the front and/or above the Iceni, the Asar should die to the Iceni's beams just as the FSWiki walkthrough says. Rarely does the latter happen, though, at least, IME(I don't recall this mission being such a problem back when I used to play on Easy, but it was a while ago).

[Colonol Dekker]

What's the range on Rockeyes?
 
Has OP given up?

[Commander Zane]

1,900 meters?

[MatthTheGeek]

Utilize your wingmen.  Tell them to focus on the beam turret subsystem and take it out quickly... then tell them to destroy bombers again.

One of the main difficulties in this mission is that you CAN'T order your wingmen in this mission. Which makes them even more useless than they already are.

[Timerlane]

Well, there's always cheats, of course. Sobeks don't like it when a Herc suddenly starts waving around a pair of BFReds or MjolnirBeams. (Not that I don't recommend trying to finish missions straight, but when it's not really 'your fault' that things aren't coming together...)

Checking again, one of two main things usually happens:
The Asar pulls in right alongside the Iceni(slightly ahead), and does its best to give the Iceni a constant broadside with one of its VSlashes and as many of its AA beams as it can(including at least one of the rear AAs). In this state, it'll pretty much ignore you escorting the Iceni as long as you don't make too much of an obvious nuisance of yourself. On still rarer occasions, when it jumps into this position, it will snap off a quick VSlash at the Hinton and massacre it.

The Asar still appears to the side, but over or under the Iceni and loops around, eventually ending up behind. Obviously, if it's below, it's free to unleash everything on the hapless Iceni, which might get to fire off one or two BGreen shots at the beginning. In this state, its quite happy to skewer you with AA beams and flak if you try to attack it from within 1500m. I've only seen it go over the Iceni once that I recall, but I seem to remember finishing the mission that time.

[QuantumDelta]

thread makes me want to rant ... :<
only thing you have to do in this mission is knock out 2 beams and kill a few bombers.
Blow up some asteroids at the end if you're feeling generous, you can spend most of the rest of the time on x8 compression >.>

[Mongoose]

thread makes me want to rant ... :<
only thing you have to do in this mission is knock out 2 beams and kill a few bombers.
Blow up some asteroids at the end if you're feeling generous, you can spend most of the rest of the time on x8 compression >.>

Meaning no disrespect, but I'm not entirely sure that a player at your high skill level is entirely qualified to comment on the validity of the difficulty that a first-timer is having with the game. Hell, I don't think I ever attempted taking out the Sobek's beams myself.

[QuantumDelta]

If he was stuck on some missions like slaying the ravana, I'd understand though, but quitting the game because of this mission and his own refusal to reduce the difficulty seems a tad odd >.>;

It'd be nice if I could see him play it through, since I consider at least up to hard - this game completable by basically anyone with a little guidance.
Imma go try that mission on insane with Fury's special AI(*Read; He gave me a version with all the AI .tbl values on their highest possible settings) :<
Might make me think of some tactical ways to beat the mission, rather than snoozing it >.>
Realistically though I expect it'll just boil down to more of the same, rock spam the corvie and blow up some bombers :<

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Well, you should know better, having tested Fury's AI on Insane.

[headdie]

If he was stuck on some missions like slaying the ravana, I'd understand though, but quitting the game because of this mission and his own refusal to reduce the difficulty seems a tad odd >.>;

so what do you say to me who don't usually replay a campaign because I only play for the story.

to be honest i can understand why some ppl dont drop the difficulty and in this case i believe that doing so is an admission of defeat and would rather leave it and come back later than drop the difficulty