Lost Horizons

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The AAF take active measures to defeat FIA guerrillas. Mission Description

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Lost Horizons
Time	04:30 PM
Date	01-04-2034
Location	FOB Typhon, northern Altis, Republic of Altis and Stratis
Next	Salient Force

Lost Horizons is the first mission of ArmA 3's Altis Requiem mini-campaign.

Diary

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That pebble you gave me, on the beach near Edessa. You swore it could teach me everything worth learning in life. You said it was a perfect creature. Equal to itself, mindful of its limits. I remember you shrugging your shoulders, walking on, as I made a move to throw it back into the sea. Now I think I understand. Or at least, in part. The world will not change me. And things here? They demand a cold, resilient eye. Someone must bear witness. The violence, it's born of frustration. Our forces scour the forests and mountains, finding nothing. We are like an army, marching out against the wind - a great colossus, punching air. I don't see a war, not really. I see acts of madness. Meaningless dead, young martyrs; black with blood and white with lime, rolled on boot heels into early graves. Our enemy have a cause, while we have only orders. It seems in a clenched fist, your pebble's warmth is false. And I am glad. K.

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Overview

This is a premium mission that requires ownership of the Tanks DLC.

The player controls AAF tank commander Captain Kyros Kalogeros. Six months have passed since the siege of Oreokastro ended in victory for the AAF. However, in spite of their success, the government has begun to face backlash from the populace, and the FIA insurgents have drastically grown in strength and popularity with the people.

For Capt. Kalogeros, his only priority was to continue counterinsurgency patrols and running deliveries for spare parts. April 1st was to be the start of yet another routine day at FOB Typhon...

Kalogeros' role/class:

• Armour / Crewman

Default loadout:

• Primary weapon: Mk20C (5× magazines)
  • No attachments fitted
• Secondary weapon: None
• Equipment: Rangefinder, Smoke Shell (Green) (2×)
• Backpack: Field Pack (Olive)

There are no alternate pieces of equipment to choose from.

Objectives

Primary

• (1) Toolkit
• (2) Get in Nyx
• (3) Checkpoint Sigma
• (4) Search the Forest
• (5) Observation Post Omega
• (6) Return to Base
• (7) Clear the Village

Optional

• (8) Depot

Mandatory

• Kyros must survive
• Obey your commander's orders
• Your light tank must not become immobilised
• Do not harm any civilians in the AO
• Avoid collateral damage/friendly fire
• Do not leave the AO

Walkthrough

Primary 1: Toolkit

Collect the toolkit from the armoury. It's placed atop the crate inside of the portable building (look for a trooper standing next to the door).

Primary 2: Get in Nyx

Hop inside the commander's seat of the light tank next to the helipad. Your driver, Corporal Gekas, will already be seated in the driver's seat. Don't forget that you can swap to the driver position if you don't want to deal with Kyros repeatedly spamming FORWARD, RIGHT, LEFT, BACKWARDS commands.

Primary 3: Checkpoint Sigma

Drive straight to CP Sigma. Stick to the roads and watch out for oncoming traffic.

Dismount upon arrival and speak to Sergeant Kazan (the trooper sitting at the table).

Primary 4: Search the Forest

NOTE:

• Be careful when moving towards the forest from the west. A five-man squad of FIA insurgents will be patrolling in a line at grid 133-221.
• Although none of the insurgents wield anti-tank weapons, their grenade launchers can potentially damage your turret or tear apart one of the slat cages if you aren't careful.

You will be told to search the surrounding area for suspicious activity. However, you don't have to actually check each location manually; just ignore the marked locations and head straight for the marker at grid 139-223.

You should see a house with a canvas tent cover with a wooden bench and ATV parked outside it. Once you get to it, park the tankette nearby and dismount. Enter the house on foot and you'll stumble into an old man who will surrender; DO NOT kill him. Wait for Kyros to report his finding back to Pantheon.

Primary 5: Observation Post Omega

Head straight to OP Omega. Try to avoid crashing into trees and rocks along the way as your tankette doesn't handle collision damage very well.

Get out of the tankette once you get close to the fortifications and investigate the officer's corpse. The objective will be cancelled after Kyros sends a report to Pantheon.

Primary 6: Return to Base

You'll be told to head back to FOB Typhon. After driving for a short distance, this objective will also be cancelled and you'll be ordered to divert south towards the village of Ifestiona.

Primary 7: Clear the Village

You will need to eliminate the the deserters from OP Omega hiding in Ifestiona. Callsign Hermes and a rifle squad, callsign Apollo, will be available to assist you in the operation.

However, before you can even get to the village, you will need to take care of the two five-man insurgent squads patrolling along a horizontal line between the following grid coordinates:

• First squad: 122-207 and 127-207
• Second squad: 128-205 and 132-202

Prioritise killing these insurgent squads first as they have anti-armour launchers that can one-shot your tankette. Focus on the AT insurgents first then kill off the grenadiers (you can ignore the autoriflemen and other guerillas that don't wield dangerous weapons).

Be sure to take out these two first or you will have a rough time clearing the village.

After clearing out those two squads, you can begin focusing on the village itself. Your threats consist of the twelve AAF deserters, one of whom will hop into the HMG-armed pickup truck at 129-194, and two more who will man another with a recoilless rifle fitted in the back. And as always, you will need to be careful to not to kill any civilians inside the village.

Firstly, you should prioritise the recoilless rifle truck and any AT launcher-armed insurgents. A burst of 12.7 mm rounds is sufficient to kill the crew and knock out the vehicle's engine, so don't even bother wasting time with your FireFIST ATGMs. Secondly, take out the HMG truck as soon as you can as well, otherwise it will tear through Apollo's troopers and potentially disable Hermes' light tank as well.

One decent location to set up a firing position on is on top of hill 106 at grid 121-202. From this location, you can effectively "snipe" the insurgents inside Ifestiona without having to risk getting hit by their anti-tank launchers, then call in Apollo and Hermes to finish off the remaining hostiles.

Alternately, you can move in closer at the same time with both supports and have Cpl. Gekas take the commander position. Drive forward slowly and take cover behind buildings and large rocks to dodge grenades. Let him rip with the tankette's 12.7 mm HMG.

Either way, regardless of your choices the objective (and mission) will end once you have killed off all twelve of the deserters.

Optional 8: Depot

Should you run out of ordnance or get severely damaged and/or run low on fuel at any point in the mission, you can return to FOB Typhon for a full repair, rearm, and refuelling.

Tips

• Remember: even though the AWC Nyx is classified as a "tank", it is extremely fragile and its armour plating will not do much to safeguard Kyros or Gekas against damage from crashes, heavy calibre weapons, or explosives.
  • Consider it to be a glorified (and slightly up-armoured) Offroad with anti-tank missiles. Keep this in mind and adjust your playstyle accordingly; if you do so, you shouldn't too much trouble with the mission.
• When attacking Ifestiona, you can simply snipe insurgents from a distance using the Nyx tankette's 12.7 mm HMG. It can reliably hit the insurgents from well over 1,500 metres away, so you will be safely outside of the engagement range of the insurgents' anti-armour launchers.
• If you are aiming to get the campaign's good ending and therefore unlock the No Requiem achievement, this is the first mission where your actions will determine the outcome:
  • The most relevant section is during the final assault on Ifestiona. Be very careful when shooting at targets inside the village as it's easy to mistakenly shoot civilians instead of insurgents while the gun camera's thermal vision mode is activated.
  • If you have ENEMY TAGS enabled in your difficulty settings, you can spam the REVEAL TARGET action (Hotkey: T) to force Kyros to call out the target's affiliation if they are indeed the enemy.
  • If you are playing on a higher difficulty setting or don't have tags enabled, consider switching back to day vision momentarily before firing at your target.
  • Just remember that tags for civilians will never appear on the screen. Enemies on the other hand, will always appear with red Unknown tags initially until Kyros confirms their identity and unit type.
  • Watch out when using FireFIST ATGMs. Missing your shot and destroying a civilian house or vehicle will count against you, which can potentially cause the objective to instantly fail.

Trivia

• Lost Horizons marks the first official campaign mission in ArmA 3 where the main protagonist is neither a civilian nor a character from a BLUFOR/BLUFOR-aligned faction.
  • This obviously does not include Lieutenant Kostas Dimitriou from Remnants of War as the latter is not the campaign's main protagonist.
• If the player does not board the Nyx at the start of the mission after some time, Pantheon will tell Kyros where it is located exactly and mockingly urge him to find it without resorting to his map.
• Should the player's vehicle get trapped or immobilised somehow (i.e. ran out of fuel, critically damaged, flipped over due to speed/terrain), Kyros will utter a unique line of dialogue for each type of event.
• The outcome and dialogue at the end of the mission will differ depending on Kyros' actions throughout the mission:
  • Whether or not he correctly (or incorrectly) identifies that the armed men were just civilian hunters and were not insurgents
  • If civilians were caught up in the crossfire when the attack on Ifestiona begins
  • If Hermes and Apollo take casualties or are completely wiped out in the final assault
  • If Kyros clears the village of insurgents without calling for support from Hermes and Apollo
• On the drive to OP Omega, Kyros strangely states that Altis has not had an earthquake in "[...] Five, six years, maybe" when the seismic tremors occur.
  • This is woefully inconsistent with the events of the Prologue campaign (2034) which happens just one year prior to the start of Lost Horizons (2035). The third mission of the Prologue (Diplomatic Relations) specifically has an earthquake take place when the player is driving to their destination.
  • It is unclear if this is a case of developer oversight, and that the campaign's writers simply forgot about the year in which the Prologue takes place.