Sick of fighting in the streets? No Campaign Ops, Evaluation or Teleportation NPC access got you down? Here's how to fix your problem. Be warned: it requires more effort and coordination and less cry-baby antics about how SE is so unfair to you.
I was a part of the interdiction force that took back Meriphataud Mountains last week, and I learned a lot from the stalwarts that I fought with. I have only done this once however, so this guide is by no means general or comprehensive, I will add information as it comes in from the community. I believe, however, that it contains all the information and strategy you need to take back any Beastman controlled area with a balanced group of 12-18 people.
There are three keys to victory:
1. (VITAL) Stop the NPCs which replenish Beastman Fortifications (Repair Squads).
2. Stop the NPCs which replenish the Beastmen Resources (Transporters/Guards).
3. Kill Campaign mobs and win Campaign Battles that occur.
Let's go through these in order maggots.
Break Fortifications and Keep them Broken
This is likely the single most important aspect. It must occur, or you will lose. Each Beastman army has troops that appear in groups of 3-5 and replenish/repair the fortifications. The Yagudo have "Divine Pilgrims" Orcs have "Clan Bear Fighters" and Quadavs have "Bo'Dho Shieldwarriors." These repair squads run to the outpost, repair instantly (?) and then warp away. Kill every repair squad and the fortifications will never regenerate.
These attacks are announced, just like any troop dispatch. Learn the route the repair squad takes, position your strike force to intercept and annihilate them. If even one of the squad breaks through your line, it will warp away and the Beastmen will get a large increase in their Fortifications. You must slay them utterly. This will require enough people with enough sense to take down up to 5 Campaign level mobs simultaneously. They are as tough, but no tougher than, any Beastman grunt unit.
You receive no XP for the dirty work of killing "engineer" units unless you have allied tags on, since they are Campaign mobs. Tough.
However, if you want to get XP and break down fortifications then do "Slaughterhouse." The "Slaughterhouse" series of Campaign Ops is tremendously effective at dropping the fortification value of a Beastmen held area. Each run knocks the Fortification rating down by 2, and can be completed in just a few minutes. It generally takes 6 players several minutes to lower the fort value of an area even one point when in a campaign battle. Even a small group of players can PT up each other and run a dozen of these back to back. You can also "share" this Op with others in your PT and thus get lots of XP while breaking down fortifications. (the exact details of XP sharing are unknown, see also this thread.) This is a great way to spend the minutes of down-time between campaign battles!
Cut of Beastman Resource Supply Routes
In each area, there are [Beastman] Transporters and Guards which should be intercepted and killed. They come unannounced in the log, and must be stopped. Doing so fulfills the "Search and Seizure" Campaign Ops, so feel free to sign up for it as you do this.
Transporter/Guard behavior is very different than that of the Pilgrims. You only need to kill the Transporter to succeed. Once the Transporter is down, the Guards will warp out, but only if they have no enmity against any player.
These Beastmen are aggressive, and if any one of the mobs in the Transporter/Guard train agros a player- they begin to run at flee speed to the outpost. (The Yagudo version are sight agro, I do not know about Orcs or Quadav). You must therefore ambush the Transporter/Guard train.
Lay in wait with a point man out front who will wait for visual on the train (alternately, rely on widescan). As the Transporter passes pull it without getting spotted/agroed and kill it quickly. It is far less powerful than a standard campaign mob (an unresisted AMII will take 80%+ of its life). Have a rear-guard with a fast pulling move that will wait behind everyone else in case the train spots your ambush and makes a break for it.
If you are doing the Campaign Ops there will be a ??? where the Transporter died to turn in to your Quartermaster. Quartermasters are present in the cities even during Campaign battles.
Win Campaign Battles/Kill Campaign Mobs/Beat some Forts
Little known fact: killing campaign mobs even when there is not a battle occurring will lower Beastman influence and raise Nation influence. You get no XP for the fights however, since you won't have allied tags. Tough. SE should make a Campign Ops which awards XP for this kind of guerrilla attack while a battle is not on.
Whenever you have downtime and a unit is defending the area, skirmish with them and pick of as many as you can. Fight it just like you would a campaign battle and make the best of it. Even when there is not a battle actively occurring Beastmen forces will "return victorious" or "suffer defeat." That's right: you can make a Beastman force retreat from and area and suffer a campaign battle loss, even if there is no campaign battle occurring!
When a battle does occur, fight! You must fight smart, but you all know the basic here. Just be very careful and coordinated in your attacks. Avoid the mob tactics of usual campaign battles and party up, get a puller/tank/healer and make it happen. You should be a balanced alliance anyway, so this should be no problem, right?
Be absolutely sure you do not let Pilgrims or Transporters slip through while you are fighting a major Beastman force. Vigilantly track the updates in the log to see when Pilgrims are dispatched, Transporters and Guards come unannounced but 1-2 skilled players (esp BLU, BLM, RDM) can stop them alone.
Other Stuff
Do this when it counts. Start Saturday evening/night sometime and pummel the Beastmen just before the JP midnight update (occurs Sunday morning US time). Get some caffeine, and warm up your JP phrase-book. This happens during JP primetime, but it's going to be a long road in the middle of the night for an NA player.
On Fairy, where this occurred, people had been "non-campaign fighting" the Beastmen all week, and so our influence was high when we started late NA Saturday night, however, the Beastman influence was dropping about 5-10% an hour with this kind of coordinated assault. Fortifications were down from ~220 to ~120 in 3-5 hours. I'm guessing that 10-12 hours of this will take back any area, regardless of its starting condition. It may be necessary to prep the area the day and night before to get Altana nations' influence high enough, just in case you don't get enough troops out to raise influence during the final push night.
Do this in an area where other players can realize what is going on and come assist. I recommend starter zone or zones with an [S] tele-crystal. Send recruiters back to main cities to get fresh blood with /shouts. Use auto-translate.
Tell your nation to focus on attacking and pre-emptive strikes. Tell them to send the best generals. Recruit freelances during the week. I don't know if this helps, but it might get more NPCs out to the front to assist you when battles occur, and NPC reinforcements are vital to low-man Campaign Battle victories.
Closing Remarks: This is Really Fun
Follow this strategy and you will slowly strangle the Beastmen out of an area by lowering their influence, fortifications and resources, while never allowing them to replenish. You need to be one part siege, one part guerrilla assault and all teeth.
I have a brand new baby and so I could not stay at the front all Saturday night, I wish I could have. Slamming the Beastmen and slowly grinding back an area with a pick-up alliance of ~17 Japanese and NA/EU players was one of the most fun things I have ever done in the game. As people realized what was occurring on /cmap, more and more trickled in. We cheered every time our little alliance saw a Yagudo unit retreat and we had a great time taking out Pilgrims with impunity. Watching your work slowly cut of the Beastman influence and restore your Nation's influence for the good of the server is a total head-rush. This was a truly awesome time and would make a fabulous LS event. This may be one of your only chances to fight back from such a total Beastman domination. You will surely meet and bond with a lot of cool people as you try to fight back the Beastmen.
I'M SICK OF YOUR WHINING! GET OUT TO THE FRONT AND TAKE BACK GROUND. LESS QQ! MORE PEWPEW!
Edit: 3-5 repair squad info, names for diff armies per posted info
Edit: Added Slaughterhouse info
Edited, Aug 10th 2008 7:26pm by Kiyokatsu