I like to start out as an Engineer in the Grand Bazaar mission map, equipped with mines and an RPG and the Explosive aspect. Since the armor on both sides usually makes a beeline for each other, I run alongside it and throw out all six of my mines, two near the flag and the other four on the road, then see if I can fire an RPG round or two to help the friendly armor blow up the opposition. I sometimes get blown up along with the AFV or shot down by accompanying assault troops, but usually I can get away with an easy initial kill or two, plus a vehicle disabled or destroyed.
If we’re doing okay, which means we have at least one of the two flags, I come back with Recon if we don’t have the Alleyway or Assault if we do. Assault lets me revive my fellow alleyway defenders while Recon lets me pick off the defenders as the young twitch guys go charging into the teeth of the enemy fire. The important lesson as a sniper is to not use a suppressor, as it reduces the damage you deal out while doing little to conceal your position. I increased my average mission kills by a full kill simply by ditching the suppressor.
Once the enemy gives up on the Alleyway, it’s time to switch back to Recon since the young guys are too impatient to sit around defending. This lets me pick off the solo guys who are trying to steal a seemingly undefended flag. If my side doesn’t get overwhelmed at the start, I can usually count on getting 5-7 sniper kills in the Alleyway alone. And it’s amusing when late in the mission, one of the mines set earlier takes out an AFV. The problem is that unless one Assault or Engineer sticks around to guard your sniping, eventually you’re going to miss someone sneaking into close combat range and getting you with an SMG.
Now that I’ve got access to some better equipment, like the optical sights in the tanks, I’ve steadily increased my expected k/d ratio, from around .25 at the start to 1.3+ now. Last night I even had a stellar 4.0 ratio, complete with a top score and Ace Squad ribbon. Now that I’ve got the Javelin, that should help with the helicopter hunting, and I’ve learned to stalk tanks with mines rather than RPGs.
I think my favorite kill thus far was this afternoon, in a close-fought mission that we ended up losing by just two tickets. After taking out a helicopter with my brand-new Javelin, I came back as an Engineer in the Russian deployment, but since there were no tanks I hopped in a jeep and tooled off down the road. I saw an enemy jeep was flying down the highway towards me and we hit each other with glancing blow. We both spun around facing each other about 50 meters away, almost as if we were jousting.
I hopped out of my jeep while he sped towards me, intending to run me over. I’m sure he thought I was going to try to pick him off before he could flatten me, but actually I had pulled out an AT mine. I threw it down and jumped off to the side as he hit it squarely for an instant kill and vehicle destruction. Highly satisfying.