Baptism By Fire

This is a walkthrough guide for the Dread Saints daily mission Baptism By Fire and its three prequel missions.

Black Sails and Dread Saints
This mission chain is part of the Black Flags and Dread Saints story line that was added to the game in build 1.12 and begins with the "Gang Signals" mission in Bartica.

The "Baptism By Fire" chain is launched from Island Harbour, which is the unconquerable port just north of Orleans in the Lesser Antilles. "Baptism By Fire" is a repeatable group mission. The prequel missions are not repeatable and they do not need a group, but they're a lot easier if you have a small group to help.

When the Saints Go Marching In
The first mission in the chain is offered by the NPC Jordan Dexter, who is in Island Harbour just inside the town's front gate.

The first phase of the mission is a simple ship battle against three level 35-40 ships.

Objectives:
 * Defeat all Dread Saints and Lost Ironsides Ships (3)
 * Jordan Dexter must survive

After the pirates are defeated, a door opens on the shore and you are given a new objective: Investigate the Pirate Camp.

The mission now switches to AvCom and adds another objective: Defeat all pirates (28). The pirates come in groups of three to five. Also, Dex must survive.

Once the pirates are dead, you follow Dex to a beach and see a huge pirate armada descending on the helpless town. But you've got three whole missions to worry about that.

Wicked Communion
Dex sends you to the fort (accessed by the longboat) to warn the commander about the Armada. You arrive just in time, talk to Violet Staughton and volunteer yourself to defend her precious fortress.

Objectives:
 * Talk to the Commander
 * Violet Staughton must survive
 * Hold out until reinforcements arrive (5 min)

There's two ways you can defend the fort, either man the guns or fight them on the beaches.

There's two pairs of cannons that are gunning for the landing craft coming in. The boats take two hits to sink. If they reach shore they dump another wave of pirates on the beach. There's a friendly NPC manning each gun, but being NPCs they are plodding, inefficient, inept morons. They don't seem to be capable of loading and firing the guns fast enough to sink more than every third landing craft, when the timing is just right. You can pick up a cannonball, load a gun, and fire it much faster, stopping every landing craft on that approach. You can try to sync yourself with the two NPCs in the battery and get both guns firing at maximum rate.

Down on the beach there's a chaotic fight as masses of pirates engage masses of defending NPCs. The friendly NPCs get fresh reinforcements every so often but they will be overwhelmed if nobody does anything to stop the landing craft. You can help them on the beach, tossing in grenades and using other area-of-effect attacks, but it's easy to find yourself suddenly dead if you draw agro from ten pirates at once.

Either way, make sure the pirates don't make it up the stairs to where Violet is. At least not for five minutes.

Turnabout Is Fair Play
Use the "Return to the Fort" option from the longboat to go to Violet and collect your reward for "Communion" and get the missions "Baptism By Fire" and "Turnabout Is Fair Play." You can skip turnabout and come back to it later, especially if your group is in a hurry. This is the easiest of the three prequel missions.

Objectives:
 * Sink the Dread Saints fleet (6)
 * The Flagship must survive

Several NPC allies will help you put the pirates on the bottom. The Flagship - an Arcadia MC Xebec - will run for the shore and enter a cave. You follow. (There's no "cave" visible on the screen and you're not given a door, but when the Arcadia gets to where it's going it turns into a derelict and when you get within 150 yards you'll automatically get thrown into the cave for AvCom.)

Once inside the cave, you must interrogate and defeat the Dread Saints Prelate. After you talk to the prelate, his minions will come out of nowhere. Concentrate on defeating the prelate and then exiting before you get killed.

Baptism By Fire
The rule of the game is pretty simple here: Sink everything as quickly as possible.

Objectives:
 * Defend Island Harbour against the onslaught (20 min)
 * At least one village captain must survive
 * Sink the Dread Saints Raiders (10)

The rule of the game is pretty simple here - sink everything as quickly as possible. You need at least three ships here because the enemies come from three different spawn points and are heading for three different objectives: North Village (actually to the west), South Village (inconveniently dead upwind) and Island Harbour itself.

You must concentrate on the landing ships, which are marked by red arrows. These are ordinary level 35-40 frigates - Raa variants, Capricieauxs, Defiants, Myrmidons - not easy to sink. If the landing ships make it to their target you must follow them in and defend the village captain.

After the twenty minutes are up, several additional raider ships spawn. At this point you don't need to worry about the landing parties anymore. Sink ten raiders to complete the mission.

Rewards
Returning to the fort after completing "Baptism", you are likely offered two additional missions which you immediately turn in for extra cash and prizes. You collect commendations (two from Baptism, one each from the bonus rewards) which you can exchange for different ship and personal equipment items. All the items offered as rewards for "Communion" and "Turnabout" are available for three commendations. Several other powerful items are available for 25 commendations.