DLC #111 - Battlefield 4 - Final Stand

This final expansion for Battlefield 4 adds yet another 4 new maps (which have a consistent winter theme), along with a host of new weapons, gadgets and vehicles.

There isn't a new game mode added this time round, but there are 5 new trophies to go after, which will prove for a challenging venture.

Killing an enemy in specified ways are the order of the day, and 2 of the 5 trophies in this package are awarded for obtaining environmental kills, using the icicle and titan engines on the Hangar 21 map to obtain a solitary kill.

There's also another 2 trophies awarded for obtaining a kill with an assortment of new offensive units, including the HT-95 Levkov, XD-1 Accipiter, Rorsch Mk-1 and the Schipunov 42 and playing on each of the 4 new maps at least once, but these are all worked into the new batch of assignments you'll need to complete in order to unlock the remaining trophy within this DLC;

King in the North - Complete all Final Stand Assignments

This is the third out of three packs which contains a trophy regarding completion of the newly added assignments within the package. Where China Rising and Dragon's Teeth had 10 assignments to complete for the respective trophies, Final Stand is 2 short of this with 8 to complete, but despite this, still contains a very challenging set of objectives, which are broken down below as was the same with the previous DLC packages.

Assignment 5 - Destroy 15 vehicles with the HT-95 Levkov

This objective within assignment 5 requires you to destroy 15 vehicles with the HT-95 Levkov, which is the newly added Hover Tank. Despite possessing a powerful single shot, it's slow to reload, and because of the fact it hovers, it moves quicker across the ground than most other types of tank, but can be also harder to control as a result. The slow rate of fire is the tricky part though, and most enemies will either evacuate the vehicle when it's close to being destroyed, or will end up beating you first with a vehicle or explosive device which can be used much quicker, both of which will deny you when it comes to accumulating kills. The good thing is, there seems to be a small grace period post-evacuation where you can destroy a vehicle and it will still count towards this trophy, so it's important to make sure you destroy a vehicle, even when it's been abandoned, just in case. This one is a slow burner either way though.

Assignment 6 - Destroy 10 vehicles with the Rorsch Mk-1

This objective within assignment 6 requires you to destroy 10 vehicles with the Rorsch Mk-1, which is the newly added Railgun, a long-range scoped weapon, which fires an electro-magnetic pulse of energy, always providing an insta-kill on impact of an enemy soldier. However, vehicles are a different story, but firstly, it's important to note that the Rorsch Mk-1 is not a traditional weapon equipped as part of a loadout. It's a battlefield pick-up, meaning it spawns at certain locations, only on the 4 maps contained within this DLC package, and if somebody else has picked it up before you, you'll have to wait for it to respawn, which can be frustrating if you're purely trying to complete this assignment. Secondly, despite being extremely powerful versus soldiers, it's considerably weaker against most vehicles. 

Against tanks, choppers or any other heavily armored vehicle, it deals anywhere between 10-20 damage per shot, and it also requires a manual reload after every single shot, so the fire rate of the weapon is extremely slow. It's common for the vehicle to either be evacuated or destroyed before you get any sort of killing blow yourself, so your best bet is to interrupt an assault on a vehicle and hope you're dealing a killing blow to it, which will take luck and subsequently alot of time to chip away towards the total of 10. It is effective against smaller, weaker vehicles such as the snowmobile and the XD-1 Accipiter, but the weapon also has roughly a 2-3 second wait from pressing the trigger, to releasing a shot, so you need to gauge the firing distance to meet your target, which is harder to do for the fast-moving vehicles such as these, so there really isn't a sure fire method to obtaining this assignment objective effectively. It's a sound enough tactic to observe firefights and jump in to steal a killing blow, but it will require some trial and error to accumulate 10 kills.

Assignment 8 - Win 10 rounds on Operation Whiteout
- Win 10 Rounds on Hammerhead
- Win 10 Rounds on Hangar 21
- Win 10 Rounds on Giants of Karelia

This assortment of objectives within assignment 8 requires you to win 10 rounds on each of the 4 new maps. At this point, it would normally be relevant to mention the other objective within the final assignment from previous DLC packs, which is to clock 10 hours playing on the new maps, but these objectives will see you eclipse way beyond 10 hours, making that objective irrelevant in this instance. There isn't really much to explain here, but simple maths allows us to come to the conclusion that you'll need to win a total of 40 matches. You can opt to play shorter game modes, such as deathmatches or small conquest, but it makes more sense to play longer game modes because you'll need the extra time to unlock other prior objectives and assignments, and because there are alot of vehicular-based objectives, you have to play certain games like conquest and rush to be able to use the full map and the wider range of different vehicles and weapon pick-ups which become unavailable in certain, smaller modes. This is certainly the most time consuming assignment within the DLC, and you'll also have to make additional time provisions for the inevitable defeats along the way.

This is just a shade less challenging than China Rising, which takes the crown for most difficult piece of Battlefield 4 DLC, but this isn't terribly far behind, and runs in at a very close second. It isn't exactly a photo finish, and China Rising is certainly tougher purely for the focus around the most difficult aspect of Battlefield, which is the air combat. However, there are some challenging assignments here, and and it's definitely the most time consuming expansion out of the five for this game, simply due to the fact you'll have to win 40 matches and master the majority of the new vehicles and battlefield pick-ups added to the game as part of this expansion. I would estimate the completion time for this DLC to be anywhere around the 25-30 hour mark.

The Battlefield 4 DLC was a step up from Battlefield 3, which also came up with it's own challenges along the way, but these assignments would test even the best Battlefield player, despite the fact that though 2 of the DLC packs don't even contain a trophy for completing all of the assignments. A proud 100% for anybody to have in their collection nonetheless.