Road Warriors: Bandit Apocalypse

Walkthrough
Kill Mad Mel, then talk to Claptrap to be allowed into New Haven.

Objectives

 * Mad Mel killed
 * Claptrap talked to


 * "You've decimated the bandit fleet in this area, and Mad Mel must respond or his men will take it as a sign of weakness. Seek him out in the Dahl Headland and end him. Be careful. He is a lethal weapon in any vehicle. After he's dead, you can continue on your way to New Haven. Talk to the Claptrap at the gate."

The Arena
Mad Mel leads the bandits who plague the Dahl Headlands and he must be killed in order to open the way to New Haven. He will be encountered driving a truck in an arena to the south-east of Lucky's Last Chance Watering Hole. A New-U station and a Catch-A-Ride terminal are located just outside of the arena, providing a quick re-entry to the fight if a character dies or a vehicle is destroyed. The New-U station may need to be approached in order to ensure that it turns green indicating that it is ready to spawn a "new you" should the need arise.

Like other arena missions, Mel's arena needs to be entered to get Mel and his minions to come out, so a character cannot just stand outside the arena and snipe at them from the outset. The first wave of enemies, including Out Riders and Psychos, will only spawn once a character has passed very close to the structure in the centre of the circular arena.

Entrance to the arena is via driving or walking over a ramp which is high enough off the ground at the top end that there is no immediate way back, however several methods of returning over the ramp are available. It is possible to leave an Outrunner's back wheels on the edge of the ramp and use the vehicle as a return ramp to jump on and back over, although this can be a difficult stunt to achieve at times. Another return method is to ease the front wheels over the top of the ramp and then the front of the vehicle will drop to a position just low enough to use the "Enter Vehicle" function from the floor of the arena. The vehicle can then usually be exited safely at the top of the ramp, although sometimes a switch to the gunnery seat might be needed first to avoid dropping back into the arena.

Mad Mel does not enter the fight until after at least one Out Rider has been destroyed. His truck is larger than the other vehicles in the arena and carries the rocket variant of a vehicular turret. As with the Out Riders, the truck will also achieve a near-instantaneous kill if it collides with a character, so fighting it as a pedestrian inside the arena is not recommended.

Strategy
thumb|right|300px|Video Walkthrough The primary strategy is to spawn a vehicle with a machine gun rather than a cannon since it is harder to hit moving vehicles with a cannon. Lock onto a vehicle and circle it with the gun trained on it and firing constantly. This is not as easy as it sounds because other vehicles will not only be giving return fire, but also ramming into other vehicles which can flip them upside-down. Although an Outrunner can be quickly flipped back onto its wheels even that length of exposure can be fatal. Mad Mel will eventually enter the fight after a vehicle has been destroyed, at which point the strategy of locking on and gunning while driving around in circles can be repeated on his truck.

If a character should die there is no requirement to re-enter the arena to complete the mission. Mel and his bandits can be killed from the relative safety of the ramp instead. He will continue firing at his attackers, but there is also room to retreat and regenerate a shield when it gets depleted. Soldier and Hunter characters will also find their action skills to be useful additions to toss in from the ramp.

Characters are easy targets on the ramp. If the difficulty of fighting on the ramp itself proves to be too great, then it is also possible to fire into the arena from on top of some pipes beyond the Catch-a-Ride terminal without sustaining heavy damage in the process.

Other Strategies:

This battle is extremely difficult when in the arena on foot and pedestrian combat is not recommended considering that obtaining a vehicle is quite easy. There are numerous enemies in the arena and any character struck by an Out Rider will be killed immediately. There are also launcher rounds being fired from the holes in the wall and they cannot be eliminated, so be careful of those as they will continue to fire, even on dismounted characters.

Should a character wind up on foot in the arena, survival might be achieved by staying on the run and avoiding enemy vehicles. Meanwhile, shoot Mel's truck at every opportunity. The spawns will stop after Mel is killed, so his truck will be a high priority.

A safer strategy is to trigger the encounter with Mad Mel and hop back over the ramp. To do this, leave an Outrunner as an exit at the ramp, spawn a second vehicle and use that to enter the arena and trip the enemy spawns. Once the far gates come down, and bandits start pouring into the arena, the vehicle left behind at the ramp can then be used to escape, allowing for a relatively safer engagement from outside of the arena.

The Out Riders and Mad Mel's vehicle are susceptible to Corrosive weapons. If your character has a Pestilent Defiler or another highly corrosive weapon with a high fire rate, it could be easier to defeat him with that than it would be with your vehicle.

It is recommended that the other vehicles aiding Mad Mel be taken out of the fight before taking on Mel himself. This is because they will be attacking you and flipping you quite often, making it very difficult to focus your fire.

One last tactic is to spawn a vehicle and drive up the ramp until the front wheels go over the lip (if you don't do this you cant aim low enough) and shoot at Mel. If he gets your vehicle down to low health, get out and spawn a new one. If you do this and get back quick enough he won't regenerate his health. Rinse and repeat and you should kill him.

Very Easy Strategy:

Just get into a car with rocket launcher and drive up into the arena. Clear out the first waves of enemies until Mad Mel joins the fight. Now just lock on to him and hold down your secondary fire button while driving along the periphery of the arena. By doing so it's very unlikely that you will get hit by enemy fire and it will also cause the AI to stay around the center of the arena, which will make them easier targets, though you don't have to care about accuracy - just try to outrun their rockets. Eventually you will wear down Mad Mel's health and can proceed.

Completion
After Mel is killed, a ramp will be added which allows for a return path back through the entry gate, and the gate on the opposite side will also open. Take that exit and take the right fork, then talk to the Claptrap there to get into New Haven.

Once in New Haven, Helena Pierce can be found in a building in the south-east corner of the settlement and will be waiting to offer the mission reward.


 * "Finally, payback against that Mad Mel! It's great to see someone with a brave heart willing to go out there and live dangerously. Well done! With Mad Mel no longer a concern, I will happily open the gate to New Haven for you."

Trivia

 * This mission is a nod to the Mad Max movies, which themselves feature a "road warrior" fighting against the injustices of numerous bandits. Although widely released simply under the title of "Mad Max 2" the first Mad Max sequel was also released in USA as "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior".
 * Note that the final quote above from Helena Pierce references three other Mel Gibson movies (Payback, Braveheart, The Year of Living Dangerously).