Usually you expect the first mission to be the easiest in the game. This one isn't. It's not terribly hard if you go at it right, but it isn't a walkover either. You certainly can lose men if you get careless.

Northern Norway, near the coast. Forested country, mildly hilly, with a patch of bad swamp. (Which, mysteriously, is not frozen.) Small wire-fenced compound in between the swamp and the sea. Night. Snow.

Make contact with the local Resistance representative. (Note that this is a mission requirement; it's entirely possible to complete the mission without his help, but you have to find him and follow him in order to get credit for mission completed.) Take over the compound and kill everybody inside, or immediately outside. Locate the entrance to the underground facility.

If you're going to try for the Back Door approach (see below) your primary viewpoint character should be the one holding the silenced Sten at the start. He should also have the wire cutters on his belt.

At the start you're all standing in the woods near the foot of a high hill, inland from the marsh. Up ahead is a small cabin with a couple of Germans in it. There are several more Germans in immediate area.

It is vital that no gunshots be heard during this part of the mission, if you want to use the Back Door method, because if there's even one bang your Faithful Native Guide will get pissy and refuse to show you the secret trail through the swamp. Instead he'll set you up for the Front Door attack, and you won't have anything to say about it. Let's understand that: once you fire a single non-silenced shot - or allow the enemy to do so - you no longer have the Back Door option. So if that's what you're trying to do, and somebody makes a bang, you'll have to restart.

It's possible to clean the Germans out of the area using silenced weapons. But it's risky (not to mention anachronistic) and unnecessary. There's no need to do anything to them at all.

Give the order to stay here, and to hold fire. Turn hard right and run over toward the mountainside nearby. Climb up it as far as the game will let you go - you'll hit one of those invisible walls - and then turn left and move along the mountainside, staying high up, until you pass behind the cabin. You can run, standing up; there's no need for stealth, you're too far away for them to hear you in this weather.

A little way beyond the cabin, pause and lie down (actually that's probably unnecessary, but it doesn't hurt to be careful) and watch as the two Germans come out of the cabin and walk off into the woods. Watch them till they're well and truly out of sight, and then get up and continue your traverse of the mountainside.

As you come around the shoulder you'll find a kind of ledge or trail you can follow. Just keep moving, checking the map occasionally to judge your progress. When you're a bit more than halfway between the cabin and the blue X mark on the map, you can work your way down to the foot of the mountain and proceed on through the woods. Stop before you reach the X point; if you see a man crouching under the trees up ahead, don't get close enough to trigger him.

Now go back and bring up your other men, one at a time, running them manually along the same route. Once they're all gathered together, you can take command again. Give the command Follow Me and then Fire On My Lead.

Move on toward the spot marked with the blue X. There you'll find Sygurd, your more or less faithful native guide, standing under a tree waving his arms at you. Walk up to him and wait while he gives you a lot of shit. Suppress the impulse to shoot him; if you do that it fails the mission.

When Sygurd is done ranting at you, he'll lead you toward the swamp. He'll tell you to follow him closely and he's not kidding. The swamp is very treacherous; if you wander off the trail you go under and die, kaploog. Walk behind Sygurd; keep your little crosshairs on his back - and your finger off the trigger - or, if you've got the graphics set all the way up, follow in his footprints. Your men should follow right behind you; you can only hope they do, because you've got no direct control over them at this point. They'll get excited as they see the lights of the compound, and call out enemy sightings, but you've got them in silent mode and under a hold-fire, so they won't do anything. Probably.

(Actually it's possible to cross the swamp without Sygurd; I've done it - you just have to proceed very slowly and cautiously, and use the map - but getting four guys across in that way without losing one, I don't know, it wouldn't be easy. Anyway following him is part of the mission requirements.)

You'll go up to a wooden walkway and a small island, and then your guide will turn and lead you across a narrow stretch to a steep bank next to the south side of the compound. He'll walk on up the bank and stand there talking, but ignore him; you've followed him long enough. As soon as you reach the foot of the bank, hang a sharp left and run, do not walk, along next to the very edge of the water. Don't even look in the direction of the compound, just haul ass along the foot of the bank, on past a low rocky bluff and clear to the foot of the steep snowy hillside. Run on up the bank, then, and turn and face back in the direction of the compound, and have the others do the same; and then give them Fire At Will.

Be sure and do that, and do it quickly, because at least one guard may come through the trees after you. There's a dog, too, that sometimes attacks on its own, and it's fast as the Devil and twice as mean.

Check now to see if all your men made it. It's very possible one may still be hanging around down by the foot of the bank; you may even have a nitwit hung up out in the middle of the swamp, in which case you're going to have an interesting time getting him out of there. Good luck.

Once you've got everybody together, and have dealt with any immediate attacks, you can move your shooters in the direction of the compound. There's a little hill that overlooks the southwest corner and gives a fine field of fire along both the south and the west sides of the compound. Set everybody up along there; make sure your Bren gunner has a clear field of fire. Your sniper, or rifleman, can pick off the man on the nearby roof, if somebody hasn't already shot him.

Now wait. With any luck more targets will show up. How many you'll get in this way, I can't tell you; it varies. Sometimes they come charging at you and can easily be shot down; other times they're more circumspect. But hang around there for a while, until you're sure there aren't going to be any more heroes or morons.

Now take your top rifleman, and one other man for cover, and swing around through the woods to the open area to the northwest of the compound, leaving the other two men in place. There's a low rise of ground, or maybe a snowbank, that overlooks the northwest corner and also the dock area. Check along the docks and you should find at least a couple of targets you can pick off. There may be others inside the compound.

When you start sniping the dock area, one or two men may come running around the southwest corner of the compound, and your men there can pick them off. Don't get in too much of a hurry; sometimes it's a minute or so before the attack materializes.

Once you're sure everything's quieted down, you can bring your other men up, after cautiously detouring down the hillside to scavenge for weapons. If you didn't bring Stens then you'll need to ghoul around for MP40s; you need firepower for the next bit.

Now go down and cut the wire near the fence corner. I always go through the fence on the outside of the main compound, but it doesn't really matter one way or the other; you can go through the northwest corner of the compound and out through the gate if you like.

There's a pile of big crates over by the edge of the dock area. Approach with care; there may be a man standing there hidden by the crates. Likely as not his back will be to you. Shoot him; he doesn't surrender. He'll have an MP40. Take it.

Now it's time for the final cleanup. I'd suggest saving at this point; it can get a little rough.

Cut wire again and move your men into the area to the northeast of the compound. Position everybody so that they can cover both the area around the main gate and the north side of the building. There's one place where they can do that, on a little rise of ground. Put the Bren gunner in the best position; he's the center of your fire base.

Out under the trees there's probably a sentry walking around; somebody go bust him, using the silencer if you've got one but if not, eh. Some guards may come running out the gate so be ready to nail them, if your Bren gunner doesn't get them first.

There's a spot next to a couple of big open windows, where a light is shining. Trouble may be about to come through those windows, so keep them covered. In fact from here on out it gets pretty unpredictable. At some point a couple of Germans may jump out through those side windows, and if they do your boys should get them; but this doesn't always happen. There are a couple of guards out in front of the main gate; you might get to pick them off, and then again they might come charging around at you. So don't rely too heavily on anything I say here; they have a way of rewriting the script.

If everything stays quiet, you can move cautiously through the woods to the northeast of the compound and see what you can see. Often there'll be a man out under the trees east of the main gate; he's not easy to spot so be careful. There may be a man walking along near the gate; he's easy meat for the sniper but watch out, sometimes shooting him will trigger a general attack by whatever Germans are left. If the dog hasn't shown up yet, this will probably be when it happens.

At some point the sniper needs to take out the machine gunner in the tower by the main gate. (The Bren gunner can do this as well.) There are several places from which this can be done.

WARNING: do not go up the road, or move very far to the east of the compound. There's a truck parked up the road, with some Germans. You can attack them and blow the truck up for extra credit, if you want, but save that for after you've cleared the compound.

There should be a man out in the woods to the east of the compound, between the swamp and the road. Somebody go find him and kill him.

If nothing else seems to be moving, take a couple of your best riflemen down to that building at the southwest corner, where you shot that guy off the roof. Climb them up the ladder and lay them down where they can cover the front of that building down at the western end of the compound, the one with the Kubelwagen parked in front. You can also bring the Bren gunner around too, if you like, and set him up where he can cover the door too. Now bring another man down around back of that same building, around the side and up toward the front but not around the corner. Just step up as if you're about to come around the corner toward the door, and the door should swing open. Jump back; there's a couple of Germans inside. Your riflemen across the way, on the roof, should get them both. Hope they do; if they miss one you'll have to go in after him and it's a scary business.

When you've killed the man inside the building, check the info sheet. You should have "Success" showing after "Kill the enemy." If not, wait a minute and try again; sometimes it takes a moment to register. If you still don't have credit for killing the bastards, then there's still one or more you've missed. You'll have to search and you better be careful.

The only remaining requirement is to group everybody at the entrance to the underground facility - why, I have no idea; it would make much more sense to deploy them around the compound in defensive positions - but before you do that, check out the warehouse building across from the parked Kubelwagen. Inside, way back in the far corner behind some big crates, is a supply box. Use it to stock up on ammo. Not that you'll need it in the next mission, but the one after that is pretty intense.

One more thing: hunt around and find an MP-40 and a supply of ammo, and let one of the men carry it. Doesn't matter who; this is for the next mission. Switch helmets with one of the stiffs, too; and take advantage of the opportunity to loot the bodies for anything that looks useful.

Now go find the entrance. It's over on the north side of the street; it's just an ordinary-looking door, with a light over it and a bunch of icicles hanging down. Bunch everybody up there and you should get Mission Completed.

This basically cuts out that silly business with the Mysterious Never-Freezing Swamp (a plus point if you find that sort of nonsense annoying) and commits you to a frontal attack. You might or might not find you like this method better; but in any case it's worth knowing that, in case you fail to maintain silence during the first part - maybe one of the guards gets off a shot before you nail him - you don't necessarily have to restart the mission.

If you're doing it this way, you don't need the silenced weapon - though you might still want it for the next mission - and you can substitute an ordinary iron-sighted Lee Enfield for the scoped Springfield. It seems a little pointless to be worrying about historic authenticity in a basically silly scenario like this, but what the hell. Up to you; I've done it both ways.

Begin, then, by taking out the two Germans in the cabin. This is pretty easy; give everybody Fire At Will, just in case, and then leave them there and run forward to the cabin and up against the near wall. Sometimes if you get there fast enough you can nail one of them through the window, but usually not.

Hunker up against the wall of the cabin and watch the corner by the porch. A rifle will come poking into sight, followed by a German. Shoot him through the head (just aim right above the rifle barrel and you'll be lined up when his head comes into view) and then wait for the other one to make the same ill-considered move. If #2 doesn't show up in a fairly short time, look in the window; sometimes he skulks around in there and you can shoot him complete with neato shattering-glass effects.

The most suitable weapon for this, if you're not worried about noise, is a regular Sten; a rifle is a bit slow. But I've done it with a .45 pistol. It's not as hard as it sounds; you just have to shoot fast when they show themselves, and give them a couple of rounds apiece. The range is short so they're easy to hit. Needless to say, if you've just got a pistol then the next thing you do is grab one of those Mausers and all the ammo you can score and throw the damn pistol away.

On one occasion I ran into a third guard inside the cabin, and several times a third bastard has come walking out of the woods after the other two got croaked; so be cautious going up to that door till you make sure there's nobody left in there.

Bring your men up now. Help yourself to one of the stiffs' rifles, and give the other to one of your men, if there's another one carrying a Sten; they're worth having in certain situations coming up, in which you want more range and accuracy than the Sten can deliver.

At this point you should have tripped Sygurd's trigger; in theory even a single unsilenced shot is enough to make him refuse to take you across the swamp. But there's some kind of glitch or bug in the game; sometimes even if you've fired off a whole clip taking out the ones in the cabin, he'll still say, "Excellent, nobody knows you're here," and lead you off toward the swamp

And understand this: if he takes you to the swamp, you have to go with him. If you just go off and leave him standing there at the edge of the swamp, you'll fail the mission. It won't say so at first, but after a few minutes you'll get a failure message. Once you've made contact with him, you're committed to whatever he decides to do.

So if you don't want to cross the swamp, you'll have to do some shooting, and nailing those two (or three) at the cabin doesn't always do the job. For insurance, to keep from having to restart, you need to whack a couple more.

Off to the northeast of the cabin there's a clearing with a crashed plane, and a couple of guards standing by a fire. Give your men Fire On My Lead. Work your way cautiously through the woods, staying low - in fact you'll need to crawl - till you can just see the fire. Bring up your Bren gunner and point him in the general direction of the fire, and move him closer till he announces that he sees them. Bring your best rifleman up alongside him. Station the fourth man on the right to cover against a flanking attack from that direction. Don't let anybody get too close to the fire yet.

Now look carefully off to your left, through the trees. There's a German walking around out there. He's not easy to see; watch for movement. You can move closer to him and bust him with the Sten, or just pick him off with one of the captured rifles. Be sure you get him, though, or he'll fire back and very likely hurt you or worse.

As soon as you fire, your rifleman should get one of the two by the fire. The other one may get away; let him. By now you've generated enough gunfire to get Sygurd's attention.

Bring everybody back to the house, in a defensive position just in case something comes out of the woods. When you're pretty sure nobody else is coming, head up the side of the mountain and, just as described in Back Door, above, work your way along it and then back down and on to Sygurd's position. There's only one German left in the woods that you really have to worry about - the others are too far off to be a problem - but he's a tough customer and hard to spot and it's better just to avoid contact with him. Bring the other men up one by one in the same way, take command again, and give them Follow Me.

Now go meet Syggy, and wait patiently while he whines about the racket, his family, etc. When he finally shuts up he'll lead you down to a road and across it. Follow Sygurd, staying a bit behind him and over to the right - up under the trees - until everybody is across the road, and then call Halt. Sygurd will stop and wait while you make a couple of changes.

Switch control to the Bren gunner and, in his person, give Follow Me and Fire On My Lead to the others. Move on up to join Sygurd and follow him cautiously until he finally stops and tells you this is as far as he goes. He'll say some more shit too, but you don't need to hear it. As soon as he says that back away from him, up underneath the trees, and lie down.

What you'll see, if you haven't seen it yet, will be a truck, with a couple of Germans straining to push it out of a ditch. Beyond that there's a pile of logs and, beyond that, an intersection with another road, though you probably won't be able to see that.

Blast the truck with the Bren until it explodes. The explosion should take out all the Germans, but your men can mop up any survivors.

Up at the intersection, beyond the pile of logs, there's a sandbagged machine gun emplacement. It should be empty; the gunner was helping push the truck, and got the usual payment for good deeds. But make sure before you proceed.

The road to the left goes down to the compound. The main thing you have to worry about at this point is the guard in the machine gun tower next to the main gate. It's possible to bring your sniper along by the road, on the left side, and have him get down and crawl, using the snowbank for cover, until he can pick off the machine gunner. However, this is pretty risky - if he doesn't get him on the first shot the machine gun will get him sure as hell.

Better not to come straight up the road. Instead, back in your regular character now, give Fire On My Lead and take everybody across the road, clear over to the foot of that snow-covered bluff, keeping your distance from the compound. Then work along by the foot of the bluff until you can take the compound under fire.

Deploy your men to the northeast of the compound, back in the trees - there's a little dip that gives them a bit of cover - where the Bren gunner has a good field of fire on the area around the front gate, and the others can give supporting fire. By this time your men will be announcing excitedly that they can see the enemy.

You'll probably spot at least one sentry walking around outside the fence, near the northeast corner. Shoot him, or try to. When you start shooting, your men should nail anywhere from one to three Germans by the front gate. The ones manning the gate are pretty easy to get.

But it's unlikely all the enemy inside the compound will come out at once. (Though it does happen, so be ready.) More likely things will get quiet for a little while.

At this point a rifleman can move in close to the northeast corner and try to shoot that bastard out of the machine gun tower. At that point a fresh attack will likely start, with more guards boiling out the gate and charging toward your position - and, if you've got a good man on that Bren, getting chopped down. (The dog is likely to be part of the attack; hope so, because if not you're liable to run into him somewhere else you won't have as good a chance.)

Somebody needs to cross the road and check the area between the road and the swamp, very cautiously; there's a good chance there'll be a German or two in there.

Now you can move cautiously across the area east of the compound, still staying under cover, and take out any remaining enemy that can be seen. Look through the wire, between the gate area and the transformer (or whatever that thing is at the corner); you might see some guards moving or standing around. Look for a light shining above a doorway; sometimes there's one or two standing by that.

In this initial assault, it's best not to try to micro-manage too much. Get your people into position and if you've picked good men they'll probably handle the job better than you could - for one thing the AIs can see a lot better in these conditions than you can.

When you're satisfied that you've cleared the eastern end of the compound, leave the Bren gunner in place just in case and move on down toward the dock area with the other men. Probably they'll get into a shootout with one or two guards there; let them. If not, or when the shooting stops, run down to the far corner where the fence reaches the bank, and cut the wire. Have a couple of men covering the dock area as you crawl through; there's a German who usually stands by that pile of crates but he may come out looking for trouble. Get down behind the crates and look off ahead, up by the far fence; there's another German there. He may already be dead; if not, make him so.

There may be another guard over by the dock gate, if your men haven't already got him. Pick him off and now you should have a clear run across the dock area to the far side, where you can cut another hole in the wire and run through into the woods and up behind the ridge. Go on around to where you can cover the southwest corner and shoot that son of a bitch off the roof. Move down a little way and you'll probably see another German lurking behind the same building. Bust him too.

Now, if you're reasonably sure you've cleared the compound, you can enter the compound and look for surviving guards, using the methods described above. From this point on it's the same no matter which method you used to get there.

Personally this is the approach I prefer; that whole business with the swamp is silly as hell anyway, and a straightforward assault isn't all that hard to bring off. But again, try it both ways. If nothing else it'll be excellent training for the missions ahead.

It's possible to combine the two approaches, though there's no real reason to do so other than shits and giggles. You can do the silent bit in the beginning, then send two men across the swamp with Syggy while the other two remain. Then you can set up an interesting two-pronged attack; there are various possible variations.

One thing you can't do, in case you were thinking about it, is to follow Sygurd across the swamp and then turn around and follow him back. If you do he'll start kvetching at you, getting more and more upset, and then he'll shut up and then you'll get MISSION FAILED. Don't ask me how I know this.