Description
You are doing your duty of patroling the area near the Antares Jump Node and a repair station when you are ambushed. This mission is better then my first one, A LOT!!

Storyline:
Well, I must say this: Ambush and No Place to Run has the worst briefing I've seen in a long time. It tells you that you will be patrolling a sector, and you will be ambushed by a a small force. However, simply by looking at the mission objectives, you can see that of the 8 primary objectives, 6 are to destroy a wing. That says a lot. There is, apparently, a small cargo depot, where a Cain class cruiser is taking on supplies. This cruiser will show up as friendly because "its weapons are disarmed". So? Why not have it be hostile but capturable? While capturing the Cain and the cargo is only given a passing reference in the briefing, both are actually primary objectives. There is really no story.

Balance:
While all weapons and ships are available, you can only equip 2 of the 3 wings you start with. This amount of available firepower was a lifesaver, as the default config actually gives your ships Avengers, when there are enough Prometheuses to equip both wings. Also, including at least 4 Hercules in your command is a must, because in just a few minutes after starting the mission, 18 assorted Shivan fighters warp in, trapping your 12-fighter command in a huge circle. The firepower of a Hercules is needed the whole time. While the mission is well-balanced, careful arrangement of the weapons available is a necessity.

Design:
This is a very simple-minded mission. There are 2 waves of 18 fighters apiece, and with the second wave comes reinforcements in the form of 4 Vasudan fighters, Guardier Wing. I know what you're thinking - "Guardier wing?????". Yup. What, may I ask, is a "guardier"? The naming of wings gets worse. The Shivan forces include Kill Bot, Hammer Bot, and Smash Bot wings. I don't know why he picked those names. If the designer wanted to avoid the standard names for Shivan wings, couldn't he have found something better than Kill Bot? Also, the player can call in the ships to capture the cruiser and cargo boxes as reinforcements. This is a nice touch, allowing the player to choose when to try to complete the two non-combat objectives. But why use an Omega transport to capture a Cain? Didn't the GTA learn with the Tyrranis that Chronos freighters are needed to tow cruisers around? In one of the most annoying touches I've ever seen, when one of the ships captures something, it doesn't so much as send a message to you - the only sign you get that the Omega made it out with the Cain in tow is that you get a "Primary Objective complete" popup. But of course, since killing all fighters is also a primary objective, you can't tell at a glance which happened. Last but not least, the designer made this mission absolutely impossible to believe by including this message when Guardier wing arrives to help out - "This is Guardier Wing. We have decided to help you with the ambush". Excuse me? You decided to help me? Whatever happened to orders? Wouldn't some Vasudan officer have said, "We need to help the Terrans with their mission"?

Gameplay:
Actually, not too bad. The Shivan fighters warp in in a circle, completely enclosing your command. This provides for a fantastic effect, when you see that you have to fight your way out of the numerically superior Shivans' trap. Since the transport and freighters are never in any real danger, this mission is basically a straight-up mass dogfight... and it's a blast. Normally I don't really like pure dogfighting, but Ambush includes so many fighters on both sides that there are explosions everywhere. Missiles fly around, and you're never sure where they're headed. your wingmen are carved up by Shivans, even as you desperately try to get a lock with your Hornets. There are simply so many fighters that you always have to fight. In most missions, when there are only one or two enemy fighters left, your wingmen can mop them up. In Ambush, by the time there are only one or two Scorpions left, only one or two of your wingmen are still flying, and just when you think that the Basilisk is going to punch through your shields and let loose his missiles, the Leviathan fires a Fusion Mortar that shatters the fragile Shivan craft. It's not quite as fun as, say, Order of the Eye or Word Goes Out, but Ambush has good replay value - just by shifting your weapons loadout, it becomes an entirely new mission, and I've been playing it for a while without it becoming old news.

Other Thoughts:
There's no depth to Ambush, and the briefing and messages ruin the plot, but the fighting is a blast. If you just want a huge fighter battle, this is the place to go. With a few adjustments, this mission could be great.No depth or story, and hard to believe, but more laser-blastin' fun than the Battle of Endor.