What's an airport, again? Let's play Advance Wars!

OK, Sami it is. That's as good of a coin flip as any.

Drake’s on the agenda once more as we enter the final Green Earth mission. The self-proclaimed old sea dog has both a navy and a sizeable air defense force opposing us in this one. Let’s see if Sami can withstand Drake’s Tsunamis and get us out of this godforsaken country at last.

Eagle: I saw his face! That had to be Andy, but...

Sonja: Hello, Eagle.

Eagle: You... you're Sonja from Yellow Comet. What are you doing here?

Sonja: It wasn't Andy who attacked you. It was someone else.

Eagle: Do you know something about all of this?

Sonja: Yes, I do. I'll tell you who's pulling all of our strings if you'll follow me.

Eagle: But I...

Drake: I know what you're worried about. Go ahead and go with her.

Eagle: Are you sure it's OK?

Drake: I'll take care of Green Earth for you, don't worry. That's what shipmates are for, right?

Eagle: You have my gratitude, Drake.

Drake: I like the idea of getting a close look at the Orange Star Army. I'll meet you again later. Watch yourself, Eagle!

That would be “another” close look, Drake. You’ve had two of them already, remember? I wonder what Sonja has figured out...



Nell: Sami! Bugs! Do you read me?

Sami: What is it, Nell?

Nell: We have a problem. A recon force we sent into Green Earth has been ambushed!

Sami: So, we need to perform a rescue mission, correct? Understood.

Nell: That's right. Specifically, we need you to save this infantry unit.

Nell: Eight days, Sami! If you can protect if for eight days, we'll take over. I know you can handle it, Bugs.

Sami: You have a question, Bugs?

Let’s say no. We’re all business.

Sami: There’s nothing special about my behavior! Nothing at all!

Yeesh, defensive much? What if we had said yes?

Sami: My attitude towards Nell? What do you mean? It's not like I'm sucking up or anything. I'm just polite because she was ahead of me in school. That's all! Let's get back to the task at hand!

Well, that’s convincing!

Let’s take a look at the mission map. The infantry unit we’re tasked with protecting is the one on the eastern side of the map, besieged by anti-airs:



This’ll be a bit nerve-wracking. Looks like we’ll need to use one of our T copters to get our infantry out of there, as our B copters won’t be any help against those anti-airs. We’ll have to establish a beachhead in the northwest and hold out there until we can whittle Drake’s troops down enough to win or our eight days run out.

We could sneak a mech in a T copter to Drake’s HQ if we’re looking for extra style points; that would certainly be a shock to him. We’ll see how the battle develops.



Here are the ranges of the closest anti-air and Md tank that threaten our infantry. The anti-air threatens every space our infantry can move to, so it’ll hit it no matter what. The Md tank threatens all but two plains spaces. Our options are to move the infantry to one of those two plains spaces and eat only the anti-air attack, or move the infantry onto a mountain and eat both attacks with a better defensive boost.



We opt to move the infantry directly north onto one of those plains squares. I’m pretty sure even a Sami infantry on a mountain would fall easily to anti-air and Md tank attacks. As our infantry moves away from Drake’s ground forces, we lose sight of them.



Next on the agenda is to set up a T copter to pick up our soon-to-be-crippled infantry next turn and spirit it to safety. Check.



The rest of our northern troops run away from Drake’s anti-airs and prepare to defend the northwest island. They really don’t have any other options, as Drake’s anti-airs will one-shot any copter.



At sea, our cruisers really only have one mission: kill subs. With one exposed right in front of us, their task is straightforward, and they don’t waste any time.



We move up and dive our sub for vision, spotting an enemy cruiser. As if Drake didn’t have enough air defense already. We move our battleship east as well to provide fire support for our ground troops in the north.





We load most of our southern ground troops in our landers and ferry them across to the north, leaving behind just one mech. We’ve got the troops in the north now to hold out against Drake’s anti-air onslaught.



That lonely mech steps on a mountain to get a better view of the sea… and spots a battleship that has its sights trained on that mountain. Uh oh. We’ll send things over to Drake and see how much damage he can do.



Drake: Let's take stock: anti-air and md tank units on the ground... cruisers to prevent escape by transport copter... All right! Everything's shipshape. There's no escape for that unit! Time to make a big splash and give Eagle some cover.

And with that, Drake’s anti-air takes our mission-critical infantry down to 2 HP. No avoiding that.



And here’s where Drake ends up. He’s got three cruisers, though thankfully they didn’t find our sub in time to attack it. He’s also got a sub hidden where the cursor is in the left image. For some reason, his battleship didn’t bomb our mech, choosing instead to inch to the west. This is fine with us. On land, his forces have moved up a bit, but not enough to threaten our infantry’s escape.



We pull that infantry out of harm’s way, just in the nick of time. There’s pretty much no possible way to save this infantry without a T copter.



The rest of our ground troops in the north form a nice defensive formation, giving our rockets maximum access to the enemy. The mech is in the front so that Drake will attack it with an anti-air instead of a Md tank; the mech can take the hit and then we’ll be able to have our tank block off the choke point indefinitely.



At sea, our sub runs in terror from the enemy cruisers, preparing to attack the enemy battleship. In the process, it shows us the tail end of Drake’s army in the east: a couple infantry.



Our battleship starts working on the enemy cruiser armada. We’ll need to wipe them out to make the sea safe for our air units and sub.



Our own cruisers team up to reveal and wound the enemy sub. This puts them both in battleship range, but that sub needs to go so that our battleship can stay relevant.



Bad news: Drake’s Tsunami is ready. Attacking the cruiser and sub pushed his CO meter over the edge.

Here we are at the end of the turn, having pulled our B copters back to safety. We’ll have to whittle down Drake’s cruisers and/or anti-airs to make them relevant again.



This was not unexpected. 10% losses across the board!



Scratch one cruiser, as Drake shows his pearly whites and wipes it off the map with his battleship.



Our own battleship fares much better against Drake’s wounded sub, as attested to by Drake’s rictus.



That’s all the damage we take, as Drake’s ground forces have yet to make contact with our own and his cruisers, deprived of any visible and accessible targets, freeze.



Turnabout is fair play. I think Sami is overestimating her power just a tad, though.





With no enemy ground forces in sight, we’re free to turn our full attentions to the sea. Our sub does 3 damage to the enemy battleship (curse Drake’s naval defenses), our remaining cruiser finishes off Drake’s sub (ending its duties for the mission), our battleship takes a chunk out of the cruiser, and our rockets get in on the action, also taking a chunk out of a cruiser. This puts a major dent in Drake’s navy, and since his CO power is still active, it doesn’t even build his power meter any! A wildly successful turn.



Then I rethink my earlier strategy and put the tank at the choke point. OK. Let’s see if Drake’s finally ready to attack our island.



Drake’s battleship, still a force to be reckoned with, cripples our cruiser, reducing it to 2 HP.



An anti-air steps up to the plate and plinks away at our tank, knocking it down to 7 HP.



And one of Drake’s wounded cruisers limps up to our sub and takes it down to 6 HP.



The focus has shifted to the ground battle, as Drake has three anti-airs and a Md tank penned up behind our blockade. The sea battle is largely over; Drake’s battleship is the only unit that can affect the ground battle, and it can’t get in range without exposing itself to our own battleship.



This pair of attacks is a mistake. Our sub further wounds the enemy battleship, leaving itself vulnerable to attack and forcing our battleship to destroy one of the enemy cruisers to save it. The battleship is far enough south that it can’t really affect anything, and Drake’s cruisers are useless as long as we keep our sub and copters out of their range and/or sight; a better course of action would have been to move our sub away so nothing can fire on it, since it’s dived, and use our battleship to help out on the ground front.

But alas, we cannot.



The ground front goes more smoothly, as our rockets wound Drake’s Md tank and our tank cripples his lead anti-air. We end our turn there, bidding Drake to do his worst.



oh noooo

We’ve carelessly left a couple of vulnerable units too close to the front and paid dearly for it, as Drake’s battleship finishes off our cruiser and his hidden missiles wipe out a T copter. There’s really no excuse for either of those losses. We weren’t planning on doing anything the rest of the mission with either unit; they should have both been well away from the front.



A fresh anti-air pulls up and reduces our tank to 4 HP and a wounded cruiser pings our sub for 3 damage, concluding Drake’s turn. Good thing we left that sub down there, huh?



We finally do the smart thing and pull our sub out of there. We also duck our lonely mech into the forest just south, which will prevent the battleship from ever attacking it; if it’s close enough to see it, it’s too close to fire on it.



Our battleship and rockets start the fireworks on the ground, crippling a couple of anti-airs.



Our tank steps up to wound the final full-strength anti-air, also trapping it in its space. This also reveals Drake’s missiles, allowing one of our B copters to fly up and halve its HP.

Our other B copter comes up as well to weaken one of Drake’s anti-airs further. I’m not sure why it wouldn’t attack the Md tank to prevent our tank from dying; it probably wouldn’t have made enough difference anyway.



Here’s the scene as we end our turn. Despite the presence of the enemy Md tank, we’ve got the front well in hand because of our excellent indirect cover.



Second verse, same as the first.



Uh-oh. Even a half-strength missile unit is enough to take our B copter down to 2 HP.



This does not end well for our tank.



Lastly, Drake’s Md tank steps up and takes our lead mech down to 4 HP. Not a very good turn here; we could have done a lot better with better planning.



Might as well strike back with everything we’ve got.



Side note: our mech and the enemy battleship are now in an eternal stalemate in the south. Neither can attack the other.



Our trusty battleship starts things off by crippling the Md tank, and our 4 HP mech is enough to finish the job off. Hooray for Double Time!



Our 8 HP mech is able to cripple the healthiest enemy anti-air. Our rockets finish off the enemy missile truck. With the missiles down and all the anti-airs limping along, our B copters have free rein of the battlefield – as long as they don’t touch the sea and aggravate Drake’s last surviving cruiser.



The aforementioned B copters celebrate with a spate of plinking. Every little bit helps!



We charge ahead at full steam to set ourselves up for mop-up operations. Can we rout Drake before our 8 turns run out and the mission ends? I’ll spare the attack details, as none of them are exciting any longer:



Nope. We leave a 3 HP infantry and that pesky battleship alive. Still an excellent farewell to Green Earth for Sami and Orange Star.



Drake: Same old shanty! I just can't beat you guys.

Sami: So that's the reason...

What?

Anybody who can explain that exchange gets 25 LP points, redeemable from your friendly LP forum moderator! (hey, Falselogic, just make something up)

Another S rank for us as we steamroll Green Earth for the last time. The pointless losses of our cruiser and T copter kept us from getting a perfect S-rank, but we’ll take it.

This is an interesting mission at first, with a novel conceit – save the infantry – but it quickly becomes relatively boring. The lack of options compared to most of Advance Wars’ missions really stands out: you have to move the infantry north, rescue it with a T copter, defend the northwest island, etc., and the whole thing ends up feeling a little bit like it’s on rails. It’s one of my least favorite Advance Wars missions, mainly because it’s got such a unique premise, but that premise has such an easy and straightforward solution. There’s no room for different tactics or flair, and those are the things that make Advance Wars shine.

Anyway, we’re on to new frontiers next time, as we’ll face a mystery CO! We again get our choice of COs to command the Orange Star army, but the map is the same regardless of which one we pick. Here’s the map for the next mission:



Which CO will we use to fight this mystery enemy?



Altruistic Andy?



Mundane Max?



Or Sami the Daydreamer?

The choice is yours, as we enter Advance Wars’ endgame!

We haven't seen Max in a while.

Indeed. A new enemy demands nothing less than Max Force.

Also, waiting on you to get PvP going, Gerad. Any chance you (or anyone) have a list of COs, with their troop modifiers and powers?

Here's a good list. Lots of other great information at that site as well. Sadly, some of the big fansites (Advance Wars Net in particular) seem to have let their domain lapse.

I'll get you some screenshots showing map options tonight. You can pick the map and both COs if you want.

I think the fairest* option is to get someone else to decide our COs and map. Barring that, then I would lean toward both of us having equal footing with Andy, but that might be a tad uninteresting.

*in this context, means "not decided by either of us"

I'm wondering if it's possible to do that mission without the critical infantry being wounded. It looks like it might be possible to exploit bugs in the AI to keep it out of range for the first turn; you can use your B copters to block the anti-airs' movement, and although they'll die, if Drake moves his troops in the wrong order, he won't be able to reach the infantry afterwards, and I know that the AW1 AI is very bad at moving troops in the right order.

Meanwhile, in terms of your battles, AW1 isn't that balanced CO-wise, and is hard to find fair matchups in. I think there's consensus that Max is the best CO in AW1 by far for PvP play and thus should probably be avoided (and Sonja is easily the worst and should be avoided for the same reason). Other COs considered overpowered include Sami and Nell, although not to the same extent as Max.

Hardly anyone plays AW1 so it's hard to get good data, but Andy versus Olaf is probably reasonably balanced. Or any mirror match (not involving Sonja or Nell due to too much randomness). Beyond that, it's hard to find good matchups, although Drake versus Kanbei has been suggested as one that's probably not that far from balanced, and more interesting than Andy versus Olaf (although it'd depend a lot on how sea-based or air-based the map was).

Oh, I think it's easier than that if you're willing to sacrifice the B copters. Move the infantry 3N to start, wall it off from the west and south with the B copters, and nothing can attack it on the first turn; then spirit it away in a T copter and you're fine, even without worrying about move order (which is indeed screwed up; look at how Drake kept sending anti-airs against the chokepoint-holding tank even though his Md tank was in range and could have blown it away). I just didn't want to sacrifice the B copters.

Honestly, I'm not even that concerned with balance; I have way more experience than turtle and would be happy with the short end of the stick.

How about this, turtle: I'll pick a reasonably fair, interesting-looking map. You pick any CO for yourself and any CO but Sonja for me. We'll see how it shakes out.

Works for me. (For reference, I've made it to what I'm pretty sure is the final mission, the one where you've got three armies against Sturm. I could never succeed in that one, for some reason.)

...Let's say...I take Eagle and you take Max? Tried to get a pair that had decent ways of fighting each other, and I think that works out pretty well.

OK, though if you want to give me someone who ais didn't just say was the best CO in the game that'd be fine too!

Here's the map I picked out; Beaker River, from the game's set of Vs. Maps. I couldn't find any pre-deployed maps with air units.



Here's some in-game shots of the map, showing the left side. The right side is almost exactly symmetrical.





I'll PM you about the game soon, turtle. Everybody else, look for a write-up in the thread! And please vote for a CO for the next mission!

...Y'know, it would help if I hadn't had a four-hour delay in reading that and posting.

You get Kanbei, then.

I vote Max for the next campaign mission.

Apparently we're working on the World of Warcraft definition of "soon".

Goddamn, man, I'm at work.

It'll probably be sometime tomorrow.

...Whoops.

I keep forgetting that most people here don't have all that much free time. Sorry about that.

As we move out of Green Earth and into uncharted territory, oft-neglected Max gets another chance to shine. Will his brute force win the day over the unidentified opponent? And who is the opponent? Let’s find out!

Eagle: Who is that?

Sonja: Olaf's invasion of Orange Star is where all of this began. During the attack, Andy was seen leading sorties on several countries. You saw him yourself, didn't you? So... doesn't all this strike you as exceedingly odd?

Eagle: Well, now that you mention it...

Sonja: You see what I'm getting at? It would've been impossible for Orange Star to launch multiple offensives while trying to repel Olaf's attack. That's the anomaly I wanted to show you.

Eagle: Impossible! I'm getting angrier by the moment!

Sonja: It seems that our mystery foe has the ability to create human clones. I think it's safe to say that we've encountered several copies of Andy.

Eagle: Blast! This is terrible!

Sonja: I have some more stones to overturn, so I'll be going. What are your plans?

Eagle: I won't leave this madman on the loose! I'll find him and crush him!

Sonja: It's up to you then, Eagle! Hail the Prince of the Skies! Good luck!

I feel like “Hail the Prince of the Skies” would make a good fight song. Anyway, as the pre-mission chatter implies, Eagle will be joining us in this mission. It’s the first time we’ll have an allied army on the field! With our luck, Eagle’s going to show up with a squadron of cruisers or something…



Max: Eagle!

Eagle: Hm? Oh, it’s you, Max.

Max: These troops! Whose are they?

Eagle: Ah, yes. That’s a clone of Andy that our enigmatic foe somehow constructed. Starting with Green Earth, he’s attacked several countries, which prompted my actions toward you and your friends. My apologies.

Max: Forget about it! We should crush this guy first.

Eagle: I concur. The green units are mine! Let me handle all of the enemy air units. It’ll give you time to push straight ahead and storm the foe’s HQ.

Male bonding! All right. Nice to see that the other countries of Wars World are on our side now against this still-mysterious enemy.

Poor Andy’s clone saw battle duty before he did. It probably knows what an airport is, too.

Mission map!



We’d be well outnumbered if not for Eagle, but his air force should be able to take the enemy’s and soften up the enemy ground units as well. Given that, we should have plenty of firepower to surge up the left side and halt the enemy advance while running an infantry in our T copter to the enemy HQ for the capture. That’ll be our battle plan.

Eagle is AI-controlled and takes his turn after us, so we’ll have to hope he makes the right decisions. If we count on him to, say, bomb an enemy battleship, and he doesn’t, we could get burned badly. We’ll have to be a little bit careful of that.

It’s worth noting that our enemy, here, being neither Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, or Green Earth, has a new color and, with it, new unit designs. Though the game hasn’t mentioned it yet, this new army is called Black Hole, and their units and HQ tend to have outer space or otherwise futuristic themes; for example, their infantry have more-or-less astronaut helmets on.



The first order of business is to load up an infantry in our T copter and get it started toward the enemy HQ. It’ll make a beeline there, stopping only to stay out of range of any threats.



We next send our navy north, diving our sub to avoid retribution from that cruiser. Our battleship will be a big help in whittling down the enemy ground units if we can get it into a relevant position.



The rest of our ground units move up behind Eagle’s air force. Their only mission is to hold off the enemy ground forces. Let’s see what Eagle can do to help us out.

Eagle: I’ll make him suffer for opposing Eagle…





Eagle’s fighters go first, destroying the enemy bomber and two enemy fighters.





Eagle’s bombers go next, destroying the enemy artillery and crippling a cruiser and a battleship.

This isn’t a bad turn for Eagle, but it’s not a great one, either. His insistence on finishing off 4 HP fighters instead of damaging 10 HP ones is kind of a mixed bag, since Clone Andy will have Hyper Repair ready to go next turn (all that damage to expensive units adds up in a hurry). His bombers did fine, though; while I’d prefer he damaged another fighter rather than destroying one, we’re probably in OK shape.

Over to Clone Andy!

Andy: Maelstrom, come… all who oppose me…

Uhh…sure thing, buddy.



This is slightly more worrying. Also, apparently Clone Andy is also kind of a robot?





Clone Andy picks on Eagle exclusively, wiping out two of his three bombers and damaging one of his full-strength fighters. This is pretty much inevitable, and it’s better for Clone Andy to attack Eagle’s units than ours anyway, as our units count toward our Technique score but Eagle’s don’t.



We regain control with the picture in the north much more clear. Eagle has his Lightning Strike CO power ready to go, so he should easily be able to wipe out Clone Andy’s remaining fighters (excepting the one hiding offscreen, back behind the enemy HQ) and his bomber, so we can focus on eliminating the enemy ground forces.



Our sub can’t quite reach the enemy battleships, so it finishes off Clone Andy’s cruiser on its way there. That’ll help Eagle out a little bit.



Our battleship advances as far as possible without running into the range of the full-strength enemy battleship of the enemy rockets. Hopefully it’ll have some ground units in range next turn.



Our T copter continues its infiltration mission, again advancing as far as possible toward the enemy HQ. It’ll still be another couple turns before it can drop off the infantry in capturing range.



Our ground units set themselves up in a solid defensive formation, ready to repel the enemy invaders. All they need to do is hold out until our T copter can get its cargo to the enemy HQ.

The stage is set for Eagle to pull off his aerial blitzkrieg! C’mon, Eagle…



His first action is to finish off Clone Andy’s last bomber, which is nice if not critical.





He also takes down a fighter, wounds another, and finishes off the 3 HP enemy battleship. Not bad!

But that’s not all!



Eagle manages to take out the remaining enemy fighter in the west, injure the one lurking in the northeast…



…cripple the southernmost enemy fighter, and wound the last enemy battleship, all after his Lightning Strike. Very nice. The best part is that none of that damage goes toward Clone Andy’s power, since he used it last turn.



As for Clone Andy’s turn, he does manage to ping our T copter with his 1 HP fighter…



…but that and a tank attack on our mech are all he can do, and we’re left in very good shape.



We begin our turn by finishing off the remaining enemy battleship, clearing the way for ours to sail north and threaten all those juicy MD tanks.



Our battleship sails north, out of enemy sub range and threatening the enemy ground forces, and our T copter continues its inexorable advance. The last enemy fighter in the northeast is just out of range, and it’d take the 1 HP fighter another 9 turns to finish it off.



Our Md tank blocks up the land passage and destroys the encroaching tank in one fell swoop.



Our rockets make a mostly pointless attack on a hapless infantry. Oh well, what can you do when nothing else is in range?



We consolidate our troops and hand things over to Eagle, who is rapidly running out of targets for his fighter armada.



He attacks the fighter in the northeast, crippling it but not destroying it.



Well, that was a freebie. (This will also slow down Clone Andy’s sub’s pursuit, since it’s afraid to sail under a fighter’s shadow!)



The bomber does something too, I guess.



Clone Andy has another repair to use, and I guess our T copter wasn’t quite out of range. That’s OK; our T copter can take the hit and Eagle has that fighter well surrounded.



He also finishes off our infantry on the beach, but that’s all he can do. Don’t you wink at me, young man!



Our next turn dawns with us making a special delivery to the enemy HQ, unfortunately just inside rocket range. If Eagle can take out the rockets, that’ll put a two-turn clock on Clone Andy; otherwise, it’ll take us three turns to capture the HQ.



Our battleship finally enters the fray, taking a bite out of one of the enemy Md tanks, while our Md tank is limited to taking potshots at infantry.



Our infantry and rockets finish off the two enemy infantry. We end our turn there, poised to capture the enemy HQ while holding off the Md tanks in the west.



Eagle takes a lot of the remaining tension out of the mission by finishing off the last enemy fighter. His bomber starts in on the enemy rockets for good measure, but can’t finish it off.



Clone Andy hits our infantry with his rockets, reducing it to 6 HP. At this point, it’ll take our infantry four turns to capture the HQ; we’ll need to ferry another capturing unit over or go for the rout to win in a reasonable time.

Clone Andy’s Md tanks do some damage as well and his sub finally makes it up north to attack our battleship. Things are not nearly as rosy as they were a turn ago.



This should help. It’s been a long time since we’ve brought MAX FORCE to a potential problem.



Our sub cripples the enemy sub, and our rockets wound the foremost enemy Md tank.



We start capturing the enemy HQ and land a mech to help take out the enemy rockets. At this point, I think we’re likely to get the rout before the capture, so our mech might as well help with that.



Our battleship and rockets each hit enemy Md tanks, destroying one. We turn things over to Eagle once more.



Eagle finishes off that pesky rockets for us, which is nice, but we really would have preferred help with that last full-strength Md tank. Eagle’s fighters have nothing to do, of course, and it’s Clone Andy’s turn again…



…and he has another Hyper Repair ready. Of course.



His full-strength Md tank finishes off our poor T copter. Whoops, guess we should have cleared that out of the way.



Clone Andy’s other Md tank and sub also get shots in before we regain control.





Our sub, rockets, and Md tank quickly remedy that situation. All that’s left for Clone Andy is that last Md tank, which of course, we can do nothing about this turn. We continue capturing the HQ and leave the MD tank up to Eagle’s bomber.



It reacts appropriately, reducing that last Md tank to 1 HP.



On our turn, our battleship is in position to finish the job.



Eagle: We've won... for the time being.

Sami: Here they come again!

Max: Cripes! There's no end in sight!

Eagle: You don't have time to waste around here. Leave this to me and go!

Sami: I'm staying, too!

Eagle: No, Sami! You have to go as well!

Sami: No! Even you can't stand against this horde!

Eagle: You have no idea how powerful a foe awaits your friends. They can't face him alone! Go, Sami! Go!

Sami: I understand. Watch your back!

Eagle: Ha! They'll soon find Eagle's no easy prey!

Aw, Sami and Eagle.

We manage only an A rank on this mission, taking hits on both Speed and Power. Speed is very difficult in this mission; the capture is necessary in order to get the full Speed score, but Max and Andy have a very difficult time reaching the HQ in time. Sami, with +1 movement for her transport units and 150% capturing efficiency, has a much easier time. I don’t think I’ve ever S-ranked this mission without using Sami.

The Power score is also difficult, as Eagle steals many of the kills. Your Orange Star army needs to destroy three enemy units in one turn for the full score, and that’s difficult with relatively few high-powered units under your command. It certainly requires careful planning in advance.

This mission is one of my least favorite missions, as it just feels so gimmicky. It is nice to have an ally for once, but Eagle’s presence doesn’t really add any strategy to the mission; he’s got his air force that’s going to attack a bunch and you’re just kind of there watching. The strategic options available to Orange Star are also limited, as the only things you can really do are fight the ground war and rush an infantry to the HQ, and there’s no downside to doing both. Finally, Clone Andy is a boring opponent; you go from fighting Drake and Eagle, both of whom have specific strengths that need to be planned around, to fighting Clone Andy, who just repairs his units a lot. Fun.

That said, things will get better, as we’re about to be introduced to the final enemy CO of the Advance Wars campaign. Here’s the map for the next mission, noteworthy for being one of the few in the Advance Wars campaign to include deployment properties:



The map is the same regardless of who commands our troops, but we do get our choice of CO. So who will it be, Talking Time?



Aggrieved Andy?



Morose Max?



Or Sappy Sami?

I remember turning this into a tank-deploy-fest, so Max or Sami would be fine with me. Let's say Sami just because I rarely used her.

I agree with Max. It's time to bring it, where "it" means Max.

Andy

I actually remember this map. I remember not being able to expand land-ward for the longest time because I was using that bridge at the start as the best chokepoint.

Dunno how I managed the sea and air fronts.

(Also, Gerad, I didn't forget it was my turn. I'm just panicking strategizing, that's all.)

Max

ignore this text it is just to meet the 5 character limit on posts

Commander Midriff Sami! For Twue Wuv!

Oh wow, I thought I voted. MAX!

Max it is. Look for an update sometime this week.

Sorry once again for the massive wait between updates. This time, we’ve got a supplemental update on the docket -- we’re going to take a look at Advance Wars’ Advance Campaign. It’s quite different from the main campaign, both in terms of difficulty and objective. I’ll get back to the main campaign shortly!

We’ll be playing through Mission 1, It’s War, on the Advance Campaign. If you don’t remember It’s War, it was relatively easy as missions go: you could send your units north, east, or both and still come out fine. Now? Not so much. Here’s the mission map:



Right off the bat, we can see that we’re facing an uphill battle. The enemy has a similar force to ours -- plus three Md tanks, two rockets, and two anti-airs. A rout would be impossible here, and even the HQ capture is dodgy at best. The scoring criteria for the mission has changed accordingly: all that matters is how quickly we end the mission. We’re locked into full Power and Technique scores no matter what we do. This is typical of most Advance Campaign missions.

We’ll need to fight our way through the north to Olaf’s HQ, using our own units as disposable shields for an infantry-laden APC. Let’s get to it.



We’ll start by advancing our northern tank and attacking Olaf’s foremost tank. We’ll need to get first strike on the enemy troops as much as possible while still advancing to save time; this is a difficult balancing act.



We move up the rest of our units behind that tank, loading an infantry into our APC for the eventual capture. One turn in and we’re already butting against the range of a rocket unit we can do absolutely nothing about.



Olaf advances on his turn, wounding our lead artillery. Though our position already looks tenuous, we’ll need to keep advancing. Not only does it improve our score, it’ll stop his southern forces from catching us from behind.



We begin our turn on the offensive, using a mech to take out the enemy tank and wounding the enemy artillery with our own.



We finish off the enemy artillery with our lead tank and move our forces up further, being careful to keep our APC protected from all sides. Remember, the Advance Wars AI loves attacking APCs. We’ve even left an infantry in rocket range in order to do so…



…which turns out to be crucial, as the rocket can’t quite finish off our infantry and it valiantly sacrifices itself to Olaf’s anti-air to protect our APC.



At the end of Olaf’s turn, we’re surprisingly unscathed except for that one infantry. This won’t last long.



We move most of our units up, still defending our APC. One mech peels off at the rear of the group and dissuades one of the lagging enemy tanks from catching up any more.



That mech doesn’t last long.





The rest of Olaf’s turn sees him erode our forces, reducing our two artilleries to 1 HP each and wounding our recon. Importantly, though, his Md tank has advanced and no longer blocks the bridge to his HQ.



This provides us with a nice opening in which to move up our APC, drop off the infantry, and hit Olaf’s rockets. We’ll be ready to end the mission in two turns as long as we can stop our infantry from being hurt.



We bring up a tank to protect our infantry’s rear, leaving the rest of our units to twist in the wind.



And twist in the wind they do, being wiped out by Olaf’s forces. Up near his HQ, though, his Md tank unsuccessfully attacks our APC, and his rockets don’t fire at all. I’m not sure why; it might be because they’re repairing on a city, but there’s really no reason for them not to fire on our infantry.



We finish off the enemy rockets, begin capturing the HQ, wall off the Md tank from our capturing infantry, and that’s all she wrote.



Not even Olaf’s last-gasp Blizzard can stop us!



Our speed rating is the only thing that matters, and it’s good enough for an S-rank! Hooray!

As you can see, the Advance Campaign is a different beast entirely from the normal campaign. Normal campaign penalizes you for losing units, which leads to a slower, more cautious playstyle, while Advance Campaign requires you to sacrifice units in service of the one solution that gets your infantry to capture the enemy HQ before your entire army is ground into dust. It’s a much different game; Advance Campaign is like late-game chess, in which you’ll need to see several moves ahead in order to avoid falling into traps and failing your mission.

Keep in mind also that this is just the first mission in the Advance Campaign; believe you me, they get much harder than this.

Stay tuned for the next and penultimate normal campaign update, coming soon!

How long you gonna live us hanging Gerad?

I've had all the windows open for a week.

Guess now is as good a time as any to work on it!