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

I'm really looking forward to seeing the campaign.

As compared to say Fire Emblem, the field training felt like a slog and it still does even in screenshots. I guess in FE games, there's some kind of story and character building hapening that help break things up, but I'm really not an authority on those games...

I'm looking forward to seeing the missions where you build an army. I think I probably did not make the best decisions on those kinds of missions.

Wow, that's terrible. I'm looking forward to playing it less and less.

You're in luck today, then!

Welcome back to Let’s Play Advance Wars!

It’s been a while (probably shouldn’t have run a mafia game right in the middle of this), but I’m done procrastinating and it’s time to get back on track. This time, we’ll meet a new foe! Let’s get started.



Olaf: Grit! Grit! Where's Grit?

Grit: Easy there! I heard you the first time, O bearded one.

Olaf: Bearded one? Why you...

Grit: A slip of the tongue. My apologies, commander.

Olaf: Enough! Just get ready to move out! Now, listen. Orange Star forces
have been deployed where I anticipated. Their commanding officer is
an untested youngster, but he's not alone. He's working with an
advisor, Bugs. So don't let your guard down! Our contingent in the
area has some indirect combat units for you to use. Now get going,
Mr. Sharpshooter!

Grit: What? You want me to go personally? Like, in person?

Olaf: Why you lazy, no-good... What do you think a commanding officer does?
If you don't get moving...

Grit: All right. Keep your beard on. I don't much like the idea, but I'm
going.

Olaf: Gone at last... He's an impudent rogue, but he's also the best
marksman I've ever seen. Those Orange Star fools will never know what
hit them. Perfect! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

---

Andy : Ok! Here I go!

“Keep your beard on.” *snrk*



Once again, we’ve only got one option for a battle to fight here, and we’ll be taking on Blue Moon’s Grit. Here’s our battlefield:



It looks like we’re hopelessly outnumbered here, but we’ve got an ace up our sleeve: the two new properties near our HQ are bases. Bases can create one ground unit of any type per turn as long as you have enough funds to pay for it. Notice that Grit has no bases; given enough time, we’ll easily be able to amass enough of a force to brute-force our way to a victory here. This mission is actually much more difficult to lose than the first one, even if you don’t really know what you’re doing. What is difficult is building up your army quickly enough to penetrate Grit’s base in time to get a good speed score, and that’s the major challenge here.

This is the first time that we’re not up against Olaf! Let’s take a look at our new opponent, Grit:



Description: Distance weapons have an extended attack range. However, direct combat
units are weak.

Power: SNIPE ATTACK. Increases the range and firepower of distance weapons.

Flavor: Laid-back style masks dependability. A peerless marksman.
[^_^ Hit] Cats
[-_- Miss] Rats
"What's the ruckus?"

Grit here is kind of a gunfighter, as shown by that revolver he’s got and the mission title, but he’s also got some stereotypical cowboy in him. Grit is quite laconic and often seems lazy, but behind that laid-back veneer (ignore that haunted look he's got in the above picture; that's actually very unlike him) is a sharp intellect and a strong sense of honor. In many ways, Grit is the opposite of his comrade Olaf. The two of them will often get into little arguments with each other, and most of the time, you can tell that Grit’s just pulling Olaf’s strings.

Grit is the first of several COs we’ll see that lends himself to a particular playstyle. Grit’s indirect units do more damage than Andy’s or Olaf’s; this is balanced by his non-infantry direct units doing less damage than Andy’s or Olaf’s. Grit’s also got one additional advantage that helps to make him one of the better COs in the game:



Grit’s indirect units have 1 more range than everyone else’s, which is a major advantage. Grit is especially intimidating when he has choke points to defend, which (of course) he’s got here. We’ll have our work cut out for us in driving into his base in a timely manner.



Back to the mission: Grit’s tank’s attack range marks the area we’ll want to stop most of our units short of. While we could move our tank into it without much to fear due to Grit’s weakness with direct units, we’ll leave it back so as to lure Grit’s tank as far into our range is necessary. Once the tank is out of the way, we’ll edge forward while staying out of Grit’s indirects’ range, building up for a final push into Grit’s territory. We’ll almost certainly take some hits during this final push with all the firepower Grit has.

We’ll also be sending infantry into the northwest region throughout the mission to capture those cities. The more properties we hold, the more income we receive, and the more units we can build for the main war effort.



We start by setting up our tank and artillery to take out Grit’s tank and moving an infantry north. The other infantry will wait to take the neutral city east of our tank once Grit’s tank is out of the picture. Now, to build some units.



Selecting one of our bases gives us this informative menu, showing all of the units we can build, how much they cost, and detailed information on whichever one we have highlighted. We receive 1000 G each turn for each property we own; right now, we own 8, so we have 8000 G to play around with.



We build a tank for the eastern front and an infantry to venture north across the river. We’ve used all our money here, but it’s often a good idea to save some up; if we hadn’t bought anything this turn, for example, we’d be able to buy a Md Tank next turn. Of course, that Md Tank would arrive at the front later than the tank we just built will. It’s interesting tradeoffs like this that give Advance Wars its surprising depth.



Grit: Possum spit! This area wasn't Blue Moon's to begin with. Blue Moon is
just plain greedy. That's what it is. Fightin' for these folks just
don't sit well with me. Well, I'll guess I'll just mosey on out and
see what happens.

Here’s Grit’s honor showing. Unlike Olaf, who’s all about the ends justifying the means, Grit shows some concern for the repercussions of his actions on the people of the land. The game’s story being what it is, this isn’t a major factor in the campaign, but it is nice to get some characterization differentiating the different COs like this.

On his turn, Grit moves his tank up to meet our forces and shuffles some of his other units around. His indirect units continue to lie in wait.



Our artillery and tank waste no time in taking out Grit’s tank, opening the way east and gaining our troops a respite from immediate threats.



Now that the tank is out of the way, our infantry moves up to start capturing the neutral city.



Our infantry begin the northern assault. This will continue throughout the mission. It’s not a terribly exciting front.



We move our second tank and APC up and build a recon and another infantry. I have high hopes for this recon; I’m hoping that its combination of great movement and good attack against indirects will ease our entry into Grit’s base; we’ll see.

On his second turn, Grit advances a tank, recon, and artillery in the east, looking to contest the southeastern region.



We start our turn by finishing the capture and continuing our northern aggression, meeting little resistance so far.



In the east, we move our units up as much as possible while avoiding indirect range. Missions against Grit often end up with large troop buildups like this one; advancing your units one by one into his range doesn’t end well.



In missions with properties that can deploy units, the status menu allows you to plan ahead and figure out how much you can spend while still being able to afford a certain unit on the next turn. Here, we want to buy a Md tank next turn for 16000 G; we have 11000 G on hand and an income of 9000 G. We can spend up to 4000 G this turn and still afford that Md tank.



Armed with that knowledge, we purchase a sole infantry for the northern front and end our turn.



Grit gets chippy on his turn and attacks our recon with his. The relative ineffectiveness of that attack demonstrates his weak direct units; Olaf would have ended that attack with a 9-6 or 8-6 advantage. The disadvantage isn’t enormous, but it adds up.



Other than that attack, Grit doesn’t do much. If he’s depending on that recon to hold the line he’s got another think coming.



We lead off with more hot infantry action in the north…



…then blast that recon to shreds with our artillery.



We also take out one of Grit’s artillery with a slightly suicidal attack. We will either lose our recon or get our tank crippled as a result of this attack, but you’ve got to put some units in danger to make progress against Grit.



We move the rest of our units up and see that Grit’s tank can also reach many of our units. The APC is intended to be a lure here to save our other units from being damaged; that’s pretty much its only purpose here as a rout will be at least as fast as an HQ capture.

Back at our bases, we purchase that Md tank we saved up for and another infantry.



Grit reacts as expected; his artillery blows away our recon and his tank pounds our APC. This is a decent result for us, though, as another of Grit’s indirects is now in range.



We sneak a quick peek at Grit’s CO description to see how close his power is to activating. Thankfully (believe me, you’ll see), it’s not. We can afford to do some damage to him this turn.



infantry infantry infantry



Let’s bring some more firepower up to the front lines, shall we?

Our tanks in the east decide that tank poses too much of a threat to leave alone and take it out, leaving the artillery for later. We build another tank and end our turn there. This proves to be a mistake…



…as Grit retreats the artillery across the river, and it’s now covered by his rockets. We’ll be reduced to jockeying for position this turn.



And so we do, staying out of Grit’s indirects’ range. Next turn we’ll invade his territory.



Our infantry don’t have much to do, either.



Thankfully, Grit doesn’t have much to do either, though retreating his artillery even further will make our job tougher. Coward!



We can only reach one of Grit’s indirects here, but we make it count, crippling one of his rockets.



We move the rest of our units up as much as we can, keeping our artillery and APC well out of indirect range.





In the northwest, our infantry horde is finally wiping out the opposition. We leave a couple infantry just outside of rocket range to maybe draw some fire away from our main force.

On his turn, Grit’s got his power, Snipe Attack, ready to go. This is bad news for us.









Grit wipes out two of our tanks and one of the infantry over in the northwest. Grit’s Snipe Attack does two things: it makes his indirect units much more powerful, and it increases their range by 2 squares, turning them into far-reaching engines of destruction.



Our Md tank, thankfully unscathed by Grit’s indirect barrage, weakens Grit’s Md tank. We begin to move the rest of our units up, keeping the pressure on Grit.



In the northwest, we move our infantry up to prepare to attack Grit’s last mech. We also move one infantry into normal rocket range; any attacks it draws will be incredibly valuable to the war effort.



Here’s Grit’s ranges while his power is still active. They’re terrifying. Next turn, they’ll shrink back to their originally bloated state, which will give us some relief.



To conclude our turn, we move our APC, infantry, and artillery up to the bridge. The plan is for the infantry and APC to bait Grit’s Md tank into attacking them so our artillery can take it out and free up our Md tank to wreck an indirect.



Grit’s indirects bomb our infantry in the northeast, taking it down to 1 and then destroying it. This leaves our APC open to attack…



…and Grit’s tank blows through our APC, letting the Md tank slam our artillery. Oops. The good news is that all that damage we took has gotten our power ready; we use it. It may not be the ideal time, but at least we can get that artillery doing more damage.





We exact our revenge, taking big chunks out of Grit’s tank, rockets, and artillery. Now the only thing we’ve really got to worry about is his Md tank.

We move up a bunch of those tanks we’ve been churning out for backup. At this point, none of the units we’re creating will arrive anywhere in time to matter, but we’re still building two every turn to help with our Technique score. If you recall, technique is based on units lost divided by units created, so it’s always worthwhile to pump up that denominator as much as possible when victory is assured.



Our infantry begin to work on Grit’s last unit in the northwest. One more turn should do it. We’ll leave an infantry in rocket range just in case.



Grit makes a few attacks on his turn; his rockets tickle our infantry, his tank grinds itself against our tank, and his Md tank cripples our artillery. At this point, it’s all a matter of whether our tank reserve has enough movement to finish the job next turn.



The first order of business is finishing off the northwest front; that’s easy enough.



Next is the main front. We start by unblocking with our Md tank.



One of our tanks rushes through to finish off the eastern rockets, and our wounded tank finishes off the western rockets.



Another tank manages to reach and destroy Grit’s artillery, but we can’t reach his tank to polish it off. We’re forced to delay and finish it off next turn with our now-overwhelming tank brigade.



Another S-rank, though our speed and technique ranking take tiny hits. Almost perfect.

Grit: Hey there, Junior! And what was your partner's name again? Bugs?

Andy: Stop calling me Junior! I have a name! It's Andy!

Grit: Well now! That's the spirit! Y'all are new to the Orange Star Army,
right?

Andy: Yeah, so? Hey! How'd you know that?

Grit: Well now, that's 'cause I'm Grit! I was beholden to Orange Star not
too long ago, myself. So, I'm pretty familiar with most of the
military types. Well, y'all beat me this time. Who knows, maybe we'll
see each other on the flip side. So long, Bugs! You too, Junior!

Andy: ....Stop calling me Junior!

Oh, Andy. Never change.

This ex-Orange Star bit for Grit is something that hangs around in the story, but never really gets fleshed out. It would be nice to see some more development on that front, but given the game’s lack of focus on story, it’s good at least that they’re giving us some background to think about.



We’re an Opal Rat now! L-lucky!

I hope the delay between last update and this one hasn’t put too many of you off – things are going to keep humming right along, and the plot’s only starting to thicken! See you next time! Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can think of to vote on, but we’ll have choices a-plenty soon.



Next Time: A Challenger Approaches! (Or: Yeah, Good Luck Winning This On Your First Try!)

Good stuff! I would sneak in quick sessions during bathroom breaks at work back in the day (Shh, don't tell nobody okay? Okay!).

I've forgotten just how bright and colorful the game is, which belies the fact that people are getting blown up. I prefer pretending that everyone is in fact okay, with pilots and passengers bailing out at the last minute and infantry and mechs stubbing their toes or something and sitting thing out.

I never did take a shine to on-demand CO Powers. I'd either forget to use it entirely or hoard it too long, and being on the receiving end can be frustrating. This is why I prefer the gameplay of Days of Ruin, but I sure do enjoy the quirky characters of the original.

It's made quite clear (by dialogue, if nothing else) that it's possible for a unit to be reduced to 0HP while none of the actual soldiers in it die, in the Advance Wars series.

It's also made quite clear that it's also possible for a unit to be reduced to 0HP as a result of massive death all around.

So I guess, when the game is silent on the matter, it's up to you to decide which is happening in any given situation.

The game definitely takes that approach as well at times, especially on the battle close-up when infantry units just fly offscreen after being shot. That does add to the game's charm for me.

I'm not familiar with the Days of Ruin alternative, but I do like having the strategic freedom to use my CO Power whenever. The games went in that direction as well, adding Super powers and then Dual powers (until Days of Ruin, apparently). For some characters, like one we'll see very shortly, it's imperative to have the ability to use their CO power in the middle of a turn.

That's true, though I can never shake those nasty-looking explosions on the zoomed-out view when a unit is destroyed. Even infantry explode!

Welcome back to Let’s Play Advance Wars, now back to a quicker-paced update schedule! Let’s hope I can keep it up.



????: Hmmm... What have we here? Orange Star forces, if I'm not mistaken.
And, of course, I never am. I had heard that the Blue Moon Army ruined
them, but... How interesting. I think I'll entertain them for a while.

---

Andy: What's that?

We seem to have drifted a bit off the beaten path here, away from Blue Moon, and we’ve been ambushed for our trouble! On top of that, it looks like we’ve got another new opponent to face.



Judging from his garb and the mission title, it looks like he’s a pilot of some kind. Why he’s picking a fight with us is still a mystery, though; his opening speech made it clear he’s not affiliated with Blue Moon.

Here’s our mission map:



Andy: Didn't Nell say this area was empty? As in, no enemies?

Nell: Bugs! Andy! Come in! Do you copy?

Andy: Nell! There are hostile forces here!

Nell: So it seems. But those... those aren't Blue Moon troops. I'll see what
I can find out. Hold your positions! We have some bases you can use
here as a last resort. Bugs! Watch over Andy, OK?

Our opponent’s units aren’t blue! This is unprecedented!

There is an interesting disposition of forces here: our opponent has an intimidating air force, certainly more than enough to blow our B copter and T copter out of the air and dispatch our ground troops at leisure. However, we’ve got two anti-airs and a missile unit, so we should be able to stand our ground if we play our cards right. On the ground, our Md tank alone trumps anything we face, and we’ve got a tank and artillery for backup. If we can hold off the enemy air force, we won’t have any problems on the ground, either.

Further to our advantage, we have a base and the enemy doesn’t, though they do have one in the northwest that they can capture in three turns if we don’t interfere; to prevent them from taking it, we’d have to send our B copter northwest immediately. We could do it, but it would impair our ability to handle the air force.

Another path to victory presents itself in the form of our enemy’s castle-like HQ’s positioning. It sits at the southern end of the eastern peninsula, tantalizingly close to our own forces and without any defenders; it’s ripe for the capture. If we do go for the capture, though, we need to make sure that we can protect our T copter from those two enemy fighters that will make it priority A, and that’ll take a little doing. Still, an HQ capture using our T copter is by far the quickest path to victory here, so that’s what we’ll go for; we’ll ignore the neutral base in the northwest and push east, focusing on defeating the enemy air force and protecting our T copter.



We’ve got some units in range right away, so we’ll bring our big guns to bear on them to make room for our advance. One of our anti-airs starts by perforating an enemy B copter.



Our Md tank moves up to be our vanguard, crippling the enemy tank in the process, and our B copter moves up to finish it off. Moving our B copter east here means we can’t prevent the enemy infantry from capturing the northwest base, but that base will be irrelevant if all goes according to plan.





That takes care of the immediate threats, so we move the rest of our units up, giving priority to units with anti-air capability and our loaded T copter (though we have to pull up short of missile range there). We don’t have enough money to produce anything useful (read: an anti-air) so we’ll leave our base idle and save up for next turn. It probably would have been a good idea to produce an infantry here just for Technique-boosting purposes, but we shouldn’t need it.



Our opponent moves up his two fighters, B copter, and infantry, though his bomber and tanks stay put. It is at this point that I realize we can find out who he is by checking out the CO menu, so I do so; it turns out his army is Green Earth, and his name is Eagle. Let’s meet Eagle:



Description: Strongest firepower in the skies. But flounders at sea.

Power: LIGHTNING STRIKE. Non-infantry units ordered to wait can move again that turn. However, their ratings are lower than normal.

Flavor: An ace pilot who's as tough as nails.
[^_^ Hit] Lucky goggles
[-_- Miss] Swimming
"Do you really want to challenge me?"

Eagle here projects a cocky, fighter-jock air, and that’s exactly what he is. He’s sure of himself and quick to anger, which sums up his good and bad sides: he’s a fearsome opponent, but he lets his pride dictate his actions, meaning that he can be manipulated. As far as our campaign here goes, the mere fact that he’s fighting us in the first place bodes poorly for us.

As far as gameplay goes, Eagle is another unbalanced CO in the same vein as Grit. Eagle is an air-combat specialist: his air units have boosted attack and defense, and consume 2 units of fuel per turn less than others’ to boot. That’s balanced by his weak naval units, which have greatly reduced attack. On this map, with no naval units and plenty of air units, he’s definitely above-average; he’s a strong CO in general, as air units tend to be more useful than naval units in most situations.

Eagle’s CO power, Lightning Strike, is terrifying. All his units except his infantry get another turn, which not only allows them to attack twice but also allows them to interfere with his opponent’s plans by attacking units that would otherwise have been safely out of range. It also lets him move freshly-produced units and create two units on one property on one turn if he’s got the funds. When fighting Eagle, you really need to keep a steady eye on his CO power meter and take precautions against it when he’s got it charged up; it’s that good. The only downside to it is that his units have reduced attack and defense after using his power; this lasts through the opponent’s turn.



Our first priority on our turn is Eagle’s fighters; they’re capable of demolishing our T copter, even at reduced strength, and our T copter is the lynchpin of our whole strategy. Our anti-airs are both in range of Eagle’s fighters, and they each pound one of them.



Our missiles aren’t close enough to finish off one of the fighters, but they can blow away Eagle’s last B copter, which is also a threat to our T copter.

We’ve got to find a way to protect our T copter here. We have nothing left to finish off Eagle’s fighters, and with their 9 movement, we’d have to retreat our T copter back to our HQ and delay our capture by two turns to protect it that way.





Our solution is to create a barricade in which our T copter can hide. One of Advance Wars’ goofier rules is that air units cannot move through ground or sea units, even though it’s pretty silly to think of an infantry troop blocking a fighter jet from attacking a helicopter. I won’t complain about it here, that’s for sure.



We move the rest of our useless stragglers up and then duck our B copter into the barricade. We could save ourselves some damage to our ground units by attacking Eagle’s B copter, but that would give his fighters a target, and we really don’t want that. We also create an anti-air before ending our turn; it isn’t likely to get to the front in time to help us, but nothing else is going to help at all, so we might as well.



Thanks to the barricade, Eagle can’t do much on his turn aside from thwacking our APC (be my guest!). His fighters flit about a bit but stay in range.



We take a peek at Eagle’s CO power meter; you can barely make out a little bit of empty space at the end if you really squint. That saves us an APC. One minor drawback for Eagle is that his power takes longer to charge up than most others’, but that’s a small concern considering how deadly his power is.

Our first order of business is to clean up that pesky B copter with our missiles. It goes swimmingly.



Second on the docket is to set a trap for Eagle’s bomber, as it can otherwise cripple the unit we use to capture his HQ. We’ll plan to move a unit that can take a hit to the northwest forest on our peninsula, luring the bomber in so that our anti-airs can clean it up.



I miss the screencap on one, but our anti-airs get into position for the bomber trap and finish off Eagle’s fighters at the same time. EFFICIENCY!



Unfortunately, our Md tank can't reach that forest square, due to lack of foresight. I do make somewhat of a cowardly move, though, failing to move the Md tank up onto the bridge into less-protected bomber range. Eagle’s CO power is ready to go because of all the damage we’ve done to him this turn. This means his bomber can take out our Md tank if we use it as the bait for the trap. I should let this happen, since we don’t need it and we can afford to take the technique hit, but I don’t.



Our B copter starts working on an infantry, since it doesn’t fear the bomber, and we move the rest of our units up. We make sure to reload our T copter and advance it as far as possible before ending our turn.



Eagle: Are you fool enough to believe you can withstand two of my attacks?

I miss the screencap…AGAIN (sigh), but Eagle uses Lightning Strike on his turn. He does absolutely nothing with it, moving his infantry before using it and nothing after. In fairness, he doesn’t have many units left, but nothing was not the right move.



Nell: Bugs! I've got it! I know who you've encountered! Those are Green
Earth troops! Rumor has it that there's an independent battalion
roaming about. I believe you've found them. Watch out for their air
units. They're supposed to be brutal!

Andy: You're too late, Nell.

Nell: What? Does that mean you're already under attack? Well... Um...
Good luck!

Andy: Nell left us! She ran away...

I include a picture here mainly for Andy’s face. C’mon, Andy, Nell, he didn’t even do anything! Wipe off those frowns!

This is where things could go very badly for us, if Eagle had a fighter and/or B copter left and his bomber was in the fray; like I said, his power can be devastating for the unprepared. Thankfully, we’re anything but.



Now that Eagle’s blown his power, we set up the trap for his bomber. Our Md tank should be able to take the hit and survive.



Our B copter, with nothing better to do, finishes off an infantry, and our T copter continues striving for Eagle’s HQ. Unfortunately, it’s a square short of being able to drop off the infantry onto the HQ from the north, simultaneously defending against Eagle’s northeast tank. Looks like we could have done better on the speed front with just a little more optimized T copter movement.



With the rest of our turn, we shuffle some units around and keep the anti-air supply chain going. Eagle’s bomber and his HQ are the only relevant bits of the mission left.





Eagle’s bomber gets its attack in, but our Md tank survives as expected. Unleash the anti-airs!

An aside: Eagle’s finally got that northwestern base up and running, but it won’t be soon enough to have any impact on anything at all.



After our Md tank retreats, our anti-airs do their job.



After blowing away another infantry, it’s our T copter’s time to shine. We shuffle some units around and end our turn.



Eagle’s tank tries to fight back to his HQ, but can only take our T copter down to 6 HP…



…and we can undo half of that right away. That’s all the action for the mission; we capture, end our turn, and…



…finish off our capture of Eagle’s HQ.



Eagle: I... I lost? Huh? It's you! Andy!

Andy: Yeah, but... who are you?

Eagle: Don't play dumb with me, boy! I'll never forget what you've done!

Andy: Huh?

Eagle: So, continuing to feign ignorance, eh? Very well, but the next time
we meet will be our last!

Andy: Hey! Wait up! He's gone. What was that all about?

I’m afraid Eagle’s got Andy at a severe disantavantage here…what in the world is he talking about?

We take a ding on our speed rating for this mission (more efficient T copter movement and better barricade placement could have saved us there) but we still get another S rank.

Before we can get ready for the next mission, some backup finally arrives, in the form of an ally with questionable taste in facepaint:



Max: Sorry to keep you waiting!

Andy: Who are you?

Max: I'm Max, a CO in the Orange Star army. I was ordered to join you and
Bugs, so here I am.

Andy: A new CO, huh? What's so special about you?

Max: You get right to the point, don't you, pal? I'm the king of direct
combat. Need someone to mix it up? I'm the best! When I really get
rolling, Max Force boosts my firepower even higher.

Andy: Cool!

Max: I'm not saying I'm perfect, but why focus on the negative, right?

Nice to see Andy and Max hitting it off well right off the bat. I’ll go into detail on Max when and if we command him, but his own description is pretty accurate. For now, we need to choose which one will lead our troops into battle here. They actually have different missions, so I’ll do a “path not taken” look at the other one, but the one we pick will be our canonical choice – and that will have repercussions down the road.

So, Talking Time! Andy?



Or Max?

Max (Power).

Max Force!

Andy! You goonie!

I will vote Andy, because wrenches.

Max, because Max.

Eagle doesn't know Andy very well, then, does he?

I can't decide, they're both so great.

Whichever choice will unlock you the most optional missions down the line. (I can't remember the details any more, so you might have to consult an FAQ.)

Don't worry, I know exactly what that means. What that means is we're tied, 3-3! I'll let the next vote decide so I can get production underway. If nobody votes in a day or so I'll flip a coin.

For whoever will tiebreak: keep in mind that I will show off all missions in some form, so you don't necessarily need to vote for more missions if you don't want to.

Beef McLargeHuge.

Max power.

Welcome back to Let’s Play Advance Wars! The people have spoken, and they demand Max. For some reason, Max wants us to travel a tougher route; just how tough it is remains to be seen. We’ll be facing Olaf again here.



Nell: Well, Max. You're here to help, too?

Max: How you doin', Nell? Now that I'm here, what's the kid gonna do?

Nell: Oh, Max. You haven't changed a bit. But I must tell you, Andy's quite
a capable CO. If you're not careful, he may just pass you up. See you
later. Good luck!

Unlike Andy, Max here is an old hand with Orange Star, as shown here by his familiarity with Nell. Nell saying Andy may pass him up is an odd statement when CO strengths/weaknesses and powers are set in stone and Bugs handles all the tactical decisions, but we’ll ignore that for now. Let’s meet Max, now in compact screenshot format!





Max is some sort of bodybuilder, with an upper body that is roughly three times the size of his lower body. His pose matches his personality, which is pretty much gung-ho let’s charge straight at ‘em at all times. To be fair, that’s probably the best philosophy for a guy with Max’s characteristics to have. He likes to poke fun at Andy, but he’s really a big softie under all those muscles, with plenty of affection for his comerades.

Max’s strength is his non-infantry direct combat units, as they all have an attack boost. This applies to his air units and naval units as well as his ground units, which helps more than you’d think. His weakness is decreased attack power and range for his indirect units. The range decrease particularly stings; artillery, a backbone of other COs’ armies, are very difficult for Max to use effectively.

Max’s CO power gives his non-infantry directs an extra square of movement and a frankly ridiculous attack boost. “Max Force” is by no means a misnomer there.

Since Max’s indirects are weak, he struggles to perform well in maps with choke points. He really needs wide open spaces to do his best work and allow his direct units room to outmaneuver the enemy. It’s important to stay on the offensive with Max, since all his abilities have purely offensive benefits.

Here’s our map for this mission:



Olaf’s got quite the force here. We’re roughly equal in ground firepower, but Olaf’s battleship fleet dwarfs our sea force. We’ll need our subs to make sure that battleship fleet can’t interfere in the land battle. A rout is going to be the goal here given how far away Olaf’s HQ is and how many of his units are between his HQ and us. Our strategy will be straightforward: charge our tanks along the road to disrupt Olaf’s tanks, try to position our underwhelming indirects to contribute, and win the sea battle with our naval units alone (not that our indirects would be much good anyway).





Here are the attack ranges of all our indirects. The artillery’s range is particularly anemic, but they’re all one square worse than Andy’s and two squares worse than Grit’s.



We begin with the battle at sea, crippling one battleship with a sub, diving our other sub, and moving up our battleship just out of enemy battleship range so it can help out.



We’ll bring our lander up too; without any need for it to ferry units, it has a promising career as battleship bait.





On land, our tanks take the move that the map is begging for and charge forward to attack their enemy counterparts. Max’s strength with direct units is really shown off here, as is the effect of defensive cover on the results; other COs would leave healthier opponents behind and take more damage on the counterattack.



The rest of our first turn is all positioning. We move our indirects up to where they may be of some use (well, maybe the rockets anyway) while using an infantry to wall off one of the approaches to our rockets and minimize the damage that can be done to them. They’ll still take a hit from the 3 HP tank, but the only way to avoid that would be to keep them far enough back that they’d be of no use. We end our turn.

Olaf: Ha ha ha ha ha! Behold! Gaze upon my beautiful army! Orange Star may
match me in numbers, but I have so much more power!

Grit: But you're not very well balanced... What if the enemy send its subs
under? That'll stop you cold.

Olaf: Battleships at sea! Bombers in the air! Is there anything more I need?
No! Nothing at all! Attack! Attack! Attack!

Grit: Well, as long as you're happy, Boss.

Olaf: The spirits of winter have blessed my army!

I must say that “Battleships at sea! Bombers in the air! Is there anything more I need? No!” was a strong contender for title quote for this thread.



All that attacking has gotten Olaf’s dander up, and he fires a blizzard at us at the start of his turn. This will deaden our advance.



We survey the damage from Olaf’s turn. His two tanks took bites out of our infantry and rockets, but that’s survivable. For some reason his artillery decided it wants to be a front-line unit here, which is nice. On the sea front, his wounded battleship decided to ping our lander instead of attacking the units that can damage it.



Our subs go to work softening up some more battleships. When they’re done, there’s only one full-strength battleship left…



…and our battleship rectifies that situation, though it isn’t nearly as effective at doing so as the subs. The tide has turned in the naval battle.



Our artillery and rockets lead off the ground struggle, with our artillery finishing off a tank and our rockets denting an infantry. Max’s indirects may be weak and difficult to use, but they can still dish out some damage when called upon.



Olaf’s artillery is the most potent threat to us right now, so our Md tank takes care of it with damage to spare. Max’s Md tanks are not to be trifled with.



Amidst some other movement, our other Md tank reaches the front lines and blows away an infantry and one of our tanks clobbers an infantry. The snow and Olaf’s rockets combine here to limit the range we can safely attack in. Our CO power is ready (and has been ready ever since this turn’s naval battle), but we’ll save it for a turn in which our movement is less encumbered by a blizzard. We end our turn here.

At sea, Olaf joins two battleships together and the other two continue plinking away at the lander. It’s really doing its duty admirably here, and without being destroyed to boot.



On land, one of his fresh tanks cripples one of our tanks. He also makes some questionable movement choices, such as bringing up his rockets to serve on the front lines. It’s probably small consolation, but with our power ready, that wasn’t likely to matter anyway.



HERE WE COME.





Our boosted subs have no trouble finishing off two of Olaf’s battleships, and our battleship can handle the third. Victory at sea is achieved.



We’ve got a lot of attacking to do on shore. Our rockets lead off by weakening a tank so that our 3 HP tank can finish it off.



Our Md tank and tank continue the rampage by crippling Olaf’s full-strength Md tank and blowing away his rockets.



Our other Md tank wallops Olaf’s last full-health tank, and we move up any units that can contribute to the war effort going forward before ending our turn. Our goal will be to finish off all remaining units next turn…



…but Olaf makes that difficult with another Blizzard. His artillery also does 5 HP damage to one of our Md tanks.



Back on our turn, we destroy Olaf’s last Md tank with our artillery and Md tank. It’s become apparent that Olaf’s artillery will be a real problem for us this turn; the snow prevents any units but the 5 HP Md tank from reaching it.





We can wound that artillery and finish off Olaf’s last infantry this turn, but we have to wait another turn to finish the artillery. So close.



Max: How's that? What do you think of that power?

Andy: Cool! There's no way I could do that much damage.

Max: Yeah! That's right!

Andy: As long as I didn't use my indirect combat units, that is.

Max: Oooh... you...

Nell: That's exactly right. Max doesn't use indirect combat units because
he's clumsy.

Max: ....

Nell: And your range of fire is small, too. That's life threatening, isn't
it?

Max: Ha! I'll do just fine without relying on those units.

Nell: I wonder about that. Anyway, excellent work, Max! Now you two work
together and try to get along.

Max: You heard the lady. Let's stop fighting and do this, Andy.

Andy: I think she was talking to you, Max.

They’re like little kids (sigh). And what about Bugs? Don’t we get any credit?

We achieve a perfect S-rank on this mission, which makes me wonder what the speed target was given that we could have finished the mission a turn earlier with better planning. Ah well, I won’t complain too much.

Max’s introduction here is a nice, breezy mission that shows off Max’s strengths and weaknesses well. It’s quick and punchy, too, which is always appreciated. The player can get into trouble if Olaf’s battleship armada is allowed to win and enter the land battle, but it’s otherwise pretty straightforward.

What would Andy have faced? I’ll have a mini-update before the next main update showing just that.

On our main path, we are presented with another mission choice! Talking Time, the question is, once again:

Andy?



Or Max?

Yes, that does seem like the unstoppable force vs. the immovable object. Hmm... We've already seen Andy vs. Grit so I guess I'll vote for Max vs. Grit to see just how hard it is on you.

How good is Grit in this game (*multi-player)? He's one of the best COs in the sequel once you get the hang of playing him and not be too afraid of producing direct units, but I don't really remember if he's already that good in the first game.

Also, Max for the map. Also also, consider all my votes in the future to be cast for Sami whenever she's available.

Grit is pretty dang good. He's a little more difficult to use than some of the other overpowered COs (here's looking at you, Eagle), but there are very few War Room maps you can't win by going with Grit and churning out as many artilleries as you can. I don't have competitive experience, though, so I'll defer to ais523 for that take on Grit.

Hm, I guess I can see why Olaf's ability is considered underpowered.

He's still my favorite.

Supplemental Update: Mission 4 (Andy)

We chose to embark on the southern route for Max Strikes!, with Max leading us. What would have happened if we went with the boy wonder instead?



Max: Cripes! I can’t believe I have to be a nanny to this little kid…

Andy: I’m not a little kid! I’m a CO in the Orange Star Army! And I don’t need a nanny! …Whatever that is.

Max: Uh-huh. OK, little man, why don’t you tell me how to use the bases on this map?

Andy: No problem! You use the naval base to deploy naval units and the air base to deploy air units.

Max: Not bad! I’m surprised you know that much. But if a CO doesn’t have guts, he’s got nothin’. Show me what you can do, kid.

Here’s Andy’s odd ignorance on display: he doesn’t know what a nanny is. This won’t be a recurring theme at all.

Andy faces a slightly less intimidating army and a slightly friendlier map, overall. He notably doesn’t face a rocket unit, he has some nice chokepoints to line up his own indirects behind, and he and Olaf each have bases. The biggest difference, though, is that he faces fewer, more spread-out battleships; this lets him get a jump on transporting a unit to Olaf’s HQ that Max could not. We’ll plan to play things slow on land, caring only about minimizing losses and getting at least 2 kills in a turn for our power score, while fighting an aggressive battle at sea.



Taking out a battleship, arranging our army just outside Md tank range, and setting up a mech to board a lander and go voyaging are the turn 1 objectives and they’re easy enough. Oddly enough, given Andy’s base rundown, we don’t have an airport here; only bases and a port. The port lets us build landers (12000 G), cruisers (18000 G), subs (20000 G), and battleships (a whopping 28000 G), but this mission is easy enough without building any units at all.



(Olaf has the same “Battleships at sea! Bombers in the Air!” exchange with Grit that he did in our canonical mission 4 here. I guess the developers figured they couldn’t let the player miss that one, and who can blame them?)

Destroying only a single battleship on our first turn took Olaf’s CO power meter to almost full, not that it really would have mattered if he had gotten it. Olaf plays the same chicken game we are on land and advances his battleships.



We destroy the next battleship, leaving only one, and our lander sets out for paydirt. We’re a little more aggressive on land; our Md tank is in Olaf’s Md tank’s range. Due to AI movement order, though, one of his tanks will move up to it and sit there, protecting it from attack. Hehe.





See? He summons a blizzard as well, but it doesn’t have much effect without anywhere for us to go.





We do some softening at both land and sea and continue the lander’s advance. Here is the key difference between Andy’s mission and Max’s: we’ve already reduced the battleship threat enough that our lander can sail forth without fear. If Max had tried this, he’d have had his lander blown out of the water. That, plus the extra distance for the lander to travel and lack of bases, makes a rout the clear best option for Max while a capture is the clear best option for Andy.



Ol’ silly Olaf thinks we’re doing a conga line or something.



We disabuse him of that notion…



…and are two turns from victory. Olaf could actually prevent this here by racing back to his HQ, but he won’t. This mission is not the AI’s best performance.



I missed Olaf’s turn here. He did a little attacking, but with our power ready to counteract that, he’s still bottled up. He only has one more turn to do anything, and he can’t.



Even a suicidal Md tank attack doesn’t help Olaf. This mission is much, much easier than Max’s. Of course, Max did say “this route looks tough”, so I suppose we only have ourselves to blame for that.



Andy: See? I told you!

Max: Hey! Not bad, kid. Not bad at all. ‘Course, I woulda finished that up a bit quicker, but…

Andy: What did you say?

Max: Huh? You wanna piece of me?

Nell: Knock it off, both of you! Max, this is hardly the mature behavior I was expecting from you!

Max: But he started…

Nell: Max!

Max: Hee,hee!

Nell: If you keep this up, you’re going to have your heads handed to you!

Gee, thanks, Mom. Also: Max, yeah right you would have finished that quicker. Same time, sure.



In the next supplemental update, we’re forced to use Max against Grit as Grit pushes his buttons until he flies into a rage. That won’t happen until after the next ordinary update, though, and that vote is still open! Will Max win out again? Or will Andy come back to show what he can do? Only you can decide!