GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin Walkthrough

The center of the dystopia is in your DS! Check out our Walkthrough to Days of Ruin for help getting through this challenging game.

Comments
By: Matthew Rorie

It's hard to believe that it's been two and a half years since the last Advance Wars game came out for the Nintendo DS. Since Dual Strike hit the scene, the DS has caught on in a huge way, so the time was apparently ripe for a sequel to emerge, and so it has with Advance Wars: Days of Ruin.

This new Advance Wars title takes place in a world that's been ravaged by a massive meteor strike. As the survivors struggle to rebuild their civilization, they're beset on all sides by madmen convinced that the time has come for them to control the world. It's up to the player to guide the forces of good until you manage to triumph over all the evil in the world.

Days of Ruin makes some big changes to the classic Advance Wars gameplay, mostly in the ways that your CO units are used. No longer will you be able to choose the CO you wish to play on a map (at least, not in the main campaign); those are chosen for you automatically. CO powers are also used differently, in that you have to load your CO onto a unit and drive them around on the map, killing nearby units until their CO powers have fully charged up. Most CO powers are fairly small-scale compared to those in previous Advance Wars games, as well, making Days of Ruin much more about pure strategy than relying on a lucky CO power to win a game for you.

This guide isn't intended to be a comprehensive guide to everything in Days of Ruin, and there's a lot of content here for you to discover. Instead, this is mostly intended as a walkthrough for the game's 26 main missions. If you want to know more about multiplayer or the game's trial missions, check out GameFaqs.com.

General Strategies

Using Fog of War

One of the more challenging aspects of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin lies in mastering the Fog of War system that the game incorporates and using it to your advantage. (It should be noted that FOW appears much less frequently than it did in Dual Strike, but it's still a problem on a few maps.) In Fog of War challenges, all units will have greatly restricted vision, meaning that they won't be able to spot enemy units until they're right on top of them. Most units will only be able to see one space on either side of them, with tanks, infantry, and air units being slightly better. Recon units are your friend on Fog of War maps; their ability to see five spaces in all directions will be a big help in scouting for enemy units. After all, you can't attack what you can't see.

This last notion comes about with the "trapping" mechanic. On a Fog of War map, if one of your units passes through a darkened area over a space occupied by an enemy unit, it will be "trapped." This instantly stops your unit's movement and prevents them from attacking on that turn, thus letting the enemy unit get the first shot at the unit on their next turn. Even if you don't run into the unit, you won't be able to see it unless you have a unit within visual range of it; if a tank stops one space away from an enemy mech, then, it'll have to stop in order to extend it's visual range from the stopping point. What all that basically means is that you can't order your units to fire on an enemy unit that you can't see, even if you happen to know precisely where they are. You need to either move an expendable unit up next to it, then move in a heavy hitter, or use a recon unit to expose the front for all of your big guns.

Also note that forest squares prevent anyone from seeing into them, no matter how far they can see. A recon unit sitting a couple of spaces away from a forest won't be able to penetrate the murk. If a unit is sitting directly next to a forest square, however, then it'll be able to see into that one square; air units are also capable of seeing into forests normally. Forests are great places to hide your units in preparation for an ambush.

The flipside to all this is that the same rules apply to the computer; if they can't spot you, then they won't be able to attack you. The conceptual caveat to wrap your head around here is that even if you can see your enemies, they may not be able to see you, and vice versa. Even though you may feel all tricky and evil by making sure that your units are out of visual range of their megatanks, they might still have a recon unit just out of sight that's exposing all of your own units to the harsh light of day. Still, though, in the absence of any better information, you can usually assume that most of your enemy's units have the one space of sight alloted to them, and thus won't be able to spot you unless they wind up right next to you.

You can take advantage of this by simply retreating a bit when you spot enemy units coming your way. If an enemy unit rams up next to your own unit on one of their turns, all you need to do to become invisible to it again is move it out of its visual range, which in the case of most tanks means moving your unit one square up, down, left, or right. If the enemy wants to hit you, they'll have to find you again, which means that they'll have to forfeit an attack, since they won't be able to see you. This is of course assuming a one-on-one battle, which are fairly rare, but trapping units and dancing with them in the dark is a handy way to stall them while you bring reinforcements up to deal with the invaders.

Always Check Movement Info

If you can see an enemy unit, you can always check how far it's capable of moving and how far it's capable of attacking by either tapping it with the stylus or holding down the stylus on top of it. (The same functions can be performed with the A or B buttons on your DS.) The more useful of these abilities (although they're tied together somewhat, especially for direct-fire units) is the attack range display, which will show you precisely what area in which a unit can attack. For direct-fire units, this will be one square larger than their movement range, while indirect fire units will display a grid of squares in which they can fire on their next turn.

Knowing how far your enemies can move and attack will have a huge impact on your own movements. If you know that an artillery unit is within attack range of an enemy w-tank on your next turn, you can choose to move it just out of that attack range, or retreat even further and try to make the edges of the artillery's firing range congruent with the furthest edge of the neotank's movement area, in the hopes that you'll be able to hit it if it moves as far towards you as possible. The enemy AI is pretty smart about staying out of your indirect unit's firing range, though, so you may need to bait them with sacrificial units in order to set up your own attacks.

Speaking of which…

Bait And Switch!

When dealing with enemy indirect fire units, it can be difficult to position your own units to allow them to rush in and attack. While your fastest tanks might be able to move a large number of squares a turn, and should be able to move in to attack most enemy indirect fire units if they can wait just outside their firing area, then rush in on the next turn, the enemy does the exact same kind of calculations that you do with your units' firing and movement area, so they're likely to try and move their long-range units out of your neotank's attack area on their next turn, leading to a frustrating process of chicken in which someone has to blink first. If you move your neotank into the firing area, you'll get pounded, but if they attempt to be aggressive and set up a shot with their indirect fire unit, the neotank will come in and destroy it. Neither of you will find these options very palatable, which can often lead to a stalled front in which you have to sit still until someone manages to find a way around the stalemate.

One of the easiest ways to avoid these encounters and prevent enemy indirect units from retreating out of your attack range is to give them something to fire at. If you have, say, a mid-tank just outside of an enemy rocket's attack range, then that rocket will always retreat to prevent you from moving in and blasting it. If, however, you park something expendable, like a recon or an infantry unit, inside the rocket's attack range, then it will prefer to attack the expendable unit, even if it knows that it'll get pounded by the neotank on its next turn. By offering up a sacrificial lamb like this, you'll be able to keep the rocket immobile in exchange for very acceptable losses. In fact, most land-based indirect units won't be able to kill a recon or normal tank in one blow, allowing you to move them back to a base or city for resupplies. Your fast tank should be to deal heavy damage to the enemy, and probably render their next attack all but useless.

You can also do this kind of thing with direct-fire units, as well, if you wish. For example, if you see an enemy w-tank coming towards your army, and you want to line up some indirect fire to rain on it before it can do too much damage, you can park a recon unit in its path, and move your indirect units so that they'll be able to fire on the spaces around the recon. The neotank will usually pop in to attack the recon unit (assuming that it can't find a weaker unit inside its attack range; it will pass up the recon if it can get to an artillery, for example), forcing it to stop, and allowing you to pound it on your next turn. If the recon unit survived, you can, again, pull it back for repairs.

So, just knowing the attack and movement radius of all enemy units (and your own), will be a big help in deciding how to proceed on the battlefield. While a bit of recklessness is sometimes called for, and even rewarded, mastering the intel that's available to you will allow you to make informed decisions and prevent your units from rushing headlong into certain defeat.

Walkthrough

This walkthrough is intended to get you to the end of the game's main campaign. We aren't going to talk about the trial missions that will become unlocked in the course of the game; you'll need to wait for the crazy gamefaqs.com posters to make one of those. We also don't guarantee S-rankings with all of these walkthroughs. We personally managed to s-rank 23 of the 26 missions with these tactics (with missions four, 18, and 23 being the sticklers), but if you want to s-rank all of the missions, you should ask around on our forums for more help.

Chapter 01: Days of Ruin

This is your first mission, and as you may expect will simply act as a tutorial for the game's mechanics. If you've played Dual Strike, then this should be a breeze. If not, take your time, read the tutorial screens thoroughly, and do your best. It's difficult to mess up, but even if you pass the mission, you might want to try it again if this is your first Advance Wars game; it can't hurt to have the basics down pat before moving on to the harder stuff.

On the first day here, move your unit two spaces to the west. On the second day, you'll be rescued by Brenner and Lin, who ride in to the rescue. The bike unit leaves the field, leaving you with a tank and a car to take on the enemy car, bike, and infantry units; you now have the advantage. Attack the units with your tank first, and then with the car; you should be able to win without taking any damage.

Chapter 02: A Single Life

No, it's not a Paris Hilton show; it's Will attempting to save anybody he can find. It's weird that he managed to be off on his own long enough for gangs of soldiers to band together into a postapocalyptic society. Luckily for him, he seems to have been found for the good guys…or are they?! Well, yeah, they are.

For this mission, you have an infantry unit, a tank that has no cannon fire, and an artillery unit. Move the tank up next to the infantry and fire on them, then move the artillery unit right up behind them. What you generally want to do is weaken the unit next to the tank, but not destroy them entirely. If you can put yourself in a position where the unit near the tank is at less than 50% health, they'll usually attack and immolate themselves against the tank on the enemy turn, allowing you to fire away with your artillery unit on your turn. Move your own infantry unit into the mountains to the south of the enemy infantry, but don't fire on it. End your first turn like that.

After the enemy moves around a bit, move your infantry deeper into the mountains, where the cars can't reach them. If you get the opportunity to destroy the enemy infantry with your own infantry, do so; otherwise, head to the spot on your map that's blinking. You'll find a mysterious girl there. When you've uncovered her, you can pretty much ignore your infantry unit for the rest of the match. Just keep your tank in front of your artillery unit, firing with the tank on weaker enemies that come in front of you and using your artillery to pound your foes from a distance.

Chapter 03: Freehaven

The beginning of this mission can be tricky, as you need to quickly block the northern passage if you want to hold back the enemy units. On your first turn, move your mech units a couple spaces north and attack the enemy infantry units there. The infantry units should be knocked down to 4 or 5 health, while your mechs will retain themselves at 9 health units; quite acceptable. With that done, move your tanks north as far as they'll go and attack the infantry to finish them off. That'll let your tanks become a bit more effective in the long run.

Before you end your turn, you need to find how far to move your artillery unit. It can move a fair distance, since it's got roads to work with, but there's an enemy recon unit that can also move a fair distance. Check the move and attack distance on the recon unit (tap it once to check the move distance, then hold down the stylus on top of the unit to see its maximum attack range), then move the artillery unit north so that the recon unit can't attack it. That should mean that the artillery unit moves a few spots to the north, onto the gap in the road.

Make a quicksave in the menu on your second turn, then move your tanks up to destroy the recon unit. Move the artillery unit one space to the north and one space to the east, so that it's hiding out in the small gap in the mountains there; that'll let it fire on the enemy units that come your way from the road. The mech units can be moved as you see fit, but try to not have them border the northern road just yet; you want them to attack first on whatever they wind up attacking.

Tip: Artillery is an indirect fire unit. That makes it different than your other units. For one thing, it can't fire and move in the same turn; anything that it fires on will need to be within range when the turn begins. It also won't return fire when attacked. Using artillery properly requires you to keep enemies away from it, which often requires you to place your tanks or infantry next to the artillery as buffers.

At the beginning of the third turn, you should have some targets to fire on along the northern road, but first check the enemy artillery unit and make sure that none of your units are in the firing lines; you want to keep the enemy artillery moving until your tanks or mechs can get close enough to fire on it themselves. If your artillery can fire on the enemy tank, then do so to weaken it up; that's the biggest threat to your units on the board. The recon units shouldn't be able to do too much harm to your tanks, but they will hit your infantry pretty hard if given the opportunity to do so.

After this turn, you just need to work on weakening up the enemy units and finding a way to eliminate the enemy artillery. Try to remember to park your units outside of the artillery's maximum firing range each turn. If you pound on the enemy tank, you should be able to let your foes come out a bit and coax their artillery so that you can destroy it with your tanks. It may take a little hedging, but you'll eventually rout your foes and win.

Chapter 04: Moving On

This is going to be your first encounter with the fog of war, which will prevent your units from seeing as far as they normally can. There are some special rules that apply to fights in the Fog of War, so you may want to head back up to our General Strategies chapter and read up on them before trying this fight out. The main things to remember for the moment are: your units will be stopped and incapable of firing if they stumble across an enemy unit in the fog; infantry units can see a lot farther than they otherwise would be able to if they're stationed on mountainous terrain; and your flare unit can fire flares at map spots to illuminate enemy positions. The flare unit can also fire on enemy units like a normal direct-fire unit, using its machineguns.

Your scout unit in the north will have very little chance of surviving the mission, so move it south on the first turn, where it can at least expose the enemy positions for you a bit. There's an enemy bike to the northwest of your artillery unit, so scout it out and hit it with your artillery and another unit to wipe it out. After that's done, you'll only have four more units to kill: a mech, another scout, and two recon cars. If you can lure them south to your line, you should be able to pound them with your units and wipe them out.

Chapter 05: New Allies

This will be your first introduction to the economic aspects of Advance Wars. For the rest of the game, you'll need to worry about capturing properties and using factories to create new units. You'll notice here that the enemy has a marked advantage in terms of firepower. In particular, they have three tanks, two recon units, and two artillery units, while you only have one of each. Luckily, some of these units will hold back in a defensive position in the northeastern corner of the map, but you'll still need to quickly start building some units if you want to win this mission. Your enemies do not have a factory here, so they won't be able to build anything to use against you.

Tip: Cities and factories will also act as supply points for your units; if they become wounded or run low on ammo or fuel, park your units on top of a friendly property to repair them and resupply them. Resupplies take one turn, while repairs will proceed at a rate of two health per turn while the unit stays on the building.

You can build units at the factory building near where you start, but you'll have to capture it first. Begin by moving your mech unit to the east and begin the factory capture. On the same turn, have your infantry move to the northeast and begin capturing the city there, while your bike will move off to the east and begin capturing the easternmost city in that area. It takes two turns to capture a city, assuming your unit is at maximum health. Units that have been weakened will take longer. Only bikes, infantry, and mechs can capture properties.

If you start capturing those three properties on the first turn, your enemies will shuffle around their units and begin heading to the northern end of the road near your properties. Complete your captures on the second turn and position your tank, recon, and artillery unit in a place where the enemy units will probably not be able to fire on them when they move.

On Day 3, go ahead and move your mech off of your factory and build another tank. Tanks are pretty much all you'll want to be building here, as they'll be great at taking down enemy tanks and firing on the artillery units when you make the final push. The enemy bikes and recon units will also be destroyed by them, obviously. If you capture most of the cities that you started conquering on Day 1, you should have enough cash to make a tank per turn without ever having to worry about running out of money.

Let the enemies charge in, then start dismantling them with your tanks. If you can build up a small fleet of five tanks or so, you can start moving them to the northeast. Try to lure out the enemy tanks with a recon unit or something similar, then smashing them with your own tanks before charging in to beat down the enemy artillery.

Chapter 06: Fear Experiment

You should attempt to capture as many properties as you can on Day 1 here. You have five units capable of capturing, but one of your mechs won't be able to reach a city on the first day. The bike unit will have a choice of capturing the eastern-central city or one of the cities on the north or south. It's up to you, but we usually played it safe and took the northern city. Move your forces out to the east a bit, but keep in mind that the enemy tank will probably attack any unit that lands on the eastern city during the enemy part of the turn.

From here on in, you need to play a little bit of luring to get the enemy tanks close to your cities, where you can attack them before retreating to repair your units. The enemy infantry, bikes, and recon units won't be as pressing a matter, but the recons have a bad habit of sticking off in the western section of the map and refusing to attack. Lure them out to you by placing your own recon units within their attack radius, then moving in with tanks as the recon units come to attack you. It's important that you save your cash here; don't bother building more tanks than you absolutely need to.

When you clear out the last of the enemy units, a surprise occurs: your enemy CO's will launch a counterattack consisting of two Md Tanks and a W Tank. The md tanks are going to be fierce, but the w tank is really what'll hurt you the most. If at all possible, try to lure the enemy forces towards the western side of the screen before destroying the last of them; that'll give you some breathing room when the reinforcements show up, since they'll appear on the eastern edge of the map.

When the tanks do appear, regroup your forces and begin making a defensive position with your tanks on the outside and your artillery units on the inside. What you need to do here is start building an antitank unit every turn (they'll become available the turn after the tanks appear on your map). Anti-tank units are powerful indirect fire units that can decimate enemy armor; they can also fire back at enemies that manage to attack them in combat, which is helpful. Place them in the rear of your units.

The md tanks will hit you first, and although they're powerful, they will still have to deal with your tanks. They'll destroy most infantry units in one blow, but that will still force them to stop for a turn, hopefully letting you hit them with artillery or your other units. The w tank will be a bit tougher to take down, as it's pretty cagey about attacking your units and ensuring that it's out of range of your antitank units. If you can build three antitank units, though, you can group them up, invite the w tank into their cluster, and pound it the following turn.

Chapter 07: A Kind Of Home

You'll be joined by Waylon here, but he's not much help to you; he won't attack or even return fire when attacked. You can attempt to prevent the enemy planes from attacking him, but whether he lives or dies doesn't seem to have too much of an outcome on the mission.

On your first turn, start capturing cities near you, and start gauging the enemy air forces. Air units are powerful and can move very long distances in a single turn, but they'll fall quickly to your new anti-air and missile units. Missiles are the artillery of anti-air: they can fire fairly far, but will be unable to return fire if units get too close. Keep them behind your front lines and use other units to draw in enemy planes. Your helicopter will be easily taken out by enemy dusters and fighters, so move it to the north and use it to hit the enemy troops that head your way from there.

The vast bulk of the enemy forces are air units: the only ground units you really need to worry about are a tank and a set of rockets. About half of the enemy units will park themselves to the east, forcing you to come after them. You can be as cautious as you want, but the speediest way to proceed is to build anti-air units at both of your factories every turn (with perhaps one more tank to help you take out the enemy ground units), and start charging to the west. The enemy planes will probably attempt to avoid them, but if you spread out five or six anti-air units and your missile units, you'll eventually track them down and bat them out of the sky.

Chapter 08: A New Threat

One more fight against The Beast here. This is another fog-of-war map, but there are flames scattered across the map that will make it a bit easier to see than would otherwise be possible. You can also expand your view by capturing bases and properties, which will let you see further around those properties. Your enemy has a factory, so you won't be able to wait too long before attacking. Unfortunately the fog of war can make it difficult to track down all of the enemy units here, but you can also win by capturing the enemy headquarters if you run out of enemies to shoot.

You have t-choppers here, which will let you transport infantry units across the river to the north and begin capturing the factories and buildings there. Begin by using your attack chopper to weaken the enemy infantry up north, then bring the two southernmost infantry up north and drop them onto buildings so that they can start capturing next turn, making a note of the factory just across the river. You should be able to use your two bikes and the mech unit to begin capturing the southern buildings, as well. Don't rush across the bridge just yet, though; you'll want to establish an economy and start building your northern forces before making a two-pronged attack here. If you build an infantry unit on the southern factory on your first turn, you can bring a t-chopper back across to pick it up on your second turn, which will then let you more rapidly capture the northern buildings.

If all goes well, you should be able to begin building units at the northern factory by day 4, and capture the second northern factory a couple of days after that. Begin loading up on tanks. The bulk of the enemy forces will be anti-air units and weaker recon, bike, and infantry units, so tanks should be about all you need, although if you want to splurge on a rocket unit or two, you can probably afford it. If you intend to capture the cities as you go, then a few bikes will also be handy.

When you get a few tanks built to the south, bust out and destroy the artillery that overlooks the bridge there, then start smashing the rest of the units in the area. The enemy won't build many (if any) tanks of their own, so you should be fine to sweep through and destroy anything you see. If you have to charge ahead blind (and building flare units will probably only slow you down here), try to land on a city; they'll give you extra defenses if you get counterattacked. While doing so, use your tanks and infantry units to move across the northern edge of the field, continually loading your infantry onto the t-choppers to move them quickly around the field.

If you capture enough cities, you'll be able to completely decimate your opponents, so sweep through with tanks and rout their forces. If you kill them all, you win, but if you can't find all of the enemies, capture the enemy HQ with a bike or other infantry to automatically win.

Chapter 09: The Beast

A tough mission, even though you'll appear to have a relatively large imbalance of power in the air. The main sticking points here are the appearance of a missile/anti-air combo in the southeastern corner, which will make approaching those units a bit tricky, along with the fact that your air units will need to be resupplied, which can be difficult to do since your airfields will usually be located across the map.

Begin on your first turn by starting to capture cities with your two infantry units (you can't build any more infantry, unfortunately) and a temporary airport with your rig in the spot indicated. Temp airports will allow your air units to resupply if they park themselves on any side of the airport, while you can repair air units if you place them directly on top of the airport. Only the real airport in the northwestern corner of the map can actually build units, though. In general, you'll want to have bombers being built whenever possible, although b-choppers can also make a difference in this fight. B-choppers are comparable offensively, but they can be targeted by the w-tanks and anti-tank units of the enemy, so they won't be as impossible to kill as bombers will be.

On your first turn, start by attacking the air forces in the northeastern corner of the map. Your fighter can go after the enemy duster, while the dusters can take on the choppers up there. The enemy rig will attempt to build a temporary airport, but feel free to let it complete that construction; the enemy planes will likely all be dead by the time it gets built, and you can always attempt to capture it with a t-chopper and an infantry unit later on if you really want it.

In the southeast, you'll need to check the firing ranges of the anti-air and missile units before every turn. Keep in mind that the firing range of the anti-air unit will sometimes appear smaller than it actually is, if another enemy unit is on the edge of its movement range; just look at the movement range and be sure that your aerial units are two spaces away. You can use your bombers to pound on the other units in the area as you see fit. If you get lucky, you may be able to try and lure the anti-air unit up away from the missiles. If you can do so, feel free to send in your bombers after it, even if they'll get hit by the enemy missiles; that's an acceptable trade since it'll let you probably dart in and take out the enemy missiles on the next turn if you have another bomber nearby.

Taking out the missiles and the anti-air unit effectively makes the rest of the map impossible to lose. Keep cranking out bombers as fast as you can, or use b-choppers if you've managed to crank out enough city captures. Pound the enemies into the dust and move on.

Chapter 10: Almost Home

This is going to be the toughest mission you've had to face thus far, with an enemy that will be coming at you with a combined army of air and ground units. You begin with a slightly larger economy than your foes do, with eight properties to their five, and you'll need to quickly expand and conquer if you want to outbuild them in the long run. This map is all-out war, so you'll need to get used to the fact that you're going to be losing a lot of units

Begin by moving your bike unit to the west and capturing the airport on the edge of its movement ability. Move the mech unit onto your rig and drop the mech off on one of the properties near the airport, with the infantry unit being loaded into the t-copter and being dropped off onto the factory in the same small square of properties; you'll be able to begin capturing them on day two.

To the east, you have a few forward units near the enemy army. You won't be able to save them all, and even if you did, you probably wouldn't really need to have them. Instead, move the westernmost infantry on that side of the field across the mountains back towards your army, where it can begin capturing on day 2. You can save the recon unit here if you move it back towards your armies, but it's probably better to sacrifice it to slow down their economy. Have the recon unit attack the enemy infantry on the eastern edge of the screen, and your other infantry unit attack the southeastern mech unit. They'll die on the enemy's first day, but the damage to the infantry units will force them to take multiple days to capture the properties nearby, which will help you get a cash edge in the early going.

Elsewhere on the first day, move your other units off to the east a bit. Don't forget the fact that you have four airplanes in the northwestern corner of the map. Try to make sure that one of your dusters is out in front of the rest of the airplanes here; if you're very lucky, the enemy fighter might come along to take a potshot at it, allowing you to retaliate with your own fighter.

Before the end of day one, build an infantry unit on your factory. You can use that on day two to load it up on your t-copter and move it towards the other uncaptured property nearby. Alternately, you can build a tank there; you'll need plenty of cheap units to turn the tide of this battle.

Days 2 and 3 will simply be the start of capturing; neither army will move very far. Fortify your defenses and start building your army up. What we preferred to use were plenty of b-copters; they hit hard against most enemies, especially ground units, but do tend to get chopped up against enemy anti-air and dusters. You'll want to position your missiles so that they can fire on most of the units around the mountain range, which will help take down the dusters and even the enemy fighter if it comes in to kill one of your b-copters.

So, yes, the basic solution here is to simply build as many b-copters as you can, and supplement them with the occasional tank or anti-air unit. A bomber will be handy for dealing with the w-tank later on, as well, but you can also wear it down if you have enough b-copters. You will definitely have plenty of enemy units to contend with, but if you can slow down their expansion they won't have nearly as much cash as you will, so you'll be able to outbuild them (and they'll usually choose to spend their money on cheap units like anti-air that shouldn't be too difficult to take out).

After the fourth day or so, the fight becomes all-out war. Just rely on your b-copters to deal with the weaker enemy ground units, try to use anti-air on the dusters that come your way, and use tanks against anti-air units. Don't hesitate to throw a little extra cash on a bike or t-copter or two, though; if you can clear around the enemy base, you can block their factory and airport by destroying the units on top of them, then quickly moving one of your units over it. If you can lock them down in this fashion, you'll have plenty of time to clear out the rest of the enemy units and take the mission home.

Chapter 11: A Storm Brews

Your first sea fight! This will be a simple fight if you move your units correctly. You won't need to worry about your yellow-uniformed companions here; they'll take care of themselves relatively well. You also can't build any units, though, so you'll need to be relatively careful not to get hit too often.

Your naval units here include gunboats and landers, both of which can pick up units on beaches (but not the rockier sections of the coastlines) and disgorge them on other beaches across the water. On the first turn, move your rockets and the mech unit into the lander by the beach and move them towards the city to the southeast a bit. The rocket unit should wind up one square to the north of the city there, with the mech unit nearby. Move the other lander up to the same beach and move the md-tank onto it, and move the regular tank up the coast towards it. You won't be able to put both units on the lander this turn, but that won't matter. You can move your remaining infantry unit onto the gunship that you didn't attack with, if you like, but you probably won't need to use it at all.

Your gunships can destroy the enemy gunship nearby in two volleys. Gunships can only fire once before needing to be restocked, so move your rig to the beach just northwest of its starting point and start constructing a temp port. Temporary ports will restock your gunships, which will be handy.

On the enemy's first turn, they'll move their cruiser to the northwest, towards your gunships. Hit it with your rockets and finish it off with a gunboat. Start capturing the city to the south with your mech; you'll want to park the mech there and let any enemy units that come your way pound against it. Don't send any units to the south of the city just yet; let them come to you. As they make their way up the little passage, hit the enemy md-tank with your rockets to weaken it up, then pound anyone else in the area with your forces, being careful to stay away from the artillery fire. The rig here might attempt to escape by running away, so you might want to load up your smaller tank on a lander and move it to the east to cut it off, assuming you take out the enemy gunships. You will have already built your temporary port, but your rig can resupply your gunships manually if you park it on the coast and move the gunships next to it.

Chapter 12: History of Hate

This is going to be your first full-scale naval battle. Neither side can build new units here, and you're at a fair disadvantage in terms of navy strengths, especially when it comes to battleships. With a little subterfuge, though, you'll be able to prevail.

You have three new units here: the submarine, which can submerge underwater to become almost undetectable, and which is strong against gunships and battleships. The battleship itself is an indirect fire that can move and launch a shell in the same turn, making them powerhouses and very strong against surface ships. Lastly, cruisers are powerful anti-air and anti-sub ships. You'll want to do your best to protect your battleship by keeping your cruisers near it.

Luckily, you have some allies here that will help you out in the battle. The yellow planes will destroy the northwestern blue gunship after your first turn, but afterwards won't be too much of a help in the battle, as they'll run away from the enemy fighter relatively quickly.

Day One

On day one, check the movement and firing scans for the enemy battleship and cruiser that are nearest your fleet. You'll want to take down the enemy battleship here, but you need to ensure that your ships aren't close enough for the enemy cruiser to attack afterward. You should be able to destroy the battleship by having your own battleship move up and attack it, and then using your sub to move to the left of it and finish it off.

Elsewhere on the first turn, you'll want to move your b-copter and duster to the south a bit, moving them into your fleet, out of the range of the cruiser. You can use your southern gunship to attack the enemy gunship and cripple it. The southern submarine should move one space up and a few spaces to the right and submerge; the southeastern submarine will be coming that way, and attacking it quickly will help prevent a lot of damage to the rest of your fleet. Your cruisers can pretty much stay put for the moment; just make sure they're out of range of enemy units.

Day Two

The yellow planes will move to the east from their starting position and make for a nice little diversion for the northeastern enemy forces. Move your northern submarine up into the middle of the mist and submerge it, making sure that it's not adjacent to any enemy units. You will occasionally get the unlucky situation where it'll be discovered when a unit moves next to it and then torpedoed before it manages to hit the enemy battleship, which will usually make it necessary to quickload.

To the south, you can move your submarine close to the enemy battleship there and hit it; hopefully you'll knock it down to one power, which will pretty much make it useless to your foe. You don't really even need to worry about it at this point. You can finish it off with your battleship, but usually it's going to be best to keep your battleship safe and use it to fire at completely healthy units to weaken them up.

Position the rest of the units so that they're out of range of enemy units as best you can, taking especial care to note the ranges of the enemy fighter and the fully-healthy battleship.

Day Three

The yellow forces will hopefully have destroyed everything but the enemy fighter, which itself will be weakened a bit. Keep an eye on its movement range. If you can goad it to coming south to destroy your b-copter, it'll easily be taken out by one of your cruisers. If you positioned yourself to avoid the bomber fire last turn, be sure to take it out this turn with a cruiser.

Move the submarine in the mist to where it can fire on the remaining fully-healthy battleship. With that done, start moving your southern ships off to the east. The fighter is still prowling the skies, so try to move your units so that they form a bit of a wall and let your aerial units stick to the south side of it. The enemy fighter can't fly over your ships, and can't attack them, so if you check its movement and react accordingly, you should be in the clear.

Chapter 13: Greyfield Strikes

Another fun one. Your forces are rather evenly matched with the enemy's here, but luckily you won't have to destroy all of them in order to win; it'll be much easier, and quicker, to simply land forces on the northern beach near their HQ and capture it.

Begin by gauging your strengths. You begin with a decent fleet of naval vehicles, including a new carrier unit. The carrier can't do much on its own, although it can defend itself against air attacks, but what it does do is produce seaplanes. These planes are strong against pretty much every type of unit, and will be handy at taking down enemy units as they approach your fleet. You also have a battleship, a cruiser, and a sub; all the makings of a powerful fleet.

Day One

On your first day, load your infantry onto your gunboats and move them off to the two islands nearby, where they can begin capturing factories on the second day. Move your battleship one space north and four spaces to the west, where it can fire on the enemy gunboat, which should be directly north of it.

The rest of your navy should start moving off to the west, to encounter the enemy navy when it comes your way. You may want to have your carrier build a seaplane on turn one. If you have leftover cash, feel free to start building up your landing party for the northern enemy HQ. The best group seems to be to have two mid-tanks on a single lander as the initial charge, then to have a lander with a bike and a mech as the capturing squad. The bike will probably be able to make it to the enemy HQ quicker than the mech will, but either will be capable of capturing it.

You may also want your rig to begin building a temporary port to the west of the port you already control. It probably won't matter, but it might come in handy if you need to refuel or resupply your battleship.

Day Two

Begin capturing the factories with your infantry. Move your submarine into the rough water and have it dive. Launch your seaplane off to the west, if you built one (the missiles to the north will prevent it from doing much up there), then move the carrier off behind it. Be sure to check the enemy battleship's firing radius before moving your units, though.

Move your battleship up to the north and start shelling the units up there. Try to fire on an enemy unit that is not already on a city; it'll be repaired next turn and will take you a bit longer to kill. If the enemy mid-tank is on a plains or a roads section, you can try to hit it, and you might be able to take it down in two turns; if so, that'll be pretty handy. The missile units up there won't be a threat to your landing party, but the anti-air unit will also need to be hit before you land, unless you want your mechs to get chewed up.

Day Three

On Day Three, you'll get a popup from Admiral Greyfield, identifying a certain type of unit that you control. Be warned that on Day Four, all of those units will be prevented from moving or taking any actions at all. The type of unit picked is fairly random, and can be anything from carriers to gunboats to infantry to your rig. Depending on the unit picked, you can either be crippled for a turn or not be affected much at all, in the case of shutting down your rigs.

Anyway, that'll happen next turn. On this turn, hit the enemy battleship with your submarine to knock it down to 2 or 1 health; that'll effectively neuter it. Continue shelling the northern units with your battleship, as well as building up the army described above that will land on the beaches up there.

Day Four

The units called out by Greyfield will stop at the beginning of this turn, which will be annoying. If possible, finish off the enemy battleship with a gunship, then continue to send your submarine up north towards the enemy's factories, where it will be able to harrass or destroy enemy ships; attacking the enemy carrier will be especially handy.

From this point on, you need to just keep pounding the northern corner of the map with your battleship, focusing on the units that can actually hurt your ground units, such as the anti-air and mid-tank, and continue to build up your landers for the ground invasion. Just keep in mind that your battleship can be attacked by an enemy ground unit that gets onto the beach there, so keep it back a bit.

After landing your troops, make a beeline for the enemy HQ and destroy the units on and around it. When you get your bike or mech unit on top of it, create a box around it with your tanks to prevent enemy interference, then capture it. If you can win on day nine or ten without taking too many losses, you'll S-rank this without too many problems.

Chapter 14: A Hero's Farewell

This map will see you facing off against the combined sea, air, and ground forces of the Lazurian army. You have plenty to worry about, and the map will take somewhere around 15-17 days to complete at best, so be prepared for a long haul.

One of the new map features here are the meteor fragments that litter the landscape. Meteors prevent any units from passing by them, including air units. Two meteors to your north also emit a plasma ray between them, making for a long barrier across the map. It'll slow your enemy's ground forces down a bit at the outset, which is good for you, but you'll eventually need to snap the plasma string by destroying one of the meteors. That'll let you make a run for the enemy HQ, but that won't be happening for quite a while.

Elsewhere on the map, you'll note that your enemy begins the round with a battleship, a carrier, and a cruiser, which match up with your submarine and a cruiser of your own. The enemy obviously has the advantage here, especially since you will be restrained by lack of funds from building a carrier or battleship of your own until day three at the very earliest. It's best to torpedo their carrier (which takes a bit of luck), then simply cede the seas to them. Their battleship won't be a very large factor in the fight unless you're not careful.

The basic plan here is to move troops up to the enemy HQ and capture it; attempting to destroy all the enemy forces is probably impossible unless you want to take a very long time with this mission. To capture the enemy HQ, you'll need a large army of mid-tanks to smash through the enemy lines and a couple of transport copters with infantry units (which will head to the northeastern corner of the map and approach the HQ from there when it's relatively clear). To support this army, you'll want to eventually have a couple of fighters hanging around (this will be especially important if the enemy carrier stays active, as it'll begin pumping out seaplanes) to dissuade enemy air units from attacking your forces, as well as some b-copters to help in the fighting and to act as sacrificial lambs.

As a note, you shouldn't need to begin building anything until day four, when your war machine can start ramping up production. You won't likely ever need to build any sea units.

Day One

Move your submarine as far north as it can go and submerge it, while your cruiser moves against the southern edge of the screen in an attempt to lure the enemy battleship downward. Elsewhere, start moving towards the various factories and properties you can capture. The most important one is the airport in the southeast. No need to destroy the meteor in front of it, though; just move the infantry near it to the north of the mountains, and you'll be able to begin capturing it on Day 2. The other two infantry units should capture areas, as well; you can load one of them onto the rig and have it drop them off on the nearby factory to begin capturing it on day two, as well. Apart from that, move all of your army to the east a bit (don't worry about destroying the meteors near your start position; just leave them be) and attempt to block the enemy tank from coming your way. On the enemy turn, it may attack one of your units, so try to ensure that your mid-tank is farther north than everything else.

Day Two

Begin capturing the airport and the factory. Move your submarine north past the enemy cruiser. Take a note of the enemy army strengths and start judging the forces that they can bring to bear on you; chances are that they have at least a couple of mid-tanks coming your way.

The goal now is to create a bit of a roadblock for the enemy forces. In the middle of the map there's an unclaimed port with a city to the northeast of it. Enemy rockets just to the north of the plasma field have this city locked in, so you can't really claim it, but that doesn't mean that you have to let the enemy have it, either, although if they do manage to claim it it won't be a big deal. You want to set up your roadblock near the city to the east of the unclaimed port. Capture that and park a mid-tank next to the river with your artillery unit behind it. That should prevent any enemy units from passing by, and will likely dissuade them from even approaching. (Keep in mind that when you start building fighters that they can hold these gaps quite well, since tanks can't attack them.)

The rest of your army is going to start moving over the bridge across the river towards the string of three properties along the eastern side of the map. This is where you want to start building up your armies for what eventually will become the final strike. Move your rockets here, making sure that they can fire on the enemy meteor when the time comes. Since it'll take two rocket blasts to destroy the meteor, hit it once, then wait for the second strike until you've built your army up and are ready to proceed.

Day Three

What happens with your sub on this day will mostly depend on the positioning of the enemy carrier and battleship. If they block the passageway leading to the north, you likely won't be able to reach the enemy carrier; attacking the enemy battleship is a decently acceptable tradeoff, since you will likely be able to kill it next turn, even after the enemy cruiser attacks your sub. Still, the carrier is the better target here. If you do get a clear movement path up the western side of the map, park your submarine on the narrowest part of the water, where the unclaimed property lies on a cliff. If you're lucky, that will let you prevent the enemy carrier from passing you by, which it likely will if the carrier discovers you on its movement turn.

Keep moving your units across the bridge to the small string of properties, and continue to capture anything you can; you'll need plenty of cash to pull off this upset victory. Again, though, don't bother with the city that the enemy rockets can hit, and don't bother with the port, either; you'll get pounded by the battleship before you can capture it.

Day Four

With any luck, your sub will hit the enemy carrier here, sinking it. If that happens, the sea fight is basically over for you. The smart play is to move your sub near, but not on top of the enemy docks. Since you don't really care about enemy sea power, you can let them build whatever they want at the docks; it won't affect you too much. They'll probably build another cruiser in the hopes of sinking your sub, which is fine; it'll sink from lack of fuel anyway.

You can move your soldier off of the airport at this point and build a fighter. It can be used to block the gap up north and prevent enemy units from approaching you, if you wish. Continue moving your units across the river and into the properties to capture them. Note the enemy rockets, though; it has a decent firing range. The farthest north your units can go will be the bridge leading to the eastern edge of the plasma field, so park them there, and don't forget to get your rockets in position to hit the meteor.

Day Five

At this point, the enemy ground forces will act somewhat erratically, refusing to press the attack, especially if your b-copters protect the main force of your army. That's fine, you can let them alone for a while. Continue to build up your forces, and attempt to make one more fighter, then a couple of t-copters in the turns ahead, which you'll need to load infantry onto. B-copters will eventually also be helpful to have. Your eastern factory should build mid-tanks whenever possible, and your rig might want to build a temporary airfield in the middle of the northern properties.

From here on in, you have a rough equilibrium between yourself and your enemy's forces. This is where you want to make your quicksave, because a lot of things can go wrong here. At any rate, you want to build up a force of four or five mid-tanks in addition to the two b-copters and two tanks you started the game with. When you have your mid-tanks assembled near the bridge leading to the plasma beam, fire a rocket at the meteor to drop the beam. You'll probably want to do this on day nine or ten. If you have a mid-tank on the bridge itself, it should be able to move far enough to hit the enemy rockets and deal it a serious blow. At this point, your strategy will depend on what units your enemy has built; chances are good that it has at least one fighter on its side, which you will probably want to lure into range of your missiles and take down before it disrupts your transport choppers.

The basic thrust here will be to move your mid-tanks, tanks, and all other applicable units as quickly as possible towards the enemy base as you can. The t-copters will escort the infantry up to the northeastern corner of the map, hopefully out of harm's way, and when the enemy HQ is cleared, drop them onto it and begin capturing it. It's important to cover the enemy factories and airport with units; feel free to drop a t-copter on top of them if possible. The specifics of the thrust will, again, depend on the specific makeup of the enemy army. With any luck they've wasted money on naval units, leaving a ragtag group of infantry and anti-air units to defend their base, which your mid-tanks should be able to sweep through.

Chapter 15: Icy Retreat

This is going to be another puzzle mission. You need to escort one of the two blue units all the way to the western edge of the map, to the blue city there. Brenner in his md-tank will act as the rearguard and attempt to buy you some time. Unfortunately you're going to need to take on enemies in both directions before you can manage to escape. Just keep in mind that your primary task is to keep the blue units alive. They're not the smartest units in the world, though, so this can be easier said than done.

The general strategy here will involve sacrificing your units so that the blue units can pass to the west. You'll need to destroy one plasma field in your path, but the second one can be bypassed. Unfortunately you'll somewhat be at the mercy of your blue comrades, as they will not always make the wisest decisions. Luckily, the blue unit only needs to reach the blue city, not capture it; they can be banged up when they get there and you'll still win. Unfortunately it'll take a bit of time to escape, as the blue car will usually put itself in a position where it'll get blown up within a couple of turns, forcing you to shepherd the infantry unit all the way across the map.

Day One

Move your tank to the southwest and attack the rockets there. Move the northern anti-air unit as far to the west as it can go, and move the artillery unit to the northern road as well, heading to the west. To the south, move the rig one space to the east and load the mech unit onto it. The infantry unit you have should stay in position. Move the middle anti-air unit to the west and destroy the helicopter near Brenner.

Day Two

Move the northern anti-air unit to the west and hit the mech unit that's capturing the city there. Note that you don't need to worry about capturing cities, or really worry about the yellow units capturing them either, but getting a bit of experience for your units will help.

Your tank can destroy the rockets on this turn. Move your infantry and your rig off to the west a bit, along with the rest of your units, including the artillery in the north. Your goal here is to have your artillery fire on the northern edge of the plasma field in a couple of turns and destroy it to allow you to move on.

Day Three

The blue recon unit will likely be destroyed before this turn begins, and on the yellow turn they'll begin hitting Brenner. You can't save Brenner; he's just there to buy you some time, so let him soak up the hits and keep the enemies at bay here.

The rest of your units need to move to the west here, being careful to stay out of range of the enemy artillery. Move your artillery unit into a position where it can hit the northern meteor that lies near you. Move the rig down and start setting up your infantry and mech units at the ends of the middle and southern roads; they'll be the roadblocks that slow your enemies down during their pursuit while your tank, artillery, and the two anti-air units help escort the blue infantry.

Day Four

Begin firing on the northern meteor. Your artillery will deal 45% damage to it, so you'll need another unit (preferably the tank) to help fire on it this turn. Apart from that, just be careful about your positioning. The closest yellow units now should be a b-copter, a fully healthy normal tank, and a weakened normal tank.

Day Five

Destroy the northern meteor here and move your tank down to fire on the enemy artillery. It likely won't die this turn, but you should be able to knock it down a fair amount. If your infantry or mech roadblocks have taken damage, move them onto the nearby city and replace them with the rig. Whatever you do, remember not to attack! You don't want your forces to attack here; you want the enemies to attack. Even if they kill your unit, that'll still pause them for a while.

Day Six

Destroy the enemy artillery. If you can maneuver one of your anti-air units into position to kill it, that will let your tank charge across the bridge to protect the blue infantry, which is probably about to cross the river itself. If the enemy chopper has come within range of one of your anti-air units, take it out.

At this point, all you really need to cross the bridge and take out the two enemy recons is a tank and an anti-air unit; everything else should be used to stall the enemy advance, which at this point will have to cross the bridge that you just cleared. If your rig is still alive, load an infantry unit onto it, then unload them near the bridge. Consolidate the bridge with whatever remaining units you have to stall the enemy advance, clear out the recon units (starting with the northern one), then wait for the blue infantry to make it to the city, which should happen on day ten or eleven.

Chapter 16: Hope Rising

This mission's a fair bit easier than the ones you've been seeing, mostly owing to the fact that you can lock your opponent down in the northeastern corner of the map while you build a huge economical advantage.

Day One

You begin with four infantry and mech units deep inside enemy territory. Moving them out of harm's way as quickly as possible will be key to getting an early advantage on your foes. Both of the infantry units should be moved as far south as they'll go; one will wind up capturing the factory in the middle of your forces, and the other will wind up in the forest nearby. The northernmost mech unit should start moving to the west, towards the properties in the northwestern corner of the map. The last mech units probably won't be able to move far enough to avoid death on the enemy's turn, so feel free to hit an enemy tank with it.

Your artillery unit should move one space north so that it can cover the road leading off to the northwestern properties; that alone will mostly keep the enemy units bottled up. Apart from that, move your b-copter over to the mountains to the east, where it will pound enemy infantry units attempting to cross to the properties down there. You can also move your anti-air unit around the mountains towards those properties; the enemy can't create air units, so you won't have much need for it.

Start moving your transport copter up to the northwest; you'll be able to pick up the mech unit there and shuttle it directly to the northwestern factory, which will be making a number of your units later on.

Day Two

On the enemy's turn, they will have destroyed one of your mech units and probably shuffled around their tanks so that one of them is a space away your infantry unit in the forest. If you moved your artillery unit up a space, it can hit that tank; pound it, then move the infantry unit in the forest towards the eastern properties, including the airport. It'll take a couple of turns to get there. Have the w-tank move into the forest and finish off the tank.

After capturing the factory, continue to move your units around a bit. Move the northern mech unit off to the west, and try to get your t-copter up to a position where it'll be able to pick up the mech unit on your next turn.

Day Three

Complete your capture of the factory. You can now load Will onto a unit at the factory, which you should begin preparing to do by either moving the existing w-tank onto the factory, or by building a new one there. Be sure to have a unit in the forest at the end of the turn, either way. You won't be able to load Will onto the w-tank until next turn. You may simply want to move the existing w-tank back onto the factory, as that will save you a bit of money to build a rocket unit next turn.

Begin capturing one of the properties to the east, and load your mech onto your t-copter and unload him onto the factory in the northwest in preparation for capturing it next turn. An enemy infantry will be heading towards those properties, so capture the factory quick and build a w-tank up there.

Day Four

Load Will onto the w-tank at your factory and move him into the forest square again. If you have the money, build a rocket unit at the central factory and be prepared to move it a single space to the north, where it will be able to hit units pretty far to the north and east. Apart from that, continue to capture properties in the northwest and east.

Day Five

The flood of enemy infantry will start heading to the south towards the properties you're capturing. The b-copter should be able to dissuade most of them from making serious headway, and if you brought around the anti-air unit, that'll help as well.

At any rate, beat them back. By now you should have the enemies in the northeast virtually locked down; they can't move towards your base because of the w-tank in the forest (and what's more, they won't even seem interested in trying), and can't move to the west without taking a pounding from your artillery and rockets. Thus, they'll pretty much just hang around and do nothing except send infantry to the south and west, which is easily taken care of.

At this point, your strategy involves building a large number of w-tanks in the northwestern factory and getting ready to assault the enemy base. You won't need to make too many units in the middle factory, but you should build a flare unit and use it to spot enemies for your rocket. You can also build a bike and have it head back to capture more properties in the southwest.

Your basic goal here is to build a fleet of four or five w-tanks and complement those with two or three bombers. The enemy will have a number of anti-tank units in position around their base, and you can expect your tanks to be shelled, so do your best to fire on their anti-air units when you spot them and use your bombers to head in and clear out the enemy AT. This will be difficult, as there'll be a lot of enemy units spread throughout the base, and between that and the lack of light, you'll run into a lot of obstacles as you proceed. Don't forget to bring your rockets up behind your w-tanks, though; they'll help eliminate some of the chaff. If you can manage it, park your vehicles on top of the enemy factories and plug them up, then finish off the rest of the units or capture the HQ to move on.

Chapter 17: The Creeper

The map here is dominated by a huge enemy unit, the Talon Gun, at the center of the map. It has an area-of-effect attack that will damage anything that gets close to it. The win conditions here entail either destroying all the enemies or the Talon Gun itself, but it will be pretty much impossible to do the former. Talon Gun, you're going down! You're going to need a lot of bombers to pull this off…

Day One

Load a mech or infantry unit into the northern t-copter and drop it on the northern factory. This northern area won't be critical to your war effort, but you want to hold it and the buildings around it for the cash that they'll give you.

To the south, move your tank and other units into the small suite of properties down there. You can load one of the infantry units onto the rig and drop it off on the factory here, while the other infantry can start making his way to the airport. Build another infantry at the factory near your HQ and start moving him to the northern properties, as well.

Day Two

You should be able to begin capturing the southern factory and airport on this day. Begin capturing the northern factory as well, and move your t-copter back to pick up the other infantry unit in the north.

Your units in the south need to be positioned at this point. Move the rockets onto the uncaptured city one spot to the west of the factory that you're capturing down there; that'll give it domain over the approach from the west and prevent most enemies from approaching. That stasis will persist throughout much of the game, allowing you to build up your forces without much threat of attack from the enemy.

If you like, you can build another set of rockets in your rear factory on this day. You can overlap the firing radii of the two rockets along the southern approach to effectively prevent the enemies from ever approaching you.

Day Three

Continue capturing the properties in the north and south, and drop your infantry unit in the t-copter to the north on one of the airports there. The enemy will also be cranking out infantry to capture the cities on their side of the map, but there isn't much you can do about that except let them. They will eventually come for the northern properties, though, so you'll want to quickly capture them and eventually build a rocket or w-tank to help dissuade them from their approach.

Day Four

Complete capturing your stuff, then build a unit in the northern properties to help protect them. The enemy will be sending a b-copter and infantry your way, so an anti-air unit or two might be the best option here; just park it on a city that you've captured and maybe follow it up with a fighter if necessary. You don't need to build an army here to expand westward; you're just concentrating on holding these properties against the enemy forces.

Elsewhere, you should have enough cash to begin building bombers. (You may also want a fighter positioned to the north to encourage the b-copter and various air units that your enemies build to stay away from you.) You'll need three or four of them to begin your assault on the Talon Gun. Be sure to load your CO, Tasha, on to one of the bombers. Start positioning your bombers so that they're just outside the firing range of the enemy missiles to the south of the Talon Gun. It can be very difficult to set this up right, since the enemy will usually begin constructing fighters when they see that you're building up your bomber groups; be sure to protect the areas where your bombers are forming up with missiles.

If everything goes perfectly well, we found that it was best to move in first with your CO-commandeered bomber and destroy one of the anti-tank units right off the bat, then follow through with another bomber to destroy the missiles below the Talon Gun. Your bomber will need to be where the missiles were to attack the Talon Gun; a full-health bomber will take off 75% of its health in one shot. On the Talon Gun's turn, it'll take off half the health of any unit in its firing range, so your bombers will take a lot of damage, but if you have even a single one left, it should be capable of finishing off the Talon Gun.

Note that, if the air force approach doesn't work for you, you can definitely try amassing an army of w-tanks and rockets, with some fighters to protect them, and attempt to roll in that way. The limited mobility of ground units will make this a bit more difficult, however.

Chapter 18: Panic In The Ranks

An annoying mission, but a short one. The caveat here is that your blue allies won't move or attack on the first turn; they're too panicked to do anything. You need to get Will, in the w-tank, to the com tower to the southwest of him in order to make them move.

Day One

Move the w-tank to the southwest so that it winds up three spaces to the north of the com tower, and fire on the mech unit there. That'll destroy it. Move the rest of your units off to the southwest, as well, and have your anti-air unit move to the south and fire on the infantry unit there.

Day Two

Move the w-tank onto the com tower to free up the blue forces to fight. You'll notice that they mostly have anti-air units, while you have the anti-tank capabilities.

At this point, all you can really do is try to knock around the enemy tanks while the blue forces dissuade the enemy air from coming your way. The best path to take appears to be to attack on day two with your anti-air unit; just throw it north into the enemy air forces and attack anything you spot, with the fighter or the bomber being ideal targets. The rest of your infantry units can also be sacrificed to the air force up there; they won't be much help down south, and will let you stall the air forces long enough to meld your ground troops into the blue army.

After the second day of the fight, the blue army should begin fighting back. The enemy w-tank will hopefully be bombed by the blue bomber, making the fight a bit easier. Try to use your anti-tank units to hit whatever comes in range. If you stomp the gold army long enough, they'll probably start running from your forces. The bomber will track down one of the units, so use your army to round up any other stragglers and take them out. It can be difficult to s-rank this one, mostly because of the time factor, but you shouldn't have too many problems winning, at any rate.

Chapter 19: Salvation

Although the enemy forces here are weakened a bit, they will quickly solidify into a fighting force that'll give you quite a challenge, unless you quickly act to weaken them even more than they already are. The missiles here will be integral to your chances; this mission is won or lost by the end of your first turn. You need some pinpoint precision to survive the enemy missiles that'll be coming your way on the enemy's turn, and you'll need to be sure that you're capable of reaching the missile silos before the enemy does on their Day 2.

Day One

Move the bike on your HQ to the west to the missile silo there, and fire it off at the w-tank and the enemy infantry to the north, trying to hit as many of them as possible. The western bike won't be able to make it to the northwestern missiles, so try to park it just south of the missile silo that's closest to it. The eastern bike should move to the nearest missile silo and launch it at the tank and infantry in the northeastern corner of the map. That's all the missiles you'll get off this turn.

The westernmost mech unit should move two spaces to the west, onto the road there. The two infantry units that are closest to the two capturable cities should begin capturing them. Move your recon unit to the northeast, near the unfired missile silo. Move the tank that you possess onto your HQ. The last two units you should have are the infantry unit and mech unit; place them on the eastern side of your tank to make them into a target for the enemy missiles that are coming your way.

Day Two

If all went as planned, you should have taken two missile hits to your tank and infantry/mech units, but nothing else should've been damaged on your first turn. The w-tank will be coming your way, however.

If you positioned your units correctly, the enemy tank with five health on the western edge of the map will have charged down the road there, winding up a few spaces north of your southwestern mech unit. Move the mech unit north and blast the tank; that'll save you from having to use a missile on it. You should be able to move your bikes on the east and west sides of the map to fire two more missiles; hit the enemy w-tank with one of them, and fire the other one at the units on either the northern com towers or that surround the missile silo on the eastern side of the map.

At this point, it's all execution. The enemy w-tank should be at 4 health, and will be problematic for any infantry or mech units that it hits. You can attempt to hit it with another missile if you reach one on your third day; otherwise, your tank can wear it down over time. Your recon units and bike should be able to pick off any weak infantry units remaining, while regenerated enemy units can be similarly harrassed and taken out. If you win by day six or so, you should get an s-ranking on this.

Chapter 20: Waylon Flies Again

This one is frustrating from the get-go, and quickly devolves into quite a slog. The keys here are to hold as many of the central cities as you can, build up your economic base, and then make a late charge across the southern edge of the map with tanks and air units in an attempt to wipe the enemy out.

Keep in mind that you lose the game if all of the blue units are destroyed. This makes for some panic in the early stages, as the blue units will charge forward, heedless of the enemy hordes coming their way. Luckily, though, a single blue missile unit will hang back on their HQ, so that you don't really need to worry about losing because of blue's stupidity.

Day One

Start moving all of your infantry units across the mountains to the west. You have basically no units to start this map with, and you have no production facilities, forcing you to fight a retreating battle at the outset. You should be able to start capturing an airport and a factory on the first day, while the other infantry and mech unit can begin moving towards other properties in the area. The bike unit can move far to the south and begin moving towards those properties, as well.

The anti-air unit stays in the middle here, and will act as a bit of a roadblock to the enemy air units. It won't stop them for long, however; they're awfully cagey at avoiding your fire by hiding in the mountains.

Day Two

Do your best to get to a property with your bike, and continue moving your infantry backwards. The anti-air unit almost certainly won't have anything to fire at here, and will probably get bombed by the enemy bomber on their turn, but there's not much you can do about that. You may simply want to keep it on a city, where it'll absorb some of the damage and be repaired on your next turn.

Day Three

The attacks start! Take them as best you can. The enemy blue units will counterattack a bit. You should be able to start making units now; the best that you can afford will be an anti-air unit at the factory and a missile unit at the airport. They won't live long, especially the duster, but they'll hold up your foes a bit.

Day Four

If you built the anti-air and duster unit, then you may be pleased here when the enemy fighters and choppers in the area start to retreat. Try to ensure that you stay within the blue missile's protective aura, but don't worry too much about it; most of the blue units are still going to rush forward at this point, and eventually die, but they will push back the enemy air forces as they do so, giving you a bit of breathing room.

Finish It!

Hah, don't get your hopes up yet: you won't be able to finish the map for a good long while yet. Unfortunately, there are so many enemy units that giving you a blow-by-blow description of what happens on subsequent turns would probably be incorrect for your game.

Your basic goal here is to build up a large air force first and foremost, using fighters and missile units to hold back the enemy airforce. You don't need to attack, but use the units and make a wall on top of the mountains in front of your base. That'll prevent the enemy forces from approaching or reaching back into your rearguard; they'll usually just hang back and let their ground units swarm into the middle. You should obviously be capturing all the properties on your side of the field with your infantry units.

There will be a long but necessary build-up section of this fight in which you occasionally trade blows with your enemies, but for the most part will simply be constructing more units for the eventual assault on the enemy base. You're going to need cash to win this fight, so it's fairly important to try and keep as many of the central cities as possible. Doing so can be difficult, since the enemies will often drop infantry units off from helicopters and capture them quickly if you're not in position to destroy them.

Generally speaking, the best way to keep the central cities is to protect them with rockets, and to protect the rockets with missiles and fighters. The two northern cities can be covered by a rocket unit that moves into the little gap to the east of the factory on the northern side of the mountain, while the southwestern city can be hit by a rocket that's based one space to the west of the airport. (There's unlikely to be anything you can do to save the southeastern city, alas.)

Enemy bombers and dusters will come for the rockets, though, even if they know that they'll get blasted, so if you have the resources, try to place a t-copter in front of the rockets so that the enemies won't be able to blast through. You'll probably wind up losing the t-copters eventually, and this will tie up one of your airports for a turn while you build them, but trading a t-copter for an enemy fighter or bomber is obviously a good trade for you. Just be sure that your missile fields overlap so that there aren't any gaps in the firing solution. You'll probably want to have three missile units in total behind the mountains.

The defensive solution won't work forever, though; eventually you have to win. You'll want to alternate your cash resources between bombers, fighters, and w-tanks for the southern road, with some b-copters thrown in for good measure. The basic solution here is to amass a fleet of five or six w-tanks, march them along the road to the center of the map, and group them together with four or five fighters and two or three bombers. Concentrate on building up the w-tanks first, since it's much easier to reinforce your air force from over the mountains; it'll be basically impossible to build new tanks and get them to the front without capturing an enemy factory. Be sure that Lin is loaded up onto one of the w-tanks, obviously. Don't neglect to build a rig or two and have it trundle along behind the forces; you're definitely going to need to refuel and resupply some of your units by the time you're done.

Luckily, the enemy usually seems to retreat in the face of your incoming forces (assuming you match up the tanks with fighters and bombers; a ground army by itself will be pounded). Follow the road to the center, and when you think you're ready to make your move, start sending your w-tanks across the mountains to the east. There's a gap in the road that will slow them down a fair amount, unfortunately, but if you've been using Lin's tank to blow up units, then you should be able to activate her CO power to extend your range a bit and charge into the enemy heartland. When you attack, go for broke; do your best to charge back to the enemy production facilities, destroy the units on them, and get a fighter jet or another fast-moving unit on top of it to prevent the enemy from building more units.

This is a tough mission, and you won't know what your ranking will be until the very end, so it can be frustrating to try if you're shooting for an S-ranking. We managed to S-rank it on day 37, but our speed score was around 75; you'll need to either be quicker or be pretty good about making good trades with your enemy if you want to get an S-ranking here. If you don't care, then simply fill your side of the screen with units before attacking.

Mission 21: Lin's Gambit

This is a combined naval/army map. You won't have any airports, so you won't be able to build any planes, although building seaplanes on your carrier will eventually become necessary. You have 40 days to win the map, although you should be able to pull it off by day 30 if you work hard; achieving a 100 point speed rating seems to require a victory by day 25 or so, but you can still S-rank it later on if you dominate militarily.

Luckily, it's not too difficult to eliminate the enemy navy early on, lock down their ports, and concentrate on your ground forces. You'll need to stall the enemy army on the eastern side of the map until you've built your navy up enough to help support your ground invasion, however. When you have the forces required, you can sweep across the eastern bridges to the north, then charge to the northwestern corner of the map and destroy the enemy units there or capture the HQ.

Day One

Move your subs to the center of the map and dive them; they'll be integral to your plans to shut down Greyfield's navy. Your southwestern infantry unit should be loaded onto the rig nearby and shuttled up and around to the factory and dock there; you can also load another nearby infantry onto a gunboat and shuttle him up near the dock. The infantry won't be good for much on this map except for capturing buildings, so get it done early. On the eastern side, you can load a mech unit onto the lander there and drop it off on the small island nearby. Focus on capturing docks first, but keep in mind that enemy infantry will be coming for the island in a few turns.

Shuffle the rest of your units around, consolidating your navy below the submarines, and get ready for a fight. Move the w-tank up to the rocket units on the eastern edge of the map, and get the rockets ready to fire by placing the rig near them.

Day Two

Continue or start to capture the properties that you've managed to make it near. Move the submarines north into the channel between the peninsula and the island; they'll begin to register enemy units on the next turn. Use your rockets to the east to fire on any enemy units that have shown up on the bridges; don't forget to flare to light the way. Again, you don't want to be moving north at this point; simply stopping the enemy from approaching your position. Be sure that the rockets aren't exposed to fire, though; you can block the bridges with your w-tank or even a cruiser or lander to prevent enemy tanks from reaching the rockets.

Day Three

The enemy's behavior with their navy can vary here; what you want is to see a few of their battleships appear in the sight range of your submarines. The enemy has four battleships and two carriers here; with a little work, you can destroy them with your subs, but you'll need to be careful of enemy cruisers, of which there aren't many, luckily. At any rate, on this turn, try to hit two of the battleships with your subs, and finish one of them off with your own battleship if possible; an enemy seaplane may get close enough to spot your battleship on their turn and hit it pretty hard, though. On the eastern front, rocket anyone that comes towards your troops. Again, you can block the roads with a cruiser, a lander, a gunship; anything that floats will sit on the bridge and prevent the enemy units from coming down. A cruiser will work well here, as it has a pretty long range of vision.

Day Four

Continue to pound the enemy naval forces here, and try to take out one of their carriers if possible. Seaplanes will start to harrass your western properties, but you should have already captured both of them by now, hopefully, assuming you landed two infantry units with the rig and the gunship. On the central island, enemy infantry will begin appearing and start capturing the two other facilities here; you'll need to pound them with a battleship or something to prevent that from happening. You can also build an anti-air unit in the east and land it on the island to take out the infantry. You'll probably want to build another battleship now if you haven't done so already.

Moving On

The key thing here is keeping both of your subs alive long enough for them to put a dent in the enemy battleships and carriers, hopefully destroying the lot of them without being destroyed themselves. This requires a balance of aggression and skill, as you'll need to be aware of the enemy's line of sight. Enemy seaplanes will reveal large swaths of land to them, and if they manage to spot one of your infantry units capturing a property, or one of your battleships, the remaining battleships won't hesitate to pound it. It requires a bit of luck to keep both of your submarines alive; if you're unsure of yourself, simply use them to blockade the passageway leading to the enemy ports and hold them back until you've built another battleship. The battleships are going to be helpful to defend the central island from landers and infantry, and also to destroy any enemy cruisers that happen to pop up.

The first five days of this map are the key: you can either get really lucky, or wind up getting royally screwed, especially by the enemy navy. If you're not having much luck with the navy, you may want to try giving the enemy battleships an extra turn to come out of the bay before pounding them with subs, or building an extra submarine before building your first battleship. If it comes down to it, you can mask the presence of your subs by sending gunships or landers towards the enemy fleet; the enemy ships will move to hit them and hopefully bypass the sunken submarines. You should always work with the goal to have your submarines out of sight of enemy units at the end of one of your turns, in the hopes that they'll be ignored on the next turn.

Either way, the navy has to be your priority; your rocket units can hold the enemy back on the eastern edge of the map more or less indefinitely. In order to conquer the enemy docks, you'll want to have at least two subs and a couple of battleships, with some cruisers being helpful to guard your battleships from enemy subs. Having a rig on the peninsula build a temporary port will also be required to refuel your ships; park the rig next to the dock to allow it to refuel ships further out in the water. If you get very lucky and manage to push the enemy back to their docks and destroy their ships, you'll find that the enemy docks are unfortunately not blockable; you can't move your units on top of them to prevent further construction. That's all right, though. If you were able to block them, your units would come under fire from rockets in the hills. Just keep your submarines in the bay, near the docks, rotating them out every once in a while to refuel them. Two submarines, a battleship, and a cruiser or two should be enough to prevent any enemy ships that are built from leaving the bay.

The Ground War

When you have the enemy docks locked down, you'll need to move on to the eastern front, where you have to charge north across the bridges and circle around to the enemy HQ. The darkness here will work against you; the enemy will have rockets in the hills that will be difficult to spot from long range.

Your best before proceeding north is to build a carrier and some seaplanes; the seaplanes will have long viewing distances and will be able to hit some of the enemy units before your mass of w-tanks starts rolling along. Cruisers in the water will also provide some good viewing distances, allowing you to make a few battleships and have them sit in the water and pound the enemy forces from below. Be sure that Lin is on one of these battleships! It's a cheap way to boost her CO gauge.

Anyway, you'll take your licks from the rockets, but your planes should be able to discover them and take them out, allowing your w-tanks to roll on. Move around to the west, being sure to capture the enemy factory on the northern edge of the map, and then continue to the northwestern corner to defeat the remaining enemy forces.

Mission 22: The Great Owl

This one's going to tax your skills a bit. The enemy army here is larger than yours at the outset, and the enemy has more properties under her control. Your back will be up against the wall, but luckily for you, you'll be able to nab a few properties at the outset to help even the balance out.

The main caveat here is the Great Owl, a huge bomber that will drop gigantic bombs on the center of the map. These act effectively like missiles, dealing a large amount of damage to anything in the center of the map at the end of the turn, but they can't knock a unit below one health. Make note of the damage radius. There's a set of ruins in the center of the map; everything within three spaces of that spot will be hit by the bombs.

The enemy will be much more willing to head into this region than you will be, and so will constantly be seeing their units get hit by the bombs, which will force them to join units and retreat for repairs. The southern edge of the map, then, will be where you need to go to skirt around the bombing area; the northern part of the map is only passable by air units, but the grey army will have missiles and fighters positioned up there.

The one thing the enemy doesn't have, however, is an airport, so that will wind up being key for you. They can defend against your air units with anti-air and missile units, but they won't have anywhere to refuel their air units, so they'll eventually die. Don't build any more fighters or dusters, then; you can maintain the ones you've built, but they'll eventually be useless to you except as sacrificial lambs or road barriers.

This will be another slog mission, but you can still S-rank it even if it takes you 35+ days. Your speed rating starts to dip past 100 around Day 25 or so (we got 50 speed points for completing on Day 37), but a bigger army and some well-planned movements will let you win handily.

Day One

Begin capturing four properties here: you can nab the city in the northwest, the airport and city in the north, and a southern city with your bike there. Apart from that, start shuffling all of your units down to the south, but leave one of your w-tanks on your factory. The enemy forces may attempt to cross the central bombing grounds, but never seem to come all the way over, so you won't really have to worry about any kind of northern army, save for the occasional infantry that will cross the river to attempt to capture your units. Keep both anti-air units and a fighter up there to support the infantry troops; you'll also eventually want a rocket unit up there to hit enemy units that come into range, especially on the northern city in the bomb zone. The enemy will try to capture it, and will eventually succeed if left alone, despite the bombing.

Day Two

Complete capturing, and set your w-tanks on the southern road, perhaps behind the two remaining fighter planes, if there aren't any enemy anti-air units that might attack them. Load Lin onto your w-tank and move it towards the southern road.

Day Three

Move your infantry unit up to the northern city and attempt to capture it; you'll probably get pounded by the enemy bomber, but if you move your fighter up into attack range you might be able to avoid that. Build rockets for your southern road.

Setting The Stage

After this point, you basically just need to fortify the southern approch to your properties and hold off the enemies there, and you'll eventually win. A good stopgap group is your two fighters, the two w-tanks, and a pair of rockets. Keep the rockets protected, use the w-tanks to dissuade enemies from approaching your forces, and use the planes to keep the enemy bombers at bay, or to lure in enemy anti-air units so that your w-tanks can destroy them.

Your northern edge should be fairly secure with the units that you have up there, especially if you can shoot down the bomber with one of your anti-air units. The enemy missiles will prevent you from building any air units on the airport, but you'll be keeping your foes on the defensive in the north with just a few units. They can't really cross the bomb zone, which will leave them with air units (which will eventually crash from lack of fuel) and infantry units, which can be dealt with by anti-air or rocket units.

In the south, you'll need to build a large force of bombers, w-tanks, and rockets, and continually press forward on your foes when the opportunity presents itself. Always be aware of what their rocket's firing ranges are, and try to stay one square away from them. We built up six w-tanks before pressing the attack, but that's probably overkill, as the enemy will begin retreating when you move in that large of a force, making things a bit easier than they would be otherwise. Use your bombers to take down enemy rockets or anti-tank units, and bring rigs to refuel. Your goal is to capture the factory in the southeastern corner of the map. If you can press all the way to there with your w-tanks, you can capture it and fortify your army for the push towards the enemy headquarters. The enemy will only have one factory at this point, making it difficult for them to recover, especially if you capture some of their properties.

Said push will involve sending in your bombers to take out the missiles and anti-tank units near the enemy headquarters, followed by a royal pounding from your w-tanks. Use the bombers to clear off the factory near the enemy HQ and plant a unit on top of it, then capture the HQ itself. That'll let you clear the mission without having to defeat the remainders of the army.

Mission 23: Sacrificial Lamb

Moreso than most other missions, this one's all about surviving the first five days or so. If you can get through them without taking a huge amount of damage, especially to your fleet, then you should be able to cruise your way to an easy victory.

The enemy has a lot of territory to work with, but their factories are blocked off from most of it thanks to meteors, which they seem to not want to destroy. Thus, the only reinforcements they can get to the bulk of their landmass is infantry. Your ultimate goal here is not to storm the beaches, though; you should attempt to skirt around the southeastern corner of the map, land your troops near the dock there, and strike from there towards the enemy HQ.

The trouble here revolves around the fact that you're going to be taking bomb hits from the Giant Owl on days three, four, and five. These bombs are dropped on your largest and most expensive collection of units. What you want to avoid here is having any naval units get hit by the bombs, but luckily that's avoidable.

The missiles in the corners of the map will be valuable here. You'll want to use them in conjunction with your battleships. When you manage to lure the rockets out towards the edge of the water, you can hit them with missiles, then nail them with your battleships to finish them off. They won't be capable of being rebuilt since the enemy factories are behind the meteors.

Day One

The northern lander here has a mech unit and an anti-tank unit on it; drop it on the northwestern island so that the anti-tank unit can fire on the meteor there on day two, and the mech unit can capture something starting on the same turn. The eastern landers here (with a tank, w-tank, and a couple of mech/infantry units on them) should begin heading to the southeastern island. One of them will be able to get close enough to drop off the mech unit, which can likewise begin capturing a property on day two.

You need to split up your battleships here. Move the easternmost one to the southeast a bit, while the western one moves north a bit and plunks the gunship there with its bombs. Finish the gunship off with a carrier, and spread the rest of your naval forces out a bit as well. The Giant Owl's bomb will have a three square radius of effect, just like it did last turn.

At the northern dock and factory, build a gunship and an infantry unit. You'll be able to use the gunship to drop the infantry unit off on the northern island next turn, and the gunship will make a handy blockade of the channel there, alongside your lander, to prevent enemy submarines from coming down. You may also want to build a gunship on the eastern dock, since you can afford it, and it'll come in handy for weakening the enemy gunship or cruiser on that side of the map.

Apart from that, consolidate your w-tanks and infantry units near your headquarters. Park the w-tanks on buildings and make sure all the units there are tightly packed together to give the Giant Owl a nice little bullseye.

Day Two

Make a quicksave at the beginning of this turn; in a lot of ways it will be the most important turn for you. You have to position your units such that the important units, specifically the battleships, aren't targeted by the Giant Owl when it comes down.

Begin by starting to capture properties on the northwestern and southeastern islands. You'll need to land a bunch of units on the southeastern island here, both to capture the two cities there and also to block the enemy landers that will be coming this way from dropping any other units off. If you park a tank and a w-tank on the coastline, they and the landers should be able to block off any enemy landers that attempt to approach, causing them to head for your mainland, where they can be easily destroyed before disgorging their contents.

At the end of the day, you need to ensure that your battleships are fairly isolated, away from your carriers especially, since those will make high-value targets. Again, if you have two w-tanks and three infantry units clustered in your base, that should be enough to draw the Giant Owl's fire, which is fine. If the Giant Owl is consistently aiming for your ships, then you may need to build a set of rockets or another w-tank back near your HQ to shift its fire. You want the Giant Owl to bomb these units since you won't be using them for a while, and you'll have plenty of time to repair them before using them for an attack.

Day Three

If one of your battleships was hit by the Giant Owl, you should probably go ahead and reload your quicksave and try things again until you manage to get the Giant Owl to attack your tanks. If you can manage to get the bombs to drop on the right place, then this should be a fairly simple turn: just avoid moving your units around too much (you want the bombs to drop in the same place next turn as well) while destroying any enemy units that threaten you and continuing to capture cities that you've reached.

Try to block off the northern passageway from the enemy docks on this turn with your gunship and lander. They will have a submarine coming for your battleship at this point, so you want to intercept it if at all possible. Otherwise, try to position your battleship south of the rough seas with the gunship and lander in a position to block it from being attacked. If you have a cruiser in the area, it should be able to make a strike at the submarine from a distance away on the next turn.

Day Four

Another holding pattern day. Continue capturing and shelling any units that come into range of your battleships, but ignore the rockets for now. You can fire on a rocket unit, but they'll be able to fire back on their turn, and your goal is to keep your battleships at full health here.

Day Five

This is the last day of bombing, so after absorbing the blow here, you'll be able to start actually doing stuff. Exciting! At this point, if you've survived with your battleships and cruisers mostly intact, you should be able to start shutting down the enemy navy. For whatever reason, they seem intent on making units only at their northern docks, which makes it a bit easier to set up a blockade consisting of a couple of cruisers and a battleship, with perhaps a carrier up there to provide support against any battleships that might appear and also attack the enemies on the mainland.

The Buildup

Luckily for you, battleships in the water will keep the enemy rockets back towards the center of the enemy landmass, allowing you to move around in the water with a fair amount of independence. When you have the northern passage blocked off with cruisers and any remaining unused landers, you can start building extra battleships. Keep the cities on the coast uncaptured by the enemy to keep your economic edge, but don't risk taking out the rockets directly.

If you want to take out the rockets, feel free to pound them with missiles from the corners of the map. Apart from them, your threats include a possible landing attempt by a CO-powered w-tank that comes from the northern dock. Leave a gap in your blockade to allow it through, then pound it.

Build extra temporary docks on your main island to resupply the battleships there, as well as on the southeastern island to support the invasion fleet. When you're ready to go, start making landers and load them up with w-tanks, mid-tanks, and a few infantry units for good measure. Start crawling up the eastern side of the map, with battleships and cruisers leading the charge, and kill anything that looks at you funny.

You won't have a lot of beach space to unload your troops, so start with your tanks and charge into the enemy rockets to weaken up the troops, following with seaplanes if you have them. When you're able to do so, land your infantry on the beach and head to the HQ. Capturing it will end the map.

Mission 24: Crash Landing

This is a no-resources mission, so you'll have to use the units you're given and keep them alive until you destroy all of the enemy units. The catch is that the enemy CO will call for reinforcements, which will arrive after all of the enemies have been defeated. There are three waves of reinforcements. The first two waves will have three tanks and three rockets, while the final wave will have six rockets.

If you're a master strategist, then this mission should be easy for you; everyone else will likely have a difficult time deciding what to attack and when, especially on the first day, when most of the important decisions need to be made.

Day One

Make a quicksave, first off. You want to ensure that you can make good trades here with your enemy; if you don't, then you should reload.

Southeastern Corner

We'll start with the right side of the screen. In the southeastern corner of the map, you have a w-tank facing off against an enemy w-tank. Have your w-tank fire on the enemy. If your tank goes down to 7 health, reload; you want it to stay at 8 health. Bring the tank nearby down and have it fire on the enemy w-tank as well. That should almost kill it.

Slightly to the north, move your mech unit to the south side of the antitank unit and have it fire on the AT unit from there. You need to move it underneath the AT unit or the enemy rockets will hit it on their turn.

Center

In the middle of the map, you have an artillery unit and an anti-tank unit. Have the artillery hit the w-tank to the south of it, then finish it off with the anti-tank unit. If it doesn't die, reload and do it again.

Northwestern Corner

In the northwestern corner of the screen, you have a set of rockets. Fire them at the anti-air unit nearby. Bring the mid-tank up here over to fire at the infantry next to the rockets. On the northern edge of the screen, you have your own anti-air unit; bring it to the northwestern corner and have it fire on the enemy anti-air unit to destroy it.

Northeastern Corner

Fire your rockets here at the northern enemy tank. Since you moved your anti-air unit away, you can bring your northwestern tank up along the north edge of the screen and use it to destroy the tank that you just hit with rockets. Be sure to position it so that it's outside the range of the enemy rockets, though. You don't need to worry about the northwestern rockets, so long as you position your troops outside its firing range.

Southwestern Corner

Move the anti-air unit you have in the southwestern corner up and take out the bike unit there. Move your mid-tank down to the southern edge of the screen and hit the enemy tank there. Move your w-tank down to attack the mid-tank. If you're lucky, it won't take any damage from the counterattack. Move your rig down to the southern edge of the screen, near the enemy tank. The last unit you have is the recon unit. You can either move it west to attack the enemy recon, if you want to keep your northwestern rockets as healthy as possible, or move it around to attack the enemy mech unit nearby.

Day Two

You will likely lose one of your rocket units here, and the other one will also take damage; the enemy concentrates its firing on those units. It's no big deal, though. With any luck the rest of your units will mostly escape unscathed.

At the beginning of your turn, you should have one very healthy w-tank, a slightly wounded w-tank, two high-health mid-tanks, a couple of high-health tanks, and sundry other units, including what should be two perfectly healthy anti-air units, which will be important in fighting off the upcoming rocket units.

Your choices on this turn will depend on the enemy movements that were made on their turn, obviously. In general, though, you want to start consolidating your forces along the western edge of the screen, where many of your units should already be located.

Specifically, use your mech unit on the eastern edge of the screen to destroy or cripple the anti-tank unit there. Finish off the rest of the units on the eastern edge of the screen. In the middle, you will probably have to leave a unit behind to soak up damage from your enemies. Your rockets and anti-tank units make good sacrificial lambs in this regard, and at least the AT unit will put some hurting on your foes before it goes down. If your northwestern rocket unit is still in decent health, try to position it behind the anti-tank or artillery unit so that it can fire on any units that come your way.

Continue to move to the west, though, avoiding heavy engagements and wiping out units.

Finishing Them Off

In the end, you need to wipe out any remaining units on the map to cause the reinforcements to show up. If at all possible, make the final enemy unit be their rockets. They may cause you some trickery with the rockets, but if that's the last unit they have, you'll be in good shape. You can use your anti-air units to chase down the rockets and destroy it relatively easily.

Before you destroy the rockets, however, you again should have almost all of your units on the left side of the screen. You can send both anti-air units after the rockets, and probably should. You don't need both of them to destroy it, though. Instead, use one of the anti-airs to lock down the rocket (it will eventually stop moving if you can place an anti-air right next to it), and take it out. Be sure to save just before firing on the rocket for the last time.

Reinforcements!

At this point, you need to worry about the enemy reinforcements that will begin coming in. Three tanks will appear on the left side of the screen and three rockets will appear on the right. If you've sent your anti-air units to the east, the rockets will come towards them, allowing you to fire on them on your next turn. Your western units should all be fresh and ready to go, letting you get a first strike on the enemy tanks before they have a chance to do any damage to you.

Before finishing off the last rocket unit, try to lure it back to the western side of the screen with your anti-air units. Refuel and rearm the anti-air units with your rig, and destroy the last rocket when it gets close to your position.

That will cause the second wave of reinforcements to arrive. This time, the rockets will be on the western side of the screen and the tanks will be on the east. You can easily destroy the rockets, though, and let the tanks come to you before finishing them off.

The last wave will be nothing but rockets. If all of your units are on the western side of the screen, it should be easy to take out the western rockets, then let the eastern ones come close before finishing them off.

We finished this mission with two w-tanks, two mid-tanks, two tanks, two anti-air units, a rocket unit, and the rig, so it's definitely not impossible. You need to be very careful about positioning around the enemy rockets, and you'll also need to keep your rig alive to refuel and rearm your tanks. The first two days are the critical ones; after that you should have a big advantage if you manage to keep the bulk of your units alive.

Mission 25: Lab Rats

This is another mission where you appear to be hopelessly outnumbered at the start, but then reinforcements arrive to give you a better chance of winning. Unfortunately the enemy army starts out with a huge advantage in terms of their army strength, and they also begin with a huge number of cities under their control, which will let them build up rather rapidly. A whole mess of things need to go absolutely right for you here if you want to win, and how events play out will also depend on the quirkiness of the AI. Sometimes it will be very timid and sometimes it will be absolutely punishing, so there's a frustrating amount of variability to this mission that will probably make it frustrating.

Your basic goal over the first ten days or so is to make a stand at one of the factories in the middle of the map while hopefully preventing your enemies from taking the other nearby factory. You'll need to marshal all your resources toward this goal, however, and be very, very careful to avoid taking unnecessary losses. From there, you will have to attempt to slowly slog your way across to the west. Once you get a bit of momentum on your side, you should be able to push through relatively easily, but surviving until the 15th day or so will be difficult. The enemy CO, Tabitha, is incredibly nasty, and makes whatever unit she's in almost invincible.

It's important to note that you shouldn't attack any of the meteors yourself; leave them alone and let the enemies come to them. Doing so will force their units to come into range of your missiles and rockets.

Day One

You have a duster near the enemy base. Use it to attack one of the enemy bombers here to weaken it.

The rest of your units should focus on the enemy missiles. The easternmost missile is likely unkillable, as your tank and duster combined can't take it out, and it will repair itself each turn after that. The westernmost missile unit can be attacked by the nearby anti-air, though, and the central missile unit can be approached and taken out by your mid-tank nearby.

Elsewhere, you can move the tank to the east around the lasers and have it head for the factory a bit to the west; it'll act as a good little roadblock for the enemy forces later, or it can act as an insurance kill on the center missiles if your mid-tank gets taken out by a bomber. Your mech unit needs to head south into the mountains, towards the airport there. The mid-tank in the middle of the map can start taking out the enemy tank.

Day Two

Begin attacking the western and central missile units here. Start capturing the airport with the mech unit, and have your duster attack the bomber unit it attacked on day one again.

Day Three

The cavalry arrives, and you can actually start doing stuff now! Complete the kills of the missile units and capture the airport first off.

What happens now is that you need to rush towards the first factory off to your east while capturing as many properties as you can. There's a significant amount of variation in what the computer will attempt to do to you, but for the most part it will keep moving slowly and attempt to destroy every meteor it sees, which will give you a bit of time to move your troops out to the east.

The enemy fighter should still be a bit to the rear of the map, so move your fighters out to the east, using them to block access to the meteor near the middle factory, such that enemy bombers won't be able to come along and hit it. One of your bombers can hit the northern meteor near your base, and your anti-tank can finish it off, allowing your rockets and missile units to begin heading around the lake. The other bomber should simply head off behind the fighters. Your w-tanks can start heading south and firing on the meteor there to bust through it.

Your infantry units should all start capturing properties, starting with the factories. The mech unit in your base needs to be loaded onto a t-copter and moved over near the factory across the lake. (The other mech unit on the airport should just stay there for the moment.) That should be about all you can do this turn; just start moving stuff to the east as rapidly as possible.

Day Four

Get in the habit of checking the attack ranges of the enemy fighters, bombers, rockets, and missiles now. Positioning is key if you want to hold the center of the map, and avoidable mistakes need to be, well, avoided.

You should have captured the airport on your last turn, but don't build anything there yet: simply keep your mech parked on it. Go back to the west and complete your captures of the factories and cities you started on. Bust through the southern meteor with your w-tank and continue to move all of your units to the east. Start capturing the central factory with the unit you airlifted over.

In the center of the map, check the missile firing range of the enemy missiles as well as the enemy fighter. If you can get any clean fighter attacks on enemy bombers, go ahead and nail them. Move your bombers around the plasma beam in front of the factory that you're capturing, again making sure that they're not in range of the missiles or fighter. They don't need to attack anything yet, especially not the meteors; they simply act as a bit of a deterrent here.

If you have any remaining tanks in the central area from your starting units, use them to slow up the enemy advance. If you can place one on the nearby factory to block it off for a turn, do so.

Day Five

If you're lucky, the enemy AI will have reacted oddly to the presence of your bombers and fighters: some of their units won't have advanced very far, instead preferring to start lining up, while other units may have actually backtracked. This is due to the deterrent pressure of your air force: the enemy will hopefully choose to not send in a unit that will instantly be killed next turn by your forces. This is a tactic that you'll need to take full advantage of here: convince your enemy that it's unwise to approach you. We'll deal more on this on the next day.

You need to ratchet up that pressure by getting your w-tank and rocket/missiles units up to the front ASAP, as well as capture the factory and use it to begin making more units. Continue to capture more cities in the rear, and have your new factories back there make two more infantry units. Complete your capture of the factory nearby. If an enemy bomber came in and bombed your mech units, move the mech unit off the airport and replace it with a fighter to attack the bomber. The other fighter should see about hitting a bomber, as well, if possible, but again: check that missile's firing ranges! Your bombers should stay cool, but you can bomb the northern meteor near the factory you've just captured if you wish.

Apart from that, continue to rush your units forward here. Your w-tanks should be about to near the southern edge of the plasma field on this turn, and the anti-air units are probably in the same area. The rockets and missiles move more slowly, of course, but they're coming along too, and should hopefully be about to move past the northern chokepoint.

Day Six

The enemy will likely have loaded Tabitha onto a fighter or duster on this turn. If it's a duster, you may be in trouble; fighters are a bit easier to deal with, so long as you're careful.

Move back to your base and continue capturing everything you can. The new infantry units can be moved onto the nearby cities and start capturing those as well.

Tip: If the enemy starts to capture the factory to your east at this point, don't worry too much. It'll make your life a bit more difficult, but it won't be the end of the world. If you have time over the next couple of turns, though, park a rocket unit one space to the east of your own factory here; it'll be able to hit whatever pops out of the enemy factory every turn.

Near your factory, you need to use your bombers to start constructing your wall. The wall here will consist of units that stretch across the accessible landmass to prevent the enemy w-tanks from approaching, or at least make them pay dearly if they do so. After checking the missile range of your foes, move the bombers to just outside that range and park them there. Enemy ground units can't attack planes, so they won't be able to get past them. Obviously you won't be able to cover the entirety of the ground here with the bombers, but you can use your fighters to control the gaps, if necessary, and on your next turn the w-tanks should be able to fit in there as well.

You can also build a unit on your factory on this turn. We went with rockets, but missiles will also act as a good deterrent.

Day Seven

If the enemy made any stupid mistakes here, such as moving a w-tank up against one of your bombers, make him pay for it by hitting it with rockets or the bombers, but again: check that missile's firing range! Try to whatever unit you built on the factory off of it before hitting anything, to free it up to build again.

Capture the cities near your base here. You should have some infantry with nothing to capture, however; load them onto your t-copters and shuttle them off near the factory to the east. Infantry are useful to build whenever you can't afford anything more expensive; they can be pushed out to the front of your lines, where they'll help protect your weaker units like rockets and missiles from enemy bomber suicides, but they'll also lure in enemy tanks, where your rockets will be able to hit them. Feel free to keep shuttling your infantry units to the front of your lines here.

Day Eight And Beyond

At this point, if you've managed to build up a rough equilibrium between your units and those of your enemy, you will be able to start completing your wall and building up your forces for an eventual attack.

In between the two factories in the center of the map, there's a small two-space chokepoint that you will need to hold. You should build a wall of units from the southern mountains up to the sea to the north of the chokepoint. If Tabitha's in a fighter jet, then park infantry on top of the airport. Otherwise, you will have to try and keep it nailed down with a fighter, if possible.

From the mountains on up you should use infantry, planes, or w-tanks to block the enemy off, depending on the ranges of their fighters, missiles, and rockets. Don't hesitate to put an infantry unit in harm's way, however; drawing in an enemy tank to attack an infantry unit when you have rockets ready to strike it is an entirely acceptable proposition.

From here on in, there isn't a huge amount we can say except to quicksave every turn and position your units correctly. For the most part, you'll want to have infantry and tanks up front to take the enemy blows while your bombers wait behind the lines to act as pressure on the enemy ground units. If the enemy army thinks it'll be pounded by bombers, usually they will draw back a bit. Space will become an issue, however, because you also need to have three or four rockets behind your front lines to hit enemy units and weaken them up. It can be very difficult to find space for everything, but do your best.

Pushing through to the next factory will be this map's tipping point. You'll probably want to build your forces up pretty substantially first: have three or four w-tanks, three or four rockets, three missiles, and at least three of both bombers and fighters spread around the map. When you think you can push forward to take the next factory, just charge ahead and start blowing crap up. You'll lose plenty of units while you do so, but you should be able to fortify your lines with units from your own factory, and the enemy forces will often decide to fall back instead of engaging the mass of your w-tanks.

Most importantly, however, you have to quicksave every turn, assuming you didn't take huge losses. Careful play will let you push through the chokepoint and capture the enemy factory (try to position yourself outside of the enemy's anti-tank fire, and they will usually drop back). If enemy rockets give you trouble, try to sacrifice a bomber to take them out, or simply let them hit infantry units until it runs out of ammo, and then press your attack.

Luckily, the enemy AI is not the best here, and it'll choose to build lots of cheap units instead of powerful ones. It doesn't seem to ever want to build more rockets, bombers, or missiles, at least not while you press through the middle of the map, leaving you to face off against hordes of anti-air and mech units.

Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong, you can s-rank this map even after the 40th day or so. Your speed score will drop fairly dramatically, of course, but so long as you play carefully, you still have a good chance of maxing your rank out.

Mission 26: Sunrise

Caulder has taken refuge in his super-awesome facility and threatens to destroy you! Destroy you utterly!

You have a lot of stuff to manage here, including the fact that Caulder will eventually load himself up into a ship and become virtually unkillable. His CO stats are unbelievable: he maxes out the attack and defense of any unit he's in, and also manages to regenerate five points of health per turn, even if he's not on a friendly property.

In addition, you'll have to deal with The Nest, which has five lasers in it, each of which will knock a unit down a full eight health when they hit, and mortars, which will deal five points of damage in a small explosive area. It can also generate two units per turn, every turn. The three lasers in the middle fire directly down, and you can expect them to hit your units if they get a clear shot. The two mortars will fire on the eastern and western edges of the screen. Units directly south of the two unit-production tubes are safe from mortar and laser fire, unless they get unlucky with the rotating lasers on the side of the Nest.

Luckily for you, most of the Nest's abilities are pre-set and will go off at regular times. For instance, no matter how many times you play the mission, the same units will always pop out of the Nest's construction tubes on the same turn (unless you prevent the units from moving away from the tube, which is difficult).

Note that there are plenty of unit-by-unit walkthroughs on the shared GameSpot/Gamefaqs.com messageboards. If you're having trouble with the mission, you may want to check some of those out. The following is a day-by-day walkthrough was originated by a forum poster on GameFAQs named BlackDragonHunt; for the most part, it should get you through the first five or six days before the AI starts to break away from the precise movements listed below. You will probably be required to have a bit of ingenuity after that, but the basic idea is to bog down Caulder's duster with anti-air units while bombers head north and take out the lasers. When in doubt, build more bombers!

Day One

You have three groups of units to control here. They'll meld together a bit towards the end of the map, but for now they can be described individually.

Northwest Group

Rocket: North 4
West Infantry: East 3, capture factory
East Infantry: South 1, East 2, capture Com Tower
War Tank: North 1, East 3
Anti-Air: East 5

Northwest Factory: Build Bike

Southwest Group

Md. Tank: North 3, West 2
Missiles: West 1, North 4
West Infantry: South 1, East 2, capture Airport
East Infantry: East 2, capture Factory
Fighter: East 6, North 3, just south of middle laser

Southwest Factory: Build Bike

Southeast Group

North Infantry: North 1, East 2, capture Airport
South Infantry: North 3, capture Factory
Anti-Tank: East 2, North 1, on city
War Tank: East 4
Bomber: West 1, North 6

On the enemy's first turn, the mortar will hit your southwestern missiles and mid-tank and deal five points to each of them. It'll also fire a laser strike at its own w-tank, bring it down to two points of health.

Day Two

Finish capturing all the properties you've been working on.

Northwest Group

Rocket: Attack West laser (45%)
Bike: North 3, West 2
War Tank: North 1, East 1, attack War Tank (77% - 10/2 or 9/3)

Airport: Build Bomber

Southwest Group

Bike: East 3
Southwest Factory: Build Md. Tank

Southeast Group

Anti-Tank: East 2
War Tank: East 3

Middle Group

Bomber: West 2, North 4, attack Md. Tank (99%)
Fighter: East 2, North 5, attack Fighter (57% - 8/5)

On the enemy's turn, they'll send out a few laser beam hits, including another blast originating on its w-tank near the middle of the map. That'll force them to consolidate their w-tanks a bit. The mortar will hit your southeastern w-tank and anti-tank unit.

Day Three

Northwest Group

Rockets: Attack Laser (47% - 7 HP left)
Bike: North 1, West 1, capture City
War Tank: North 2, East 1, attack missiles (162%)
Anti-Air: West 1, North 1
North Infantry: North 1, capture City
South Infantry: East 1, capture Airport
Bomber: North 6, East 1

East Factory (just south of the Infantry): Build Anti-Air

Southwest Group

Bike: East 3, capture City
North Infantry: North 1, East 1, capture City
South Infantry: North 2, capture Com Tower
5 hp Md. Tank: West 1
Md. Tank: North 1
Missiles: West 1

Southwest Factory: Build Md. Tank

Middle Group

Bomber: North 2, attack Midwest Laser (82%)
Fighter: Attack Fighter (28%)

Southeast Group

West Infantry: South 1, East 1, capture City
East Infantry: South 2, capture Com Tower
Anti-Tank: East 2, onto City
War Tank: East 2, onto Factory

Southeast Factory: Build Anti-Air

On the enemy's turn, their w-tanks will all consolidate to a single unit with eight health.

Day Four

Finish all active captures.

Northwest Group

Rockets: Destroy west Laser (47%)
Bomber: South 2, East 5, attack Tank (120%)
War Tank: South 1, East 2, attack War Tank (75% - try to destroy it if you can)
2 HP Anti-air: West 1, North 4, attack Artillery (10%)
10 HP Anti-air: East 3, North 3

Southwest Group

Factory Tank: West 1

Southwest Factory: Build Md. Tank

Southeast Group

Anti-Air: North 1, East 1, attack Battle Copter (115%)
Factory: Build Anti-Air

Middle Group

Bomber: Destroy Midwest Laser
Fighter: Attack Battle Copter (60%)

Day Five

Northwest Group

Capture stuff with your infantry
Rockets: East 3
2 HP Anti-Air: Attack Artillery (10%)
Bomber: East 3, North 2, attack Middle Laser (86%)

Southwest Group

Factory Tank: South 1
Southwest Factory: Build Md. Tank

Southeast Group

Anti-Air: Attack Battle Copter (37%)
Artillery: East 2
Factory: Build Anti-Air

Middle Group

West Bomber: East 2, attack Mideast Laser (86%)
Anti-Air: East 3, North 2, attack Duster (105%) (If this doesn't kill the Duster, your fighter may still be in the area to finish the job.)
War Tank: West 1, North 2, attack Rockets (168%)

Day Six

It's around this day that the enemy AI will begin to break, especially in the southeastern corner of the map. Keep cranking out anti-air units there, though; they'll be handy because they'll probably keep Caulder at bay in the southeast. If he approaches the northern area, where your bombers are heading for the last few lasers, then it'll probably be game over for you.

From here on in, then, you'll probably have to improvise a bit. Just keep in mind that more bombers = more winning! A bomber only needs to hit a laser beam twice to destroy it, even if it gets hit by the laser beam on its turn.

Northwest Group

2 HP Anti-Air: Attack Artillery
5 HP Rockets: Attack War Tank (24%)
Both North Airports: Build Bombers

Southeast Group

10 HP Anti-Air: North 5, attack Duster (45%)
5 HP Anti-Air: North 5, West 1, attack Duster (30%)

Middle Group

2 HP Bomber: Destroy Middle Laser
10 HP Bomber: Destroy Mideast Laser
Anti-Air: Attack Seaplane (67% - 9/3)
War Tank: Destroy War Tank

Day Seven

Northwest Group

East Airport Bomber: East 1, North 5, destroy Anti-Tank
West Airport Bomber: North 2, East 4
Keep attacking artillery

Middle Group

South Anti-Air: North to destroy Seaplane
Other Anti-Air: South 1, East 2
War Tank: East 2 (to West side of East Nest)
10 HP Bomber: South 1, East 2
2 HP Bomber: South 2, East 3

Day Eight

10 HP Bomber: Attack East Laser
East Anti-Air: Destroy Duster
South Anti-Air: Attack Fighter (87%)
West Bomber (the one that destroyed the Anti-Tank): East 6, North 1

Day Nine

East Bomber: Move away from laser (it's out of ammo)
Other Bomber: East 2, North 1, destroy East Laser

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are no comments about this story