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.

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.