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.

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.

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