Advance Wars 2 Hard Campaign - Yellow Comet

Silo Scramble

COs: Kanbei V Flak
Terms: Defeat all enemy units OR capture HQ!
Difficulty Rating:
Author's Rating:

The customary easy mission to get you started on a new continent. The general starting aim should be to control the centre and so weaken Flak by using the silos. Also aim to control the bases out to the top left and bottom right and then crush Flak from all three fronts.

Put your starting mech in the APC and head for the silos in the middle. Build two infantry who can capture the nearest cities and then move on down the right hand side to the port, base and silo. They obviously should then continue further down to the other silos and base. Watch your funds and prices (your Kanbei remember) and by buying nothing you should be able to afford an AA next turn to deal with the battle copters. Your original APC can act as a ferry service, dropping off your starting mech after a couple of turns of full movement, then head back towards the HQ to pick up the next infantry fresh from the factory. This next infantry can be dropped off by the port to the left, and after capturing it can head onto the middle. It's up to you what you fire on with the middle silos, depending on how Flak has moved his units, but it can be a good idea to fire one onto his oncoming copters to allow your mech to survive longer.

Around day 5 a ‘proper' unit should be built such as a tank, which as Kanbei can dominate Flak. He often concentrates on one part of the map; most commonly it seems the top left. Wherever he focuses most take advantage and easily capture all the properties on the other two fronts. Just use the multiple silos you have secured in combination with your super strong units to break through his main forces. There is no point buying any sea units, capture his HQ if you want reduced hassle, but if not his subs fall very quickly to artillery. 300pt S rank, very easy.

Show Stopper

COs: Sonja V Adder
Terms: Capture the enemy HQ OR destroy the 8 minicannons to win the day!
Difficulty Rating:
Author's Rating:

Click to reveal entire map;
Double-Click to reveal fog and lab map location

A tough level, but one you should be able to beat considering it hasn't changed as drastically as other missions have between normal and hard campaign. This mission contains the secret lab map, so be sure to capture the city in the southwest. The overall strategy is to prevent Adder capturing any of the neutral bases, gain the upper hand using cheap but strong units such as AA, infantry, and artillery. Capture the ports to win the naval battle and destroy the mini cannons from afar with rockets.

Adder has lots of air units on this map, but they are pretty spread out. You will need to build an AA pretty quickly, about day 2 or 3 to deal with the bombers and copters that form part of his initial attack and having two is a priority as you can deal with the threat quicker. Later when you advance forward you will find plenty more copters that Adder has held back, so don't be lulled into a false sense of security and keep an AA with you at all times. These initial fights are the trickiest part of the mission so as usual don't worry about saving after a good day and coming back to it if things don't go as planned. Artillery are very cost effective and efficient at killing all land units, especially the tanks and mechs that Adder favours. Due to the FoW and open nature of the level be careful how you position them however, using a few infantry as partial shields works due to the AI's preoccupation with infantry anyway. Tanks are also very useful in helping stop Adder capturing the bases and catching further away units.

As the tide of battle turns you should take the fight to Adder's navy. It is easy to try and ignore them, however the battleships can prove very annoying to your land troops and it helps your power score. Use subs against Adder's own subs and battleships. Meanwhile on land push forward and capture the lab map. Rockets are best for the mini cannons, whilst artillery and Mid Tanks also work well. The closer to the back of the fortress you go the more likely you are to run into a surprisingly large amount of units that Adder has held back such as some hidden rockets and battle copters. As long as you have kept some AA and have brought the bulk of your army with you there will be no problems. You should still manage a solid S rank.

A Mirror Darkly

COs: Sonja V Lash
Terms: Defeat all enemy units without any touching your HQ!
Difficulty Rating:
Author's Rating:

Click to reveal entire map

A mission that is interesting as far as Sonja and Lash's relationship goes, in conjunction with ‘Duty and Honour' it looks like Sonja has a lot of reflecting to do (a mirror darkly….)

Anyway. Overall this isn't too hard, you should put your mechs in the mountains in order to gain the vision bonus, however if possible position them in place where Lash's direct units cannot attack them such as at corners or the second row of mountains. Recons are used for the same purpose. Your APC's do the job their designed to, refuel your indirects.

The units you control inside the mountain range are important. As Lash wins from merely touching your HQ, it is a sensible idea to place a unit on your HQ to prevent her, normally a Mid Tank. The rockets should move down right away, so that on day 2 they can hide themselves in the forest on the right. The artillery should do the same thing, but to the forest on the left. This obviously being FoW means that they are very safe and can fire on any of Lash's units that make it that far. Sonja Mid Tanks on a city is very strong due to her counterattack and the fact you needn't worry about repair funds. All in all these units should mop up weakened units that make it this far, or at least weaken and prevent any unit of Lash's touching your HQ whilst your other units get in position to help out.

Your units on the outside of the mountains should just fire on Lash's units as much as possible. Units that are strong and fast should be targeted first, e.g. target a neotank instead of a mid tank because it's faster, and target mid tanks over tanks because they present more of a threat to your own defending units. After all, your own mid tanks are stronger or equal to anything other than neotanks. It is also important to move your indirect units, they cannot just stay in the same place. They should always be as close as they can to gain more range and move up when all they're firing on is straggling artillery etc. Also watch out for Lash's own mechs/infantry because they can cross the mountains too, and a Lash mech on a mountain attacking a rocket is not a pretty sight. Definitely an S rank.

Sensei's Return

COs: Sensei V Adder
Terms: Capture the enemy HQ OR defeat all the enemy forces for victory!
Difficulty Rating:
Author's Rating:

Click to reveal entire map

On this mission you should attack Adder from both sides, the top and the left. Use a transport copter and infantry in order to fly over the water and capture the airport, base and cities on the land above your HQ. However when attacking along here beware of the rockets hidden at the very top three forests from the right hand side. Adder also always builds a couple of missiles. Sensei's battle copters are so useful that I suggest you use them as well as a mix of ground units – tanks, artillery, and mechs being the best suited. Although his missiles are very dangerous to your battle copters, you can often fly across the clear water to attack and destroy them on the land above.

On the lower front capture the base to the left of your starting area using the APC to good effect. Once you have secured this from any of Adder's early units this is where most of your forces will be deployed from. This is FoW and there are plenty of forests so make use of them to protect your indirect units, which are important. Also important are your battle copters, because both of these types of units allow you to get more attacks in on a very long, single file chokepoint. As you push up try and use Sensei's mechs, not only are they very powerful, but it means that you can capture the bases as you go, if you cannot capture them then just leave a unit parked on top.

The minicannons in the centre of the mission can be pretty much ignored, they fire on very few spaces that matter and often if one of your units does get caught in their range, it was doing something more important anyway, such as clearing a chokepoint or attacking some key indirect unit. With hard campaign a cliché used is that you 'have to know your COs better'. In this specific case, that means realising that a Sensei battle copter can take Adder's cruiser down to 1HP in a single attack. So just let it sail into range as it comes after a transport copter and then quickly cripple it. Gradually you should just start to beat Adder on both fronts, until you reach his HQ and finish the mission. 300pt S Rank.

Duty and Honour

COs: Kanbei V Lash
Terms: Defeat all enemy units without the 10 cities being captured!
Difficulty Rating:
Author's Rating:

On this mission I split up the starting forces slightly to deal with the units below the mountains. This includes the three rightmost mechs and the bottom artillery. One mech should go into the apc, which can then move all the way right to drop the mech onto the mountains a square above. The other mechs can move rightwards, same for the artillery. Another mech goes in the other apc and is used for destroying the first laser. The idea is to use the artillery/apc to destroy the mid tank and the mechs for Adder's tank, mech and artillery. The laser does not fire this first turn so take this into account when moving. Your other units should generally move upwards and rightwards towards the road, give your Mid Tanks priority. Your rockets should stick to the left road for better movement. You can get one of your AA's right onto the road, which is worth doing, be aggressive because the time based nature of the mission is what makes it hard. This means that next turn you can destroy the tank that attacked your AA with a Mid Tank, OHKO his recon with a tank and get your injured AA onto a city. Remember, you can't build any units so no worries about funds for repairs.

As soon as the laser has fired get as many Mid Tanks through the danger area as quickly as you can. I defeat the lasers through the use of a rocket and mech. It goes mech attacks, rocket gets into firing range. Laser doesn't fire; mech and rocket can destroy it. By doing this the top laser should be destroyed on day 4. Your Mid Tanks can crush any of his units that you are meeting about this time, so it is probably best unless there's a great need to save up for your SCOP. Repeat the same process to destroy the second laser. The chokepoint between the cities and you is the next key area, try and get your indirects into a good position by here and remember mechs can cross the river. Destroying Adder's indirects is very important, using your SCOP to achieve this works well because it means that his direct units will be able to do very little damage to you even though your just sitting there.

By now your units at the bottom should have triumphed and Adder has probably started capturing. Just keep being aggressive and using your powers whenever you can. Don't give up because as long as you keep an eye on the cities, you can win from the position where the very last one is half captured. Hopefully it won't be this close, I find that by day 9 Adder's run out of steam and I can intervene with his capturing units. Once you have stopped him at the cities just hunt down the rockets that haven't made it to the top yet. 300pt S Rank.

Foul Play

COs: Sensei V Adder
Terms: Destroy the three minicannons to win!
Difficulty Rating:
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This mission can look harder than it is, but don't let Adder intimidate you. The basic strategy is for your bottom air force to break through the pipes to rescue your HQ area and destroy the cannons. The units by your HQ hold out until they arrive by the chokepoints whilst your SCOP drops mechs in the top right hand corner to operate missile silos and attack his units there.

Here I'll cover your HQ areas tactics. You're provided with two Mid Tanks, perfect for blocking a choke point. Then placing them on a city gives them +30% defence and repairs. On the left however you may have to use the forest to block the area off properly. From your two bases you should keep building infantry and artillery mainly. The infantry can help keep the blockade in place, block off Adder's soldiers route over the mountains and shield your indirects. The artillery should obviously be placed behind your Mid Tank and fire over on advancing units. From my times through the game Adder seems to concentrate on the left hand side a lot more, so wherever you see more of Adder's units, get more of your units on that side. Don't be afraid to shift some units from one side to the other, rather than thinking ‘that sides perfectly safe so it can be left as it is'. Watch for Adder's powers as they mean that mechs and infantry can storm over the mountains and ruin your indirect units, as said use your own infantry to block this.

At the bottom your infantry should capture the city and build an infantry from your base for the other one next to it. This leaves your other two infantry free for transport copters, one for the airport to the far right and one to the cities by the pipe, but keep out of the way of your bombers route. It can also be used to help clear the square in front of the seam of Adder's infantry unit that can get in the way. Using a bomber and a Battle Copter destroys Adders near by Mid Tank. Your other bombers should move towards the seam. Keep four close together, so that after two of them have destroyed the current seam, the other two can immediately fly past and attack the next. The bomber that attacked the Mid Tank and Battle Copters can destroy Adders incoming units, especially the AAs; it doesn't matter if your bomber ends up on half health through counterattacks if it has defeated them with help from copters.

Sensei should use his SCOP, but in this case Adder is slightly right, forget the “loose change” you can make and use your mechs for fighting Adder's nearby units instead. Head for the silo's below them when you can, if you rush straight towards them without fighting Adder's units you'll end up being blocked or killed before you can use them properly. However, when you can use them they are very useful, they tend to coincide with your bombers arriving through the seam, together turning the battle. If Adder gets to use the silo further down the map then try to avoid clumping your bombers together so that they don't all get hit. As your bombers arrive they should firstly do a little fighting to help secure your position. Then get them and copters lined up just outside of the cannons range, it is then possible to destroy the three cannons all in one day. If not then, oh well, some of them should survive to finish the job and you should be winning the battle anyway. Would you look at that, 300pt S rank!

Sea of Hope

COs: Any Yellow Comet CO and Any Orange Star CO V Adder
Terms:
Difficulty Rating: ?
Author's Rating: ?

No guide as yet, let's hope you don't get stuck here!

The Hunt's End

COs: Any Yellow Comet CO and Any Blue Moon CO V Adder
Terms: Destroy the pipe seam for victory!
Difficulty Rating:
Author's Rating:

Spoilt for choice eh? Well be Kanbei and Grit! Sonja has limited use being out of FoW and having bad luck, Sensei's powers aren't that helpful here and ground units have a lot of work to do. Whilst I find Grit very good at dealing with the annoying Battleships, extended choke point and difficult to reach seam. The simplistic advice is advance as Kanbei, use a lander to capture the airport below the seam and use a bomber to attack it. Whilst Grit secures the top left corner, before advancing with indirects and using his SCOP to blast the seam from miles off.

First lets deal with how Grit should work in this fight. He needs to get across to the top left island and then build a mixture of indirects and air units to clear the chokepoint and fire across to the seam. Early on you first have to deal with Adder's navy's assault. Use an infantry to tempt the battleship into a rocket's range, about day 5, which can then destroy it comfortably. Build a lander and use it to get infantry across to the properties at the top. An Adder tank often turns up, you can fire across the water or get an artillery over there.

Subsequent battleships that turn up should be dealt with in the same way as the first. Adder also has over the course of the mission a few annoying subs that go after your lander. Tempt it into artillery range to damage it to an extent that it's not such a threat. Once you've dealt with Adder's initial tank and infantry, finish capturing the airport and two cities. Ferry across a couple of rockets and have them advance down the pretty empty bridge, along with an infantry to help shield them. Their first important job is to fire over the pipe onto Adder's missile and rocket units, which they do well because of the extra square of range. This allows yours and Kanbei's aircraft free reign. Then just keep rolling on a bit further, measure the distance because with your SCOP you have a big range and can do 80% damage to the seam. Use these indirects, along with some aircraft to assault the minicannon and seam.

Meanwhile Kanbei fights on the bottom land. With your powerful units you main concern should be Adder's stronger units, such as his Mid Tank. The cheapest and best way to deal with it is an artillery, the AI can easily be lured into range and once fired on your other units can take over. As a Mid Tank doesn't start that far away, a tank followed by an artillery should be built early on. Just be sure to shield the artillery with your other units. In fact indirects are very useful for Kanbei here, once you get towards the mountainous area a couple of rockets can just hold the area very well, dealing major damage to any big units. Leaving your direct units free to stop his infantry capturing those cities in the bottom right and finish off weakened units. It is hard and not worth the effort to try and fight your way all the way up to the factory so just set up camp in a good place a little way down from it and destroy any units that come to you.

Now you should head for the airport on the small island. To help your lander arrive safely a rocket can fire all the way to the sub and cruiser, but your Kanbei! Your lander will survive the sub anyway. Another problem could be that the turn after building a bomber from the airport, a nearby cruiser could attack it. To prevent this use your lander to block the one square the bomber is vulnerable to. The newly built bomber then just has to fly across the sea and bridge, then combine with grit to take down the pipe. Subsequent air units can be built to help by both Kanbei and Grit. This is one of the annoying levels on which your rank can suffer due to poor power because you completed the mission quickly, an A rank or higher, you should aim for.

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