Advance Wars: Dual Strike/Walkthrough

Normal Campaign
Difficulty ratings 
 * 1: Very easy
 * 2: Slightly difficult
 * 3: Moderately hard
 * 4: Very hard
 * 5: Insanely hard

Jake's Trial
Difficulty rating 1
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Jake


 * Enemy COs:
 * Blue Moon
 * Rachel

This is the first mission. Rachel will guide you through most of it but... Select your tank unit and move it into the woods next to Rachel's tank and select fire. The animation will play, press any button to cancel it. Now select your mech (the soldier holding a bazooka) and move it into the road next to the tank. Select fire and the mech should finish up with the tank. Now select the last unit, the infantry (soldier holding a rifle) and move it toward the west end where the enemies are. Press on any piece of terrain, and select end at the bottom. Rachel will take her turn and move her infantry toward your units. It is your turn once again. Move the mech up and attack the infantry. Finish it off with the tank, and use your remaining infantry to attack her remaining infantry. End your turn, Rachel will take her turn, and then finish her infantry off with any unit next turn.

The New Black
Difficulty rating 1
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Jake


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Jugger

This mission introduces indirect firing units. At the top, there will be three Black Hole tanks. Below it and across the river are two Artillery units. Indirect units can strike from a distance without being counter-attacked. However, vice versa, if they are attacked they won't be able to counter-attack so keep them guarded with direct firing units. They also cannot fire and move in the same turn, so you will need to set them up ahead of time. Select the one from the right, don't move it, and select fire. Fire on any of the tanks. Now move the artillery from the left and move it a space to the right. Now, about the APC and infantry, select the damaged infantry and move it down into the APC, then move the APC toward your HQ. Move your tank down the road and end your turn. Black Hole will move their tanks through the woods and end their turn. Now that your artillery are in position, fire on their tanks. Continue moving the tank toward the Black Hole tanks and the APC toward HQ. Drop the damaged infantry off at the HQ. End your turn now. Once it is your turn, fire on both tanks with your artillery and move the tank further up. End your turn. Now that is your turn again, use your tank to finish off the enemy tank.

Max Attacks
Difficulty rating 2
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Max


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Lash

Now that you've gotten a general feel of the game, I'll follow by giving you a more general guide of it. In the lower right corner of the map, you have a bunch of Battle Copter. These are air units and will be very important to you here. Ignore Max's advice to ignore the Black Bomb and spread out all the battle copters. Now load your infantry into the Transport Copter and set up your remaining units in a barricade. The next turn the bomb will fly at a battle copter and detonate, knocking off 5 from all units in it's range. The next turn, if more than one battle copters are hurt by the bomb, join them following Max's orders. Move the battle copters up toward HQ to hold your ground, attack the tanks and the Medium Tanks. Send the transport copter toward the Black Hole headquarters and drop it off when you get there. Continue to hold your ground at HQ, and capture their headquarters to win the battle.

Reclaim the Skies
Difficulty rating 2
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Rachel


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Jugger

The enemy army is composed of mainly air units and a tank. It has
 * Two Fighters
 * One Bomber
 * One battle copter
 * One tank

You generally have the perfect army to take them down. Down in the bottom, you have three Anti-Air. These will take out the air units with ease. Move them all up next to one of the air units and fire. In the upper part of the battle, you have a Missile unit. In range of it is a battle copter and a damaged fighter. Fire on the battle copter. With your Rocket, fire on the tank and then finish it off with your own tank. On the next turn, chase down the rest of the damaged air units and finish them off with the battle copter to win.

Never Ending War
Difficulty rating 2
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Rachel
 * Jake
 * Max


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Koal

This mission is a deployment mission; you only have a small army. You will need to deploy units from your base and you will get to choose from three COs for your CO. Jake. You will also be able to deploy your CO powers. At your bases, however, you will only be able to deploy:
 * Infantry
 * Mech
 * Recon
 * Tank
 * APC
 * Artillery
 * Anti-air

You should be fine as long as you don't let the enemy get any of the bases. Build some tanks, an artillery, and an anti-air in the upper area, build one tank in the lower area, and blast away anything that comes near. Place the artillery on the bridge, and move a tank in range of the enemy’s medium tank. Make sure that there is a unit between the artillery and the medium tank. In the bottom, use your tank and your mech to fight the tank down their. Now, in the top, use the artillery and your tanks to destroy the medium tank and then move in the tanks to finish off the artillery.

The Ocean Blue
Difficulty rating 2
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Colin


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Lash

This is a naval and ground battle which introduces a lot of new units, all of them naval units, there are
 * Cruiser
 * Lander
 * Submarine
 * Battleship

Naval combat is the focus of this battle. Use your rocket and your battleship to take down the enemy cruiser, then move your submarine forward toward the battleship and submerge it. Fly your battle copter to the mainland of the enemy headquarters and fire on the tank, make sure that no part of the sea is next to it, otherwise the cruiser could destroy it. When it's the enemies turn, watch their submarine. It will very likely submerge, if you watch it, you can see the point where it submerges, that will be where it is. The next turn, use your sub to fire on the battleship, move a naval unit next to the sub then fire on it with the cruiser, and continue to attack the land units with your battle ship and attack the rockets with the copter. The next turn, finish off the rocket, the sub, and the battle ship. Then, continue to destroy all the enemy units.

Fog Rolls In
Difficulty rating 2
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Sasha


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Koal

This map has fog of war on it. Move your recon in between the two forests on the road, above it will be an artillery, attack it with your battle-copter. Move the rest of your forces out. The next turn, continue to fight your way to their HQ. Remember to check in forests for units like artillery to avoid traps. Also remember that the enemy suffers from fog of war as well. It will easily fall into traps that you can fall in to such as putting rockets out of their LOS (line-of-sight). Continue to move the troops forward, destroying the Black Hole units as you go.

Tag Battle
Difficulty rating 2.5
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Jake
 * Rachel
 * Max
 * Colin
 * Sasha


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Jugger
 * Lash

This map is the first game using the dual strike feature, where two COs work on one team, switching to match the needs of their army. Sadly, it is the enemy that is using this feature. This is another deployment map, but you will be able to make a wider range of units, including missiles, rockets, medium tanks, and neotanks. Any CO will work for this mission, but I chose Colin for his ability to put units on the battlefield fast. Build some infantry and set them to capturing. Build a tank and place it at the edge of the piperunner's range of fire. When you can, move up next to it and begin firing until it is destroyed. Move infantry in to capture the base. Once you've captured the base to the right of your base, build units to secure and capture the island with the airport. Capturing the two bases at the middle of the map is immensely useful, you will be able to deploy units to the battle faster as well as supplying backup faster. If you have captured the airport, build battle copters to attack their light units. Continue to deploy units and move in to their base. The enemy doesn't have many properties within easy reach, so you should be able to defeat them easily. During the battle, the enemy COs will use their tag ability. It will let them go two times, each time with one of their CO powers. It shouldn't be too much of a problem though.

Victory or Death
Difficulty rating 3
 * Allied COs:
 * Orange Star
 * Jake
 * Rachel
 * Max
 * Colin
 * Sasha


 * Enemy COs:
 * Black Hole
 * Koal
 * Lash

Another one of the dual things. This time around, we have two battlefields. Let’s see what the battle is like. Up on the top screen, it looks pretty hopeless, three fighters against six fighters as well as four minicannons. These will upon anything in it's range of fire and deal three damage to a unit, but will never destroy it. We'll take care of that problem though. On the bottom to the right, there is a black crystal. It will restore two hitpoints and resupply any units within two spaces of it. In the middle, there is a factory which brings us to the top screen again. The black arc on the top screen will every day drop a bomb that reduces all of your unit’s hitpoints to one. When the AI on the top screen destroys all of the minicannons, the black arc will stop dropping bombs. Also note on the bottom screen there is a sandstorm. It will reduce the range of indirect units by one. I'd recommend Colin for the top slot for the bottom battle and Max for the bottom slot for the top battle. Begin. Move some but not all of your planes to some random place and select the send button. Use the infantry to capture stuff and finish. The AI will move the planes forth and attack some minicannons. Continue to press forward. You can't do much in terms of destroying the crystal until you destroy the Black Arc, so you'll have to stop when you get to about the factory otherwise the bombs will destroy your army. Continue to send planes up to fight the Black Arc. Once you have destroyed the Black Arc, move an army of neotanks and an anti-air to the black crystal. Destroy all of the units, they are mostly air unit counters and then attack the crystal until it shatters.

Black Boats Ahoy!
Difficulty rating 2
 * Allied COs
 * Orange Star
 * Jake
 * Rachel
 * Max
 * Colin
 * Sasha


 * Enemy COs
 * Black Hole
 * Kindle

This is a fairly simple and straight forward map. Your army will be capable of destroying the enemy with ease, but the enemy has yet another trick up their sleeves. The Black Boat. It's dubbed the APC of the sea, being able to transport two infantry at a time, supply units, and repair them! However, like the APC, it is a non-combat unit so a battleship or sub can take them out with ease, good thing we have one. Any CO will work, but I'd skip over Colin and Sasha since it is a predeployed map. This map also has a map to the research lab for the Black boat, capturing the map isn't essential but it's not hard to do so. Now that we've begun, submerge your submarine and head toward the damaged battleship. The black boats will repair it if you don't destroy it. Move your land troops forth to the enemy's side but if you want to go for a HQ capture place a tank and one infantry in your lander, then set sail to the enemy's HQ on the island. Continue to move your troops in. The map is in the neutral city right next to the northern bridge. Once you've captured this map, you can continue to fight. Win by killing all of the enemies or through HQ capture.

The Long March
Difficulty rating 2
 * Allied COs
 * Orange Star
 * Jake
 * Rachel
 * Max
 * Colin
 * Sasha


 * Enemy COs
 * Black Hole
 * Jugger
 * Koal

You may think that this mission is going to be hard at the first glance. Actually it's not. The key of winning this mission is to use Rachel's SCOP & Sasha's COP at the right time, before Jugger and Koal unleash their Tag Power. Try to save Sasha's funds as much as you can. Orange star should attacks Black hole's high vision units and their black boats, while advancing tank and soldiers north east and indirects south east. Sasha should use her cruiser and submarine to destroy Black hole's submarines, and her battleship to do demage to heavy units and fills her COP meter. Use your COP when Black holes have their both SCOP meters full. Orange Star should unleash their tag power afterwards. It should be easy enough.