Advance Wars: Days of Ruin/Units

Units form your army which you control. They can be produced from factories, ports, airports and with ship planes, carriers. Different units have different costs and different strengths and weakness. How you get all your units working together will determine how well the battle goes.

The name of units below may differ depending on the version of the game. The first name is the European English name, and the second is the U.S. name. See the table to the right for details.

Ground Units
The most common type of unit is Ground or ground units. In total, there are four type of ground unit, based on their armour and usage. All ground units are built by factories and can be repaired / resupplied in cities, factories and HQ.

Infantry Armour Units
Infantry type units are used primary to capture bases. All units expect those without a secondary weapon, will use their machine gun against these units. Although weak, they are one of the most important type of units. Only infantry type units can fire missiles from silos.

Direct Attack Vehicle Armour Units
This is the most common type and most used type of unit in the entire game. Being a direct unit, they must move beside the enemy to fire upon it. Direct units are able to counterattack any direct attacks against it, but are open to indirect attacks.

In-Direct Attack Vehicle Armour Units
In-direct ground units can sometimes be overlooked and dusted away. However, they are able to hit, weaken and destroy enemies before they get near your frontline. With the exception of one, all indirect units are unable to counterattack.

Support & Miscellaneous
Units that do not fit in with the above types are listed here. This includes the Rig or Mobile Workshop which is a handy thing to have.

Air Units
Air units have the advantage of being able to cross any terrain that is passable by all other units. This mobility makes them key in any battle. Air units can be repaired / resupply at airports and temporary airports and can also be resupplied by mobile workshops. With the exception of ship planes, all are built from the airport.

Air Armour Units
Air units fly high in the sky and therefore avoid most of the fire from below. Specialist units are needed to bring them out of the sky with bullets or missiles.

Heli Armour Units
Helicopters fly closer towards the ground and therefore can be attacked by most ground units. But, they are cheaper the air armour units.

Naval Units
Naval units are able to swing the balance in any battle that has a port and should be put to good use. However, they are some of the most expensive to deploy. Naval units are built from ports and can be repaired / resupplied by temporary ports. They can also be resupplied by mobile workshops.

New, Modified & Returning Units
This is a list of new units, returning units that have had major modifications and largely unchanged returning units.

🇨🇴 New Units
 * Motorbike
 * Flare
 * War Tank
 * Anti-Tank
 * Duster
 * Sea Plane
 * Gun Boat

🇨🇴 Modified Units
 * Rig(Previously APC)
 * Battleship
 * Carrier

🇨🇴 Returning Units 🇨🇴 Returning Units 🇨🇴
 * Infantry
 * Bazooka
 * Recon
 * Anti-Air
 * Tank
 * Md Tank
 * Artillery / Mech Gun
 * Rockets
 * Missiles
 * Fighter
 * Bomber
 * Battle Helicopter
 * Transport Helicopter
 * Submarine
 * Cruiser
 * Lander


 * Brief description of each new unit
 * Anti-Tank: A modified artillery unit specially designed to attack and counterattack armour units.
 * Bike: A fast mobile infantry unit that.
 * Duster: A cross between a Fighter and Bomber, able to do both roles but not as well as either.
 * Flare: A large recon unit with the ability to light up areas by firing up flares.
 * Gun Boat: A small infantry / bazooka transport able to hit ships with its one shot missiles.
 * Sea Plane: A special plane deployed from carriers able to hit most units (bar Anti-Air units) effectively but has low ammo and fuel.
 * War Tank: A replacement of the Mega Tank from Advance Wars: Dual Strike.


 * Changes to modified units
 * Battleship: Able to indirectly attack units after moving.
 * Carrier: It's indirect long range AA missiles that had once made it a great fearful ship have been removed, replaced by a direct attack machine gun that has as much effectiveness as a Duster / Fighter(i.e. not very). It now produces a max of 4 ship planes.
 * Rig/Mobile Workshop: Now able to create temporary ports and airports.


 * Units from previous games not available in this one
 * Black Boat
 * Black Bomb
 * Neotank
 * Oozium
 * Piperunner
 * Stealth

Non-Playable Units
A number of non-playable units are seen in story mode. Some are targets which you have to destroy whist others are beyond your reach. Most are products from the IDS.

Talon Gun / Strix Gun
Developed by IDS at request by Lazurian government. Due to its huge costs it was never mass produced. Development was halted leaving only a number of prototypes. They can be destroyed at their weak spot in the middle. It causes 5 damage to all units within a 4 square radius.

Caulder Missiles / Nemesis Missile
The equivalent effect of multiple nuclear missiles hitting an area together. Is capable of causing mass destruction and was still in development for both the Rubinellen and Lazurian government at the time of the meteor strike. Admiral Grayfield was close to launching them but Lin stopped him before the missiles were launched. He was then shot dead by Lin as revenge for Brenner / O’Brain / Brown murder.

Great Owl / Pulsutrix
A large giant bomber invented by the IDS. Its bombs can cause 5 damage in a 8 square radius. The Great Owl flies too high to be taken down by anti-air countermeasures. It was destroyed eventually by an onboard battle between smuggled 12th Battalion units and IDS units, but all hands survived. During Will’s time onboard, he saw the horrible science experiments that Caulder did.

The Nest / Great Owl
The headquarters and lab of the IDS owned by Caulder. Armed with 2 mortars and 5 lasers.