Advance Wars Revolution

This section assumes you have read the unit entries. It focuses on decisions that recur across Campaign, War Room, and Versus. If you want the video explanation, it's here: Expert Guide to Unit Usage & Movement

General Tips

1. Check Ranges Before Committing

• Hold B on a unit to view its range while moving around the map.
• Check both movement and attack range before exposing a unit. Artillery, rockets, missiles, battleships, fighters, and other long-range threats can punish a unit that moves one square too far.
• Recheck ranges after CO Powers, weather changes, repairs, refueling, or repositioning. A plan that was safe on the previous turn may no longer be safe.

2. Sequence Attacks and Target the Immediate Threat

• Use indirect attacks first when they can weaken a target without taking counterattack damage.
• Reveal hidden units and submarines before committing expensive direct units.
• Remove the unit that most constrains your next move rather than automatically attacking the most expensive unit.
• Rockets and medium tanks often deserve immediate attention because their range or firepower can restrict several units at once.
• If a weaker unit can finish a target, save the stronger unit for another enemy.

3. Protect Expensive and Functional Units

• Infantry can screen artillery, capture units, aircraft, and other expensive units from direct attacks.
• Damaged transports can still carry units. Sacrificing a transport can be worthwhile when it absorbs an attack that would otherwise hit a more important unit, but do not assume the enemy will always choose the transport.
• Keep artillery and rockets behind other units whenever possible; direct units that reach them can destroy them quickly.

4. Account for Enemy Behavior

• Enemy behavior can change with positioning, capture progress, damage, and available targets.
• The enemy often targets transports and may choose a capture or obvious attack instead of the move you expected. Use those tendencies as possible lures, not guaranteed scripts.
• At the start of each turn, check the most dangerous enemy unit, indirect coverage, aircraft range, capture threats, and any newly repaired or produced units before continuing the previous turn's plan.

5. Time CO Powers Around Actual Attacks

• Use a CO Power when its firepower, movement, repair, or range bonus changes what your units can accomplish that turn.
• Hyper Repair is less useful when little meaningful damage needs repair.
• Firepower boosts are most useful before the attacks that need them.
• If your units are blocked and cannot attack or advance, saving the power may be better than activating it immediately.

Deployment Guide

For the video explanation, see: Cost-Effective Unit Deployment.

1. Capture and Keep Producing

• Infantry are the cheapest capture units, so build them regularly while neutral properties remain.
• Prioritize bases, airports, and ports that let you produce closer to the fighting.
• Keep producing units when funds and open production tiles allow it. More captured properties provide more income and let you sustain more production.
• Watch the 50-unit cap on maps where you are building large infantry screens.

2. Build for the Threat in Front of You

• Tanks are a strong early land unit against infantry, recons, artillery, and anti-air.
• Artillery are cost-effective when another unit can screen them and the battle will stay within their range.
• Battle copters are useful when terrain slows land units, but anti-air and fighters must be removed or avoided first.
• Anti-air should be added when enemy aircraft are present; it also handles infantry and mechs efficiently.
• Transport Copters and APCs are worth the cost when they materially shorten a capture route or move infantry and mechs across terrain that would otherwise delay them.
• Medium tanks, rockets, bombers, fighters, and naval units are expensive. Build them when their specific matchup, range, or map access justifies delaying several cheaper units.

3. Fog of War and Terrain

• Recons provide long vision, while infantry and mechs on mountains can reveal large areas.
• Forests can hide enemy land units, so avoid sending one fast unit far ahead of the rest of your army without vision support.
• Cities and other defensive terrain reduce damage and can make a front line harder to break.
• Roads speed up ground units; forests slow tread and tire movement; aircraft ignore most terrain movement costs.
• Deploy artillery and other slow units from the base that gives them the shortest useful route to the fight when possible.

4. Screens, Choke Points, and Movement

• Put infantry or other expendable units in front of artillery and expensive units when an enemy counterattack is likely.
• Do not let your own captures or cheap units block tanks and other combat units from reaching the front.
• Artillery and mechs become stronger when defending a narrow approach. Tanks and battle copters are usually better while the battle is still moving quickly across open ground.
• When attacking from terrain that gives defensive cover, account for the counterattack before choosing which unit attacks first.

5. Endgame and Scoring

• Block enemy bases, airports, and ports when you can do so safely; an occupied production tile cannot produce a new unit.
• If score matters, continue building units through the final turns when possible. Technique is based on your losses relative to the units you deployed.
• Power is based on the units destroyed on your best turn, so damaging or destroying additional enemies before an HQ capture can improve the score when the Speed requirement still allows it.
• Once the HQ route is open, protect the infantry or mech completing the capture rather than sending it forward before the remaining threats are controlled.