Penny FAQ 1.30
January-February 2008
Copyright 2008 Christmas C. Gonzales ([email protected])



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Table of Contents
=================

1. Version History
2. Introduction
3. Introduction to Penny/Lili
4. Statistics
5. Penny's/Lili's Abilities In-Depth
6. Factors to Strategy
7. General Strategies
8. Countering Penny/Lili
9. Penny/Lili vs Other COs
10. Opinions on Tabitha
11. Legal Information
12. Credits
13. Email Information


==================
1. Version History
==================

1.0 First version submitted to GFAQs (1/26/08)
1.1 Added EU info. Added some missing data. (1/29/08)
1.2 Added quote info. (1/30/08)
1.3 Added more data (2/16/08)


===============
2. Introduction
===============

This guide will introduce you to one of the COs in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin.
It'll introduce you to the CO, Penny, and her abilities, strengths, and
weaknesses. I made this guide because of Penny being given a bad rep for
just looking to be a very weak CO. I believe she's a very strong CO when
used correctly, and I hope to compile such information to help others
understand her and to hopefully, play her more often.

***Spoilers*** are possible in this guide. I recommend you've completed
campaign before looking at Penny's info data as spoilers will be mentioned. If
you want to prevent that, skip the next section, and go to section 4 and lower.

=============================
3. Introduction to Penny/Lili
=============================

Penny is a strange little girl that appears to have limited knowledge and
loves her teddy bear, Mr. Bear. Penny is known to be a clone of Caulder, but
just grown into a cute adoreable girl who loves making "BOOM" sounds and
blowing things up with her Teddy bear. She strangely exhibits odd behavior by
communicating with Mr. Bear. She also uses it as an outlet to speak her mind
instead of stating her insults directly to a person. If you're playing
Advance Wars: Dark Conflict, Penny is known as Lili in that game. If you are
playing Dark Conflict, try to refer as Lili being known as Penny and vice
versa. 


Name: Penny/Lili
Faction: Intelligent Defense Systems

Bio: The youngest child of Dr. Caulder. Numerous experiments have left her
mind permanently shattered.

"Tee hee! Let's go Mr. Bear!"

Skills::

Protective Effect:
All units are unaffected by weather conditions.

CO Zone: 3
Boosts: All Units

CO Power: Stormfront
Changes the weather conditions

In her COP, the weather is changed randomly into Rain, Sandstorm, or
Snow. It stays this way for 3 days before it reverts back to normal map
selection. If you started with random, it'll go back to random again, if it
was clear, it'll become clear; etc.

This may not sound like much, but only Penny/Lili is unaffected by weather
entirely as she is the only CO who has an innate day to day effect that old
COs from past AW games had. No other CO shares this ability with her, and any
weather effect can be devastating to an opponent.

If you're unaware of these affects, I'll list them here:

Rain: reduces vision to 1.
Snow: Cuts movement by 1.
Sandstorm: Reduces attack by 30%.

Rain is a huge vision impairment. It makes recons virtually useless. The only
chance of your enemy getting strikes on you w/o trapping theirself is to
use flares in advance. 

Snow makes it harder for the enemy to get first strike on your units as they
can't move as far as before.

Sandstorm weakens all units by reducing their attack power by 30%. This is
30% of firepower deducted, which is very crippling to any enemy affected
by this. Remember that this is applied after all enemy firepower boosts are
calculated, not beforehand.

Any effect helps against the enemy by putting them on a disadvantage that
makes you have an advantage.

After all this data, how do we unlock Penny/Lili? 
To unlock her, just simply complete Chapter 24 of the main campaign, also
known as C24. Afterwards, Penny/Lili's immunity to weather and adoreable
creepiness will be available to you.

Start up Quotes:
1. Mr. Bear says we're gonna win! Tee hee hee!

Victory Quotes:

1. Hey, Mr. Bear. We won!
2. Daddy will be happy!
3. BOOOOOOOOOOOM! Tee hee hee!

Power quotes:

1. Do you like Mr. Bear? He HATES YOU!
2. Penny doesn't understand. But Mr. Bear does. Yay!
3. Dimensional index rising, nonlinear oscillator producing fluid bifur...
BOOM!
4. Stormfront! STORMFRONT!
5. Go boom now! BOOOOOOM!
6. Tee hee hee!


=============
4. Statistics
=============

Unfortunately, there isn't much else to Penny besides her immunity to weather.
Her CO Zone (COZ) still is very large and easy to charge. Many believe that
only the units in her COZ are immune to weather, but this isn't the case.
She gives a Natural 110/110 in her COZ just like all COs. And of course, the
unit she's in has a modest 130/130 for being a veteran unit. Fairly sturdy.

A co Zone of 3 ensures that most of your units will get a little boost than
being plan units without any benefits, which may give you a slight advantage.

Something I know many will question is if sandstorm detriment applies after
or before the enemy's COZ. It applies after calculations, not before it. 
Don't ask me why it is after, it was IS's decision. If it was before, it'd
cripple COZ's slightly more than normal. 

Best example I can give is Tabitha.
Tabitha with sandstorm lowers her to 126%/180%. If it applied before, it'd be
118/180%. A fairly small difference, but a difference.


====================================
5. Penny's/Lili's Abilities In-Depth
====================================

Penny is considered bland by most, and only moderated strong in certain
conditions. This strength is being unaffected by weather entirely, which
can make many think she's the new Olaf, but she gets very few extra bonuses
in her attack and defense. I was hoping for a CO that could caused detrimental
effects onto enemies instead of simply boosting their own self. 

Due to a large COZ, a set of 130/130 units isn't necessarily bad as an all
around benefit, provided you have tons of veteran units around her, which is
very possible because of her large zone to help charge the COZ.


======================
6. Factors to Strategy
======================

The main problem with her strategy is that its fairly general. If you have
set options on the weather or put it on random, then you need to exploit what
your opponent doesn't have. If rain is on, exploit the fact they can't see
far ahead at all, and that your vision is only partially impaired by FOW.

Another factor is positioning to charge your COP faster, and since Penny
has a large range, you don't have to risk her unit that badly in order to
charge it fairly well. Be sure to charge it to at least have some sort of
boost than nothing at all.

A very tough factor, is whether or not you should use her COP. This is very
crucial, as the weather effect isn't infinite; and if it were, then she'd
probably be considered broken. 

However, most players will simply feel lost the moment Penny pulls a Sandstorm
from her COP. Sandstorm is considered the most crippling as many COs will have
troble destroying any units to break your meatshield line. Because of this,
some may simply forfeit the moment she pulls out sandstorm. 
Sandstorm is the best weather detriment, but many feel that it is impossible
to break the offensive line afterwards. 


=====================
7. General Strategies
=====================

A very important thing to do is to put Penny into a unit nearly asap. If you
can afford to wait to put her into something strong, do so. It almost doesn't
matter what unit she's in as long as you can position her well enough to
charge her CO bar fast. It is important that she's protected though.

Next, is the question if a weather effect is active. If it is, then it
is vital you take advantage of the opponent's impaired movement, sight, or
attack. 

If it is Rain, then its best to eliminate any flares they have and to limit
their units badly in order to prevent stronger counters and slowly advance
to destroy with your fairly large zone.

If it is snow, then you can slowly move up and stay just out of range of your
opponent to guarantee yourself first strikes or less chances of having
a unit be attacked twice unless you charge in.

If sandstorm, then all your opponent's units are weakened slightly and that
means all air units are more likely to live and do damage, along with the fact
that artillery units will be slightly less troublesome. It'd be reckless to
charge in though, as the decreased attack won't guarantee you living each
attack, just helps more.

The last thing to consider, is her COP. "Should I use it?"
Tough question for any who use her, unless the weather is clear. Unfortunately
weather abilities don't stack over each other (ie: rain + sandstorm), so
you can't pull off two COPs in short time if you wish to double the detriments
or keep your opponent in horrible weather permanently.

It is a factor of "when to activate" when the weather is clear, as having
no force and throwing the luck of the draw on randomly selecting a weather you
desire can bring about dire results from expecting a miracle than what you
wished for.

When a weather effect is in place, you are likely going to nix the idea
of ever changing it, unless you really feel it necessary to force your
opponent's strategy to change. Although Penny isn't affected by Rain's FOW at
all when her COP is active, it only lasts that one turn instead of 3 days.

Weather detriments have to be considered for each map, and your opponent
is likely to wise up and prepare for your COP if it takes too long to for
you to activate, or he/she may simply be expecting something that may never
come, as a 5 ranged COZ is pretty nice to have on a majority of your units.
And should you get pummeled, you can use the COP as a fall back plan to
slow your enemy down while you regroup your forces to make a stronger counter
attack back at them. 

Playing the waiting game is sometimes bad though, as the longer you wait to
make a move on your opponent to attempt the upper hand, the more time
they have to plan to counter your plans they may expect and the more time
they have to bring out their own CO to set up their own plans.

========================
8. Countering Penny/Lili
========================

Penny, is surprisingly very easy to counter. She can even be countered before
the game begins by simply selecting "Clear" weather. This way, she has no
distinct advantage. Realticly, if the weather option isn't in control or you
simply wish to counter her without toying with the weather option. Your best
bet is to ensure you have stronger tactics and plan ahead of whatever weather
is in play, or may come in play.

Since her unit doesn't need to be in the field in order to make her units
immune to weather, it is difficult to counter penny this way. It is only
possible if you can somehow show superior might with the CO of your choice,
or to have stronger tactics than the Penny player. Dragging a flare along 
is strongly recommended, just in case Rain shows up during her COP. Having
tons of strong units without being able to spot a target is a sure way to lose
those units and find them to be nothing more than paperweights.

==========================
9. Penny/Lili vs Other COs
==========================

Penny has no real advantage against other COs unless a weather effect is in
play, or if you know how to use the weather to cripple an opponent's strength.
Having a ton of indirects during a sandstorm is likely to make any opponent
frustrated as their directs will have trouble destroying your meatshields with
30% less attack than normal.

Be aware that the 30% less attack is calculated after total amounts of your
opponent's bonuses, not afterwards. For example: Tabitha in a unit isn't 
180/180 anymore, it is 126/180%.

==========================
10. Opinions on Penny/Lili
==========================

Penny is the only CO in this game that has a passive ability, while other COs
only get their benefits after moving into the field and is limited to their 
COZ. Unfortunately this passive ability means nothing if no weather is in
effect. However, many veteran players may love trying her out as the weather
lasts longer than Olaf's weather changing effects. The 3 days thing may make
her seem weak, but 3 days can mean a total turnabout for a veteran that
knows how to plan ahead and exploit detriments in vision, attack or movement.

Despite only having an advantage in weather, the advantage can be very huge
in the right conditions and map, but many will argue that she is strictly
situational. People have their opinions and are entitled to them. I still
find her to be an strange and cute little girl that loves to make "BOOM"
sounds.


=====================
11. Legal Information
=====================

This document may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for 
personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise 
distributed publicly without advance written permission from me only. Use of 
this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly 
prohibited, and a violation of copyright.

Use of any information in this document is entirely at your own risk.  Neither 
the Author, or any site hosting this document is liable for any damage you 
cause to your PC, or prefered system to browse the Internet with connection 
arising from the use of information provided in this document.

You can find the latest version of this FAQ at GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com).

All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders.

===========
12. Credits
===========

GameFAQs- for their site to host this.

Intelligent Systems- for releasing this game and for changing the mechanics
to a more balanced form.


=====================
13. Email Information
=====================

My email is provided at the top of the page, however your email to me must meet
some certain requirements to be read by me, or it goes straight into the trash
bin and the sender's address may be blocked in the future. 

1. Label the subject accordingly that it is a query, or a statement that relates
to this FAQ.
2. Please be specific and try to type with decent grammar for me to understand 
your question, submition and or suggestion.
3. Do not send attachments in any emails to me unless I requested so.
4. Positive suggestions, such as FAQ corrections and suggestions; spelling 
errors; credit name errors; strategies and other thoughts are welcomed.