Lash FAQ by: verysoon1455 Advance Wars: Black Hole Rising ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents ----------------- I. Version History II. Introduction III. General Overview -Stats -CO Powers -Basic Info IV. The Terrain -Terrain Chart -Terrain Trends -Unit Usage V. Tips and Strategies -Meatshields -Defending HQ -First Strike -Early Deployment VI. Countering CO's -CO's VII. Credits/Legal stuff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Version History ------------------ 3/14/09 - First version of guide complete 3/16/09 - Edited SCOP and Terrain Chart, I realized that her maximum stats are actually 180/190, and not 150/190 3/17/09 - Grr, after a little trial I realized again that her max stats are 150/190. Heh.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II. Introduction ---------------- Welcome to my first FAQ. As I was looking through the guides in gamefaqs, it was to my dismay that I did not see a guide for Lash. So as a die-hard fan of this great CO, I felt that it was my duty to make a guide for her. She's a great CO but, like Adder and Flak, she's underestimated and underrated because she's a bottom tier Black HOle CO. Hopefully by the time you finish reading this guide you'll not only want to use her, but know how to use her effectively. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- III. General Overview --------------------- A. Stats Basically all her units' stats are 100/100. If you want a chart here it is. Infantry: 100/100 Mech: 100/100 Recon: 100/100 Tank: 100/100 Md Tank: 100/100 Neotank: 100/100 APC: 100/100 Artillery: 100/100 Rockets: 100/100 A-Air: 100/100 Missiles: 100/100 T-Copter: --/100 B. Copter: 100/100 Bomber: 100/100 Fighter: 100/100 Lander: --/100 Sub: 100/100 Cruiser: 100/100 Battleship: 100/100 Not impressed yet? Don't worry, you will be. For every star of defense a unit is standing on, its firepower increases by 10%. I'll get more into that in the next section. B. CO Powers Meter: oooo000 CO Power: Terrain Tactics Movement cost for terrain that a unit can currently move on becomes 1. A recon has 8 movement, but it gets hindered by forests and moves less. But using this it can move all 8 spaces on any terrain that it can move on (that means it still can't traverse mountains, sea, etc). There is no attack or defense boost. Super CO Power: Prime Tactics Firepower and defense for all units are boosted by 10%. Terrain defense bonuses are doubled. So, if a Tank is on a city, which has 3 stars of defense, and you use Prime Tactics, that 3 stars is doubled, making it 6 stars of defense. C. Basic Info Quick and concise- she's mediocre in the air, so-so at sea, and great on land. She does well on small maps since they usually contain lots of forests, cities, and other highly defensive terrain packed together, giving many oppotunities for a unit to get onto them. However she does less well in large stages where there may be airports and ports that require air and sea warfare. Also large stages are mostly plains and roads, with forests, mountains, and cities scattered here and there. In short, for Lash, pick your battles. Take a look at the map and try to see yourself playing this map with Lash. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IV. The Terrain --------------- Alright, so all her units have 100/100 for stats, BUT her special skill is that for every star of defense of the terrain that a unit is on, the unit's fire power will increase by 10%. So on Road, a Tank would have 100/100 because there's 0 stars of defense on road. But on City, a Tank would have 130/100 because there's 3 stars of defense on cities. 3 stars X 10 percent = additional 30 fire power. A. Terrain Chart Here's a chart of all the terrains, so you can refer to them |Stars | Extra Attack -------------------------------- HQ | 4 | 40% -------------------------------- City | 3 | 30% -------------------------------- Base | 3 | 30% -------------------------------- Airport | 3 | 30% -------------------------------- Port | 3 | 30% -------------------------------- Silo | 3 | 30% -------------------------------- Pipe | --- | --- -------------------------------- Pipe Seam| --- | --- -------------------------------- Bridge | 0 | 0% -------------------------------- Road | 0 | 0% -------------------------------- Reef | 2 | 20% -------------------------------- Shoal | 0 | 0% -------------------------------- River | 0 | 0% -------------------------------- Woods | 2 | 20% -------------------------------- Mountain | 4 | 40% -------------------------------- Sea | 0 | 0% -------------------------------- Plains | 1 | 10% -------------------------------- Essentially if you think about it, the maximum amount of stats a unit can have is 150/190. 4 stars defense is max, giving a +40%. Prime Tactics gives a 10% boost in firepower giving a grand total of 90%, giving a total of 190% in attack. Prime Tactics also boosts the 4 stars of defense (40%) to 8 stars, which is +80%. With the additional 10% boost in defense, it's 190%. Believe it or not, that's how it is. :D And the doubled terrain doesn't affect the firepower, so if the 4 stars was doubled to 8 stars, it would still only be 140%. B. Terrain Trends Here, Ill talk about how maps are typically laid out. Each tile (which is a 1x1 space on the map) is surrounded by four other tiles of terrain. So if I say 50% road, that means the terrain I'm talking about is typically surrounded by 2 out of the 4 possible tiles. 1. Properties - 25% road/plains, 50% mountain/woods, 25% property 2. HQ - 100% property 3. Mountains - 25% road/plains, 50%-75% mountains, 25% forests/properties C. Unit Usage Here, I'll talk about Lash's usage of units. Infantry- Good for capturing; high firepower on cities makes opponents think twice before attacking. Also good for early strikes; if an enemy infantry is capturing, you have a power advantage in attacking it, properties are rarely surrounded by roads, bridges, or rivers, they're usually surrounded by forests, plains, mountains, and/or other properties, thus giving you high firepower. Also good for defending your HQ against the opponent sending infantry overseas/overair straight to your HQ. Because the battle will take place around your HQ, your infantry can do huge damage, with 130% on a base and 140% on the HQ. Using anything more expensive would be an unnecessary waste of money. Mechs- For Lash, Mechs are for pure offense. Leave the capturing to infantries, Lash's Mechs can easilly move on mountains to deal massive damage. You can move them onto woods if you want, but save those positions for other units that can't traverse mountains. Mountains are often next to roads or plains, both of which have little defense, meaning your Mech, with 140% attack, will do huge damage. As for defending against your HQ, deploy Mechs if the opponent sends tanks or other vehicles overseas to your HQ. These things are vitually indestructable on mountains, especially with Prime Tactics turned on. Even the strongest bombers will do 4 damage tops. Recon- Lash's recons are good; great for first strikes. As said before, cities are often surrounded by forests or plains, meaning your recons will have high firepower on enemy soldiers trying to capture. Usually you'd do around 55-60% to a soldier capturing property if you're on plains/forests. Terrain Tactics makes Recons able to move everywhere. Tank- Her tanks are pretty useful both as attackers and shields for your much more useful indirects (I'll get into this later). Try your best to take advantage of your tank's high movement to get onto a city or forest when attacking. Make sure you deploy a fair amount of these before making indirects. Md Tank- Bad..Low movement limits opportunities to get onto highly defensive terrains as they'll likely be out of reach. I don't suggest having more than one or two of these. If you have enough cash for a Md Tank, make 2 tanks or 1 tank and 1 artillery or 1 rocket. Neotank- Mehh..well..Lash does better in small maps anyways. If it's a really large map, she won't do that great. Like I said before, pick your battles, so if it's such a large map where you can produce Neotanks easilly, you shouldn't be using Lash. But anyways, Neotanks are great, but are a waste for Lash. Neotanks on their own can already do 100% to most units, and if you put them on terrain, you'll see 120%+, which is a unnecessary waste. I'd choose Md Tank over Neotank for the sake of saving funds. APC- Well it's a transport unit not much you can say..Prime Tactics increases the effectiveness of terrain so you can place on of these on a neutral property to prevent it from being captured by the enemy. Because of the high defense, it won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Meh, just use it to transport soldiers. Artillery- Ahh Artilleries are where Lash shines. Usually i like deploying a few tanks, and a few of these. The ratio of tanks to artilleries should be 3:2 or 2:1. Place these on high defense terrain. Forests are usually close to the battle, so place it on those. However if you can place it on a city yet still be able to have enough range to attack, then do that. These will generally do 80% average. I usually like picking off Mechs because they're annoying but die easilly. One shot should kill a Mech, if not it will be low health. Using Prime Tactics is a good idea, especially if your front lines are starting to wither. So an enemy tank will do 4 damage tops to your artillery assuming it's on proper terrain. Rocket- VERY GOOD. Place one on a city far away from battle, but still being able to shoot enemy units from where it is. WHile artilleries pick out soldiers, use rockets either destroy tanks/AAirs or weaken Md/Neotanks, so your directs can press forward and destroy enemy indirects. These will typically do about 85 to 100 damage on cheap vehicles, but on stronger ones like Neotanks it'll do about 65%. Again, Prime Tactics will make Rockets indestructable. They'll most likely be on cities so it will both recover health and have 60% defense, with the additional 10% boost. A-Air- These are basically the only anti air unit you need. They're cheap and they rape soldiers too. Since properties are usually surrounded by high defense terrain, these'll do at least 90% to enemy units trying to capture. If placed on good terrain, these things can destroy a Bomber in 1 hit. Don't attack Fighters, though, as it's not recommended that you use air units and it's an unneccessary boost to your enemy's CO meter. Missiles- Just don't deploy these..They're expensive, low movement, and they just over kill enemy planes at an unecessary amount when placed on a city. Just stick with AAirs. Fighter- Air units get no terrain boost, thus they get no attack boost. For less than half the price you can get an AAir. But if you have a lot of cash to spare, it never hurts to deploy just one fighter just in case you need to quickly dispatch a Bomber that your AAir can't reach. But in all, make 2 AAirs instead of 1 Fighter. Bomber- Bombers are great units but they get no terrain bonuses which is icky. I'd rather get a Neotank since they DO get terrain bonuses. Only reason why I'd get one is to take out indirects from the back lines, but B Copters are a better solution. Bombers are very good, but they're not for Lash. Battle Copter- Again, Lash is so-so with air because air units get no terrain bonuses. I'd get a Battle Copter over a Bomber because it's cheaper and the only reason why you'd deploy any of these is to destroy annoying indirects that your ground units can't reach. If you have the money for a Bomber, get 2 of these instead. Transport Copter- Read APC section. It's just a damn transport unit :P Battle Ship- Ehh movin' into sea unit territory now. Reefs are the only sea terrain with terrain bonuses, but are still rare. The best thing to do is to just place one on reef. You can OHKO any sea unit this way, and can do massive damage to ground units. I guess it's good to have one, but you can live without a battle ship, I'd rather have Rockets. Cruiser- Well you can't NOT have a cruiser, because of Subs. Not much strategy to this.. just take out any subs. Cruisers usually do 80% to Subs but on reefs it'll OHKO. Lander- Yeah...it's just a transport unit. Eh..yeah whatever. :) Do whatever you want. Submarine- Ah reefs are great for Submarines. If you're lucky enough to have a clueless enemy battleship or sub sit next to a reef, by all means go there and make some noise. You'll do substantial damage to other subs and do about 60% to battleships. If it's a cruiser, however, next to the reef, only attack it if you have used Prime Tactics, because in that case, your Sub would be 130/150. So as a wrap up, Lash is good at ground units because of the abundance of high defense terrain. She does alright in sea and air battles considering there are no terrain bonuses to help her out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- V. Tips and Strategies ---------------------- I went over a lot of these in my Unit Usage section, but here's all the strategies and techniques for Lash that I used all wrapped in one with a ribbon on it. (Rihanna reference =P) And I'm not gonna have fancy names, the names will just foreshadow what the strategy is. A. Meatshields Typically in battles, there is a single road, and on the sides are mountains or forests and in the back are cities and forests. Your tanks will block the single road, acting as shields for your indirects to plow away at the enemy. At the same time you can slowly advance your directs. From the sides have a few mechs/infantry attack from mountaintops. B. Defending HQ Sometimes your enemy will transport units over straight to your HQ. If they transport only infantry/mechs, then deploy a few infantry. If there are vehicles transported over, deploy mechs. Since the battles will go on around your HQ, your units will be either on a base/city or the HQ meaning they will have 130% or 140% attack. This is more than enough to quickly wipe out the enemies. And if the enemy sent over like a Neotank..well..if he's really that stupid, then you shouldn't even be reading this since you could beat him with Sonja anyways.. =P C. First Strike By first strike i mean very early in the game. This strategy is mainly to hinder enemy cashflow by attacking foe soldiers to prevent them from finishing capturing a property. Moving your own soldier onto mountains and attacking the enemy will do quite a lot of damage. Recons can attack from woods. This strategy is fairly generic, but Lash just gives it an extra kick. D. Early Deployment Sometimes it's good to deploy an artillery, or some other indirect, very early. This way you can place them on a captured city/forest and you can pick off coming enemies to prevent swarming. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VI. Countering CO's ------------------- This section will talk about how to play when facing CO's. Different CO's require different strategies to fight. A. Andy He's dangerous. Usually when Lash attacks, she usually brings a whole bunch of enemies down to very low health, but not dead yet. If Andy manages to use his COP, or god forbid, his SCOP, he could plow right through you. So for Andy, watch his CO meter, but more importantly, gang. So let's say your rocket got a tank down to 3 health. You might think "Oh it's low health, it can't do any harm at this point," but Andy's COP will boost that 3 into an 8, so kill it. Have a 50/50 between directs and indirects. B. Max This is where the meatshield technique works well. He's going to use a lot of directs, but of course, your own directs will stand little of a chance. THat's why you snipe Max's directs down with your indirects and attack from the side with superpowered foot soldiers. His indirects should pose little of a problem. He's by far one of the easiest CO's to fight. C. Sami Sami usually has a bunch of infantry and mechs on the front line with a couple of tanks and lots of indirects from behind. This is where you will need a lot of indirects and less directs. While your indirects pick out the infantry one by one your directs will have a clear path to Sami's indirects. She shouldn't be too hard, just have more indirects than directs. E. Nell I haven't played against Nell many times so I have little experience with her. F. Hachi The counter to unit swaming is meatshield. It's best not to gang here, instead distribute the damage. Let's say you get an enemy Recon to 1 health. Don't kill it, instead use your rocket to shoot the tank behind the recon. There's no point to swarming if your whole army is low in health. Again, use indirects more often. G. Olaf He's annoying to fight, the snow limits your movement as well as opportunities to get onto terrain. Still, have a nice balance between directs and indirects. Olaf's army is usually also balanced. Other than the snow, Olaf is easy. Don't lose any sleep over fighting this guy. H. Grit UGGGHHHHH!! I haaaate fighting Grit. Have many directs and a few indirects. The strategy for fighting Grit is the same when you use any other CO; spam direct units. THere's no way to avoid a bad technique score when fighting this guy. Have a few indirects placed on cities to take out his tanks, of which he has very little. Then have your tanks blast away at his artilleries and rockets. Like usual, deploy 2 tanks instead of 1 Md Tank. Foot soldiers are very helpful here if there are mountains on the side. Mechs will OHKO any indirect or weak directs while infantries will do around 40% to indirects. I. Colin Basically the same strategy as you used against Hachi. Have many indirects to weaken enemy units with directs as attacking meatshields. Because if you don't distribute your damage, you're gonna get Blitzkrieg'd, especially if Colin uses Power of Money, which is extremely powerful. J. Eagle You should have very little trouble fighting Eagle on land since his COP only powers up his air units and his SCOP takes a longass time to build. On the other hand, Eagle will dominate Lash in air battles, like he does against any other CO. But you'll have little trouble taking on his powerful airforce with a good amount of AntiAirs. Missiles actually aren't a bad idea here; becuase of Eagle's high defense in his air units, placing a missiles on woods/city, or even plains, will be able to OHKO any air units of the Prince of the Skies. K. Drake Drake shouldn't be too much of a problem. His sea units only boast an extra 10% in defense, which is pretty cute, but then again Lash's sea units can have a potential 20% firepower boost (reefs). But you should play Drake over land since you have a clear advantage over him in that area. Storm his HQ by land with generic Lash tactics. Keep an indirect or two next to the sea so it can snipe down ships. His CO powers are annoying but fuel shortaging isn't that effective against land units. Just deploy an APC if you're afraid of that. L. Jess Ah, Jess. Her ground units are only 110/100, so you can easilly match up to them. Your units will usually have higher stats than those of Jess's units, but what you need to worry about is her CO powers. Have a balanced army, but be sure to have many, many meatshields, as she will plow through your units with Overdrive. That's basically your only problem. She's a challenge, but then again you will dominate in sea and in air battles. M. Kanbei Indirects indirects indirects! Your direct units won't stand a chance against his monstrous 130/130 units. He typically deploys a few tanks, then deploys a Md/Neotank. You wanna get rid of his stronger units first, so keep sniping them with all that indirects have got. As for tanks, weaken a tank with an artillery or rocket, then finish it off with a tank. Your own directs will likely be fighting on plains, or roads, so they'll be very weak against Kanbei, but you must have your indirects on high defense terrain. Although if you manage to get a Neotank or something to 2 health or lower, don't kill it, let it retreat into a city. Repearing this expensive unit will drain Kanbei's funds. It'll likely stay there and not attack until it's fully healed, so once it reaches over 5, re-weaken it or kill it. N. Sonja Sonja's a pain to fight because of her hidden health. Not like it matters, with your indirects in the right places, your indirects will kill anything. Her CO powers are just pathetic, in my opinion. As a counter to Counterbreak (lol), snipe any directs to prevent a strong counterattack. Sonja is pretty easy to fight, don't sweat over her. O. Sensei Ah Sensei..all his foot soldiers have 140/100 by default, which almost cancels out the First Strike strategy. His copters are just killing machines too, with a whopping 150/100. There's no trick to defeating him, though. Deploy a few AntiAirs to take out his copters and soldiers. All of his other units are weak, so attack them straight up with directs. Indirects aren't that great, since his Bcopters will destroy them before they get to do anything anyways. P. Flak Not much of a strategy needed to fight Flak. His disperse rate tends to go on the negative side more often than not. Do whatever you want, Flak is easy to beat. Q. Lash The human brain is much more complex and intelligent than a computer. Both CO's stats are the same, so the way you play is 100% the deciding factor for the outcome of the match. You're best off using manipulation, such as luring a tank away from your rocket by capturing a property with a less important infantry. Stuff like that. Stages where you fight Lash will most likely have many forests for her favor, but the same goes for you. R. Adder Easy. His CO powers give no boosts, meaning if you use Prime Tactics, he won't leave a scratch on you, even if he has an extra 2 movement. Just have a nice balanced army between directs and indirects and a brain and you're set to go. S. Hawke Sure, all of his units are 110/100, but if you think about it, most of many stages will be occupied by terrain with at least 1 star of defense, meaning you'll match up to him quite nicely. His CO powers take uuuber long to build up so that's another plus. He'll do a tad bit better than you would in air and sea battles, but that won't really matter, 10% is tiny. Don't be intimidated, he's not that hard to beat. T. Sturm There's not much to say here..Sturm is obviously the best CO in the game hands down, and will boast many many advantages over you. Have some directs stand on roads to block, and other directs attack from the side from forests or cities. Be sure to have several indirects on cities sniping from behind. FIghting Sturm 1 on 1 never occurs, except on Missile Plains, where you have an abundance of Silos. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VII. Credits/Legal stuff ------------------------ A. Credits -Gamefaqs for hosting my guide and acting as a channel for my love of Lash to spread to others -The readers of this guide to help promote it as well as opening their eyes to a very unique CO -Me, for writing it. (gosh I sound self-centered) -www.warsworldnews.com - this is the biggest and best Advance Wars forum/FAQ site. This is where I got the stats for the CO's, but you should check it out, it's got lots of great stuff. B. Legal Stuff I'm not gonna copyright this FAQ, so you can claim this as your own. Although I would question why you would.. o_o Uh, yeah.