Tutorial

When you first load the game you will be asked if you want to play the Tutorial Level? The answer - even if you have played the other games in the series - should be YES! But if for whatever reason you opt not to, it can be played later. You will find it as part of the Kaiser Campaign in the main game menu.

If you opt to DO the Tute, you will immediately goto its loading screen, after which you get your first taste of the Toy Soldiers Universe. Which is pretty snazzy in our opinion.

You get introduced to your Toy Box - yes, Toy Box. That is your base baby - you gots to protect that at all costs!

Next you learn about the build sites - small round ones, larger square ones - and what can be built on them. How you get money - where you can see how much money you have, and how to make use of the Strategy Camera View.

First Turret - Turret Lesson

Your first hand-on lesson is started by placing a MG Turret on the forward build circle. As you see the Turret will fire on its own - but you can take control of it and do more tactical firing.

The MG in the Turret has a limited number of rounds - once they are expended there is a brief pause while it is reloaded. As you shoot you gain Action Points, which appear on the left side of the menu. When you have enough, you can unlock special characters - like The Kaiser - who is an action figure you take direct control of.

The Kaiser has an LMG, Grenades, and several attack modes. He is limited in time for use based upon his battery charge. As you can see there is a 9v battery right in front of your position - grab that to recharge his battery level so you can use him longer.

Enemy Waves

The next stage of the Tute shows and explains the Wave System, and how to tell what is coming based on the icons that appear in the next Wave. There are four types - Troops, Armor Units, Planes, and special units.

The objective for each wave is to reach your Toy Box. After you fend-off the next two Waves the game then shows you how the Turret can be upgraded.

Upgrades are different this time around. In the previous games they basically consisted of two upgrades that made the turret stronger, usually changing it to a more modern form of that class of turret.

In War Chest you have three upgrade paths - Expert Loader, K-Bullets, and Sandbags. Think of them as speed, ammo, and defense.

Depending upon how well you do at defending the base you will unlock various upgrades for your turrets - basically the second level of upgrades.

That completes the tutorial - and should have demonstrated two significant facts to you - the turrets CAN defend pretty well on their own, but when YOU take control there is a much higher chance for better points and multipliers.

So you have learned the strategic value of hands-on play, and how each turret type works. That is really all that you need to know in order to proceed from the Tutorial to actual game play. And how cool is that?

Army Customization

At this point, before you exit the Tutorial, you have the option of hititng “Y” to enter the Army Customization Menu. Here you can actually customize your forces based on the new kit you have unlocked.

How you use this menu is simple enough - if you look in the bottom left corner of the screen you will see how many points you have to spend as a result of your performance in the Tutorial. You can use these points to upgrade the weapons and kit your forces have.

The Kaiser

For now let's focus on The Kaiser. By default they have the MP-18 MG, the Mauser Anti-Tank Rifle, and the Zepplin Barrage Pack. When you select their details you can see the options you have for upgrades...

Primary Weapon

MP-18 MG (Equipped)

Luger P08 (200 pts)

Scoped Gewehr (400 pts)

Trench Gun (1000 pts)

Secondary Weapon

Mauser Anti-Tank Rifle (Equipped)

Lewis Gun (400 pts)

Maxim (1000 pts)

Golden Maxim (10 U)

Barrage Perk

Zepplin (Equipped)

Gas Shells (500 pts)

Walking Artillery (1000 pts)

That gives you an idea of what the playable character upgrades are like. Now let's take a look at the Turret Upgrades...

Maxim (Turret)

This is the German variant of the Maxim MG, the M8, which is a water-cooled belt-fed, fully automatic MG. As you experienced in the Tutorial, its upgrade path includes Health (Sandbags), Damage (Ammo), and Range (Loader).

Depending on how you did in the Tutorial you may have different options here already unlocked, but for us this was our available configuration:

Health Upgrades

Sandbags (Unlocked)

Stone Wall (Unlocked)

Barrage Balloon (700 pts)

Damage Upgrades

K-Bullets (Unlocked)

Heat Dissipaters (400 pts)

Poison Gas (700 pts)

Range Upgrades

Expert Loader (Unlocked)

Scope (400 pts)

Signal Station (700 pts)

Minenwerfer (Anti-Tank) Turret.

This is an indirect fire (lob it up and it plunges the shells down from above) anti-tank turret that has the 25cm Schwerer Minenwerfer (mine launcher) in it. It's upgrade path is:

Health Upgrades

Sandbags (Unlocked)

Stone Wall (Unlocked)

Barrage Balloon (700 pts)

Damage Upgrades

Shrapnel Shells (Unlocked)

Gas Shells (400 pts)

Land Mines (700 pts)

Range Upgrades

Expert Loader (Unlocked)

Rocket Propulsion (Unlocked)

Signal Station (700 pts)

Flak-88

The next turret is the Anti-Air Turret - the Flak-88 -- an 8.8cm K-Flak Gun. It has the following upgrades:

Health Upgrades

Sandbags (Unlocked)

Stone Wall (400 pts)

Barrage Balloon (700 pts)

Damage Upgrades

Prototype Barrel (Unlocked)

Rocket Propulsion (Unlocked)

Incendiary Ammo (700 pts)

Range Upgrades

Expert Loader (Unlocked)

Scope (Unlocked)

Signal Station (700 pts)

Big Bertha

Our next turret is the 150-ton Artillery Piece - Big Bertha. It has the following unlocks:

Health Upgrades

Stone Wall (Unlocked)

Blast Shield (Unlocked)

Barrage Balloon (700 pts)

Damage Upgrades

Pressure Fuses (Unlocked)

Gas Shells (400 pts)

Machinegun Nest (700 pts)

Range Upgrades

Expert Loader (Unlocked)

Signal Station (400 pts)

Spotting Balloon (700 pts)

That pretty much covers the upgrades we can buy for the kit we have - but there are ALSO additional unit types that we can add:

1. German Storm Troopers (400 pts)

2. Captured Tanks (400 pts)

3. A7V Infantry Support Tank (700 pts)

4. Gotha Bombers (400 pts)

This will be where you will first encounter the IAP system - if you try to buy new kit or an upgrade that you actually cannot afford. If you do that you will be prompted to buy Tokens. The Tokens are the IAP system - which sort of sucks when you consider this is NOT a Free-to-Play or Free-to-Download game!

The IAP options are:

2,000 Tokens ($1.99)

5,500 Tokens ($4.99)

12,000 Tokens ($9.99)

26,000 Tokens ($19.99)

We will not offer an opinion on whether you should do this or not. We chose not to, and this guide is written as if you too, chose not to. Your call.

What you decide to buy with your Tokens - we had 600 so we ended up choosing the Storm Troopers ourselves - is entirely your call. You can get new kit, or upgrade existing kit. Either way it will effect your game in a different way, but it is all good!