How Good Are The Advance Wars 2 CO's? 

🕑 Timestamps: 0:00 Prelude 1:37 Intro 2:54 Andy 5:53 Max 9:51 Sami 12:37 Nell 15:31 Hachi 17:49 Olaf 22:09 Grit 24:27 Colin 29:16 Kanbei 36:47 Sonja 41:56 Sensei 44:50 Eagle 48:57 Drake 54:56 Jess 1:00:06 Flak 1:03:31 Lash 1:07:30 Adder 1:09:51 Hawke 1:13:14 Sturm 1:17:53 Complete Tier List

Hardest substances on Earth 4. Aerogel 3. Diamond 2. Graphene 1. Whatever Kanbei's tanks are made out of

"But, statistically you will not see a lot of lightning strikes." In other words, lightning doesn't strike twice.

"It's MY sleepover, I get to choose the MOVIE"

"Against Opponents with OCD, Drake is an S Tier CO" CAN CONFIRM, SCREW THAT FLASHING FUEL ICON

For me, Jess is S rank for making me think the tank shell she was carrying was a giant pencil

Leaving my comment now on how godamn genius and hilarious the opening skit is... Amazing editing lmaoo

"Being average is bad because most CO's are good." That's called being sub-average, Mangs.

Legend has it that Andy survived that crash... His super was ready and he fixed the plane

So weak to snow in Sturm's case is like Superman's "Weakness" to magic. He just has no resistances to it, it affects him the same as any other normal person.

just realize something since you mention sonja's health hidden ability nullified by turning on battle animations... imagine the remake, if they're that detailed, they apply a static filter over sonja's unit screen in battle animations too to hide the unit's health..... I doubt they will do that....but damn if they do.... it would show the attention and care they are committed into this remake...

So fighting against Olaf is basically like going to war against Russia. "Finish before winter or perish"

That fact about olaf and stalemates leading into winter makes olaf win is funny considering blue moon is like russia.

47:16 “Taking a double turn in AW is broken as all hell” *Dual strike players sweating in the corner*

MANGS BE FEEDING THE ADVANCE WARS FANS BROO. Dudes giving us a feature length film maaaan.

Something to bear in mind is that COs can move up and down tiers based entirely on map design, Sonja with or without FoW is the obvious example, but another slightly more obscure example is that all of the COs that deal global damage(Hawke, Olaf, Drake) are better on larger maps and worse on smaller maps. Unless a CO is entirely luck based, the map can and will play a huge part in how good a CO is.

At first I was like "that footage looks sorta familiar". Feels super weird to see some of my old crappy footage used 11 years later for an analysis video. Either way, hype for the remake LESGO!

Changes from the previous tier list: Promotions: D-Tier to C-Tier: Max, Olaf, Drake D-Tier to B-Tier: Eagle C-Tier to B-Tier: Andy, Hawke B-Tier to A-Tier: Grit, Sensei Demotions: A-Tier to B-Tier: Nell D-Tier to E-Tier (which didn't exist in the previous list): Flak Unchanged: D-Tier: Adder, Jess C-Tier: N/A B-Tier: Sami, Sonja, Lash A-Tier: Colin, Kanbei S-Tier: Hachi, Sturm

He may be kind of bad, but Olaf is S-tier in my heart.

Basically sturm, hachi, kanbei and colin are the best characters. Honestly if the map is small enough then grit can become one of the best two.

Hachi kind of represents how the Japanese saw the United States when the second half of the Pacific Theater of WWII rolled around. The Japanese had lost about half of their battleships and most of their Aircraft Carriers (and were struggling to build new ones to replace them. The third ship intended to become the sister ship of Yamato and Musashi had to be converted to a Support Carrier two-thirds of the way through her construction to make up for the loss of carriers, and she was one of the few capital ships they could produce due to shortages of metal and fuel oil on the resource-deficient Japanese Islands). Meanwhile the US was building dozens of Essex-class aircraft carriers and Iowa-class battleships and training hundreds of American carrier-based fighters and bombers, so that after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, US forces overwhelmingly outnumbered Japanese forces in addition to having "game-breaking" new technologies like proximity-fuse AAA shells (which hard countered kamikazi attacks) and radar-guided fire control systems on all surface ships (which nullified the Japanese fleet's advantage in training for night-battles and resulted in American Fletcher-class destroyers curb-stomping their Japanese counterparts).

Flack isn't E rank! He's clearly F Rank For Flack

Sonja's Superpower: Turn into Han Solo and shoot first.

The design philosophy behind Jess seems to have been that because her specialty encompasses so many units, ones that can potentially fill the roles of the air and (pffff) naval units it doesn't cover, they had to debuff her good to keep her from being overpower, overestimating the effect of quality over quantity. In reality, every advance wars game follows a predictable pattern of development: Early game infantry to develop the economy in and serve as fodder --> mid game light units for utility and mobility --> end game expensive heavy units for maximum stopping power to overwhelm choke points and either create a decisive opening or big enough value trades to erode the enemy capacity to produce units. Similar to Chess, the game can end at any stage of development; "end game" is just a reflection of what happens after skirmishes for outlying properties have settled and battle lines have formed. If any of these stages are hindered, it has a compound effect across time going into future stages. Jess is almost indistinguishable from Hawke in terms of her ground vehicles and has way better powers to support them, but she can't get to that point on sure footing because she has no alternative to using infantry to build up her forces. The only way to supplement this would be to play on maps where all the units are pre-deployed or the capture game is done away with in advance -- but where's the fun in that? Sonja has the opposite problem in that her early and midgame are strong, but her offensive capabilities are too weak to push her advantage. Sami has one of the best early games, but her midgame suffers because the only units that can circumvent her weaknesses are expensive air support, and they might not even be available. Sami mechs hit hard and cost dirt but don't have the necessary mobility to keep her early momentum going. Sensei has the same game plan as Sami, but can take it to the finish line because of his all-purpose -flying death buzzers- battle copters. Eagle could be said to specialize in the end game since his CO powers take a long time to develop but are powerful enough to swing the match once a strong force has been built up. Bad end games lead to stagnation. Bad midgames can be recovered from. But a bad early game makes everything an uphill struggle. A CO needs some serious strength to compensate for even the tiniest shortfall in infantry power, such as Grit in AW 1, or Colin in ADW2. Colin is a good CO period because even though he has weaker infantry, he can afford more of them, purchase mobile units like recons and battle copters to support them earlier, and needs fewer cities to support his economy. His end game doesn't suffer either because even though the power of his units is handicapped, he can still make good trades to wear the enemy down.

I only just discovered your channel and, heck, that Bane edit had me in tears. Good stuff!

Wow, I never realized that combining two units with more than 10 HP total refunds you the leftover HP as cash. Thanks for mentioning it in the Sensei section. This knowledge will come to good use for sure!

I'm halfway into the video, on Kenbei, and I'm loving it so far. The funny analogies, the production value, the level of experience you have really shows as well. Great to see these videos, I hope you're having as much fun making them as we are watching.

i need dual strike for switch damn it :D that game was my entire childhood

Just like Hyper Repair, Hyper Upgrade also increases defense by 10% too. It probably matters a lot more in Hyper Upgrade than in Hyper Repair. Edit: I just learned all CO Powers increase defense by 10%. Derp.

The trick with joining Sensei's Mechs for money is so good he even explains it to Adder in the campaign. The developers intended you to play him that way. I think what makes people overrate Hawke so much is the campaign missions where you go up against him give him a large pre-deployed force of expensive units, so he gets Black Storm a LOT more than he would in a normal game. In Campaign Hawke is just Black Storming you constantly and that feels very oppressive to go up against. It's only after you unlock him and try him out in War Room that you REALLY start to feel the 9 star cost, and that was intentionally his weakness if his in-game bio is any indication.

Goldrush is what us math experts call "exponential growth". And exponential growth is scary.

In the time it takes for Eagle to charge lighting strike, Colin will be scrooge mcducking in piles of cash

I played black hole rising on my older cousins old game boy advance and I really liked using black hole COs. Especially sturm because he reminded me of darth Vader and kid me was obsessed with Darth Vader

"You can't enter a prolonged battle with Olaf because he will just whittle you down with snow" sounds like every historical invasion of Russia so far

Don't care if Colin is OP. I like my insecure rich kid.

I feel like an interesting conversation is: where would Drake - or just sea units in general - be if we had access to Days of Ruin sea units? I really liked Days of Ruin units because it seemed to make sea units actually viable without requiring you to pour a ridiculous amount of cash into them.

Now THATS an S-Tier prelude. Major props to the editor!

Tier list for the other Advance Wars would be fun, even if they aren't relevant to the remake.

Olaf teaches you an important lesson in warfare. Don't attack Russia in winter.

I can't wait to see how Sturm looks in the new art-style.

When playing as Drake, Eagle, or Jess: *I'M A GREEN UNIT!*

Your old wars 2 tier list is a classic so a second one is a treat.

The thing that makes Sami so strong is that her early game is ridiculous. She can get out to a massive eco lead. If you can withstand her early pressure, you can push her back with stronger units but dang, I hate the first 15-20 days

I always liked Grit the most. If you can survive long enough with Grit, you can get to a point where not even the likes of Kanbei/Sturm can stop you. You can just have a mass of well-placed artillery defended with infantry meat shields, and you absolutely decimate everything from a distance.

That prelude... damn. That was brilliant. Andy: Ah yes, the same guy that doesn't know what an airport is? He's pretty basic plus Hyper Upgrade makes it worth the buff. Max: Pretty much brute force. Too bad for his indirect units though. They kind of suck. Sami: Her Super CO Power is pretty much this: hippity-hoppity. Your bases are my priority! Nell: Lady Luck has always been her side and her Super CO Power shows. Hachi: Broken. Just broken. Olaf: Nothing fancy but his Super CO Power can really hit hard. Grit: Well shuck my corn, you're history. Once his CO or Super CO Power hits, you're fucked. Literally. Colin: Taking P2W and "Screw the rules, I got money" to an extreme. Literally. Fun fact: Colin (and Sasha from Dual Strike) are based off the last Tsar's heirs, Alexei and Anastasia Romanov. Kanbei: They make this guy even more OP in this game. Samurai Spirit = forget it. You just can't take him down. Seriously. Sonja: So her Super CO Power gives her units Vantage. Sounds about right. Sensei: Infantry, Mechs and Battle Copters. He only needs to secure lots of cities and then boom, mech raid. Eagle: He's still OP even with the fact his CO Power in AW1 is now his Super CO Power in AW2. The Lightning Drive would hardly ever be used. Drake: You thought his Tsunami was bad. Typhoon is worse. Jess: You aren't wrong with her. She did get better in Dual Strike but here, not as much. Flak: No wonder he's at the low tier. Jeez. Lash: The more stars she gets in terrain, the stronger she gets and her super CO Power makes her brutal. Adder: Average. Hawke: He is a strong Black Hole CO. Made no better by his CO & Super CO Power has a risk/reward method. Sturm: Busted. Busted. Busted. 'nuff said.

Dude that Thanos Analogy with Olaf broke me.

I like the idea of Eagle getting an extra turn but having his units stronger or weaker depending on which super you used... Wonder if there's going to be a dual strike reboot.

You neglected to mention that Sami also gets +1 movement on her transports, so she's not completely left in the dust on larger maps because even though her vehicles are weaker, she can develop her economy faster and can get to high value captures like bases, airports, and harbors before the enemy COs can. The reliability of her captures is particularly useful in this respect, since there generally aren't any units strong enough to interrupt her captures within the first few days.

Andy still don't know what a airport is ... can someone teach andy about it...

It still really hasn't sunk in that we're getting an Advance Wars reboot. I'm so hype

Flak is the perfect tutorial CO to go against, they didn't wanted to make him so strong.

It would be pretty stupid to have 2 separate Multiplayer modes in the game since that needlessly divides the playerbase. One single MP mode based on AW 2 would be smarter. It makes sense to remain faithful as far as campaign is concerned though since changing CO powers in campaign would make some missions a lot more difficult/ easier than intended.

One cool power I have had in my head for a original CO is something called "dig in" It stops your units from moving and attacking but gives you 75% defense. Of course you use it when your turn is about to end just like Lightning strike and it would be useful since your opponent can't push you back. So it's good to help you maintain advantage but it wouldn't be too overpowered since it won't help you get that advantage unlike Samurai Spirit.

Sonja in this game is literally the enbodiment of "Come on, hit me!"

When you were talking about Kanbei and his super power, I was real worried about defense because I thought “wait is defense a %bonus in this game or is it flat.” THEN you said it was a flat bonus and I screamed. Flat bonuses are scary.

Lmao the stock image of the buff guy when Sturms turn came made me laugh too hard. He really is overpowered as hell

I kinda forgot how many CO's this game had until I was that this video was an hour long. Also sick intro my man.

Maybe it's just me, but Drake looks more like a bus driver than a ship captain

Ok, that intro was great, very fitting

(11:50) I feel I need to point out a slight correction here. The game rounds down the 1.5x capture rate multiplier for Sami's infantry, so one that has 3 HP left will only reduce the capture number by 4, not 5. Therefore, if Sami started capturing a property with a full HP infantry, dropping the capture number down to 5, then you need to reduce that infantry's HP to 3 or less in order to delay the capture by a day.

I do hope you'll cover Dual Strike at some point. I know the Remake is only going to have these first two games but I'm really enjoying these Advance Wars videos and would love to see more from you. I always loved these games but I was never THAT good at them, and just seeing someone talk about all the strats and the COs makes me want to give the games another shot now that I'm not a stupid kid anymore.

The reason Kanbei is buffed to 130/130 *in AW2 only* is because Sturm already has 120/120 stats day to day. If Kanbei was kept at 120/120 he would be considered a cheap Sturm ripoff.

"They didn't design Hachi with multiplayer in mind." You're telling me. * 10% discount on all units with no power penalty? Check. * Puny CO Power meter? Check. * CO Power that lets you buy all units at half price for 3 stars? Check. * Super CO Power that does the same thing but also turns all your cities into ground bases and costs 5 stars? Check.

That was great. Thanks for the time invested in both playing to inform your decision and make the video as well 😊

I just want to say, that even though I have little to no interest in the meta (but I love AW obviously), you manage to make this very interesting to listen to. Very impressive sir.

Mangs talking for 1 hour at the sound of advance wars? Christmas came early 😍

I actually love that Sturm voice.

Black Wave/Black Storm aren't so great for pushing the attack, but they are nasty as counters to being pushed. The enemy pops their power, engages you. You get a ton of power charge, hit Black Storm, suddenly the tables are turned. Hawke wins games off of having the best fundamentals of any CO (Just plain better units of all types) and his power exists to act as a reversal card when other CO's push him with their powers and push the game back towards neutral, which is where he excels. He's pretty underwhelming seeming given his actual strength because "Just better at AW" isn't anywhere near as impactful feeling as the other A tier CO's, but he still earns the slot in A tier imo based on the fact that he really is "Just better at AW" with no strings attached. I kinda feel he's akin to stuff like SF4 Ryu, where he just doesn't feel good/bad matchups as strongly as other COs.

Wow, this is definitely a significant improvement on the prior tier list! I had some concerns about the prior list but this is actually pretty on mark IMO. Also, you have the same favorite COs as I do! I love playing Adder, Olaf and Sonja as they are just so much more fun to play even if they aren't the best. You didn't mention it but being able to chain powers is actually something I would consider to be one of Adder's advantages as well since it can bring some strategic benefits with it. He's the fastest not only to getting his COP but also the fastest to setting up a 2 turn COP chain as well.

I'm not sure if you are already aware of this (probably since wargroove does the same thing I believe) but something worth mentioning in the lash segment it that terain defense actually scales with HP, so lash units with like half HP won't be able to take full advantage of the defense (they do still get the full Firepower tho) and I think it's something worth mentioning especially since you brought up Samurai Spirit which unlike terain Stars gives you permanent defense, which works with every HP amount because why not.

This was one of my favorite childhood games! Thank you for the tier list, that was incredible. I can't wait to try out Lash, Sensei, and Grit in the new game!

My best guess is they put that bit about Sturm being "weak in snow" to trick clueless players into picking Olaf in the campaign and screwing themselves over with Winter Fury. ;) Also, as a Hawke main: I'd say you definitely put him where he should be--strong, but not overpowered. Good stuff. (Now, if we were judging COs based on their themes... Jess would be instant S-tier. Just sayin'.)

I've never played this series, but your videos have made me interested in picking up the remake when it comes out. Cheers man, thanks for all your great content on this stuff.

Sensei is literally just ambush spawns from Fire Emblem. That's why it's hilariously broken.

Love the longer videos, thanks as always

Kanbei can do a bootleg Victory March if: 1 He has a full HP infantry on the range of the enemy HQ 2 if he has Samurai Spirit. Of course he needs to clear the way, but if the above happens, you'll need a fixed damage like a silo or a SCOP of your on to even attempt to counter that.

Drink game: Take a shot every time when mangs says “one of the most powerful/broken power/super”. Nice list btw, like your content

0:47 even added the machinge gun sfx XD

Great vid remake. Would love to see a vid series on CO matchups

"Don't worry Andy I'm gonna nuke Blue Moon."

It speaks volumes when giving Flak indirect bombers and stronger anti-airs merely elevates him to _competent._

I love how he basically says that Olaf SNOWBALLS

Reboot camp actually managed to fix the description of Sonja’s Counter Break. It now says that her counter damage is not reduced by damage taken in the battle.

That opening. Absolutely perfect. I'm almost crying tears because of how beautiful that was. Like, more satisfying and fun than most MCU villain fights.

Putting the rank first was a good decision

Uhm, you didn't mention Flak has indirect bombers.

Hey mangs, amazing video! Id love to see a nube tips/ strat guides for new players when it december comes around

That was awesome sketch prelude!

Holy shit that Libertarian joke is actually really funny lmao Im sticking cracking up at that

Olaf is like Russia Win fast or atrittion to death

I know this vid’s a year old but a couple of things: Olaf has some hidden buffs. One is that when Blizzard/Winter Fury is active, it’s very hard for your opponent to lunge back and do damage. If your units are going to take damage or die, it’s better if that happens when the CO power isn’t active so you charge the power meter. When playing in FoW in hot seat mode, Winter Fury will show the position of every unit briefly, so if you can take notes, you’ll gain an advantage. Fighters and bombers are _fucked_ when it snows because the movement rounds down. Fighters go from 9 to 4 movement, bombers go from 7 to 3 movement. The same applies to md tanks but only if they’re stuck on plains/forest. Because movement rounds down, you can pop Blizzard/Winter Fury and park units outside the range of said units. Fighter vs fighter (5 tiles away) or md tank vs md tank trapped on plains (3 tiles away). The enemy units are both trapped and cannot strike first. Unless the have blocker units, you’re guaranteed the first strike in these situations. This doesn’t work with antiair 975/8;3 because the antiair has 6 movement, but with blocker units or a fighter, shooting down bombers is like fish in the bucket. Drake has all the above benefits too, but diminished because rain only affects vehicles and Drake’s fighters suck. Anyway I would put Olaf at B-tier because of how suffocating Winter Fury is. You can’t attack or retreat and your cannon fodder walls are easily broken. Max should go up to B-tier as well since his powers are consistently useful. 120% damage isn’t S-rank tuer but combined with a com tower and cheap powers that give movement bonuses and more power, it makes wall-breaking so damn easy. Since the meta revolves around tanks and b-copters, Max’s units are so reliable. I’ve had to give up high-funds matches because Max can park his tanks in cities and 1HKO infantry. Like there’s no way you can win unless the Max player makes a crucial mistake or if you have chokepoints to exploit on maps without airports.

You forgot to mention that Colin is the only CO with two Super Powers: Power of Money, and Double Gold Rush. With the way power meter costs work, he's the only CO in the game that can use his regular power twice in a row with a full bar, letting you get +50% money on the +50% money you got the previous turn. XD

Ahh, Hatchi. In Dual strike, I used to like using his power to deploy piperunners on cities as massive stationary artillery, fun times

I always wonder why Sturms units get stronger when the meteor falls. Do they get inspired/terrified by the display of strength? Do they worship meteors? Honestly the image of some Infantry in the mountains screeching and dancing like Tusken Raiders as hell breaks loose in the background really amuses me.

You are by far one of my favorite you tubers I was very nostalgic when I saw you mainly cover advanced wars

Been waiting for this for a while now, really glad you finnaly made it

I think Flak was intentionally designed to be bad but not as bad as he turned out lol

Could you please do more like the intro? I laughed so hard. I am loving Advance Wars and I am currently replaying the old games!

Nice video, I enjoyed the dual strike game but never played the first 2. If you ever plan to do the dual strike one I'd say prep well, not only do the CO's have powers you can also team them into twos. This allows when both meters are full for both to trigger their super power and get a turn (so you basically get two turns) but there are also synergies depending on which CO you put together.

i love this man, i was already subbed but i didn't even realize you play AW2 until now and i learned those websites. THANK YOU