History Characters / NintendoWars

** Unlike the original group, the Bolt Guard and their leader, Von Bolt, are nothing but respectful and friendly towards each other. Outside of Tabitha's relationship with Caulder in ''Days of Ruin,'' Kindle and Von Bolt have the healthiest, friendliest rapport of any villains in the series, and ''unlike'' with Tabita and Caulder, Von Bolt's care for Kindle is implied to be unconditional. The rest of the Bolt Guard spend more time mocking Hawke and Lash than they ever do giving each other grief.

* FaceHeelTurn: In the original ''Advance Wars'', he was originally an Orange Star CO and Nell's superior who betrayed them for Blue Moon. This is completely {{Retcon}}ed out in later games, as the sequel states that he was born and raised in Blue Moon, even though the original game implied he was born and raised in Orange Star. ''Re-Boot Camp'' stuck with the sequel's backstory, with Nell's exposition from the Field Training being absent in the remake.

* DifficultButAwesome: For such a simple approach to combat, Max's crucial weakness to standoffs between indirects means that he has to plan out his assaults very carefully, even if they typically amount to [[ZergRush blitzkrieg assaults.]] Above all else, using Max means understanding the worth of every unit and recognizing the necessity of frequently trading units with the enemy ''efficiently'' to gain and maintain the advantage, since most assaults by Max ''will'' require him to take losses if he wants to push through indirect standoffs and make it to the other side. Inevitably, many of Max's battles are won or lost depending on whether or not he can make it through and destroy his foe's firing line with enough forces intact to maintain the ground he'll gain.

* {{Nerf}}: The increased speed of the game in ''Dual Strike'' hit him really hard, so much that he went from one of the Top 5 [=COs=] in the previous installments into the single worst non-joke CO in the game. In particular, his usual strategy of "build a bunch of indirects and nuke the enemy to bits at long range" was destroyed by the addition of the Black Bomb, which looks at Grit's cluster of stationary artillery and rockets and proceeds to fly through his target range and wipe out half his materiel in a single blast.

* {{Retcon}}: In the original ''Advance Wars'', he was originally an Orange Star CO and Nell's superior who betrayed them for Blue Moon. Yet strangely in the sequel, he was born and raised in Blue Moon, meaning he was always native to Blue Moon despite the original implying he's from Orange Star. ''Re-Boot Camp'' stuck with the latter, with Nell's exposition from the Field Training being absent in the remake.

* MeaningfulName: The EvilCounterpart of 'Eagle'.

* AchillesHeel: Lash's terrain bonus is strong on offense, especially if Prime Tactics is active, but her defense can be offset depending on her troops' HP[[labelnote:*]]To explain, terrain bonuses is both dependent on the terrain stars and the unit's current HP. For example, a 10 HP Infantry will receive the full 30% defense if it is resting on a city, but if a 7 HP Infantry is resting on a city, they will receive only 21% defense.[[/labelnote]] As a result, map-damaging Powers, like Drake's Typhoon, Hawke's Black Storm, and Rachel's Covering Fire, will drastically cut her unit's defense, even if she has Prime Tactics active.

-->'''Sturm''': '''I''' am warfare ''incarnate.'' The best you can do is choose a maneuver that might ''briefly'' postpone your defeat.

* GenericDoomsdayVillain: No one really knows much about him and a lot is merely implied. The only solid, known fact about him is that he wants to conquer the world and he's extremely skilled at warfare. That said, he still turns the game in a very dark direction the moment he takes the reins.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: He has no real analogue from a narrative perspective (like Von Bolt, he wants to become functionally immortal, but that's where the similarities end) but plays like a superpowered combination of Andy and Kanbei from the Wars World series. Like Andy, his main power is the restore 5 HP to any ''and all'' units that start near him on his turn, and like Kanbei, his units are just blatantly superior to the rest, hosting an overpowering 50% increase to firepower ''and'' defense.

* GamePlayAndStoryIntegration: He's a genius scientist whose main field was medicine. He may be fearedfor his weapons of war ''now,'' but his most personally beloved achievement (which drives half the plot and puts Lin's life on a timer when she contracts it) is a viral bioweapon. Fittingly, his powers revolve around having the best weapons available and ''healing'' units around him.

* BatmanGambit: His understanding of human psychology through years of study means he knows the actions people will take, and plans for it accordingly. [[labelnote:Several Examples]]Caulder sees through Greyfield's bluster and identifies the despot has the creeper, and hangs the cure and weapons of mass destruction over the man's head to please Greyfield and prevent him from ever going through with any of his tempestuous threats to kill Caluder; he has Tabitha waiting in the wings as a muscle during his meeting with Will, understanding Lin would be pragmatic enough not to honor his agreement with Will and would come to personally kill him; and he recognizes Cyrus is treacherous and willing to help Will sneak aboard the Great Owl to retrieve Isabella, further counting on Lin to once again take the pragmatic option and board the ship with a force sizeable enough to bring the ship down from within.[[/labelnote]] Ironically, it's one gambit blowing up in his face that sees him ultimately defeated; [[spoiler:while he knew Lin would assault the Great Owl with Will on board and do enough damage to send the ship into freefall, he was counting on Penny to be so brainwashed by the conditioning he applied to her that she would willingly allow the Great Owl to crash with everyone on board without enabling an emergency landing. Isabella getting through to Penny and Penny deciding ''not'' to do this goes against his predictions, loses Caulder his ace in the hole against Brenner's Wolves, and delivers Will to his doorstep.]]

* TheHeavy: He isn't the reason the meteorites fell, but almost every villain can trace their successes or origins back to Caulder and his experiments. Even Greyfield, who would have still been a threat and an overarching villain in his own right were he never to meet Caulder, gets some aid from Caulder in the form of Caulder's WMDs.

-->''Sturm'': '''I''' am warfare ''incarnate.'' The best you can do is choose a maneuver that might ''briefly'' postpone your defeat.

* BoringButPractical: In a protracted ground war, Jess benefits heavily from her beefy stats that, unlike with Hawke, Kanbei, and Max, come with little in the way of drawbacks. Even in a map with airfields, her access to cheap counters to expensive aerial units with her deceptively powerful AA units means she can typically overpower her opponents through superior economics; Jess doesn't need to fear a weak air force if she has plenty of terrestrial counters to compensate. Her CO Power and Super CO Power are likewise fairly rote but no less effective for it; tanks are already incredibly fast, so making them ''faster'' and ''stronger'' means Jess can press her advantage fairly easily, and can cause havoc in the enemy backline indefinitely given her fuel reserves will never run out. [[FatalFlaw Naval maps, on the other hand, are a massive struggle.]]

* {{Bifauxnen}}: Has shortened hair and wears a uniform that doesn't give any emphasis to her feminine features. When first revealed, some fans assumed she was male.

->Voiced by: Creator/SarahWilliams

* CripplingOverspecialization: In a game without comm towers, he's just a JackOfAllStats with added defense against indirect attacks and ''ridiculously situational'' CO powers. However, in a game WITH comm towers, he quickly turns into an [[GameBreaker unstoppable juggernaut]] if allowed anywhere near them.

* ACommanderIsYou: Gimmick with the effectiveness of their gimmicks ranging from JokeCharacter to GameBreaker. Each Black Hole commander has a fairly unique focus ranging from Lash's emphasis on terrain, to Adder's reliance on having weak but spammable Powers. Leaders like Sturm and Von Bolt are PurposelyOverpowered with [[MasterOfAll overall strong units]] and a SlapOnTheWristNuke up their sleeves, while [[StarterVillain Starter Villains]] like Flak and Jugger share the gimmick of [[RandomizedDamageAttack randomly doing either big hits or nothing at all]].

Black Hole Commander-in-Chief. BigBad. Evil. Looks like [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] and came from outer space to invade Wars World. [[GameBreaker Gamebreakingly powerful opponent]]. Can improve all of his units' movement, power, and defense, with no drawbacks. His only weakness is that he has no regular CO Power and his Super CO Power has the longest wait in the game before he gets enough charge to use it.

* JackOfAllStats: As far as her CO Zone abilities go, yes. [[GameBreaker Otherwise...]]

* CombatMedic: Caulder's CO-Zone grants every single unit 60% more attack and defence on top of healing 5 HP at the start of his turn. This is the reason why is he such a GameBreaker; he is the only CO who has a CO-Zone that can heal units without needing a CO Power.

* ShootTheMedicFirst: The main reason why he's such a GameBreaker is that all units in his (large) CO zone are healed by 5 HP at the beginning of his turn, plus he has ''Tabitha's monstrous Zone boosts''. This, of course, means that destroying the unit he has boarded is a top priority. Considering that it has [[MadeOfIron 180% attack and defense]], this is easier said than done.