History GameBreaker / NintendoWars

** In terms of a unit which can exploit the AI's idiosyncrasies, you need look no further than the humble infantry. At least in [=AW2=] [[note]]testing TBC for the other games[[/note]] enemy units are programmed to guard an HQ or a city (not other properties such as airports, ports and labs, though) at all costs. Which is to say, a unit parked on one of those two properties ''will not'' move off it if an infantry is within it's three space movement range (and thus nominally, if not actually because an infantry has so inconsequential a risk of actually damaging so many other units especially those with the terrain advantages of a property, in danger of capturing said property); it will be frozen on the property. Even ''indirect'' units will not target the infantry, despite an indirect fire not being a movement action. Transports are free to move, however. This has amazing consequences like forcing units parked on neighbouring cities to stay put and not come to the defence of the imminently-captured HQ, or allowing safe passage of a convoy of units through an enemy city-rich area (you only need attack/defend against the units which aren't resting on the "vulnerable" cities). For some reason, it doesn't work if mechs are used instead of infantry. Forget "Infantry Spam", a single well-deployed infantry can outright checkmate an AI in the right circumstances. This trick can be essential to winning on some of the harder levels both in the main game and its ROM hacks.

** In terms of a unit which can exploit the AI's idiosyncrasies, you need look no further than the humble infantry. At least in [=AW2=] [[note]]testing TBC for the other games[[/note]] enemy units are programmed to guard an HQ or a city (not other properties such as airports, ports and labs, though) at all costs. Which is to say, a unit parked on one of those two properties ''will not'' move off it if an infantry is within it's three space movement range (and thus nominally, if not actually because an infantry has so inconsequential a risk of actually damaging so many other units especially those with the terrain advantages of a property, in danger of capturing said property); it will be frozen on the property. Even ''indirect'' units will not target the infantry, despite an indirect fire not being a movement action. Transports are free to move, however. This has amazing consequences like forcing units parked on neighbouring cities to stay put and not come to the defence of the imminently-captured HQ, or allowing safe passage of a convoy of units through an enemy city-rich area (you only need attack/defend against the units which aren't resting on the vulnerable cities). For some reason, it doesn't work if mechs are used instead of infantry. Forget "Infantry Spam", a single well-deployed infantry can outright checkmate an AI in the right circumstances. This trick can be essential to winning on some of the harder levels both in the main game and its ROM hacks.

** In terms of a unit which can exploit the AI's idiosyncrasies, you need look no further than the humble infantry. At least in [=AW2=] [[note]]testing TBC for the other games[[/note]] enemy units are programmed to guard an HQ or a city (not other properties such as airports, ports and labs, though) at all costs. Which is to say, a unit parked on one of those two properties ''will not'' move off it if an infantry is within it's three space movement range (and thus nominally, if not actually because an infantry has so inconsequential a risk of actually damaging so many other units, in danger of capturing said property); it will be frozen on the property. Even ''indirect'' units will not target the infantry, despite an indirect fire not being a movement action. Transports are free to move, however. This has amazing consequences like forcing units parked on neighbouring cities to stay put and not come to the defence of the imminently-captured HQ, or allowing safe passage of a convoy of units through an enemy city-rich area. For some reason, it doesn't work if mechs are used instead of infantry. Forget "Infantry Spam", a single well-deployed infantry can outright checkmate an AI in the right circumstances. This trick can be essential to winning on some of the harder levels both in the main game and its ROM hacks.

** In terms of a unit which can exploit the AI's idiosyncrasies, you need look no further than the humble infantry. At least in [=AW2=] [[note]]testing TBC for the other games[[/note]] enemy units are programmed to guard an HQ or a city (not other properties such as airports, ports and labs, though) at all costs. Which is to say, a unit parked on one of those two properties ''will not'' move off it if an infantry is within it's three space movement range (and thus nominally, if not actually because an infantry has so inconsequential a risk of actually damaging so many other units, in danger of capturing said property); it will be frozen on the property. Even ''indirect'' units will not target the infantry, despite an indirect fire not being a movement action. Transports are free to move, however. This has amazing consequences like forcing units parked on neighbouring cities to stay put and not come to the defence of the HQ. For some reason, it doesn't work for mechs. Forget "Infantry Spam", a single well-deployed infantry can outright checkmate an AI in the right circumstances. This trick can be essential to winning on some of the harder levels both in the main game and its ROM hacks.

* Lest we forget what spawned all this madness, ''Super Famicom Wars'' was the first game in the series to feature different [=COs=] to choose from. Four of them are completely bog-standard mainly as AI fodder. For seemingly no reason, the remaining three have day-to-day benefits that can exceed that beyond the Advance Wars COs:

** ([[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Billy Gates]] gets an absurd 10000 additional funds each turn. Prepare to produce far more units than your opponent each turn. No CO in history can produce this much funds nor produce as much units.
** Due to how leveling up units work, Mr. Yamamoto immediately gains a 40% attack boost for his army with ''absolutely no weaknesses for any of them''. God only knows the insanity that would have ensued had CO Powers been introduced at this point.

* Lest we forget what spawned all this madness, ''Super Famicom Wars'' was the first game in the series to feature different [=COs=] to choose from. Four of them are completely bog-standard, and for seemingly no reason, the remaining three have day-to-day benefits that can exceed that beyond the Advance Wars COs:

** ([[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Billy Gates]] gets 10000 additional funds each turn. Prepare to produce far more units than your opponent each turn.
** Mr. Yamamoto effectively gains a 40% attack boost for his army with ''absolutely no weaknesses for any of them''. God only knows the insanity that would have ensued had CO Powers been introduced at this point.

* Lest we forget what spawned all this madness, ''Super Famicom Wars'' was the first game in the series to feature different [=COs=] to choose from. Four of them are completely bog-standard, and for seemingly no reason, the remaining three have day-to-day benefits that range from game-breaking (Catherine is basically the predecessor to Nell, with a random chance of dealing more damage with each attack) to game-''destroying'' ([[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Billy Gates]] gets 10000 additional funds each turn, while Mr. Yamamoto effectively gains a 40% attack boost for his army), and with ''absolutely no weaknesses for any of them''. God only knows the insanity that would have ensued had CO Powers been introduced at this point.

* In Dual Strike, Black Boats can heal your units anywhere while transporting infantry. They are also cheap on costs as well.
* Black Bombs in the same game are ''even worse''. They do 5 damage unconditionally to every unit within 3 spaces of where it explodes, and if you think you'll build only a few units to keep it from being cost-effective, the opponent will spend all of their remaining money to pick them off. You can't even catch it, as if you try, you ''will'' get bombed, no questions asked. Colin and Hachi are the biggest abusers of this.
* Stealths during Fog of War matches and at the right time or larger maps. What makes these units so deadly is the fact that not only do they can do decent damage to all units but can only be hit by other stealths and fighters. Once you build stealths, your opponent has no choice but to build a fighter. Your objective is to take out units at 6 or lower health to do the finishing blow while cloaked, forcing your opponent to be proximate to the assumed space of the stealth to ensure their fighter hits it. If your anti-airs are well protected, they have no other options but pray they can deplete the fuel of the stealths because an anti-air hitting a fighter is devastating and won't defeat a stealth at that point.

* There is the [[ZergRush Infantry Spam]] strategy that has become fairly universal in high-level play, using massive amounts of cheap infantry as protection for your more expensive vehicles, as well as capturing and protecting the cities.

*** Not so much in AWDS. Powers charge so fast in that game that Recon swarms can easily nip an Artillery wall in the bud.

* There is the [[ZergRush Infantry Spam]] strategy that has become fairly universal in high-level play, using massive amounts of cheap infantry as protection for your more expensive vehicles.

* Mech Flooding in ''Game Boy Wars 3'' and ''Days of Ruin''. When you can't spam the cheapest unit as efficiently, just spam the ''next'' cheapest unit, especially if there's no cost-effective counter against a group of the buggers. They were formidable before Infantry spam was discovered to beat this with cost effectiveness, and in those two games, that's not going to happen. In the former, Mechs have working defense for the fact that they can javelin-fire on armored units, which themselves are overly expensive, not to mention the difficulty in first striking units in this game. In the latter, there simply aren't many things that OneHitKill them even off of terrain and they'll cost-effectively wreck anything except a few things that are dealt with by easily built contingency units.

** Tabitha/Larissa. In certain maps only. Her CO-boarded unit is an instantly absurd 180/180, able to OHKO any units with ease. Her flaws are having only 0 CO Zone (very slow speed to increase CO bar) and counter-attacks will not increase her CO bar. If she even gets half her CO Bar up, she has a high chance of securing a victory. Once she gets to full CO Bar, she has won the match as her COP not only nukes a radius of the most expensive units in the game, but also grants all units the same 160/160 - 180/180 power. In ground-only maps, she can easily build a Tabi-Tank and sweep the entire game very fast. In ground and naval units only, a Tabi-Battleship can end games very quickly, OHKO'ing various units at ease. In certain maps with Fog of War, Tabitha can cloak on a hiding spot like trees.
*** The reasons why she isn't fully banned is because of using all 3 (ground/air/naval) as a standard that gives proper counters. B-Copters can disrupt a Tabi-Tank. Tanks can disrupt a Tabi-AA. AAs can disrupt a Tabi-Copter. CO-Boarding an expensive unit with Tabitha requires heavy care.

* Tabitha's Firestorm. Dear god, if the opponent lets her get that COP active, the game is literally over. Sturm's 8-damage HP returns on her COP. In addition, because Days of Ruin gives every unit the same boosts as the CO Zone, all of her units are a lethal 160/160 to 180/180. If the missile hits the opponent's CO Zone, don't expect those units to live and it will be very difficult to recover from it.

*** To put this in perspective, Javier's ability to gain a 10% defense bonus from Comm Towers in addition to the usual 10% attack bonus means that, once you've captured just two of them, he literally becomes Kanbei without the drawback of having to pay more for his troops, and the mechanics behind his CO Powers mean they basically mirror Kanbei's as well. Given how Kanbei himself is considered a game breaker even ''with'' said drawback, you can do the math as to just how ludicrously broken this is. This doesn't even factor in how he ''also'' gets increased defense against indirect attacks for seemingly no reason whatsoever. It effectively makes it so that any map with at least 2 Comm Towers quickly becomes [[CharacterSelectForcing "choose Javier or lose"]].

** Max gets a 50% firepower boost for his direct-fire units, in return for the -1 range to his indirect-fire units. What is wrong with this? Simple: ''[[FakeBalance none of his units have to be indirects]]''. So he can easily eliminate a weakness and end up with plenty of OneHitKill potential.

** Sturm is PurposelyOverpowered when you have all valid Movement Costs reduced to 1. Sure, he has a 80/120 stat, but that high defense is far enough to make your opponent struggle to penetrate his defenses. Sturm can easily build recons early to harass your opponent with Recons without punishment, thus shutting down the capture game for your opponent almost instantly. Rockets? Free reign to move well.

** Sturm remains the PurposelyOverpowered trope, but taken UpToEleven with 120/120 stats.

*** To put this in perspective, Javier's ability to gain a 10% defense bonus from Comm Towers in addition to the usual 10% attack bonus means that, once you've captured just two of them, he literally becomes Kanbei without the drawback of having to pay more for his troops, and the mechanics behind his CO Powers mean they basically mirror Kanbei's as well. Given how Kanbei himself is considered a game breaker even ''with'' said drawback, you can do the math as to just how ludicrously broken this is. It effectively makes it so that any map with at least 2 Comm Towers quickly becomes [[CharacterSelectForcing "choose Javier or lose"]].

*** To put it in perspective, he is so absurdly powerful that he would destroy any CO in any Wars game with ease, even Mr. Yamamoto, Advance Wars 1 Max, Advance Wars 2 Sturm, Hachi or any of the DS Tag CO pairs. Meteor Strike would be the only saving grace to defeating Caulder, but that is only if you actually defeat Caulder's 2 HP main unit that same turn.

*** [[FragileSpeedster Assault Vets]] in the first game deal Heavy Tank armor piercing damage with each shot. Of course, this also means that a manually controlled Assault Vet can turn destroying heavy units (except the Battlestation, which is mercifully immune to the bullets) into a game of balance-the-meter to keep shooting rapidly without suffering the overheat. Something is wrong when a lone unit can kill the local DemonicSpiders effortlessly. And something like this that can happen sums it up:
---->'''Xylvania infantry''': *sits in position ready for enemy attack*
---->''(Two seconds later, the Xylvania infantry are all dead, with a lone Frontier Assault Vet standing in the middle of the dead bodies and the medpacks.)
---->'''Frontier Vet''': Never knew what hit 'em!

** Sasha in mid-size to giant maps is not fun to play against since Market Crash can effectively shut down any other power. Even worse, there is nothing stopping her from activating it at the day's end after her units have attacked and increased her opponent's CO Power gauge. The only way to combat her effectively is to have a mirror match between Sashas or use COs with short bars and impacting effects like Hachi and Colin.

** Kindle/Candy in a city-heavy map. She is very much slept on in Dual-Strike, when she is arguably one of the most broken COs in the game. She gets especially ridiculous when it comes to her Firepower buffs while she's in Cities. She gets a passive +40 Firepower boost while she's on a Property and since Properties are commonly fought over in Advance Wars, she will surprisingly get this firepower boost very often. It gets even more ridiculous with her Powers, since she effectively gets a +80 firepower boost with her Regular Power, and a ''+120'' Firepower boost when she activates her Superpower, and that only '''Increases''' depending on how many Properties she owns. If she has a Rocket or Artillery placed on a City while her Super CO power activates, you can wave Goodbye to your Megatanks since they effectively become NUKES for a turn. Oh, and did we also mention that with her Regular Power, she can sap funds from players using repairs, and interrupt any property capture around the map?

** Isabella/Catleia. She is considered the best CO in the game that some players in the competitive scene would soft-ban her, unless it is a mirror match. While having only +10 attack and defense and average 2 spaces (120/120), this applies to ALL units. Her COP is what makes her very dangerous, combining Will, Gage, and Tasha all in 1, with the addition of +2 on naval units (no CO has that). She can use that power with a lot of ease and rather quickly. Her soft-ban was only enforced to make other COs playable.

*** To put it in perspective, he is so absurdly powerful that he would destroy any CO in any Wars game with ease, even Mr. Yamamoto, Advance Wars 1 Max Advance Wars 2 Sturm, Hachi or any of the DS Tag CO pairs. Meteor Strike would be the only saving grace to defeating Caulder, but that is only if you actually defeat Caulder's 2 HP main unit that same turn.

*** To put it in perspective, he is so absurdly powerful that he would destroy any CO in any Wars game with ease, even AW2 Sturm or any of the DS Tag CO pairs. Meteor Strike would be the only saving grace to defeating Caulder, but that is only if you actually defeat Caulder's 2 HP main unit that same turn.

* Submarines in ''Game Boy Wars 3'', both in Campaign and on the Standard map Raddish Island. The only other unit that can hit them is a ''freaking helicopter''. In Campaign, the helicopter will arrive too late and will most likely be in for a CurbStompBattle courtesy of either the air force or the game's generally AA-heavy navy. In Raddish Island, ''there are no Airports to send out those helicopters''. Even Game Boy Wars 1/2/Turbo had a navy unit able to hit submarines, why not Game Boy Wars 3?

** Sasha in mid-size to giant maps is not fun to play against since Market Crash can effectively shut down any other power. Even worse, there is nothing stopping her from activating it at the day's end after her units have attacked and increased her opponent's CO Power gauge. The only way to combat her effectively is to have a mirror match between Sashas.

* Pretty much every skill listed breaks the game.
* Mistwalker is the true counter to those who depend heavily on Super COs.
* Soul of Hachi is ridiculously powerful for COs that have a short bar. It can also defeat chokepoints to the point of winning the match.

** Kindle/Candy is very much slept on in Dual-Strike, when she is arguably one of the most broken COs in the game. She gets especially ridiculous when it comes to her Firepower buffs while she's in Cities. She gets a passive +40 Firepower boost while she's on a Property and since Properties are commonly fought over in Advance Wars, she will surprisingly get this firepower boost very often. It gets even more ridiculous with her Powers, since she effectively gets a +80 firepower boost with her Regular Power, and a ''+120'' Firepower boost when she activates her Superpower, and that only '''Increases''' depending on how many Properties she owns. If she has a Rocket or Artillery placed on a City while her Super CO power activates, you can wave Goodbye to your Megatanks since they effectively become NUKES for a turn. Oh, and did we also mention that with her Regular Power, she can sap funds from players using repairs, and interrupt any property capture around the map?

** Caulder/Stolos. There is a reason why he is banned from online wi-fi play. He is PurposelyOverpowered (160/160 to 180/180 with +3 CO Zone and +5 Healing per turn) just for fun. To put it in perspective, he is so absurdly powerful that he would destroy any CO in any Wars game with ease, even Sturm or DS Tag CO pairs.

** Tabitha/Larissa. In certain maps only. Her CO-boarded unit is an instantly absurd 180/180, able to OHKO any units with ease. Her flaws are having only 0 CO Zone (very slow speed to increase CO bar) and counter-attacks will not increase her CO bar. If she even gets half her CO Bar up, she has a high chance of securing a victory. Once she gets to full CO Bar, she has won the match as her COP not only nukes a radius of the most expensiv units in the game, but also grants all units the same 160/160 - 180/180 power. In ground-only maps, she can easily build a Tabi-Tank and sweep the entire game very fast. In ground and naval units only, a Tabi-Battleship can end games very quickly, OHKO'ing various units at ease. In certain maps with Fog of War, Tabitha can cloak on a hiding spot like trees.

** Sensei. Let's start by saying his soldiers sport a massive 140 attack by default and copters at 150. In addition, having +1 on transportation means he will be capturing buildings faster than the opponent. He has a 2 Star CO Power that spawns Infantry from all of his own Cities. Watch as he fills the 50 unit quota quickly and ends up with self-feeding powers with any decent number of properties or make extra money by joining them. You can also spam mechs as well at 6 stars late game to pressure vehicular units on the field. Sure, his other units have a decreased firepower, but all you really need is infantry, copters, and sometimes mechs; you may also build tanks and anti-airs with ease in case Anti-Airs and other Air units become troublesome.

** Hachi. He may not have Sensei's numbers, but he techs up like no one's business. On day 8 most [=COs=] might have a swarm of Infantry, some Recons, maybe even a Tank; Hachi has a Megatank on the front lines and a Black Bomb with your name on it. When most [=COs=] are strapped for funds they tech down to Infantry and Mechs; Hachi techs down to a Md Tank swarm. In an absolute worst-case scenario, Hachi can summon more Tanks in one turn than most will build in a whole game session. Simply put, you do not fuck with this man. Additionally, his SCOP, Merchant Union, lets him ''deploy ground units from any city under his control'', even in maps that have no bases/seaports/airports at 50% of their original price tag. To make it even more broken, Hachi only needs ''5 stars'' of charging before he can use his SCOP. To make matters worse, he is one of the 2 characters that can produce black bombs (see below) the fastest or en masse. You can even pull an infantry spam with the SCOP, while building a powerful unit on the frontlines.

** Colin. He spends 20% less for his units that get power penalties.......but only a meager 10% firepower penalty. And [[SarcasmMode it gets better]]: Colin's Gold Rush can be spammed and ''multiplies his current Gold amount by a whopping 50%''. And if he gets out Power of Money, a COP with the potential to give obscene power and indeed likely to do so, with a good amount of money and units on hand, you're ''dead''. To make matters worse, he is one of the 2 characters that can produce black bombs (see below) the fastest or en masse.
** Kanbei. Have any CO with him as the start to supply units, especially the ones that reduce costs, and then swap with him so that he can use his stats to start butchering his opponents with 120/120 stats. And as if that wasn't bad enough, his SCOP, Samurai Spirit, provides NighInvulnerability.
** As mentioned above, Sasha is not fun to play against since Market Crash can effectively shut down any other power. Even worse, there is nothing stopping her from activating it at the day's end after her units have attacked and increased her opponent's CO Power gauge.

[[folder:Force and Force/CO combinations (Dual Strike)]]
* ''God Kanbei''. That is, with most defense boosts and a tag partner with Bodyguard, Kanbei will have a 50% defense boost. This, combined with how defense works in ''Dual Strike'', makes Kanbei's defense so absurdly powerful that he can just spam infantry and throw in a few indirects and call it a day.
* Sami with the Force that adds 2 to Capture. This value is set, but this works in Sami's favor, as it's unconditionally 4 extra points on the first two turns of capture (and 2 extra on any subsequent turns, but that's unlikely to happen). What does this mean? This means that if Sami has a full health Infantry start capturing, it just needs to survive to finish capture. (15 + 2 + 1 + 2 = 20) Of course, considering how much you need to spend to conceivably OneHitKill her infantry on Cities, you'll never be able to stop her from spamming infantry to easily capture Cities and get out your own support. This is without mentioning that Sami can also equip defensive forces to make things worse.
** Ignore the fact that if you're not paying attention, she can capture your HQ in [[OhCrap one turn]]!
* Pathfinder reduces the Movement Cost on Forests to 1. Because, you know, Forests should provide defense boosts and no movement issues whatsoever. This force majorly helps to destroy Tactical Decoy on Time Survival.
* Star Power, which charges your [=CO=] meter more quickly. [[BoringButPractical It might not sound like much]] at first, but what makes it broken is just how easily-spammable it is. Any of the characters listed below with broken powers? Well, now they can use them even more often. It's especially useful for getting the below-mentioned Eagle/Sami tag more quickly, too, or for characters with longer meters in general.
* Gold Rush, Fire Sale, and Sale Price get you +100 Gold per city per turn (the former) or slightly reduce the cost of buying units (the latter two). Look below and see how spammable Colin, Hachi, and Sasha's powers are? Well, now everyone else in the army can do that, too. And, oh, yeah, those three [=COs=] can equip these skills, too, and they ''stack with their natural abilities''. So these three skills are incredibly useful as-is, and outright broken in the hands of those characters.

[[folder:CO combinations (Dual Strike)]]
* ''Dual Strike'' brought things to a new level with obscene Tag Team combos. Eagle/Sami get 3 turns with their Tag Power, and on the third Sami can capture any building instantly (and gets a movement boost for infantry to boot). And the game pretty much suggests this with a 3-star rating for that pairing (which means a 1.5 HP luck damage boost on top of all that). Oh, and they have in-game synergy, so their power gets boosted to 120% (in addition to the infantry offense boost that Sami gets with Victory March). Meep.[[note]]However, due to the fact that they have ''seventeen stars'' worth of charging before they can pull it off, you'll see this tag power maybe [[JustForPun once in a blue moon]]. [[DifficultButAwesome If you can, though, have fun!]][[/note]]
** Tag Breaks can be game-breaking in general. But if you want a worse combo involving Eagle, try Sonja as the second CO. Eagle/anybody gets 3 turns in a row with their Tag Power anyway, and Sonja not only has a shorter meter, but her [=SCOP=] effect of counterattacking before being attacked ensures that they effectively have ''four'' turns.
* One Tag Break that can get particularly obscene is Drake/Olaf/Hawke + Drake/Olaf/Hawke (no doubles for a given player, granted). 2 turns is bad enough, but when you consider that the opposition loses 40% of their terrain bonus, health, and attack power, you can see that the only way the counteracting weakness can be suitable is in a very, very crippling manner -- unfortunately not the case. In a team match, if the opponents both use that combo (and yes, multiple players may use the same [=COs=] (Commanding Officers)), Heaven help you if they get Tag Breaks back-to-back.
** Drake + Olaf has the best synergy: Tsunami halves current fuel, and snow doubles remaining fuel usage. Most of your enemy's navy and air forces will be in deep trouble as a result. Sadly, unlike most other great tag examples, the tag isn't very powerful day-to-day beyond the hilarious tag break effect. Has the FanNickname "[[{{Portmanteau}} Drolaf]]".
* Oh deary me, [[RichPeople Colin and Sasha]] are an obscenely powerful pairing. Sasha earns 10% more funds while Colin spends 20% less of them, meaning you'll rarely find yourself at a loss for cash if you swap them out right. Better yet, starting a Tag Break with Sasha means that her Super Power (which earns her money based on the damage she dishes out) basically fuels Colin's (which [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney uses his funds to boost his attack strength]]). In addition to the 40% power boost and 15% luck boost you get from their tag anyway, this basically translates to "destroy everything foolish enough to get in your way".
** You don't even need the Tag Break. Gold Rush and Market Crash are both spammable as hell, given they're both two-star CO Powers. And Market Crash can be used to shut down a number of other powerful Tag Breaks like Earth and Sky or "Drolaf".
* Although God Kanbei (see above folder) is bad enough, pairing him with Hachi or Colin (both Game Breakers on their own) or his daughter Sonja (for a 130% tag and 15% luck boost) are all excellent ways to lose friends. Because defense is more valuable than offense, some (overly) simple math suggests that Kanbei's 120% x 120% units are worth about 150% of a normal unit's value at 120% of the cost. Cutting that cost to 50% normal price with Hachi's Super CO Power and then cutting it again with the two cost reducing skills gives Kanbei units worth about '''400%''' of what he paid for them. Only certain other tags, like the above-mentioned Colin/Sasha tag, can compete with it.
** Kanbei and Javier make for the single best defensive pairing in the game, one that makes Grit break down and cry full-on baby tears. Buy, buy, buy with Javier, break, break, break with Kanbei, and never have any less than 120% defense against indirect attacks. If you manage to capture two Comm Towers in the process, you can basically let Javier take the wheel from there, only switching back to Kanbei to charge his power meter for when you're ready to unleash their ungodly powerful Tag Break to carve a path of wanton destruction across the battlefield without fear of repercussions, since you'll be ''[[NighInvulnerability too goddamned invincible]]'' for your opponent to do a damn thing to stop you. Oh, and to add icing on the cake, these two also get a 5% luck boost overall and a 10% attack boost during their Tag Break, because apparently this pairing [[SarcasmMode just wasn't powerful enough without it]]. If they pull off their Tag Break against you while they have a couple of Comm Towers under their control, you might as well just forfeit, because simply put, ''[[YouAreAlreadyDead you are about to die]]''.[[labelnote:explanation]]To break this down numerically, during a Javier/Kanbei Tag Break with two friendly Comm Towers, Javier will be coming at you with 180% attack, 170% defense against direct attacks, and a whopping ''230%'' defense against indirect attacks. Kanbei, meanwhile, will be hitting you with 200% attack and 170% defense against everything. And depending on which CO ends the turn, you'll have even further problems to deal with on your own turn; Javier will be ''literally invincible'' against your indirect units due to his stupidly high defense against them, while Kanbei will be smacking you with ''400%-strength counterattacks'' which, when coupled with the aforementioned ludicrous defense, effectively turns any direct engagement against virtually anything that can reasonably counter you into a futile suicide mission. You may start crying whenever you're ready.[[/labelnote]]
* Incidentally, Hachi and Sensei have themselves a one-star tag (110% attack, 5% luck boost), which is also horribly powerful because of both participants' status as individual game breakers. Ironically, this tag has the obvious weakness that both players' most effective abilities only work through having empty cities at the start of their turns, meaning you either let Sensei go first and waste the ability to use freshly bought units from Hachi, or you let Hachi go first and reduce the potential number of mechs (and money gained from combining said mechs) for a Hachi-induced buyfest.
** If Sensei goes first, all those mechs can get combined on Sensei's turn (they paradrop at 9 HP active on that turn) for more money for a Hachi-induced buyfest on Hachi's turn. Yes, that's as bad as it sounds.
* Colin and Hachi deserve a mention for the ''insane'' ZergRush they can produce. Both of their powers are broken on their own, but put them together and you'll be positively ''flooding'' the field with more Neotanks than your opponent has tanks during their tag. They may not get a specific tag bonus together, but they barely need one.
* Fortunately a Tag is only as strong as its most powerful component CO, meaning a number of them can be beaten by single [=COs=]. On the other hand, all this means is that the Tags with [=COs=] on the high end of the scale vastly outnumber those on the low end.
[[/folder]]

* Advance Wars 1 and 2:
** Max in ''Advance Wars 1'' gets a 50% firepower boost for his direct-fire units, in return for the -1 range to his indirect-fire units. What is wrong with this? Simple: ''[[FakeBalance none of his units have to be indirects]]''. So he can easily eliminate a weakness and end up with plenty of OneHitKill potential.

** Sturm is PurposelyOverpowered in ''Advance Wars 2'', that much we get, but when you have all valid Movement Costs reduced to 1, which he did even in ''Advance Wars 1''[='=]s VS mode where he was ''supposed'' to be balanced, you end up here simply because of marathon Recons among other reasons. (Note that reducing Terrain costs to 1 is the ''primary purpose'' of Lash's CO Power, and her Super CO Power does it on top of the doubled defense boosts. Sturm gets this ''day-to-day''. Oh, and due to the way that snow works, Sturm's effectively immune to it.) Add to this, he boosts the attack and defense of his units, as much as [=COs=] that normally specialize in certain units, but this applies to everything he has for no extra cost (for this reason, Kanbei in the game boosts his units more than his other two appearances, otherwise Sturm would be putting out units as strong as his for normal cost).

** Sensei. Oh ''man'' Sensei. Having +1 on transportation means he will be capturing buildings faster than the opponent. He has a 2 Star CO Power that spawns Infantry from all of his own Cities. Watch as he fills the 50 unit quota quickly and ends up with self-feeding powers with any decent number of properties. This gets much worse, if that's even possible, in Dual Strike because of Infantry [[OneHitKill One Hit Kills]] charging the meter by 2/5 of a star each as opposed to a measly 1/9 in Advance Wars 2. Not only does his meter get charged quickly, especially with infantry being ''core units'', but the powers ''self-feed beyond belief''. And not to mention all of those infantry you have to wade your way through. You'll be wishing at this point you were playing ''VideoGame/RondoOfSwords'', because since you can't work with its [[FoeTossingCharge Route Maneuver system]], ''Advance Wars 2 Sturm'' would be helpless against this elderly man.
** Hachi. He may not have Sensei's numbers, but he techs up like no one's business. On day 8 most [=COs=] might have a swarm of Infantry, some Recons, maybe even a Tank; Hachi has a Megatank on the front lines and a Black Bomb with your name on it. When most [=COs=] are strapped for funds they tech down to Infantry and Mechs; Hachi techs down to a Md Tank swarm. In an absolute worst-case scenario, Hachi can summon more Tanks in one turn than most will build in a whole game session. Simply put, you do not fuck with this man. Additionally, his SCOP, Merchant Union, lets him ''deploy ground units from any city under his control'', even in maps that have no bases/seaports/airports at 50% of their original price tag. To make it even more broken, Hachi only needs ''5 stars'' of charging before he can use his SCOP. To make matters worse, he is one of the 2 characters that can produce black bombs (see below) the fastest or en masse.

[[folder:Units]]
* There is the [[ZergRush Infantry Spam]] strategy that has become fairly universal in high-level play, using massive amounts of cheap infantry as protection for your more expensive vehicles.
** Add in the indirects and you have a force that will never be cost-effectively killed. And it's hard to believe that this is still happening in the Advance Wars games. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GT75RCXPEU This]] shows that in Super Famicom Wars (and Famicom Wars and Game Boy Wars 1/2/Turbo by extension) it gets worse.
*** Not so much in AWDS. Powers charge so fast in that game that Recon swarms can easily nip an Artillery wall in the bud.
* Mech Flooding in ''Game Boy Wars 3'' and ''Days of Ruin''. When you can't spam the cheapest unit as efficiently, just spam the ''next'' cheapest unit, especially if there's no cost-effective counter against a group of the buggers. They were formidable before Infantry spam was discovered to beat this with cost effectiveness, and in those two games, that's not going to happen. In the former, Mechs have working defense for the fact that they can javelin-fire on armored units, which themselves are overly expensive, not to mention the difficulty in first striking units in this game. In the latter, there simply aren't many things that OneHitKill them even off of terrain and they'll cost-effectively wreck anything except a few things that are dealt with by easily built contingency units.
* Black Bombs in the same game are ''even worse''. They do 5 damage unconditionally to every unit within 3 spaces of where it explodes, and if you think you'll build only a few units to keep it from being cost-effective, the opponent will spend all of their remaining money to pick them off. You can't even catch it, as if you try, you ''will'' get bombed, no questions asked. Colin and Hachi are the biggest abusers of this.
* In ''Game Boy Wars 3'', you can generally focus on building up your air force in Campaign. There's the Interceptor to snipe off the enemy air units, the promoted Gunship to tear apart anything on land ''including [[AntiAir Anti-Air]] Tanks'', and the Bomber to ''bomb the enemy HQ into an easy capture''. It's not wise to have too many air units, but when the enemy gets forced to build too many Anti Air units, they'll leave themselves open to the land force. Of course, Interceptors at least are pretty much a necessity. Bombers, however, aren't, and since you deploy units for free in Campaign, you can just ignore the high cost that Bombers have that would stop them from causing HQ captures.
* Submarines in ''Game Boy Wars 3'', both in Campaign and on the Standard map Raddish Island. The only other unit that can hit them is a ''freaking helicopter''. In Campaign, the helicopter will arrive too late and will most likely be in for a CurbStompBattle courtesy of either the air force or the game's generally AA-heavy navy. In Raddish Island, ''there are no Airports to send out those helicopters''. Even Game Boy Wars 1/2/Turbo had a navy unit able to hit submarines, why not Game Boy Wars 3?
* The first ''VideoGame/BattalionWars'' has Anti-Air Vets, which for being multi-hit along with causing knockback to any land unit except the [[MightyGlacier Battlestation]] causes high damage with ''each hit''. Want to know how bad this gets? A lone one can ''solo the two Battlestations in the final mission''. That isn't even anything close to within their job description and they manage it anyway, along with cutting down all of the infantry along the way including the [[DeathOfAThousandCuts Acid Gas Vets]] -- in fact, Flame/Acid Gas Vets are supposed to do this job. Assault Vets in the first game, as well as Bazooka Vets in the sequel, can't even compare to this.
** However, let's not let either off the hook, partly because both, like the Anti-Air Vets, are infantry who can pull evasive maneuvers against enemy units, which isn't a bad thing considering the games generally center around infantry, but also because both get overboard with their power:
*** [[FragileSpeedster Assault Vets]] in the first game deal Heavy Tank armor piercing damage with each shot. Of course, this also means that a manually controlled Assault Vet can turn destroying heavy units (except the Battlestation, which is mercifully immune to the bullets) into a game of balance-the-meter to keep shooting rapidly without suffering the overheat. Something is wrong when a lone unit can kill the local DemonicSpiders effortlessly. And something like this that can happen sums it up:
---->'''Xylvania infantry''': *sits in position ready for enemy attack*
---->''(Two seconds later, the Xylvania infantry are all dead, with a lone Frontier Assault Vet standing in the middle of the dead bodies and the medpacks.)
---->'''Frontier Vet''': Never knew what hit 'em!
*** [[GlassCannon Bazooka Vets]] in the sequel have been toned up from the shoddy damage that a lone one deals to ''Light Tanks''. However, problems arise in single player because against infantry, they are {{Mighty Glacier}}s, with good potential for ''{{One Hit Kill}}s''. In addition, a lone manually controlled Bazooka Vet can solo [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-9r1WL-qpk&fmt=18 an already nicely guarded Battlestation]] or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4j70KwM5kk&fmt=18 2 Battleships]]. A lone Mortar vet can solo a Battlestation more easily, but they just run into trouble with evasive infantry. The Lone Bazooka doesn't.
* Battlestations. Those things can easily be used to one hit kill anything except Medium / Heavy tanks and... surprise, other battlestations. However, you can just snipe the bastards that will cause you trouble. If you're good at aiming with a wii remote, you can take out almost anything before it can get close enough to shoot you. Yes, this includes other battlestations. In the hands of a skilled player, a battlestation can turn an {{unwinnable}} situation around.
* In ''Days Of Ruin'', a properly-shielded Anti-Tank can become this. The thing has the same range as an artillery, absolutely ''rips ground vehicles apart'', can attack copters, and, unlike any other indirect unit, can counterattack. Its primary weakness[[note]]except for horrible movement[[/note]] is, surprisingly, infantry, but if you have other units poised to take them out before they get too close and have an anti-air or two at the ready to shoot down any bombers or dusters that try to move in, you basically have an unstoppable ground-unit-and-copter killing machine.

** Kanbei and Javier make for the single best defensive pairing in the game, one that makes Grit break down and cry full-on baby tears. Buy, buy, buy with Javier, break, break, break with Kanbei, and never have any less than 120% defense against indirect attacks. If you manage to capture two Comm Towers in the process, you can basically let Javier take the wheel from there, only switching back to Kanbei to charge his power meter for when you're ready to unleash their ungodly powerful Tag Break to carve a path of wanton destruction across the battlefield without fear of repercussions, since you'll be ''[[NighInvulnerability too goddamned invincible]]'' for your opponent to do a damn thing to stop you. Oh, and to add icing on the cake, these two also get a 5% luck boost overall and a 10% attack boost during their Tag Break, because apparently this pairing [[SarcasmMode just wasn't powerful enough without it]]. If they pull off their Tag Break against you while they have a couple of Comm Towers under their control, you might as well just forfeit, because simply put, ''[[YouAreAlreadyDead you are about to die]]''.[[labelnote:explanation]]To break this down numerically, during a Javier/Kanbei Tag Break with two friendly Comm Towers, Javier will be coming at you with 180% attack, 170% defense against direct attacks, and a whopping ''230%'' defense against indirect attacks. Kanbei, meanwhile, will be hitting you with 190% attack and 170% defense against everything. And depending on which CO ends the turn, you'll have even further problems to deal with on your own turn; Javier will be ''literally invincible'' against your indirect units due to his stupidly high defense against them, while Kanbei will be smacking you with ''380%-strength counterattacks'', turning any direct engagement against virtually anything that can reasonably counter you into a suicide attack. You may start crying whenever you're ready.[[/labelnote]]

** Kanbei and Javier make for the single best defensive pairing in the game, one that makes Grit break down and cry full-on baby tears. Buy, buy, buy with Javier, break, break, break with Kanbei, and never have any less than 120% defense against indirect attacks. If you manage to capture two Comm Towers in the process, you can basically let Javier take the wheel from there, only switching back to Kanbei to charge his power meter for when you're ready to unleash their ungodly powerful Tag Break to carve a path of wanton destruction across the battlefield without fear of repercussions, since you'll be ''[[NighInvulnerability too goddamned invincible]]'' for your opponent to do a damn thing to stop you. Oh, and to add icing on the cake, these two also get a 5% luck boost overall and a 10% attack boost during their Tag Break, because apparently this pairing [[SarcasmMode just wasn't powerful enough without it]]. If they pull off their Tag Break against you while they have a couple of Comm Towers under their control, you might as well just forfeit, because simply put, ''[[YouAreAlreadyDead you are about to die]]''.[[labelnote:explanation]]To break this down numerically, during a Javier/Kanbei Tag Break with two friendly Comm Towers, Javier will be coming at you with 180% attack, 170% defense against direct attacks, and a whopping ''230%'' defense against indirect attacks. Kanbei, meanwhile, will be hitting you with 190% attack and 170% defense against everything. And depending on which CO ends the turn, you'll have even further problems to deal with on your own turn; Javier will be ''literally invincible'' against your indirect units due to his stupidly high defense against them, while Kanbei will be smacking you with ''360%-strength counterattacks'', turning any direct engagement against virtually anything that can reasonably counter you into a suicide attack. You may start crying whenever you're ready.[[/labelnote]]

** Kanbei and Javier make for the single best defensive pairing in the game, one that makes Grit break down and cry full-on baby tears. Buy, buy, buy with Javier, break, break, break with Kanbei, and never have any less than 120% defense against indirect attacks. If you manage to capture two Comm Towers in the process, you can basically let Javier take the wheel from there, only switching back to Kanbei to charge his power meter for when you're ready to unleash their ungodly powerful Tag Break to carve a path of wanton destruction across the battlefield without fear of repercussions, since you'll be ''[[NighInvulnerability too goddamned invincible]]'' for your opponent to do a damn thing to stop you. Oh, and to add icing on the cake, these two also get a 5% luck boost overall and a 10% attack boost during their Tag Break, because apparently this pairing [[SarcasmMode just wasn't powerful enough without it]]. If they pull off their Tag Break against you while they have a couple of Comm Towers under their control, you might as well just forfeit, because simply put, ''[[YouAreAlreadyDead you are about to die]]''.[[labelnote:explanation]]To break this down numerically, during a Javier/Kanbei Tag Break with two friendly Comm Towers, Javier will be coming at you with 180% attack, 170% defense against direct attacks, and a whopping ''230%'' defense against indirect attacks. Kanbei, meanwhile, will be hitting you with 190% attack and 170% defense against everything. And depending on which CO ends the turn, you'll have even further problems to deal with on your own turn; Javier will be ''literally invincible'' against your indirect units due to his stupidly high defense against them, while Kanbei will be smacking you with double-strength counterattacks should your direct units be foolish enough to engage them. You may start crying whenever you're ready.[[/labelnote]]