Battalion Wars / YMMV

Aluminum Christmas Trees: The Iron Legion "bazooka" fires a gob of molten metal instead of an anti-armor rocket. While usually used as a mine instead of a gun, this sort of weapon is called a "self-forging projectile."
Awesome Music: Both games use military marching band-style to great effect.
- Battalion Wars:
  - The Iron Legion's Theme is pure dread, and good enough to return completely unchanged in the second game, the only song with that honor.
  - The Tundran Territory's Theme is a good mix of oppressive and patriotic, working both before and after their Heel–Face Turn.
  - "Call Sign Eagle" is a laid-back, soaring track for the game's air-only mission; this one would be remixed as the Anglo Isles' theme in II, a perfect fit for that nation's aviation focus.
  - "Beach Head" is a slow-paced version of the game's main theme, which fits the pacing shift that your first mission against Xylvania provides.
Breather Level: Black Gold in the first game, Incursion in the Second.
Demonic Spiders: Pillboxes in the first game, Fighters and Strato Destroyers in the second.
Even Better Sequel: The second game fixes most of the problems of the first, it's a lot more forgiving and has more variety of locations.
Game-Breaker:
- Anti-Air Vets in the first game could, with minor effort, devastate anything—including the local Demonic Spiders. This is thanks to them doing the same amount of damage to both aircraft and land vehicles, not accounting for the fact that at short range the Anti-Air Vet can easily hit the latter. This was nerfed in the sequel by simply making land vehicles resistant to Anti-Air weapons.
- For similar reasons, Assault Vets. Though they are intended to function like upgraded Grunts, their solid damage plus a high rate of fire means they can take on anything when under the player's control. Once again the sequel nerfed them by reducing their vehicle damage, putting them in-line with their intended purpose.
- In the sequel, Fighters gain the barrel roll ability which allows them to shake off locked-on enemy missiles. The only issue is there's no cooldown or other reason not to do this all the time. This can be especially unbalanced on the online PvP assault missions where the attacking side have fighters.^note
Goddamned Bats: Gunships. They will fly in off screen and ambush you wherever you are, so you just need to be ready for them, but even then they might get a few shots off at your tanks or other ground forces before you can bring them down. Best to protect your AA units as best you can, as they're your best defense against them.
Moment of Awesome: The design of Operation Nautilus in the sequel, in addition to player-induced ones, such as this, which gets a Perfect S-Rank without the provided Battlestation on a potential That One Level.
- How about Siege of the Vladstag, the final mission of the first game? It's the final assault, the weakened forces of the Western Frontier, especially after fending off the Iron Legion, deep within enemy territory and far from home, plus a large squad of Tundran Grunts and several Gunships, all against the defenders of the heavily fortified Vladstag, supreme HQ of the Xylvanian army. It amounts to your units killing everything in your way while the Gunships destroy everything from above, all the while Bombers threaten to blow you to smithereens, and along the mission, you have to breach all three of the large stone walls preventing you from accessing the Vladstag. And just when you finally reach the Vladstag... not one, but TWO Battlestations are waiting for you, while two AA Vehicles threaten to eliminate your air support. The resulting frenzy of bullets and mayhem is truly epic... Unless you cheese it by using a sole Mortar Vet or Anti-Air Vet to kill those 4 units.
Retroactive Recognition: Before Dai Tabuchi became recognised in the gaming sphere for his memetic performance as your advisor in Total War: Shogun 2, he had a similar role as a Hot-Blooded commanding officer, Admiral A-Qira, in Battalion Wars II.
That One Level: Oh boy, where do we start?
- In Battalion Wars one:
  - Bonus Mission 3. Let's see. No access to Anti-air units (Fighters) until later into the mission, the air is FILLED With Bombers and Gunships, Your Heavy tanks are Very crucial to the mission, if not for the fact they are the only things capable of killing off the A-As and Artillery bombarding your forces, and preventing you from killing those pesky Battlestations, than for the fact that the mission requires their survival. FUN.
- In Battalion Wars 2, Their Finest Hour. To explain, you have two fighters, two bombers, some flame vets, and some Grunts. You have to use them all in conjunction, and it is hard as HELL. The map is littered with Solar Anti-Air vets and Tanks, with MG nests to boot. The Tanks and MG nests will wipe your troops unless you capture one of the two Helipads around the map, and those AA's will make short work of your Air units. Not to mention the fact that A-qira will randomly deploy a Gunship or Fighter to engage your units and probably snipe off a good chunk of your battalion if you are caught off guard. It is immensely hard to get an S rank in this mission just because of how LONG and Arduous the mission takes to complete.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The initial premise of II involves an invasion of a country due to faulty intelligence that they possess a superweapon. The game was released right when the question of what led to the Invasion of Iraq was in the public consciousness.
Commander Pierce: You better be right about this superweapon, Colonel Windsor.
Colonel Windsor: Whatever do you mean, Commander Pierce? Anglo military intelligence is second to none!

YMMV / Battalion Wars

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