Wow, you actually beat Hard Mode. That's... pretty impressive. You've done something 99% of the playerbase is never even going to attempt to do, much less succeed at. Of course, since Hard Mode is beatable, Samu-kun is going to make everything even harder next time... Really, good job, though. That's kind of amazing.
Eh, you might be surprised. I'm pretty sure a lot of folks around here were initially attracted to Sunrider for the VN aspect, but I'm sure SRPG veterans will be able to pull it off. Based on the knowledge they've demonstrated I think Vaendryl and Kalduil can do it too, if they didn't already beat it before me. It was tough, but fair compared to the Advance Campaign of the first Advance Wars. Now that was a pain in the butt! ;D
...But if the enemy defense bonus gets added back into Hard mode it might be a different story. >_>
How did you do that? What difficulty are you on?
Hard Mode. Like I said before, if you nuke them before they nuke you, it's not that much different from Normal. Hell raven's creed!
Turn 1: First I used Full Forward and I had the Alliance ships and Kryska move forward a space and fire kinetics at the 2 centermost battleships. My aim was to score at least 1 hit on both of them, if I failed then Sola should pitch in, but if she doesn't need to then Awaken her. Then I used 2 FlakOffs and finished off those 2 battleships. (This took a little luck since there was at least a 30% chance of interception on each rocket. I should've gotten 120 Energy for Chigara) 2 battleships dead before the enemy even gets a move! I think I also managed to kill the 2 bottom PACT Bombers on this turn, too. Try to end with both Claude and Chigara covering the Sunrider with their shields since the Sunrider will draw massive aggro from having, y'know, nuked 2 battleships! I saved most of my missiles for later.
Turn 2: Stuff was nicely lined up at the top, so I short-warped and used Vanguard Cannon. Killed a PACT Mook and 2 PACT Bombers, and damaged a battleship and a carrier. Keep firing kinetics and try to kill 1 more battleship on this turn. At this point Sola should be doing an Awaken/snipe loop in her cozy spot in the corner. Now start creeping to the right while keeping your units under Shield protection, since you'll see lots of Mooks until the Carriers are destroyed.
Turn 3: The missile frigates arrive. Now dump your missiles on them, and you should wipe them out without having to divert units to the top and bottom. The last of them went down during during Turn 4. I used a repair drone here as Sunrider's HP is below half at this point. I probably killed the last battleship here, too.
Turn 4 onwards: Keep creeping right, focusing on the Carriers, then the Cruisers when they show up. Reapply Full Forward when it wears off, or don't, doesn't really matter. I finished with all my ryders intact, so there's a good deal of leeway even if you weren't as lucky as I was.
Screenshots
Notable upgrades...
Hull plating mk5 for Sunrider, mk1 for Kryska, mk2 or 3 for others
Sunrider: Missile damage mk5 (~1300 to battleships, also missiles with 700 total base damage), Missile storage mk2
Liberty: Shield range mk2
Phoenix: Energy reactor mk5
Blackjack: Upgraded lasers and energy reactor a bit, though it didn't fit my strategy at all.
Obviously my strategy this time involved lots of rockets. I lost some cash, but made up for it by amassing enough CP to use Full Forward on nearly every map, and Vanguard Cannon on around half of the maps!
