I set the game to hard and have struggled like a raccoon making a grab for someone's ice cream cone but can't survive the dead Dr. Thrax vehicle rush that he seems to have a fetish for. He sends in a horde of annoying crap just as he gets all those missile and rocket buggies that can light up my base from long distance. I've tried as both Ironside and the blond Alexander but always got wiped at the same point.

As Ironside, I tried going both tanks in a few tries and airforce in a few tries and both tanks & aircraft. All were equal disasters. I tried watching youtube videos of people going against Thrax but the sissies always set it to medium so Thrax doesn't attack them. The problem with Ironside is his tanks are too weak to destroy Thrax's vehicles. I've had tanks driving around in circles to avoid the toxin and fire constantly at the toxin trucks but can't destroy them but Iron's tanks are killed in one shot by both missiles and rockets. I tried the Mammoth tanks in one game they were destroyed instantly without killing a single enemy so that was an epic waste of money and GP. With the regular Iron tanks, I put on either a repair drone or one of the anti-tank boomerang drones on each and reserved my tanks behind the turrets to rush out against the missile trucks. Problem is, after my tanks start their attack run out from my hard-pressed turret line, they immediately are hosed down with toxins and the missiles destroy them instantly so my tanks fail to even destroy a single enemy vehicle. At least my bombers were trading one bomber for one vehicle, though that too is lame considering I'm not flying into AA defended territory cause the SAM sites are taken out earlier by the A10 command center strikes.

As Alexander I tried using the previously almighty Aurora Alpha which helped a fair bit but it's so badly nerfed in Shockwave that they get shot down so often and use up all my money and they are far too weak to attack enemy bases in nerfed form. Alex has decent armored vehicles and infantry but they would all be massacred before getting to the Thrax missile and rocket buggies. The Aurora only barely equals Iron's turrets for defense but are only a temporary relief before Thrax puts in his main attack which I've never once stopped cause he spews toxins and missiles all over the airport once my turrets are blown up the suicide bomber trucks. Also the oil derrick gets suicide bombed early too despite have turrets placed around it for protection.

As both Iron & Alex, I reserved 3 GP for the A10s to be able to hit the Scud and to take out the SAM sites on my side of the river cause they make a turkey shoot of the Auroras. I don't see any other way to damage the deadly Scud site. Auroras are guaranteed suicidal to send anywhere over the river so a strike on the Scud site would cost 4 Auroras at a price of $10,000 and leave my base undefended for about 5 minutes. I can't use infantry to defend cause the toxin kills them all instantly even with the ineffective chem suit upgrade.

Is there any way to beat the evil Thrax with Alex or Iron I wonder?? I want to stay on Hard level because I was able to beat the tank freak and the camouflaged terrorist on that level, only the deadly Thrax is unbeatable (so far).

Townes makes pretty much every general a breeze (or at least significantly easier). Laser turret walls OP. Also Railguns.

Also, be sure to get some forward stealth detection to keep Jarmen away from your Dozers and Railguns. But I get the feeling you knew that part already.

UAV Strikes are good against buildings and impossible to intercept. Perfect for flipping the bird to Thrax's AA nets.

dont build too far forward at the start and dont go past the oil derick to the east for as long as you can.
that way you wont set his attack triggers off and it takes him longer to start to attack, giveing you more time to dig in
hardest general to beet thrax with is stealth.

your two biggest issues are gonna be the aa tanks and the scorge's, so get some aircraft to snipe them as soon as you see them especially the scorge's

on a side note if you chose to do it, you can get burton on the hill to the east of his base move along and with the grenade launcher completely deny him building 1 of his arms dealers, his supply's and palace, but it is a bit of a cheep way to do it as his units cant hit burton up there.

The start is a scramble, but it's usually a case of getting some helicopters if you have them, or bunkering up if not - GLA has it worst here. The main thing it to take out his palace as soon as you can, via general's powers, airstrke or whatever, and keep it suppressed throughout the game. That stops him from throwing too many scuds and other nasty artillery at you, and lets you focus on taking out his factories rather than being constantly tied up trying to keep your defensive line from being overwhelmed. Some well-placed artillery of your own can shred his attacks at the bridges if they aren't supported by scuds.

Thank you for the replies.
What are UAV strikes?

Some of your advices I've already done regularly such as I don't go past the east derrick and I've tried commanche helicopters as well as various bombers and found the choppers are shot down in less than 30 seconds every time even with a conservative guard placement right over my base to avoid them getting near SAM sites. The only air I haven't tried is the Tornado bomber because I didn't last long enough to get them airborne.

The Burton cheapshot sounds funny. I don't know how you got him so far forward to the hill without getting killed on the way. Did you chinook him in after suppressing or destroying the SAM sites on route?

The advice about suppressing his palace sounds good. I didn't know he needs that for the deadly missile trucks (called Scourges I think). I will have to scrape and struggle to pay for a Laser superweapon to do that with or maybe the tungsten satellite weapon can do it if it is up to level 3.

Did you find the other GP abilities useful like the infantry & Bradley drops for Westmoreland or the defense pods drop for Alex? After I get the vital tungsten sat strike up to 3 levels or the vital A10 thunderbirds for Westmoreland, then I think there are 3 more points that come up for another skillset. Usually I can't resist the B-52 strike and Air Fuel bomb drop. Something about those feel very right.

I have been playing through challenge on hard without using superweapons. Thrax IMO is probably one of the harder generals to beat. Capture and defend your oil derricks. Blowing up those toxin bunkers can bide you some time.

His Arms Dealer to the East and his oil derricks to the north are easy targets to attack. Howitzers/Commanches would be great for stopping his Scourges

I tried both howitzers and commanches but both were destroyed easily within seconds of deployment. My commanches only lasted a few seconds and were shot down about where my turret line was. I think Thrax uses those heavy trucks with the quad machine guns in the back to kill off choppers. The problem with the howitzers (those tracked vehicles I think Iron has) is their range is tiny so they have to drive right up to the Scourges to get within range so they were badly exposed outside my turret line and destroyed within seconds. I don't think the howitzers' range is any better than a usual tank so probably even tanks are better than them. That's just my experience anyways. The only thing that ever had any effect at slowing Thrax's attacks was the turret line before it was destroyed by bomb trucks and scourges, and the Aurora bombers up until the airfield was destroyed. But I will keep trying. I lost another 5 or 6 times last night. I will try again tonight.

I lost another 5 or 6 times today. I noticed the Python tank can shoot down any aircraft with one shot even the Stealth bomber and the Python is immune to air strikes so it is probably the terrorists' strongest unit cause only the Patriot defense can stop them. I tried to fly Burton around the edge of the map in a chinook but it was shot down so that was a waste. I also tried using armored units like those drone tanks and humvees but they were immediately destroyed when I sent out a group to attack the rocket and missile trucks at the bridge. I tried building a laser superweapon but my base was destroyed before it activated. And I tried the tungsten strike on his palace but it can't destroy it. Not sure if there is anything left to try. The only so-so attempt I had was using the Auroras to defend but they keep getting shot down and the $2500 each time sucks up all my income so eventually the patriots get blown up and then the airfield and command center are destroyed. I noticed the Pythons attract the air strikes which renders my airforce useless unless I manually target the missile trucks which is painful to do when I'm so busy trying to replace all the destroyed stuff over & over. Maybe I would have more success performing a resurrection ritual over Sun Tzu's grave and hopefully he can come up with a solution.

I won the fight. I lost my airfield early but with patriot AA and infantry I managed to hold out in the back corner of my area until my command center weapons destroyed his palace and scud. Then I made an array of armor and troops and cleared him out. The Enforcer tanks are fairly good so I put them with Humvees filled with marines and RPG guys plus repair vehicles. Now I only have to fight the deadly Tigress next and it's only fight #3 in Alex's campaign.

Late, but the UAV Strike is one of General Townes's support powers. It calls in bombers to hit a specific target, and as I stated earlier, it's impossible to intercept. So all that anti-air is basically useless against it.

But congrats on beating him :D

Okay. I've never played as the laser Townes general. Probably cause I prefer the beauty and honesty of projectile weaponry. I was struggling to figure out UAV because it means Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and the only ones I knew of are the drones that build on armored vehicles. I'm not looking forward to getting beaten senseless by the Tigress next. Her beauty is not enough to compensate for the dreaded earthshake.

Hey RodentDung I can help coach you for this and any other challenge you may like.It would be better then me writing a four page step by step stratagey guide.

Thanks but I got it figured out now. I'm gonna try all the generals and figure out how to win with them all. I've read the Tank general is the hardest to win with. That seems odd considering he has that deadly Emperor tank with the miniguns on it.

Okay so the Tigress destroyed my base with the earthshake as expected. Do you build a second base on the other side of the bridge? She's got tanks and a big pillbox working that area. I was trying to reduce the enemy base on the cliff above but the sentinel turrets are almost immune to Auroras and the two in the back shot down two Auroras on one pass. Seems clear that airforce is not the answer in this battle. I bombed the Gaia building with 4 Auroras and did a little over 50% damage but the evil building repaired itself right after and all 4 Auroras were shot down. Saving up for lasers might help but the earthshake will destroy them inevitably. I guess the only answer is a 2nd base so one base becomes a sacrifice to the evil Gaia.

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I doubt I could ever beat the Tigress in a fight unless there is a way to knock out the gaia early. I tried the Nuke China general and I beat the laser Townes and almost survived the deadly Thrax but I think I can beat Thrax with nuke next time cause it is a stronger faction and has good artillery strikes.

Sorry my post got really screwed up cause it didn't post properly. I set Nuke general to hard as usual for the campaign and I think it will go well because China has the wonderful hackers for making money and good command support strikes.

Sorry, afraid it's been a long time since I last beat Leang on hard difficulty. All I can offer is some general advice from what I remember -

A) The first two-thirds of the map, up to Leang's base, are pretty lightly defended, and you need to expand into them ASAP and spread your base across the whole area. The sooner you break out of your base area and start building elsewhere, the sooner the pressure lets up

B ) This first part can be looked at almost like a puzzle - learn exactly what obstacles you are going to face through repeated tries, and fine-tune a strategy to overcome them as efficiently and quickly as possible

C) Once you've got your base spread out across the map, the rest is just a case of persistence and making sure you have a bit of redundancy in your buildings and economy in case of superweapon strikes

D) Leang's base features a lot of redundancy itself, with multiple command centres and constant dozer production, so it's pretty tough to land a knockout blow on her. It's going to take a vicious brawl backed up by plenty of superweapons or general's powers to grind it down - anything you blow up which you don't secure with your own forces, you can be sure will be rebuilt within short order

On a side note, I'm pretty sure I remember that your starting area gets attacked by artillery from the cliffs to the north at some point, so be prepared for that, on top of the air attacks and earthquake cannon. It may be worth losing some aircraft to clear the artillery units out, as I'm pretty sure they won't be replaced once they're gone.

Lobo, that's good advice. I can see what you mean with expanding. There's an area across the bridge that should be good once bombers have cleared those strong bunkers overlooking the road and knocked off the roving armor. That first area the player starts in can be completely destroyed by one Gaia strike so a second base and more are vital to survival.

On the cliff above the first base are hammer arty units which are defended by Sentinel gatlings so they need bombing like you advised. I counted 3 gatling turrets up there which is very expensive to clear with bombers because they cull 1 or 2 bombers per pass and each Sentinel requires 3 or 4 payloads to be destroyed. One Aurora payload seems to do 1/3 damage to a turret. I feel like I am throwing brand new Lamborghini Gallardos at mass-produced chinese buildings but that is all I can do to reduce the position.

Her northern base is a massive complex. At least it will feel good to drop in some super destruction on that giant collection of nastiness. I think fighting Tigress as Alexander is a better chance than using the Nuke general because I don't think his planes are strong enough to clear the cliff area and his nukes will take too long with the Gaia wiping them out so the Auroras are the (expensive) way to go from what I've experienced. I will miss having hackers though.

Oh man this is a mess. I managed to start up a 2nd base across the river but it was constantly under fire from Grinder arty and Gatling tanks so she out-ranged my troops and Patriot defending and the gatlings were shooting down my Auroras but I managed to hold out briefly but then the earthshake smashed my first base which shut off the power and then all hope was lost as a fleet of a dozen or more gunships sprayed my surviving troops and buildings into oblivion with no active Patriots able to defend. The area across the river has a deadly weakness in that it won't allow me to build an airbase to replace the one due to be hit by the Gaia in the first base. I tried building Commanches to replace the lost Auroras but they were instantaneously shot down by the Gatling tanks so that was only a waste of money. I had my barracks making Marines and RPGs non-stop and rally pointed them across the river to entertain the badguys with a stream of fun targets to shoot at while I desperately tried to survive.

I guess the only thing to do is to make a few power plants across the river to prepare for the power outage caused by Gaia. Not sure about the Gatling tank spam by the Tigress because they shut down air support completely and the sadistic Tigress has them backed up with infantry and various armored riffraff, and the cheapshot Grinders pop away from the cliff above the road spewing those airburst canister rounds like rain over my troops giving the battlefield a gloomy London feel. As for tanks, Alex only has that spindly tripod drone thingy which belongs in a glassware display not on a battlefield and it's too early to have a GP for the one tank she can get (Enforcer I think it is) cause I need to horde GPs for the Tungsten strike to combine with a full Aurora bombing of her brutal Gaia building to have a tiny chance of destroying that very evil place. But I need an airfield with four still-living Auroras on it which is like wishing for a Gallardo while you are living on welfare support.

And one thing that helped a bit was putting a firebase at the base of the cliff with troops in it so it fired on enemy units on top and it provided a temporary defense against the chopper horde that swarmed my base twice in conjunction with a ground attack towards the bridge area but it was destroyed by the choppers which at least took some heat off the patriots trying to defend my base from the choppers. And I think having a stream of troops heading over the bridge helps a lot to engage the enemy to cause some damage and prevent the 2nd base from being overrun in its infancy. I considered putting in an infantry attack against the cliff overtop the road to clear the Grinders from it but I reckoned it would only turn into a dismal repeat of Gallipoli and fail.

I don't know how to survive against Leung. The earthshock shuts off the power even when I have a 2nd sorta base on the other side of fhe river and then she swarms me with armor and choppers when I have no patriots active. The few weak ground units I can make have no chance plus the Grinder Cannon on the cliff destroys all the buildings within range. I tried making more power plants but it makes no difference cause the earthshock shuts off everything everywhere and I get wiped out within a minute by the brutal swarm of armor, troops, choppers, cannon and jets. Also her choppers can shut off patriots so they don't even defend in any case. I shouldn't be making Patriots. Only make laser trucks, firebases and enforcer tanks. It is very expensive and less effective cause the laser trucks are $1800 and take quite awhile to shoot down a single chopper. So I would need at least 6 to 8 laser trucks to survive a chopper swarm assuming they aren't been destroyed by armor on the ground. She has a lot of armor. There was so much red armor in my 2nd base that I couldn't even move my few units in the few moments of life they had left cause of the enemy traffic jam. This makes Thrax seem like a kindergarten class by comparison.

Leang gives you a little bit of prep time before her attack wave. Build Avengers and expand east with them as the AA defense(Units are better off against Blacksharks). Her Blacksharks will always go to the east base instead. Use the east base as your area for building all your units and such. Your main base is a cramped area and could just be used to store powerplants and such. I'm pretty sure she only uses the Earthshaker once.

Capturing the tech buildings can be very handy and could hold off some of her ground forces. Enforcers are a good way of dealing with those Hammer cannons. For most of the match, just expand to the entire area before her base. Capture her abandoned command center(bring the AA up of course) and build her AA along the pathway behind it(Also get the damage upgrade for them). As far as attacking her actual base. She rebuilds constantly and doesn't seem to run out of money so after you have cleared her side of the bridge, start putting some defenses up. Search & Destroy would be very good for attacking her base. I like to take my forces east in her base, push up and then sweep right to left. If you can knock out her command centers and dozers, it will be a hell of a lot easier. You could do a suicide attack with a horde of Auroras but then you would have to hunt down her dozers.

Also watch out for this nasty glitch. If a Blackshark dies over her hedge maze, it will keep spinning on the ground and kill anything that gets very close to it.

Good luck.

If you are actually playing Laser instead of SW. Kind of the same thing without the Enforcers or Auroras. The general tactic works for any team.

Yeah I can see what you mean about the AA. I think I will make a lot of laser trucks (Avengers I think) instead of Patriots so they can move over the bridge to protect the new area with some Enforcer tanks. I also need to scrap the barrel for a laser superweapon to help with the Gaia suppression along with the Tungsten strike. I think the battle for the new area will be an ugly grind. Maybe Tomahawks will help but I haven't used them yet except once against her bunkers but maybe Tomahawk trucks can help get rid of the insidious Grinder Cannon on top of the cliff but I dunno cause the description for Tomahawks says weak against armor and vehicles. The main thing for me is keeping the Gaia out of action so I can retain my drop zones cause the supply dump across the river is covered by enemy Gatling Tanks that rove through there non-stop so the supply choppers have no chance. I think I'll not make an airbase in the beginning cause it used up too many dollars replacing the Gallardos... I mean Auroras.

Where is the abandoned command center and tech buildings to be captured? If they are further towards the center that will be an ugly slugfest to get through to there. She's got a steady stream of combined arms moving through there.

Okay I'm doing good now. Partways into a game and I got an absolutely impregnable first base with 2 particle beams, 4 drop zones, tons of Avengers, Patriots, firebases, elite troops, Tomahawks and Enforcer tanks with power plants everywhere. The entire cliff above me is cleared and any ground or air up there gets massacred by my Avengers and Tomahawks. This is absolutely beautiful. My particles are a few minutes inside of the Gaia rebuild so they are happy to knock it out every 5 minutes. I've got the off-board cruise missile and Tungsten working on her hackers to reduce her massive income. The bridge (thank the gods it is indestructible) is a kill zone for her armor, troops and choppers. Grinder Cannon on the cliff get erased immediately by my trusty Tomahawks and firebases. The only thing left to fear is the sky falling on my head. I think she won't start up a second Gaia which would be problematic and require my off-board assets and bombers to counter. This is gonna be a long battle to clear the area so I'm gonna load up like Montgomery and do a proper full-scale, fail-proof advance over the bridge. After what I've seen her do before, I'm not leaving anything to chance even though my odds are extremely good now.

Alright, I'll give you my step by step strategy that works for just about any team fighting Leang

-Capture that oil derrick and put up a defense to keep out those two Ravages that attack.

-Expand to the East at the supply dock and capture that oil derrick

-Clear the garrisons of her two bunkers

-Have AA units over to the East

-Capture the tech buildings nearby(behind her two bunkers)

-You can destroy or capture her artillery platforms

-You cannot stop her from shooting off her Earthshaker the first time. She may only use it once entirely.

-Focus your base building to the east so the Earthshaker doesn't do too bad

-Her attack forces will focus on the Eastern area

-Keep an eye out for her mines, they are all over

-Take out the small base above your starting base for more building room. If you want the artillery platform up there for yourself, make sure you do something about the garrisoned bunker across the bridge or it will be destroyed

-If you go North from for East base, she will have an abandoned command center and some tech buildings for you to capture. Push your AA up there and capture the Command center when you know her Blacksharks cant swoop in and take it out

-Build her AA along the pathway behind that command center

-Push west of that base to the bridge that leads to her base to stop her ground forces. If her Hammer Cannons are alive in her base, her attack forces wont be able to shoot because of the seismic shells

-Clear out her side of the bridge with support powers when you are ready to make your move(MOAB is great for this)

-She will try to rebuild, even if you are right there and will send many units to try and keep you out. Luckily, they aren't hordes.

-Make your push to the east side of the base and take out her airfields and buildings in that area

-Push north from that area to take out her internet center

-Begin to clean up the rest of her base

-Building in the ground you gain in her base will help you keep pressure

-Try to destroy her 3 command centers so she will stop being annoying and rebuild

In my game she did not get off even one earthshake and never will. I just have to advance and finish her next. But my solution is very different from yours. I don't like advancing across the river due to her overwhelming combined arms attacks when I only have a small force in the early stage. Mine is mainly focused on thrifty use of early dollars while still holding off enemy ground & air attacks. My previous attempts spent monstrous amounts of money on Auroras which was my critical mistake.

I won the fight. I wiped out Leang using particles and Auroras and off-board stuff so it didn't even require a ground operation which is unusual for me cause I like massed assaults by troops & infantry. I only moved across the river and fortified there and I used the chinooks airlifting troops to takeover the cliff area above the starting base area. She did have an earthshake ambush trigger across the bridge from the cliff area supported by hammer arty which was a surprise when I sent a scout team across the bridge but my Auroras took care of the problem. I wanted to capture that big civilian nuclear plant. Main thing that broke her was destroying her airfields, Gaia and paraphernalia of big expensive buildings so she used up all her cash trying to replace them, and then cleared her hackers at 3 seperate locations and her supply depots and then wiped out her coal plants to finish so her economy is fragile. I piled massive amounts of troops and armor across the bridge to hold it against strong counterattacks from ground & air, and then built a lot of Patriots and then power plants there and more drop zones so I had a huge support system backing me up.

Next I have to fight Granger which is probably gonna be ugly with Shockwave on hard difficulty but Alexander should have the goods to see off those nasty air assaults he has a fetish for.

Next time I fight Leang I'm gonna do a ground operation. This time I was intending to reduce her defenses before putting in the ground attack, but I went too far with it cause I was terrified of facing the infamous Tigress in close combat. It was fun though. It would good to do a bite & hold campaign through her territory with troops, tanks and air defense support.

Great tragedy!! My game crashes every time on the victory over Granger. I tested it 5 times (got a save just a minute before winning) and it crashes every time. What should I do? I'm playing as Alexander vs Granger so there must be some bug in the Granger victory script.

Are you making sure there are no Supply Drop Zone planes on the map? From what I recall, if one is on the map when the round ends, it crashes.

Yeah I found that out in a google search so I reloaded my near-end save and I sold my drop zones, and my troops were destroying his last drop zone just before destroying his supply depot to end the mission. But it still crashed.

I've been trying out various generals in the challenge on hard level (awesome fun) and I whooped Granger 2 or 3 more times with other generals and no crashes happened. Actually the game never crashes except in that one victory situation with Alexander vs Granger. I'm having a great campaign now as the Infantry General and his faction is so strong that I'm slaying enemy generals on the first try every time using that faction. It is very good with no weak points. When I fought Townes the laser general, the nukes were massacring packs of his tanks of up to 40 or 50 in one assembly area, plus the deadly combination of mines and mortars created huge cemeteries of his tanks which I could capture and add to my massed infantry tank assault that finished him. That felt really good. And the infantry, both minis & RPGs, are good at knocking down the many choppers he sends at me. I think Townes has the highest manufacturing rate of any general (up until he is nuked over & over) to be able to cover the map in massive armies of tanks while keeping up a steady flow of choppers to chip away at my forward defenses.

The only battle now that I absolutely cannot win so far is Ironside vs Thrax. That sinister Thrax is always the source of ridiculous pain with his unending swarm of very strong, very damaging long-range vehicles plus his Scud launcher requiring so much attention to suppress.

Golly. I was cruising through the challenges and then my Infantry faction got owned terribly by the evil Nuke freak. He had like 6 or 8 nukes counting down plus a horde of nuke arty trucks that formed an ugly semi-circle around my base and lit it up like Chernobyl. That was a nasty way to be killed off. I tried twice and got owned cause first time I tried to make nukes but he was way ahead of me on the timers and the two nukes I made drained all my money and a tank/infantry assault failed due to lack of numbers. The 2nd time I went for 2 airfields and tried to bomb his nukes which was an utter failure because of his gatling turrets and they just auto-repair anyways. Next time I will try 1 airfield only for base defense, no nukes at all to save money and space, and go heavy on troops and tanks which will assault towards his evil nukes. Laying on a ground assault has the best chance cause of the nasty gatling guns that destroy planes and his many nukes utterly outclass my measly 2 nukes that come late. So I will have to go all old school with troops & tanks and fight my way to the hellish nukes while my planes keep those horrible nuke trucks away from my base along with bunkers and troops for defense. I will most probably have to suffer through a couple of nukings or more at my base while my ground forces batter their way to each nuke so I'll have to spread out my buildings so the orange puke he spews all over does less damage.

For Armor Challenge vs. Thrax, use Hotwizers for clear the defenses near the brigde. Keep live a group from three, the can stop the artillery from damage their defenses. Too need a pair from airfields. Use the planes for take out enemy vehicles. Use a Starlifter for transport infantry and capture the oil derricks, and Burton for destroy the Arm dealers from the East. Take the reinforcements pad can help too. Use Bombardment for help the defenses in the vehicle rushes. The key for stop to Thrax is destroy the Palace. Too can use Mammoths for shield some Hotwitzers and counterrush if clear the path in the river. (Only if capture the oils in the east, this strategy is very cost).
For Superweapons, bunker up and Particle canon the Palace, the Scud, The East Arm dealer. Not a problem, you can use your forces for destroy the rest from the base.
Leang: Stun lock the Gaia´s Temple, open a place for their troops over the airfields, use artillery vs the gattlings, clean the base, repeat. (More easy with GLA for Sneak attack after Scud the airfields.)
For Nuke, look the order from activation in the nukes. Airforce can help with the artilleries, nearly not use from AA, except nuke Migs. Too look the sites from impact in the nukes and not build near from this. Capture the oild derricks for economic advantage.

I won all fights except Ironside (Westermoreland) vs Thrax and Infantry General vs Thrax.
I beat the nuke general on my 3rd try.

Ironside vs Thrax: I understand Burton can use grenades from the ridge to hit palace and/or arms dealer, but how do you get him there? I tried only once and my chinook was shot down. Is there a safe route or another conveyance?
I used Howitzers but they keep getting destroyed by the missiles from the trucks everytime because the missile trucks have longer range, more damage and shoot at howitzers immediately. The howitzers were very useful for hitting SAM sites and those evil tunnel entrances though. I also tried using 2 airfields with 8 black widows working the field but his Python tanks shot down my planes and they swarmed my base and wiped it out with all that toxin crap and endless missiles.

I actually beat the evil Dr.Thrax using the Glassware General (tank general) after a few tries. But I won using his nukes, off-board stuff and helicopters rather than with his fragile glassware. I just barely won and had my base partially corroded away and he scudded the middle of my base a few times just to show off what a sore loser he is.

But after many times I am still utterly unable to survive as Ironside vs Thrax. My problems with Ironside are the lack of mines and extremely fragile tanks and bombers that can't make it past the turret line before being corroded into ooze. Infantry are useless because my base is usually flooded with ooze from midgame onwards so they die before making it out of the barracks, assuming the barracks aren't destroyed before they are even made. I thought howitzers coupled with bombers would work but the howitzers are instantly destroyed by missile trucks while bombers are instantly shot down by Python tanks and only manage to donate experience chevrons to the evil pythons.

I beat Thrax with Ironside.

Build defenses at your oil derricks.

Destroy the Toxin bunkers to slow down his forces

When you get the money, put down a bunch of Phalanxes to shoot down his scourge missiles. Use Burton to actually kill them or rocket buggies. Knock out his Palace with support powers whenever you can.

Mammoth Tanks are good for attacking him. Attack him from the north.

Thank you KingKickAss.

If you have enough Phalanxs can they stop all the missiles? I only built 1 or 2 usually cause I'm barely getting other stuff done but maybe more will work. I sure do love the sound they make.
What defenses did you put in front of the eastern derrick? I put 3 turrets plus 6 infantry and a repair dozer to the east plus I send over whatever tanks & troops I can spare to replace the turrets when they are destroyed plus either 2 bombers (guard mode east) or 2 howitzers to counter missile trucks, but it's only a short time before he's smashed my derrick and is crumping missiles into my airfield from the east.

Did you fight the evil Thrax on Hard difficulty?
I'm concerned about using Burton because of the constant ocean of toxin all over my base area. I only built him twice cause he died unseen without any fanfare. I'll try him again cause you said he can help with the buggies.

As for the palace area, usually I focus on his Scud silo because it takes a lot of damage to destroy. The one good thing about Ironside are those deadly grenades you can drop from off-board which can be coupled with the off-board A10s to remove the Scud. Usually I get one Cluster Silo built and when it charges I drop it on his Scud which is about when my base is overrun and destroyed so it is too late to help cause it is $5000 which takes awhile to accumulate with continual losses plus recharge time and takes up a lot of space which makes it easy to destroy with his buggies and missiles.

Hi I just picked up shockwave again and I figured I could hopefuly help you in some way..
About the auroras - don't even use them except you are certain they won't get shot down. Personally, I find stealth fighters much more efficiend and bombing both defenses and artilery as they are cheaper, musc better at killing defenses and quite powerful vs artillery plus they have more chance to survive because of their stealth

I'm not sure if Leang has superweapon bunkers in shockwave (long time from my last match with her) but aftet destroying or capturing one, her superweapons will reset. This was the key to prevent her from wtfpwning your base.
Another thing is fast expansion to the eastern supply. To do that you need to effectively kill off her units in that area (try stealth fighters) .
The biggest problem with her is then the massive army shesends at you plus the choppers.

Anyway, the plan for her demise should be:
conserve expensive units, clear eastern area and establish a base therse fast, destron weapon bunkers one by one each time gaia cannnon countdown is close to completion, build massive defences plus some supply drop zones, build a few particle cannons to destroy her gaia thing (2 are enough), build more particle cannons to
wipe her off the map.

I remember I aimed also for quickly clearing the hill area above my starting base and spammed missile infantry. to garrison them - helps vs her tanks and helicopters but watch out for her artillery and destroy it with something like stealth fighters.

Btw, when defending a base with auroras, you just must micromanage them, they are too fragile to be in guard mode, although stealth fighters when in number are a good option to guard an area as they won't get killed very easily by AI

Edit:
Oh I see you have beaten Leang, seems I skipped a post or two

Honestly, I've got to try Armor vs Thrax again soon. I know I had difficultiess in the past and I'mm unsure how I won. I remember having lots of AA turrets to keep off those fat missiles as well as that nasty toxin plane.. Bombing his scud storm and palace is a priority as well as protecting oil derricks. I killed his artillery using planes guarding in the lover left corner so they would always be ready for action to minimize free reign of those scourges.
Could it be possible to sneak the commando unit by lifting it in a transport, going east then up to the upper right corner? Hmmm
Anyway , this match is a mess and one will sacrifice a lot of nerves to beat it

FabulousPug, your description of Leung sounds like vanilla Generals where you had to destroy bunkers to stop the various superweapon countdowns. Now there is only one Gaia earthshake but it is absolutely brutal if she gets it off even once. I will fight her again using other generals but I don't look forward to being shaken like a can of paint over & over. On hard difficulty, it is actually very hard to get over the river, but yeah your ideas about the stealth fighter (bomber or whatever it is) are good. I"ve also done that when I was frustrated about losing $2500 Auroras over & over. My Stealths also got shot down though so I wasn't impressed by them.

Ironside vs Thrax yeah probably you have the right idea, but I couldn't get Burton onto that ridge cause my transport was shot down so I lost 2 or 3 thousand dollars investment for nothing so I didn't try that again. Destroying both his Scud and Palace seem to be the key to winning if you can keep destroying them fast enough that he doesn't benefit from rebuilding them over & over. I found the Nuke general trashed Thrax quite easily cause the nukes kept plowing up that base area where he keeps all that rubbish.

Hmm perhaps if you got an additional transport or two going a bit in front of the one carrying Burton they would soak up enough fire to get the important one trough? Would be costly as well..

Yeah that might work. My chopper was shot down over the eastern island. I think he had Pythons or something with AA powers coming to attack me and got in a lucky burst or it could have been a SAM on the top part of the eastern island near that bridge. Also I was using the basic chopper that brings in supply.

I see there is another chopper in the airfield build list I think it's called Starlifter but I've never built it. Is it better for moving Burton or just the same?

I tried another 3 times as Ironside vs thrax and lost just as badly. I was able to destroy his Scud but everything else failed. I made both an airport and a war factory and his python tanks shot down my planes instantly so planes are useless. I only made about 6 armor units cause money ran out and they barely made it out of the war factory before corroding to death. I made 3 or 4 drop zones to replace the supply dump which ran out so that used up all my money up until when I lost plus the cost of infantry I trickled out to feed his greedy toxic ocean in a futile hope to distract his bomb trucks with sacrifices cause those trucks destroy the turrets with one hit which leaves my base undefended. I made a few phalanxs but they didn't slow down the missiles at all. And I couldn't make burton cause I had to use all my money to to survive for the short while I did. I think I'm gonna give up on Ironside permanently. The only good thing he has are the grenades dropped from the satellite cause those are what destroyed his Scud plus a convoy of evil vehicles passing by the Scud. His 'armor' seems to have no armor (maybe paper taped onto chopsticks to make tanks), infantry die instantly in the toxin even with the chem suits upgrade, and planes don't work so there's nothing else to try. As for Burton I didn't have the money or free time to micromanage that idea. I would need to coop play and have another person do it.

If I remember correctly I used upgraded mammoths as ground defense plus some AA and planes vs scourges. Mammoths' shield reflec missiles though I still need to check how it reacts with big missiles. My biggest problem was the freaking Jarmen sniping amammoth or two before I could kill him thus he disabled too much of my defense to hold incoming waves of goo.

About starlifter - it's big and more durable but also slower. Haven't used it in a long time..

I hope to have some time today to try to beat this.

OKay maybe I will try mammoths again. I only tried them once because they use up a GP which I need for grenades & arty to destroy the Scud and they died instantly without firing a shot after I made them so the money was wasted. Do mammoths have guns or anything?

For Karmen Kell, you can use detection tanks plus the turrets with the laser detectors and put in 2 soldiers like one machinegunner and one RPG cause the ooze doesn't kill them in the turret.

And don't forget to set the game to Hard so we have the same conditions to talk about. I hope you try it again so we can swap stories.

The Radar Dome is a large stealth detector. It will reveal Kell before he snipes your dozer(if your dozer is hidden behind the base defense) It is also good to note that when Kell's pilot snipe is on cooldown, he will stand near the next vehicle waiting to snipe it and he will be revealed(its a glitch)

Ok so here's what I did so far:
I was defending with AT/AI stationary defenses in a 2-1 ratio, occasionaly microing to quicky destroy a demo truck or a grenadier-battle bus. 4 Phalanxes were enough to deflect most scourge missiles and to kill off Scourges and buggies I was forced to mico some bomber planes all the time.
At the start I captured both oil derrics + oil refinery in hopes the attacking forces would be lessened when Thrax looses it; don't know if it actually works and it doesn't seem to me that enemies can be money-starved (?). The NW oil derric was just for the initial $1000 at least and I let it be destroyed - the enemy actually didn't attack from the NW passage anymore (thanks for the tip King).

I used just 2 Dozers to save money and was continuously building defenses and teching up for a supply drop zone and a cluster missile silo. After the war factory and airfield were built I pumped some Howizers and bomber planes (the $1800 ones) because they seem to be equally effective against both units and buildings. Their first job was to destroy the closest enemy defenses to my base, starting from stinger sites to secure a less hindered sniping of those pesky scourges and buggies.
My real problem are the battle busses - I don't have enough planes to kill off both them + scourges + buggies; it's always nice to catch enemy units clumped around a demo-truck but counting on that can't save anyone...

I'm starting to think Mammoths are a bad idea, as well as any other vehicle except Howizers and maybe the repair truck. After I took Howizers as my first GP I ended up taking all kinds of bombing GPs just to use on attacking forces to buy myself some time to turtle up.

Long story short: I was humiliated horribly even before his SCUD was at ready...

Oh and I noticed the stupid Jarmen behavior, taking advantage of that as well (not that it saved me from thrax's poop-spam).

As the superweapon costs alot, I'm starting to think about investing in planes earlier and bomb some stuff around, including finishing off his SCUD. ...can a general's challenge mission replay be saved?

P.S.
Grenadier Busses are OP! >_<

EDIT: dear lord are those vehicles weak; Ironside is supposed to be the armor general, not toilet paper who can tickle enemies ughhh frustrating... I must try some burton tactic.. maybe it's possible to take out easter WF with him and just bomb the palace with whatever... I wonder if those stealth drone tanks can be of use to hinder rebuilding of that WF

Thanks KingKickass and FabulousPug for the good replies. KingKick you play the challenge on hard with no superweapons and won??? That's impressive, especially against Leung with her monstrous Gaia. Do you play online too? I'm gonna be a KingKickAss for halloween.

Fabulous, you are feeling the same pain I do. All those different vehicles are quite deadly while Westmoreland's armor is really wet toilet paper, or maybe he recycles one brewed up Toxin truck to make a dozen of his tanks. Ironically I think the way to survive as the Armor general is not to build any armor.

KingKick says all the tough stuff is summoned by the Palace so that building must be a gateway to the nine hells of the abyss. I think his advice is to turn the other cheek to the Scud but destroy the Palace at any price to weaken the vehicle spam. It makes sense if we put our buildings away from the command center to suck up the brutal scud superweapon and resulting toxic ocean. I agree also that not building the cluster superweapon may be smart to save money and not prove a very large, easy target to his missiles and bomb trucks.

KingKick, what is the radar dome? Is that Ironside's GP satellite scan or the Chinese radar? Iron doesn't seem to have a command center radar set like the other USA generals do.

I will try Ironside again tonight using KingKick's advice. Maybe do some meditation first to counter the inevitable stress and agony of the battle. FabulousPug let's compare notes again after the next attempts.

Ugh I was soooo close to reaching his palace!
Well, before he goes full scale palace fart spam, I think the main thing is to get Burton up there to attack the palace. For that I went to capture both derrics, then the rafinery (which got destroyed but whatever, at least I got discount on some planes).
Also to mention, I started with 3 dozers and, if it means anything, had total of 2 supply trucks. Next I just put some defenses, but not Phalanxes. This is because I planned to destroy that palace of doom before he would begin attacking me hard.
My GP were all just for bombarding along with the scout drone GP which I picked first. I postponed the radar dome as there's no need for a radar actually while the $1000 could be used elsewhere.
So, to get Burton there I used 2 bomber planes to take out the eastern stinger site, then used the Lv.1 A10 strike + [fat rocket launching plane] on his garrisoned building nearest to the eastern war factory (arms dealer). That was to prevent my starship surprise from being shot down too easily while it transported Burton + 1Ranger along the southern, then eastern border of the map. So far so good. When it arrived at the NE oil derrick, for some ridiculous reason I forgot to unload it cause base was under attack, so that a random Python killed it D:<

No need to mention, palace units started running at and over me.
I just don't have the patience to go trough it again today...
I mean what the heck 1 bomb truck destroys the cubic civilian building, grenadier buss needs like 4 seconds? to kill a defensive structure, Buggies ravage everything as well... I'm starting to think Thrax recieved a bit too much love from the shockwave devs O_o