Welcome. Having fun playing Armoured Commander II yet?

Well, you will now. You are about to experience this game in a way you've never experienced before. It's time to learn to play the game just how God intended: with +175% Victory Points.

Strap in and get ready to ride or die.

Because, dear player...

Armoured Commander II is a video game with a very classic aesthetic a la Commodore 64 graphics, and it abides by the principles of several classic games of that era. A few of them come to mind - Galaxian and Galaga, Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Q-bert, countless other arcade games, and even Super Mario Bros.

But what do all of these games have in common? POINTS.

Dying in video games sucks, but it's merely an inconvenience. Just like all these classic titles, ArmCom2 is all about the points. What you're going for is a high score. Don't get me wrong, it's cool and all if you can make it to the 256th level of Pac-Man and see the kill screen, but the vast majority of people will never make it there. So for them, it's all about the high score. Nobody cares if you die or not. The only thing that matters is a high score. That's where you get your bragging rights.

So how do you get the most POINTS in ArmCom2?

You earn Victory Points (VP) by just playing the game. Just about anything will earn you VP. Destroying enemy units, completing objectives, and sometimes capturing territory will earn you VP.

There are 2 main ways you can modify your VP score. The extra VP is an additive percentage of everything you earn, summed with your base earned VP for your total VP at the end of the combat day. It is also possible to earn negative VP - in other words, VP can also be subtracted from your score. The first way to modify your VP is by playing in a specific tank that will make the game easier or harder. This is campaign-specific and depends on a variety of factors, mainly the time period, and the relative power of your tank model vs. what the enemy is going to throw at you. The second (more consistent) method is to set your campaign options at the beginning of the campaign.

If you've played the game at all, you know that at the start of a campaign, you see this screen:


Let's just rip the band-aid off right now. You'll tank me later. Pun fully intended.

It's the entire point of the game, and if you ever turn this setting off, you're dead to me, and you're too cringe for this guide.
Nah fam, get that weak sh*t outta here.
Come on, take a chance. Live a little.
You can't always get what you want, suck it up.
You betcha. Stop using your squad as a crutch.
See "Random Vehicle Model" above.
This setting is optional because it doesn't earn you any extra points. However, it will earn you brownie points. This one's your call.
See "Armoured Cars" above.
Time to rack up those purple hearts, baby!
This one will keep you on the edge of your seat, especially if you run into a mortar team with your hatches open. Trust me, it's more fun that way.
I hope you didn't think this was gonna be easy.



There we go. Now we're ready to go win some VP. +175%, here we come.

Armoured Commander II is either an absurdly difficult game, or a deceptively easy game, depending on how you look at it.

On one hand, it is a hardcore turn-based tactics roguelike that can and will punish you very hard for every single decision that you make, often arbitrarily regardless of whether or not it was the best decision, or even destroy you utterly depending on if you've earned the favor of lady fate and the random number gods. Anyone can die, and they sometimes will. Losing crew sucks and you just have to press on. With Realistic Explosions, every time your tank is knocked out, there is a slim chance you will just lose your run instantly. In addition to that, even if you are maxed out on grit and have Lightning Reflexes, you can still get randomly killed by a measly 1 firepower from enemy riflemen attacking you with harassing fire when your hatch is open. These scenarios are rare, but the point is they can happen.

On the other hand, even on the hardest difficulty settings (+175% VP), it is surprisingly uncommon for you to die as a player commander. You can make "dumb" decisions by choosing to take fights that you are hopelessly outmatched against, get penetrated harder than Piper Perri on the casting couch, and even go through tanks and assistant drivers like crap through a goose to the point you start wondering why they keep sending you more of them. But as long as you don't die right as your tank is knocked out, you can still play the bailing out minigame, win that, and live to fight another day. Sometimes, an infantry squad might throw a demolition charge at you which doesn't penetrate but hits you with 30 firepower, then a nearby mortar team stacks up another 30 firepower on you, then a nearby 75mm gun hits you with a few HE shells for another 30 firepower, then a random event happens where enemy artillery fires a bombardment, and suddenly you're resolving 100+ firepower on your poor tank while your commander is crew exposed directing fire, and you miraculously get away with just a near miss and being shaken.

This only means one thing, and this is what you came here to read this guide for:

Yeah, that's right. Pick all the fights you want, kill or rout every single enemy unit in the scenario layer, go for all the objectives, never withdraw or retreat, prefer death and glory to cowardice, and pat yourself on the back after viewing the sitrep after each combat day.

Even if you see enemy tanks with armor that outmatches you, chances are you can penetrate its rear armor. This means charging directly towards them and getting around the backside and unloading on them before they know what hit 'em. Try to knock out tanks you can go for as quickly as possible.

Even if you have a pathetic TMG that can't knock out enemy tanks or a broken main gun, you can still repeatedly juke them until the random event phase of each turn. If you're lucky, some planes may show up and bomb the enemy tank (including enemy planes mistaking you for a friendly lol), an artillery might score a direct hit, or even friendly reinforcements can show up and finish the job. Also, remember that if you're lucky enough to score a critical hit with machine guns, you gain a +4 bonus to your penetration roll and might actually get the kill.

AT guns, infantry, and support weapon teams are best dealt with using high explosive ammo, unless they are dug in or fortified, in which case your best chances are bum rushing it with an overrun attack. The overrun attack is your friend. It doubles the firepower of machine guns, negates the movement penalty while shooting, and can even gain more bonuses if your commander has the Primo Victoria perk. Machine guns are so much more effective against entrenched infantry than HE shells.

You should always take lots of HE shells for Advancing Fire on the Campaign Day Map layer. A good rule of thumb is to have 67-75% HE shells, and the rest are AP, and sometimes a handful of smoke rounds or whatever else for good measure. APCR, HVAP, HEAT, or other rare ammo should always be prioritized and taken in the place of normal AP rounds. You can even stuff your tank to the brim with shells and fill up all your extra slots. This increases the chances of Realistic Explosions kicking in if you're knocked out, but chances are you will burn off enough HE when you're always doing Advancing Fire that after the first 2 or 3 moves, your extra stores will be empty again.


Yeah, of course it does. Are you afraid of losing? You shouldn't be. Losing is fun!

If you play like this in every single scenario and continually look for more trouble to stir up, chances are you'll burn through a tank about once every 2 combat days. Just hope that this happens towards the end of the day, because nothing is more pathetic than losing your tank in your first encounter after earning a single victory point that day for pasting a Horse Limber into glue.

This is war, son. And in war, people die.

But dying is bad. If you as a player commander die in Armoured Commander II, your campaign is over. Go directly to Hell. Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dollars. Whatever you had in terms of points is now the limit of the points you get, and now you have to go start a new campaign all over again.

How do we prevent dying? The answer is mostly in the form of grit.

Grit is one of the stats that you can raise with advance points. Grit is crucial because it lessens the chances of death when taking injuries. It can be tempting to ignore grit and buff other stats like perception and knowledge in order to unlock more relevant commander-oriented skills, but remember, we're in it for the long haul, and with the increased victory points, your crew will also proportionally earn more XP.

Some skills are great for survival. Gymnast is a great pick because you will be bailing out a lot. Quick Reflexes and Lightning Reflexes are solid picks if you plan on leaving your commander's hatch open (and you really should, if you plan on spotting anything at all). Having at least 1 crew with Fire Fighter (or 3 crew with Fire Fighter if you're in a flame tank) is important, because being trapped inside a burning tank is usually a death sentence. Fires tend to be uncommon though, so you can roll the dice on this one if you want.

Remember, you must survive as a commander. That is how you will earn the most victory points! You may have excellent crew, but at the end of the day, they are expendable, and you are not. Sure, if your amazing driver you had since Operation Barbarossa gets killed during the battle of Kursk, it will sting a little. But at least you can keep earning points!

On that note, make sure that after you rank up your commander's grit stat, be sure to take Only a Scratch and Fighting Spirit. The more time you spend in the field hospital, the less points you can earn. Thus, you should try your best not to go there to begin with, and if you end up there, hope that you can get out as early as possible.

Now that you figured out how to stop from dying, the next thing to look at is how you can stay in the fight for extended periods of time, keep a cool head under pressure, and even defy your fate of being knocked out if your tank gets penetrated.

What should you do after you max out your grit stat? Let's take a look at morale.

Morale is a strange thing. How do you convince a bunch of apex predators to not run away with their tail between their legs when faced with hunting the most dangerous game? Well, as it turns out, humans are emotional creatures. We don't like the idea of dying horribly, and if our primal urges take over, war itself is diametrically opposed to our sense of self-preservation. Why should we fight this stupid war and risk our arms, legs, head and neck, and most importantly, torso and groin for any of this? What happens when we dodge that bullet with our name on it, but then suddenly find ourselves in a hail of shrapnel and HE addressed "To Whom It May Concern"?

As it turns out, people like having something they're willing to fight and die for. Something that will make them lay down their lives for their fellow countrymen. This is what morale is all about, and if you want to stick it to those Krauts (or Russkies, or Yanks, or whathaveyou), you gotta have morale.

Luckily, morale is an arbitrary stat of your crew members that you can increase at will.

What will morale do for you? It reduces the chances of getting shaken or stunned in combat, meaning you can continue to fight on at maximum efficiency even when bullets whiz by your head or explosions and ricochets bounce your tank around. This gives you an edge in landing that HE shell right where it belongs, in the middle of that gun crew lining up on your tank.

But perhaps more importantly, morale allows you to straight up cheat death, in a different way than grit ever possibly could. That's right. If your tank gets penetrated, your crew will do a hidden morale check. If you pass, then congratulations - you may be inspired to fight on in spite of the damage. This has some huge implications, especially if you are playing with Realistic Explosions (which this guide assumes you do). What happens if you never even touch the bailout screen after getting penetrated? Well, you're not going to proc Realistic Explosions. Cheating death!

It's for this reason alone that makes morale the second-most-worthy stat to dump besides grit. But wait, there's more! If you increase your morale enough to stop your tank from being knocked out, we'll throw in the added bonus that you get to keep fighting in the same combat day, absolutely free! The fine print on that infomercial is if of course your tank is immobilized in the hit, you're finished with your combat day anyway after the encounter is over. But this isn't guaranteed either - and by not being forced into bailout, you can fight on with a big fat PH on your stat card and wear it back to HQ after sundown like a badge of honor. Stack up those victory points!

Additionally, Natural Leader (and the upgraded skill Inspiring Leader) are great skills to have on your player commander, because it buffs the morale checks that your entire crew(!) makes, giving them the edge that they need to pass those critical morale checks a spring breeze.

When all is said and done, take a screenshot and bask in the VP. You've earned it.

This was one of my commanders who survived several campaigns in a row. His name was Bill Stern. He racked up a total of 35 purple hearts. For comparison, in real life, the poor sap who "won" the most purple hearts is one Charles D. Barger[en.wikipedia.org] who had a total of just 10 purple hearts. Those are rookie numbers. My boy Charlie was a scrub who needed to git gud.

You can expect to earn tons of purple hearts, especially if you're not a wimp and keep your commander's hatch open all the time and suffer all manner of injuries. Mind the torso and groin injuries though, you wouldn't want to become a living recipient of the Darwin award. In case you're curious, the German equivalent is the Wound Badge, so keep stacking 'em up.

[DISCLAIMER: As of Version 1.2.22, it is no longer possible to earn Purple Hearts and Wound Badges without being sent to the field hospital, which is antithetical to this guide - so you should avoid getting them as much as possible!]

Now, once you're done winning absurd amounts of VP, here's the channel on the official Armoured Commander II Discord server where you can brag about it. And tell 'em Tesserakt sent ya.

https://discord.gg/DWxuYqRaZk