Kaiser Vlad Magnificent Bastard effortpost

What's the work?

Battalion Wars is a modern warfare hybrid of Third Person Shooter and Real Time Strategy, spinning off of the Advance Wars games in its influence but otherwise doing its own thing, such as having the player, called the Commander, directly control a unit for useful direct maneuvers for that unit. The story tells primarily of 2 nations, the Western Frontier and the Tundran Territories, that as stereotypes of America and Russia respectively have an intense rivalry putting them into a cold war. The cold war sparked into full-blown conflict when the Tundran Territories' new and progressive leader, Marshal Nova, had his truce to set up peace broken by the old guard led by Nova's father and the previous, more traditionalist ruler, Tsar Gorgi. When Nova finds out and displays his displeasure, Gorgi seeks help from somebody else, a person who holes up in a fortified castle surrounded by dead trees and other signs of a moorland, to set up a deal. And of course, that person is our MB candidate.

Meet Kaiser Vlad.


Who is Kaiser Vlad?

Kaiser Vlad, the Big Bad of both Battalion Wars games, is the leader of the country of Xylvania, a Germany-esque nation that had been built upon a perennial wasteland (as would be shown as always having been such in the second game where it already was like that during the days of Xylvania's predecessor, the Iron Legion), which has not taken kindly to the mental state of its inhabitants. Vlad, while spry enough for a guy whose age is actually all but stated to be in the triple digits (he's at least 97 in the first game given the information on the Xylvania Heavy Tank) and having the strategic sense you'd expect from somebody in his role, is all too willing to lead his nation to war against the likes of "Frontier warmongers and Tundran despots" in the interest of bringing Xylvania to being the masters of "(those) inferior nations", especially in light of how the Solar Empire defeated the Iron Legion in the Lighting Wars from 2 full centuries prior to the present, and has a few things to capitalize upon to start his campaigns against his enemies.

Though Vlad is doomed to failure, especially in levels where the player fights against his forces directly, it's not for lack of trying.


What does he do?

Vlad's plotting first chronologically comes into play 3 decades prior to the present, when Frontier and Tundra ended up with talks breaking down causing their early hostilities (bear with me, the story can get confusing at times with both games, and there are Retcons that don't help), causing them to go into active war, with Tundra accusing Frontier of harboring a superweapon, to Frontier's confusion about the idea, and thinking they need air superiority to deploy it. During the chaos, Vlad had work crews look for the "staff of legend", though at least a couple of them would get spotted by Frontier forces. The first of those crews is implied to be behind suspicious activity spooking the men of General Herman (the Western Frontier CO who is its resident Blood Knight) who aimed to take out Air Transports they believed to be carrying military intel, which a then younger Tsar Gorgi would correct Herman on such about how they were actually supply lines.

Vlad's response to the second work crew having their digging machines blown up (an optional event, but the Commander can make it happen) is as follows:
"Your actions only provoke me, Kommander. Someday, you shall feel the full wrath of Xylvania."
This second work crew is incidentally found near Frontier's forward HQ for catching Gorgi by surprise at Tundra's border HQ, which succeeds and ultimately results in Gorgi's by overrunning Tundra's HQ. The Xylvanians catch wind of Frontier's victory and escapes upon the signing of the peace treaty at the negotiation table for Tundra, where by the way is likely where Herman found out that Gorgi was himself fed rumors about Frontier having a superweapon in the first place.

Doesn't sound interesting yet? We'll get to the point when you can connect the dots, but for now, Vlad's actions in the first game.

We start off with the meeting with Tsar Gorgi, who wants to follow through with an agreement he made with Vlad. It's revealed that the pact was for an alliance with Xylvania complete with reinforcement support by Bombers. Just before the reinforcements would arrive, however, Frontier's pushback of Tundra is successful enough to allow a low key strike, although backed by a few artillery pieces, that disables 3 radar stations, the low-key strike allowing Frontier's 51st Bomber Squadron to move right in without fear of being linked targets to Tundra's anti-air. If you don't get what is the big deal is, Xylvania's Bombers are what come in, led by Xylvania's aerial ace Countess Ingrid, who speaks on Vlad's behalf to declare war on both Frontier and Tundra, while the Bombers start dropping their cargo upon the soldiers of both Frontier and Tundra alike. Frontier and Tundra are devastated, but survive and opt to fight together against their common foe, as the Alliance of Nations.

During the recovery period of the Alliance, Xylvania sets up their campaign for the Dune Sea in interest of control of raw material called Nerocite (which seems to be purple crystals; it's never clarified in either game but all evidence points to such) for their war machine, and Vlad starts by sending a brawny loyalist, Kommadant Ubel, who the former has promised to make "Governator", to lead an attack on Fort Omaha, a Frontier base in the Dune Sea. Frontier, for the mission "Beachhead", is forced into active tower defense with support by the Commander, and just when Ubel's forces get worn down to concern Ubel about his failure and worry about being demoted to the rank of Grunt, Ingrid comes in, with her Bombers about to follow suit, as Vlad figured Ubel would be repelled by being outsmarted, indicating that the plan was to have Ubel set Frontier up and Ingrid knock them down. Fortunately, Frontier gets reinforcements just in time, most notably an Anti-Air Vehicle capable of devastating Ingrid's Bombers, which by the way do not have the sense to avoid coming in from the same direction as Ubel's forces, also suffocating with increased ease of interception a group named Rocket Squad Ajax who was intended to blow the Anti-Air Vehicle to bits.

Vlad's own venture is to lead a siege brigade at an area called Dusty Springs, held by Tundra, in an effort to get control of the Nerocite. Brigadier Betty, the Frontier's vivacious figure of charisma, sends a solid ground attack force in with the Commander in charge of the maneuvers to help the Tundrans escape. Cue the level "Invasion Force." Tundra's reduction of viable resources here shows in the representing canon level: all they have for anything other than Grunts is a singular Missile Vet, which is only a point counter against air units that can sneak through the barricades. Xylvania, meanwhile, has the works: Artillery for shelling Tundran forces from the Xylvanians' side of the river, Heavy Tanks for devastating force that nothing short of anti-armor attack can even challenge, and Gunships for air-based surprise attacks. Vlad also sends in Air Transports loaded with infantry from the Alliance's flanks when the Tundrans are holding out at the communication station waiting for the distress signal to reach Tundran High Command. Despite the clear superiority, Tundra's evacuation wing manages to bail the Alliance out when they're making a stand at a lighthouse on a peninsula, although the X-ers (Frontier's nickname for the Xylvanians) nevertheless get control of a Nerocite mining location, so Vlad isn't so concerned about "(his) fleeing Tundran foes" escaping for now.

Of course, Frontier would soon get an edge to even out this game of cat-and-mouse. Going into "Gunships of the Desert", another of the Western Frontier COs, the thoughtful if cautious Colonel Austin, would send a low-key force, yet again managed by the Commander, to pull a hit-and-run attack on Xylvania's aerial supply lines for a key Nerocite facility, before mixing them into a stronger division including Heavy Tanks and a Gunship. While Ingrid is overseeing the Nerocite facility's operations, Vlad sends in his own reinforcements--Heavy Tanks mixed in with Minigun Veterans and an Anti-Air Vehicle--though once again, Frontier prevails in taking the facility, weakening Xylvania's supply lines.

"Black Gold" is where Vlad's credentials start to really shine, even though it's not him in charge of the X-ers' forces involved in the first half of the level, but Kommadant Ubel, who does nothing to stand out until upon the elimination of the third Anti-Air emplacement (each emplacement consisting of at most 3 Missile Vets, a Searchlight, and a few infantry bodyguards) he expresses Frontier's targeting the anti-air units deliberately as "most strange", which has Vlad make the point that Ubel's idiocy is incredible for not figuring that Frontier plans to air strike something, in this case the Nerocite Extraction Towers in the area via Bomber precision attacks. Vlad, after expressing disappointment of Ubel who he basically calls a surrogate son, takes command of the X-ers' forces and sorties Gotha Squadron, a group of Fighters, to stop Frontier's Bombers, though saving the day is a Fighter squadron headed by Tsar Gorgi to hold off Gotha Squadron while Frontier's Bombers finish their air raid, further damaging Xylvania's supply lines, but it would soon come at a cost: Ubel pulls a sneak attack that manages to catch Gorgi off guard, too busy with celebration of the dogfighting's results, lifts him up, and throw him off the bridge that Gorgi is on, killing Gorgi. Ubel's response to the suddenly shocked Nova is that "Kaiser Vlad sends his regards."

Frontier shifts its operations against Xylvania for the Commander to the Coral Atolls archipelago, which is home to an Asia-style nation called the Solar Empire. Starting with "X-Day", Vlad is in charge of forces at Beachy Point Island, where Frontier already had an Expeditionary Force devastated with the 4 survivors captured and put under guard by Grenade Veterans on top of a hill. The island itself is not light on defenses by X-ers, with just the beach where Frontier starts their attack having 2 Artillery pieces supporting a bloat of Grunts, and also more directly guarded by several Rocket Veterans to stagger the obvious solution of somebody getting close to the Artillery with auxiliary MG-sponging armor. Even after clearing the beach, Frontier still has to worry about the X-ers' primary fortress, which of course proves not easy to attack, something that becomes even more complicated as Vlad would manage to get his air force to reinforce it as Frontier starts breaking through to free Fighter pilots in an effort to fight back. The leading unit of the air force is a Strato Destroyer, basically a Mighty Glacier mix of the Fighter and Bomber--it's supported by Gunships to intercept any would-be attempts to hit the Strato from behind, but the Fighter being a hard counter to Gunships, this doesn't prove to be enough, and Frontier clears the skies and allows for any remaining X-ers to be cleaned up, though Vlad doesn't consider Beachy Point a big concern.

"Call Sign Eagle" is the next level where Vlad is commanding the Xylvanian forces, who are once again caught in an ambush operation by Frontier, this one being named Operation Neptune, which is an air raid on the Aloha Atoll island to allow capture of its primary facility, and is just in time to attempt to catch Vlad dropping off reinforcements. Vlad is quick to declare that he can predict the every move of the Frontier COs, who are using codenames (Eagle One being Colonel Austin and Buffalo Two being General Herman) in an attempt to disguise their identities, and while Xylvania's already available forces can't hold off the Frontier's birds, when it seems that the escorted Frontier infantry have declared control of Aloha Atoll, Vlad sends in 2 Strato Destroyers, not only escorted by Fighters, but also showing up from opposite ends of the map to flank the Frontier forces and minimize the problem caused by their jet engine blind spot. Frontier still prevails, of course, but Vlad is again confident about the tide of war eventually shifting back in his favor.

Vlad's next appearance is during the cutscene at the end of the next level, "The Guns of Tiki Bay", where Countess Ingrid asks why Xylvania even wants the Coral Atolls. Vlad digs up a book to show Ingrid a history lesson about the Lightning Wars, revealing what had happened there: the Solar Empire had only won there by usage of a doomsday device, which they had resorted to when it was clear that they were without the necessary forces to defeat the Iron Legion by conventional warfare. While we're waiting for Battalion Wars 2 to expand upon this, Ingrid shows interest in reviving the Iron Legion to defeat Xylvania's enemies faster, and that Vlad can do so, but Vlad just says that "the Legion cannot be controlled" and how "there would be no victory; only suffering." As he says this, he draws his sword slightly back, almost as if he's suddenly trying to guard it...

"Battle of the Coral Atolls" has Vlad and Ingrid in joint command of the X-ers at their primary Command Center for the Coral Atolls. The Frontier launches, you guessed it, another ambush, this one to deal critical damage against their supply lines for the Coral Atolls via capture of the Command Center. Vlad had opted to trust Ingrid with the maintenance, but ends up having to remind her to keep sending out Gunships to stagger the Bomber and the Battlestation (a megaton tank with incredible defensive power and such high-yield power as to have its auxiliary weapons even include anti-armor shelling, though its only personal defense against competent air attack is auxiliary HMGs). The X-ers, of course, have their own Battlestations at convenient chokepoints along the way to capturing the Command Center, as well as anti-air defenses to call out the Bomber attack. Nevertheless, Frontier wins (surprise, surprise) and Vlad declares Xylvania needing to fall back to their homeland, while Ingrid declares this to be the time to resurrect the Iron Legion to punish Frontier for causing Xylvania humiliation...

"Bridge on the River Styx" is the first level involving Frontier's campaign to push through Xylvania and end the war before Vlad can set up more active fortifications. The Commander's first objective is to take control of a few Radar Arrays within a time limit, lest bombs set up by Vlad's demolitions team go off destroying bridges that the Frontier needs for a working advance. Guarding the Radar Arrays, which by the way Vlad actually stole from a Tundran outpost in the Dune Sea and admits as much in a humorous moment, are sandbag-covered Rocket Veterans and MG Towers at convenient chokepoints, certainly challenging Frontier's ground forces. While Frontier is busy making headway through this, Vlad is wondering where Ubel is because the area is apparently supposed to be Ubel's command post. Of course, after Frontier takes care of the Radar Arrays, the Commander has to head through a circular area--Vlad introduces Frontier to the Crater of Shadows, as an ambush location consisting of several Heavy Tanks and Artillery pieces. Even more terrifying is that the the Crater of Shadows also has acid pools for the Frontier forces to want to avoid being sent to taking a bath in, so there's somewhat of a maze aspect to maneuver around in while hunting down the Artillery pieces.

The Frontier forces prevail, of course, but Vlad declares that the Vladstag (which you can guess is that castle where Tsar Gorgi's Deal With The Devil with him was handled) is still far away with plenty of X-ers to make things more difficult still, and then has another surprise...at least until he stumbles upon a surprise for himself, namely that his sword--the one he had on him talking with Ingrid in the earlier cutscene--is somehow missing, which has him, in panic, immediately call for his personal Gunship to fly to a place called the Cenotaph, realizing that Ubel and Ingrid would be there with Vlad's sword. As this happens, Ingrid explains to Ubel that the Cenotaph is the marker of the location where the Lightning Wars ended by the Solar Empire's usage of the doomsday device; and has Ubel help her by carrying her to the top so that she can use Vlad's sword for exactly what Vlad was fearing: resurrection of the Iron Legion.

Ingrid immediately gets possessed by who is all but stated to be a character from the second game named Lord Ferrok, the Iron Legion's leader (Ferrok and possessed Ingrid even have the same line for calling out the Commander going out of bounds), as Ubel gets away, runs into Vlad who Ubel begs for forgiveness while Vlad voices disbelief about his role in the Iron Legion's resurrection. Of course, "Road to Xylvania" starts up with the Commander handling Frontier forces to attack Xylvanian strongholds. Vlad, rather than say anything about the Iron Legion yet, focuses on having his forces hold off Frontier's attack, for all the good it does them against a Battlestation with actually solid infantry support. After the first stronghold is severely weakened, the Iron Legion sends in their forces to attack both Frontier AND Xylvania. Vlad, shocked by Ingrid's betrayal and saddened by the loss of her soul, just takes his leave from this battle. Ingrid would ultimately come to be having Ferrok exorcised after the Iron Legion is taken out by joint efforts between Frontier and Solar Empire, but then defeated and slain by Solar Empire's Empress Lei-Qo in a duel.

The final level in the game, "Siege of the Vladstag", takes place at the Vladstag. Frontier forces, in tandem with Tundran forces, aim to do one last push to punch through the heavy defenses of the Vladstag, consisting of 3 walls to break through before entering the castle itself, and then the Vladstag's courtyard defenses--none of these should be underestimated of course. Ubel offers to take command of the Xylvanian forces to prove his loyalty to Vlad, but Vlad knows better than to entrust their last stand to somebody who isn't exactly bright. After a grueling battle, though, the Alliance of Nations overruns the Vladstag's courtyard, trapping Vlad where he can't retreat any further back, thus the Xylvanians are defeated.

At least it seems that way. Vlad and Ubel attempt to get away with an escape vehicle, only for Marshal Nova to intercept them. Nova defeats Ubel in a quick round of boxing, capturing him, but Vlad effortlessly grabs Nova by the neck (with one arm at that, and it's not like Nova is some lightweight wuss), only for a Frontier Heavy Tank with the 3 Frontier COs to bust into the Vladstag, cannon turret pointed right at Vlad, as Brigadier Betty demands Vlad stop where he stands. Vlad, proclaiming that "this little tournament" hasn't yet ended, has one last trick up his sleeve, as he creates a smokescreen, which lets him escape successfully with aid from an Air Transport, declaring "your move, generals."

Thus the head escaped, though the body that is Xylvania is at least no longer functional, leaving Kaiser Vlad, even if he is the grandmaster he claims to be, with no way to really cause any more trouble. ...right?

Welcome to Battalion Wars 2, where there won't be as much to talk about, but there's enough to consider. After a Lord of the Rings style Prologue mission where the player plays through the end of the Lightning Wars, as a Grunt who obtained a powerful Staff capable of even destroying a Battlestation somewhat effortlessly and was used to call down a Kill Sat (200 years past and yet Solar Empire in present day doesn't have technology and understanding that would make TV Tropes look primitive; also, pay respects to the Grunt and his comrades for their Heroic Sacrifices) to nuke the Iron Legion--yes, this Staff is the aforementioned doomsday device--cut to its present day, which the manual states to be a few years after the events of Battalion Wars 1; where a newly introduced nation, the Anglo Isles (representing England), launches a mass air raid on the Solar Empire in an effort to find the Solar Empire's superweapon, which the Anglo Isles air ace Commander Pierce worries doesn't even exist while his naval contemporary Colonel Windsor, being overly jovial as he is, declares Anglo Intelligence "second to none"--a stark contrast to Eagle and Drake in Advance Wars, by the way. The Solar Empire fights back in more active warfare, and ultimately defeats the Anglo Isles forces, forcing them to leave the Solar Empire. Pierce notes upon Anglo's defeat how no superweapon was ever used and has doubts about Windsor's intel, by the way.

Sounds simple? Well, this war ends up continuing, because the Solar Empire has a stubborn honor-obsessed upstart by the name of Admiral A-Qira, who, against his leader Empress Lei-Qo's warning that there's more to the situation than meets the eye, gathers a splinter force to launch a war of retribution, and also sends an invitation to Marshal Nova to have Tundra join in to honor the two countries' old alliance, which Nova goes through with, wanting his deceased, conquest-happy father's acceptance. Anglo Isles is able to repel these attacks, with Nova quitting partway through when A-Qira thought to vandalize a monument, and A-Qira himself getting fully cornered at the end of this segment...but what does all of this have to do with Kaiser Vlad?

Well, in the midst of this, General Herman, who had been on garrison duty (to his chagrin) at the Solar Empire when the Anglo Isles did their mass air ambush, was feeling deja vu and ended up remembering about the "early" hostilities between Frontier and Tundra. He ultimately figures out what you would have about Anglo's attack on the Solar Empire, and Tundra's "early" attack on Frontier: both spurred on by rumors of a superweapon; both with the aggressor shaken off without having run afoul of a superweapon from the rumors that they got hit by; and both with the same author of the rumors and the wars. And that same author would pay a visit to Admiral A-Qira in his defeat, revealing himself as none other than Kaiser Vlad.

Vlad had poisoned A-Qira's canteen, which causes A-Qira to fall over barely realizing in his last moments what was really going on. Vlad then calls one of his soldiers to check to see how well their plan is holding up, and it's revealed that during Tundra's efforts to support A-Qira's forces, Xylvanian forces had moved in to attack Tundra's homeland, which was nowhere near as well as well-guarded, the soldier naturally crediting this to Vlad's machinations. Vlad is pleased with this progression and declares "unlimited power is within our grasp."

Vlad then proceeds to free Ubel from a Tundran gulag, using a whole spray of acid gas to kill the guarding Tundran Grunts while Vlad and Ubel are left unaffected. Vlad does this in reward for Ubel's loyalty, and even tells Ubel about details of the Lightning Wars, about how Ferrok, who Vlad says was his ancestor, had managed to complete the Battlestation as a terror tank and generally won battles afterwards to cement their would-be victory for the Iron Legion, only for Solar Empire using the Staff of Qa-Len--Qa-Len being the Solar Empire empress back then--to basically pull the rug from under them. This is, of course, the same "staff of legend" that Vlad had been hunting for over the span of decades, ultimately deducing that it was hidden within the icy wastes of northern Tundra. And it will be here that Vlad will ultimately obtain it for use against Xylvania's enemies themselves.

Fortunately for the other nations, they have learned of this through pooling of their information organized in a conference called by Empress Lei-Qo; and thus, the Western Frontier, the Tundran Territories, the Solar Empire, and the Anglo Isles reform the Alliance of Nations, with the common goal being to drive the Xylvanian forces out of Tundra and end their threat once again.

I'll skip "Scorched Earth" like I did with the original game's "Herman Heroes" because Ubel is front-and-center on that level and without Vlad being there to throw about his snark, though one of the Co-Op levels in the (now defunct) multiplayer, "Under Siege", takes place likely right after "Scorched Earth" seeing as it takes place at Gorgisburg like "Scorched Earth" did, only at nighttime instead of sunset. Vlad is able to put Gorgisburg under the siege with Heavy Tanks just needing to resupply, though the Alliance is able to take Vlad by surprise with a Battlestation, which is used to destroy the Heavy Tanks and the Anti-Air Towers, allowing the Alliance to deploy Fighters and Bombers, only for Vlad to have a surprise waiting: a Mining Spider, a quadralpedal mining platform armed with powerful lasers on each of its legs and engine features "borrowed" from the Alliance's nations, ready to destroy Gorgisburg by earthquake while being guarded by an abundance of Fighters and a couple of Dreadnaughts. (The Dreadnaughts have auxiliary anti-air capability in a weaker form of Anti-Air Towers' flak fire that air units that get too near are literally incapable of dodging, if you're wondering how they're able to be a threat.) The Alliance is able to blow up the Mining Spider via Bomber attack, but Vlad isn't finished, and deploys 4 Battlestations to destroy the Gorgisburg Mausoleum, though those too get bombed to dust, ending the Xylvanian siege on Gorgisburg.

"Operation Nautilus" takes place at Novagrad, where Vlad has a sizeable navy that Tundra's own, led by their flagship the TTS Potemkin (a Dreadnaught itself), is able to deep-six, at least it seems that way before Vlad mentions having a whole Dreadnaught armada getting ready to deploy. However, Tundra's navy had cleared the way for launching a low key attack to wade through the streets of Novagrad, which prove cramped enough to let Vlad ambush the Tundran forces with Acid Gas and Rocket Veterans at convenient turns, while Vlad shows momentary confusion about why the Tundrans are fighting for a place where anything valuable had been destroyed before figuring the Tundrans' reason irrelevant, but this doesn't stop the Tundran forces from calling in the Munitions Experts from near the docks for the Dreadnaughts, allowing the Munitions Experts to blow up all of the Dreadnaughts and liberate Novagrad.

"Ice Station X", the penultimate level, has Ubel in charge, but Vlad is of course providing his share of input, ordering Ubel to defend the Ice Station so that it can let Vlad find the Staff of Qa-Len via seismic activity; snarking out Ubel for saying he "never liked that Anti-Air Tower anyway" (Ubel says this in response to the second Anti-Air Tower that gets destroyed, which can be any one of them, so it's clear he was trying to save face about the loss); and upon the Ice Station being damaged enough commanding Ubel to have the Staff's coordinates sent to him on the spot, which actually succeeds in letting him learn of the Staff's location before the Ice Station X is rendered kaput, having Vlad and Ubel able to retreat to the Mining Spider. (And for those wondering if this is Cutscene Power To The Max, no, it isn't; Vlad can't be blamed for his Ice Station alert reaction being set by the developers to 50% HP for the Ice Station, rather than 80%, or even the player pulling some manual Bomber surgical strike stunt that would 1RKO the Ice Station.)

"The Reckoning", the final level and the end of the storyline for both games, is where Vlad really proves himself through the site of his own ultimate defeat. Vlad, in the process of finishing the excavation that will dig out the Staff of Qa-Len, wastes no time commanding Ubel to have his forces delay the Alliance and allow Vlad to manage the excavation undisrupted, which Ubel is giddy to accept and even have any Alliance survivors placed in his POW Camps. The Alliance is nevertheless able to escort the Tundran Battlestation to the Mining Spider, which of course is heavily guarded by Xylvania's own Battlestations and auxiliary support, which ends up including Fighters and Strato Destroyers part of the way through. Commander Pierce comes in with his Fighters to intercept the Strato Destroyers, helping clear the way for the Tundran Battlestation to destroy the Mining Spider. Game set.

Unfortunately, once again, You Can't Thwart Stage One, as Vlad has successfully obtained the Staff of Qa-Len, and immediately uses it to summon the Kill Sat (that somehow stayed in orbit for 200 years, how does Solar manage incredible technology and then overly limit its usage?) to blow the Alliance to smithereens, while calling in an Air Transport so that he and Ubel (who had managed to get in the Mining Spider at some point during the level) can make their getaway. Luckily, however, before the Air Transport can land, Pierce comes in to snipe off the Air Transport, forcing Vlad and Ubel to escape another way: via a spider-shaped escape pod that crawls down a rope to the underground. This, of course, has the drawback that the Kill Sat opens fire and causes Vlad and Ubel to get trapped in a cave-in, alive and sure that their victory had just been postphoned, but clearly stuck there digging their way out, while the Alliance avoids being caught in the blast with only Brigadier Betty (who had to be showing stereotypical intelligence for the Genki Girl to even be near enough the epicenter all things considered) needing rescue and getting it from Pierce in a case of Outrun The Fireball.

And thus, the world is saved, thanks to the Alliance of Nations.


What is Vlad's competition like?

As far as opponents to the player go, Vlad's competition is the Tundrans, the Anglo Isles, the Iron Legion, 2 of the Solar Empire COs, and his own subordinate COs. Let's start with the Tundrans. Tsar Gorgi, during the days of the "early" hostilities, is at least able to manage a Wake Up Call Level ("Line in the Sand", where the Frontier's HQ is under immediate attack by Light Tanks pulling a flanking job to set up for an attack by a swarm of Grunts, and the Airbase does make use of being on top of a hill to have MG Towers as well as obscured infantry busters), but his endgame flounders when his defenses against a Heavy Tank are painfully reliant on a Battleship and the rest of his anti-armor is remarkably overextended, eventually opening the way for the Heavy Tank to safely attack whatever it wants including the Anti-Air Towers. Gorgi also loses points for the way he is killed: caught in a sneak attack by clear Dumb Muscle, who arrived on motorcycle, in the midst of a victory. Major Nelly, a minor CO, doesn't stand out in a positive manner to her intelligence, the best she manages being a positional Heavy Tank within the defenses of Castle Potemkin, but even then, Castle Potemkin has a detour route to sneak up upon her primary guard; and she's just a Punch Clock Villain for the Tundra arc, even flirting with Colonel Austin and eventually marrying him in the second game.

Marshal Nova, however, far from disappoints his father, with "Titans of Tundra" being a model of positioning that make the Iron Eight (a group of Heavy Tanks) harder to crack than they already are, and "Striking Force", while showing that Nova has a Berserk Button against range-fire units that has him become Gunship-happy, does involve Bazooka Veterans and Light Tanks supporting the masses of infantry, with the Light Tanks guarding the middle flag to catch any smart-alec swimmers, especially given that the ones that do go on offense can actually creep up on the Artillery. Vlad took notes with the latter for his reinforcements in "Gunships of the Desert", where his Heavy Tanks are backed by an Anti-Air Vehicle, and as to fortifications, given the Vladstag's defenses, he has that down pat. Nova is additionally an Anti-Villain when he is antagonistic and (somewhat) nicer when he isn't, so he fails the "Bastard" part anyway.

Next, the Anglo Isles. Colonel Windsor is happy to brag about Anglo Intelligence being "second to none" when declaring war based on a rumor that turns out to be only technically true. In terms of warfare ability, Windsor doesn't stand out, with the extent of his strategies in the Anglo Isles' campaign being to mass a navy and also oversee a mission to clean up a national monument of himself. There's a reason Windsor is shown as one of Vlad's puppets on a newspaper, the other puppet being Admiral A-Qira. Pierce is at least a chummy Only Sane Man who even makes a point about Windsor's ego to a player who approaches the Stonehenge-like location in "Their Finest Hour" (since apparently, Windsor's ancestors made the rock formation making the historic monument) while controlling an infantry unit directly, but he still has too much reliance on aerial strikes to really stand out either, and leaves a good deal of the strategizing to Windsor. Pierce is, of course, in the same boat as Nova for the "Bastard" part: Anti-Villain when antagonistic and nicer when not.

The Iron Legion is an interesting contrast to Vlad. Its only CO, Lord Ferrok, is outright about brute forcing in general, even during the Lightning Wars, with the extent of his competence beyond heavy hitting weapons such as the very first Battlestation in history, being to set up Siege Guns to dissuade back attack by the Solar Empire during one of his assaults. This is even more pronounced in the present day when Ferrok, possessing Ingrid, is happy to throw Heavy Tank after Heavy Tank at the Frontier, which makes the Cenotaph rely on brute force for defenses (there is debris that can help Ferrok, but that's more a side effect than anything), as opposed to the Vladstag taking advantage of topography, such as having Artillery on hills where they would hit anybody attempting a siege and also soften aggressors, and of course the Battlestations at a convenient chokepoint and backed by Anti-Air Vehicles. Not only that, Ferrok never built a navy to even guard the Iron Tower, which itself being near water is its own idiocy by reducing the travel distance for the Grunt who uses the Staff to vaporize the Iron Legion.

Going into Solar Empire, Empress Qa-Len is a Hero Antagonist in Iron Legion's campaign--yes, you play as the Iron Legion for a few levels. Of course, she's generic in mentality, and her acuity isn't stand-out beyond using the Staff and trying to hide it, which ended up being a case of Nice Job Breaking It Hero with Vlad's hunt for it being responsible for the majority of both games' events; and meanwhile, Qa-Len used Frigates to lock the Iron Legion's air force inland, but couldn't think to spare Frigates for the assault on the Iron Tower's bigger defenses when air units are the biggest threat to the Solar Empire's forces for that.

Admiral A-Qira ends up with the opposite problem for the MB trope. Again, his strategies don't stand out, but they do generally manage to avoid being "fail to follow obvious solutions to flagrant problems" bad, although the Dreadnaught ambush that the vandalism on Windsor's Column was built around could have done with Frigate support, but it's plausible that A-Qira underestimated the Dreadnaught's anti-air capabilities due to it being a prototype unit. A-Qira goes through Sanity Slippage anyway, with the last level of the Anglo Isle campaign, "Their Finest Hour" even showing him in a Villainous Breakdown where he is no longer listening to his empress alerting him that the true enemy may be in the area watching the war built on misunderstanding unfold. It shows; listen closely to the way A-Qira says "reinforcements will make no difference" in response to Anglo summoning the aforementioned reinforcements and you can tell that he's unconvinced of what he's saying. By the time Vlad poisons him, A-Qira's sanity is a shadow of what it once was.

As for the Xylvanian subordinate COs? Ubel, while a Large Ham especially in the second game, is easy: he's an idiot. Simple as that. You know his IQ is bad when he thinks deliberate attacks on ANTI-AIR units are "most strange." As to Ingrid, she does have some moments here and there, stealing Vlad's sword from under his nose despite Vlad putting his guard up about it. However, the manual has stated that she's not as smart as she thinks, and it does show in "Beachhead" with the Bombers all attacking from the north where Ubel's forces all came from as it was; and eventually deciding to revive the Iron Legion only to find out the hard way, against Vlad's own warnings, that Evil Is Not A Toy, getting her possessed by Ferrok, which eventually leads to her death.

I say Vlad has the competition in the bag.


Is Kaiser Vlad smart and cool?

To the first one, definitely. Vlad's most important moves implement a surprising number of the 36 Strategems even individually, and he's also capable enough of Xanatos Speed Chess to where the only reason he loses in the second game is because his Villain Exit Stage Left attempt was forced, by the witty British air ace, into a completely compromising detour--and funnily enough, that the escape pod exists proves that Vlad was ready for something like that happening. He had still obtained the Staff of Qa-Len, and even if the involved Kill Sat was decommissioned, there's still the attack power capable of blowing through anything up to and including Battlestations with immense ease, so if a Battalion Wars 3 had ever been made, Vlad would no doubt have been such a force to be reckoned with, that the thought of dealing with him again would be terrifying even before another Hijacked By Ganon plot that would yet again prove him making his power, not the other way around.

There's also Vlad's MO of setting up ambushes with powerful units, resulting in scenarios where they have to be fought off directly in situations where their devastation is at their most accurate. The flanking Strato Destroyers from "Call Sign Eagle" is a solid example of this, even reducing, if not eliminating, their backside blind spot. There's also the front door of the Vladstag's courtyard being covered by the Battlestations and a couple of Pillboxes--and on the subject of the Vladstag, there IS an open gate to the east, but Ubel's presence, although not confirming anything at all, implies that this that isn't Vlad's fault given that Ubel could have been the last one in. Further mitigating this issue is that reaching the gate also requires going by the aforementioned front door, and sometimes, the game can have a Battlestation come out, which would intercept the player's efforts to reach the east gate at all. Given how busy Vlad would be handling his forces' last stand for the first game, it could be understood as him being too overwhelmed by stress to catch a seemingly innocuous detail, one that not all players capitalize upon because even knowing about it would require scouting in an already hectic battle.

Vlad does have his brain farts, but more often than not, he's just getting caught by a sudden attack, which doesn't always deter him, as shown in "Call Sign Eagle" with the aforementioned flanking Strato Destroyers. "Call Sign Eagle", for reference, doesn't have a single anti-air land unit on the X-ers' side (unless you count the MG Towers, which are still relatively non-threatening), but seeing as it starts with Frontier causing reinforcement disruption to Xylvania, the other potential issue that the reinforcements don't include their own anti-air can be chalked up to game-induced limitations. You could similarly pin a few seeming issues with Vlad within the gameplay, on game design issues. Most notably, "Invasion Force", a defense level, has Vlad's forces after the Tundrans' retreat to the Comms Station consist strictly of Heavy Tanks and Gunships aside from the aforementioned Air Transport-delivered infantry due to the latter being possible to cheese with memorization. Vlad rarely ever forgets after to have auxiliary support for his heavy hitters, so this is clearly a character error within the gameplay of a level that has questionable design to begin with. (For God's sake, the Heavy Tanks spawn on the player's side of the bridges.) "Battle of the Coral Atolls" having no Anti-Air Vehicles for the X-ers despite the locale's importance can be pinned on the first game failing to provide planes with more consistent Wait AI that would have them circle in place instead of continuously flying in the same direction without any regard to anti-air zoning. And as for "The Reckoning" having an active fixation on unit firepower, you may notice that there isn't a single Veteran unit on the entire map aside from Tundra's Missile Veterans who only have any importance because of the natural air threat, though Vlad still has sense to have a few competent emplacements here and there, for what that's worth against a Battlestation even for the RPG Towers.

Still, that Vlad has had Xylvania, as Betty put it, "score in both end zones before anybody knew they were in the game"; has shown a consistent track record of competent threats; and has pulled a Villain Exit Stage Left to a degree of success in BOTH games, it's clear that he got to live to triple digits for more reason than having a body capable of lifting a muscular man effortlessly with one arm, as well an even more powerful army.

As for keeping his cool? More or less, though he does have one notable instance of a Villainous Breakdown, in the aforementioned "Invasion Force" where he screeches at his troops to wipe out all of the Tundrans with a blatant We Have Reserves attitude, despite his primary interest in the area being to get control of the Nerocite. There's no stated explanation for this, but there is one key factor to consider: geography. The Dune Sea is right between Xylvania and the 2 nations of the Alliance, in addition to being directly north of the Solar Empire. Allowing the Tundrans to escape at all would no doubt allow them to regroup, which by itself is threatening, but not the cause of alarm Vlad should treat it as. What is, is that control of the Dune Sea would influence a lot for more than just getting control of the Nerocite; if Xylvania loses control of it, not only would they be unable to have another flank to attack the Solar Empire from, but Tundra would be able to keep Xylvania's primary forces in a hotzone while Frontier slips by to get the Solar Empire to join in, and Vlad of course knows better than to underestimate the "minor military power" when they're the ones who made the Staff of Qa-Len and used it to defeat the Iron Legion in the past.

Otherwise, Vlad rarely freaks out nearly as badly, the only real exception being when he realizes Ingrid is about to revive the Iron Legion, which Vlad himself had pointed out about: that that happening would only lead to a Pyrrhic Victory at best. There is another Co-Op level in BW2 with Vlad heading the X-ers, called "From Tundra With Love" and taking place at Castle Potemkin (not named as such in BW2, but the layout is similar enough) which Vlad had taken over, and the level ends with a newlywed Austin and Nelly about to report about Vlad's return, implying that this is how Vlad really got revealed, and Vlad gets desperate to keep his enemies from taking the place back and learning of his "secret mission"--likely trying to get the Staff, which he is right to not want his enemies beat him to the punch with. Still, it doesn't change how Vlad takes plenty of his other defeats, including the ones he takes at the end of both games, with enough stride and patience.


Is Kaiser Vlad just enough of a bastard?

Vlad is the Big Bad for a reason, though any racist behavior, since Xylvania IS a case of Those Wacky Nazis, is definitely not on the forefront, since the only nation Xylvania could have been amiable with to begin with was the Anglo Isles, until Xylvania manipulated them too for the X-ers to attack where they needed to with less issue, and this was in the second game when Xylvania had already been weakened. Xylvania definitely took issue with Frontier treating everything as a sport and Tundra being traditionalist for its own sake, and understood that the Solar Empire was just a case of Silk Hiding Steel. This ends up allowing Vlad to be on the funny side of being a Card Carrying Villain. It helps when an implied civilian massacre is just Offscreen Villainy, the only remote indication beyond Vlad having destroyed "everything of value" in Novagrad being property damage--for all we know, evacuation of plenty of Tundran families could have been successful.

Now Vlad does have some Bad Boss tendencies, considering his soldiers expendible and having a habit of calling them incompetent when things don't go his way. There are a few things to consider, however. First, EVERY character is virtually apathetic about non-critical unit losses, and even responds to moving out-of-bounds with calling the Commander a coward (they have a point, granted, but there are a few cases where the player can move out-of-bounds BY ACCIDENT), so Vlad only really stands out with the insults, which doesn't amount to much and gets shared with Countess Ingrid. Second, there's a bit of dialogue generated by getting routed on the first game's second Bonus Mission (where you play as the X-ers commanded by Vlad), where Vlad makes a sound point about gross incompetence like the amount required for that to happen in earnest. Given that Xylvania has a decent track record of catching obvious solutions to their primary methods of devastation--"The Guns of Tiki Bay" has the second Battlestation guarded by 4 Fighters, for example, and Ingrid is the one who thinks to have that going--the point tends to stand.

What really mitigates any issues with the way Vlad treats his subordinates, is that he treats Ubel with genuine niceness. Having muscle can be a case of Pragmatic Villainy, but Vlad, in full awareness of Ubel's flagrant idiocy that lore implies had managed to get Xylvania's flagship sunk in a firing exercise; busted him out of Tundran captivity, told him the story in active detail of the Lightning Wars which is the reason the player goes through the Iron Legion campaign, and had Ubel by his side and even opted to escape with him, showing that yes, Vlad would indeed make Ubel "governator" if the X-ers had won. You can tell why Ubel's worry whenever he fails Vlad is only about demotion instead of outright execution: because as Vlad said, he had raised Ubel like a son--even if sometimes Ubel would be nothing but a disappointment to Vlad. (Vlad also mentions raising Ingrid like a daughter, but we don't see a lot of it behind the history lesson to her.)

Add to it that Vlad mentions being willing to provide medals posthumously, and will have his soldiers fall back as necessary, even making use of repair opportunities to the point where losing a location providing them is grounds for fallback, and it's clear that his We Have Reserves behavior never really reaches alarming levels. It should be mentioned that Vlad does call the Kill Sat in to nuke an area without active regard to the presence of Xylvanian forces at the end of "The Reckoning" but this is never brought up in-game, and the game's ranking system is set up such that the Xylvanian land units who wouldn't be able to escape are already expected to be wiped out by the Alliance themselves, while the air force, who would be capable of escaping the blast and even would plan to do that much if an Air Transport would, doesn't have to be routed fully. (Granted, that's due to the air units infinitely respawning, but even so.) Other than this dubious case, Vlad doesn't go for getting his troops killed so carelessly.

Vlad has a moment of pointless sadism by basically gloating to A-Qira as the latter dies, but it's not to Vlad's detriment, as his return would already be revealed by things like the Minigun Veterans marching near the soldier he communicates with just after A-Qira drops dead, and it doesn't reveal Vlad's reasons for returning. He also claims to be descended from Ferrok--whether that's true or not is never confirmed, since it's just claimed in a throwaway comment, although Vlad and Ferrok have clearly the same voice actor (Wolf Kahler--and gosh that name sounds silly)--but this seeming bit of hypocrisy in light of his being against reviving the Iron Legion can be explained as simple admiration from a safe distance. Of course, there's still going for getting the Staff of Qa-Len, which WAS used to destroy the Iron Legion, but it's not like Xylvania claims to be honorable like the Solar Empire does, even if the Sols do have a sense of remorse about their failures of old. Considering that Vlad will do things like admit to theft to be relatively honest where he clearly doesn't need to be, I say Vlad actually avoids being too nasty on this front, ironically by being a Card Carrying Villain.

There is still Vlad's attempt to have unlimited power in and of itself, which is outside Xylvania's rhetoric of showing that they are superior to the other nations. Thing is, Vlad is still visionary enough to have consideration of his subordinates, as shown by the way he treats Ubel despite Ubel's blatant bungling that Vlad himself does see coming, so the real villainy just goes back to Vlad wanting to basically build a pyramid with himself on top, a stock villain motivation and thus nothing particularly heinous, which gives Vlad leeway to be Laughably Evil.

I believe there was an official source that said that Vlad having Xylvania militarized is what messed up their country's environment, but seeing as Xylvania's environment was always awful in the days of the Lightning Wars, this shows that Vlad, at most, simply made the problem worse, which is reasonable to believe given that Old Xylvania, while bad enough in its own right, didn't have any sign of acid pools; but has a potential Freudian Excuse of his morality being a product of his livelihood, which none of the other Xylvanians contradict in their own interest of survival of the fittest, and Ingrid even defied his clear whims in a moment of hubris. Vlad can very well simply be channeling frustrations with other nations getting more fertile soil, and while his general approach is what makes him the Big Bad, he does manage to be entertaining about it.

One final point to cover is a bit of animal abuse, where during Vlad's history lesson to Ingrid, Vlad had slammed shut the book about the Lightning Wars' end, which caused a bat to get squished between the book's pages. This, of course, is Played For Laughs with the bat's squeel sound being cutesy and his misfortune being left to just a Funny Background Event. Vlad was also preoccupied by shock of Ingrid suggesting the revival of the Iron Legion, to the point of having more pressing concerns that him be more mindful of his sword. It is possible, although not supported actively, that Vlad may have treated the bat off-screen.

What we are left with an openly villainous, yet nonetheless entertaining dictator who does indeed raise his COs like his children.


What's the verdict?

All things considered, there are potential disqualifiers that would make Vlad too cruel. However, I've gone into detail about why they don't overwhelm his sense of magnificence. He's not as big a Large Ham as Ubel, whose makes use of gems for lines such as "Sneaky little Grunt! Ubel does not like this story anymore!", Vlad certainly makes up for it with treating Ubel well in spite of his bungling, as well as strategems that keep the heroes on their toes on a consistent basis and literally the only reason he loses in the second game being that his Villain Exit Stage Left was, while not completely halted, weakened enough by a wily enough air ace, and even then, the fact that he had managed to survive after wresting control of a weapon capable of high ease in thwarting *BATTLESTATIONS* is certainly clear Sequel Hook material.

Overall, I would say Keeper. Indeed, we play against a grandmaster.