Reyah’s Guide to Snow Wars II

     Hello Neopians!! As the warm spring weather descends upon Neopia, do you find yourself missing the winter? Dreaming of the cold, crisp bite of the clean winter air as it enters your lungs? Longing for a cosy cup of cocoa by the fire? Missing the exhilaration of shooting down the mountainside in Terror Mountain with just two thin skis strapped to your feet? Longing for the friendly yet vicious competition of a snowball battle? Or is that just me?

     Many times over the years I have heard how difficult people find Snow Wars II and how challenging it is to achieve the Grundo – Snowthrow avatar. Well, I am here to help! I have a list of tried-and-true tips that are sure to have you slinging snowballs successfully in no time!

     First off, let’s review the goals for this game! In Snow Wars II, your overall goal is to protect your snowmen with an army of snowball catapulting Grundos surrounded by a snow fortress. You must defeat waves of enemies consisting of Snow Beasts catapulting snowballs to knock down your fortress and Lupes advancing on your fortress to attack the snowmen. Something to take note of is that Snow Beasts cannot harm your snowmen and Lupes cannot harm or pass through the snow blocks.

     Each round consists of a building phase where you place snow blocks to reinforce your fortress, a placing phase where you place your catapults within your fortress, and an attack phase where you defend your fortress from attacking Snow Beasts and Lupes. The building phase is 30 seconds long in the first round, and 15 seconds in every round following. The catapult placing phase is 15 seconds, and the attack phase also lasts 15 seconds.

     In order to successfully advance to the next round, you must have at least one snowman that has not been attacked and is enclosed within your fortress. Once an area is fully enclosed, it will turn blue. If your fortress interior is not blue, this indicates there is a breach in the walls that needs to be repaired.

     To achieve the Grundo – Snowthrow avatar, you must score a total of 10,000 points. If your score is higher than 11,000 points, it will be submitted for review by TNT. Without further ado, let’s get into my tips!

     1. Pick the right layout. It’s difficult to defend your snowmen if they are in a poor layout. The right layout will have all 5 snowmen on your side of the line, far enough from the line and edges of the screen to place at least 3 rows of blocks in front of them. If you start with a poor layout, restart the game until you have a layout you are happy with. You may need to restart the game several times before you find a layout that will work well!

     2. Start small. There are many guides there that suggest you surround all 5 snowmen on the first level. This can be extremely challenging to complete within the time limit and leave you with thin walls that are difficult to maintain. Instead, I recommend starting by surrounding only two or three snowmen closest to the front line. This will allow you to keep your walls thicker right from the start, and you can build your fortress just a little larger with each round.

     3. When placing your catapults, leave lots of space for blocks. Make sure there is room between your catapults and the front line for at least three rows of blocks – the more the merrier! The same rule applies to the edges of the screen – make sure there is room for lots of thick walls all the way around your catapults. Importantly remember, just because there is room for catapults doesn’t mean you need to fill that space! Once you have enough catapults that you can rapidly click on the advancing enemy and get a snowball launched with every click, you do not need any more catapults. Around 20 catapults are usually enough!

     4. Keep your walls thick! Thick walls are more difficult for the enemy catapults to break through. This means there will be few breaches in the wall to fix each building round!

     5. Expand your fortress by a small amount each round. In the building phase, first focus on repairing any holes in your wall then making sure the walls stay thick, but use the extra time provided to make your fortress just a bit larger each round until it fills the entire play area.

     6. Know where you need to place blocks before the next round starts. In the last few seconds of the attack phase, and while the dialogue box is up, you should be already assessing your fortress to determine where there are any breaches. If there are no breaches your fortress interior will be blue, if there are breaches it will be white. It is easier to secure your fortress in the build phase if you know where to reinforce the walls before the timer starts.

     7. Have a backup plan. Once you have a main area with 20 catapults surrounded, make a small area with 2 to 4 catapults and one snowman that is separated from your main fortress. This secondary area will save you if you can’t secure your main fortress in time!

     8. You can place snow blocks on the enemy side of the line. Sometimes you end up with blocks that are just too large and awkward to be useful. Toss those ones on the enemy side of the line! It will get rid of blocks you can’t use, provide an obstacle for the Lupes to go around, and give the Snow Beasts some useless snow blocks to aim their snowballs at.

     9. The game gets easier with time! Once you have ensured your fortress fills the whole screen, your walls stay thick, and you have around 20 catapults to fire at the enemy, the game gets easier! You should reach this stage around 2000 points. Now you just have to maintain what you have already built up!

     10. Most importantly – Practice!! Getting comfortable placing snow blocks to build and maintain your fortress will take some time, but you will get there!

     These tips are what I use every time I play and now Snow Wars II is one of my favourite games! I am sure these tips will help you too – now get out there and win that avatar!!