You can die during the screen transition in level 8. This gives you invincibility throughout the rest of the level and is pretty easy to replicate.

This is the route I took. I really wanted to do a swordless AD RMG but I couldn't figure out how :( I just think it's neat

Are cheats allowed in the Any% category? Specifically, the button combo to get all max troops.

Can we add a bomb% category? Just bombs, no tanks or guns. There's already a completed run here

For anyone who runs this game on emulator, I made an autosplitter here https://github.com/cactuar1989/nes_autosplitters/tree/main/Contra . I don't speedrun this game so lmk if the splits are not right, especially for the last boss.