Wargame: AirLand Battle Guide

by SandyGunfox

I was begged to write this guide by the noobs of the /vg/ Wargame General Steam group
chat. Many of those folks helped me out with staging screenshots or just general input, advice,
and experience - so thanks goes out to all of them!

This guide is primarily formatted by in-game section. Objective information is generally

presented first, with subjective and opinionated input in italics. This is intended to be a layman’s
guide to hopefully shorten that period between being a total noob and beginning to master the
game. Many of the claims and opinions expressed in this guide are not hard-and-fast rules, but
rather general statements that may have some exceptions.

First, a table of contents:

Introduction
Common Wargamer Slang & Vocabulary
Military Terminology & In-Game Terms
Factions

Basics
Combined Arms
Recon
Concealment and Stealth
Static Defensive Positioning and Cover
Offensive Maneuvers and Flanking
Economy of Force
Unit Organization and Grouping
Urban Warfare and Buildings
Types of Move Orders
Morale and Veterancy
Terror Weapons and Fire
Supply and Logistics Management
Defense-In-Depth and Counter-Offensives
Tactical Mobility and Maneuver Warfare
Defense vs. Offense and Strategic Objectives
Know the Map, Terrain, and Fronts
Control Groups
Aircraft Maneuvering, Handling, and Response Times
Integrated Air Defense Systems
 Placement of Command Vehicles
In-Game Etiquette, Flares, and Team Communications

Units
Logistics
Infantry
Support
Tanks
Recon
Vehicle
Helicopters
Planes

Decks
Making a Custom Deck
Bonuses
Do’s and Don’ts

Conclusions

Introduction
So, welcome to Wargame! Let’s start off by discussing the important questions - “What’s
a Wargame? Is it like Starcraft or Command and Conquer? AirLand Battle is a stupid name, do
the developers not speak English very well or something?”

Wargame: AirLand Battle is a real time strategy (RTS) game made by developers Eugen
Systems. These guys (collectively and affectionately referred to by some as “Eugene”) are
pretty damn good developers, all things considered. You can expect this game to be lovingly
supported with balance patches and even free DLC, just like the game that came before it,
Wargame: European Escalation.

It is absolutely nothing like Starcraft or C&C. If you play it like you play other RTS
games, you will get your ass kicked. If you are new to Wargame, it is best to approach it like
a new experience, and not to rely on the lessons learned in other games. Eugene takes the
“Wargame” moniker quite seriously, and this game more closely resembles a fast-paced
tabletop wargame than most video game RTSes.

The name “AirLand Battle” is taken from the real U.S. Army warfighting doctrine for the
European theater in the 80s when this game takes place. This is actually a very important point
to note - many of the tactics in this game are taken from real-world tactical necessities, rather
than video gamey tactics. If you talk to halfway-decent players, they are going to talk about
real-world concepts like “combined arms” and “American armor is not invincible or even
particularly good” rather than zerg rushes. You will learn more from the study of real-world
tactical discipline than you will by improving APM or other silly video game concepts. If someone
boasts of their APM in Wargame, ignore them, for they are idiots. Oh, and the developers are
French, and sometimes their English can be a little idiosyncratic.

After you sign in (or, if this is your first time, making an account - and if you need help
figuring this part out, please just turn around and close the game, because God himself couldn’t
help you) you’ll notice two important things.

First, you’ll notice a chat room to the right side of the screen. Under it, you will see this
panel:

Press the green button. The chat room will disappear. This is useful because the chat
room is full of complete fucking idiots. You will, however, likely need this chat display panel for
communicating in multiplayer lobbies. Next to it, the “Add Friend” button, confusingly, is not how
you add friends in most cases. More on that later. Finally, the red button clears the chat panel.

In the bottom center of the screen, you’ll see this:

But you’ll have zero XP and that QR code will instead be your Steam avatar. If you click
it, you will go to your profile.

The real action is to the left. Here:

 “Options” is for the game’s configuration, and “Profile” allows you to change your
in-game nickname and view your stats and your friends list. If you need any further explanation
of these features, know that Wargame isn’t exactly a video game for people new to video
games. There’s a truly exciting, excellent series called “Call of Duty” that someone of your skill
might find perfectly suited to your special needs.

One other thing to note is the last numbers at the very bottom left. When a patch is
released, those numbers will change to the new patch version - pictured here is patch v1250. If
you get a “failed to join game room” error while trying to join peoples’ rooms, make sure you
have the latest patch.

Now click Solo. Now click Tutorial. Play those tutorials before you do anything else.
Seriously, go on now. This guide will still be here when you get back. Really, go. Play those first.

Did you go play them? You just skipped ahead to read the next paragraph, didn’t you?
Come on, it’s a freaking tutorial, what are you afraid of? Well, once you do play them, you
should know that they don’t teach you jack shit about how to really play. In fact, some players
consider the basics of the tutorials (with M1A1s killing large numbers of shitty Pact armor
single-handedly) to be horribly misleading. But you should at least have a basic handle on how
to select and move units, how to call in air forces, and so on and so forth, and that’s important.

Under Deck, you’ll see something like this:

“What’s a Battlegroup?” you ask, noobishly. These battlegroups are twelve pre-made
decks, so that you can get right into the “real” game. Deck-building is an essential part of this
game, but it’s honestly not the first thing you should do. So the developers have helpfully
created twelve decks, one for each nation, so that you can get a feel for the basics before diving
into advanced tweaking. If you click one, you can select View and see the units contained
within. “Copy” will also be clickable - remember this, because once you get a feel for the game,
copying and modifying a premade deck is an easy way to jump into deck-building.

These decks suck. There is no more polite way to say this. All of them are highly
sub-optimal. The only ones even remotely useable for new players are the Soviet battlegroup
and the French and British battlegroups. Play them first, and then move on to the others. I
recommend playing every battlegroup at least once, so that you get a feel for each nation’s
basic units and their capabilities. Know that Eugene did suggest they will re-configure all of the
premade decks, so this may be subject to change, but for now...they suck.
Some vocabulary
One thing you’re going to notice about this guide is that I don’t talk like a video game
manual. I’m going to talk like the average Wargamer talks. I’m going to use the slang that the
average Wargamer uses. This doesn’t help if you don’t know what I mean. So know these
terms. You may recognise these terms from other video games. If so, good for you.

Common Wargamer Slang & Vocabulary

Becoming a Wargamer means talking like a Wargamer. If you don’t understand what the
hell Wargamers are talking about, you’re never going to become one.

APM
Actions Per Minute. People bragging about having a high APM in Wargame are idiots.
This is not that kind of game.

Best Germany/Worst Germany

Slang terms for East and West Germany, respectively.

Burrito
Nickname of the TOS-1 Buratino flame rocket launcher.

Card
Decks are built from these, they are a single slot item in a deck. Unit availability often
expressed in deck-building as “units per card.”

Cheese
Refers to tactics that are generally not considered “legitimate” gameplay, and rely on
“gamey” concepts rather than “real” gameplay to win. Related to, but not the same as, spam.
For example, spamming cheap helicopters such as Dornier 205s with the knowledge that the
average opposite player won’t have bought enough air defenses for such an unconventional
tactic could be regarded as cheese. There is a very blurry line between unconventional
strategies and cheese. Just because something is not conventional does not make it cheese. A
general rule of thumb is that if the tactic would be ridiculously easy to beat if the enemy were
expecting it, and works only because it’s not an expected mode of gameplay, it is cheese.
 Cost-Effectiveness / Cost-Efficiency
Refers to the number of points a unit kills over the number of points a unit costs. If a
5-point unit can kill 50 points of enemy units on average, it is significantly more cost effective
than a 120-point tank that kills 100 points of enemy units on average.

Deck
The arrangement of forces you bring to a match. You choose a deck before a match
starts. The twelve pre-made “battlegroups” are example decks, but you’ll generally be using
decks you custom-built.

Dying Like A Bitch

Refers to an expensive, high-end unit getting killed by a cheap, low-cost counter,
typically without having accomplished anything useful (see: Feeding).

Eugene
Collective fan nickname for Eugen Studios

Feeding
Feeding is something all noobs do. It’s when you make useless, wasteful, or
counter-productive moves that end up just giving the enemy lots of points. Since most game
modes rely on accumulating points for victory, this ends up helping the enemy and causes your
teammates to hate you.

Micromanagement / Micro
Refers to focusing on individual units’ positioning, movements, or combat. Knowing
when to micromanage and when not to micromanage is vital.

MPH
Miles Per Hour. Since all measurements in this game are in metric, anyone (see:
Americans) who refers to a unit’s speed in miles per hour is actually meaning kilometers per
hour.

NSWP / PACT Minors

Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact (nation). Refers collectively to Czechoslovakia, Poland, and
East Germany.

OP
Overpowered. A unit, nation, technique, or deck that is too cost-effective or too powerful
relative to its counters. 90% of the time, anyone whining about something being OP is usually
just upset because they don’t know how to counter it.

Pub / Pubbie / Randoms

“Public” players, i.e. people you do not know who join a game. Collectively derided as
being generally low-quality as a whole, though obviously individual pubs vary in skill level.

Push / Pushing
Attacking a specific part of the map, or attempting to move enemy lines back.

Ragequit
Refers to the depressingly common instance where a player quits a match because
they’re upset something didn’t go their way. Never do this. In most modes of Wargame, it’s
perfectly possible to lose the majority of the map but win the match regardless - and even then,
it’s also very fun to play as a defensive, even when you lose.

Snipe / Sniping
Refers to using a single accurate targeted strike, usually by artillery or an aircraft, to
eliminate a specific enemy unit. Typically done on high-value or important targets like CVs,
SAMs, and artillery units.

Spam
Refers to using large numbers of a single unit type. Despite what some people claim,
this is a legitimate playstyle and can be done “correctly,” however, it is actually harder to pull off
than “conventional” gameplay. Not the same as cheese, but cheese frequently relies on this.

Stab
Stabilizer. Refers to a system that some tanks have that allow the gun to be fired
accurately while moving.

Tactics vs. Strategies

Tactics are things individual units do, like “flank that enemy tank” or “hide in that forest.”
Strategies are plans to achieve the goal of the match (the strategic objective) like “earn 4000
points as a team” or “kill all enemy CVs.” Operations are between the two, being things like “use
an armored blitz to secure sector Alpha in order to move on sector Delta.”

Military Terminology & In-Game Terms

Because this game uses real-world units and techniques, many of the game’s aspects
are discussed using real-world terms and acronyms.

Air Lane
The lanes in which airplanes spawn from.

AAA
Anti-Aircraft Artillery. Pronounced “triple-A.” Refers to gun-based anti-aircraft units. See
SPAAG.

APC
Armored Personnel Carrier. A troop transport that is generally lightly armed and
armored.

Arty
Artillery. Often used as a verb (i.e. artying).

ATGM
Anti-Tank Guided Missile. This is to distinguish it from (unguided) LAWs/RPGs,
MANPADS and SAMs. These are guided missiles used to engage armor, generally at long
range.

CAP / Combat Air Patrol

Refers to using fighters or interceptors defensively, keeping one patrolling the air to
intercept enemy aircraft quickly. Not to be confused with shorthand for “capture.”

CAS
Close Air Support. Refers to using attacker aircraft to counter enemy attacks in a close
tactical situation.

Command Points
These are points used to “buy” new units from your deck. They accumulate over time
based on how many command zones your team control in the game. Accumulation of command
points is also the key to victory in the Economy game mode. Not to be confused with score
points.

Command Vehicle / CV
Refers to a specific type of unit in the game. These are highly fragile and precious units
that must be well-cared for and protected.
 Flank / Flanking
Flanks are the sides of a military line. Flanking refers to moving along the side of an
enemy unit or defensive line rather than attacking them head-on.

FOB
Forward Operating Base, the only building you can build in Wargame.

IADS
Integrated Air Defense Systems. Refers to using multiple different types of air defense
units to create a formidable zone defense against aircraft.

IFV
Infantry Fighting Vehicle. Troop transports and lighter fighting vehicles that are heavier
armed than APCs, generally with ATGMs and autocannons.

IR / Infrared
IR refers to weapons systems (guided missiles generally) that are guided by infrared
energy (heat-seeking) as opposed to Radar. This is relevant in the game because IR missiles
cannot be targeted by SEAD.

LAW / RPG
Refers collectively to short-range anti-tank rockets used by non-ATGM infantry. While
they are used as a generic term, they also refer to specific weapon systems (the Soviet RPG
series, and the American M72 LAW

MANPADS
Man-Portable Air Defense System. Refers to infantry-borne anti-air guided missiles, like
the Stinger or Igla.

MLRS / Rocket Battery

Multiple Launch Rocket System. Refers both to the specific American unit called the
MLRS, and as a general term for rocket artillery units.

NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. One of the two factions in Wargame.
 PACT
Warsaw Pact. One of the two factions in Wargame.

SACLOS and MCLOS

Semi-Automatic Command Line-Of Sight and Manual Command Line-Of-Sight. Types of
missile guidance systems.

SAM
Surface to Air Missile. Refers to any surface-launched guided anti-aircraft missile,
however, it is often used in-game to refer to non-MANPADS missiles in particular.

SAM Bubble
Refers to the half-sphere above the surface where a SAM can hit a target with a missile.
Also used generically to refer to one side’s entire IADS zone; an aircraft flying behind enemy
lines is said to be within their SAM bubble.

Score Points
These are awarded for killing enemy units. When you kill an enemy unit, you are
awarded its cost in command points as a score. So if you kill a 90-point M1 Abrams tank, you
receive 90 score points. Accumulation of score points is the primary means of winning in the
Destruction mode.

SEAD
Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. Pronounced “seed.” In real life it refers to the
general practice of targeting air-defense units in preparation for effortless airstrikes. In game it is
often used to refer specifically to SEAD aircraft (aircraft that fire anti-radar missiles).

SPAAG
Self-Propelled Anti-Air Gun. Refers to mobile anti-air gun systems, such as the Pact
Shilka or the NATO PIVADS or Gepard.

Spawn / Spawn Zone

Spawn refers both to the act of bringing new units into the battlefield, and the zones in
which these units can arrive.

Special Forces / Special Ops

Refers to a type of high-end infantry unit that generally specializes in unconventional
tactics like raids and behind-enemy-lines operations.
 Unit Group

Looks something like this:

This refers to a grouping of one to four units. You can only group identical units.

Factions

So, now that we’re here, let’s discuss the factions and nations of Wargame: AirLand
Battle. There are twelve countries in two factions. These factions are not identical. The nations
within are not interchangeable. And yes, some nations are outright better than other nations -
this is because this is simply a historical fact. If someone whines that America has units that
Polish decks have no good counter for, that’s because Poland was objectively militarily weaker
than the United States. Deal with it.

As seen here, not every faction has an equal number of units either. Generally speaking,
the Soviets on the PACT side and the USA on the NATO side are the easiest nationalities to get
into for new players, since they have the largest selection and variety of units.

NATO
 The first faction is NATO. NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In the
real world, NATO was an alliance founded in 1949 by the Western powers to form a united front
against Soviet aggression. In-game, they are the blue team. Some players also refer to them as
the “allies” because they’re idiots. Others call them the Western powers. NATO is host to eight
countries: The USA, France, Britain, West Germany, Canada, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

As a rule of thumb, NATO forces generally have weaker tanks, better infantry, better air
forces, and most importantly, much higher unit diversity. These are not universal
hard-and-fast rules, but they are general rules of thumb that you can keep in mind. Really, only
the US, France, Britain, and maybe West Germany and Sweden are viable as national decks -
the rest (the “NATO minors”) are best used in multi-nation decks where you can take their most
worthwhile units while not inheriting their shortcomings.

The first nation in the NATO faction is the United States of America. They are by far the
largest faction in NATO and usually the one new players rush to first, especially if they are
Americans. This is not necessarily a bad thing; they are also the easiest NATO nation to play.

They have the widest variety of units in NATO and so generally can fill any given role
with a strictly national deck. They have the best-quality Air Force in NATO and are generally
spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing aircraft. More on that later. However, they do not
have the best armor in NATO, as many of their main-line options remain heavily overpriced.
Their infantry as a whole is generally unexceptional, although American decks have decent
options for transports.

Additionally, it’s a priority that you know most American equipment offhand, for two
reasons - the first is that most NATO players play America, and the second is that many NATO
forces use American equipment as well.

The next nation in NATO is France. French units are generally light, hard-hitting, and
fast, but with poor armor. This is due to a not-widely-known historical fact that French armor
developed after the Second World War was actually developed out of stale baguettes, and was
thus generally inferior in the face of modern HEAT and kinetic penetrator tank shells.

Their specialties generally lie in light, fast units that punch above their weight and are
generally cost-effective. They are best used in very mobile strategies and for ambushes.
However, they are very poor in static slugging matches and in static defenses. Most of their
tanks lack stabilizers (more on that later), making them also poor at fighting retreats.

The next nation is Great Britain, aka the United [Link] UK has excellent armored
vehicles with heavy frontal armor, but they are rather slow. Because Eugene is French, the
British forces will always be slightly inferior to the French forces. Also, all British tanks have
facilities for heating tea using the heat from their engines. True fact.

This makes them the tactical opposite of France - they are best in stand-up fights where
their frontal armor can absorb blows, but are difficult to keep up with a highly mobile front. Their
infantry are nearly the opposite - many come in highly mobile light armored transports.

After that comes West Germany. West German forces are a funny mix of older American
equipment and newer, high-tech German equipment. Oh, by the way, this game has two
German factions, and if you confuse the two of them, you’re an idiot.
 They combine high tech, high-strength vehicles with heavily-armed infantry, but are
generally lacking in some other areas. They have a low variety of units, an unexceptional air
force, and generally you’ll have to pay a fair bit of money to see the best units West Germany
has to offer.

The next NATO nation is Sweden. Despite their lack of unit variety, Swedes are actually
surprisingly viable, with under-appreciated tanks and surprisingly quick and strong infantry.
Swedish infantry will absolutely fight to the death, because death is preferable to living in
Sweden.

Sweden has decent infantry and recon, very good tanks, but are hampered by an
unexceptional air force and a lack of ground-based anti-air defenses.

The next NATO nation is Canada. If you want to play Canada, you’re wrong. Seriously,
you’re just wrong. Nobody wants to play Canada. They’re too polite to be good at the cold war.
Play with Americans or something instead.

But if you do insist on playing Canada, they do have some decent units. They have
decent infantry with good transport options, a decent air force, but lack good AA options and
generally have inferior tanks.

The next NATO nation is Norway. They have formidable infantry and a modernized air
force. Since this is written by an American, I really don’t know enough about Norway to make a
joke about them, so just...try them out or something.

They have a modern air force that will not steer you wrong. Unfortunately, they lack
decent armor options, so you’ll have to rely on their very good infantry.

The last NATO nation is Denmark. Denmark’s forces are by and large light and fast, and
they have very cost-effective infantry.

Danish forces are not the easiest to play for a new player. They also lack in effective
heavy armor. However, they provide a good number of supporting units that can fill out mixed
NATO decks, and should not be overlooked.

Warsaw Pact

The other faction is the Warsaw Pact, referred to generally as “PACT”. The Warsaw
Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance was a mutual defense
treaty organization formed in 1955 as a reaction to NATO’s formation and power in Europe.
In-game, they are the red team. Some players refer to them as the “bad guys” because they’re
idiots. Others call them the Eastern powers. Pact is home to four factions: The Soviet Union,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany.

In general, Pact forces have heavier armor, cheaper air forces, excellent gunship
helicopters, and specialize more in lower-tech solutions. Importantly, they have much lower
unit diversity. This is a historical reality - the majority of Pact forces were armed with Soviet
equipment, so their forces are highly similar. The Soviet Union dominates the Pact forces, and
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland are collectively referred to as “Pact Minors” or
“NSWP” (Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact) countries.

The first nation in the Pact faction is the Soviet Union, aka the USSR (Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics). They are by far the largest faction in the Warsaw Pact and the largest
faction in the game, and usually the one new players rush to first. This is not necessarily a bad
thing; they are also the easiest Pact nation to play.

They have the widest variety of units in Pact and so generally can fill any given role with
a strictly national deck. They have the best Air Force in Pact and are generally spoilt for choice
when it comes to choosing aircraft. They also have the best armored forces in the Warsaw Pact,
and generally have some of the best heavy armor in the game. They have unexceptional line
infantry, but decent specialized infantry forces and a good variety of transports.

Additionally, it’s a priority that you know most Soviet equipment offhand, for two reasons
- the first is that most Pact players play the Soviets, and the second is that every other Pact
faction heavily relies on Soviet equipment as well.

East Germany is the first Pact minor. They heavily rely on relatively outdated Soviet
equipment, but they have decent recon capabilities and more than a good variety of decent
infantry in fast transports. They are one of two German factions in the game, and if you confuse
them, you probably got deja vu when you read this sentence.

Like Poland, they are generally best at using large numbers of lower-tech units than the
USSR. They do have a decent lower-cost air force, good infantry, and it’s generally capable of
fielding a large number of cheap MiGs.
 Poland is the next Pact minor. Like Germany, they rely heavily on outdated Soviet
equipment. However, they have strong infantry transports and sport very useful specialist
infantry in good transports.

They have a low-cost air force that is mostly useful for spamming planes, but they have
affordable helicopter support, good infantry, great artillery, and decent armor. Like East
Germany, they are generally best at using large numbers of lower-tech units than the USSR.

Czechoslovakia is the last Pact nation, and generally the most unique NSWP nation.
They are particularly notable for their powerful artillery, and their number of national variants of
Soviet equipment. They have plenty of relatively unique vehicles and decent infantry.

Czechoslovakia is best as a Soviet national alternative, and have a decent air force,
great artillery, good infantry transports, and decent armor. Oh, and prepare for lots of puns on
the word “Czech”.

How To Play Wargame: AirLand Battle

Okay, so now you know what the factions are, you’ve familiarized yourself with the
menu, you might have even played the tutorial! So, you know how to play, right? I mean, you
call in units, you select them, tell them to kill the other guy’s stuff, so on and so forth. Let’s go
kick some ass, right?

Then you go and rush into your first multiplayer match, and you get your ass handed to
you. “This game sucks!” you complain. “It’s so unrealistic! I sent in like twenty Abrams tanks and
they got slaughtered by some stupid Soviet unit when everyone knows American armor would
kick their asses!”

No, my made-up friend used for a rhetorical device, it is not Wargame that sucks, it is
you that sucks. Yes, you. You suck.

But that’s quite alright, because I’m going to teach you to not suck. Not sucking at
Wargame requires one thing, and that thing is some common fucking sense. Unfortunately, I
don’t know how to write a guide on the Internet to teach common sense, so instead, I’m going to
teach you all the general knowledge, basic usage conditions, and advanced techniques you
need to recognise, appreciate, utilize, and counter every unit in the game. Yes, all ~850 of them.
I’ll also teach you all the basic mechanics and some of the crucial advanced techniques you’ll
need to master.

Basics
First, though, let’s start with the general basics of how to play Wargame right. This will
require a little knowledge and education, and if necessary, the un-learning of bad habits learned
from more popular RTSes.

First off, this will require the teaching of some basic concepts. These are listed in no
particular order. These concepts are not strategies you can choose to employ sometimes. They
must be habits. They must be things you must do all the time. When you fail to employ these
concepts, you will lose every time against an even remotely competent player.

“The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one
be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will
suffer defeat:--let such a one be dismissed!“ - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Combined Arms

First off, it is important to learn that Wargame is not about spamming two or three
units in combination. Wargame does not have ~850 units so that you can use three of them. If
you spam only a couple types of units, your opponent is going to bring in their counters, and
your units are going to die like a bitch. Wargame absolutely requires the effective use of
combined arms. I cannot stress enough that combined arms operations are not optional.

So, let’s consider this as an attacking force:

 Looks good, right? That’s, like, almost 40 Abrams tanks! There’s no way we could
possibly lose!

Ahahahaha. No. Do you know what I think when I see something like that coming at me?
I think, “Holy shit, how did you afford that many units, that must cost like 3,925 points!” I then
think, “Oh, good, this will be easy.”

You know what happens after I see something like that? This!
 See how it says “Stunned!” over all of those Abrams tanks? That’s actually a translation
error Eugene hasn’t fixed yet. What it really should say is “Kill me now! I’m helpless!” You know
what’s going to happen after that?
 That.

Okay, you ask, but how does combined arms fit into this? Simple. Wargame is
fundamentally a game of counters. There is not a single unit in the game that does not have
another type of unit dedicated to killing it. This means that if you spam one type of unit, your
opponent will simply spam its counter. If you spam two types of units, they will spam two
types of counter (or better still, one unit that counters both). Any halfway competent player
should know the units of the game by heart, and intuitively know what units in their deck will
counter them. Thus, you have to build balanced forces that can flexibly adapt to a wide array of
potential tactical scenarios. Don’t buy a ton of heavy tanks and only a token few escorts. It
should be the other way around - a few heavy tanks should be well-escorted by support
vehicles. Your basic general-purpose forces should look something more like this:
 Notice how there’s really only a handful tanks? You can have more than that depending
on what the force is actually going to be needed for, but the point is, the majority of these
forces are supporting the heavy armor, not the other way around.

“But, player’s guide,” you protest, “I’m not stupid! Even Starcraft has units that counter
other units!” I don’t think you quite understand. Okay, so you know not to spam a single type of
unit. But Wargame is different. Wargame has a huge variety of units, all of which must be
accounted for and prepared against. The force pictured above has heavy armor, medium armor,
support guns, AAA, IR SAMs, ATGMs, infantry, recon, logistics, and a command element. It is
capable of answering most types of enemy attacks that can be thrown at it.

Wargame is deeper than the tactical rock-paper-scissors approach of “heli beats armor
beats infantry beats heli” that many other “strategic” games employ. And if this sounds
overwhelming, trust me - it will become second-nature after a little experience. It honestly is not
that hard. With a little knowledge of real-world weapon systems, you will find it very intuitive. The
hard part for most new Wargame players is not learning Wargame’s units and how they interact,
but “un-learning” other games’ habits. Use real-world logic, not video game logic.

Recon

Recon is another one of those things that is not optional. You must have sufficient
reconnaissance to spot enemy forces. The vast majority of units do not provide their own vision
to an appreciable degree. Wargame does not have a convenient “fog of war” that shows you
where enemies might be. You can see the whole map at all times. There could be an enemy
infantry squad right there, in your spawn zone, spotting all your precious high-value targets for
artillery strikes and exposing every surprise you ever attempt, and you could go the whole
freaking match without knowing it. Don’t believe me? I do this against other players all the time,
so I certainly know the value of this fact.

Observe the importance of recon. Here is the command sector Golf:

Peaceful, right? So let’s capture it with a command vehicle, right? Here is the exact
same scene, after moving a recon unit in:
 Holy shit! Aren’t you sorry you went waltzing your command vehicle into that peaceful
little spawn zone like an idiot? Remember, recon is the difference between victory and
defeat. You cannot possibly know what the enemy is doing or how to counter what the enemy is
doing if you can’t see what they’re doing.

Next time you’re in a match, look at an empty forest or building in your spawn zone. Just
look at it. See the empty forest? There’s an enemy recon infantry squad in there. Yes, in that
empty zone you’re staring straight at. Right there. Don’t believe me? Send a cheap infantry
squad over there. Every deck should have some cheap infantry. It costs you next to nothing to
be a little cautious, but it can save you the game.

Consider an American military aphorism: “If you can see it, you can hit it. And if you can
hit it, you can kill it.” Spotting a target is always going to be the first step in engaging it, so why
would you ever skimp out on being able to spot your targets? Set up a few recon squads of your
own on your flanks, and on the sides of the map, and on the tops of steep hills, where they can
keep an eye on things. Without recon, you won’t know what the enemy has, where they’re
oriented, and how to counter them until they’re right on top of you. Ever fought an opponent who
just seemed to beat you at every possible turn? Like he just magically had on hand the worst
possible units you could’ve run into? Guess what - he had hidden recon units scouting out your
forces, and you failed to respond in kind and failed to hunt and kill their own recon.

Specific advice on the use of individual types of recon units will be in a later section. As a
general rule, though, you must always have recon to be effective. Any experienced Wargamer
will tell you without fail, “You cannot have too much recon.”

Concealment and Stealth

You’ve learned about the importance of recon - concealment is the other side of the coin.
It is generally advisable to assume that any unit out in the open is seen by the enemy. If
you want to achieve tactical surprise, you must learn to use cover and concealment. Cover is a
factor of terrain and concealment. Any unit can hide in forests or swamps or in hedgerows.
You can tell where terrain is considered concealment because the cursor turns light blue when
you mouse over it.
 Additionally, infantry and only infantry can hide on hills and mountainsides, and in
buildings. Infantry and buildings will be covered in another section.

Forests are the thickest cover. Inside a forest, even recon units will not see other units
until they are practically within knife-fighting range. This can be an asset or a liability. If your
tanks get cornered in short range by concealed units, they are going to die like a bitch. Even
against other tanks - more on how distance affects armored warfare later. Also note that
vehicles are going to move through forests very slowly. Oh, and infantry in forests are really
hard to spot.

Swamps will also hide your units, but not nearly as effectively as forests. Swamps are
also rough terrain that will slow down your tanks. More on the effects of terrain later.

Hedgerows are the third major type of terrain cover. Unlike forests and swamps,
hedgerows are not easy to see if you zoom out - but zoom in closer to the ground and you will
be able to differentiate them. Hedgerows will conceal your units, but not as effectively as forests.
Generally speaking, hedgerows provide concealment when other places of concealment are
unavailable or too obvious.

This is an important point of note - it doesn’t matter that your units are concealed if
it’s particularly obvious where units would be concealed. If there is one single small patch
of forest in your command sector, don’t freaking put your CV there. That’s exactly where any
Wargamer would expect it to be and that forest is going to get napalmed the second they decide
it’s safe to attack. It is a common-enough technique to send bombers or artillery to blind-attack
limited cover points hoping to get a lucky blind CV kill. Hedgerows are very good for this. In
sectors with hedgerows but limited forest land, it’s generally a better idea to hide your CV and
anti-aircraft pieces and whatnot out in the hedgerows where their location is less guessable.
Hiding your CV in a dense forest is preferable, but only if you can secure the forest (it
doesn’t have a wide open border that enemy forces can sneak through) and it’s too large to
reasonably expect a blind barrage or airstrike to get lucky.

Finally, hills and mountainsides are accessible only to infantry, but should not be
overlooked. The height advantage of hills gives recon infantry great lines of sight. MANPADS
are always a good choice for hilltops as well, and ATGMs are situated above the forests
surrounding hills and thus have clear lines of sight where they can launch at passing vehicles.
Additionally, most players seem to mentally see these areas as physical barriers (because
vehicles can’t go through them) and so dismiss the possibility of enemy attacks from that
direction.

So, you know where to conceal units, but why? The first reason is generally obvious -
units that are concealed are less likely to be seen by the enemy. However, even when your
forces reveal themselves by firing or being spotted by enemy recon, the enemy still won’t know
the extent of your forces. This will force them to be cautious or to take risks, which is good for
you. Never give the enemy information you don’t have to give them. Why volunteer the
information on your disposition of forces when you can at least make them work for it?

There are certain units you should always endeavor to keep concealed. Command
vehicles out in the open can be spotted by any passing recon helicopter or any other passing
unit. This means they’re going to be targeted and killed quickly. Ambushes on enemy
movements should also be kept hidden - this allows them to get the first shot off when they
engage, which is often decisive. You should keep the recon units that are not moving with your
front concealed, as well, that way they are not interfered with at crucial times.

The second advantage to concealment is that they not only hide what units you have
and where they are, but when and where they move as well. If there is a large forest near an
enemy-held sector, and they are not fortifying that forests themselves, it’s like leaving an open
door for you to waltz on in and take the sector from them. Forests are a great place to move
recon units around and keep an eye on enemy positions. This is also highly important for
lightly-armored ATGM carriers, such as TOW jeeps, which are best used in a shoot-and-scoot
manner where they fire missiles, then retreat out of sight before the enemy can get close
enough to engage.

The third advantage of concealment is you can tell when concealed units have been
spotted. Don’t underestimate this crucial advantage - it’s often your first and only warning that
enemy recon units are about before the pinpoint-accurate artillery fire starts falling. How do you
know when a concealed unit has been spotted? Hidden units will pulse between transparent
and opaque, while spotted units will be opaque. Observe:

See the difference? Always keep an eye out for when units that should be hidden
suddenly aren’t. It’s very easy to spot, just look for the opaque bright dot in the midst of the
terrain and the non-pulsing unit marker. That almost certainly means there’s enemy recon about.
Bear in mind that this applies to your enemy, too. If you have recon sneaking about and spot a
hidden unit, consider killing it quickly to avoid revealing your recon’s presence.

Static Defensive Positioning and Cover

Okay, so you’ve got some decently mixed forces, and you’ve got some recon scattered
around the map and heading in front of your forces. You’re good to go, right? Now you can get
to killing some bad guys?

So you run right into their defensive line, and get promptly slaughtered. What gives? You
brought counters for things! You scouted them out! And then when you attacked, they destroyed
you! This game is clearly broken and the other guy’s units are OP and need to be nerfed!

No, you’ve just discovered the power of appropriate positioning of your forces.
Consider this defensive line:
 This is a fair example of combined arms - you’ve got your recon units, heavy armor up
front, infantry, AA guns, a SAM launcher, and support vehicles. But they’re all clustered together
and given no positioning whatsoever! A single artillery strike is going to render that entire
defensive line useless, which is going to promptly follow with them getting steamrolled.

Consider this basic defensive line, instead.

These are similar forces - they’ve got combined arms, SAMs, AA guns, with heavy armor
up front, recon spread out, AA guns, and support. So what’s the big difference? The difference
is that these units are spread out over a wide area and positioned in cover. There is a wide
open field in front of them that will turn into a killing zone. Units in cover cannot be seen from
as far away as units out in the open, and they take less damage from enemy attacks. Being
spread out over a front makes it significantly harder for enemies to target them all at once, while
making it easier for my units to engage enemies from multiple directions. Additionally, being
spread out allows flanking recon troops to see around smoke, which allows your vehicles to
fire through it.

Spread units are much more difficult to target with artillery, mortars, or airstrikes than
concentrated targets are. Consider these four PIVADS air-defense vehicles (for the purposes of
this example, we’re ignoring whether or not it’s wise to have four PIVADS in one grouping).

See that circle around them? That’s an artillery unit’s fire radius. Now, with these exact
same PIVADS and the exact same artillery unit, let’s see how well this works with literally just
one button press. The “Spread” command is extremely useful and underappreciated. The
default keybinding is “X”. Just select a stationary unit and press “X”. That’s it! That’s all you have
to do! Now, let’s see what happens when we issue the PIVADS a Spread command:
 The exact same artillery unit went from being able to target all four of them to being able
to target only one of them. When I see expensive, useful, or fragile units bunched up like that, I
immediately reach for my artillery’s hotkeys and get ready to fire. Don’t let that happen to you
because you were too lazy to press a single key.

Offensive Maneuvers and Flanking

Okay, you know the basics of creating a defensive line, but how does that help you when
you’re attacking an enemy’s defensive line?

It doesn’t. Attacking the enemy’s defensive line head-on with zero preparation is stupid
and suicidal unless you have an overwhelmingly superior force. Consider this: “Water shapes
its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his
victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing. Therefore, just as water retains no constant
shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.“ Do you know who said that? Sun Tzu!
The guy who literally wrote the book on warfare. If you don’t listen to me, listen to him. Let your
forces flow around obstacles like water, not barge through them while incurring heavy losses.
Even if you win the battle you can lose the war by doing this. Don’t let your proud army’s
advance turn into a Pyrrhic victory.

So, how does one accomplish this? Well, real-world commanders understood just as
well as Wargamers the difficulties of assaulting a fortified position. And so, there are many types
of units and weapon systems designed specifically for circumventing the defender’s advantage.

The first and most obvious technique is to avoid the defensive line altogether.
Understand that assaulting a static defense is always going to give the defender the advantage,
even if you can negate that advantage somewhat. I know this is not always possible.
Sometimes, the enemy is just plain between you and where you need to be. But before you
ever attack a fortified, prepared enemy, first ask yourself if you can simply go past them instead.
Encircling enemies is vastly superior to allowing them to make a fighting retreat, incur friendly
losses, and retreat to regroup and resupply.

Second, know that the Smoke Position command is the most underappreciated
asset you have. What is Smoke Position, you ask? Artillery and mortar units have an
oft-unnoticed feature that allows them to shoot smoke rounds instead of explosive ones. Let’s
see what smoke looks like when it divides a town in half:
 If the northern end of this town were occupied, they would be helpless to stop me from
occupying the southern half of the town now. “But why use harmless smoke rounds when I
could be hitting the enemy with HE shells instead?” you ask, noobishly, as you ignore one of the
best features in the game. It’s simple. Smoke break lines of sight. All those prepared ATGM
positions just waiting to turn your shiny Abrams tanks into scrap metal are going to fail to fire if
they can’t see those shiny Abrams tanks.

The defense’s recon can’t see through smoke, either, so they won’t know what forces
you’re sending until they’re already breaking through the lines. You should never, ever attack a
static defense without using smoke to blind them first. Drop it right in front of them, practically on
top of them even, then rush your advance forward and engage them when you’re right on top of
them. This turns their strengths into weaknesses and gives you the advantage. Oh, and
remember that smoke works both ways, your units are not magically able to see through it,
either.

Third, know that infantry in buildings are nigh-invincible. If you attack infantry in
buildings with your precious armored forces in close quarters, they are going to get fucking
destroyed within seconds. You must take measures to remove enemy infantry from the
premises before rolling your vehicles through a town. More on urban warfare and the amazing
capabilities of infantry in buildings later.

Fourth, understand and take advantage of morale and its effect on accuracy. Okay,
so you’ve covered your advance with smoke, so the enemy can’t see you. Now you rush in and
sweep them out, right? Well, not yet. First, you have to panic and stun the defenders, if you
want the ability to actually get in the first shots when your forces arrive. Use heavy artillery
bombardment and air power to suppress and shock defending forces before you assault them.
This sets their morale state to panic (more on that later) and ruins their ability to fight effectively.
This is also one of the few legitimate uses of rocket artillery (again, more on that later).

Finally, napalm never goes out of style. Even The Art of War has a whole chapter
dedicated to the attack by fire. Napalm and incendiary weapons are great at forcing defenders
to move out of their carefully-prepared positions and into the open where your units can cut
them down. More on the use of fire later.

Attacking the enemy’s prepared defenses is never ideal, but it is frequently necessary.
But these tactics are not freaking optional. These tactics are the difference between smashing
your army and smashing theirs.

Economy of Force

“Okay,” you complain, noobishly, “fine, I’ll use recon and put my units in cover and mix
them up and stuff. Now can I get to the explosions and stuff?”

Nope! There is another key difference that you must adjust to. In Wargame, your units
are not generally disposable. Consider these numbers, from my personal Soviet armored
deck.

So what does that mean? That means my deck, which specializes in armor, only has 52
tanks. And eight helicopters. And five whole airplanes. When you lose a unit in Wargame, that
unit is gone for the rest of the match. You can not buy more of them. Dead men do not get
do-overs. I already explained that using the right units for the right roles is vital, but this is why. If
I recklessly get even just ten tanks killed, I have lost 20% of my armored forces with no means
of recovering them, which puts me at a huge disadvantage. Remember, even if you have to
occasionally retreat, it is generally better if your units live to fight another day than die
stubbornly. Yes, sometimes you have to make a tactical sacrifice, but for the majority of
purposes, your units’ lives are too important to waste.

Economy of force is also important. You’re generally not going to start a match being
able to afford units for every contingency and do all the things you want to do. Of course, you
have to bring in more units as the situation calls for it and as you get more income. This means
that sometimes, less is more. Nobody ever measured a general’s worth by their army’s
technological superiority. Yes, there is a time and a place for having superior units, but consider
these two selections of American armor:

Both have 64 tanks total. But holy shit! One is nothing but Abrams tanks! So having
more of better units is better, right?

Nope! I would take the latter deck over the former every time. Your deck must include
lower-cost workhorses. High-end high-tech high-price heavy armor is not this workhorse. They
are the tip of your spear - your force must be filled out with cheaper, more practical solutions. So
while M60A1 RISE Pattons are not particularly good tanks, they are half the price of an M1
Abrams. Many a noob rushes headfirst into a game, deck full of Abrams tanks, and then finds
that they can’t afford a serious force because they lack cheap alternatives to their best
units. Don’t be that guy. Be the guy who always has some affordable, practical units he can
start out with and rely on. Your decks should always cover a range of expected uses.

This is also important for another reason. If you take a bunch of expensive units and they
get killed, you just helped the enemy get closer to victory. All your expensive units did was
feed them points. Every single Abrams you buy has to kill 80 to 135 points worth of stuff to have
been cost-effective. A RISE Patton has to kill only 45 points worth of stuff to have been cost
effective. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should just bring large numbers of cheap, shitty
units either. Large numbers of cheap units just means it’ll take slightly more ammo for your
enemy to win. You must find a balance between low-cost workhorses and high-cost
powerhouses. Everyone’s ideal balance is a little different, and it depends on the units you have
available, the enemy forces present, your tactical objectives, and the player’s personal style.

Knowing when to conserve and when to break out the big guns is a large part of
mastering Wargame. While everyone’s strategy varies, a good rule of thumb to start out with is
that you should comprise your general forces of medium-cost medium-strength workhorses, and
break out the big guns when you need them to fill their primary role - so, don’t break out the
heavy armor until you actually need an armored spearhead, don’t break out the expensive
gunships until there’s an armored column to destroy, and so on and so forth.
 Unit Organization and Grouping

As we already know, units come in groups of one to four. (Helicopters only come in
groups of two. They otherwise work the same.) When ordering new units, you can order four at
a time in one group by control + clicking them instead of just left-clicking them. However, it is
not always better to have units in groups of four. Knowing what numbers to group your units in
is the difference between your units being effective and dying like a bitch.

Groups of units move together and are ordered together as if they were one unit. This
can make units easier to manage, but it also limits tactical flexibility. You can’t order one
group to attack two different targets the same way you can order two groups. Groups of four
also tend to bunch up together on their own, making it easier to hit all of them at once with
artillery, rockets, or airstrikes. You can organize your units’ grouping with this panel:

And you can hide this panel with the Show/Hide Formations button. Split splits the
grouping into individual units, while selecting multiple like units and clicking Regroup forms
them into one grouping. Spread forces them to move away from each other as demonstrated
earlier.

In general, your heavy armor should not usually be in groups of four. While armor is
certainly effective in numbers, they draw fire way too quickly for that. I prefer to keep my tanks in
groups of two for most purposes. It’s better if you have two groups of two instead of one group
of four, because it allows you to order maneuvers, targets, and movements while still being
relatively manageable. Artillery should also never be in groups of four. This creates
redundancy and causes a waste of ammunition. Depending on the type of artillery, they should
be used solo or in groups of two. More on the specific use of artillery later.

Units that require a lot of micromanagement, or “glass cannon” units like gunships,
should usually be used individually. Anti-aircraft units should also be in groups of two or solo, so
that you can spread them out and cover a wider area against a larger number of simultaneous
aircraft. This also renders your air defenses less vulnerable to being sniped by artillery. Finally,
having recon vehicles in groups is completely idiotic. Recon units are not meant to fight
your battles, they’re meant to spot for the units that do. So if you have two or more recon units
in one group together all but one of them are literally nothing but redundancy and waste. If you
ever have cause to bring recon units in a group of two or more, immediately stop and ask what
use they are in a group.

And for the love of all things sacred, never call in your units like this:

This violates so many basics of the game it’s not even funny. First off, it’s spamming a
single unit, which always results in the other team just spamming its counter. Second, they’re
clustered together, which means it’s going to result in this:
 And finally, bunched units in groups of four are a wasteful redundancy. I know I can
make it look stupid with a few timely screenshots, but noobs often panic and forget this in the
face of a heli rush and call in as many single-unit counters as their deck can give them all at
once. This may work against a dumb spammer, but that’s just what a smart spammer wants
you to do. A smart spammer with a large heli rush damn well knows you’re going to spam your
best anti-helicopter SAMs, and if you deliver them in the tightest grouping possible you’re doing
half the work for them. This goes for any counter to any type of rush.

Be sensible. Call them in in pairs and spread them out. That way, they cover a much
wider area, and you don’t have single groups flinging four missiles at a time at a single target.
Remember that a group will only target one enemy group at a time, which is especially an issue
for ATGM and SAM vehicles who generally have very limited ammunition but don’t need many
shots to kill a target. If a Chaparral vehicle only has four missiles, but only needs one or two
missiles to kill a helicopter on average, then telling four Chaparrals to fire at a single helicopter
in unison is just wasting precious and limited ammo. Better if different vehicles engage different
targets, especially in the target-rich environment of a rush!

However, line infantry is generally best in larger groups, especially in urban

warfare. Grouped infantry can concentrate their fire on enemy infantry or light vehicles, which
will quickly stun them and then gun them down. Additionally, one infantry group can fit in an
urban sector at a time, regardless of how many squads are in that group, which favors group
size rather than number of groups. Infantry in bulk generally has a morale advantage over
individual squads, and with the exception of specialist infantry (MANPADS, ATGMs, recon
squads etc.) they work best in larger numbers. Urban warfare will be covered in detail in the
next section.

Urban Warfare and Buildings

As I said before, infantry in buildings are fucking amazing. I have entire decks built
around this simple, universal fact. If you take on my 5-point Danish reserves with your 170-point
T80Us, I’m going to win every single time. Infantry in buildings are amazingly cost-effective.
So, the answer to cheap infantry is better infantry, right? Ahahaha - not even sort of. Observe:
 What you’re looking at is some of the cheapest infantry NATO has, costing only five to
ten points, destroying entire Pact advances, including plenty of Spetsnaz and Morskaya Pehota
infantry that are objectively superior. So what gives? This is nothing less than a demonstration
of the sheer power of well-managed infantry in towns.

Generally speaking, infantry are at their best in urban zones. You can of course just
bypass small urban zones, but this is a nuisance, crossroads are almost always at towns, and
more importantly, this gives the enemy a prepared fighting position where he can place
infantry-borne ATGMs and MANPADS to harass your forces and incur losses. Plus, urban zones
teeming with infantry make great defensive positions, especially since infantry are incredibly
cheap. Finally, infantry in buildings are in cover and stealthed, making it difficult to judge their
forces from a distance.

The first rule of urban warfare is you never, ever, ever send your tanks into, through,
near, or alongside an unsecure town. They will die like a bitch. Almost all non-specialized
infantry units carry anti-tank rockets. In close quarters, they will cheerfully use them to waste
your tanks. Tanks are at their best covering open territory. They are not instruments of
urban warfare. The only possible use tanks have in this type of conflict is being parked outside
of towns where they can fire into the side of town, at ranges beyond the reach of RPGs.

So, if not by heavy armor, how do you take a town held by enemy infantry? First off,
know that fighting over an occupied town is going to be messy. When done right, much of
warfare in Wargame involves your units hard-countering enemy units. The best battles in
Wargame are when your forces completely rout the other through superior positioning, training,
weapons, and counters, while incurring few losses. This is not the case for close-quarters
infantry fighting. Forcing an enemy from a held town will be bloody, difficult, and you will lose
infantry of your own. This is one major reason why cheap infantry in numbers are superior to
expensive infantry.

There are three different weapon systems that are most effective. The first is 1000kg
bombs, as delivered by American Nighthawks and Strike Eagles, the Norwegian F-16, or the
Czech Su-22M4. These bombs are powerful enough to kill infantry squads outright while in
cover; they also have an immense stun radius. If you can safely deliver them, do so, you will
see little clouds of +10 +10 +10 +10 +5 +5 +5 +5 whenever they drop in enemy towns. However,
be wary of MANPADS in the town, even if they’re not ideal vs. jets, it’s still embarrassing to lose
a 200-point plane to a 15-point Igla squad.

The second is napalm. As previously mentioned, napalm never goes out of style.
Napalm will instantly panic and stun troops, then burn them alive. Additionally, napalm is an
instant smokescreen - if you burn certain sectors, you can move in right behind it and the enemy
will get a nasty surprise once the smoke clears. Flame tanks, as previously mentioned, should
not approach towns directly without support, but napalm aircraft or the Soviet TOS-1 “Buratino”
napalm launcher are absolutely devastating against dug-in infantry. However, there is a “but” to
this, and it requires knowing how urban sectors work. Napalm can be rendered ineffective if a
sector is not properly covered.

This brings us to the second rule of urban warfare. The second rule of urban warfare is
you do not talk about urb- nah, sorry, that’s just too easy. It’s that you must understand how
urban sectors work if you want to succeed.

“What’s a sector?” you ask? This is:

 See the little white outline over one part of the town? That’s a sector. Mouse over any
town and the sectors will be individually highlighted. So, what’s the big deal about sectors?
Sectors dictate what the infantry occupy, not individual buildings. A sector can be a very
large building, a street corner, or even a whole block. Only one group of infantry (up to 4
squads) can occupy a sector at a time. If you try to move two groups of infantry into one
sector, the second group of infantry will just stand out in the open. Infantry out in the open are
vulnerable and can be killed easily.

To occupy a sector, you merely move your infantry into it - they will “snap” into the sector
automatically. You can also unload a transport inside of a sector and the infantry will
immediately occupy the sector as they unload. Occupied sectors will turn blue or red (depending
on if you’re NATO or Pact) to show you that your infantry control that sector.
 Infantry in a sector are stealthed, in heavy cover, and freaking difficult to kill
through firepower alone. Also understand that infantry squads can move rapidly, as if
teleporting, from one side of a sector to another. This means if your napalm weapon only
covers half of a sector, the infantry squads will simply move to the other side of the sector. This
is the cause of the “napalm doesn’t work on towns!” complaint people so often have.
Napalm DOES work perfectly well, but not if you give the infantry a safe place to hide by missing
part of a sector.

By the way, while only one group of your infantry can occupy any one sector, infantry
from both sides can occupy a sector together, thus making a “contested” zone outlined in
purple. Infantry with the [CQC] tag on their machine gun can use it in a “contested” zone against
the enemy infantry, which gives them a huge advantage. Also, infantry from neighboring
sectors can provide fire support on a contested sector. This means that if you are
contesting one sector and the enemy holds all of the surrounding sectors, your infantry are
going to be taking fire from every occupied sector there.

The third rule of urban combat is the use of the third effective weapon in urban combat.
As many NATO troops will tell you, it always comes down to the infantryman and his rifle.
There is no good substitute for having your own troops in the town. When napalm or 1000kg
bombs are not enough to clear a town that you have decided you must take, do not make the
common mistake of wasting thousands of points trying to clear out a couple hundred points’
worth of infantry. The best way to seize a town in a straight-up infantry battle is the ballsy
technique of ramming a wave of infantry straight into them. This is a technique I use to great
effect in my mixed-nation NATO infantry deck, but you must use the principles of urban combat
and the advice of attacking defensive lines to make it worthwhile.

Let’s walk through a sample infantry blitz of an occupied town, shall we? For the
purposes of clarity and simplicity, we’ll forgo the use of supporting fire from tanks or napalm, but
know that these are never a bad idea.

This is our target. We are attacking from the left side of the screen into their front. (I
know this violates the rules of flanking and maneuvering, but this is for the purposes of example
only. In a real game, I would attempt to sneak in infantry from the right first, in response to this
disposition of forces.) Morskaya Pehota are Russian Black Sea Marines, a high-end Soviet
infantry unit. We are using Jägers, cheap West German line infantry with powerful MG3
machine guns.
 Our first order of business is to smoke them and hit them with artillery or mortar fire
(notice the Stunned! tag) at the same time. Using smoke is not optional. You will lose many
infantry units if you fail to do this. Why? Because if infantry transports die while still
loaded, the infantry within die as well. The more RPG rockets these Marines get off at the
approaching transports, the more infantry they’ll be able to kill before the fight even starts. Be
sure to definitively cover all the sight lines with smoke, if the smoke lands too far inside
the town, they’ll be able to shoot regardless. The smoke comes BETWEEN your forces and
theirs.
 With the opposing infantry stunned and blinded (see here that the smoke cover did not
go far enough to cover the infantry’s line of sight completely; the squad next to the lower group
of M113A1Gs was not blinded), it’s time to assault. Issue the Move Fast command (this is
among the only times it is acceptable to use Move Fast in a direct attack) and quickly move your
transports through the smoke inside the city.
 Once your transports are forcing their way into the city, zoom in. Smoke is going to
make it impossible to see clearly, so rely on the HUD elements (unit tags, sector border colors,
etc) if necessary. Some of your infantry transports will be destroyed, this is expected. This is
one area where cheaper infantry shine over heavier infantry, because it’s okay if you lose
some cheap infantry. Force the transports to drive right at the enemy-held sectors and then
click the Unload command as soon as they arrive. Your infantry will unload, snap to the sector,
and thus make the zone “contested”. By the way, if you have mortars, they should be firing as
fast as they possibly can.
 By the time the smoke clears, it should look something like this. Your infantry has
contested or occupied the zones nearest the road, and if you’ve micromanaged well, you should
only have some stragglers (odd survivors of transports being destroyed, mostly) not in a sector.
This can be hard to micromanage rapidly, don’t fret if you’ve got a spare infantry group not in a
sector, just order them to the nearest unoccupied or enemy-occupied sector. The important
thing you want to see is this:

See that Rout! tag? Routing forces are totally useless in battle. That means your
artillery and rapid infantry blitz have done their job. More on routing and panic later; for now, just
know that it is a very good thing when enemy forces rout and a very bad thing when your forces
rout. Investing in some veterancy (again, more on that later) is an essential way to make sure
this goes in your favor. Oh, there is one more thing you’ll see:
 That’s a line of dead transports. Your dead transports. This is perfectly normal. The
important thing with your transports is that you unload them on target as fast as possible. I
don’t care if the transports die after they’ve transported the infantry. This is why cheap
transports are preferable to expensive ones for the purposes of this kind of offensive. If I’m
using one-point trucks or even five-point APCs, it doesn’t feed the enemy many points if I lose
them. You will lose many of the transports to RPG fire.

While they have other uses that will be discussed later, you do not use expensive
IFVs, such as Bradleys, Marders, or BMPs, to assault towns in this manner. They will die just as
fast at such close range to enemy rockets, but they’ll feed the enemy a ton of points before they
do. Whether you prefer using the one-point unarmored trucks or five-point APCs with a machine
gun on top and some bulletproofing is entirely up to your personal preference, as far as I’m
concerned.

So, to recap infantry blitzes in urban zones:

● Use fire and 1000kg bombs.
● Tanks should only approach if there is no ATGM fire; aircraft should only approach if
there is no MANPADS fire. Tanks should never get within 800m or so where they can be
hit by RPGs.
● Smoke Position and use artillery or mortars to stun the defenders.
● Move Fast along the road into town.
● Unload your troops right on top of them to contest the zone. Minimize the amount of time
infantry spend in transports.
● Expect losses.
 If you must secure a town held by enemy infantry, this is the only reliably effective means
of doing so.

Types of Move Orders

There are four types of move orders in Wargame. You have to know which one to use,
when. Many noobs make the common mistake of not appreciating the differences between
types of move orders, and this leads to inefficient or outright dangerous moves. The four types
of move orders are Basic Move, Move Fast, Reverse Move, and Attack Move.

Basic Move is your basic right click. Select a unit, right click a destination, and the unit
moves there as straight as possible. You can also right-click-and-drag to order units to move
and form up in a line or snap to cover positions. Use this to set up defensive lines along the
edges of cover. You also use Basic Move for general purpose movements where the other three
movement types are not necessary or desirable. Note that any unit moving on non-road terrain
will automatically use Basic Move unless you tell them otherwise. You should NOT use this as
your only form of cross-map movement. Your units will never get anywhere.

Move Fast is the next type of movement. The default keybinding for Move Fast is ;,
followed by left-clicking a destination. Move Fast tells units to use roads to get to a destination
as fast as they can drive, using roads, and with greater supply efficiency. Most units have a
faster road speed than their off-road speed. You need to use Move Fast to get any significant
distance quickly. You should use Move Fast to get across the map to your front lines quickly.
Additionally, any unit called in will default to using Move Fast to drive to their destination.
However, never, ever use Move Fast to press an attack except under very unusual
circumstances (like the infantry assault in the previous section, where the units being ordered
need to reach their destination rather than engage enemies). Why? Because of this:
 Units with a Move Fast order generally travel in tight, easy-to-bomb groups who can be
mass-stunned by rocket fire, flame weapons, or other such things. They also travel along
predictable paths (roads) and don’t stop to engage targets, making them easy to ambush.
Noobs often think that Move Fast is always the best way to move because it’s the fastest, and
then send their entire armed forces careening into the enemy defenses at top speed like an
idiot. Don’t be that idiot. Use Move Fast to get them close, then spread them out and use
Attack Move to actually press the assault. Oh, and helicopters and infantry and aircraft all lack
Move Fast for reasons that should be obvious.

The next type of move is called Reverse Move. This tells a unit to move to a destination
driving in reverse. Its default keybinding is the G key. While it is slower than Basic Move, this is
important because it allows your units to move away from enemy units while keeping their
frontal armor pointed towards them. Why is this important? Consider the armor of an M1A1
Abrams tank:
 Notice something? The frontal armor is a very good 17, but the rear armor drops down to
5. Rear armor is almost always thinner than frontal armor. Sometimes, you’ll need to move
your units away from enemy units, but if you just use a basic move order to pull them back, they
will turn and expose their weak rear armor to the enemy. Reverse Move allows them to pull back
while keeping their heaviest armor directed at them. Your tanks’ frontal armor should generally
always be oriented towards the enemy’s most powerful weapons. Reverse Move is what allows
you to do this. Additionally, Reverse Move is absolutely essential to dynamic defense
maneuvers (more on that later).

The last type of move order is called Attack Move. Attack Move tells your units to move
to the indicated position as with a basic move, but to stop and engage any targets they come
across as they move. This is essential for sending your forces on the attack. Unless they have
Exceptional-tier stabilizers, moving units suffer a noticeable penalty to accuracy, which is a
problem when they’re facing static enemies in prepared defensive positions. Attack Move lets
units move, but stop to engage (and thus have no penalty to accuracy), and then get moving
again all on their own.

There is a time when you need your units to get from A to B first and worry about
enemies second. Attack Move can cause your units to stop in the middle of prepared killing
zones, which of course is not good. When managing an attack or defense, you must alternate
basic move, reverse move, or attack move based on the specific tactical needs. Attack Move is
also quite powerful when used in combination with Smoke Position - it’s basically an automated
system for moving your units right up into the enemy faces, then stopping to engage them. at
point blank range. Using Smoke Position and Attack Move in concert can be a very powerful
asset.

If you use the wrong types of move orders, your units are going to be horrendously
ineffective. This is not just a good habit to get into, it is essential to tactical mobility that you use
the right orders at the right times.

Morale and Veterancy

Wargame takes another factor into consideration, and that is morale. Morale of units is
individually tracked, and tends to go down when units take fire or are even near-missed by
enemy fire. Exposure to flames, damage, or seeing friendly units die also reduces morale.

The five morale states are, in order from best to worst, Calm, Worried, Shaken,
Panicked, and Rout. As morale drops, unit effectiveness goes down. Rate of fire drops and
accuracy plummets. This means that units with low morale are less effective in combat.
They will get off fewer shots and those shots they do get off will be unlikely to hit. This is
especially crippling to guided missile units. Also, if a unit drops too low in morale, it will rout -
this means it will stop responding to your orders and run off in a random direction all on its own,
which is usually followed by it dying like a bitch.

Units also have veterancy levels. The levels of veterancy go from Rookie, Trained,
Hardened, Veteran, and Elite. Veterancy levels are also individually tracked, and passively
improve from exposure to enemy units, combat, fire, or other things. It’s important to know that
veterancy is not magic. It will not magically make a tank withstand heavier impacts or shoot
bigger bullets. However, it does affect all the realms of crew input. Veteran units shoot more
accurately and stay cool under pressure. Very importantly, units with more experience will
have higher morale in battle. They aim faster and engage targets faster. Veteran units get an
accuracy bonus according to this table:

Rookie x1 (no change)

Trained x1.10

Hardened x1.26

Veteran x1.36

Elite x1.60

So that means an Elite unit gets a sixty percent bonus to their accuracy. That makes a
unit with 10 accuracy (which is very meh) have instead 16 accuracy (which is very good). Oh,
and this accuracy bonus is on top of their higher morale (which translates to lower penalties to
accuracy) so you can consider it a double-bonus to accuracy. Let’s consider this tank force from
earlier. For a moment, let’s forget what we’ve learned about unit balance and pretend a force of
so many Abrams is acceptable.

What’s wrong with it? That’s 64 pieces of American steel right there! Isn’t it great? No.
Why? Because they are all only rank-two veterancy! Those Abrams tanks are going to panic
under pressure and get their asses kicked. When you’re choosing units for a deck, observe
these options:

In every unit, you have the option of choosing veterancy levels. Higher levels of
veterancy equals lower levels of availability. You can get eight veteran Abrams tanks per
card, or sixteen trained Abrams tanks per card. Of course, if having eight tanks per card is too
low for your needs, you just need to find a balance between availability and veterancy.

As in all things Wargame, you must also consider the tactical necessities involved when
making this decision. Units that will certainly have to take on other units in close quarters should
almost always be up-vetted at least one tier if you don’t want them to get trounced. But if unit
availability is more important than unit quality in one unit’s case, take the lower veterancy.
Generally, you should aim to cut it as close as possible to running out of units without actually
running out of units in the normal course of things.

Some other notes on veterancy - veterancy is the hidden beauty of Category C

decks. Category C decks give you an 80% bonus to unit availability, which could give you either
great numbers, or superb veterancy ability while still maintaining sustainable units per card. This
is why good Category C decks can mix it up with Category A decks despite having objectively
inferior units. Secondly, don’t overlook a thematic deck’s XP bonus. Every deck “theme”
(more on this later) gives a flat one-rank promotion to all units in a specific type. For example,
the “Armored” theme gives a flat one-rank promotion to every card of tanks you get. One final
thought, don’t take rookie units if you can help it. They just panic too damn easily to be of
any use to you at all in a fight.

Terror Weapons and Fire

So, now you know how morale and veterancy improves how units fight. You’ve
committed to maintaining your own troops’ morale by occasionally investing in their veterancy
rank. How do you use this knowledge offensively? By the use of terror weapons, of course.
Terror weapons are weapons that do low physical damage but high morale damage. Rockets,
rocket artillery, mortars, fire, and machine guns and autocannons against light and heavy armor,
are all examples of terror weapons.

Terror weapons are useful for stunning and panicking forces, generally so that your own
forces will have an easy time of eliminating them. This is the sole purpose of rocket artillery,
which almost never kills very much but can stun an entire advance dead in its tracks. More on
the specific use of rocket artillery in another section, but for now, know that it’s an important
example of a terror weapon. Artillery in general make good terror weapons - while they are
capable of inflicting damage and casualties as well, don’t underestimate the value in their ability
to panic everything they hit shortly before your troops attack.

Another useful feature of terror weapons and artillery is stunning. Remember this?

Counters are one reason, and terror weapons are the other reason why masses of tightly
clustered expensive units are literally worse than useless. Units that are stunned will temporarily
be unable to respond. While this doesn’t last more than a few seconds, it often means the
difference between evading fire and being killed by it. Generally, you should try to hit enemy
units with artillery or mortar fire or terror weapons immediately before engaging them with your
conventional forces, in order to get off a shot or two before they’re even capable of moving.

Using autocannons against heavy armor, or machine guns against light armor, isn’t likely
to do a lot of damage. But they will do very high morale damage, to the point of causing tanks to
play yo-yo as they panic, rout, move backwards out of the line of fire, then recover and move
forwards only to get stunned and routed again. This gives cheap autocannon vehicles like the
M163CS or the ZSU-23-4 “Afghanskii” a great utility when mixed in with your forces.
Additionally, units under fire also have a random chance to get in-battle malfunctions. Observe:
 These malfunctions can hamper a unit in battle, rendering them immobile, causing
damage, blinding them, making them run out of fuel or ammo, or any other number of things.
Autocannons are great for causing these types of malfunctions.

Of course, the ultimate terror weapon is fire. Once again, napalm never goes out of
style. Do you know what happens to commanders who think napalm has gone out of style?

That. This stuff is amazing. It can burn enemy infantry out of buildings and forests. It can
instantly stun and panic any ground units. It can instantly stun and panic helicopters. It can force
units out of defensive lines. It can grind an offensive to a halt. You can pre-emptively drop it on
major roads to delay enemy movements. You can drop it right on top of the spawn lane in an
enemy spawn zone to prevent them from bringing in troops to counter a push into that zone.
Fire is a great terror weapon - and if napalm is dropped in forests, those forests will continue to
burn for some time, which means any unit that passes through them takes morale damage.

Oh, as an aside, if you get the “repetitive unit voice” “glitch” that noobs complain about,
nine times out of ten it’s because you have a unit who’s sitting next to or on top of a burning
flame, and thus taking morale damage. Glance over your units and order the unit away and it’ll
stop.

Supply and Logistics Management

Another factor separating Wargame from most of its kind is logistics. Units have three
different type of logistical needs: Repair, Ammunition, and Fuel. Units without fuel will be unable
to move. Units without ammunition will cease to fire. Know that while ammunition is tracked
per-weapon (an Abrams tank that is out of ammunition for its main gun, for example, can still fire
with its machine guns) ammunition is refilled as a whole.

Logistics vehicles, helicopters, or FOBs resupply forces within a radius around it. This
radius is denoted by a wide yellow circle. The types of supply being taken on are shown by fuel,
ammo, or repair icons next to the units. Any logistics unit also has a yellow-colored bar next to
their name; this bar gradually empties to give you a quick at-a-glance estimation of its remaining
supply capacity. You can also see its supply capacity by selecting it and looking where other
units have their current fuel levels displayed.

Your logistics vehicles are really important. It is an absolute truth that an army fights on
its stomach. In this game, its stomach is its supply line. Any extended operations will need
supply to continue fighting in top shape. It is generally advisable that you bring logistics before
you need them, not after. However, logistics vehicles are incredibly flimsy and fragile, and
explode when killed (due to being filled with things like fuel and ammunition). This explosion can
kill units that are clustered immediately next to it - this is mostly important for supply trucks kept
in groups of 2 to 4, so it’s never a bad idea to use the Spread command on clusters of
supply vehicles to prevent them from all being blown up when one is destroyed. Nonetheless,
things like repairing damage and having ammunition are actually kind of important to an army,
so try to always have some supply trucks handy.

Logistics capacity is abstracted as a generic “supply” value. Ammunition, fuel, and

spare parts (repair) are all abstracted as being from the same pool of supplies. This means that
you can (and sometimes must) choose whether it’s most important to refuel, rearm, or repair
units. How do you do that? Like this.

When you select any logistics unit (logistics trucks, helicopters, or FOBs) you see this
instead of a unit’s weapons. See how it says “On” there? Click it, and it will disable using the
truck’s supply capacity for that particular category. By the way, this applies to ally units using
your supply as well - if you have some idiot rocket and arty spammer for a teammate, tell your
FOBs not to resupply ammunition to keep him from draining all the supplies your front needs.

Supply vehicles are unique in one other way, and that is that logistics units can be
captured by the enemy. Any un-escorted supply vehicle or FOB will be captured if enemy units
get within a few hundred meters of them without friendly units nearby. Be aware of this, and if
you see enemy supply trucks out in the open, feel free to scoot a unit over there and nab them.
Rations taste extra sweet when your enemy’s taxpayers paid for them. However, be aware that
if your supply vehicles get caught unescorted, they can be captured as well. There’s nothing
quite as bad as spending points to fix up your enemy’s vehicles so they can continue shooting at
you with them. Oh, and because of this fact, your units will never shoot at enemy logistics
vehicles without orders - this is fine if you’re going to capture them, but if not, and your units
aren’t otherwise engaged, know that you’ll have to specifically tell them to shoot enemy supply
vehicles.

“So, guide,” you ask noobishly, “what do I do with empty logistics vehicles?” Well, for
starters, logistics vehicles can be refilled by FOBs. Moving empty logistics vehicles back to
your FOB and moving refilled logistics vehicles back to your front is an important and
oft-overlooked task that one should not start to overlook in the heat of battle. Use lulls in the
fighting to resupply your forces and keep them in top shape.

Defense-In-Depth and Counter-Offensives

So we learned how to set up a static defense earlier, but we also learned that static
defenses can be pushed through, even if it’s not ideal to do so. Static defenses do have the
disadvantage of being, well, static - which means when the enemy knows where they are,
they’re probably going to send airstrikes or artillery to attack it. So what do you do when the
enemy is pushing against your static defenses?

The answer is the defense-in-depth, also referred to as dynamic defense. Unlike a

static defense, where the objective is to “hold the line” and stop the enemy advance without
moving back yourself, a dynamic defense moves along with the enemy’s advance, always
hitting the enemy but never stopping long enough to get steamrolled. While I’ll talk in more detail
about stabilizers later, for now know that stabilizers allow tanks and other such units to fire
accurately on the move, and are absolutely necessary to a proper dynamic defense. Also
necessary is the reverse move command. You must use this appropriately to pull off a dynamic
defense, it is not optional.

In its most basic form, a dynamic defense involves reverse-moving your tanks across
open ground, so that they can constantly be shooting at enemy targets without allowing the
enemy to close the distance. This means the enemy cannot easily race past your defensive line
and surround your forces. This prolongs the amount of time your units can shoot at their units,
which means more enemy casualties. It slows down enemy offensives and allows you time to
bring in reinforcements or call for allied assistance. It forces the fight to be on your terms, where
you decide to lead them, and in your SAM bubble and not theirs.

However, dynamic defense is not as simple as “reverse-moving tanks”. We already

covered reverse move. Lighter vehicles play a role in dynamic defense as well. Consider ATGM
trucks - they are at their best when they can get off one or two missiles at enemy armor and
then flee out of range to fire again. This is called shoot-and-scoot, and light vehicles excel at it.
Additionally, gunships truly shine in dynamic defense, where they can rapidly move around the
targets, firing rocket pods, autocannons, and ATGMs to turn an armored spearhead into a
stunned, panicked, and burning mess. Infantry are not mobile enough for a dynamic defense,
but they also have a role to play.

Defense-in-depth also suggests having defensive units spread out behind your front
lines - this can bog down an armored breakthrough quite effectively. The problem most new
players have is that if you manage to break through their defensive front, there’s pretty much
nothing left standing between you and their entire side of the map. Even if all you do is scatter
some cheap recon, MANPADS or other anti-air defenses, and infantry through your sectors, that
can still keep your eyes on the target and prevent them from just lancing through all the way
back to your starting zone unopposed. There is an obvious tradeoff between defense-in-depth
and static defense - any unit sitting idle in a defensive zone is a unit not on your static defensive
line. As with all things, you must find a balance between the two, and that balance depends
heavily on your personal playstyles and the tactical necessities of the map and opponents.

So, you’ve kept your tanks alive and your front somewhat intact by reverse-moving, and
the enemy forces are getting strung out as their heavy armor outruns their support to chase your
own armor. But how do you really turn the tables? You do this by counterattacking. A
counterattack is an offensive push you make to destroy or at least force a retreat of an enemy
offensive. It is not the same as attacking into enemy territory, although a well-orchestrated
counterattack can lead into an attack into enemy territory if the enemy is sufficiently off-balance.
Consider this example:

Notice that the counterattacking force comes from a different area from the rest of your
forces. You should aim to hook around behind them once they’re sufficiently strung out, and so
engage them from the side or behind. Remember what we discussed about side and rear
armor? That’s where you want to hit them. If they’ve outrun their air defenses, gunships are
great for this task because of their high mobility; if they did bring too much air defense, then do
this with armor instead.

Some people advocate always keeping a reserve force or quick-reaction force (QRF) of
tanks and mobile vehicles behind your lines specifically so you can send them to intercept
enemy attacks. Others advocate always keeping a few hundred points banked so you can
quickly buy whatever reinforcements are needed in case of attack. Keeping a QRF behind your
lines gives you the ability to react very quickly to an unexpected circumstance (hence the
name), while banking the points instead gives you optimum flexibility to buy the best counters
available to whatever pops up even if it takes longer for the reinforcements to arrive. While
whichever technique you choose is up to your personal preference and style, I prefer to always
have points banked and just buy whatever counters I need. Experiment and figure out what
works most efficiently for you.

A properly-executed dynamic defense is very hard to counter, and if you find yourself
facing one, it’s best to abandon the pursuit and try something else instead. Don’t ever let the
enemy lead you where he wants you to go. Instead, attack elsewhere or with other forces and
thus make him react to you, not the other way around. Remember, fight on your terms, not on
theirs.

Tactical Mobility and Maneuver Warfare

At some point, your guys and their guys are going to come into contact with one another,
attempt to have a civil discussion about the relative merits of communism and capitalism, and
that civil discussion is going to turn into a shooting war. It is the nature of the 80s, I’m afraid. But
this is not the first world war - if all you do is line up your guys against their line of guys and see
who’s left standing when the shots stop coming, you’re doing it wrong. While there is a time
and a place for your units to sit still and shoot, the majority of your time will be spent moving
your forces around the map.

Even in a fight, staying in motion is important. Why? Because of this:

 Every tank has weaker side armor and very flimsy rear armor compared to their frontal
armor. If all you do is stand in a line and shoot at their line, you’re hitting them where they’re
strongest. The basic concept of maneuver warfare is in bringing your units’ strengths
around to where the enemy is weak. Remember, you always want to bring your strengths
against their weaknesses, not against their own strengths and never the other way around. And
how important is maneuver warfare?

Zelasko could probably tell you, couldn’t he? While those results are pretty drastic, don’t
think that superior units will always beat inferior units. I would rather have a weak unit in the
right place than a strong unit in the wrong place. Many of the techniques already discussed,
like dynamic defense, the direction of a proper counter-offensive, and flanking offensives, are
examples of maneuver warfare. Observe this diagram:

In this diagram, the blue force is performing a basic flanking maneuver against the red
line. Note that a single vehicle on this red line cannot orient its frontal armor at both forces
simultaneously. This means that they must either retreat, or get hits in their weaker armor
and die. That is exactly what you want to have happen. Let’s observe what a flanking maneuver
actually looks like in the game:
 As you can see, an attack from the north was supported by a flanking maneuver from the
west, which rapidly emptied the sector of enemy forces, as they were forced to expose their
flanks to one side or the other.

Helicopters are excellent at maneuver warfare. They can fly over rough terrain with no
loss in speed and are significantly faster than even the fastest ground vehicles. However, they
do require significant micromanagement and will die like a bitch to even cheap SPAAGs that get
within range. Generally, IFVs and other fast, lighter vehicles should be used as your instruments
of maneuver warfare while heavy frontal armor draws all the enemy fire. You should seriously
consider using tanks with good stabilizers as your flanking force as well, but tanks without
good stabilizers should always be used as your static force. Again, stabilizers allow a tank
to fire accurately while on the move, which isn’t necessary for a static defending force and vital
for a flanking force.

Thwarting enemy attempts to outmaneuver your forces is the key reason why you should
always bring some flank security. Put some cheaper tanks and SAMs or SPAAGs along the
outer fringes of your front, and they’ll at least forestall an enemy flanking maneuver long enough
for you to hit them with artillery, airstrikes, or your heavy armor.

Defense vs. Offense and Strategic Objectives

So how do you know when to attack, and when to hunker down and defend? Sometimes
it’s obvious - if the enemy is choosing to attack in force, it’s better to defend and let them throw
units into your defensive lines, while if you know the enemy defense to be insufficient, it’s better
to attack. But between relatively even forces, when it is necessary to attack and when is it
necessary to defend?

First off, know that in Wargame as in real life, the defender usually has the
advantage. Between two forces of equal strength and equal skill, the defender will usually
win. So if you try to press an attack just for your teammates to scramble and tell you to stop, it
may not be that they’re cowardly, but that the move is too risky. Even if your attack succeeds
in its operational objective it can fail its strategic objective. Every move you make should
be in the service of achieving the strategic objective of the match. Nobody’s going to care that
you managed to take Alpha sector if the other team managed to win because of it.

Now, what is our strategic objective? It would be a specific match’s victory condition.
Knowing when to attack and when to defend demands consideration of the game’s victory
conditions. You can see these in the lobby.

There, see? In this case, the game’s victory conditions are set at Total Destruction (no
point limit) and a time limit. Let’s go through the game’s various modes and what they mean for
offense and defense.

In Destruction mode, points are gained by killing the other side’s units. Your main
strategic objective is to accumulate the most points while feeding the enemy as few points as
possible. An alternative way to win is by killing every command vehicle on the map - however,
you’re generally going to hit the point limit before you pull that off except in very unusual
circumstances. This means that it is generally better to defend, because defenders usually
get more points than attackers. Victory is judged not by how much of the map you control at the
end of the match, but by who first reaches the point limit. The exception is Total Destruction
mode, where there is no point limit. In Total Destruction mode, you win by having more points at
the end of the time limit (unless that is disabled, too) or, more commonly, by destroying every
enemy command vehicle. In Total Destruction mode, it is generally better to attack.
Obviously, this is subject to the specific circumstances of an individual game - if you’ve only got
ten minutes on the timer left and your team is massively ahead in points, then you might as well
just wait out the timer rather than risk letting the defenders close the points gap. However, you
will usually be aiming to kill every enemy command vehicle in Total Destruction.
 In Economy mode, you win by your team reaching the required command points, not
score points. This means that cost-efficiency is the order of the day. If you buy a bunch of
expensive units, your team is going to hate you because that sets back the entire team. In
Economy, it is essential that you find the right balance between buying enough forces to seize
and defend command sectors (which give your team income) without buying so much that the
other team pulls ahead. In Economy it is generally better to grab territory quickly, then
defend, because, again, defense is much more cost-effective than offense. It is doubly better to
defend instead of attack in Economy because your enemies will be banking more points, which
means it will be significantly easier for them to call in reinforcements in an emergency. However,
if a command sector can be seized on the cheap, don’t hesitate to do so - sometimes you have
to spend points to earn points, especially if your team is at a significant economic
disadvantage, in which case it is better to attack. Know that particularly cost-effective tactics,
such as infantry in urban zones or using deep-insertion of special forces behind enemy lines to
spot and kill enemy command vehicles, is a very good idea in Economy.

In Siege mode, leave this stupid mode and go play something fun instead. But if you
insist, in Siege mode, there is a team that is on the attack and a team that is on the defense, so
you don’t need to choose.

In Conquest mode, incomes are fixed for both sides and victory points are accumulated
by holding sectors. Like in Economy mode, it is generally better to grab territory quickly,
then defend. If you can manage to take “half plus one” of the map and start setting up
defenses, you force the losing side to be the one on the attack, and since incomes are fixed for
both sides, attacking can become very difficult. Because the losing side is the one forced to
attack, I find Conquest to be a less interesting mode of play; I feel that Conquest is decided in
the first few minutes of the game.

Know the Map, Terrain, and Fronts

Before the game starts, in the Deployment phase, you have to buy your starting points’
worth of forces and place them in your starting zone and so on, you probably already figured
that part out. But, especially while you’re still learning the maps, take the time to scan the map
and the terrain. Take note of important features.

Where are the midpoints of the map, and from them, where are the fronts likely to fall?
What are the major roads where your forces or enemy forces will likely Move Fast through? Are
there crossroads you might preemptively napalm to block enemy movements? Where are the
spawn zones and air lanes, and based on the direction of those air lanes, where should you
place air defenses? Are there wide sides on the edges of the map where you or your enemies
might try to sneak helicopter-borne troops or other forces? Are there large forests that infantry
can roam through? Large plains for armor to roll over? Are there mountains or ledges where
your recon troops would have good sight lines? Do the enemy rear zones have “back doors” or
blind spots, like mountains, that you could sneak special forces through?

Before the match begins, you should be coming up with ideas for movement and unit
placement. You also need to familiarize yourself with terrain. Terrain affects movement speed
and line of sight for all ground units. A unit’s line of sight can be seen as a white line when you
select them and order them to fire at something. That white line can have three parts:

The white solid line is the unit’s effective weapon range. The transparent white line is
their line of sight. A dotted white line shows that their line of sight is either at its limit, or blocked
by a terrain feature. Features like dense forests, mountains, and buildings block line of sight
completely, while features like shrubs and hedges can be seen through, but degrade the LOS
range beyond it.

We already discussed cover features like swamps and forests and hedgerows, but know
that the type of ground affects unit movement speed. Units will move faster on roads and flat
land than they will in cropland and tall grasses. Over rougher terrain, like swamps or clumps of
hedges, movement can cause units to slow down with Rough Ground debuffs.

The other important terrain feature is height. Units situated on a ledge or otherwise with
a height advantage have an improved line of sight and can potentially see over obstacles as
well. Defending a ledge gives you a clear line of fire at the ground it overlooks, which is a
particular advantage for defenders.

However, it is difficult to target units directly at the bottom of a ledge. This leads to a
technique called the reverse-slope defense. Observe:
 In this instance, units on the bottom of a hill can usually get the first shot off at units
coming over the top of the hill, since it’s hard for forces at the top of a slope to target units
directly below them because of the limited camera angle. Additionally, static forces at the bottom
of a hill can hit targets breaching the crest of the hill one at a time as they emerge into their
LOS.

Finally, maintain situational awareness of the game’s other fronts. By habit, you
should always keep abreast of the changing tactical situation that your allies’ fronts are facing. If
one of them gets their own front pushed back, you could be exposed on a flank you had
assumed was secure, or rush ahead unsupported and get surrounded. Additionally, knowing
what forces your enemies are facing could give you forewarning of what your own units might
face - if I see an ally getting hit by a plane-heavy enemy player (an air spammer) I’ll buy extra
SAMs for my own forces in anticipation of having to face the same thing later. As a bonus, it
never hurts to give your allies some useful supporting fire when you’re able to, even if they don’t
ask for it. Don’t spend so much time gawking at your allies’ movements that you neglect your
own, but always keep an eye open to them - zoom out from time to time and scroll around, just
to make sure everything is where you thought it was.

Control Groups

As with most RTS games, Wargame lets you map specific units to control groups using
the 0-9 keys. This is an important feature that you should be using. To map a unit to a
control group, select that unit and press Ctrl + [number]. To select that unit, press that number.
This has several really good uses.
 First is obvious - it allows you to quickly select an off-screen unit without having to go
look for it. As such, your artillery batteries should always be individually mapped to a
control group. This means you can select all of your artillery pieces without moving the screen
away from the front. It’s trivially easy to just press a number key, then Fire Position or Smoke
Position, and thus be always able to provide supporting fire to your front (or anywhere else on
the map) without leaving it. Some people advocate doing the same with aircraft, but I prefer to
just leave the Air Comm panel open at all times.

The other major use is less obvious - Double tapping a number key will bring you
directly to that unit. If you have to manage multiple fronts, map an important unit to a control
key so you can instantly switch between fronts. This is also useful for moving your artillery units
around to avoid counterbattery fire (more on this later).

Finally, use control groups to speed micromanagement. Certain units, such as ATGM
carriers, Radar SAMs, and most helicopters, must be micromanaged frequently to be most
effective.

Aircraft Maneuvering, Handling, and Response Times

“Every time I call in aircraft, they get killed by the enemy,” you complain, noobishly, “but
their aircraft always seem to kill my guys and get away clean!” Why is that? Because using
aircraft is not as simple as clicking on them and clicking on a target. This is not World in
Conflict where aircraft constituted off-map support and were generally invulnerable. Although
they are based off-map, your aircraft are your units exactly like all your other forces. This
means their kills count as much as other units’ kills, and being killed feeds the enemy points -
and typically a lot of points - just like any other unit. In this section, I’ll teach you how to use
aircraft in general; in the next, I’ll teach you how to defend against them. I will provide specific
advice about the different types of aircraft and their different weapon systems later.

First off, know that aircraft handling is a little idiosyncratic. There are several
particularities that aircraft have, and understanding how aircraft handle is crucial to using
them successfully.

Aircraft, as previously stated, are based off-map. They enter the map through air
corridors, which are like spawn corridors but for aircraft. They can leave the map from any
position, via the evac command (default keybinding: V). They only have, at max, a couple
minutes’ worth of fuel before they must leave to refuel. If they run out of fuel, they will auto-evac,
this is called Evac Bingo. ‘Bingo’ is NATO code term for having only enough fuel to return to
base (and thus necessitating leaving immediately). If they expend their ordinance, they will also
auto-evac, this is called Evac Winchester. ‘Winchester’ is NATO code for being out of
ordinance or ammunition. When aircraft evac, they immediately turn away, climb, and will
disappear from the map in a few seconds. When aircraft are near enemy forces, you must be
ready to evac them at a moment’s notice in case they run into unexpected SAMs or get
stunned by AAA. If your aircraft are in danger of getting destroyed, evac immediately. Don’t
suicide a 160-point plane to take out a 55-point tank. Remember, with few exceptions aircraft
are glass cannons that should shy away from SAMs.

Once aircraft evac, they will have a cool-down period before they can be called on again.
The length of this period depends on the resupply that the aircraft needs. The status of your
aircraft can be seen in the Airport Panel.

You can use this panel to quickly select aircraft currently in the field (“In Mission”).
Aircraft with colored icons are ready to be used. Aircraft that are being resupplied have between
one and five icons, and will display their resupply status (the EF-111A Raven is further along in
its cooldown period than the F-16C Fighting Falcon). Because aircraft that took damage will
take longer to resupply than aircraft that don’t, it’s always preferable to keep your aircraft out of
the line of fire when possible.

Aircraft have to fly straight at their target in order to drop their bombs, and this is the
source of the “aircraft flying over without dropping weapons” problem. If the aircraft is still
turning to align with their attack vector, they won’t drop their weapons. This sends them
careening into enemy air defenses. They also have to be several kilometers away from the air
corridor to release weapons, which means there is a radius under the spawn point of aircraft
where the distance is too short to release weapons. Aircraft will also fail to release and will fly
straight and level if they have been stunned by AAA. Oh, and sometimes aircraft just
inexplicably fail to fire their weapons for no apparent fucking reason. I’m sure there is a reason,
but very rarely, even though they’re flying over flat terrain and not turning, they just fail to drop. If
this happens to you, it is usually best to evac immediately and try again. Generally
speaking, you won’t get more than one pass before taking anti-aircraft fire unless you’re 100%
sure you’ve destroyed enemy air defenses.

Aircraft also have turning radiuses, some of which can be quite wide. in general,
faster aircraft have wider turning radiuses, though of course there are variations. This is less
important in bomber aircraft who will generally drop all their weapons in one go and then
automatically Evac Winchester, but it is essential that you understand how aircraft turn.
Consider this shamelessly stolen chart - the colored circles are move orders in front of the
aircraft, with the lines displaying where the aircraft will turn. The black circle is enemy AA that
you should avoid. The objective is to get the aircraft to move away from enemy AAA as
quickly as possible.
Green: Maximum turn rate.
Red: This is how the plane paths if the point is inside its turn rate, as it is the shortest path to
the point
Blue: This is undesirable, as its deeper in assumably enemy territory.
Yellow: This works on the same principle as red, but mirrored. However, it also requires another
click back to make sure it doesn't end up near the AA anyway.
Purple: This is the path to the point that is behind and to the left. Make sure it's far behind.

Yes, I realize it looks confusing at first, but this is the answer to the “aircraft turning
in random directions” complaint that noobs often have. It takes some practice and getting
used to, but for the tightest turning possible to ensure aircraft evac away from enemy AAA,
yellow or purple are best. Blue is workable, but risky.

Aircraft turning radiuses are important for one other reason - aircraft with tighter turn
radiuses will generally out-fly aircraft with wider turn radiuses in a dogfight. This is why
that cheap MiG-21 just killed your Tomcat in a dogfight. In a dogfight, aircraft will generally close
by launching short-range IR missiles (such as the Sidewinder) and then try to finish each other
off with guns. The aircraft that gets behind the other will generally win, because aircraft can
only attack targets directly in front of them. If your aircraft is in a dogfight and the other
aircraft gets behind it, evac immediately. It’ll overshoot when your aircraft turns and pulls away,
and by the time it turns around to engage again, your aircraft will be gone.

Of course, it’s impossible to use aircraft well if they’re taking mass missile fire. SEAD is
an important part of air operations. SEAD, or the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, refers
to any strikes performed to neutralize enemy AA in preparation for a large or important air
attack. This can be done with SEAD aircraft like Wild Weasels or Ravens - these aircraft have
anti-radar missiles that can automatically target radar SAMs like Buks, Osas, or Hawks. They
also target radar AAA like Shilkas or Tunguskas. A more generic SEAD activity is using artillery
to kill, or at least panic and stun, enemy AA. You should always try to kill anti-air units when it’s
convenient to do so, since every one you kill makes air operations a little easier. You should
especially go to lengths to target AA units first if you’re preparing for a mass air attack.

Now, on to attack vectors. An aircraft’s attack vector is the direction from which they
launch their attack. Consider this simple defensive line. Note that the heavy armor is in front of
multiple AAA and SAMs. Should your aircraft come in from vector 1, or vector 2?
 You should always choose an attack vector that does not send your aircraft flying
directly over enemy AA. In this example, Vector 3 is most wise (although, of course, you
should always attempt to suppress enemy AA first). The reason for this is that after dropping its
weapons, the aircraft on attack vector 3 can turn into friendly territory in order to evac, while the
aircraft in attack vector 1 will go careening straight over enemy AA. Additionally, if the enemy
sent interceptors of his own when he saw your aircraft, the plane on vector 1 is now heading
straight for them! The last reason to use a side-vector is that bombers drop their bombs in a
line along their attack vector. In the above picture, a line of bombs across vector 1 will
damage/stun the center Rise Pattons and the M163CSes only - both vectors 2 and 3 will
damage and stun all the tanks in the line, but vector 2 will send the aircraft closer to enemy AAA
that will stun it and SAMs that will then finish it off. If you want maximum effectiveness, angle
your bomber aircraft so that all of their bombs fall across the line, rather than
perpendicular to their line.

Integrated Air Defense Systems

Okay, that’s how you use aircraft, but how do you defend against them? Obviously, with
anti-aircraft units! While I’ll go over the specific types of anti-aircraft units and their uses later, for
now, know that:

● Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, or SPAAGs, are vehicles with AAA weapons. Some
have Radar capabilities, and some do not. Those that do are generally more accurate
and have longer range. They can kill helicopters in range, but they can generally only
stun and panic jets.
 ● Radar SAMs are SAM vehicles that use radar. They are generally longer-ranged and
more effective when fighting jets. However, they are also good against mass helicopter
rushes because their missiles have a wide splash damage radius. They tend to be your
best and most expensive SAMs.
● Infrared SAMs are SAM vehicles and MANPADS that do not use Radar. They are
generally longer-ranged against helicopters than against jets, but they are an important
backup to ensure that SEAD aircraft cannot eliminate your entire defense.
● Fighter aircraft are jets that specialize in taking on other jets in short range. They are
generally armed with short-range missiles and guns and are capable dogfighters.
● Interceptors are jets that specialize in taking on other jets at long range. They carry
long-ranged missiles and are terrible dogfighters.

While I’ll discuss in greater detail the specific uses of each type, know that proper air
defense involves using multiple types of air defense in concert. It is not enough to lazily
bring along a SAM vehicle or two - if the enemy sees that that’s all you have, they will simply
target it first and then send in as many bombers as they can afford. This is referred to as an
integrated air defense system.

So, why do we need to have such a complicated setup? The first and most important
reason is that each type of system works in different ways and against different types of
enemy air. Thus, to achieve maximum tactical effectiveness against aircraft, different systems
must work in concert.

The first thing you must do is consider where enemy air attacks are most likely to come
from and in what forms. Look at where enemy airlanes are, and where their forces are in
relation to yours. Watch how they use planes as well - do they send in a SEAD aircraft first? Do
they send in a bunch of planes at once, or one at a time? Do they use them before a ground
attack or during one? Do they use transport helicopters at the front? Do they use gunships
offensively or defensively? Independently or with other forces? Once you know the most likely
patterns of air attack, and so your IADS should be spread out to absorb and defeat air attacks in
those patterns.

So, how does IADS help with this? Each type of AA complements another type’s
weaknesses. Radar SAMs are the best at denying airspace to the enemy, but they’re
counterable by SEAD aircraft. So, you couple them with SPAAGs and IR SAMs. Some types of
anti-helicopter weapons can actually be outranged by heli-borne ATGMs, thus making it
essential that you have other anti-helicopter weapons that can maneuver in or jets that you can
call. Point is, every type of anti-air counter has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, and
IADS allows you to create a well-rounded system with no obvious flaws.

The other important reason to use an IADS concept is redundancy. Just like any unit
you field, sometimes, the enemy is just going to get lucky or just plain outmaneuver you and
manage to kill a part of your AA network. When I play, I consider all SAMs to be high-value
targets and attempt to eliminate them as often and as fast as possible. I know that most decks
have a relatively limited number of SAM systems, and so killing off even a few pays dividends in
the long run. Having redundant, overlapping systems makes it significantly harder for the other
team to use aircraft safely, which means your men will get bombed less.

The last important reason is to counter SEAD. As a defender against air power, fear
SEAD, hate SEAD, and be ready for SEAD. Pretty much all players are going to want to bring
out their aircraft as fast as possible, as they tend to be hard-counters to almost every expensive
unit in the game. The problem with SEAD aircraft is that the best ground units for shooting them
down are also the units these aircraft are built to destroy. This means that you need to disrupt
the SEAD aircraft action’s first by using other parts of your integrated air defense network. This
can be very simply laid out if you know their probable attack vector - observe:

The general gist is that you stun them with AAA first, or at least waste their munitions on
lower-value targets, and then use the expensive Radar SAM to finish them off while they’re
stunned. Aside from that, IR SAMs and interceptors make a great way to get some extra
missiles off against SEAD aircraft, which can be very difficult to kill due to their usually
exceptional ECM.

Additionally, radar units require micromanagement to maximize safety against

SEAD aircraft. Radar weapons are helpfully labeled in the HUD. Let’s see this on a Tunguska
anti-air unit:

As you can see, the Tunguska has a 30mm Radar-guided anti-air gun and a SACLOS
(non-radar-guided) anti-air missile. This means that the Tunguska can be targeted by SEAD
aircraft. However, you can do this:

Petrovich’s Tunguska is now immune to SEAD aircraft. Any Radar unit can have its
Radar weapon turned on or off to disable it in exchange for being invisible to SEAD aircraft. The
general strategy with them is to have them turned off until the SEAD aircraft passes overhead,
then turn them on and fire a missile up their tailpipe (remember, aircraft can only fire at targets in
a cone to their front). Some people prefer to leave their Radar weapons off at all times and only
turn them on when they spot a SEAD aircraft operating overhead, while others prefer to leave
their Radar weapons on and hurry to disable them when SEAD aircraft are spotted. Both
approaches have their merits, and whichever you decide to do is dependent on your attention
span, skill at micromanagement, and personal preference.

Finally, there is one other thing to note. Consider the British expression, the bomber will
always get through. This phrase came about before the Second World War, and was an
influential part of strategic thinking in that war and in the Cold War. And it lives on in Wargame,
too - know that near your front lines, a sufficiently determined bombing force will manage to
drop their ordinance, whether they survive or not. It’s simply not practical to set up a firm AA
screen in front of your forces, for obvious reasons. However, even a dedicated air spam deck
will run out of aircraft long before you should run out of missiles to fire at them.

Understand this and be prepared for this - this is why having air defenses is no substitute
for being properly spread out and on your guard. While obviously the ideal is to prevent the use
of enemy air power, you will sometimes have to settle for merely killing those aircraft when the
enemy does decide to use them. Often, players will see sacrificing a 50-point aircraft to bomb
several hundred points of targets to be a worthwhile trade. Or they’ll just get frustrated and
throw so many aircraft, your defenses can be overwhelmed. Point is, know that this will still
happen and be ready and have your forces oriented to ensure that this tactic will not be a repeat
performance. If you manage to shoot down enough aircraft, eventually you will stop seeing
them.

Placement of Command Vehicles

While I will go into further detail about the different types of command vehicles and their
varying uses later, by now you should know that command zones are captured by having a
command vehicle placed inside them and not moving.

For starters, you should never ever do this at the start of a match:
 See how that flare says “Sandy’s CV”? As will be discussed in the next section, this is a
standard way of informing your team of who will be leaving a command vehicle in that zone to
prevent wasteful redundancy. That means the other player who left a command vehicle here is
an idiot.

Controlled command zones split their income across the whole team equally - there
is ZERO bonus to having your command vehicle in a zone instead of someone else’s.
Additionally, command vehicles do not stack their income, meaning having two CVs in the
same zone is a completely useless waste of an expensive and vulnerable unit. Additionally,
there is no good reason whatsoever to ever have two expensive, vulnerable, and
important units right next to each other where they can both be bombed at the same time. If
your command vehicle is immediately next to someone else’s, one of you has done something
seriously stupid and one of those vehicles needs to move ASAP. Too many commanders spoil
the regiment - there is absolutely no reason for command vehicles to ever work together. Even
keeping a “spare” is a waste of points except in highly unusual circumstances.

Now that that’s out of the way, where should you place your command vehicles? As
discussed in a previous section, it’s always preferable that they be hidden in cover, of course -
but in situations where cover is unavailable or too obvious, it’s better to hide them behind
buildings or at least in distant corners where they’re less likely to be blind-guessed. Additionally,
never put your command vehicles next to artillery, SAMs, or other units that might get
shot at by artillery. It’s embarrassing as hell to lose a command vehicle to the other team by
accident, is it not?

Additionally, even though you can get command vehicles with armor, guns, or even
outright tanks, you should never attack with your command vehicle, ever. Why? Because of
this:
 Attacking enemies with your command vehicle is the worst thing you can possibly
do. Command vehicles are ALREADY precious and important units that your enemies will go to
great lengths to target and destroy. Putting them on your front lines is doing the hard part of
their work for them. Even the dumbest player is able to figure out that even if they have to
sacrifice a plane to kill an exposed CV, it’s generally worth the cost. Remember what I said
about the bomber always getting through?

At best, a command vehicle’s weapon is useful only in emergencies where it’s that or
nothing - but you should never voluntarily enter such a situation! Remember, command vehicles
should always be behind your front and within your IADS zone.

In-Game Etiquette, Flares, and Team Communications

 Okay, so you know how to talk like a Wargamer and how to fight like one. But how do
you talk to them? Wargame is a team-based game, and this means that proper
communication with your team is essential. There is no excuse for you not knowing what
your team is doing or for your team not knowing what you are doing at all times.

There are two major methods of team communications: flares and in-game chat. You
can press Enter to bring up the in-game team chat, or Shift-Enter to bring up the all chat. Don’t
be that idiot that announces your plans in all-chat instead of team-chat.

The fastest way to direct your ally’s attention to specific points on the map are flares.
These are fast because you can press the spacebar when you hear the flare tone to instantly
jump to its location. These four buttons underneath the minimap allow you to place flares:

You can place these flares anywhere on the map, at any time, and your allies will see
them and hear a ringing sound effect. Flares don’t go away in the deployment phase, and in the
battle itself, they’ll fade away after thirty seconds or so. There are three types of “standard”
flares.
 You will hardly ever need to use them. Why? Because you can also make a custom
flare. The fourth button allows you to type a short message to go along with the flare, and it is
almost always preferable that you use a custom flare instead of a standard one. Why?
Simple! Let’s say you’re in a game, and your ally leaves this flare:

Attack? What does he mean? Is there a unit under that flare that he wants you to attack?
Does he want you to launch an attack on that entire sector? Is he going to attack in that general
location? Does he want you to hit that specific spot with artillery? Noobs use the same flare to
mean all of these things. This means that the stock flares are not specific enough to be
useful. Instead, do this:

It wouldn’t even take you two whole seconds to type that up, but given that it says “CV
here” and is over an enemy sector, I know all I need to know. The enemy command vehicle is
there. I should send artillery or air power to eliminate it. Simple! Do the same for any other time
you need to draw your ally’s attention to something.

It’s generally expected that you use flares at the start of a match, in the
deployment phase. I always leave at least two types of flares in the deployment zone. The first
type says “Sandy’s CV”, and denotes the sectors I intend to leave or move a command vehicle
to, and the second type says “Sandy attacking/Sandy defending/Sandy supporting” so my allies
know what sector I intend to move my initial forces to. I might also send other helpful notes
before the fight starts, like “Sending fighters here” or whatever else it is I happen to be doing.
You should always do this. Why? So the team can very quickly see if there are obvious gaps
in the team’s deployment, such as a sector that went “unclaimed” or a starting zone with nobody
volunteering to leave a CV in it. It’s a sure sign of a disorganized team when none of them leave
a CV in their own spawn zone because they each expected someone else to do it.

Oh, and unless your name also happens to be Sandy, obviously you should use your
name and not mine. Be sure to add your name when you’re identifying your forces - if you just
say “me” or something, we have to mouse over the flare to see who left it, which is an annoying
waste of time. You don’t have to name every flare you drop, just the ones where it’s important
that your allies quickly identify who sent it. And if your name does happen to be Sandy, hi
Sandy!

Oh, and there is no reason to ever, ever do this:

 Don’t be a hyperactive idiot. We can see one flare just as well as a dozen. All spamming
flares does is make a constant annoying ringing sound. It will piss off your teammates and not
communicate anything important. Worse, see that wide cloud of opaque teal smoke and those
overlapping banners? They make it harder to see and click on units under them. Why would you
ever want to do that?

Use flares to call attention to anything your allies might need to know about. When you
hear a flare ring, you can quickly zoom to where it was left by pressing spacebar (which brings
you to the site of important events, like flares, spawned units, and destroyed units). Be specific
when using flares. The most common things you’ll need to leave flares over in mid-game are
enemy high-value targets you passingly spotted, like command vehicles, artillery, or air
defenses. Also point out where there are hidden units, like SAMs or ATGMs, which pose a
threat to your allies, or when you spot units sneaking past your recon screen, like heli-borne
infantry or troops hiding in forests. Try to put these flares directly on top of the units when
possible, so that you or your allies can use them to blind-bomb them with some precision.

As for the in-game chat, use it for discussions and long messages that aren’t tied to an
in-map location or are too long for flares, such as discussing team strategy. Clear tactical
communications are vital. Try to always communicate when you’re pressing an attack or
defending from a major enemy attack, so that allies know how and when to support you. Don’t
assume your allies know what you know. They have their own fronts and forces to manage,
and while every good Wargamer tries to maintain situational awareness, you’re always going to
know the situation on your front better than they will. And especially when you need allied
support, be specific as to what kind of support you need and what the relevant threats are. I’ve
lost countless aircraft trying to give my allies some close air support because they failed to
inform me of enemy air defense capabilities.

I’m not going to nanny you and tell you to say please and thank you, but there are some
general etiquette tips you should be aware of. First, you don’t have to be a grammar nazi, but do
at least try to use something resembling proper English. When I see someone chat in
goddamned text-speak or illegibly bad grammar, I instantly think that this person is an idiot and
adjust my plans accordingly.

Secondly, and this is important enough for bold text, do try to exercise some
goddamned sportsmanship. Don’t harass and insult players on either side. It’s no fun to watch
some asshole spamming up the chat with “LOL FUK U GET GUD SCRUB” even when they’re
on your team. If I wanted to get cussed out by someone who sounds like he’s twelve years old,
I’d go back to Xbox Live.

Don’t use tactics to delay or draw the game out just for the sake of getting back at
someone else for beating you. What I mean is tactics like sending your CVs off into a far corner
of the map in a Total Destruction match just to force the other team to waste time trying to find it.
Stalling tactics, such as doing this to wait for reinforcements or as a temporary retreat, are
perfectly fine. But when you know that all is lost, do the honorable thing and let it end.

Oh, and never, ever fucking ragequit, ever. Rampant ragequitting is one of the biggest
problems Wargame has. I have won more games by getting the other team to mass-ragequit
than I have by actually defeating the other team. It is always frustrating to have a victory cheaply
handed to you because your opponent couldn’t be assed to actually play the game. At its worst,
it gets like this:

If you have ever ragequit because a plane got shot down or something equally inane in
the first minute of the game (or just as bad, because another teammate ragequit and left you
alone, thus creating a cascade where the entire team quits one by one, which is what happened
here), please take a vow of silence or something to atone for your sins. Shit like this is a serious
buzzkill, and it’s always disappointing.

If someone on your team is doing something stupid, ask them what they’re doing (they
may know something you don’t, after all) and then gently explain what you think they should do
instead and why. If they don’t listen, don’t take it personally - in my experience many people are
happier in their ignorance and don’t like being corrected, even when they’re making wildly stupid
moves. Don’t get mad and start calling them names or harassing them, either. Again, that’s no
fun. If they argue with you and get hostile, just drop it, it’s really not worth it. If they get really
hostile and teamkill you or something, there is a thread on the official forums for reporting that,
but there’s really nothing else you can do other than try to work around them and try to
remember their names and avoid them in the future. Arguing with these people just makes the
game worse for you and your sane teammates, so don’t bother. Zero fucks given. Move on and
have fun.

As a final thought, being nice to your team, or the other team for that matter, is
never a bad idea. If a teammate sent his own units to support your front instead of his, it really
can’t hurt to thank him. Maybe they’ll be more apt to support you later. It also never hurts to ask
instead of demand when you need support. Your allies will usually have their own engagements
to worry about and it’s never fun having some jerk demanding you give his front your attention
instead of your own. And nothing feels quite as good as being complimented by your own team
or by the other guy when you pull off an impressive maneuver.

Units
“That’s great and all,” you say, noobishly, “but get to the shooty part already! I only
opened this guide to scroll down to this section and see the descriptions of the killy stuff”

Well, since you’re apparently an Ork, congratulations on learning how to read. Fine, then
- let’s go through all the 828 units of Wargame section by section. Yes, all of them. Recognising
the units of Wargame by sight, and knowing what they do, is one of the best advantages
experience will get you.

“What’s a Strv 103B?” the inexperienced Soviet commander asks as his tanks approach
a treeline. “Oh, well, I’ll just shoot it.” This is followed by the great frontal armor of that Swedish
tank absorbing the Soviet fire with relative ease.

“That’s a Strv 103B, a Swedish second-generation tank with good frontal armor, decent
range, and a high rate of fire. I should attack it in close range from the rear to take advantage of
its lack of a rotating turret and inability to fire accurately on the move.” says the experienced
Soviet commander. This is followed by a crew of dead Swedes.

Follow along in the Armory as you read this section. Really, load up Wargame, open this
in the Steam overlay, and shift-tab through this section while eyeing the various vehicles
available. I cannot overstate how important it is that you recognise units on sight. There is no
true substitute for experience in this matter, but the more you see them, the more you’ll get to
know them. Knowing thyself and knowing thy enemy is absolutely basic and essential. It’s The
Art of War kind of basic. It’s important. Oh, and by the way, you can change the unit type icons
between fake “RTS style” icons, and the real-world standardized symbols used by NATO to
show unit types at a glance. It’s under Interface options.
 See? There it is. This feature was great in European Escalation, and I highly recommend
switching to them while you’re still learning. Why? Because they’re easier to tell apart once you
learn them - observe:

These are just better, they’re easy to differentiate, they look cooler and more
professional, and you’ll learn some of the actual NATO standard symbology, not just fake icons
made up by Eugene. Don’t worry, they’ll look like squares and Xes and circles and other useless
shit at first, but there is a method to their madness and you can find a guide to reading them
anywhere.

So, how do you learn how the units perform? Well, the most immediately useful
information is collated in a unit’s unit information card. First off, you can use the T key to bring
up a unit’s information card in mid-game. This is a very vital feature while you’re still
learning the game, use it frequently. I bound an extra key on my mouse to ; just so I could
click on any unit and see its information card in mid-game. You don’t need to memorize specific
numbers, but it’s very, very helpful to memorize basic facts.

So, how do you read unit information cards? Here’s the unit information card of the M1
Abrams tank:

Across the top are the unit’s nationality, command point cost, name, and unit symbol.
Already, just from the top panel, we know that the Abrams is a medium-high end American tank.
 Below the title bar is between one and three weapons of that unit. Every weapon has an
icon and its name, and then its tags and caliber.

What are tags?

In the above picture, you can see the [KE] and [AoE] tags on the M68A1 cannon. Tags
denote special weapon effects, restrictions, or uses. Not all weapons have tags, and you can
mouse-over them to display what they do. Let’s go over the tags in the game:

[AoE]
Area of Effect - This weapon fires anti-personnel explosive rounds. Its HE value applies
over an area of effect.

[CQC]
Denotes an infantry machine gun that can be used in close-quarters combat and on the
move, unlike most infantry machine guns, which have the [STAT] tag.

[CORR]
Corrected Shot - This weapon may provide indirect fire above obstacles. It may improve
accuracy if a friendly unit has a direct line of sight on the target. Only artillery units have this tag.

[F&F]
Fire & Forget - Once fired, this missile doesn’t require any more action from the operator.
Note that all guns and unguided shells are fire-and-forget, so this tag only applies to missiles.
This is as opposed to [GUID].

[GUID]
Guided - This missile is guided. Its operator needs to stand still and aim at the target
until the impact. This is as opposed to [F&F].

[HEAT]
High Explosive Anti-Tank - This weapon fires anti-armor chemical rounds. Its AP value
will remain the same whatever the range to the target. This is as opposed to [KE].

[NPLM]
Napalm - This weapon uses napalm. It is likely to start fires in woods or buildings, but is
also a terror weapon affecting the target’s morale within an area of effect. Note that this tag is
generic to all incendiary weapons even if they are not technically napalm-based in reality.
 [KE]
Kinetic - This weapon fires anti-armor kinetic rounds. The closer it gets to its target, the
higher its AP value will rise. This is very important to know - weapons with the [KE] tag,
including most autocannons and tank cannons, will do significantly higher damage close to the
target. This means that even very weak guns will do good damage in tight quarters.

[RAD]
Radar - This weapon uses radar guidance, making it vulnerable to anti-radar missiles.
Turning the weapon off will avoid this threat.

[SA]
Semi-Active - This missile is guided but can be fired on the move. Its operator needs to
aim at the target until the impact. This is sort of a halfway between the [GUID] and [F&F] tags.

[SEAD]
Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses - This anti-radiation missile will lock on enemy radar
and be guided on them as long as they remain active. These weapons tend to fire automatically
at the first radar they see.

[SMK]
Smoke - This weapon fires smoke rounds. Smoke screens don’t deal any damage, but
block any ground unit’s line of sight. Only artillery units have this ability.

[STAT]
Stationary - This weapon can’t be fired on the move.

All weapons also have a caliber. This is good to know because in general, higher
caliber equals longer range and higher damage. Caliber also shows you Radar weapons.
Underneath that are each individual weapon’s performance ratings in eight categories. Let’s
consider the M1 Abrams tank’s main gun:
 Quality is color-coded for your convenience; the colors range from red, orange, green, to
blue. While I find it helpful to consider the actual numbers instead of just looking at the pretty
colors, this can do in a pinch.

The first three categories are the weapon’s range against ground targets, helicopters,
and airplanes. Only anti-air guns and the Canadian ADATS can target all three categories at
once. Range affects your weapon’s hit chance and, in weapons with the [KE] tag, damage as
well. Close range applies a damage bonus to [KE] weapons that increases exponentially in
closer quarters, which means even a relatively weak gun can do major damage at very close
range.

Below that is base accuracy. Accuracy translates to 5% hit chance per point of
accuracy - so an Abrams tank with its accuracy value of 8 has a base hit chance of 40%. This
base accuracy is multiplied by the unit’s veterancy multiplier to figure its useable accuracy.
Remember this?

Rookie x1 (no change)

Trained x1.10

Hardened x1.26

Veteran x1.36

Elite x1.60

Doing a little math, this gives a Trained Abrams tank a 44% base hit chance, and a
Veteran Abrams tank a 54.4% hit chance - meaning the veteran tank starts with a 10% better
base hit rate!
 Accuracy increases at short distance. A high-veterancy unit in close quarters can
occasionally get a greater than 100% chance to hit - when this happens, the extra hit chance
is added to critical hit chance. You probably won’t need to worry about that in battle, but just
so you know.

Accuracy decreases when moving; this decrease is a function of the unit’s stabilizer -
more on that later. Accuracy also decreases with unit morale, to the point where a panicked unit
will be hard pressed to hit anything at all.

A weapon’s power is given in two values - AP and HE, or Armor Piercing and High
Explosive. A weapon need not have both AP and HE characteristics. AP damage is the base
damage applied to enemy armor - if you have a 12 AP gun and hit an armor rating of 10, you
will do 2 damage. The formula appears to be (it does not seem to be officially confirmed)
damage = (attack value - armor value)/2 + 1

If the target’s Armor value exceeds the AP value of a shot, the unit will not fire on that
target and attempting to do so will see an Inefficient! error. The unit will have to move close
enough for the proximity bonus to AP value to exceed the target’s Armor value.

HE power is like AP power, but HE does not damage armor like AP does. However, HE
shells deal splash damage and are significantly more effective against infantry and unarmored
targets.

Suppression is morale damage per shot. Higher values are more likely to stun targets,
and will reduce enemy targets’ morale state faster. Of course, all of this is multiplied by the rate
of fire. The rate of fire is, obviously, the rate at which the weapon fires when engaging. Higher
ROF means the damage and suppression values are applied faster. In artillery units, rate of fire
shows you how many rounds per salvo are fired.

Below the weapons are the unit’s armor values.

As you can see, every unit has four different types of armor: Front, Side, Back, and Top.
The frontal armor is always the heaviest, while Top and Rear armor are always the lightest.
Armor value decides the damage caused by hits. We already discussed how side and rear
armor necessitate maneuver warfare, but know that top armor is hit by direct hits from artillery
pieces and from bombs, and maybe from helicopter autocannons (this doesn’t seem to have
been officially confirmed or denied, to my knowledge).

The bottom of the unit information card gives other assorted important [Link]
of these stats have a range that goes None, Bad, Poor, Normal/Medium, Good, Very Good,
Exceptional.

The strength figure denotes how many hit points a unit has. In infantry squads, it
denotes how many men comprise a squad. In infantry, strength also determines the firepower
with the primary weapon, due to more troops firing it!

The size figure affects enemy hit chance - large targets are easier to hit than smaller
targets. A Big target gives a slight bonus to enemy chance to hit, while a Small target gives a
slight debuff to enemy chance to hit. This appears to be five to ten percent either way, but the
exact figures are apparently not publically known. Size does not affect range or chance to
spot a target, despite popular belief. Oh, and in aircraft, this stat is called ECM, but it appears
to function similarly - better ECM equals smaller hit chance.

Optics dictate at what range a unit can spot other units. Recon units, obviously, usually
have Very Good or Exceptional optics, while non-recon units generally have Poor or Bad optics.
There is one important thing to know here, and that is that all units actually have two recon
values, of which only one is shown - those are optics for ground units and optics for air units.
Anti-air units show you their optics value for air units, while all other units show you their optics
value for ground units. This is why Radar AAA and SAMs frequently have Exceptional optics on
their unit card. Recon units will generally be able to see both air and ground units well.

Speed and Road Speed are two different things - Road Speed is your speed during
Move Fast orders, while Speed is the base speed for basic move. It is Speed that can be
affected by things such as terrain, morale, and so on. The fastest road speed vehicles are
150km/h.

Stealth does what many people think Size does - they affect enemy chance to see the
target; stealthy units can get closer to recon units before they are spotted. Few vehicles have
decent stealth, while most small infantry squads have good stealth.

Fuel Capacity, measured in liters, measures how much fuel the vehicle can hold.
Autonomy, a related figure, shows you how far a unit can travel before running out of fuel
completely. Autonomy divided by fuel capacity gives you fuel efficiency (gas mileage), if you’re
curious.

Stabilizers are extremely important information. Stabilizers allow units to fire accurately
on the move. Stabilizers demonstrate a vehicle’s accuracy on the move according to this table:

None Unit has a flat 5% chance to hit while moving

regardless of base accuracy

Bad Unit has half its base accuracy when firing on

the move

Medium Unit has between 51% and 75% of base

accuracy when firing on the move

Good Unit has between 75% and 85% base

accuracy when firing on the move

Exceptional Unit has more than 85% of base accuracy

when firing on the move.

Again, units without stabilizers should not fight on the move. Use the Attack Move
command to get them to move, but stop to fire at targets. Units with stabilizers put up an
exceptional fighting retreat with the Reverse Move command. As you can see, movement
applies a steep penalty to accuracy, even with bad or decent stabilizers. This is why attacking
involves so much more than merely running at the enemy, and why defenders have such an
advantage.

Oh, and be aware that aircraft have stabilizers too, but since all aircraft move at a fixed
speed, it’s not entirely clear what they actually do.

Year and Type are irrelevant to gameplay, but important to deck building. Category B
restricted decks may not use units with a Year later than 1980, and Category C decks may not
use units with a Year later than 1975. While we will go into more detail about deck types later,
for now know that Type shows all of the thematic decks that a unit is available for.

Finally, know that most units come in series, with several variants. For example, the
M1 Abrams tank series has three variants: The M1 Abrams, the M1IP (“Improved
Performance”), and the M1A1. In general, more expensive variants will have improved
capabilities or better weapons than cheaper variants; it is up to you to decide on the variant
you want based on your needs.

Now that you know how to read unit information, what are the units of Wargame: AirLand
Battle? Well, Wargame has a fantastic armory viewer that allows you to view every unit in the
game. The units are divided into eight different categories:
 ● LOG - Logistics
● INF - Infantry
● SUP - Support
● TNK - Tank
● REC - Recon
● VHC - Vehicle
● HEL - Helicopter
● PLA - Plane

The distinctions between these categories are very important for deck construction, but
for now, we’ll just go through them one category at a time. In each category of unit there are
multiple different types, and here I’ll offer examples, advice, exceptions, and my personal
experience and opinions on how to best take advantage of each units’ capabilities or
weaknesses. I’ll also add my suggestions on units I find noteworthy, at least so you people will
stop asking me what the best unit in a category is. My opinions will always be in italics so that it
can be easily separated from objective information.

Logistics

Ah, logistics - so boring, yet so vital. Our first category includes command vehicles and
supply vehicles and the game’s only buildable structure, the Forward Operating Base (FOB).

Command Vehicles

Our first Logistics unit is the humble command vehicle. You should already know how
command vehicles control sectors and the importance of keeping them safe and protected, but
now we’ll go into the four different types of command vehicles and how they are used. The
four types of command vehicles are command jeeps, command APCs and command IFVs,
command helicopters, and command tanks. All command vehicles are highly expensive, and all
serve the same general purpose of capturing command sectors. Oh, and command vehicles are
the only mandatory unit in deck building - all decks MUST have at least one card of command
vehicle.

Command jeeps are the cheapest command units, ranging between 100 points and 110
points. Every nation has one. They are all unarmed, save the American Humvee CP. They all
have relatively identical stats, except the more expensive ones are slightly faster. They are all
unarmored, and will die if enemy forces so much as poke at them. They are:
 USA M151A1 CP and M1025 Humvee CP

Britain Rover CP

France M201 CP

West Germany ILTIS KdoW

Canada M38A1 CP

Denmark M/151A1 KV

Sweden Stabstgb 1313

Norway Rover KPV

Soviet Union UAZ-469U

East Germany Fuhrungs UAZ

Poland WD-43

Czechoslovakia Veliteske UAZ

Command APCs and Command IFVs are armored command vehicles that are lighter
than tanks. Every nation has at least one. While there are differences between APCs and IFVs,
the differences are a little arbitrary and blurry for the purposes of command vehicles. In general,
IFVs are better armed and armored than APCs but are more expensive. They generally have
lighter armor, 1 to 2 points, and range in cost between 120 and 160 points. While they have light
armor, they will still die to any serious effort to kill them. An unusual example in this category is
the Soviet BRM-1K, which is the only command vehicle with Exceptional optics. They are:

USA M114A1 and M577 CPC

Britain FV105 Sultan

France VAB PC

West Germany M577G

Canada M577 and Grizzly CP

Denmark M/113A1 CP
 Sweden STRIPBV 3021

Norway M577 KPV

Soviet Union BRM-1K, BMP-1K, BRDM-2U, BTR-70K

East Germany SPW-50PU and SPW-60(S)

Poland SKOT R-3 and Topas R-2M

Czechoslovakia VSOT-64A/R2, VSOT-64A/R2M, BVP-1K

Command helicopters are helicopter command vehicles. They have the advantage of
being significantly faster than any ground-based command vehicle, but they are very squishy
and will likely die if they pass a lucky anti-air unit. They can be used to quickly seize a forward
point, especially a forward spawn zone, but be careful not to outrun their guards! They are:

USA UH-1A ACP

Britain N/A

France Puma 338B PC

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Mi-4APVK

East Germany N/A

Poland Mi-2D Przetacznik

Czechoslovakia N/A
 Sandy’s choice: T-80UK
Command tanks are the final category of command vehicles. These are fully-functional
tanks that also operate as a command vehicle. They are expensive, very limited, and while they
are as armored as their non-command counterparts, they will likely draw all the fire an enemy
can put on it. They are best used behind a combined-arms force in assaulting enemy spawn
zones, where they can park and thus “neutralize” the contested zone. This is essential for
stopping enemy reinforcements. It’s important to remember that even though they are tanks,
they are also expensive command vehicles, and you should not use them to do your
fighting for you. Think of them as any other command vehicle, but limited and with the ability to
survive artillery strikes and fight their way out of minor situations. This category also contains
the game’s single most expensive unit, the T-80UK. They are:

USA CMD M60A1

Britain CMD Chieftain Mk.10

France AMX-30B CNE

West Germany PzBefWg Leopard 2

Canada CMD Leopard C1

Denmark FFC Centurion

Sweden StriStrv 103B

Norway KoVogn M48A5

Soviet Union T-72K1 and T-80UK

East Germany FuPz T-72(K1)

Poland T-55AD-1, T-72M1D

Czechoslovakia T-55K1

Now that you know the different types of command units, let’s discuss their differences
and how they are individually used. First off, it bears repeating that ideally, command vehicles
should never get into a fight, ever. If one does get into a fight, you have already done
something wrong. That said, you should prepare for the possibility - in your relatively secure
rear zones, this means flank security, recon, and an effective IADS zone. In your front, it means
you should retreat and regroup if a threatening force manages to break through your lines and
guns for your command vehicles.

Command tanks should only be used for seizing zones at the front. Leaving them in rear
zones is a totally useless waste of points and limited units - you’d better serve them by investing
those points in a recon unit and some MANPADS to scatter around instead. A good general rule
of thumb you can use is that the closer your CVs get to the front, the more likely they are to
have to evade enemy fire, and thus the more armor they should ideally have.

Some people prefer to use the unarmored command jeeps as their general-purpose CV,
while others prefer to use cheaper command APCs and forgo the use of command jeeps ever. I
prefer to use command jeeps, and see the points spent to get an APC as being an unnecessary
waste, but it depends on your personal tastes. As with all of my opinions, experiment for
yourself and see if you agree, I am certainly not the final word on that debate. As for command
tanks, I only take them in my decks designed to make armored breakthroughs. Oh, and
command helicopters just suck; they’re no more durable than command jeeps but they lack the
ability to hide in forests. Some people have great luck with strategies designed to seize a
mid-map spawn zone with helicopters and then spawn an army on it, but I don’t share such luck.

Supply Vehicles

The other section of the Logistics tab is supply vehicles. We’ve already learned about
the importance of logistics and supply management - these are the vehicles that make that
happen. Supply vehicles come in two flavors, supply trucks and supply helicopters. Aside
from the obvious difference, these units act the same. This section also includes the Forward
Operating Base. One other interesting point of note is that supply vehicles have unlimited
range, as they do not consume fuel when moving.

Supply trucks are your staple logistics vehicle. Though they vary in speed, capacity,
and availability, all of them are trucks that ferry supply to your front line. They are all very
squishy, and explode when killed. This means you should try to avoid bunching them up, where
one death will kill the rest in chain reactions.

USA M35 Cargo, HEMTT

Britain Alvis Stalwart

France VLRA Logistique

 West Germany L-KVD MD Jupiter, MAN KATI 6x6

Canada M35 Cargo

Denmark Forsynings Jupiter

Sweden Amfibiebil 101

Norway M621 LOGK

Soviet Union Ural-375D Cargo, Ural 4320, MPT-LB

East Germany V-LKV T813

Poland Star 266 ZAOP.

Czechoslovakia T813 Kolos, T815 Kolos

Supply helicopters are just like supply trucks, except airborne. They have a speed
advantage over trucks, in that they fly over obstacles instead of following roads and move
significantly faster. However, they can be spotted from a great distance when they’re airborne,
so you should never use them for resupplying hidden forces the enemy doesn’t know about -
when I see an enemy supply helicopter landing somewhere I thought was empty, I immediately
reach for my artillery and a recon chopper to check it out. Don’t betray your hidden troops!

USA CH-47C Super Chinook

Britain Chinook HC.1

France Puma 330L Logistique

West Germany N/A

Canada CH-147

Denmark N/A

Sweden HKP 4A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Mi-26

 East Germany Versorgnungs Mi-8

Poland Mi-8 ZAOP.

Czechoslovakia N/A

Finally, there is the Forward Operating Base. All nations have an identical FOB, each
one costing 75 points, coming at 1 per card (2 per card in Cat C decks) and supplying 10,000L
of supply. They are the most cost-efficient supply sources, but not the most card-efficient supply
source, supplying only 10,000L per deck card. You can calculate card-efficiency by multiplying
how many vehicles per card you get times the amount of supply capacity of a single vehicle.
FOBs are peculiar in that they must be placed in the deployment phase of a match and
cannot be brought in later. So, any FOB in your deck that you do NOT place with your starting
forces is wasted. Like your first command vehicle, your first FOB is automatically placed and
deducted from your starting pool of points. FOBs can be used to refill supply vehicles, but
generally, they’re best used to resupply artillery. They are also notably durable, taking quite a bit
of directed fire to actually kill.

I prefer to take one card of FOBs for my artillery and two cards of the most card-efficient
supply trucks available. Some forgo FOBs entirely and get only trucks, preferring the
card-efficiency to the cost-efficiency. I do not like supply helicopters, they’re expensive, fragile,
and tend to betray the location of hidden units.

Infantry

As some troops will tell you, it always comes down to the infantryman and his rifle.
Though they are uselessly slow on-foot and vulnerable to many types of attacks, infantrymen
are highly cost-effective, cover a variety of roles, are as previously discussed great in buildings,
are very stealthy, and suffer no loss of speed in forests. They are capable of gunning down
anything without armor and almost all carry some form of anti-tank rocket or missile as well.
They are best used to seize and hold territory and operating in forests, and come with a variety
of great mobility options. Ergo, they are indispensable when used correctly. However, they do
require some knowledge to differentiate the various roles.

Infantry

First, let’s discuss infantry weapons. Different types of infantry firearms behave
differently. All infantry come with a primary firearm and a secondary weapon. Some also carry
a squad machine gun as a third weapon. Understanding how these weapons work is important -
they showcase how these units are best utilized and why cheaper infantry sometimes outclass
heavier infantry. First, know that infantry rifles have different types of accuracy, and these
are accuracy when stationary at range, accuracy when moving at range, accuracy when
stationary in CQC (in contested urban zones), and accuracy when moving in CQC. The
accuracy value given in the unit information panel is the stationary ranged accuracy value. This
is why some troops with shitty inaccurate submachine guns suddenly kick ass in urban
warfare.

These are different types of firearms modeled in Wargame:

● Assault rifles are what arm the majority of infantry. These are guns like the AK-74,
M-16, Vz.58, etc. and are usually in 5.56mm or 5.45mm. They are jack-of-all-trades
firearms just like in real life, they do not excel in any one category but are also not
lacking in any category. They have decent accuracy both static and mobile, are reliable
in CQC, and have decent suppressive power.
● Battle Rifles such as the FAL, G3, etc. are semi-automatic 7.62mm rifles. They tend to
have high power, long range, and good static accuracy, but less ammo than assault rifles
and they don’t perform as well in CQC. While they are very accurate when stationary,
they are very inaccurate when on the move.
● Carbines and submachine guns such as the CAR-15, AK-74SU, or SMGs like the
MAT-49 have low base accuracy, but don’t lose much in movement. They tend to come
in assault rifle calibers for carbines, or 9mm PB for SMGs. They are best in CQC, but
lack suppressive power and hitting power relative to other firearms.
● Bolt-action rifles such as the MAS 49/56 and the Mauser rifle, are mostly older WW2
surplus rifles used to arm cheaper infantry. They have surprisingly great static ranged
accuracy, but suck on the move or in CQC.

The above are all primary firearms, but there are three different third-weapon-slot firearms that
infantry squads carry as well:
● Static machine guns like the PKM, SAW, M60, MG3 etc. provide powerful suppressive
fire to most squads, but cannot be fired on the move. These will suppress and kill
infantry out in the open very well, and are a threat to unarmored vehicles too.
● Close-quarters machine guns like the l.MG3, RPK, etc. are lighter variants of static
machine guns and can be fired on the move and in CQC. This makes them really, really
good for urban warfare.
● Sniper rifles are long ranged, highly accurate single-shot weapons that will instantly kill
an infantryman and instantly panic an entire squad.

Second, know that infantry come with transports. When selecting infantry for your
deck, you must also choose which transport they come in, and the cost of the transport vehicle
is added to the cost of the infantry squad. The choice of transport is very important, and hinges
on how you intend to use the infantry you’re transporting. Infantry transports will be discussed in
their own section.
 Finally,, there are different types of infantry to consider. These types are line infantry,
ATGM infantry, MANPADS, Sappers, heavy infantry, Special Forces, and Reserves.
Additionally, there is also recon infantry, but they will be covered in the Recon section as they
are under the Recon tab. But know that they follow the same combat rules as other infantry.

Sandy’s choice: Jager, Mot.-Schutzen, Piechota Zmech.

Line Infantry are your basic, all-purpose infantry forces. They are generally
unspecialized, and usually come with an assault rifle, an RPG of some kind, and a static
machine gun. They are generally useful in all infantry roles, but are not specialized. They are
usually 10 to 15 points, and come in squads of 10. Let’s consider the line infantry in this game:

USA Riflemen, Light Riflemen*

Britain Fusiliers

France Chasseurs

West Germany Jager

Canada Canadian Rifles

Denmark Dragonerne

Sweden Pansarskytte

Norway Gevaermenn

Soviet Union Motostrelki

East Germany Mot.-Schutzen**, Leichte Shutzen*

Poland Piechota Zmech.**, Strzelcy Podhalanscy*

Czechoslovakia Motostrelci
* Light Riflemen are a cross between line infantry and ATGM squads, with the strength of line
infantry and a low-end ATGM.
** Has the ROF buff of Veteran Infantry

These are your bread-and-butter infantry, and are quite useful in assaulting towns and
on the defensive. They can bog down enemy forces in urban zones and annihilate tanks in
close quarters, and are cheap enough to afford in sufficient numbers. I consider no deck to be
complete if it lacks line infantry in cheap transports (15 points total) - they are that important. By
the way, Jagers are my current favorite NATO line infantry. Dat MG3, dat G3, dat PzF44, and
they come in 10-point Dornier 205 helicopters.

Sandy’s choice: PTUR Konkurs, Milan F2

ATGM infantry are small squads that carry ATGMs with them. They are mostly small
(with strengths of 2 or 5) squads and their price varies with the quality of their missile. They are
not for taking on armor in close quarters - they are for sniping armor at long range. Because
they are relatively cheap but a hard-counter to tanks, they are quite good on the defensive and
very cost-effective. They remain one of the reasons why securing towns at crossroads is so
important, for they are able to harass passing enemy forces and damage or destroy even heavy
tanks.

USA Mountaineers*, Light Riflemen*, ATGM

Dragon, SMAW**

Britain ATGM Milan

France ATGM Milan F1, ATGM Milan F2

West Germany Jagdkommando

Canada Maw**, Highlanders***

Denmark N/A

Sweden Pvgrp RBS 56

Norway Fallskermjeger***

Soviet Union PTUR Konkurs, PTUR Factoriya

East Germany PALR Fagot, Panzerjager**, Leichte Shutzen*

Poland PPK Fagot, Lekka Piechota*

Czechoslovakia PTRS Fagot, Pancerovnici**, PTRS Konkurs

* Light Riflemen are a cross between line infantry and ATGM troops - they have the strength of
line infantry and a low-end ATGM.
**These are not technically ATGM infantry, but rather tank hunters, having a very good RPG for
their price.
*** These have the low-range Eryx ATGM and otherwise function as heavy infantry.

These are pretty great on the defensive, and are a great way to kill tanks on the cheap.
Higher-end ATGMs can knock out even heavy armor. Put them on the outer edges of towns so
they have clear lines of sight. Alternatively, put them on the sides of hills so they have LOS over
the surrounding forests and they can snipe at passing armor. Oh, and for the record, Dragon
ATGMs are laughably shitty. Seriously, spare yourself this fate. Remember - dragons: Not even
once.

Sandy’s choice: LAAD Stinger, PZRK Igla

Man Portable Air Defense Systems, or MANPADS, are infantry units with small SAM
launchers. They are generally the cheapest SAMs available, and are the other major reason to
take towns at strategic location. Because of their low price, you can afford to scatter them
around in numerous locations. They are not SEAD counterable. Because of these facts, they
can make up a crucial part of your IADS zone, allowing you to keep cheap SAMs in less
pressing areas so you can keep your high-performance expensive units near the front where
they’re needed most. They also deny the enemy the ability to cheaply bomb your troops in a
town.

USA LAAD Redeye, LAAD Stinger

Britain LAAD Javelin, LAAD Blowpipe

France N/A

West Germany Fliegerfaust

Canada Blowpipe, Javelin G/L

Denmark LLRkt Hamlet

Sweden Lvgrp RBS 70, Lvgrp RBS 90

Norway RBS 70

Soviet Union PZRK Igla, PZRK Strela-3

East Germany FlaRak Strela-2

Poland PPZR Strzala-2

Czechoslovakia PLRK Strela-2, PLRK Strela-3

I consider these to be absolutely essential not-optional must-haves. Lacking MANPADS

is one of France’s biggest weaknesses. I LOVE leaving these all around the map, especially in
loose buildings and on mountaintops, just to make sure no place behind my lines is relatively
safe for enemy air to operate. They’re also good at denying helicopter rushes and for placing on
the edges of the map to deny attempts to sneak helicopters past your lines. Oh, and I try to
always keep one near my CVs, as well. They’re cheap insurance and a great way to fill out an
IADS zone on the cheap. Oh, and note that Blowpipes are hilariously bad - they’re the Dragons
of MANPADS.

Sappers, or flamethrower infantry, are infantry bearing either flamethrowers or

incendiary rocket launchers. They excel in removing enemy infantry from cover, and as such
have a unique and useful role to play, especially in urban combat. Know that their rockets or
flames will not harm armored vehicles, but they have an unmatched capability to send enemy
troops running.

USA Assault Engineers

Britain N/A

France Sapeurs

West Germany N/A

Canada Genie de Combat

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Sapery

East Germany Pionier

Poland Saperzy, Saperzy Szturmowi

Czechoslovakia Zeniste

I don’t like sappers all that much, and rarely use them. While their abilities are
interesting, I don’t find that they do much that I can’t just do with line infantry or reserves.
There’s nothing totally wrong with them, and if they fit your style go for it - but I find them
redundant when I already have infantry good at fighting other infantry. Just...meh, why waste a
card slot?
 Sandy’s choice: VDV, Stormer, Vandoos
Heavy infantry, also called veteran infantry, are higher-end infantry usually that come
in larger squads of 15 and generally have better weapons than line infantry. They include
Marines and Paratroops - these two types of infantry are generally used for similar purposes,
but in different thematic decks. They can do everything line infantry can do, but are tougher
fighters and more durable. They also have a 50% ROF buff over regular infantry, meaning they
can generally outgun equal numbers of line infantry. However, they are also more expensive.

USA US Marines, Mountaineers

Britain Paratroopers

France RIMa

West Germany Panzergrenadiere

Canada Vandoos

Denmark Livgarden

Sweden N/A

Norway Stormer

Soviet Union Morskaya Pehota, VDV

East Germany N/A

Poland Niebieskie Berety, Spadochroniarze

Czechoslovakia Vysadkari

I find myself lacking a use for these guys. While they are cool, they occupy that space
between special forces badasses and line infantry, and their added toughness is not usually
worth doubling the cost of line infantry in my opinion. While I never look forward to having to dig
these bastards out of towns by force, I’m usually able to do it with line infantry and reservists. In
my opinion, quantity is superior to quality in urban warfare. However, there’s nothing wrong with
them, and I occasionally do have uses for them.

Sandy’s choice: Kustjagare, Komandosi

Special Forces are the true kings of infantry. These badasses have carbines that are
like SMGs but better in every way, they have CQC machine guns, and typically have very good
anti-tank weapons as well. They are great, well-rounded, powerful troops who should not be
underestimated. They are also very fast, running at 28km/h or 33km/h, which means they’re
surprisingly mobile even through hills or other places their transports can’t go. They’re generally
multipurpose and great as ambush troops or for operating behind enemy lines. They have a
staggering 100% ROF bonus over line infantry, meaning they’ll cut down regular troops without
breaking a sweat. However, they are also the most expensive infantry in the game, and they will
die to anti-infantry counters pretty much just as fast as any other troops. Finally, note that many
countries have special ops troops in the Recon tab; they are not listed here.

USA Delta Force

Britain Royal Marines

France Legion

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden Kustjagare

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Spetsnaz*

East Germany FJB-40*

Poland Komandosi

Czechoslovakia N/A
* These are recon infantry, but are in the Infantry tab. They’re also unique in that they carry an
unusual assortment of weapons - an incendiary rocket for Spetsnaz, a MANPADS launcher for
FJB-40

I LOVE these guys. You will not be sorry taking an up-vetted force of special ops troops
in helicopters. Sneak them behind enemy lines and they will absolutely wreak havoc. They’re
great for assassinating HVTs, and are agile enough to flee into forests or hills and thus remain
out of the enemy eye. Additionally, they’re great for force-landing in enemy towns by surprise,
and can generally hold their own until relieved by line infantry in numbers. They’re very, very
good when working in concert with recon infantry, as well. If you’re considering using heavy
infantry, consider investing the extra 5-10 points and going for specops instead. You will not be
disappointed.
 Sandy’s choice: Haer Hjemmvaernet
Reservists, also called conscripts, are the last category of infantry. These guys are 5 to
10 points and are generally cheap, providing a low-cost-high-availability alternative to line
infantry. They can generally do whatever line infantry can do, but not as well, usually with less
effective firearms and hand-me-down antitank weapons. Don’t underestimate them, though -
they still have working firearms and antitank rockets, and while they may need several shots to
kill a decent tank, they’ll still get shots off rapidly in tight quarters. Additionally, many of them
come with SMGs, which are surprisingly effective in CQC. SMG-armed reservists in large
groups are perfectly capable of driving off heavy infantry all on their own. Unfortunately, these
tend to be national prototypes.

USA N/A

Britain N/A

France Reservistes

West Germany Heimatschutzen

Canada N/A

Denmark Haer Hjemmvaernet

Sweden Hemvarnsman

Norway LHV

Soviet Union N/A

East Germany Reserveschutzen

Poland N/A

Czechoslovakia N/A

NATO has some reserve infantry, especially the Danish Haer Hjemmsvaernet, that don’t
sacrifice much in quality, but I’m not impressed with Soviet reserves. If you passed reserves
over, give them a second look. I find their true value comes from the fact that they’re cheap,
spammable, and you don’t have to fret too much over losing some, since they’re only a few
points. They’re great for leading infantry charges, while heavier and more valuable troops come
up behind them to mop up. They’re also great for filling out relatively “safe” urban zones just to
make sure enemy infantry can’t sneak past you, or for combing nearby towns or forests if you
suspect enemy troops are about.
 Transports

Of course, infantry are going nowhere fast without their transports. There are four
classes of infantry transports: Trucks, APCs, IFVs, and Helicopters. The choice of what
transport your infantry come in can be just as important as what infantry you take. These
transports are not interchangeable and should not be chosen arbitrarily - instead, they are a
reflection of your tactical doctrine. When selecting infantry in a deck, you also select their
transport at the same time. As with infantry, expensive transports are not always superior to
cheap ones. If you shell out the cash for more expensive transports but never use them to their
potential, that’s money you needlessly wasted. Oh, and note that transports are visible in the
armory under the Vehicle and Helicopter tabs, but for the most part can only be purchased with
infantry. And know that for all transports, you can order infantry to board empty transports again
by selecting the infantry and right clicking the transports.

Sandy’s choice: M998 Humvee, M6 Mosegris

Trucks are the first type of transport. These are all unarmored, unarmed vehicles that
cost 1 point and all have identical stats - 110km/h road speed, 50km/h off-road speed, 3
strength (meaning they will die if the enemy so much as sneezes in their presence). These are
tricky to use - don’t ever send them with your front lines into a fight, they will die even to
splash damage and get your infantry killed. However, they’re great for transporting units that
generally travel around behind the front, like MANPADS and ATGMs.

USA M35, M998 Humvee* **

Britain Pinzgauer

France VLRA

West Germany MD Jupiter

Canada M35

Denmark MD Jupiter, M6 Mosegris* **

Sweden TGB 13

Norway M621

Soviet Union LKV Ural

East Germany Ural-375D

 Poland Star 266

Czechoslovakia Tatra 148

* Travels at 150km/h, not 110km/h
** Costs 5 points, not 1, and has 5 points of health, not 3

My advice is not to underestimate these things. I love using them in infantry blitzes,
because I don’t really care if they die. Empty trucks seem useless, but they have their uses as
well - charge them at ATGMs to waste enemy missile ammo, or use them ahead of your forces
to draw fire and thus scout out enemy locations. Again, they only cost one point.

Sandy’s choice: BTR-60 series, BTR-ZD Skrezhet

Armored Personnel Carriers, or APCs, are lightly armored troop carriers that are
generally armed with medium or heavy machine guns. They generally have one point of armor
all around, and some variants may have additional capabilities, like ATGMs, and cost between 5
and 15 points. They are a halfway point between unarmored trucks and IFVs. Don’t expect them
to survive any serious fire, but a little bulletproofing can go a long way. They’re best when you
want the cheapest possible option to survive a little gunfire, and some provide some interesting
capabilities. Also note that wheeled APCs are faster than tracked ones on roads.

USA M113A1 series

Britain FV603 Saracen, FV432, FV103 Spartan

France VAB series

West Germany M113A1G, TPz Fuchs series

Canada Grizzly, M113A1

Denmark M/113A1, Vildkat

Sweden TGB m/42, PVB 302A

Norway SISU XA-180, NM113, NM135

Soviet Union BTR-60 series, MT-LB series, BTR-D series

East Germany Spw-152K, Spw-60 series

Poland SKOT-2 series, Topas series, MT-LB 23mm

Krak, Promet
 Czechoslovakia OT-64 series, OT-62 series

I generally use APCs when I want the cheapest possible transport that is not a truck.
Don’t expect very much out of them for the most part, but don’t pass them over too quickly
either - they’re an affordable solution to trucks’ lack of survivability and a good way to keep
costs down. Some models provide autocannons, AA guns, or ATGMs that can provide a
significant source of extra firepower.

M2 Bradley IFV, Marder 1, Strf 9040, BMP-1D, BMP-2 obr 1986

Infantry Fighting Vehicles, or IFVs, are transports that are also armored fighting
vehicles. They usually come with decent armor and potent autocannons or other weapon
systems that provide your troops some serious fire support. Their downside is being expensive,
with more expensive variants being the sort of thing you buy for the vehicle while also getting an
infantry squad for free. However, infantry when backed up by autocannons and higher-end
ATGMs can be a serious force even in relatively few numbers; don’t underestimate what a
handful of survivable autocannons can do. These are also very good for accompanying your
front-line forces, where they often can contribute even to outright tank fights.

USA M2 Bradley IFV series, LVTP-7 series,

LAV-25

Britain FV510 Warrior

France AMX-10P

West Germany Marder 1 series

Canada N/A

Denmark M/92 Vildkat

Sweden Strf 9040

Norway N/A

Soviet Union BMP-1 series, BMP-2 series,

East Germany SPz BMP-1 series, SPz BMP-2 series

Poland BWP-1, BWP-2 series

Czechoslovakia BVP-1 series, BVP-2

 I like these things, but with the caveat that they’re no replacement for cheap infantry. If
you’re looking for some variety in your infantry, consider bringing some of these as well as some
cheaper transports for the same type of infantry, so you cover a wider range of options. With
some high-end vehicles, like the Bradley, you might as well just consider yourself as paying for
the vehicle and getting a free rifle squad with it. Drop off the infantry, then use the vehicle as
part of your forces, or as fire support for the infantry.

Sandy’s choice: UH-60A Blackhawk, HKP 3C, Mi-24/25/35 series

Transport helicopters are, with a notable exception, usually lightly armed helicopters
used to transport infantry. They are very fast, but they’ll die pretty quickly if engaged. Use them
as a light, rapid assault or response force, just like they’re used for in real life. It’s best to send
them to rapidly seize urban zones before the enemy forces get there, or to encircle enemies and
occupy towns behind them. Note that in general, PACT has heavier-armed and more expensive
helicopter transports than NATO, who have smaller, lighter-armed, and much cheaper options.

The Mi-24/25/35 series are full Hind heavy gunships which are also transports, and
NATO has no direct equivalent. These can make infantry incredibly expensive to bring in if you
don’t also have cheaper options. Consider using Hind gunships with recon infantry in a
hunter-killer team, or for providing deep-insertion infantry with heavy anti-armor support.

USA UH-1 Huey series, UH-60A Blackhawk,

CH-47C Chinook

Britain Lynx series

France Puma 330H series

West Germany Dornier 205

Canada CH-118, CH-135

Denmark HKP 3C, Sea Knight*

Sweden HKP 3C

Norway UH-1B

Soviet Union Mi-8 series, Ka-29TB, Mi-24 series

East Germany THS Mi-8 series, THS Mi-24/25/35 series

Poland Mi-8T, Mi-24D, Mi-2T

 Czechoslovakia Mi-8T, Mi-25, Mi-4T
* Only available to recon infantry under the Recon tab.

At the same time, I find these indispensable but also warn not to overestimate them.
They will die too quickly, with the exception of the Mi-24 series, to be of any real use in a fight.
However, they have other uses. I try to always have heli-borne special forces and/or recon
infantry in my general-purpose decks. An advanced technique is to sneak these helicopters
along the fringes of the map around their recon screen and get them behind enemy lines, where
infantry can do all sorts of damage before they’re spotted. This is much harder to pull off against
experienced players who watch for this sort of mischief, though.

Also note that a few of these helicopters are quite cheap, like the HKP 3C, and don’t
significantly add to infantry unit cost. This can be a powerful advantage. Because these
helicopters are only five points, you can use them as a rapid scout hoping to spot high-value
targets like CVs or probe enemy air defenses, and not worry too much if they’re shot down.
Alternatively, if you manage to slip some behind the front lines and your enemy doesn’t have an
adequate IADS zone, they can kill unarmored CVs or artillery pieces with their machine gun
before the enemy will likely notice and respond.

Support
The Support tab is one of the most valuable areas of your deck. This tab covers two
critical categories: Fire Support and Air Defense. Considering both of these are indispensable
and have a variety of tactical options necessary for maximum utilization, your Support cards are
going to be one of the harder choices you’ll make in your deck. The true problem is almost that
you’re too spoilt for choice!

Artillery
The first category of support units is artillery. Artillery pieces actually come in four
flavors - mortars, barrage artillery, tube artillery, and rocket artillery. These types of artillery
are each used differently and in different roles, and it’s essential to your understanding of the
game that you are able to differentiate them at a glance. There are, however, some concepts
that apply to all artillery pieces.

First off, you must understand the importance of counterbattery fire. Even if you don’t
have recon eyes on enemy artillery pieces, the shots they fire can be seen, which means you
can pinpoint where a shot came from if you can glimpse where the shots originated from. This is
not a gameplay flaw; it is an abstraction of real-world counterbattery techniques. If you do
glimpse where shots came from, either send your own artillery at that point or at least flare it
with “enemy arty” or something along those lines. Don’t just say “arty”, because your allies
don’t know if you’re pinpointing enemy arty or calling targets for your own arty.

You should also get in the habit of moving your own artillery pieces after every salvo.
Why? Because smart enemies will send shots back at where your artillery came from, too!
Against smart enemies, you’ll frequently see shells hit shortly after your own shells fire. You
don’t have to move them clear across the map - just do slow circles around your FOB. The
important thing is to get in the habit of moving after every shot. It’s just a small precaution but it
can save your artillery from destruction.

Second, understand differing time-to-target. Time-to-target refers to the amount of time

it takes for an artillery piece to go from receiving a fire order to the shells landing on target. This
can vary based on range, aiming speed, and type of artillery. This is particularly vital when trying
to hit moving targets or when you need shells to land ASAP. Honestly, time to target is just
something you will have to have practice with - you will develop a sense for how much time it
takes for shells to reach distances from different artillery systems.

Sandy’s choice: 2S9 Nona, ShM-120 PRAM-S, PzMrs M113

Mortars are very short ranged in comparison to the others (typically between 3000
and 5000m, the Russian Nona is considered long-ranged at 7700m). These are best kept a
short distance behind your front lines. Their advantages include fast aming time, fast
reload time, short time-to-target, and most of them are relatively accurate with a small
impact radius. They are nigh-indispensable in urban warfare for their ability to hammer
one sector without touching another. They also carry a lot of ammunition, which means
they won’t run out without constant resupply.

Their downsides are their relatively weak HE power - you're not going to kill tanks
with these things. They're also micro-heavy, since you have to keep them at a safe distance
behind what should be a moving front AND keep them moving to avoid counterbattery fire.

On the defensive, they are excellent for stunning/panicking advancing enemies with
their short time to target. On the offensive, their short time-to-target allows them to hit
enemy ATGM infantry with good effect, deliver smoke and support assaults on towns. They
can also deal good morale damage to armor.

USA M125A1, M106A2, LAV-M

Britain FV432(M)

France AML 60 series

West Germany PzMrs HS.30, PzMrs M113

 Canada M125

Denmark M/125

Sweden N/A

Norway NM125, NM106

Soviet Union MT-LB 82mm, MT-LB Vasilek, 2S9 Nona

series

East Germany GW-SFL Tundscha 120mm

Poland N/A

Czechoslovakia ShM-120 PRAM-S

While mortars are very good at their role, I generally only use these in my armored
front-line decks where they’ll get the most use. They can often replace barrage artillery in
concert with a card of heavy artillery. However, if you’re playing NSWP, you really should just
take Danas instead. They can do everything mortars can, but better.

Sandy’s choice: BKan 1A, 2S19 Msta, Dana/wz.77 Dana

Barrage artillery, also called medium artillery, is your basic artillery piece. They have
moderate range (between 10,000m and 30,000m typically) and moderate spread. On medium
maps they can generally stay with your FOBs; only on the largest maps should you bother
moving them. They are moderately supply-heavy. Their advantages include being able to pound
enemy armored advances and provide a wider array of smoke than mortars. They can cause
a fair amount of damage and even casualties in clustered enemies. They aren't as micro-heavy
as mortars, though it's still a good idea to keep them moving back and forth because they will
attract the most counterbattery fire - this is because they have more distinctive firing sequences.

Their disadvantages come mostly from lack of specialization; they aren't accurate
enough to "snipe" nor are they fast enough to provide the same degree of supporting fire as
mortars. They have longer time-to-target than mortars, so they're best used against non-moving
enemies or for pounding areas of forest or so on where you know there to be enemies.

USA M109 series

Britain FV433 Abbot

 France AMX-13 AU 105mm, AMX AuF1

West Germany PzH M109G

Canada M109 RCHA series

Denmark SKH M/109 series

Sweden BKan 1A

Norway NM109

Soviet Union 2S1 Gvozdika, 2S3 Akatsiya series, 2S19

Msta

East Germany SFL-Hb 2S1, SFL-Hb 2S3

Poland 2S1 Gozozik, wz.77 Dana

Czechoslovakia 2S1 Karafiat, Dana

These are best used as jack-of-all-trades artillery; they're capable of causing damage
and killing lighter armor in enemies, provide a good amount of morale and stun damage to
targets, and aren't too supply-heavy. They really shine in providing smoke, since they can hit a
wider area than the others. By the way, faster medium artillery pieces like the Czech Dana are
also really good at accompanying front lines; they can be kept further back than mortar pieces,
and can provide more heavy fire than mortars. This can make them effective
mortar-replacements in a deck.

Sandy’s choice: 2S7M Malka

Heavy tube artillery are the other category of tube artillery. Noobs often confuse them
with your basic artillery because of a similar visual appearance and lack of general
distinguishing in the unit stat sheets. They are devastating when used right, but lackluster when
used wrong. They have extreme range (30,000m+, the Malkas have over 40,000m) and can hit
clear across the map even on large maps. The other thing you'll discover, though, is that they
are highly accurate at extreme range without shot correction. This suits their preferred role
perfectly - use them for sniping high value targets and for counterbattery fire. Additionally, they
have the best HE damage of any artillery piece, which means they can kill most units on impact,
even tanks.

Their downsides are their extremely long time-to-target, which makes them nigh-useless
for attacking a moving front, and their low shot count. Don't use this as tactical artillery to back
up your front lines - leave that for the others. Additionally, they're usually more expensive than
other artillery. They also take much longer to reload than mortars or barrage artillery. Their low
shot count and low spread also makes them relatively less useful for smoke, too, but they’re
better than nothing in a pinch.

USA M110 series

Britain M110 series

France N/A

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union 2S7 Pion, 2S7M Malka

East Germany N/A

Poland 2S7 Piwonia

Czechoslovakia 2S7 Pivonka

I advocate always having at least one pair of these on hand in any deck in which they
are available. Keep them hotkeyed so that you can quickly select them without scrolling away
from your field of view. Use them as your personal sniper rifle. They're excellent for taking out
static CVs, SAMs, or for counterbattery.

Rocket artillery is the last type of artillery. Noobs LOVE rocket artillery because of its
visually impressive firing sequence, but don't understand how to use it at all. Rocket artillery has
very long range, but low accuracy, and shot correction does not help. This actually makes it
more suitable for its primary purpose, but leads to a lot of misuse. Their advantage is their ability
to morale-damage a wide area. Used correctly, rocket artillery can stun an entire front line,
leaving them vulnerable to an assault or turning a relentless enemy advance into a panicked
mess. A more nebulous bonus is that human players (well, noobs) often panic at the sight of a
huge wave of rockets hitting their precious forces, which causes them to recklessly overreact.

Their disadvantages are numerous. They are EXTREMELY supply-heavy. They will eat
FOBs in a few salvos at most. If you use allied FOBs to resupply your rockets, your team will get
pissed at you. This is, in fact, a common form of griefing, or just plain retardation. They are also
highly expensive. They are almost guaranteed to draw counterbattery fire and must be
well-defended with AA systems and micromanagement. They have extremely long reload times
- don't bother trying to hit the same situation twice with one battery. Oh, and they have very low
damage - you'd get lucky to kill anything with it at all. They also have long minimum ranges. You
can't move them in to make them more accurate.

USA M270 MLRS

Britain N/A

France N/A

West Germany LARS, LARS-2

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union BM-21 Grad, BM-27 Uragan, BM-30 Smerch

East Germany MFRW BM-24, MFRW BM-21, MFRW RM-70

Poland BM-24M, BM-21

Czechoslovakia RM-70

Using them is tricky, but can be rewarding. When used wrong, they'll empty your entire
supply and accomplish little, while pissing off your allies and wasting your command points. But
when used correctly, they'll stun entire advances single-handedly and turn entire battles in your
favor. Use them on large, wide concentrations of enemies just before attacking with
conventional forces, to make the most of their high morale damage. Be sure to keep them
mobile and defended, because they WILL be targeted. Personally, I usually forgo the use of
rocket artillery - while they’re great in a highly specific role, the honest truth is you’ll be just fine
with more medium artillery instead.
 Air Defenses
Air defense systems are the other half of the Support tab. However, there are some
non-radar SPAAGs which instead fall under the Vehicle tab. This will be important later, as it
allows you to accept some downgrades in exchange for freeing up a precious Support slot in
your deck. We already went over the different types of air defenses under the Integrated Air
Defense Systems section, but these are the ones that fall under the Support tab: Radar
SPAAGs, non-radar SPAAGs, Radar SAMs, and non-radar SAMs. In general, radar-guided
units are superior to non-radar-guided units, but are also SEAD counterable.

The problem you face when deck building is that it’s almost impossible to have a
perfect IADS and a perfect artillery complement at the same time. The Support tab is a
perfect example of why deck building is so variable and so fun - you’ll never have everything
you need. So you’ll have to make decisions about what parts of your IADS are most lacking or
most vital.

Sandy’s choice: M48A1 Chaparral, M1097 Avenger, MT-LB Strela-10M, 2K22 Tunguska
series
Non-radar SAMs are generally more useful against helicopters than against jets. They
generally have lower range and less capabilities than Radar SAMs, but they also are not
counterable by SEAD aircraft and are generally cheaper and more plentiful - which means
they’re an essential part of building a thorough, robust IADS zone.

USA M48 Chaparral series, M1097 Avenger

Britain Tracked Rapier

France AMX-30 Roland, VLRA Mistral

West Germany N/A

Canada M113 ADATS**

Denmark N/A

Sweden LVRBV 701

Norway NM195

Soviet Union 2K22 Tunguska series*, BRDM-2 Strela-1M,

MT-LB Strela-10M

East Germany FlaRak Strela-1, FlaRak Strela-10M, LO-1800

 Fasta-4

Poland BRDM-2 Strzala-1M

Czechoslovakia PLRK S-1M, PLRK S-10M, Strop 2*

* Combination SPAAG and SAM
** Combination ATGM and SAM

I consider these to be an indispensable, non-optional part of a deck. If you can’t get

non-radar SAM vehicles, get good MANPADS infantry in the hopes of covering for this lack.
They’re not just good at killing SEAD aircraft, they’re a great way to make sure enemy aircraft
have nowhere to hide if they shoot past your lines. And because many of these options are
cheap, you can afford to bring extra early in the game where points are precious. Oh, and
several of these lack the [STAT] tag, which means they can fire on the move - this is essential
for escorting mobile tank forces!

Sandy’s choice: 9K33 Osa series, any Roland 2/3, 9K37 Buk series, Noah
Radar SAMs are SAM vehicles that use radar. They are generally longer-ranged and
more effective when fighting jets. However, they are also good against mass helicopter rushes
because their missiles have a wide splash damage radius. They tend to be your best but most
expensive SAMs. These are your heavy-hitters, and these are definitely the star jet-killers.

USA M727 I-Hawk

Britain Tracked Rapier FSA

France AMX-30 Roland 3

West Germany Marder Roland 2

Canada N/A

Denmark M/727 Hawk

Sweden RBS 67 Hawk

Norway Noah

Soviet Union 9K33 Osa series, 9K37 Buk series

East Germany FlaRak Osa, FlaRak Kub-M

Poland 9K33 Romb series, RZP 2K12 Kub-M

 Czechoslovakia Osa-AK series, 2K12 Kub-M

Another essential part of your IADS. If you lack IR SAMs, definitely stock up on these.
However, know that they’re expensive and limited, and protect them and micromanage them
well.

Sandy’s choice: M163 PIVADS, Flakpanzer Gepard, ZSU-23-4 series

Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, or SPAAGs, are vehicles with AAA weapons.
SPAAGs with Radar guidance are superior in performance to those without. They’re
generally more likely to kill helicopters than jets, but they can also engage jets and at the least
stun or panic them, which makes them sitting ducks for SAMs. As such, it’s best if you place
them at your front, with SAM launchers further back so they’ll have the easiest time of engaging
targets.

USA M163 PIVADS

Britain N/A

France AMX-13 Deil Noir

West Germany Flakpanzer Gepard series

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden VEAK 40

Norway N/A

Soviet Union ZSU-23-4 series, 2K22 Tunguska series*

East Germany Fla-SFL 23/4 series

Poland ZSU-23-4 Szylka

Czechoslovakia N/A

* Combination SPAAG and SAM

Don’t underestimate SPAAGs. They’re affordable, mobile, lethal against helicopters,

capable of stunning jets, and they can stun tanks and kill light vehicles, too! I really like them
and consider them an essential part of my IADS zones.

Sandy’s choice: FV434 Falcon

Unguided SPAAGs are just like Radar-guided SPAAGs, but cheaper, less capable, and
they lack the [RAD] tag and thus the ability to be targeted by SEAD aircraft. Some unguided
SPAAGs are in the Support tab, and some are in the Vehicle tab. However, they are generally
used in the same manner as guided SPAAGs.

USA M163 Vulcan

Britain FV434 Falcon

France VAB VDAA

West Germany Flakpanzer M42A1

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden LVKV fm/43

Norway N/A

Soviet Union BTR-152E ZPTU series, Ural ZU-23-2

East Germany Fla-MG SPW-152E, Fla-SFL 57-2

Poland Hibneryt ZU-23-2 series, ZSU-57-2

Czechoslovakia M53/59 Praga, Strop 1, Strop 2*

* Combination SPAAG and SAM

I don’t like taking these if there are better options available. The reason is, Support slots
are highly valuable and limited, while Vehicle slots are generally underutilized. If I’m going to
take unguided guns, I’m going to do so in the other category. However, they can do in a pinch,
and they can still kill helicopters and stun ground units if you use them correctly.

Tanks
 Ah, tanks. Truly the fun part of any deck. Knowing how to use tanks is a huge part of
knowing how to play Wargame. As previously discussed, movement, cover, and distance are
critically important; it’s nowhere near enough to simply shove your armor at their armor and
hope for the best. They are the heaviest, heaviest-armored, and some of the most expensive
units in the game. Their cannons can destroy anything on the ground with enough shots.
However, just like every other unit, you need to understand the basics of tank warfare to be
effective.

Because they’re so useful, just like in real life there are many units in the game whose
sole purpose is to destroy tanks. Sending tanks against these units unsupported is asking for
them to die like a bitch. Don’t do that. When using heavy armor, you must guard against
anti-tank units. I know it sounds obvious, but people forget to do this all the time. Then their
tank rushes get slaughtered, and they get frustrated, because an expensive fighting force was
just effortlessly ruined. Remember, the key to using tanks to their full effect is to liberally
surround them with support so they can do their best work without worrying about hard
counters.

So, if they get countered so easily, why are tanks useful? They’re useful because tanks
are your heavy armor. They’re the units that take hits and keep on moving. They should be
absorbing enemy rounds into their heavy frontal armor so that your fragile support units don’t
get killed. They are the wall between you and all those squishy specialized units you have set
up. They’re what keeps enemy armor from steamrolling your IADS and your artillery and your
logistics. They also provide a significant portion of your firepower - while they are not as efficient
as ATGMs at killing enemy tanks, they’ll still comprise much of your fighting capability.

One of the important things you need to understand about individual tanks are their
stabilizers. As previously discussed, stabilizers allow a unit to fire accurately on the move, and
this is absolutely critical to using tanks correctly. Tanks without stabilizers will not hit jack
shit on the move; they should be used in static defense, ambush, or with the Attack Move
command. Tanks with good stabilizers are absolutely at their best when on the move. Tanks
with good stabilizers should not be standing still. If you use your stabilized tanks as static
units, you’re throwing away what is usually their biggest advantage! Use them as part of a
dynamic defense, or as instruments of maneuver warfare, but for your mens’ sake don’t throw
your advantage away when you have it. When your tanks move, it forces the other guy to move
his forces in response - and this is crucial in seizing and holding the initiative in a fight.

Next, you need to understand how range affects tank warfare. Most tank guns come in
one of three ranges:
● 1925m
● 2100m
● 2275m

While this seems insignificant, the range advantage dictates how tanks are best
used. If you send your cheaper 1925m-ranged tanks up against longer-ranged tanks, they’ll
generally get a shot or two off before your tanks could even possibly shoot back - and this
means they’ll take damage and take morale damage, which ruins their accuracy, which means
the enemy will get more shots off...and your tanks will die like a bitch. Additionally,
longer-ranged tanks apply the [KE] damage bonus and the accuracy bonus at a longer range,
too. Accuracy and AP power stated in the unit info card are at their maximum range, and
increase as the target gets closer.

Generally, always use the range advantage when you have it. If your tanks have the
range advantage, keep the enemy tanks at range! If enemy shorter-ranged tanks rush towards
your longer ranged tanks, why would you sacrifice your advantage when you could just Reverse
Move and keep them unable to return fire? Conversely, if you have cheaper tanks that lack the
range advantage, use maneuver warfare tactics or the Smoke Position command to get your
tanks right up close, where their disadvantage is negated by the close distance and shooting
first is most important.

Finally, understand how a tank’s various stats relate to one another, and try to intuit how
their various stats dictate their role. The three general categories that armor are judged on are
mobility, firepower, and armor. Just because a tank sucks in one category doesn’t mean the
tank sucks, if it makes up for it in another category. Generally, you will not get exceptional stats
in all categories without a seriously high price to go along with it. You don’t need to spend 120+
points per tank to get a good vehicle - you just need to know your units’ capabilities and
limitations.

Mobility refers to tactical mobility - the ability to move around the battlefield quickly. This
is a function of autonomy, off-road speed, and stabilizers. Units with good stats in these areas
are said to have good mobility, and so are best at maneuver warfare and dynamic defense.

Firepower is pretty obvious, and is a function of the quality of a unit’s main cannon.
Range, AP value, and rate of fire determine a tank’s firepower rating. Better firepower makes a
tank better at destroying other heavy armor.

Armor is even more obvious - it refers to a tank’s survivability. Heavy armor is usually
the antithesis of high mobility, but not always. The heavier your tank’s armor is, the more
effective they are on the defense and for absorbing fire so that lighter units can engage safely.

Again, you can only get all three in the most expensive tanks. It’s far better to have
just one or two strengths and to use them most effectively.

● Mixing Firepower and Armor, but lacking mobility, like Britain? You’re best in a static
defense, but be sure to guard your flanks so you don’t get surrounded.
● Mixing Mobility and Firepower, but lacking in armor, like France? You’re best in
maneuver warfare, ambush, and quick shoot-and-scoot raids. The point is to keep
 moving and keep the enemy shooting at something else.
● Mixing mobility and armor, like Russia? Stay ahead of your front lines and absorb enemy
tank fire while friendly ATGMs or aircraft deal the real damage - alternatively, rush in
close to take advantage of the accuracy and AP bonuses that [KE] weapons get in close
quarters to negate your lack of firepower.

Any combination of these features will tell you what to do with any single unit, if only you
apply a little logic and your knowledge of the game’s mechanics.

Because of the arbitrary and difficult classification of units in the Tank category, for this
category I’ll instead discuss every series of tank individually. Yes, that’s right - all of them,
individually. Know that most tanks in Wargame fall into the category of main battle tank,
meaning they are “line tanks” that, like line infantry, aim to cover general-purpose tank roles.
However, there are exceptions.

NATO Armor
NATO armor is more diverse than their Pact cousins - most NATO nations have their
own unique line of tanks, although some use imports. It’s important to know that NATO armor is
generally inferior to PACT armor. Additionally, NATO armor works best in mixed-nation decks,
where you can use mixes of forces that cover different specialties.

AMX-13 Harpon: This French-only tank, at first glance, seems pretty useless as a tank.
It has a frontal armor rating of two, and it only gets worse from there. On top of that, it has a
nearly useless gun with only a 1575m range and an underwhelming machine gun. However, it
comes with four useable ATGMs and has great mobility - save for lacking a stabilizer.
Additionally, it has a Small size, one of the few units in the category to have such. Use this tank
for ambush, or for rushing behind enemy units and shooting into rear armor at point blank
range. For 20 points, it really isn’t that bad, especially for being an ATGM carrier.

Many people like these as cheap, spammable ATGM carriers. I don’t often play in a style
that needs that concept at all, but if you do, give these a close look.

AMX-10 RC SB: This French light tank has exceptional mobility (save for lacking
stabilizers - an annoyingly common trait in French vehicles!) at 85km/h offroad and a 150km/h
road speed. Like the AMX-13 Harpon, it has relatively weak armor, and will die in one shot to
any serious tank. With its great mobility and decent firepower, it should be used in ambush roles
or for a maneuver force; in a French-only deck it’s also useable as a flank-screening force for
your AMX-30s. At 30 points, they’re actually pretty useful, and perfectly capable of taking on
cheaper PACT tanks if you keep them shooting and scooting.

The AMX-30 series is France’s main battle tank. They cover the AMX-30, the AMX-30B,
AMX-30B2, AMX-30B2 Brennus, AMX-32, and AMX-40. Generally speaking, all of them have
great firepower and mobility for their price range. Even the 45-point AMX-30B has a 2100m gun,
which gives them a range advantage against most tanks of their price range. Additionally, all of
them above the base AMX-30 have a 20mm autocannon in addition to their main gun, which
makes them surprisingly survivable against helicopters if they can get in close enough to shoot
them. However, all of them have very flimsy armor for their prices - even the 95-point AMX-40
has only 12 points of frontal armor, while the M1 Abrams has 15 for five points cheaper! Finally,
all French tanks have an irritating lack of stabilizers, which means they have to stop moving to
use their excellent guns.

Because of this critical lack of armor, the secret to French armor is to use AMX-30s like
light tanks. If you know how to use light tanks to maximum effectiveness, these can be a
seriously great force. I also love mixing AMX-30B2s with Chieftain Mk.10s, using the Chieftain’s
heavy armor to absorb blows while the AMX-30’s great gun dishes out the damage. Don’t let the
terrible frontal armor scare you off - if you’re a little ballsy and good at dodging bullets, these are
a really good investment! Oh, and as a bit of trivia, the AMX-30B2 Brennus wasn’t developed
until the early 90s, making it one of the game’s few outright anachronisms.

The Cougar is a Canadian light tank. The first thing you’ll notice is that it uses HEAT
shells, which means it does NOT get the AP bonus in close quarters of [KE] guns. But it does
have a 2100m gun for only 25 points, even if it’s seriously wanting for accuracy and power. It
does, however, have excellent mobility despite the lack of a stabilizer, with an exceptional
100km/h off-road speed!

The Centurion series is a tank series shared by multiple countries. They include the
Canadian Centurion Mk.5, Mk.6, and Mk.11, the Danish Centurion 84mm and Centurion 105mm
and Centurion Mk.5/2-DK, and the Swedish Strv 102, 102R, and 104. These are generally
low-end and unexceptional NATO tanks without much to commend them, and don’t shine in
mobility or armor or firepower. However, they’re a staple NATO tank in Cat C decks.
 The Chieftain series is the British main battle tank. They cover the Chieftain Mk.2, the
Mk.5, and the Mk.10. They typify the British armored doctrine - heavy armor and decent
firepower but with low mobility. The Mk.2 has very decent frontal armor for only 40 points, while
the Mk.10 is one of the better NATO medium-price tanks with a very nice 14 frontal armor and a
2100m gun for only 65 points. The Mk.5 sits somewhat in between them, but is one of the best
Cat C-capable choices available to NATO decks.

I love the Chieftain series on the defensive, and the Mk. 10 rarely lets me down as a Cat
B line tank option. Take some with some veterancy upgrades and they’ll make a great static
defense, or keep them in front of AMX-30s for a great combination of heavy armor and heavy
firepower.

The British Challenger 1 and Challenger 1 Mk.2 is the first of NATO’s three major
heavies. It’s also the third-most expensive NATO tank available. It’s easiest to see this as being
the Chieftain’s big brother - it has a good gun with superb frontal armor, but still lacks in mobility.
If you need a tank to absorb enemy fire, there are few better options than the Chally.

The Scorpion Light Tank is a lot like the Canadian Cougar - right down to having the
same gun! While it is slower than the Cougar, it also has a Small size and so is a little hard to hit
at range. Unfortunately, it has only HEAT weapons, and so can’t really defeat heavy armor
except with a rear or side shot. Like the Cougar, it has low accuracy as well.

The MBT-70 family is a strange beast from America and West Germany. The American
MBT-70 mixes the unexceptional Shillelagh-C ATGM with an equally unexceptional HEAT-only
gun and a decent autocannon. The German KPz-70 Keiler, however, nixes the ATGM in favor of
a decent 2275m gun taken from the Leo 2 and a good stabilizer, while retaining the autocannon.
This is one of the best Cat C tanks NATO gets, and the American version is one of very few
NATO tanks with ATGMs. They both have decent frontal armor and good mobility, but the
German version is much better at a mobile fight with the long-ranged gun and good stabilizer.

I am unimpressed with the American MBT-70, but the KPz 70 is one of West Germany’s
best units. Only the fact that it’s a Prototype to the otherwise mediocre West German deck stops
me from using it all the time.

The M48 Patton series is an outdated series of NATO tanks. They include the West
German KPz M48A2G and KPz M48A2G2, the Norwegian M48A1 and M48A5, and the
American M48A5 USMC. While they were good in the late 40s and early 50s, by Wargame’s
time they’ve long since been outclassed. Cheaper M48s even fail to have a 1925m gun, having
only a 1575m range! However, they are one of NATO’s light, spammable tanks, starting at only
15 points. They’re also Cat C available and, in the USA’s case, available to Marine decks.

If I hadn’t made this obvious, I don’t really like M48s. In general, I don’t like 15-point
spam tanks. However, like all cheap tanks, they’re perfectly capable of killing things in close
quarters or for filling out the lines in between better options. But I still prefer to shell out the cash
for something better.

The Leopard 1 series is a NATO staple. They’re also much like PACT tank series in that
they cover a range, from old, low-end, and spammable to decent mid-range tanks. They cover
the West German Leopard A1-A5 series, the Canadian Leopard C1, the Danish Leopard
1A3-DK, and the Norwegian Leopard 1NO and Leopard 1A1NO. All of them have surprisingly
decent mobility with 65km/h off-road speed and Medium to Good stabilizers. At around the
50-point mark you’ll get 2100m guns, too, and units above that mark make perfectly serviceable
medium-cost line tanks. Most of them have good frontal armor for their cost. At whatever price
point you need them, the Leo 1 variants are always a choice worth evaluating when you’re
building a NATO armored deck.

The Leopard 2 series is the West German successor to the venerable, but dated
Leopard 1. It covers the West German Leopard 2, 2A1, and 2A4. This is the second of NATO’s
three series of heavy tanks, and generally the best in terms of stats. With high speed, good
stabilizers, and heavy armor, these will not steer you wrong, even if the Leo 2 and Leo 2A1 don’t
have great guns for their prices. The Leopard 2A4 is the most expensive and the best NATO
tank in the game.

The Leopard 2A4 is the really noteworthy one here...the Leo 2 and 2A1 are comparable
to Soviet tanks that are much cheaper. Then again, that seems to be the story of NATO armor in
general.
 The M1 Abrams tank series is the third and final series of NATO heavies, and generally
the most beloved by noobs and/or Americans. This consists of the M1 Abrams, the M1IP
(“Improved Protection”), and the M1A1 Abrams. The -A1 variant is the second-most-expensive
NATO tank in the game. The original M1 Abrams has a surprisingly mediocre gun, with only
13AP. It and the IP both have Medium stabilizers, but the M1A1 has a Very Good stabilizer.
They also have both a .50 caliber machine gun and a 7.62mm machine gun, and so can put out
some good fire against close helicopters or infantry in a pinch. They have heavy frontal armor,
but good mobility (except for the -A1, which drops down to a middlish 60km/h).

In general, I find the M1 Abrams to be a highly overrated tank, but I consider the M1A1
to be the best all-rounder NATO heavy. I usually give the M1 and IP a pass, but if I need an
all-purpose NATO heavy, I generally reach for the A1. Since A1s are good general-purpose
armor, I find they make a good spearhead while filled out with other medium tanks.
However, recent patches have lowered the price of the M1 Abrams tank, making it more useful
than it used to be.

The M551A1 Sheridan light tank. One of the game’s few Para tanks. The first thing
you’ll notice is that, for a tank, it has practically no armor at all. The other thing you’ll notice is
that it’s one of the few ATGM tanks in NATO, but also has a relatively inaccurate, HEAT-only
main gun. Since it derives no advantage from proximity, use this thing not as a tank, but as an
ATGM carrier.

I consider this thing to be absolutely worthless. It’s decently fast, but its HEAT gun
makes it much less useful in maneuver warfare. If you want an ATGM carrier, NATO is certainly
not lacking in things with the superior TOW or Milan series of ATGMs, head over to the Vehicle
tab. Additionally, its armor is like paper - 12.7mm or 14.5mm machine guns can pierce it! This
might have had some value in the Vehicle slot, but don’t take this where you can take an actual
tank.

The M8 AGS is an American prototype mobile gun system. Let’s discuss that - it is a
mobile gun, not a tank. If you get it into a slugging match with tanks, it will die like a bitch. It has
armor that even the French would scoff at, but it has great mobility and excellent firepower - for
50 points it has the same gun as the M1 Abrams tank, with a Very Good stabilizer, and a 50%
ROF buff over the Abrams.
 Don’t underestimate this thing - even though it’s not a tank, it’s a very, very good
instrument of maneuver warfare for Cat A American decks. They mix amazingly well with M1A1
Abrams tanks; use the expensive tanks to reverse-move while putting out effective fire, then
circle around with these and wreak havoc on their AA systems, ATGM carriers, or the rear armor
of their own tanks. Oh, and yes, the Year for this model is 1992. Yes, this game takes place in
1986. So...yeah.

The M60 Patton series is the American series of main battle tanks. It covers the M60A1
Patton, the M60A1 RISE Patton, the M60A3, and the Super M60, as well as the M60A1 USMC.
The USMC and the M60A1 variants are pretty cheap and underwhelming, but the rest have
decent mobility and medium stabilizers for their price. The M60A3 has the same gun as the M1
Abrams for a third less, while the Super M60 improves upon the A3 with much better armor and
two more AP for its gun.

These aren’t my favorite line tanks, but the RISE Patton is a decent 45-point tank that I
use in my American decks as an affordable line tank, and many people I know swear by the A3
as being an “Abrams Light”, making up for the M1 Abrams’ relatively low quality for its 90-point
price tag.

The American M60A2 Starship series covers two models, the E1 and E2. They’re one
of the few NATO tanks to carry an ATGM, the Shillelagh, with only 6 accuracy and 16AP. They
couple that with a 152mm HEAT-only gun. The E1 model has a .50 caliber Browning, while the
E2 trades up to a 20mm autocannon. They both have the same armor as the RISE Patton, and
are both pretty slow, with no stabilizers.

I consider Starships to be absolute garbage. They have lackluster armor and shit
mobility, a HEAT gun instead of [KE], and the Shillelagh sucks as an ATGM. Why would you
ever rely on it when NATO gets Milans and TOWs instead?

The Swedish Strv 103 series, including the 103B and the prototype 103C, are an
oddball amongst NATO. The first thing you’ll notice is the S-tank’s lack of a rotating turret - they
more closely resemble Nazi German StuGs than NATO tanks in that regard. With their 50km/h
speed and total lack of stabilizers, they really suffer in a lack of mobility. But they have great
frontal armor for the 60-75 point range and a high-ROF 15rpm, 2100m-ranged gun. Additionally,
note its Small size, which gives enemies a decreased chance to hit.

I really love the 103B, and would love the 103C if I ever used Swedish-only decks. It’s
truly amazing in static defense, or in ambush roles. Don’t expect its 12AP gun to kill heavy
Soviet armor at max range, but it can destroy anything in its own price range in a slugging
match and in a short-range ambush at side armor it can one-shot a T-80. These go in almost all
of my NATO mixed nation decks.

PACT Armor
PACT armor, unlike their NATO opposition, are highly homogenous. For the most part, all
NSWP nations use variations of Soviet equipment. It’s important to know that Pact tanks are
generally superior to NATO tanks. Also know that Soviet armor is generally the best - this is a
historical fact; the Soviet Union preferred to arm its Warsaw Pact allies with slightly out of date
weapons so it would always be militarily superior. Also, the Soviets inversted a lot more in tanks
with ATGMs than the Americans did, and so most higher-end variants have ATGMs. Finally,
most Pact tank series act like the NATO Leopard 1 or M60 series - thanks to modernizations
programs, most series cover a range between low-end and high-end, which means that
lower-end variants of newer tanks compete with higher-end variants of older tanks. We’ll start
with the special tanks, and then move on to the five main series of Pact armor: the T-55, the
T-62, the T-64, the T-72, and the T-80.

The Russian PT-90 is one of the few Pact light tanks. It mixes a pitifully weak gun with
the Malyutka-P ATGM. It isn’t very maneuverable and has very weak armor. Essentially, it is a
vehicle for delivering more ATGMs to the battlefield.

I don’t like the PT-90 at all; PACT is never short on choices for ATGMs and the Malyutka
only has 13 AP. The only time you might need this is if a Cat C Armored deck needs ATGM
carriers.

The Russian BMP-685 is the other Russian light tank. For its price, it has an accurate
but not very powerful gun. But it does have a Medium stabilizer and a 70km/h offroad speed -
this gives it some use as a maneuver warfare vehicle or for rushing right up close to the enemy
to engage.
 I don’t like this either, but only because it has to compete with some very good T-55
variants at the 40-point range. It’s not that it’s bad, just that you can get a real tank with real
armor for the same price.

The Polish PT-76B Desant is another Pact light tank. This is one of the cheapest tanks
in the game, but it shows - it has a whopping 2 frontal armor and a 76mm HEAT-only gun with 4
accuracy and 10 AP power. It’s critically slow at 45km/h offroad, and its only real advantage
seems to be a medium stabilizer and a small size, and only 10 points.

I consider this to be absolutely awful, worthy only of distracting players or filling out a
spam deck - and even then, why not take the same-priced T-34 instead with a [KE] gun and
better armor?

The East German KPz T-34/85M and Polish T-34/85MI are two identical units, the T-34.
Yes, that T-34. The one from World War Two. Yes, they seriously were still in service in the
1980s. Their gun only reaches out to 1575m, and has only 3 accuracy and 8 AP power - but for
ten points, what do you expect? They’re pretty slow, have no stabilizer, and only 3 frontal armor.
The only serious use these things are going to have is if you can sneak them around behind
enemies - remember, [KE] guns do much more damage at point-blank range.

I still consider these pretty worthless. Yes, you CAN use them up close if you maneuver,
but why the hell would you? Even the base T-55 is only 10 points more and that at least has
frontal armor to show for it. These were a good tank in 1943, but warfare has come a long way
since then.

The T-55 is the first of our series of Pact main battle tanks. They were also the most
produced tank in history! Their variants are:

Soviet Union T-55, T-55A, T-55AM, T-55AM2, T-55AMV

East Germany KPz T-55, KPz T-55A, KPz T-55AM1PB, KPz

T-55AM2PB

Poland T-55, T-55L, T-55AM Merida, T-55AM2

 Merida

Czechoslovakia T-55, T-55A, T-55AM1B, T-55AM2B

The base T-55 is a 15-point low-end tank. The T-55A (called the L variant in Poland,
otherwise identical) is a five-point improvement that adds a machine gun and improves the main
gun into something useable. Like all low-end tanks, they really need numbers or close range to
be seriously useful. All of them above the base model have Medium stabilizers and most are
generally slow off-road at 50km/h. Most models have decent, but unexceptional frontal armor for
their prices. Higher-end T-55 variants compete with cheaper T-72s and T-64s, but many have
Bastion ATGMs and surprisingly good guns.

Low-end T-55s are spam tanks, especially in Cat C decks. However, don’t dismiss
high-end T-55s, I actually prefer the T-55AMV over the same-priced T-64A as my Soviet
medium-cost line tank. While high-end T-55s have relatively lackluster 11AP guns, they’re a
cheap way to get decent ATGMs onto the field. While Bastions aren’t going to one-shot NATO
heavies, they’re decent in numbers, and are a good way to deal some damage to NATO armor
before they even get in range to respond.

The T-62 is the next series of Pact main battle tanks. It did a brief stint as the Soviet
Union’s main battle tank, but wasn’t well-received and was replaced in that role by the T-72 less
than a decade later. It also wasn’t widely exported. Its variants are:

Soviet Union T-62, T-62 obr 1972, T-62M, T-62M1,

T-62MV-1

East Germany N/A

Poland N/A

Czechoslovakia T-62cz

The base T-62 is the same price as the T-55A, and has one point more of frontal armor
in exchange for a worse main gun, no stabilizer, no machine gun, and lower mobility. The 1972
revision added a machine gun, but it isn’t until the M1 revision that you’ll see a Medium
stabilizer and better armor. The Czech T-62cz is a significantly improved M1 revision for only
five points more. The M and MV1 models adda Sheksna ATGM, with a great 2800m range, but
only 8 accuracy, with 19 AP. All T-62 variants have low mobility and only the Czech variant has
good armor at its price point. All of them have a very low ROF on their gun, at only 6rpm.
 I don’t like T-62s at all. The Czech variant is an okay addition to Czech-only decks, but in
Soviet or mixed decks, I find none of the variants to be as good as other tanks I can get in their
price range. Some people do find the M model useful, so do take a look at it. I don’t see why
you would bother with any other variant; the earlier three T-62 variants are outclassed by
competing T-55 models and the T-62MV-1 costs as much as the superior T-64B!

The T-64 series are Soviet-only main battle tanks. Unlike the T-62, this was never
exported for being too good, not for being too bad. The five variants are the T-64A, T-64B,
T-64BM, T-64BVI, and T-64BV.

Though most of the time later tanks are better than earlier tanks, the T-64 was actually
superior to the later T-72, but was more complex to manufacture. The T-64A starts at 55 points,
but jumps up to 80 points for the B variant, going on to 95 and then 135 points from there. The
T-64A is an option as a main line tank, while the more expensive variants are better used as
more expensive high-end tanks.

All of them have bad or absent stabilizers, which is actually historically incorrect. They
have decent armor in their price ranges, and aside from their lack of stabilizers are decently
mobile off-road. The Kobra ATGM has a 2625m range, having only 8 accuracy but a
considerable 20 AP power. Interestingly enough, these tanks are all surprisingly cost-effective.
Compare the 95-point T-64BM with the 130-point T-80BV. In fact, the T-64BM is nearly a straight
upgrade over the T-80B, while costing five points less.

Because of this cost-effectiveness, I always bring T-64 variants in my Pact armored

decks. The base tank is comparable to the T-55AMV as a line tank, while the B and BM variants
are very cost-effective. The BV variant is one of Pact’s best heavy, high-cost tanks.

The T-72 series is the most the second-most numerous and varied series of Pact main
battle tanks. It replaced the short-lived T-62 and the more venerable T-55 as the main battle
tank of the Soviet Union, and was widely exported. Its variants are:

Soviet Union T-72, T-72A, T-72B1, T-72B

East Germany KPz T-72, KPz T-72M, KPz T-72M1

Poland T-72, T-72M Jaguar, T-72M1 Jaguar, T-72

Wilk
 Czechoslovakia T-72, T-72M, T-72M1cz, T-72M1M

As with the T-55, the base T-72 models are identical, and the T-72A/M model are also
almost identical. Low-end models have very poor main guns and no stabilizers, but very good
frontal armor for their price. This is a common feature to T-72s - they have good armor and
decent mobility, but relatively lackluster main guns. High-end models have better guns and very
good frontal armor, but almost all still have a low 7rpm rate of fire, and only the top-end Soviet
variant gets an ATGM - the exceptional Svir ATGM, which is surpassed only by the T-80 lines
Refleks ATGM. Because these tanks combine armor with mobility while sacrificing firepower,
they’re generally best used as a front line tank where they can absorb enemy fire while T-64s or
T-80s provide the firepower with their faster-firing and more accurate guns.

I don’t like T-72s for Soviet decks, but they’re slightly more useful in NSWP decks where
they comprise the best tanks available for those countries. In general, I prefer T-55s for low and
medium-tier tanks, T-64s for medium and high tier tanks, and T80s for the high-end heavies,
leaving no real room for T-72s in my eyes. The Polish Wilk is more than decent, but is a Polish
prototype. However, plenty of people find a use for the B1 and B models. This one comes down
to taste.

The T-80 series comprises Warsaw Pact’s heavies in this game, and like the T-64, only
the Soviet Union has them. This line includes the T-80, T-80B, T-80A (yes, confusingly, the A
variant is better than the B variant, unlike everywhere else), the T-80BV, and the T-80U.

These are not line tanks - even the cheapest tank is 85 points, and the T-80U is the best
and the most expensive tank in the game at 170 points. The entire line has medium stabilizers,
and all but the base model have either Kobra or the exceptional Refleks ATGM.

Like all expensive high-end tanks, use these as the tip of an armored spearhead, or
keep them behind cheaper armor like T-72s so they can fling their high-end ATGMs with
impunity. The T-80A and the T-80BV are very close in price, so take a look at both of them and
see which you decide you like more.

The T-80U is the single best tank in the game, resting at the apex of the triad of mobility,
armor, and firepower. Its side armor is heavier than most T-55’s frontal armor, and it has a
perfect 20 frontal armor. On top of that, it has an incredible 20 AP value for its main gun! It’s for
this reason that the T-80U is considered incredibly hard to kill. NATO players generally panic
and overreact when they see one.

I like the later T-80 tanks, but I generally take T-64s over the earlier ones. The T-80A and
the T-80U won’t fail you as your heaviest firepower, if you can get over their insane price. Just to
put it into perspective, you can get four T-72s for the price of a single T-80U and still have ten
points left over. But when you absolutely, positively have to kill every last capitalist on the front -
T-80U, accept no substitutes. Oh, and they’re great for baiting NATO players into traps.

Recon
Ah, recon. We’ve already discussed the importance of recon - but it bears repeating that
you can never have enough recon. Nobody has ever lost a match of Wargame because they
were able to see the enemy too well. Recon units are what allow you to see the enemy at range
and what allow your units to fight at their maximum range.

Of course, just like every other category, recon units come in different groups. They are
recon jeeps, scout cars, scout tanks, recon IFVs/APCs, recon infantry, recon special-ops,
and recon helicopters. As with all units, these categories are not interchangeable, and must be
understood if they’re to be used most effectively.

All recon units have one role in common, though - they spot targets for your forces. This
means that their primary job is being in the right place, not fighting. While some recon units
can fight - and indeed some are quite powerful - if you’re sending your recon unit into a fight,
stop and ask why you’re sending it and not a dedicated fighter that doesn’t have a more
important job. In addition, since your recon forces’ job is to spot targets, having recon vehicles
in groups of two to four is usually a bad idea. They don’t provide any additional sight to your
forces, and that’s the job of every single unit in the Recon tab!

Instead, spread your recon out, so that they provide overlapping lines of sight and thus
protection from being blinded should one unit perish. Scatter the rest of your recon forces
wherever they can lay low and watch, and thus be able to see enemy forces moving around.
Secondly, consider disabling your recon units’ weapons if they are meant to be hidden and
not moving. Recon units often reveal themselves inadvertently as they open fire on passing
units, which gets them killed. Unless they’ve already been spotted and need to fight to get away,
or are quickly ducking in to assassinate high-value targets that can’t be killed by other means,
they won’t often need their weapons unless they’re built for specialized roles.

By the way, to emphasize the importance of optics, I’ll color-code every unit in this
category by their optics rating:
● Medium or worse
● Good
● Very Good
● Exceptional
 You should always prefer better optics to worse optics, all else being equal - optics are
what makes a recon unit recon!

An advanced and real-world technique is called the hunter-killer team. A hunter-killer

team comprises of a recon vehicle (the hunter) and a vehicle with a powerful weapon (the killer).
An example would be mixing the AH-64 Apache with a recon helicopter, using the recon
helicopter to spot high value targets for the Apache’s Hellfire missiles. The same thing can be
done using a recon vehicle and a heavy tank or ATGM carrier, or even a recon infantry squad
and a special forces team.

Finally, I advocate having three different types of recon in any deck: Recon infantry,
recon helicopters, and recon vehicles for accompanying the front line. Your style may vary, of
course, but I find this to be an ideal mix of forces. I also don’t typically up-vet my recon units,
since having more means covering more of the map.

Sandy’s choice: M151A2 FAV, Rover Pinky, UAZ-469 AGS-17

Recon jeeps are our first category of recon units. They are inexpensive, but unarmored
light trucks; some are unarmed and some have machine guns. But since they’re pretty likely to
get killed if engaged, don’t use these as part of your front lines where they may take fire.
Instead, hide them in swamps, hedges, or forests along the map, taking advantage of their low
price and high availability.

USA M151A2 Mutt, M1025 Humvee series,

M151A2 FAV

Britain Rover Pinky

France M201 106mm

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark Opklarings M/151

Sweden L3304

Norway Rover REKV

Soviet Union UAZ-469 series, UAZ-469 AGS-17

East Germany AufkIFz UAZ series

 Poland UAZ-469A Zwiad.

Czechoslovakia UAZ-469A vz.59,

I don’t really like recon jeeps, but others swear by them. They have their uses, but they
don’t do anything that the rest of them don’t do and I prefer to have some armored protection in
my vehicle-based recon.

Sandy’s choice: OT-65RL, some V-150 series

Scout cars are a lot like recon jeeps, but have light armor. Like jeeps, they’re generally
light and mobile, but lightly armed, most only having a heavy machine gun. They’re not going to
do much fighting for you, but as long as you take care of them, they can do in a pinch in
accompanying your front line if they have to.

USA V-150 series,

Britain FV701 Ferret Mk.2, FV721 Fox

France AML 90

West Germany N/A

Canada Ferret Mk.1

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union BRDM-2

East Germany SPW-40, SPW-40A, SPW-40PA, SPW-40P2

Poland BTR-40, BTR-40A, BRDM-1, BRDM-2

Czechoslovakia OT-65, OT-65A Vydra, OT-65RL

I occasionally take scout cars as a general purpose recon vehicle, but I never try to use
them in a fight. Neither should you - they can snipe a helicopter in close range perhaps, but
they’re not going to contribute much to your firepower.
 Sandy’s choice: M3A1 Bradley, AMX-10RC, ERC-90 Sagaie, BRM-1, BPzV Svatava
Recon APCs and Recon IFVs are recon variants of armored personnel carriers and
infantry fighting vehicles. They have heavier armor and usually better weapons than scout cars,
and are best suited to accompanying your front line. Some of them have ATGMs and/or
autocannons that can contribute to your front lines’ firepower, or provide some additional
capabilities to your forces. However, IFVs can be significantly more expensive.

USA LAV-25 Scout, M113 ACav, M3 Bradley CFV

series, M114A2

Britain FV101 Scorpion, FV107 Scimitar

France AMX-10 RC, ERC-90 Sagaie

West Germany SPz 11-2 Kurz, SpPz Luchs, SpPz Luchs A1

Canada M113 C&R Lynx, Cougar Recon

Denmark N/A

Sweden EPBV 3022

Norway N/A

Soviet Union BRM-1

East Germany AufKPz BRM-1, SPW-60PB(ABS)

Poland N/A

Czechoslovakia BPzV Svatava

I like recon IFVs for accompanying my front lines in my armored decks, even though
they’re costly. Their autocannons provide a decent force for stunning armor or destroying lighter
vehicles, and they’re pretty survivable.

Scout tanks are light tanks that double as scout units. Not all nations have them, and
they’re generally used like recon IFVs are - as a recon escort for your front line, where their
armor might survive a hit or two if they have to. Unfortunately, most of them lack in optics, which
is sort of a problem for recon units.
 USA M551 ACav

Britain N/A

France AMX-13/90

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark M41, M41 DK1

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union PT-76B, PT-71, PT-85

East Germany SpPz PT-76B,

Poland PT-76B DshK

Czechoslovakia N/A

I don’t like these scout tanks at all - I find them very lackluster and lacking in a use.
They’re not “real” tanks that will provide much to your armored thrust, and I find that having
recon tanks encourages recklessness that gets them killed.

Sandy’s choice: Fallskarmsjagare

Recon squads are one of two categories of recon infantry. These are lighter-armed
infantry with only basic weapons, that are best used as sneaky recon troops that hide in forests
or on mountains. They’re also great for sneaking around behind enemy lines, since they’re hard
to spot. They’re not very tough, though, so don’t get them into fights if you can help it! Oh, and
this is important: Recon infantry cannot use their optics from inside a transport, so be sure
to unload them when they reach their destination.

USA Rangers

Britain Green Jacket

France Hussards

West Germany BGS

 Canada N/A

Denmark Spejderne

Sweden Fallskarmsjagare

Norway Oppklaring

Soviet Union Razvekda

East Germany Grenzer, Kommando-Aufklarer

Poland Zwiadowcy

Czechoslovakia Pruzkumnici

I love sneaking recon infantry behind enemy lines. I consider them indispensable,
especially when in transport helicopters where they can rush across the map before landing and
hiding.

Sandy’s Choice: Commandos Para, Marinejegeer, Spetsnaz VMF, Specialni Jednotky,

Jaegers
Recon Special Forces are the other class of recon infantry. Unlike basic recon infantry,
these guys are special ops teams - they generally have much higher grade weapons, like
high-end anti-tank weapons and CQC machine guns, meaning they can mix it up well with
enemy infantry or tanks. Unlike recon infantry, these guys are just as good at being a
self-contained hunter-killer team, able to sneak around, spot targets, then eliminate them.
They’re also excellent as ambush troops, just like other special forces.

USA N/A

Britain SAS

France Commandos Para

West Germany Fernspaher

Canada Pathfinders

Denmark Jaegers

Sweden N/A
 Norway Marinejegeer

Soviet Union Spetsnaz VMF

East Germany N/A

Poland N/A

Czechoslovakia Specialni Jednotky

I like these guys just as much as recon infantry - if I don’t have special forces in the
Infantry tab, then I’ll have them here. They have all the benefits of normal special forces, and
the sight of recon troops. What could be better?

Sandy’s choice: OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, Gazelle AH.1, Mi-9, Mi-2Ro

Recon helicopters are the last category. These are, obviously, helicopters with recon
optics. They aren’t very sturdy, but they’re highly mobile, allowing you to patrol large areas
quickly, or fly over water or the fringes of the maps relatively unbothered. Pair them with
gunships or ATGM helicopters for an excellent hunter-killer pair. Some helicopters are armed,
but since they’re fragile, only use them for hunting enemy recon helicopters or unarmed
command vehicles.

USA OH-58C Kiowa, OH-58D Kiowa & Kiowa Wr.

Britain Gazelle AH.1 series

France Alouette III

West Germany Bo 105CB

Canada CH-136

Denmark Cayuse, Scout Defender

Sweden HKP 6A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Mi-2, Mi-9, Mi-24K

East Germany AHS Mi-2, AHS Mi-9

Poland Mi-2Ro

Czechoslovakia Mi-2
 I consider these an essential. Their mobility and optics are highly useful, just remember
to keep them away from enemy AA or even machine guns or autocannons. Oh, and I love using
the Kiowa Warrior as a self-contained hunter-killer, unlike other units in this class it comes
equipped with four Hellfire ATGMs that can kill most units in one shot. Great for sniping
command vehicles, artillery, or heavy PACT armor at a distance.

Vehicle
Ah, the Vehicle tab - this is the closest Wargame has to a “miscellaneous” category. In
general, the Vehicle tab consists of any vehicle that is not a logistics, support, tank, or recon
vehicle. In the armory, this tab includes infantry transports; however, infantry transports
cannot be bought on their own.

The categories in the Vehicle tab include tank destroyers and mobile guns, infantry
fighting vehicles, ATGM carriers, and a handful of miscellaneous vehicles. Because Vehicle is
such a varied category, it can be difficult to give generic advice on how to use it. It’s generally
one of the lesser-used categories in deck-building, but don’t overlook it; some of the vehicles
here are fantastic, while others are a decent way to fill in some lacking capabilities.

Sandy’s Choice: Chimera

Tank destroyers and mobile guns are tank destroyers that are not tanks. Some of
these are highly mobile and useful in maneuver warfare, but the majority are slow, weak, and
lacking in impressive stats. These are mostly best used in ambush roles, or for providing extra
firepower to your forces on the cheap. Don’t expect them to take out NATO heavies, but they
can kill infantry perfectly fine and can kill lighter tanks, especially from behind or against side
armor. Oh, and pay attention - some of these have the [KE] tag, and some have the [HEAT] tag.

USA M50A1 Ontos

Britain FV601 Saladin, Rover Wombat

France N/A

West Germany Kanonenjagdpanzer, Marder VSTI

Canada M113 106mm RR, M38A1 106mm, Chimera

Denmark LARO 106mm RR

Sweden IKV 103, IKV 91, PVTGB 9031 series

 Norway NM113 RFK

Soviet Union Su-122-54, BTR-70 Zhalo, 2S15 Norov,

ASU-85M

East Germany PzJ UAZ SPG-9

Poland ASU-85M

Czechoslovakia OT-810D

I don’t like virtually any of these. They have some use in heavily restricted decks, but
unless your restrictions have left you desperate for firepower, use an ATGM carrier or just save
the deck slot entirely if you need to kill things. ATGMs kill tanks much better, and IFVs kill troops
much better. All in all...meh! However, the Chimera, if you’re taking a Canadian national deck, is
remarkably different.

Sandy’s choice: BMPT

Infantry Fighting Vehicles, or IFVs, are just like their infantry transport counterparts -
armored fighting vehicles that can provide autocannons to a fight on the front lines. They’re
great for stunning vehicles, killing troops, or even gunning down helicopters if they stray within
range.

USA N/A

Britain FV432 Rarden

France AMX-10P/Milan

West Germany Wiesel 1 Mk.20

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union BMPT

East Germany N/A

Poland N/A
 Czechoslovakia N/A

I like these things in general, because they tend to have autocannons on the cheap and
that is almost always desirable. Note that the BMPT has as much armor as a high-end tank!

Sandy’s choice: Any I-TOW, TOW 2, or Milan F2, MT-LB Shturm-S

ATGM carriers are units whose sole job it is to ferry ATGMs into the battlefield and
launch them against enemy armor. These are a hard-counter to tanks, but are relatively fragile;
try not to get them shot at, as low morale will make their missiles miss uselessly. Set them up for
long-range ambushes, shoot-and-scoot in a dynamic defense, or keep them behind your front
line so your heavy armor can absorb fire while they fling ATGMs with impunity. Just remember
to keep supply trucks close at hand; they generally have low ammunition and they’re pretty
much useless without missiles. Oh, and be sure to micromanage them, else you’ll be wasting
valuable ATGMs against one-point trucks.

USA M150, M901 ITW, M151A2 series, M966

Humvee I-TOW

Britain FV102 Striker, Rover Milan

France AMX-10P/Milan, AMX/HOT, M201 Milan, VAB

Mephisto

West Germany Rakatenjagdpanzer series, Jaguar series,

Wiesel I-TOW

Canada M150 series, M113 TUA, M151A1 TOW

Denmark LARO TOW, M/113A1 series

Sweden PVRBV 551

Norway NM113 RAKPV, NM142

Soviet Union BRDM-2 Malyutka, BRDM-2 Konkurs, MT-LB

Shturm-S, UAZ-469 series

East Germany PzJ UAZ Fagot, SPW-40P2 Malyutka-P,

SPW-40P2 Konkurs

Poland BRDM-2 Malyutka-P, BRDM-2 Konkurs

Czechoslovakia BRDM-2 Malyutka-P, BRDM-2 Konkurs

 These are relatively indispensable. They often come with high-end ATGMs, like the
I-Tow or Milan, and can shred heavy armor while being very cost-effective. If you’re lacking in
ATGM carriers, stop and ask what you have to make up for them!

Warsaw Pact all have flame tanks, as well - all four nations have an identical TO-55 and
the Soviets also have a TO-62. The TO-55s are essentially base T-55s with flamethrowers
attached to them. The TO-62 is, you guessed it, a T-62 with a flamethrower attached to it. Unlike
NATO flame vehicles, these are fully functional (if low-end) tanks that are also flamethrower
vehicles, rather than trading their gun for a flamethrower. Like all flamethrowers, it’s generally
best to use these close to their maximum range of 1050m, against infantry - it will burn infantry
alive and create a wall of flame, and also stun or panic armor.

These have some limited use in burning the outskirts of town for urban warfare, but
honestly, I didn’t like these under the Tank tab, but after a patch moved them to the Vehicle tab
these have a bit more of a use.

The TOS-1 Buratino is technically a rocket artillery piece, but it's easier to consider its
Russian designation as a "heavy flamethrower." It is not really used like other rocket pieces.
Instead, it fires napalm rockets. Its advantage is probably obvious - it can set a wide area
aflame. If you're fighting a NATO player stupid enough to cluster an entire assault force in a
small group, you will wreck that entire force with one blow. Its disadvantages are lack of
availability and high cost (150 points, you only get get one per deck card) and very long reload
time (it takes several minutes to reload a Buratino). It also takes a long time to for the Buratino
to aim its salvo once the order has been given, meaning that it must be protected while it gets
ready to fire. Additionally, they are one of the most supply-hungry units in the game, a single
salvo will eat a good portion of an FOB alone. You will only need to use your Buratino a few
times in a match, in pivotal moments.

They are tricky to use. You must keep them mobile, bringing them up to the front quickly
and then scooting back to safe zones for resupply once their rockets are fired. They are
high-value, high-damage targets, and so NATO players WILL try to kill them on sight with as
much vigor as they'd give a command vehicle. But they can break a determined defense in a
town (by burning the entire town to the ground) and can stunlock an entire NATO offensive
single-handedly when used correctly, and so they are very useful to PACT players.
 An advanced technique is to intentionally near-miss your Buratinos with tank shells to
bump it up to Worried status, which increases its impact radius but doesn't seriously diminish its
capability to stun things inside its impact radius. I recommend practicing this in an empty
skirmish match where you won't be pestered for a while, so you can learn the distances needed.

The last few categories are particularly limited in number - the first are unguided
SPAAGs that are not in the Support tab. The only two examples of this are the Soviet ZSU-23-4
Afghanskii and the American M163CS. Both of these make mediocre anti-air guns, but great
anti-surface guns. They’re both relatively cheap, at 20 and 30 points respectively, and are
generally best fielded as light autocannon units. Use them to ambush, or to provide a stunning
force for your main forces, or as backup anti-air guns that can at least fight helicopters.

I love both of these, but especially the Afghanskii. They’re cheap enough to bring them
with you everywhere, and autocannons are generally pretty damn awesome and useful. And
since they’re in the underutilized Vehicle tab instead of the crowded Support tab, why pass them
up?

The British Centurion AVRE and the American M728 CEV are both unique tank options
with the same gun and a similar purpose. The first thing you’ll notice with these two is they do
not have an anti-tank weapon; instead they lob HE shells at 2450m. Use these like extreme
short-range direct-fire mortars. They hit with high accuracy and an area of effect - which means
they should accompany your other tanks and destroy unarmored and infantry targets.

The final category of vehicle is the American Zippo series. These two vehicles are
armored flamethrower vehicles - unlike the Pact flame tanks, though, they are in the vehicle tab
and do not also carry a cannon. Otherwise, they’re used like Pact flame tanks - get them in
close enough and they’ll spray a stream of napalm at targets, which is useful for dealing morale
damage, removing infantry from buildings, or even providing a wall of smoke and fire to conceal
your forces.

Like flame tanks, some people really like these, but I generally don’t find them very
useful. In the decks I’ve tried them, I’ve generally found that other units can do all of their jobs,
but better.

Helicopters
The helicopter section covers all of the game’s helicopters. In the Armory, transport
helicopters are shown too, but they can’t be brought on their own. This section will cover
three types of helicopters; ATGM carriers, anti-air helicopters, and gunships. There are a few
special-purpose helicopters that I’ll cover seperately as well.

Back in European Escalation, helicopters were the sole reason to bring anti-air defenses
with your forces, since there were no jets. Even then, air defenses were absolutely essential.
Considering air defenses are even more vital in AirLand Battle, many people see helicopters as
having become significantly less essential than they were before. But they’re wrong -
helicopters, when managed correctly, are great. They can scoot around the map like aircraft, but
they have the staying power of regular forces. They’re the kings of maneuver warfare. They’re
also some of the best ATGM carriers in the game!

In general, helicopters are some of the most mobile forces in the game - they’re able to
quickly move around to wherever they’re needed while ignoring terrain. This makes them ideal
for anything involving maneuver warfare. However, they do have some handling idiosyncrasies,
and in general helicopters will die quickly to their counters. If you fly a helicopter over an
enemy autocannon, expect it to get stunned and killed off before you can safely get it away.
Most tanks, some vehicles, even some command vehicles, are equipped with machine guns
that can hit helicopters, too. Since they usually lack armor, this means that helicopters need a
high degree of micromanagement to be used effectively, else they’ll get stunned and then
gunned down.

First off, helicopters have altitude that must be managed. There are three altitudes:
High, Low, and Land. Observe this helicopter at high and low altitudes:
 At high altitude, helicopters are easier to spot and engage, but can see and shoot over
cover. At low altitude, they can be protected from return fire, but can be hit by artillery and
explosives. When landed, they can be targeted by tanks and other ground forces, like ground
units. Altitude can be managed by the Advanced Orders panel:

In general, helicopters will fight at high altitude, where they can shoot their ATGMs or
rockets without obstruction. They’ll duck to low altitude to hide behind terrain. Oh, and
helicopters sometimes default to low altitude when they don’t have a target, which is a
feature I find really fucking annoying. They’ll move back up to high altitude to move around, then
duck back low. So be sure your helicopters are at the altitude you actually want them at! Also,
know that the Land order tells helicopters to land at the ground they were flying over at the time
the order was given - so if you tell a helicopter to land while in motion, they’ll overshoot and turn
around before landing, which could be a fatal waste of time if they’re getting shot at.

Secondly, helicopters do not respond instantly. If you tell a tank to stop driving
forward, it brakes to a stop nearly instantly. However, helicopters have momentum and must
slow to a stop, which causes them to rear back like this:
 They can turn on a dime when stationary, but have a turning radius while in motion. This
is realistic, if a little annoying to deal with. When zoomed out, it isn’t very clear that helicopters
have this problem, which is the cause of that “slow to respond to orders” problem that
people often complain about with helicopters. This is a weakness when fighting along a mobile
front, so be aware of it!

Finally, some notes about the weapons of helicopters. There are six types of weapons
helicopters have:
● Rocket pods, which deal good damage to unarmored targets and, more importantly,
stun clustered armored forces, which can bring a tank rush to a screeching halt
● ATGMs. We already know what ATGMs are, but they’re particularly noteworthy when
paired with helicopters’ high mobility.
○ This includes Hellfire missiles, which unlike all other ATGMs, are fire-and-forget.
This has a big implication for micromanagement - in order to not waste missiles,
be sure to disable the weapon immediately after firing and then re-enable it and
select a new target, else Hellfire carriers will fire a second missile after the first,
wasting it.
● Air-to-air missiles. There are several advantages to having an airborne anti-air
platform, which will be discussed later.
● Machine guns, which arm lighter helicopters.
● Automatic Grenade Launchers, or AGLs. Only available on the UC-1C Heavy Hog,
these are great for stunning pretty much anything.
● Autocannons, which are great on helicopters. Why? Because of the [KE] tag and the
ability to hit top armor! While they have to get fairly close to kill tanks, autocannons on
helicopters can kill tanks with surprising efficiency.

Be aware that helicopters are not simply offensive weapons - because of their mobility
and firepower and ability to stun armored columns, they are great at dynamic defense. Since
they arrive quickly, call them in as reinforcements.

Sandy’s choice: SH-60B Sea Hawk, AH-64 Apache, Mi-28, Lynx AH.7
ATGM carriers are our first breed of helicopter. These are helicopters which specialize
in getting in, firing their ATGMs, and fleeing back before the enemy can respond. Because the
majority of them are rather cheap but carry decent-to-great anti-tank weapons, they’re very
cost-efficient. Notably, the longest-range missiles can outrange their counters!

Because of their fragility, keep them the hell away from enemy air defenses. These are
generally best used at their maximum range, inside of your own air-defense screen where
enemy aircraft can’t charge at them without getting themselves killed in the process. However,
they usually have very limited ammo.

USA SH-60B Sea Hawk, AH-64 Apache*

Britain Lynx series

France Gazelle 342M HOT

 West Germany Bo 105P/PAH-1 series

Canada N/A

Denmark TOW Defender

Sweden PVHKP 9A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Mi-28*

East Germany N/A

Poland N/A

Czechoslovakia N/A
* Technically a gunship, placed here in recognition of its exceptional ATGM capacity

These are pretty damn good, in my opinion. They’re like ATGM carriers in the Vehicle
tab, except even faster. Like their vehicle cousins, they’re lightly armored and won’t survive
gunfire, but these are even faster and more capable of the shoot-and-scoot maneuver. They
also make great hunter-killer teams when paired with a recon helicopter. Oh, and I generally use
the Mi-28 like an ATGM carrier even though it’s a gunship, because those 16 Ataka-V missiles
are just too good to pass up.

Sandy’s choice: W-3W Sokol

Anti-air helicopters are helicopters that carry anti-air missiles. These make great
anti-helicopter counters, because they can chase down enemy helicopters much faster than
ground-based SAMs can. They’re also frustrating counters to SEAD, since they aren’t targetable
by SEAD aircraft or artillery, meaning they’re a good mobile backup to an IADS zone, able to
scoot in quickly and make up for a sudden gap in the air-defense network.

USA AH-1W SuperCobra*, OH-58C/S

Britain N/A

France Gazelle 341F Celtic

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A
 Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Ka-50 Akula*

East Germany N/A

Poland Mi-2 URP-G Gniewosz*, Mi-2 URS W-3W

Sokol*

Czechoslovakia N/A
* Technically a gunship, but listed here in recognition of its carrying an AAM.

Sandy’s choice: AH-64 Apache, Mi-28

Gunships are the last category of helicopters. These are usually expensive, but have
the benefit of being multirole - most of them mix an autocannon, rocket pods, and ATGMs. All of
them have multiple different weapons that cover different uses. They’re devastatingly effective if
you can keep them away from enemy AA fire, and a lot of them have higher strength ratings and
better yet, a point of front and side armor, that allows them a little survivability.

USA AH-1 Cobra series, AH-64 Apache

Britain N/A

France N/A

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Ka-50 Akula, Mi-24 series, Mi-28, Mi-4AV

East Germany KHS Mi-8TBK

Poland Mi-2 URN Zmija, Mi-2 URP Salamandra, Mi-2

 URP-G Gniewosz W-3W Sokol, Mi-24W

Czechoslovakia Mi-35

Gunships are great once you learn how to manage helicopters. They’re exceptional on
the defensive, and some come with great ATGMs. Their rockets are great for stunning enemy
armor in their tracks, which allows their ATGMs or your other forces several free shots at them.
Just be sure to keep them moving in between engagements, and know that it takes a lot of
supply capacity to resupply them.

The American UH-1C Hog series and the Soviet and Czech Mi-4A are two helicopters
which don’t fit into the categories above - they are rocket-carriers. the UH-1C Hog has 48 FFAR
rockets, while the Heavy Hog variant adds an AGL as well. Use these like all other heli-borne
rockets - for stunning clustered forces.

These are pretty great in Category C decks, but otherwise I give them a pass - they’re
not bad, but even an America-only or Soviet-only deck has no real shortage of great helicopters
to choose from, and their use is just too situational for my tastes.

The French Gazelle 341F Canon and Puma 330H Cassiopee, and the Polish Mi-2 US,
are three other unusual helicopters - they are autocannon carriers. While autocannon-equipped
gunships can do everything they can do, they’re often too valuable to risk in close-range
fighting, which does give the non-prototype Gazelle Canon and Mi-2 US an interesting role.

I really like the Gazelle Canon, and I liked it in EE too. Noobs often underestimate them,
but they’re exceptional tank-killers if you can catch tanks without AA escort. Because of the [KE]
tag, once it flies in close, it’ll drain a tank’s armor really fast.

Planes
Ah, the Air part of AirLand Battle. Airplanes are one of ALB’s most prominent features,
and cover a significant variety of roles. They’re also generally fragile; almost no planes have any
armor and rely totally on their ECM rating to survive enemy missiles. Low ECM values mean an
aircraft will get shot down very easily by enemy missiles.

We already discussed the general handling and micromanagement of aircraft, but this
section will discuss the specific types of aircraft and their best uses. Aircraft cover a very wide
variety of roles - and some cover more than one role - so this tab has numerous categories.
They are short-range dogfighters, medium-range interceptors, long-range interceptors,
ATGM/CAS aircraft, rocket attackers, cluster bombers, HE bombers, napalm bombers,
SEAD aircraft, and multiroles.

First, though, we’ll discuss two weapon types common to almost all aircraft:
● Guns - Most aircraft have a gun, which can be used against aircraft and helicopters in
close range, and can also be used against ground forces in strafing runs. While they’re
deadly to infantry and can kill unarmored vehicles, don’t expect most guns to do much to
tanks except stun and morale damage unless they have [HEAT] or [KE] tags and an AP
value.
● Short-range AAMs - Many aircraft carry short-ranged AAMs, like Sidewinders, in
addition to other ordinance. While this is a neat secondary capability, don’t think an
aircraft is a capable dogfighter just because it has some self-defense capability.

Also know that aircraft can fly off the sides of the map, which is surprisingly useful for
sneaky flank attacks. Also, you can roughly judge the value of bombs and rockets by looking at
their caliber - a 500kg bomb is going to do much more damage than a 250kg bomb, after all.

Now, on to our different types of aircraft...

Fighters
We’ll start by discussing fighters - aircraft that specialize in fighting enemy aircraft. They
come in three flavors - short, medium, and long range - and are generally divided by how they’re
used best.

Sandy’s Choice: Czech MiG-21bis

Short-range Dogfighters are our first category of air-to-air aircraft. These aircraft are
intended to get right up close to enemy aircraft and shoot them down inside of gun range. They
lack the medium- or long-range missiles of the others, and generally rely on guns and
short-range missiles to get in close and shoot down enemy planes. They also rely on small
turning radiuses and high maneuverability to get on their enemies’ six.

They’re best used when they can get into knife-fighting range against enemy attacker
aircraft, or if you can manage to overwhelm long-range interceptors with them.

USA N/A
 Britain Sea Harrier FRS.1

France F-8E Crusader

West Germany F-4F

Canada CF-116 Freedom Fighter

Denmark N/A

Sweden J 35 Draken series

Norway N/A

Soviet Union MiG-23 series

East Germany N/A

Poland MiG-21Bis

Czechoslovakia MiG-21Bis, Avia S-105

I don’t care for any of these, mostly because multiroles can take care of this job as well
while also bringing other capabilities to the field. However, they have some worth in limited Cat
C decks. Note that slow dogfighters are excellent against helicopters.

Sandy’s choice: MiG-29 9-13, Czech MiG-21bis, F-4F ICE

Medium-range interceptors are our next type. These aircraft are generally not as good
in a dogfight as short-range dogfighters, though there are exceptions and that varies
per-aircraft. They’re generally armed with medium-ranged, mostly semi-active missiles.

They’re best used to intercept enemy aircraft, hitting them with their medium-ranged
missiles and then closing in to finish them off with short-range missiles, guns, or friendly IADS.

USA F-15A/C Eagle

Britain Tornado ADV series

France Mirage F1 series, Mirage 2000C

West Germany F-4F ICE

Canada CF-18
 Denmark F-16A Block 15

Sweden JA37 Viggen

Norway N/A

Soviet Union MiG-25P, MiG-29 series*, Su-27S

East Germany MiG-23MF/L, MiG-29 9-13

Poland MiG-12PM

Czechoslovakia MiG-21Bis
* Multirole

I don’t really care for these. If I want a dedicated air superiority platform I’ll generally
bring a long-range interceptor, but that’s a matter of style to be honest. The exception is the
MiG-29M, a multirole cluster bomber that brings medium-ranged F&F AAMs!

Long-range interceptors are our last type of air-to-air aircraft, and there are only two of
them. They are the Soviet MiG-31 series and the American F-14 Tomcat. They carry extreme
long-range F&F missiles, but make very poor dogfighters.

They are best used by keeping them circling around behind your lines, safe within your
IADS zone, so that they can fling their long-ranged AAMs at enemy aircraft while being relatively
safe from dogfighters. They’ll be quickly out-flown by tight-turning fighters, but they’re a very
good long-ranged AAM truck.

These used to be truly great, but now they’ve been demoted to merely useful after a
patch. As long as you can keep them circling behind your lines, though, they’re great at flinging
AAMs at enemies and several of my decks have these.

Attackers
Attacker aircraft, also called bombers, are our other category of aircraft. These aircraft
are used to destroy enemy ground forces. They are generally divided by what weapons they
use - ATGMs, rocket batteries, cluster bombs, HE bombs, and napalm bombs.
 Sandy’s choice: A-10, Super Etendard, MiG-27 series
ATGM attackers are our first class of attacker aircraft. They rely on ATGMs to destroy
armored advances. Some of these attackers also have very powerful guns and armor, allowing
them to destroy armored vehicles in strafing runs and survive some AAA fire. These are very
good for providing CAS (close air support) to your front line, destroying enemy armored
advances, or sniping high-value vehicles.

These are best used against armored columns that have outrun their air support, or in
conjunction with SEAD aircraft so that they can do their work unmolested. Some of them have
small numbers of high-end or long-ranged ATGMs; these are best used to snipe high-value or
high-armor targets in a single pass. Others have powerful guns, armor, and plenty of missiles,
and provide excellent close-air support.

USA A-10 Thunderbolt II, AV-8B Harrier II*, F/A-18

Hornet series*

Britain Jaguar GR.1A

France Super Etendard

West Germany Tornado IDS*

Canada N/A

Denmark Draken*

Sweden AJ37 Viggen*, SK60B

Norway N/A

Soviet Union MiG-27 series, Su-25 series

East Germany Su-22M4*

Poland Su-20, Su-22M3

Czechoslovakia MiG-23BN*
* Multirole

These are pretty great at killing armor. Of course, the A-10 is famous for this purpose,
and don’t overlook its unique gun. I also love the Super Etendard, it only carries a single missile
but it can one-shot almost everything in the game. I use them to snipe T-80Us!
 Sandy’s choice: Su-25
Rocket attackers use rocket batteries to provide close air support. These aren’t going to
kill heavy armor, but will stun and panic tightly-clustered forces, damage things, and destroy
lighter vehicles like APCs. This category also includes aircraft with smoke rockets, which
are cheaper aircraft that can provide an instant smokescreen along its attack vector using the
Smoke Position command.

These are best used against lighter forces than ATGM attackers, or for stunning and
panicking tightly-clustered forces instead of artillery. Think of them like pinpoint-accurate rocket
artillery. As for smoke rockets, their use should be obvious - they’re a quick smoke provider!

USA A-4 Skyhawk II series, AV-8A/AV-8C Harrier

II*

Britain N/A

France N/A

West Germany N/A

Canada CF-104 Starfighter*

Denmark N/A

Sweden

Norway F-5A Freedom Fighter

Soviet Union N/A

East Germany MiG-21M, MiG-21MF*, MiG-21Bis Lazur*

Poland MiG-23BN, LIM-6M

Czechoslovakia Su-25
* Multirole
** Has smoke rockets
I don’t like these at all. While they have a use, they’re just not a really great attacker,
especially not if you can get better. Oh, and smoke rockets are useful, but not really worth a
deck slot.

Sandy’s choice: MiG-29M, F-111F Aardvark, Danish Starfighter

Cluster bombers are our first category of bombers. These fly in and drop their bombs in
one pass, then Evac Winchester, which is good for avoiding enemy air defenses. This category
drops HEAT cluster bombs, which are anti-armor weapons that deal damage to armored
targets in a wide radius. Note that cluster bomb are unlikely to kill armor in one shot unless
they’re already heavily damaged, but they can damage and panic armor in a decent radius at
least, and they’ll kill lighter vehicles reliably.

Use these against clustered armor to damage things, or blind-bomb forests when you
know there are enemy vehicles in them. Bombers with smaller-but-more-numerous bombs, like
the Aardvark, are best used to bomb columns in a line where all of the bombs can hit. Oh, and
cluster bombs can hit helicopters with a little timing.

USA F-111 Aardvark series, F-16 Fighting Falcon

series*

Britain Jaguar GR.1, Tornado GR1 IDS*

France Mirage F1CT

West Germany Alpha Jet A

Canada CF-188 Hornet*

Denmark Starfighter

Sweden AJS37 Viggen*

Norway F-104G Starfighter*

Soviet Union MiG-21 series, MiG-29 series*

East Germany MiG-23BN

Poland N/A

Czechoslovakia N/A
* Multirole

A lot of people don’t like cluster bombers, but I do. They won’t kill fresh tanks on a first
pass, but they’re great when particularly stupid enemies cluster their forces tightly and I have
great luck blind-bombing forests where I see AAA or SAM fire coming out of, since they have
good dispersion.

Sandy’s choice: Any 1000kg bomber

 HE bombers are attackers that drop high-explosive bombs. Don’t expect high explosive
bombs to kill armor except with a lucky strike, but they’re significantly more effective against
infantry and unarmored targets. This category includes 1000kg bombers, whose 1000kg
bombs are the most powerful HE weapons in the game.

These bombers are best used against clustered enemy, or for bombing in lines through
un-scouted terrain like forests. They’ll stun and damage enemy armored columns, but they
really shine against unarmored targets. You can sub-categorize these bombers based on the
size of their bombs; only 1000kg and 500kg bombs have very significant power, while smaller
bombs are usually carried in large numbers and dropped in a big radius.

This category also includes the F-117 Nighthawk, a relatively unique aircraft with an
oft-misunderstood role. The Nighthawk has exceptional stealth but bad ECM, meaning they’re
great for sneaking past IADS zones but not very good at surviving if engaged. Don’t run these
things at air-defense units with good anti-air optics like a retard and assume that because it’s a
stealth fighter, it’ll never be seen. That will promptly be followed by it dying like a bitch. Instead,
sneak around like a stealth fighter should do and bomb HVTs with that fantastic guided 1000kg
bomb. Also remember that the Nighthawk is usually briefly visible when it drops its payload, so
plan accordingly

USA A-6 Intruder series, F-117 Nighthawk**, F-15E

Strike Eagle* **

Britain Harrier series

France Etendard IVF, Mirage 5F*

West Germany F-104G Starfighter

Canada N/A

Denmark F-16A*

Sweden N/A

Norway F-16A Fighting Falcon* **

Soviet Union Su-24MP, Yak-38M

East Germany MiG-17 series

Poland Su-7B/BM

Czechoslovakia L-29R Delfin, L-39 Albatross, Su-22M4**,

L-39ZA Albatros*
* Multirole
** 1000kg bomber

These are your typical bomb attacker. I love 1000kg bombs, though - bring them as
much as you can, they will not fail you. 500kg bombs work fine too, but be wary of anything
smaller than that, I find they just don’t have the punch I want. Recent patches have improved
those aircraft that drop large numbers of 250kg bombs, though.

Sandy’s choice: Su-7BKL

Napalm bombers are our last category of bombers. These are aircraft that can deliver
napalm across a surprisingly wide area, turning whatever it hits into an instant firestorm.

As we’ve previously discussed, napalm never goes out of style. Napalm is great for
blocking off roads, burning spawn points during an assault on a spawn zone, burning infantry
out of buildings, burning units out of terrain cover, forcing enemy assaults to back off, or denying
areas to the enemy. Napalm bombers can be used in all of these roles - so while napalm won’t
kill much on its own, don’t dismiss them!

USA A-7E Corsair II, F-4J/S Phantom II*

Britain N/A

France Mirage IIIC

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union Yak-38

East Germany N/A

Poland Su-7BKL

Czechoslovakia L-29RS Delfin

* Multirole

Napalm is great. I love it. Bring these along in any deck you can get them in, especially
the Su-7BKL, since they’re really cheap but drop a lot of napalm.

Other
These last two categories don’t fit the above roles.

Sandy’s choice: EF-111A Raven

SEAD aircraft, more properly called electronic-warfare aircraft (hence the E/W in their
NATO symbol), are aircraft that specialize in hitting enemy Radar units. We’ve already
discussed SEAD and Radar previously, and these are the aircraft that carry those out.

Don’t think that just because they have good ECM and anti-radar missiles that they are
immune to IADS zones. They will still take fire from enemy ground and air forces, and if some
SPAAGs manage to stun them, their ECM isn’t going to do jack shit to save them. They’re best
when they fire one missile at max range and then turn away - it takes a little practice, but
instead of sending them straight into enemy IADS zones and trusting them to evac, practice
ordering them 2000m or so in front of their frontmost Radar units so they turn away just as
they’re firing, and circle over neutral or friendly territory. This allows you to safely open up a hole
in enemy air-defense zones that your bombers can exploit.

USA EA-6B Prowler, EF-111A Raven, F-4G Wild

Weasel V

Britain N/A

France Jaguar A

West Germany N/A

Canada N/A

Denmark N/A

Sweden N/A

Norway N/A

Soviet Union MiG-25BM, Su-24

East Germany Su-22M4

Poland Su-22M4P

Czechoslovakia N/A
* Multirole

If you can get ‘em, I highly recommend bringing a SEAD aircraft. It’ll make your use of air
power much easier if you can suppress some of the enemy’s best SAMs first. Note that having
more missiles isn’t necessarily better, since they’ll be flying at enemy air defenses and so will
probably need to evac fast anyway. Why bring more missiles if you won’t use them?

Multirole aircraft are, as their name suggests, capable of performing two or more roles.
Generally, these are aircraft that can dogfight and also carry anti-ground weapons. These
aircraft are also listed in the above categories, but are collated here for your convenience.

USA AV-8 Harrier II series, F-15E Strike Eagle,

F-16 Fighting Falcon series, F-4 Phantom II
series, F/A-18 Hornet series

Britain Harrier Gr.3/5, Tornado GR1 IDS

France Mirage IIIC, Mirage 5F

West Germany Tornado IDS

Canada CF-188 Hornet, CF-104 Starfighter

Denmark Draken, F-16A

Sweden AJ37 Viggen, ASJ37 Viggen

Norway F-104G Starfighter, F-16A Fighting Falcon

Soviet Union MiG-29 series

East Germany MiG-23BN, MiG-21MF, MiG-21Bis Lazur,

Su-22M4

Poland Su-20, Su-22M3

Czechoslovakia MiG-23BN, L-39ZA Albatros

Because of their ability to fulfill multiple roles, I often use these instead of dedicated
short-range dogfighters or even medium-range interceptors. I find I generally have so many
choices to make for planes, it’s essential to use multiroles to offload some tasks.
Deck Building
“That’s a lot of units,” you whine, noobishly. “But I think I have a handle of them all now!
Now can I go kick some ass?”

Haha - almost! Now that you understand the basics of the game and have a working
knowledge of its units, it’s time to bring those units together into a deck. Remember this?

Yeah, unless you want to use these forever, you’ll need to build your own decks.
Deck-building is, in all honesty, one of the most entertaining and well-made features in the
game. It’s where you get to experiment with new styles and strategies and fine-tune your armies
into whatever you deem fit.

Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect deck. The first thing you’ll have to come to
accept is that no deck is going to have everything you’ll want. If you bring all the tanks you
want, good luck affording aircraft. If you bring all the tanks and aircraft you want, good luck
affording artillery. If you bring all the tanks, aircraft, and artillery you want, good luck affording
anything else. And so on and so forth.

Deck-building is essentially a series of trade-off choices. Do you want more tanks, or

more aircraft? More artillery, or more air defenses? What infantry do you want, in what
transports? Do you need an FOB or not? Before you dive into building a deck, you need to ask
yourself some essential questions, such as:

● What general strategies will this deck employ?

○ For example, will this be an armored breakthrough deck, or a fierce defensive
deck, or a rapid heli-borne infantry and gunship force?
● What tactical advantages does that strategy need?
○ For example, a defensive game will emphasize infantry in towns and tanks with
good stabilizers and heavy armor, while a rapid offense may prefer heli-borne
infantry and tanks that mix mobility and survivability.
● What are the most prominent counters of my planned strategy, and what counters
those?
○ For example, if you have an infantry-heavy deck, bring lots of air defenses to
counter 1000kg bombs and napalm bombers, and lots of artillery for hitting
targets out of your infantry’s reach.
● What kind of match will I primarily be playing, and on what maps?
○ For example, 10v10 games have significantly higher point income than most
other modes, so bringing a more expensive high-tech deck is much more viable,
while if you’re playing no-time-limit Total Destruction, you’ll want numbers and a
lot more supply.

For now, you may want to consider just creating some “general purpose”
jack-of-all-trades decks that cover a wide variety of roles. But once you have enough experience
in the basics, start experimenting with some different playstyles until you find some that you
enjoy.

Once you have some of the basics down as to what you expect your deck to do, you can
launch into creating a deck of your own. When you do, you’ll see this:
 Name your deck, choose NATO or PACT, and then click Create. Ignore the Select Bonus
button for the moment.

Making a Custom Deck

Once you do, you’ll be confronted with a big, empty deck, like this:
 If starting from scratch seems too intimidating to start off with, you can always copy one
of the premade battlegroups and then edit them - you’ll come to the same screen but with a
pre-made deck for you to edit.

Now look at the upper right corner. It shows your activation point counter. You didn’t
think you had nine choices in every category, did you? Hahaha. No. Only the cheesiest decks
will actually use all nine slots in a category. You have thirty-three activation points, with which
you “buy” cards to add to your deck. You can see the cost of adding a card in the boxes - the
more cards you have in one category, the more the cost of adding a new card rises. Some
categories, like Support and Plane, are more valuable and expensive than others, like Tank and
Infantry.

Click the highlighted box in any category, and you’ll wind up at a screen much like the
armory, in which it will list all available units in that category. Click on a unit, and the veterancy
buttons will be highlighted.
 Remember those? Use those buttons to add units to your deck at that veterancy level.
Double-click a unit in the list to add it at the lowest veterancy level. But you wouldn’t rely on a
force of low-vet units in a fight...would you?

Unit availability has two relevant factors - availability per card, and number of cards
available. Let’s look at the Swedish 103B’s unit card after adding one card to my deck:

See that “1/2" in the lower left corner? That’s the number of cards available over the total
number of cards available. That’s right, you can’t just make a deck of nothing but your favorite
unit, unless that deck is hilariously tiny.

As you build your deck, remember the basics. A balanced force with good recon options
and tactical alternatives and wise veterancy options is always going to be better than a random
assortment of units that looked cool. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to experiment. I
discovered most of my favorite units in the field after trying out some units that caught my eye.

Once you’re done, your deck should look something like this:
 Once you’re satisfied that your deck looks acceptable, go ahead and play a few matches
with it just for play-testing. Take note of what units you end up relying on, what units you run out
of, what units underperform or outperform your expectations, and so on. A deck is never truly
complete until it’s battle-tested and tweaked to perfection. And it’ll never reach perfection. My
best decks are always being slightly updated as I try slightly different approaches or decide to
swap out less-utilized units or encounter new enemy strategies, or even as patches re-balance
the game.

Bonuses

Okay, now you’ve gotten a handle on building a basic, general-purpose factionwide

deck. Now what?

Decks can have three different types of bonuses, which modify how the deck is used by
adding restrictions in exchange for higher activation points, XP, lower costs, or higher
availability. Thse bonuses are used to specialize decks, locking out alternatives but giving
bonuses to specialization. There are three different types of specializations: Nationality, Type,
and Category.
 Decks are limited by their activation points, which can be increased by selecting a
nationality. Activation points for all decks are determined by this table:

No Nationality (base) 33

USA 35

Britain 39

France 38

West Germany 38

Canada 42

Denmark 43

Sweden 40

Norway 43

Soviet Union 34

East Germany 42

Poland 40

Czechoslovakia 40

What does this mean? It means that decks that are nation-restricted can have more
cards in them than mixed-nationality decks. It also means that playing minor nations lets you
have more cards than playing USA and USSR, in a balance for their general lack of choices to
choose from. This doesn’t mean that single-nationality decks are inherently superior, however; it
merely means that you’ll have an easier time of deck-building with them due to fewer options
and higher activation points to take them with.

You can also choose one of six Types as well. Selecting a type (or theme) of deck gives
you better XP (amounting to a flat one-rank veterancy upgrade to an entire unit category) and
lower availability point costs for certain types of units, while locking out units not of that type and
restricting the card slots available in other categories. The six types are as follows:

Motorized +1XP for Recon units A focus on aircraft and lighter

-1 cost for Plane units ground forces. Only Para has
-6 slots for Tank units lighter vehicles than this.
 Armored +1XP for Tank units Obviously, tank-heavy. Good
-1 cost for Tank units for armored breakthrough
-6 slots for Infantry units decks.

Air Assault +1XP for Helo units Heli-borne assault deck. Ride
-1 cost for Helo units of the Valkyries is mandatory
-6 slots for Support units listening.

Marine +1XP for Infantry units An focus on heavy infantry

+1XP for Plane units with many alternative units
-6 slots for Recon units and light tanks.

Mechanized +1XP for Vehicle units A vehicle-heavy focus, and a

+1XP for Support units good companion to Armored.
-6 slots for Helo units Lots of IFVs and not many
tradeoffs.

Para +1XP for Infantry units A focus on heavy infantry, but

-1 cost for Infantry units with fewer units than Marine.
-6 slots for Support units Mostly useful in Campaign.

Don’t overlook that one-rank veterancy promotion. They can be a great way to increase
the effectiveness of your fighting forces if you’re willing to put up with the type restriction.
Unfortunately, said restriction can get rather hard to deal with; most of these are simply not
viable for nation-restricted decks except for the larger nations. Fortunately, this can somewhat
be overcome with mixed-nation decks. Experiment for yourself.

Unfortunately, I find most of these to be not worth giving up the versatility and selection
of other units. I do have several national Armored decks, and Marine and Mechanized are
well-liked by some people. Para, however, seems absolutely worthless; it appears to mostly be
useful in the campaign mode.

The last category of bonuses are year restrictions, which are referred to as category
restrictions. Category A is the default, and allows any unit in the game. There are also Category
B and Category C decks. Category B restricts any unit built after 1980, but gives you a 40%
bonus to availability per card. Category C takes that one step further, restricting units with a year
after 1975 but giving you a whopping 80% bonus to per-card availability!

Obviously, this necessitates a change in tactics and strategy. Category-restricted decks,

especially Cat C, don’t allow modern, high-tech units. But boy, do you get a lot of lower-end
units with which to compensate! For this reason, they’re popular with spam decks, but that isn’t
really the only viable strategy with these decks.

Category B still gives you plenty of good middle-of-the-road units, and even some base
models of heavier units, like the base M1 Abrams and the AMX-32. However, the 40%
availability bonus is usually enough to up-vet everything at least once with no loss in numbers.

Cat C takes it one step further, restricting you to only older units but giving you a
massive boost in availability. Even units that are usually one-per-card, like some aircraft and
FOBs, are two-per-card in Cat C. Cat C allows you to choose both high-veterancy and
high-availability; don’t overlook this option in deck-building!

In reality, you’ll almost need to up-vet everything at least one rank just to keep a useable
number of units; it’s entirely possible to get upwards of 300 tank or infantry units in a Cat C deck
at bottom rank, but of course they’d get killed in a fight if they panic. But that’s the truly great
thing about Cat B/C - you can have high-ranked troops in enough numbers to truly matter, and
usually cheap enough to overwhelm the opposition. The only thing to keep in mind is that Cat C
decks almost never have prototype units in them anyway, so mixing them with nation-restricted
bonuses is rarely worthwhile.

Of course, these bonuses could be mixed and matched to have stacking effects, too.
You could have a Soviet-only Category C Armored deck, if you so choose, and overwhelm the
opposition in mid-tier T-55s and waves of T-72s. Picture it!

Do’s and Don’ts

Just because you can make a deck any way you want, of course, doesn’t mean there
aren’t wrong ways to go about it. I’m not going to rehash too much of the basics, but if you’re
considering any general-purpose deck, ask yourself some of the following questions:

● Does this deck have enough numbers for the type of game it will be playing?
● Does this deck have enough logistics to last the entire length of a game?
● Does this deck need an FOB or would I be better served by logistics trucks that give
more supply per card?
● Do I have a sufficient variety of forces?
● Will I actually be able to afford my forces in the game mode I’ll be playing in?
● Do I have enough recon?
● The above is a trick question. If you don’t get it, shame on you.
● What are the units my deck absolutely cannot afford to lose? What do I do if those units
get killed? (“Panic” is not an acceptable answer.)

I’d also like to discuss so-called “support decks.” Support decks are when you get the
brilliant, totally original, never-been-thought-of-before idea to make a deck that specializes
exclusively in airpower and artillery, to provide the other team with dedicated fire support. These
are usually a really bad idea. It never fails that in every 10v10 match I play in, some genius
noob with a “support deck” gets their airplanes shot down in ten minutes when their targets start
spamming IADS techniques, and then ragequits because they’ve got nothing left to do, letting
their team down. The reason this is so common is simple - airstrikes are some of the most
instant-gratification parts of Wargame; airpower flies in quickly, blows stuff up, then leaves. What
could be better? Sorry to burst this bubble, but every new Wargamer pretty quickly thinks up this
idea, and they all end up just not doing anything to help their teams.

However, they’re also controversial, because the truth is there is a good way to play
support decks. But done properly, a support deck is harder to play than a conventional
one. Yes, I just insist on sucking the fun out of everything. I will discuss how to use support
decks properly for the sake of comprehensiveness, but I really recommend just playing the
game “right” and not dragging your team along as you try this for yourself.

First off, I’ll note that this is really only possible in the 10v10 mode. Even in a 4v4, your
team is just going to get pissed at you if you leave an entire front unmanned. With that said, you
have to have more than just artillery and aircraft. My 10v10 support decks (yes, I have them
too, and I’m not afraid to admit it) include:
● A huge overcapacity of supply trucks for resupplying friendly forces (which noobs love to
overlook since it gives them no points)
● High-end heavy tanks (10v10’s high income plus not buying in regular forces means a lot
of points) for supporting allied offensives or defensives
● Heavy gunships as a quick-response force
● Infantry forces for garrisoning towns
● Heli-borne recon infantry
● An overcapacity of air defense systems to create a wide IADS zone and accompany
allied fronts
● Only two cards of artillery
● Only a few cards of airpower

That’s right, my artillery-and-airpower deck only has a few cards of artillery and airpower!
What gives? Well, the truth is that as I said, it’s harder to play than a conventional force. To
actually be effective with this sort of deck, you have to keep situational awareness of every front
and what every ally is doing, and keep abreast of air defenses across the entire map! I don’t rely
on spamming aircraft in response to getting them shot down - that just leaves you with nothing
to do once your airpower is spent. I rely on applying the principles of aircraft micromanagement
and maintaining awareness of enemy air defenses to not get my aircraft shot down.

And even then, it’s usually more of a hassle than it’s worth. Yeah, if done right you’ll get
a great kill-to-losses ratio, but that’s just cheap, isn’t it? Of course if you avoid committing
significant forces on the ground you’ll get a low loss rate; there is no great skill in that. So,
again, try it once you’ve gotten used to such things if you must, but it’s not really worth
bothering. Oh, and don’t try it if someone else on your team has an obvious “support deck” as
well, or you’ll start to really cripple your team.
 Additionally, for your general convenience, I’ll attach a basic guide for building a
general-purpose deck. Please note that this is just a basic guide to get you started, not gospel
by which all decks must adhere to. Not even all of my decks adhere to this. But it’s a handy
basic guide to get you started on your first, non-themed non-year-restricted deck. I will use this
color code for recommendations:
● Avoid
● Mandatory
● Recommended
● Optional

Logistics One command jeep or command APC, one FOB, at least one card of supply
trucks, a second card of supply trucks, a command tank
Avoid supply helicopters, more than one card of basic CVs, more than one FOB

Support One card of barrage artillery, one radar SAM, one IR SAM, one card of heavy
tube artillery or one card of mortars, one card of radar SPAAG
Avoid excessive artillery, avoid rocket artillery, avoid non-radar SPAAG

Infantry Affordable line infantry, an ATGM squad, a MANPADS squad, heli-borne special
forces, another card of line infantry, additional line infantry in IFVs
avoid having only IFVs, avoid IFVs for ATGM/MANPADS, avoid rookie/trained

Tank One card of tank in the <60 point range, two cards of tank in the 60-80 point
range, one tank in the >90 point range, one card of >110-point tank
Avoid low-veterancy, avoid <25 point tanks

Recon Heli-borne cheap recon infantry, recon helicopter, recon vehicle with Very Good
or Exceptional optics, recon IFV, heli-borne recon special forces
Avoid Good or worse optics.

Vehicle One card of ATGM carriers, ZSU-23-4 Afghanskii or M163CS, IFVs, additional
ATGMs, or use this category to fill out any gaps in deck
Avoid mobile guns and tank destroyers

Helicopter One decent, affordable gunship, one ATGM carrier, one high-end gunship, extra
numbers of helicopters are optional
Avoid relying solely on expensive helicopters, avoid low-veterancy

Plane SEAD if available, 1000kg bomber if available, one good multirole, one good
dedicated bomber, one good medium-range interceptor, napalm bombers
Avoid having too many planes, they eat up too many activation points

Again, before all the experienced players reading this out of curiosity start leaving angry
comments, this is just a basic guide for general-purpose decks to get you started. You
absolutely don’t have to follow my guidelines - again, not even all of my own decks do. As you
figure out a style that works for you and start gaining some experience and developing
techniques of your own, you can easily modify your decks at any time. The best deck is the
one you kick ass with, not the one that best fills out a checklist.

As a final thought, remember that there is no such thing as a perfect deck. Every deck
will have compromises and make sacrifices. You are never going to have all of the things you’d
like - and that’s why deck-building is fun. It’s honestly not possible to answer a question like
“Should I take the F-14 Tomcat or a second card of F-16Cs?” It really depends on what else is in
your deck and how well you like using them.

Conclusions
“Oh thank God,” you mutter to yourself, sick of being called noobish and vaguely starting
to wonder if this guide is actually going to end or if you got sucked into a weird, infinite time loop
thing and are doomed to read the neverending Wargame guide. “I think Conclusions means it’s
over.”

Well, it is, but I feel compelled to leave off with a few thoughts. Sorry about that. You can
honestly stop reading now and go play the game if you really want.

Wargame is a tremendously complex game, as the length of this basics guide can attest.
But at the same time, it has a very fast pace - its games last no longer than that of, say, Starcraft
or Command and Conquer. What does this mean in gameplay terms? It means that, in my
opinion, Wargame is an ideal mix of the depth of tactical tabletop games and the pace and
fluidity of video games. You don’t have all the time in the world to ponder your next “turn” - you
have no turns. You don’t have the relaxed time of a tabletop game to perfectly micromanage
your forces.

You are going to fuck up. You will forget units. You will suddenly lose units and not
really know where they were. You will forget some of the basics. You will forget to smoke a
position before sending a column of infantry careening straight into enemy troops. You will
fearlessly charge your tanks at that lone enemy shadow, only to hurriedly haul ass away when it
turns out to be a T-80U. You will call in an aircraft for an airstrike, move on to quickly
micromanage something else, and notice half the game later that the aircraft you called in just
vanished and you have no idea where or how. You will suddenly realize you haven’t had a recon
vehicle along your entire front for at least 20 minutes. You will watch replays and realize you
spent the whole game preparing to defend against an enemy sector that had gone totally
forgotten by them, held only by a pitiful skeleton force that you were convinced was a massive
army. You will order an artillery barrage ahead of your moving front to stun the enemy, misjudge
the time to target, and end up blowing your own forces apart. You will get aircraft shot down
because you stupidly decided that they could probably survive a few Buks and Osas if you
evac’d them fast enough. You will see enemy tank forces show up in your spawn and silently
wonder how the hell those things snuck across your entire half of the map. You will realize you
sent your men to their deaths because of a risk that, in hindsight, was blatantly obviously never
going to pay off.

Now, how do I know you’ll do that? Because I’ve done all of those things. Hell, I’ve done
all of those things in the time it took to write this guide, not just in my newbie adjustment phase!
And I’m certainly not about to cede that you might be better at it than me, and that means you’ll
do them, too.

Don’t get frustrated. Those sort of things are half of the fun of Wargame. There is
never a minute in the game in which you are not doing something, and that means you will
screw up, make mistakes, and overlook things. Relax. Understand that that is a part of the
game, and a big part at that.

It’s realistic. This sort of shit happens in the real world too, and any student of history can
tell you that. Wars are not glamorous affairs where gentlemen officers meet on the field of honor.
Neither is Wargame. War is more akin to a bunch of shockingly incompetent individuals trying to
sort through dizzying amounts of information while taking fire in the hopes of killing the other
guys slightly faster than the other guys can do the same. It’s confusing, messy, and merciless;
and it punishes every single mistake, every single time a commander fails to observe the basics,
in the most natural and obvious way possible.

And that struggle to constantly stay one step ahead of the chaos is exactly why we love
Wargame.

Enjoy!