How to Kill Tanks in Tank Fights – Wargame Airland Battle Tactics

The T80U was the pinnacle of Russian technology during the Cold War.  It was expected to be on the front line of any major war that was coming.  For this reason Eugen Systems gave this unit a lot of special love and for those brave enough to use a Soviet-only deck, they get this juggernaut.  They mostly deflect artillery shots and tank a tonne of front end damage.

But that raises the question for many people…. how do you beat one of these things?

The simple answer comes from an analysis of armor values.

The T80U has a back armor value of 3 and a side armor value of 9.

To put this in perspective, the T55 which dies very easily has a front armor of 7.

It means that any shot from behind a T80U will do insanely high damage and shots from the side will do medium damage.

In order to do this the key will be to position your tanks in such a way that if their tanks move out you can hit a side shot, and if they continue to push you will be hitting from behind.  Having a flanking position means no matter which tank the T80U turns to hit… they will always be taking bonus damage.

CRITS

I should make a final note to end this that Wargame: AirLand Battle has critical strikes.  Critical strikes are earned by hitting units on weak spots in their armor.  A good tank commander will always manuever their tank to hit these locations in the enemy, without exposing themselves.

Anti-tank infantry, anti-tank vehicles, tanks and helicopters can all be used in trying to hit these weak points to gain those critical strikes.

As always I hope this guide was helpful.  If you found this interesting make sure to subscribe to the channel for Wargame commentaries and more great tactics.  See ya guys next week for more Wargame: Air Land Battle Tactics

Wargame Campaign Guide – Wargame: AirLand Battle Guide

In this guide we will look at how the campaign works and how to beat it.

The campaign comes in four possible scenarios, they are:

1. Die Hard
2. Fortress Oslo
3. Zhukov-2
4. War in the North

Each advancing campaign makes the map larger and thus makes the game longer.  The overall difficulty of the computer however does not increase.  Each campaign is balanced around a default difficulty level, this can be adjusted at any time however.

As a tactical view there are many entry points in which the enemy can enter from.  For NATO they enter from the western Atlantic.  For the PACT they enter from the eastern Baltic Sea.

Most tiles have two places that it can attack from.  Strategic points on the map are those that can attacked as a border (still attacked from two sides but from completely opposite directions).

The overwhelming map goal is to create borders in which you have as few battles as possible.  Each zone will grant points.  These points per turn can be used to deploy new armies.

These armies lead to micro engagements.  Each micro engagement is fought with a pre-designed military group.  At the outset of the battle you are given a set number of deployment points.  The number of deployment points you are given is based on the size of the army, with the minimum deployment points being made available is 500.

Your goal will be to gain a certain number of points in a very short amount of time.  Alternatively if the enemy has no command vehicles on the map you can also win this micro engagement.

If you are unable to win the engagement it ends in a Draw.  The match is re-done next turn.  Any units you lost in the previous round will be unavailable in this next round.  Each zone you controlled in the previous round will be one you control at the start of the next battle.

Strategically if you destroy a lot of computer armor and infantry in the previous round expect mostly to see helicopters and aircraft in the next.  Draw situations create stalemates at strategic zones and buy time to field more armies in the next round.

The goal of the game is to always deal more damage to the enemy each micro battle than they deal to you.  So if you swipe 40 points off of the computer that is fine.  If the score ends 0-0, that is fine too.  If you are losing points you are losing ground.

There are a few tricks to beating the computer.

If you notice the computer has a significant number of bombers you can bait the computer into running into a line up of AA.  Simply locate their infantry, place AA near it and run empty vehicles towards the infantry.  The computer won’t be able to resist bombing these 1-point vehicles.

Another tip, any bases that are close to each other the computer will always place units at the tip.  You can deploy units at the tip to destroy massive numbers of his units very quickly.  The computer will not centralize his units.

If you are particularly weak on units make sure to strap down a position with as much AT and AA defensively as possible.

If you do really well and don’t want to risk another push simply rally out another command to take another forward position closer to one of the enemy’s bases.  This way when you start the next round you will be closer to the enemy’s base and will be able to deploy another big push.

Final tip, be aggressive when you can.  The computer starts off with a lot of high point bases and however 20 minutes will gain massive army advantages over you, potentially overwhelm you and destroy your army.

Artillery Uses, Types, and Value – Wargame: AirLand Battle Guide

Hello everyone my name is Troublmaker and I’m here today talking about artillery.

USES OF ARTILLERY

Artillery have two purposes.

The first is to deal area of effect damage.  For this purpose artillery gain a late game advantage because there are more units to splash with damage.

The second use of artillery is morale damage.

Morale is this little stat you have probably noticed on your units that informs you of how much or how little they are keeping their “cool.”  Once a unit completely panics he will “Rout” or “Retreat” in a random direction.

In a late game setting a unit that “routs” will immediately get blasted by the front line.

Types of Artillery

Artillery can be broken down into three sub-types.

The first is your standard artillery.  It has long range, has medium cost effectiveness, and a medium sized spray.  This is most often used for killing infantry.

The second type is mortar type.  These are short range, high cost effectiveness, and small sized spray.  This is most often used for morale damage.

The third type is rocket type.  These are short range, low cost effectiveness, and large spray.  These are most often used for end game killing grouped units.

Mortar and standard artillery are most cost effective rallied out early because of their cost efficiency.

Rocket types however are only cost effective later in game because of how much it costs to fire them.

Let’s look at the Buratino and its cost.

Using Artillery

With mortar and standard types you will want to have them firing more often.  Since they only strengthen tanks they should never be aimed against tanks.

Mortars and artillery should only be used when a rocket based weapon is available to destroy a routing unit.

Rocket based artillery does insanely high damage.  However if the number of units in the area is too small you lose a lot of supply cost.

If you are winning you should spend the last 5 minutes of the game doing nothing but non-stop artillery barrage on select areas.

If you are losing you should try and prepare for an attack with artillery supporting for extra morale damage.

Wargame: AirLand Battle Tutorial – Control Groups

Control groups are a fundamental component of RTS games.

Control groups are used in order to limit the total number of orders you are required to give while also allowing for fast selection of units.

The standard for control groups in any RTS game is the Control Key and a number (Example Ctrl+1).  By binding this you can now quickly select that group by pressing the 1 key.

There are two main uses for control keys in Wargame: AirLand Battle.

The first is for fast access to units.  Units such as helicopters and artillery are used very specifically and require timing.  Every single helicopter cluster should have its own key binding and all artillery should have a keybinding.

Unmicroed units such as infantry often do not require any keybindings at all.

Tank battlegroups will require keybindings.  These are often moved and used as soon as a unit is within range of them.

For the vast majority of a battlefield control groups will not be necessary.  Sometimes quick groups for your flanks may be necessary just to highlight what you have and quickly move to them in place of using a map.

Wargame: AirLand Battle Tutorial – Reverse Micro

A year ago in a forum post I indicated that when engagements take place my APM (actions per minute) jump up to around 100 actions per minute.

This is done through intense micro-management to win battles.  The next few tutorials I will be producing for this game will be with how to micro your units.

This first one is what I consider to be the most important, reverse micro.

War vehicles are often designed with very heavy forward armor, medium to weak side armor and weak to no back armor.  The idea that a vehicle would turn its back to an enemy in a combat zone is so odd that tanks are trained to drive backwards with accuracy.

In a tank battle you will move your tanks forward into their tanks.

As your heavy tanks take too much damage you will want to move them back so they take less damage.

If you simply right click or Move Fast command in the direction you want your vehicles to go they will do two things.

The first is turn around.

Turning around takes a long time in a battle which will give the opponent one extra rocket and two volleys of tank destroyer guns.

The next thing it will do is run away with its back turned to the enemy, this might even be worse.  This means your tank will be exposed on its weakest armor points meaning it will take extra damage.  This also means that upon microing this way you can just as easily throw that tank away.

The alternative is reverse micro.

The default reverse key is G.  I use it in the video because it is the default however you should remap it to something more accessible.

If you hit reverse and click on a location your tank will move to that location while still facing forward.  This removes the turning time and this removes the risk of losing armor to the enemy.