Hello Everyone!
Welcome to the first installment of a new series I have been working on for you folks
-- Wargame Tips & Tactics.
It will be primarily aimed towards people who already have a basic understanding of
Wargame’s mechanics and gameplay, and who want to learn some more advanced tricks and
maneuvers to pull off in game to get an edge on their opponent.
...And what better way to start the series than with one of the most underused and underrated
mechanics in the game, smoke?
When used appropriately, smoke can allow you to turn the tide of battle in your favor,
and overcome obstacles you wouldn’t have been able to.
It’s one of the most powerful tools to manipulate the battlefield in your arsenal, and it’s capabilities are
often overlooked.
For those that aren’t familiar with smoke usage, smoke can be deployed from nearly all
tube artillery pieces in game, as well as a few select MLRS systems.
A unit’s ability to deploy smoke will be indicated by the [SMK] tag on the respective
unit’s stat-card, as is highlighted here.
Smoke, when it is deployed, acts to break line of sight, and this can be taken advantage
of in a variety of ways.
One means in which you can utilize this to you advantage is through changing engagement
ranges.
For a moment, place yourself in the position of the OPFOR player here, attempting to deal
with a much more capable M1A2 Abrams in open terrain, with a handful of inferior tanks,
whose guns are incapable of penetrating the Abram’s armor until they have closed distance.
As the Abrams is free to engage them as they attempt to close the gap, it’s a slaughter.
OPFOR’s T-80s didn’t stand a chance.
With proper smoke usage, however, our OPFOR player can get much more utility out of their
T-80s, by forcing the engagement to occur at a significantly shorter range.
By closing the distance without taking casualties, OPFOR’s numerical superiority allows them
to overwhelm the lone M1A2.
You can use this tactic with other types of units, as well.
Screening infantry assaults on forests with smoke can allow you to move infantry across
open terrain while minimizing losses, allowing them to get into position to deal with vehicle
threats more appropriately with their shoulder-launched AT.
Another good way to utilize smoke is to mask your movement, denying your opponent valuable
intel on the location of your units, and making it more difficult for them to react to your
actions and positioning.
In this scenario, careful use of smoke to block my opponent’s vision allows me to
sneak a recon squad into a much more aggressive spotting position, revealing the location
of many of my opponent’s units, allowing me to make a more informed plan to deal with
my opponent’s unit composition, as well as making them vulnerable to shelling.
The last concept I’d like to leave you with is that of using smoke to prevent engagements
from occurring at all, or “Dividing & Conquering” your opponents, by cutting off their supporting
assets.
In the situation at hand here, I’d like to deal with my opponent’s weaker tank in
open ground using my own tank that is currently fielded.
However, without smoke usage I am doomed to fail.
Infantry ATGM squads positioned in the towns on either side of my tank will make damn sure of that.
However, If we use our supporting mortars to lay down smokescreens preventing those ATGM squads
from having line of sight to our tank, we can proceed with the engagement as if they
weren’t present at all.
Without line of sight, his supporting assets are useless, and our tank is able to do the
job it’s meant to without any pesky Konkurs missiles finding it’s side.
In any scenario where your opponent has supporting assets separated by by even a fairly small
distance from his other units, you can utilize this method to your advantage.
A unit cut off from its support will always be more vulnerable than it would be otherwise.
If you found this video informative or entertaining, or want to see more videos like it in the
future, feel free to let me know, as it’ll likely encourage me to put more work into
content like this for you in the future.
As it currently stands, I have plans to put out a few more videos like this in the coming
weeks, and I hope to see you then.
Till next time, folks!
*Awesome music*
*Seriously, you should listen to it :P*