This guide is a comprehensive introduction to Warsaw Pact. If you want to learn to play Pact, this is a thorough guide that should cover enough to let you know to play Pact and play it well. Whether you're just not familiar with Pact or getting started with Wargame overall, there's all the information you need. With the information in this guide, you can be confident going into multiplayer because you will have the theoretical knowledge to win against most players.

Basic Strategy (for total beginners) is just that. It covers the basics of the game, how the mechanics work and how all the basic units work with each other in a multiplayer context. Playing the first two or three singleplayer missions is recommended as they act as a tutorial and get some stars to unlock units. It's a huge fraction of the length of this guide and may contain useful information for even experienced players, but Basic Strategy (for total beginners) can be safely skipped by players with experience playing W:EE.

Basic Strategy (for Pact beginners) is a guide to how Pact works as a whole and assumes you're conversant about the basics of the unit types and basic strategy.

Beginner Deck is a deck designed to be unlocked quickly and offer the maximum of good options for a player learning the game without buying units that won't be used later on. For the cost of 15 stars it'll let a player win fights.

Unit Guide is a quick overview of the units Pact has available. It will not be comprehensive at the start, instead pointing out the best choices for a learning player with an eye towards discussing tactics and how they work.

Sample Advanced Deck is a sample deck of 25 slots using the units covered in the Unit Guide. It is just one of many possible solutions but it's one the author of this guide has used extensively and hasn't been let down yet by.

This section is merely an overview of unit types and how they interact so that even a total beginner will be speaking the same language I am. Pact especially is all about combined arms. Some things look very good on their own but don't work well as part of a greater whole. Some things are incredibly fixed purpose and look cripplingly overspecialized. There's also a bit of basic game mechanics that can make a tiny difference huge.

The first and most important lesson of Wargame is that combined arms win games. If you're using your units together so their strengths reinforce each other, you're going to come out ahead of the other guy. 4 infantry with good artillery support can and will ruin an attack by 20 tanks if it has artillery support to get them panicked beforehand. Even the heaviest tanks can be killed quickly and effectively if attacked from different directions since front armor is about a 40 degree coner.

When engaging, make sure you either have the morale or position advantage, preferably both. Both will make your force significantly more effective than the enemy. Micro doesn't win battles nearly as effectively as macro three minutes ago.

With that in mind, it's time to go over the basic unit types, basics of terrain and how they interact.


Terrain is very simple, it's comprised of six basic elements, roads, open fields, forests, cities, hedgerows and hills. Roads let you move much faster, they're strategic terrain but don't have much importance on a tactical scale. Hedgerows don't provide much cover, especially when perpendicular to the enemy because there's no depth to them. The main use for them is sticking recon infantry in them because they're very stealthy and can hide there well. Open fields are the default and generally serve as a no-mans-land. Unless you have no other choice, leaving units in the open with no cover in sight is a bad idea in the extreme.

That leaves cities, forests, and hills. These are the foundation of defensive terrain. They work similarly in general. Infantry are devestating when using them for cover and engaging at close range, Tanks work best with one to pull behind as a shield, and they offer the best way to break line of sight and gain a refuge from artillery. Forests and Hills have similar effects on line of sight. If you pull right up to the edge, you can be seen, but you can pull back and hide. Forests still provide line of sight concealment at the edge, but it's slower to fall back into a forest than back from a hill.

Infantry is great in such cover because their short range is enough to hit targets from such cover with their fast aiming and powerful LAWs. Tanks are at their best when able to strike from behind cover to get flanking shots on enemies' vulnerable side armor. All units are able to get refuge from artillery behind heavy cover. Heavy cover is a base from which your forces can attack or defend. Heavy cover is terrain control.


Morale is your units' combat effectiveness. Damaging your enemies' morale is a quick way to render them combat ineffective and win battles against notionally superior forces because they can't return fire effectively. Units with damaged morale fire more slowly, aim more slowly, are less accurate, and are generally free points. Artillery is not effective at destroying units unless massed to the point that a balanced force could drive right to the enemy base and destroy it all (not actually an uncommon sight). It is amazingly effective as a force multiplier because it attacks morale. Morale is also destroyed by direct fire, miss or hit. In that case, when attacking vehicles, any sufficiently close shot (so most gun shells but only some ATGMs) will damage morale in an area. This means that spammy blobs can be sniped and their accuracy degraded until they are combat ineffective, and that it's usually best to keep your forces dispersed, otherwise your untis' morale will be severely damaged. Using units in 4s is perfectly acceptable because they get bonuses to counteract this, but best practice is to use cheap units in 2s and expensive critical ones solo, with only rifle/LAW infantry in 4s. (Don't worry, using them in 4s is perfectly fine until you get to the very top end, just keep in mind the point about keeping your forces dispersed). The key to morale more than anything is that any force that could be engaged on its own needs to have multiple seperated components so it doesn't get shelled, routed and ruined ineffectually.

Recon is the most important unit type in the game. Without recon, the enemy can find your location, scout your positions with impunity and set up the perfect attack before you even know where to look. The first warning you get of an attack will be an artillery barrage shattering your key units before the enemy comes rolling in in just the wrong place for your units. With good recon, you can do this to an enemy or when they attack have your units set up so that their effectiveness steadily degrades as their units keep going into traps, their heaviest units blindsided and killed with ease. Recon comes in three basic types: Infantry, vehicle and helicopter.

Infantry recon: Infantry recon is only spottable at the range where they can open fire. That's really close. They're really fragile though. If there's a weird isolated position with only a tiny bit of cover, infantry recon is your best bet for getting eyes in there. If there's a piece of heavy cover that is unlikely to get shelled or is just too far forward to risk something more visible, infantry recon is your best bet for getting and keeping eyes there. Fast transports are vital, whether they're ground or helicopter.

Vehicle recon: Vehicle recon is good reliable recon. If you want recon that can move with an advancing force well and take up positions near your troops, vehicle recon is very good for that job. It can move without keeping an APC nearby, and has its view range while on the move. There's not much more to say because it's pretty much the baseline.

Helicopter recon: Helicopters have long clear lines of sight and are fast, both of which are very appealing. However, they are helicopters and therefore expensive and horrifyingly vulnerable. One on a team is a great idea to get a look at the enemy's force composition and give time to prepare in case of a rush (if the enemy's rushing helicopters warning can be vital to get the AA up front and set up with supplies, and if the enemy's rushing tanks, setting up defense in depth and getting in positions it's easy to back out of can win games in the first minute)

Tanks are the basic unit of math in Wargame. They are mobile guns with armor and sometimes missiles. They can move and attack well or defend and in all there are tanks, things meant to kill tanks and things meant to kill those things (that tanks kill).

Tanks come in three main flavors, spammable, medium and heavy.

Spammable is basically 15-25 point tanks. Their quality is quantity. They usually have serious flaws, like very low accuracy, low damage, and are generally worthless until close range where their accuracy and low damage matter less than the sheer quantity of shells and the bonus from being at close range (gun damage is AP value + 1 - target armor hit + 1 per 350m closer to the target the tank is compared to max range, so at point blank range that 15 point T-55 can do damage to anything but armor 10). Get a bunch to absorb fire, spread them out so they don't all get routed by incoming fire, and mob enemies. Don't stop moving and don't forget support vehicles (mainly SAMs, helicopter rockets can ruin a tank rush). A full on rush is pretty ineffective overall though. The other main use for spammable tanks is when you need tanks you can buy at any time and don't care about losing. Stuff like peeking them out of cover so enemy heavies point their front armor at them while ATGMs pop them from the side? They're pretty good at that, and they're also good at grabbing stuff in no-mans-land to deny it to the enemy. Generally though, they're just too easy to kill and do too little damage. A T-62 has to be within autocannon range to do the same damage a T-62 obr 1975 does at maximum range, hits much less frequently, and doesn't have an HMG to help keep helicopters at bay and suppress infantry. They're always good to have on hand in case you need a tank that instant, and they're pretty good at killing infantry especially if it's suppressed.

Medium tanks are roughly 30-60 points. They're a good backbone of your force. They start mounting serious firepower (for Pact this means ATGMs and 10 round/minute guns), are still quite affordable and don't make many compromises. They basically work on the firepower/mobility/armor triangle, and they tend to be good in more than one if they're any good. The Pact has some excellent ones. You can mass them around terrain features and blast enemy forces, and if you suppress enemy defenses you can spearhead an attack with them. They're probably the most versatile unit in the game because there's always a use for them. Other than helicopters they can engage most things in the game and if they're positioned better they can probably beat enemies of the same point value.

Heavy tanks are 100+ points (yes, this leaves a gap, but the medium heavies are generally awkward to fit into any category, and I won't discuss them because they're the sort of thing that's expensive enough to need a justification to take but not powerful enough all around to have a job in every fight unlike heavies). They're beastly. Huge frontal armor so if you take on a single target you can outshoot your points value in tanks with their huge firepower, but they're expensive enough that if you get outmaneuvered you can lose a game in ten seconds (That isn't a joke, incidentally, 160 points of T-80U can get oneshot by 30 points of I-TOW jeep and I've taken down 560 points of Challenger I with 40 points of Motostrelci before). Husband them carefully, use terrain to shield them in the first phase of the battle, and when the enemy shows his main force engage from a favorable position. If your morale gets broken back out and let it recover before engaging again. There are very few cases in which losing heavy tanks is not a mistake and taking them is totally optional.

Like recon there's three types and anti-aircraft is utterly crucial. There's infantry SAMs, Anti-Air Artillery (AAA) and vehicle SAMs.

Vehicle SAMs: The real mainstay of AA. These and these alone have the range to deny all helicopters in an area. They are what keep helicopters out of ATGM range and scouting range. There's two main criteria for vehicle mounted SAMs: range and swarm handling (fire rate, accuracy and ammunition supply). Range is what keeps enemies at bay. Getting at least one or two of the longest range SAMs can be very important to keep enemy helicopters at bay. Getting SAMs that fire at a decent rate, hit reliably, do good damage and have a good number of spare missiles (although supply trucks can fix this) make it impossible to swarm your AA, which is utterly vital. These AA pieces are mainly there for theater denial, to prevent enemy helicopters from getting in weapons range. This is the role of AA in general, so Vehicle SAMs are the most important AA.

AAA: AAA can be useful, it's mainly for swarm defense. If the enemy rushes in a bunch of helicopters in close to use rockets or cannon, AAA can shoot them down. They basically serve in a similar role to Vehicle SAMs for use against cheaper helicopters, but since vehicle SAMs do just as well against cheap helicopters (often oneshotting them because they tend to have 5 hit points) they're mainly there for helicopter rush prevention and occasional tank suppression. Also great for command vehicle defense in forests where range doesn't matter, suppression does.

Infantry SAMs: Short range SAMs in infantry teams. Because they have the stealthiness of infantry, they can be good at ambushes and extending AAA coverage where a more expensive unit would be wasteful. Not something I use too often because 2km extra range means that vehicle SAMs farther back can do the job just as well, but they can be very effective. Some also are scout infantry, and those two roles line up very well a lot of the time, so they can be quite effective.

Infantry is simultaneously totally optional and hugely important. Nothing else has the sheer firepower for the price infantry does, there's no better way to lose units than fielding infantry, and there's no better way to lose as many units as someone and lose half the points they did than using infantry right. Infantry is god at close quarters, especially against suppressed tanks. Anything short of totally undamaged fresh heavy tanks will lose units going into a forest with infantry, and sending heavy tanks into a forest is the best way to lose tanks to things a tenth their price in videogame history. There's a few basic types of infantry. The ones with rifles and LAWs are the standard close range killers, and most of the rest are a platform for whatever kind of missile they carry that trades mobility for stealth. All need cover. They also become very tough when placed in buildings (simply right click on a building when your cursor goes white). Since all infantry have rifles, I'll discuss them by their role. There are scout infantry (discussed with recon), SAM infantry (discussed with AA), Riflemen, Shock Troops, Special Forces, and ATGM infantry. That's six types so not all will be able to fit into a deck.

Riflemen: Riflemen are the basic infantry type. They have an AP 1 rifle, LAW and frag grenades. Simple, effective and deadly. Their primary prey is unwary vehicles and other infantry as a secondary consideration. Their main virtue is being cheap enough to seed areas with them and to have any unit going into a forest with them be fatally outgunned. AP and accuracy on their LAWs is very important because that's what kills tanks before they get killed. Rifles are mainly for self defense. but can also be useful for storming positions. They all come with APCs/IFVs, and sometimes helicopters. They're best in the cheap transports to keep their points down and sometimes in IFVs that offer a lot of firepower for their price such as the late model BMP-1s.

Shock Troops: Shock troops come in normal ground transports and have an HE value of higher than 1 on their rifles. They mulch other infantry. They're the most useful in cities where getting at infantry is very hard with bigger weapons, but can also be used to take forests known to have infantry. Very dangerous against infantry but don't have much better anti-tank performance in general than the better riflemen and are significantly more expensive.

Special Forces: A pretty strange category that doesn't actually line up with what the game says. Generally specialist units that come in helicopters and are best used for raiding. Some units can double between special forces and shock troops based on transport choice. Backfield raiding, command unit hunting and the like are all good uses for them. Getting capable infantry into an enemy's artillery or on a key road for unit resupply can turn the tide of a game. Because they go alone, good optics are key to avoiding danger, and good anti-infantry and anti-vehicle firepower are musts.

ATGM infantry: ATGM infantry are very concealable units to snipe any tank. Unlike most other infantry, they should be used at the edge of cover where they can shoot out at enemy tanks. They can provide very heavy firepower that can't be spotted from outside their range, so can be incredibly effective as snipers. Beware artillery when using these because the missiles are visible.

On APCs: APCs are generally first and foremost a way to get troops to a battlefield. Speed can be quite useful, some offer good firepower for the price, but generally cheap is a very good thing. Most of the time you're buying the infantry not the transport, so keep the price low and the numbers high. The main exception is the BMP-1P since it's a very cheap source of ATGMs.

Vehicles are weird. It's a section where all sorts of stuff gets thrown in, such as empty APCs, some light artillery, some AA which are all discussed in their sections, and the main draw of this section is the tank destroyers. There's two types, gun and missile tank destroyers.

Gun Tank Destroyers: Gun TDs are generally pretty simple, they're basically tanks. They're a gun and some armor. Some of them are really well armed for their price. Use them as you would tanks in general. Some can be very good at close range assaults because of their oversized gun. Note that recolless rifles use HEAT, which does (AP + 1 - armor hit) damage.

Missile Tank Destroyers: These are the other main way to get ATGMs other than infantry ones. They come in basically two flavors, heavy APC based ones with lots of missiles and some durability for long fights and jeep based ones that are incredibly cheap with good ATGMs but are very fragile. ATGMs in general counter heavier tanks, with huge damage and long range to defeat armor at long range. They can lose to tanks pretty soundly because they start getting very inaccurate with morale loss, but they have huge damage potential at very long range. AP 14 missiles can oneshot armor 5 targets which is nearly every tank in the game including the Leopard 2A4 and T-80U. They tend to fare best against distracted targets, and because they counter heavy tanks every little bit of AP helps a lot. AP 14 is much better than AP 12 against high armor, doing nearly twice the damage to 10 armor. AP 14 can two shot any tank in the game, and one shot nearly all from the side, so it's a value to look out for. Missile Tank Destroyers are ambush predators that can kill nearly any tank. They're key to taking out enemy heavy tanks without just getting into a heavy tank duel which is an awful gamble to make.

Artillery is vital to softening up enemies. It comes in three flavors, tube, mortar and rocket. Artillery is there to break enemy morale and clear infantry out. Nothing more. It's a support arm and while vital is very easy to overdo. Two tube pieces or a single rocket piece is plenty for a 1500 point force, especially when moved closer to the front to increase accuracy. Use them to soften enemy forces, destroy their light vehicles in an attritional fight or break up attacks. Artillery can fire anywhere but should be fired at positions you can see to avoid wasting supplies.

Tube artillery: Tubes are best when accurate. Use them to salvo enemy positions to break their morale. They slowly tighten up on a target until they get some pinpoint shots off. They're best at sustained fire into a position. They're great for hitting stationary defenders, and because you know where the salvo's aimed you can use it to sneak troops into a forest while shells are still hitting another section. For best effect, you want to be going in as the barrage lifts so shelled enemies have no chance to recover morale.

Rocket artillery: Rocket artillery is great to swamp an area quickly. Great for hitting enemy attacks because they cover an area well so you'll get reliable morale damage. Can also be good for swamping a defensive area but they don't have the hammering effect tubes do.

Mortars: Mortars are their own little thing. They're cheap, cheerful and are generally good at hitting enemy morale but not at damaging. The nice thing is they get a lot of shells out quickly. Just directly fire on enemies (right click on enemies) so they track them and worry about other stuff.

Helicopters are totally optional, hideously vulnerable and can sometimes be very effective, but are generally not units a new player would be well suited to be using because they require a good amount of micro and a lot of understanding of the game. They come in two types (with a lot of mixing between the two): Gunships and ATGM helicopters.

Gunships: Gunships' main weapons are rockets, which are very good at cheaply suppressing large numbers of units. They can salvo a lot of firepower at enemies and are great at suppression. They're also really good at eating SAMs because of their relatively short range. That can be a virtue if you've got an ATGM sniper on hand.

ATGM Helicopters: ATGM helicopters are used for their missiles to snipe tanks at long range. For helicopters range means survivability, so they're much more survivable than gunships but still quite vulnerable. They have a lot of firepower and mobility but they're very expensive and very vulnerable.

Supply units keep your units in ammo, repairs and fuel. Not optional, but boring to talk about and pretty easy to figure out. Come in trucks and helicopters. Trucks carry much more supply for the price but move more slowly, helicopters carry more supply overall and move fast, but take a long time to land. Keeping some trucks with your units is vital to make sure they stay repaired. The more expensive trucks are usually faster for the same capacity/price ratio so they're usually a good bet. Helicopters are specialized and optional.

Not optional and very boring. There's helicopters which are never worth taking unless you have a specific use for them, jeeps which are a tiny bit cheaper but much easier to kill with artillery and armored ones which are nice and durable and protect your investment well. It's usually worth getting ones with some armor, and all around armor is better yet.

Pact has a few significant differences from Nato that overall lead to a noticeably different style of play. First, their units tend to have missiles. Both infantry and tanks can come with ATGMs for a relatively small expenditure. This is a huge help to their flexabiliity and helps with a numbers oriented style of play. At 45 points, Pact has a weapon that can frontally damage a 10 armor heavy tank on its tanks. Cheap Pact units are better at countering expensive NATO units that they aren't hard counters to. It is much easier to build a well rounded Pact force that can take on any NATO comers. Pact also generally has options for cheaper units than NATO in any given category. NATO has plenty of scary units, but Pact often has very inexpensive units in various categories which gives Pact a great deal of flexibility.

The fundamentals of Pact strategy are really the same as NATO. Claim a good defensive position. Scout to find enemy strengths. If they attack repel it and counterattack, if they defend set up an attack and execute it. They're the same tactical directives as NATO needs to follow, but the way of doing this is different.

A good basic backbone for your force in a 1500 point game is 4 Motostrelci in BMP-1Ps, 8 T-55AMV-1s, 4 T-64As, a pair of UAZ-469s, and a pair of 2K22M Tunguskas at veterancy 2. It's about 1000 points and with it you can take a forest, put infantry in it, and depending on enemy snipe him down with 12 relatively long range ATGMs, gun him down with a bunch of accurate fast firing guns, and generally just hold a position against any threat. With 500 points to tailor to the map and expected threats, you've got plenty of room for recon infantry, extra AA (a BUK would not go amiss for scout sniping), higher AP tank destroyers (Shturm-Ss are kings of open ground), more infantry to hold more forests/cities, supply trucks to keep your units fed in the face of an early attack (vital to stop a lot of helicopters) or other luxuries. Pact is very good at getting a small force that can fulfil all your basic needs and then adding to fit the situation. There aren't that many roles that can't be filled relatively cheaply, which is great for a new player, who needs flexibility for any situation. Since Pact has so many multi-role units, it's pretty hard to find units which are very situations, so it's hard to make a wrong choice.

The main rule of playing Pact is to remember what role your units should be playing at that point in time and make sure you use them in that way. The multi-purpose units allow you to reconfigure your force at will by changing positioning. The ATGM tanks to whittle down heavy tanks two minutes ago can be the fast relatively expendable tanks going in first to consolidate gains and make them too expensive to retake. If you're shooting at heavy tanks, don't get your cheap missile tanks in gun range, keep them at longer range where they can shoot without getting shot. If you're hunting lighter vehicles with them, feel free to use the gun since it fires faster. A lot of Pact units avoid the trap of multi-role units being good at two things but those roles not working well together. Units like the BMP-1P always have a use and never pay too much for their other uses when fighting. A very strong base in numbers is also great for backing up more expensive units without making your force too easy to overwhelm.

Just remember to keep at range where your missiles excel and don't be afraid to trade room for time. If you defeat an enemy attack you can take the territory back, if you lose your army it doesn't matter how far forward you did it. Fight for points not for unit kills. Don't be afraid to lose units for greater rewards.

This section is designed to provide a good selection of units for a deck that can compete with anything in the game for as cheap a cost in stars (only 14 stars, easily accomplished in the first two levels of single player) as possible without wasting stars on units that don't perform as well as their equivalents. This means a lot of optional stuff like heavy tanks, special forces and artillery are left out as is a lot of specialist equipment. This deck does not include some units that are already unlocked, feel free to add them in case you find yourself wanting them.

• UAZ-469B: Yes there's better. But this is free and there's other stuff to focus on.
  
• FOB: Obvious reasons. Highest supply/point ratio in the game.
  
• Ural-3750: Yes there's better. But this is free and there's other stuff to focus on.

• UAZ-469: This is free and there's other stuff to focus on. Getting eyes for cheap is very important in a scout vehicle and this is great for that. Good optics, quick and cheap.

NOTE: Picking only one of the two of these is fine at the start. Either gives you a tank capable of holding its own, but they work best together, since the T-62A works well as a gun tank while the T-55AMV-1 works well as a flexible multi-role tank.

• T-55->T-55AMV-1 (5 stars): Great backbone tank. Can hurt anything with AP 12 ATGMs, fast moving and equipped with a pretty good gun. No glaring weaknesses.
  
• T-62A (3 stars): Very good cut down heavy tank. 10 round/min gun with long range and good accuracy and firepower provides plenty of sustained firepower, with good frontal armor to withstand some fire. Capable of trading shots with anything under 100 points for long enough for ATGMs to destroy them, and even the heaviest of tanks with sufficient focused ATGM fire.

• Motostrelki + BTR-60PAI: Doesn't cost stars, barebones infantry in a barebones vehicle for when you just want riflemen to hold a forest or city.
  
• Motostrelci + BMP-1P (4 stars): The 1P has a really great ATGM, solid gun, and a bit of armor. The ATGM on a 10 HP vehicle alone makes this vehicle a steal, let alone the infantry capacity and main gun. Motostrelci (the Czech ones) are great as backup since the BMPs' main threat is tanks, and Motostrelci are very optimized against tanks in an ambush.

NOTE: Artillery is not included. Artillery is optional and the starter piece is pretty mediocre. Save the stars till you've got the essentials.

• 2K22 Tunguska (2 stars): The cheaper variant of the Tunguska is all you strictly need for air defense. The extra range is worth the 10 points for the M, but the 2K22 is perfectly acceptable, able to one shot 5 hp helicopters and two shot 10 hp ones.

There are no Vehicles or Helicopters in this deck. Helicopters are totally optional and the author of this guide has no helicopters other than the Mi-9 for recon in his Pact deck. Vehicles are mainly tank destroyers, and the one that really has the AP to stand out in the 12 AP hailstorm of T-55AMV-1s and BMP-1Ps is the MT-LB SHTURM-S, which costs 3 stars. It's totally worth it but not for a deck trying to fit in 15 points.

Again, these are just the mainstays. There's a lot more good stuff to be had, but for minimum price competitiveness I can't think of much better. It'll do well in your first game or two, by which point you'll have enough stars to unlock far more vehicles.

This section serves as a general guide to units with a particular eye to units that come highly recommended. East German copies of Russian stuff that I talk about don't get discussed because they don't offer anything new. This is intended for later in the game after you have more stars so all units discussed are the whole groups that can fit in a single deck slot.

• BRDM-2U: Basic command armor. Has 10 HP which makes it much more surviveable against artillery. Has 4 available in a battle so you aren't likely to run out.
  
• BRM-1K: Exceptional optics on a command vehicle. With a Tunguska makes a perfect combination to hold an open rear area command zone and can be used to hold command zones from outside of forests preventing infantry raids and allowing easier evacuation in case of artillery fire. Niche unit but can be very useful.
  
• KOLOS/T813: Basically the same unit, both are fast and have serious capacity. Everyone takes the KOLOS so take the T183 and confuse people for a second.
  
• URAL-3750/4320: Unremarkable trucks but they have two choices in a single deck slot. By far the most supplies in a single deck slot, perfect insurance for a long game.

• BRM-1: Only land recon vehicle in the game with Exceptional optics. Perfect for wide open areas.
  
• Mi-9:
  
• PT-76B: Only Pact 10 HP very good optic recon vehicle at PT-85/90, rather affordable if a bit slow. Can move with attacks pretty well.
  
• UAZ-469: Cheapest source of very good optic vehicles in Pact, has a lot of vehicles in one slot, but a bit fragile.

• BMP 685: An interesting tank. Very accurate, fast firing, has a great stabilizer for Pact but weak armor and AP. Can be useful against light stuff, but doesn't do particularly well against heavier units.
  
• T-55: Best cheap tanks for Pact. The T-55 is the best spammable tank Pact has, the middle ones are acceptable cheap tanks and the AMV-1 is the best cheap missile tank Pact has and a generally quite good middle price tank.
  
• T-64: 10 round/minute guns are always welcome, and even the cheapest variants offer a good combination of strong frontal armor, considerable firepower and decent mobility. They can fit a powerful ATGM and have quite strong guns. The only downside is that they drain a lot of supplies.
  
• T-80: Fast, well armed and well armored. Very powerful but very expensive and vulnerable from the sides. The ATGMS, especially Refleks, are devestating and allow them to participate in a fight without being engaged by enemies. If you take them the battle should revolve around them.
  
• TO-55: Very good at killing infantry and at stunning enemy tanks at point blank range. Stunning is delightfully effective against most units but they can be swamped because they're fragile and rely on stunning for defense. Supported well they can be ruinous.

• 4 VPZU: Great recon unit, great raiders, great shock troops. Can come in an OT-64 for great speed to be shock troops or helicopters to be behind lines raiders.
  
• Grenzer: Scout infantry teams that come in a quick transport. Easily hidden source of very good optics.
  
• Motostrelci: 5 man LAW teams. Very good LAW, not great infantry, but at 10 points are amazing infantry for expendably turning forests into tar pits. Also a great source of BMP-1Ps and great at guarding them. Also work well with OT-62 Topas-2As, which have a good anti-infantry recoilless rifle to make up Motostrelci's weakness against infantry.
  
• Motostrelki: Cheapest 10 man infantry squad Pact gets, so they have a role as plentiful infantry in BTR-60s.
  
• PTUR Konkurs: Best infantry ATGM infantry for Pact. Use them for ambushes and other ATGM infantry things. The extra AP and accuracy over ♥♥♥♥♥♥ justifies the extra price.
  
• PZRK Strela-2: Good balance of power and price, can one shot 5 HP helicopters and two shot 10 HP ones.
  
• Sapery Szturmowi: Very useful in infantry fights because they can hurt infantry badly before they get in flamethrower range and the flamethrowers are vicious and stun enemies.
  
• Spetsnaz: The best infantry for killing infantry bar none. Huge assault rifle damage and a rocket launcher that does horrible things to infantry. Don't do much against tanks at all though, so are only for clearing terrain.
  
• Vysadkari: 15 points for excellent infantry that can come in a 95 kph transport for 20 points. NATO players like Chasseurs FAMAS, but these are better in every way but having a machine gun on their transport, and an HE 2 rifle more than makes up for that. The only real downside is only 8 of them in a deck slot.

• 2K12 KUB: The 9K37 BUK-M1 is the definitive sniper SAM. Accept no substitutes (Seriously, the M1 adds the ability to one shot any helicopter in the game). Perfect for sniping recon helicopters, take one to keep helicopters at bay.
  
• 2K22 Tunguska: The Tunguska is a great all around AA unit. It has long ranged, accurate and powerful SAMs that fire quickly and have great autocannons to deal with saturation attacks (or helicopter derp spam if you're feeling less charitable) by cheap helicopters. A good backup for a BUK.
  
• 257 Pion: Take the Malka. It's a very powerful artillery piece with a very high damage shell that can cause a lot of damage and shake up enemies terribly. Great at morale damage and ruining infantry units.
  
• BM-30 Smerch: Nothing drops a concentrated volley of MLRS on a target and shatters positions under it like a Smerch.
  
• DANA: Very good light artillery piece, very fast for avoiding counter battery fire and very accurate.
  
• TOS-1 Buratino: The Pact equivalent to mortars. Armored against counterbattery and capable of a huge amount of firepower to break enemy attacks at close range. One shot and expensive so fire at the enemy center of mass.

• BTR-70 Zhalo: Cheap as could be with a very powerful gun, their main limit is small numbers in one deck slot. Great as a maneuver force to back more expensive tanks.
  
• MT-LB Shturm-S: The main Pact tank destroyer worth considering. 14 AP missiles and 2801m range set it apart from the 12 AP missiles that come with everything in the Pact arsenal, small and with a deep ammo stockpile for long battles.

Warning: helicopters are very micro heavy, vulnerable and helicopter spammers ruined them for the rest of us by making everyone take a bunch of AA. Use at your own risk.

• Mi-24: The Mi-24P is a very good gunship with high HE rockets that deal a lot of suppression and powerful long ranged ATGMs that can hurt tanks badly. Good as a strategic reserve. Also have 10 HP for a bit of durability in the face of SAMs.
  
• Mi-28: The Mi-28 is a flying warehouse of ATGMs. 16 powerful ATGMs makes for a lot of dead tanks.

This deck includes 25 unit choices.With this you have the options for nearly every battle you'll face and won't be making any compromises. The units have all been discussed above in the Unit Guide (except the T-62, which is commented on below), so it's posted without comment on the units, just a quick summary at the end. All units available from the ones listed are assumed to be unlocked.

• BRDM-2U
  
• BRM-1K
  
• FOB
  
• T813
  
• URAL-3750

• BRM-1
  
• Mi-9
  
• PT-76B
  
• SPW-40B
  
• UAZ-469

• T-55
  
• T-62 (here as long/big game insurance in case you run out of T-55AMV-1s, which aren't numerous or if you are in too open terrain or facing too many heavy tanks to rely on T-64As)
  
• T-64
  
• TO-55

• 4 VPZU +OT-64
  
• Motostrelci + BMP-1
  
• Motostrelki +BTR-60PAI
  
• Vysadkari + OT-64 Skot-1

• 2K12 Kub
  
• 2K22 Tunguska
  
• 257 Pion
  
• TOS-1 Buratino

• BTR-70 Zhalo
  
• MT-LB Shturm-S

There are some notable things about this deck. First, it has a lot of recon choices. Recon is vital. Each one hits a different price/view/durability range. Not all are required. If you choose you could use them to fill the two gaps in this deck.

The T-80 is not present. It can be very powerful, but it's incredibly expensive and quite vulnerable when brought into gun range. In short it's a gamble. A Shturm can do as good a job firing ATGMs and is much smaller and harder to hit in return for having no armor. The 2801m range Pact ATGMs outrange anything NATO has so the Shturm is in many ways just as survivable as the T-80U as a missile carrier while being about a third the cost. It is not a terrifying heavy tank, but in general two T-64As and a Shturm can mount as much firepower, have similar survivability and are much less prone to getting wiped out due to one mistake. Also, they can do their jobs at the same time, unlike the T-80 which can fire missiles or guns. However, it is a very scary unit that is well worth consideration.

There are no helicopters in this deck. They are very vulnerable to long range SAMs. They can be quite useful, but their risk/reward ratio is awfully skewed. Taking helicopters, especially Mi-24s since they can double as transports for 4 VPZU raids can be quite useful, but 25 slots means sacrifices of potentially useful units.