YMMV / Wargame: Red Dragon

• Abridged Arena Array:
  • For 1v1s, the most common maps seem to be Mud Fight!, Highway to Seoul (small), Another D-Day in Paradise (small), Punchbowl, and Paddy Field (small).
  • For larger games, the most common maps tend to be Strait to the Point (large) and those that are not too large with distinct lanes like Jungle LAW.
• Game-Breaker: While the game is well balanced enough that no tactic is an instant win, various tactics are superior and if not countered, can lead to a swift death:
  • The most infamous one is "helicopter rush". Warsaw pact can deploy a large amount of cheap, well-armed, and armored gunship helicopters. There's almost NO way to stop them since most anti-helicopter units are ground-based, can only engage one target at a time and will be quickly swarmed without very good position; helicopter with anti-air missile performs better, but they can only shoot down one or two enemies before running out of ammo. The main counter is anti-air infantry in cover and positioning your anti-air vehicles so the helicopters won't see them until they're right on top of them, decreasing the number of helicopters that can shoot back at once and increasing the chance that the AA will hit, making them more likely to take the helicopter down quickly so they can move on to another. That and planes, since only a few helicopters can actually fire back at planes.
  • The aforementioned Moskit missiles carried by the Tarantul-class corvettes, and the Udaloy-class and Sovremenny-class destroyers outrange anything the Nato fleet has. Combine with coastal FOBs or local resupply ships and they can go back and forth to the frontlines, snipe whichever ship happens to be closest to them, and head back to resupply without so much as taking a shot in return. The Tarantul is especially good for this tactic as it reloads quickly, moves very fast, and fires two missiles per salvo. A 6-ship group can fire off two sets of 12 missiles in 10 seconds, enough to take out any capital ship in the Nato fleet unless it has a major escort. Even a decent-sized NATO fleet will fall back should their opponents begin repeating this tactic. Of course, they don't have very far to fall back most of the time.
  • On the flipside, Nato's anti-ship airpower is extremely impressive. They have two planes, the F111 & A6E TRAM which can fire 4 Harpoons each, and don't have to worry about resupply. If care is taken where to attack, most of the time the Communist ships won't be able to fire back as they'll be too busy fending off the Harpoons. Add in various F18's with two Harpoons each, and a full NATO stack of 9 planes can launch 24 Harpoons.
  • The German Fallschirmjäger unit's 1990 updated version has the G11 assault rifle, which in beta and early versions of the game had 80% accuracy. This is at max range, and veterancy increases the accuracy. Said troops are elite forces only available at the two highest veterancy levels, resulting in accuracy better than 100% at maximum range. The result was a ludicrously powerful chainsaw that ate every other unit alive, earning themselves a well-deserved nerf to 60% base accuracy.
  • The free Norse Dragons expansion pack adds the Otomatic, an Italian prototype SPAAG, to Denmark. As a rapid-fire 76mm naval gun mounted onto a tank, the "Otomagic" can obliterate almost any unit that walks, rolls, or flies. Its only weaknesses are its vulnerability to SEAD missiles, low availability, and general frailty.
  • The Israeli DLC introduces the Maglan unit, a ten-man (of course, they have been nerfed to a 5-men squad, and as a result, more vulnerable to blind bombing or mortar/artillery fire, and tank main guns, etc) special forces squad packing more firepower than almost any other infantry unit in the game. Aside from an obvious superiority in infantry combat, they are classified as a recon unit, allowing them to spot enemy forces from a long way off while remaining undetected, and they carry around a set of Spike-MR anti-tank missiles, allowing them to independently spot and kill most land vehicles in the game from standoff range. A squad of Maglan operators in the right position could single-handedly lock down a large portion of the map, barring heavy artillery and aerial bombardment. On top of that, they can be flown in on a flight of Yas'ur Nimrod, a variant of the CH-53D heavy-lift helicopter equipped with one of the most devastating anti-tank missiles in the game.
  • The Yugoslavia DLC adds the M-84AN recon tank. While other nations also have recon tanks, they are lighter, older vehicles not meant to fight on the front line. But not the M-84AN, a modern main battle tank with identical stats to the regular M-84A but also possessing better stealth and optics. This makes the 'stealth tank' a monster to find and destroy while it happily snipes other tanks with impunity.
  • Finland has their own MiG-29 9.13, equipped with only 2 R-77s. Doesn't sound like much by themselves, but they are fire and forget with respectable range and accuracy ... and they ripple fire. With two to a card at a cool 110 points each, Finland has a pair of the most cost-effective interceptors in the game more than capable of dealing with most enemy planes.
  • Finland also has the XA-185KT, a wheeled APC carrying a powerful and accurate Bushmaster II autocannon. At only 15 points, it punches well above its weight and wreaks havoc on vehicles and helicopters, especially at close ranges it can easily cover with its speed.
  • France's AMX-10RC is a recon tank on wheels, allowing it to rush and ambush opponents from unexpected angles. Unlike many other recon tanks, it has a good enough gun to do the job.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • Eurocorps is an extremely well-rounded coalition, combining West Germany's heavy tanks and IFVs with France's mobile firepower, recon, infantry, and air force.
  • DLC nations, especially Finland, Yugoslavia, and Israel, have powerful, diverse rosters capable of slugging it out with the major nations. Dutch-German Coalition adds strong motorized infantry, planes, and helicopters to Germany's roster and South Africa is also very mobile with wheeled tanks.
  • NORAD shores up the United States' weaknesses with Canadian infantry and short-range air defense, like the coveted ADATS.
  • USSR contains all of the units one needs to succeed, with strong helicopters, transports, armor, and artillery along with a powerful air-to-ground air force. The preferred faction for helorushing.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The US F-15D Eagle bomber used to be referred to as the F-15E Strike Eagle, but was renamed after players noticed that it did not have its distinctive conformal fuel tanks and Eugen did not want to put in the effort to remodel it. Come the Israel DLC and F-15I Ra'am, an F-15 with conformal fuel tanks. Unfortunately, Eugen did not port the model over to the US.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Red Dragons, while giving the game its name, is rather lackluster, lacking heavy armor and having a weak air force. Definitely a faction focusing on quantity rather than quality.
  • Blue Dragons also somewhat lacking in cost-effective infantry, heavy armor, and ATGMs (Chu-MAT is the only ATGM infantry available), but their air force is slightly stronger.
  • Most national decks mean you are restricting your arsenal in one way or another in exchange for massive availability bonuses. Individual nations often lack a critical part of a good deck, such as Poland not having any mortars. This inflexibility could have serious consequences if your opponent knows how to exploit them.
• Memetic Loser: In a game with thousands of units, some have to be at the bottom.
  • Blowpipes are the worst MANPAD in the game, with startlingly poor accuracy and refusing to hit anything, even when deployed in large numbers.
  • Most light units in the Vehicle Tab, like ATGM and recoilless rifle jeeps, are generally considered a waste of an activation point, lacking the stealth, range, and AP power to appropriately ambush and the resiliency to survive being inevitably detected and fired upon.
  • Light Riflemen have a weak ATGM overshadowed by other light infantry, but being the only ATGM the US has in the infantry tab, it's as good as you've got if you're playing the US. Cavalry Scouts can at least bring a recon transport with them.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Warchat, Wargame's in-game messaging app before it was disabled, was completely unmoderated and filled with completely nonsensical, bigoted garbage. Some players were speculated to only log on to Wargame to participate in it. However, some running jokes had risen to the top.
    • "Navy has been canceled" became a meme during the public beta, so much so that even after release people still use "XYZ has been canceled" to get laughs in chat.
    • "PUTIN GAYSEX F-35" basically sums up the three most popular topics on Warchat and guaranteed to get laughs. Expect this to be spammed in various colors and ASCII letters.
  • Complaints about American infantry are often given the tongue-in-cheek explanation of them being "demoralized" after Vietnam.
  • "Meat's back on the menu, boys!" is frequently posted on the Wargame subreddit whenever it goes on sale.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Despite naval combat being the main new feature of the game, it is mostly considered poorly implemented and a waste of potential, with it being nothing more than throwing two blobs of ships and planes at each other with the larger blob winning.