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YURI INFANTRY

Yuri's Infantry forces reflect his changes the most, so this is where you will need to pay close attention to realise what you may end up going up against.  Yuri's forces have always been able to turn our own troops against us, but now he has further developed his army by employing mercenaries and more captured troops from other nations for the brute force needed to back that up:

SLAVE

In his typical callous way, Yuri has not done anything to improve or otherwise enhance the existence of these poor degraded Slaves.  With the seemingly inexhaustible amount he has at his disposal, his economy is unlikely to suffer from the loss of any number of them, so Slaves remain just as vulnerable on the battlefield.  All his resources seem to be devoted to deploying new infantry on the battlefield, and to work on the Slave Miner itself, so I would think Slaves would be on the bottom of his priority list.

Gameplay Enhancement: Slaves can no longer sometimes attack things below them from on top of cliffs.
Graphical Enhancement: The Slave's shovel attack no longer gives off the bullet piff animation.
 

INITIATE

Once the cause of much confusion on the battlefield with its ability to psychically ignite its targets on fire, the Initiate has since made a transition into a simpler attack method.  Don't ask me why, but if I had to guess I would assume their original attack method required too much concentration for its expected output.  So, emphasizing his recent battlefield changes again, he has altered his Initiate unit to instead propel bullets with their minds.  Don't downplay this ability though Commanders, he still requires no additional hardware to achieve this, as the bullets are most likely stored in his rear headpiece, and they are propelled at great speed, making them as deadly as any gun.

This increased reliance on physical objects will lessen the amount of concentration needed by the Initiate to fire, so it can expend more of its resources on other things.  What we suspect one of the 'things' to be is maintaining the superior sight range of this infantry over our GI and over the Soviet's Conscript.  With the elimination of the Psychic Reveal, scouting units have become a much bigger necessity for Yuri.
 

ENGINEER

Apart from looking a little different on the battlefield nowadays, we have observed no changes in the abilities of the trusty Engineer unit.  Whether it be capturing enemy structures, repairing friendly ones or even rebuilding bridges, the Engineer can do it all.

What has us more on edge about this infantry is not the unit itself, but a single addition into Yuri's Vehicle army that frighteningly increases his changes to infiltrate our structures, but I will soon get to that.

Graphical Enhancement: The Yuri Engineer now sports it's own unique cameo image.
Sound Enhancement: The Yuri Engineer's unused death sounds have been enabled.  It no longer shares with the Soviet Engineer.
 

LEECH

Yuri's experience in genetic mutation is growing, and his latest experiment is a simple, yet efficient one.  Effectively you can consider this 'Leech' to be Yuri's equivalent of our Attack Dogs as it fulfills the same roles on the battlefield.  It's roughly as fast and as strong as our dogs, and can see just as far thus excelling in the role of initial scout.  It also serves as Yuri's new specialized Anti-Spy defense since our increasing resistance to his old psychic detection methods has rendered psychic detection useless.  With Yuri just as vulnerable to Spy attacks now, expect to see these things playing both attack and defense roles.

That is where the similarities end though.  Sliding along the battlefield, it literally envelops its unfortunate victims, immediately infecting them with a similar toxin to that which the Virus uses, causing them to inflate and explode from within.  Expect to see and contend with a lot more floating poison gas clouds then you're used to, but thankfully Leeches are not able to penetrate vehicle armor, so you just have to keep them away from your exposed infantry units.

Trivia: The Leech is based on a rumored pre-release concept for Yuri's Revenge.
 

GATTLING GUNNER

I have never met a more vocal supporter of Yuri's cause than these new additions to his army.  Their constant screams on the battlefield is more than enough to tag them as annoyances, but they have an annoying habit of firing on low-flying aircraft passing over them too, making them a deadly annoyance.  You should be familiar with Yuri's Gattling technology by now, so you'll know this infantry is designed to repel both infantry and aircraft assaults.

Most likely due to successful scale down of the weapon into something small and personal, this infantry-version of the Gattling Gun seems to lack the 'power up' abilities of its larger cousins.  Thus, the firing rate remains constant for the entire time it's firing, whether it be at other infantry, or spraying a hail of bullets at passing aircraft.  This unit boasts no psychic abilities at all unlike the Initiate which probably explains the reliance on conventional weaponry.  It's the size of the weapon that slows him down a bit on the battlefield, similar to our Guardian GI and the Soviet's Flak Trooper.
 

BRUTE

Such faith Yuri must have in his new Gattling Gunner that he sacrifices his Brute infantry to it on the tech tree.  What is interesting though is that, even though the Brute now requires a Psychic Radar to be built, it does not seem to gain anything new at all.  This must be yet another illustration of Yuri's initial overconfidence in that he undertook many economic shortcuts in the hopes the war would not drag on long enough for him to be hit with the effects of his choices.  Well, we seem to have crossed that line, and it is certainly pleasing to us.

Nonetheless, do not underestimate the power of this infantry; while it needs to get up close to deal any damage, it can still take a lot of punishment before dying and it still boasts the second highest infantry speed (tied with Tanya and Khamsin, just behind the Attack Dogs, Chitzkoi and the new Leech).  It's huge arms can tear infantry limb from limb and slowly smash up even the strongest vehicles and structures.  Especially watch out when Yuri's Genetic Mutator is fully charged - you never know when you might have to fight them...

Gameplay Enhancement: Brutes can no longer sometimes attack things below them from on top of cliffs.
Graphical Enhancement: Debris now flies from vehicles as well as structures when attacked.
Sound Enhancement: Explosion sounds are played when vehicles are attacked as structures.
 

PSI CORPS TROOPER

Such fools we were, thinking the Yuri-like infantry we were facing on the battlefield were clones of him.  While it was an understandable first impression that both we and the Soviets had, we really should have done more research first.  Thanks in part to the increased effectiveness of our spying abilities, we have deduced that these troops are actually members of the elite Corp formed by Yuri during the first great war under Stalin.  So great is their devotion that they even undergo physical restructuring to look like their master, hence the confusion.  I can't believe it was just Yuri taunting us when he referred to them as Clones himself in his communiqués to us.  We have since corrected this error both in our information sessions and identification cameos.

Apart from this surprising revelation, and the fact that this infantry is one of the ones that can no longer detect our Spies and Soviet Agents, it remains unchanged in other aspects.

Gameplay Enhancement: You can no longer obtain Psi Corps Troopers when garrisoning the Kremlin.
 

HACKER

The third of six new additions to Yuri's infantry forces, Hackers are members of an elite Chinese mercenary force who have worked with Yuri since his self-induced exile into the country after Stalin's defeat.  Like all mercenaries they care little about the cause of their employer, and more about the money.  In the case of these Hackers, Yuri simply gives them the means for them to take their own amounts of cash or resources by infiltrating his enemies.  Yuri gets the main share, with a portion going to the Hacker himself.

Hackers act as Yuri's spies.  Unlike ours and the Soviet's however, so dedicated are they to their hacking abilities that they did not care to learn any disguise or cloak-and-dagger techniques to get them inside enemy structures without being seen.  This makes them cheaper, faster and more direct, but they require the help of other units to get them inside their targets, either by distraction or by assistance.
 

SABOTEUR

Part of the Virus mercenary unit, the Saboteur serves purely as an annoyance for our vehicle forces.  Appearing to be an unarmed, vulnerable infantry unit, things don't remain that way if he manages to enter any enemy vehicles.  While he does not destroy the vehicle outright or steal it (Yuri has plenty of ways to do that as it is), once he gets inside he simply causes havoc with the instruments.  The result being the vehicle is unable to effectively take orders in the field, slowing it down if not stopping it completely and interfering with its targeting systems, leaving it much more vulnerable to attack.   Commander's will find it hard to issue orders to affected units (although it is still possible), and the only way to get rid of the Saboteur once he is inside is to destroy the affected unit or if you're lucky to get it into a Service Depot. For the Saboteur himself, this is a one way mission - once he is inside, he will continue to sabotage the vehicle's operations until it is destroyed in battle; we have never seen a Saboteur leave his target.  Thankfully, he never survives the vehicle's destruction either.

Although being a mercenary, the Saboteur does seem to possess some latent psychic ability - this contributes to his second major ability which makes him a particular threat to us: the ability to disguise.  Through a combination of standard clothing disguises and a bit of implanted suggestion onto nearby enemies, Commanders are very rarely aware that they are letting a Saboteur through their own defenses, where he is free to disrupt any attack plans you may have had, or even your economy by hitting your Miners.  This just makes Attack Dogs all the more critical for all our defense perimeters.
 

VIRUS

With so many new additions to his army, it is not surprising that we did not see any major changes to the behavior of Yuri's Virus.  It is still disgustingly effective against all of our infantry units by delivering the deadly virus it is known for by her high-powered Sniper Rifle.  It is a rather unorthodox delivery system, but it works quite well.

While there has been no outward change in her abilities, you should notice that she has been bumped down the tech tree to Battle Lab level in the same way the Brute was to Radar level.  Yuri seems to be heavily favoring his new additions as effective replacements for his more familiar units, and due to the sheer amount of infantry additions seen we are unable to make a judgment call on this.

One final note: We have observed that she is also learning from the ways of our Sniper and improving her own discipline, in that she also no longer gets distracted by firing vehicles and base defenses, concentrating completely on nearby infantry.

Gameplay Enhancement: The Virus no longer destroys V3/Dreadnaught missiles in the launching process.
Graphics Enhancement: Virus gas clouds have a new graphical animation.
 

MORTAR TROOP

Pay attention here everyone, as this addition will most likely change many of your remaining tactics against Yuri.  Probably by realizing that he lacked an all-round, conventional Siege unit to better crack open enemy defenses from afar, he has called upon the services of his mercenary contacts once again in supplying him with a suitable unit to fill this gap.  The new Mortar Troop is this unit.

Weighed down with the heavy weapon, it is slow and harmless while moving around the battlefield, but wait for him to deploy it and you're in trouble.  By firing high explosive ballistic canisters at incredibly long distances, it is able to decimate infantry and soften up armored targets before they reach the brunt of Yuri's forces.  Never send infantry to clear these guys out, even Tanya.  Faster moving vehicles are the way to go.
 

KHAMSIN

The final phase of Yuri's Infantry discussion is a major one at that: It took longer than we expected but Yuri has finally opted out of appearing himself on the battlefield as his own hero unit.  In this part of the briefing we have seen the product of Yuri's increased trust in other recruited factions, and the Virus mercenary group has grown to be the most prominent.  In the past we had absolutely no intelligence on the leadership structure for this group, but that has since been radically altered with the sudden emergence of a man known only as 'Khamsin the Desert Wanderer'.

Starting with his weapons, his primary armament is a Sniper Rifle which fires highly dangerous and illegal incendiary rounds at long ranges.  You are aware that we have outlawed this type of bullet solely on the fact that it causes excruciating pain before eventual death; something completely unnecessary in a civilized world, but unfortunately there are those who do not share this view.  Khamsin's skill with the rifle makes this attack devastating to all infantry, killing all but other hero units in one shot.  The real threat comes afterwards though, as the impact of the bullet is enough to create localized but highly intense fires at that point, creating a virtual firewall if enough shots are fired which melts through infantry, light vehicle and structure armor in a snap.  Make it your number one priority to dodge these flames until they go out.  These shots also deal moderate damage to heavy armor, but not at the same level of effectiveness.  Exploit this when going up against him.

Secondly, Khamsin can radio and point out larger targets like structures for Napalm Strikes by mercenary piloted Raptor-bombers.  This should sound familiar to you as you've probably encountered this in the past with Boris.  But this time the aircraft that respond are no state-of-the-art jets, but rather second-hand, patched up planes most likely bought from the lowest bidder.  Thus, they are very weak to anti-aircraft fire, but are amazingly fast through the air so your best bet is to prevent Khamsin from targeting the structures as opposed to stopping the bombers.  The resulting strike is devastating, capable of laying to waste even the strongest of structures (and possibly nearby targets as well hit by the strafing runs) and leaving behind residual fires of their own similar to Khamsin's rifle shots.

What makes these attacks even more deadly is Khamsin's incredible sight range and ability to blend himself in with any terrain in a similar way to our Spy.  He is literally invisible from most infantry until he reveals his position when firing.  Learn to trace back from the shots and respond as quickly as possible, as he could easily slip away otherwise (luckily he remains visible throughout the period when he is targeting a structure for an air strike).  To aid in his stealth, he has the patience to wait for orders even when potential targets are in his sights.  He will only reveal himself when necessary, making him able to slip past many enemy patrols unnoticed, only firing when ordered to.  This dedication on stealth makes him slightly weaker than the other hero's (on the part with the his predecessor, Yuri Prime), so the hard part is really finding him in the first place.

Gameplay Enhancement: The standard targeting cursor is now used for the Air strike weapon instead of a specialized one, allowing you to determine whether Khamsin is in range of the target structure or not.
Graphics Enhancement: The targeting flare now has a more subtle lighting effect on the targeted building to make it less obvious to the player.

Although we have now passed the majority of the major changes to his army, unfortunately the rest of it have been modified in some places; most likely out of concern for the fact that his forces were not faring so well in the long run.  On that note, it is time to move on to the final section of the faction briefings with Yuri's Vehicles.

Yuri Vehicles »« Yuri Armory