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YURI VEHICLES

Yuri has shown greater reliance to more conventional attacking vehicles since you have last met him in combat.  It is possible he realized that his predictions were wrong with his original force being powerful enough to destroy us, however be warned that none of these changes happened in our future counterpart's timeline; so we are up against a lot of unknowns here.  Good luck Commanders, the final combat briefing is about to begin:

SLAVE MINER

I think I have vented enough of my distaste for this unit in the structure briefing, so I'll be quick and to-the-point here:

As you know, Yuri's Slave Miners can be built both as a structure and out of the War Factory as a unit, so with them being able to construct two at once is a great advantage.  To our benefit, the vehicle version of the Slave Miner has taken the same price hit as earlier discussed: an increase of 250 credits to 2000; but even with this increase we have observed that it can still be built at the same time as standard 1400 credit miners (which are built faster in themselves.)

Gameplay Enhancement: Now 'accelerates' and 'decelerates' at source and destination movement cells.
 

GATTLING TANK

What is it with our enemy’s anti-aircraft units?  They never seem to work quite as intended!  I mentioned all sorts of issues earlier with the flak weapons used by the Flak Trooper and Flak Track (which unfortunately were corrected), but now you have Yuri's tank using his staple Gattling technology which appeared to have troubles of its own.  Firstly the speedup factor/damage ratios of its weapon were a joke, probably a result of when they scaled the weapon down to fit onto a unit.  It was often never doing more damage to certain armor types even when on full power, and secondly when Gattling Tanks become elite they seemed to have more trouble hitting aircraft!

But notice how I'm speaking in past tense?  Yes, that's right, he has corrected all these issues by making weapon damage targets in a much more linear fashion as it speeds up and also fixing the glitch causing decreased damage to aircraft when elite.  But all is not lost, when it was all said and done he appears to have left the tank slightly more vulnerable to attack.  We have had reports from our Korean allies that their Black Eagles have been able to destroy these tanks with a single volley of missiles.  This is certainly an interesting development, so be sure to exploit it.

Gameplay Enhancement: Now 'accelerates' and 'decelerates' at source and destination movement cells.
Sound Enhancement: The Gattling Tank's unused move start sounds have been enabled.  It not longer shares with the Flak Track.
 

MOLE MACHINE

It was only a matter of time before Yuri incorporated an APC-type unit into his army.  It sure was desperately lacking one in the past, but now he has covered that role with probably the most deadly-type of transport: A subterranean one, dubbed the 'Mole Machine'.  He has opted to separate his transport and anti-aircraft element vehicles into two separate units which is probably the best idea considering the vehicle's nature.

The Mole Machine is a perfect example of Yuri's stealth and ruthlessness: It can carry the standard load of up to 5 passengers (less though if Brutes or Terror Drones are involved) and can literally transport them underground by drilling through the earth, completely undetectable by conventional radar – only Yuri's own Psychic Sensor has the capability of detecting its movements if in range of the effect.  This ability makes it perfect in crossing normally impassable terrain or for surprise attacks by popping up right next to the target and unloading.  The only real defense against this appears to be native to the environment of the battle: Mole Machines are unable to drill through any kind of hard pavement, so especially on urban maps this underground threat is greatly reduced.  Just watch out for any small patches of dirt or grass, as the Machine only needs a single cell to be able to drill up or down.

In typical Yuri nature, the Mole Machine has also been seen to use its drills as weapons – grinding through infantry and light vehicle armor especially well.  Its short range and unorthodox nature of the weapon doesn't make it particularly powerful, but its real strength lies in transporting, not assault.
 

LASHER TANK

Yuri's own basic tank has been the product of a number of modifications like our own.  The tank itself remains almost as you are familiar with, but its weapon has been outfitted with a lighter version of the 90mm cannon.  No longer is it basically identical to our own Grizzly cannon; instead he has opted to go with lighter destructive power here than before in return for a quicker firing rate and shell traveling speed.  Basically that means as time goes on; it deals more damage in the same amount of time as before.  The new cannon is also lighter, so the tank's speed has increased allowing it to now outrun our Grizzly when necessary.

Gameplay Enhancement: Now 'accelerates' and 'decelerates' at source and destination movement cells.
Graphical Enhancement: Adjusted the starting position of its tank shell when firing to a more appropriate position.
 

MOBILE CONSTRUCTION VEHICLE

Since you are probably all eager to continue the bigger parts of the briefing I will refrain from speaking much about vehicles that have barely changed.  What you only need to know about his MCV is that it has gained the double armor boost most the structures on the battlefield have undergone.
 

CHAOS DRONE

After viewing his distaste for the Soviet Terror Drone it is amazing he ever deployed a drone in his own army in the first place.  Surely a manned vehicle can do the same thing here?

Anyway, in another example of Brute/Virus-syndrome, this vehicle's position on Yuri's priority list has probably resulted in the drones falling away from being a basic War Factory unit in favor of the new Mole Machine.  It now additionally requires Yuri's new Psychic Radar before they can be built now.

This move apparently has opened up more possibilities for enhancing the Drone itself.  With the more advanced technology at his disposal by the Psychic Radar, Yuri has been able to cost-effectively upgrade the AI brain inside this vehicle to 'think' more.  In battle, it will now retaliate by firing its gas on the attacking targets, and can actually go after nearby target's on it's own like Dogs and Leeches.  Plus at this level it can be built quicker, but thankfully it still remains relatively expensive for such a fragile unit.

Gameplay Enhancement: Now 'accelerates' and 'decelerates' at source and destination movement cells.
Graphical Enhancement: Adjusted the starting position of its chaos gas to look like it's coming from the tank itself instead of underneath.
 

INFERNUS

Infernus.  Quite the original name hmm?  I'm sure many of you are surprised by this, but the Magnetron appears to have completely disappeared form his army; the concept at least anyway, as this new unit bears a lot of resemblance to it physically.  I know many of you described the Magnetron as a 'loose cannon', and the few that we managed to capture allowed us to experiment with its weird type of assault method.  The problem we found with it was, you were either a complete novice or an expert at being able to successfully manipulate the telekinetic beam to incapacitate multiple targets with the 'juggling' technique.  I suspect Yuri had more of the former.

The reasons are not important for us though.  Its replacement is a much simpler and, quite possibly, more effective unit.  Keeping the aerodynamic body that gives it adequate speed considering its weapon, the turret has been completely refitted with a triple cannon system that fires three bursts of 90mm shells for every round.  The shells are incendiary, giving off spectacular fire trails as they move through the air and dissolve on impact.  They have been modified to travel the long distances needed for a Siege unit so the lighter materials makes each individual shell weaker than a Lasher's, but the multiple barrels make up for this deficiency.  Like most Siege units, the shells are most effective against structures, infantry and light vehicles.
 

MASTER MIND

This has always been a rather strange unit to try and describe in these briefings.  Yuri has inadvertently done us a favor here by making a radical change in concept to the unit.  It’s hard to notice in the small preview image on screen, but the large brain-thing that was housed in the dome seems to have disappeared!  We have confirmed that it no longer exists in the vehicle, as we have instead noticed Psi-Corp Troopers going inside as passengers!  Coming to an obvious conclusion, it looks like Yuri has changed from a single large brain controlling everything, to multiple interior passengers doing the same thing.

This change is transparent to us as the unit still behaves in a very similar manner, but it has brought about some other alterations to the unit as a result.  Notice the reduced cost (decreased by 250 to 1500) and the fact that there are four Psi Corps Troopers inside.  Recall our initial Yuri briefing at the start of this war where I said that the Master Mind is capable of controlling up to three units before it begins overloading, well this has since been increased to four safe mind controls.  Luckily, the Psi Corps inside have the same desire to try and control as many enemy targets as possible, and due to their limited capabilities the unit will still damage itself if it goes over this amount (and at a slightly increased rate too than before.)  One other thing that makes this worse for them is the lack of self-healing the unit used to have.

Gameplay Enhancement: Now 'accelerates' and 'decelerates' at source and destination movement cells.
 

AMPHIBIOUS TRANSPORT

Notice that I have neglected to put up a section on Yuri's Floating Disk?  Well, I am very pleased to report that those weird contraptions seem have been withdrawn from service in Yuri's army along with the Magnetron as we have not seen a single one in the last few weeks of intelligence scans.  Now I can't imagine Yuri voluntarily giving up such a powerful unit for its cost, but maybe that was the very key to its demise; Yuri simply couldn't continue to maintain production of them.  That very much helps stabilize the security of our bases by not needing to worry about an airborne threat to power and cash supplies.  This completely renders Yuri’s airforce division moot, probably explaining his increased production in the other divisions.

Anyway, moving on to his navy, this part of his army gets a huge boost like his infantry forces, with a total of four new naval units in his arsenal (two of which are brand new.)  As for the one you see on your screen right now, I won't spend any time discussing it as there have been no changes observed.
 

CORVETTE

The first of these new additions is the 'Corvette' basic naval unit.  Similar in size and stature to the Soviet Sea Scorpion, this unit is weakly armored but very fast moving.  Looking like it was pieces together from the scrapped parts of other ships, it is very cheap to construct; a sign that Yuri is indeed being forced to make do with what he can get these days.

Its weapon system is not a particularly powerful one to ensure it does not weigh down the unit at all.  It fires volleys of small rocket propelled grenades from the turret on deck for defense and assault at short ranges.  As a result, the advantage of this unit is not its attacking prowess but its capabilities in hit-and-run and ambush attacks.  This weapon choice has a number of advantages in that the turret moves independently of the ship so, the entire ship does not need to turn to fire in a different direction unlike our Destroyer.  Plus by using RPGs, they can travel just as easily above and below the water so submarines and other submerged units are fired upon as well.  What the Corvette does not appear to posses are any sophisticated sensor systems; they have to rely on Giant Squids for the detection job (yes, I will get to Squids in a moment.)  It also cannot fire its rockets at aircraft, as the turret is designed to target only ground units.
 

GATTLING BOAT

Number two is the long-awaited anti-aircraft naval unit.  Following his obvious likes and dislikes, this unit utilizes the familiar Gattling technology to do this.  He now matches the Soviets in obsessive use of a weapon system but unfortunately as he did correct his earlier flaws in the technology, this ship comes equipped straight off with a fully-functional Gattling cannon capable of spraying bullets towards ground and air targets at faster and faster rates over time.  Most of you have experienced this quite a bit anyway, so I'll just concentrate on the other information we have:

This Gattling Boat requires a radar structure before it can be built so it's like our Aegis Cruiser in that regard but doesn't match up to the Soviet's Sea Scorpion in its new position on their tech tree.  You see that the cost is in-between these two other ships as well giving you an idea of its power in the field.  Finally, like the Corvette, it boasts an independent turret which can turn without the rest of the ship body doing the same.
 

GIANT SQUID

The third addition isn’t technically a brand new one.  Going back to when this war first began you remember when I talked about the Giant Squid being captured and trained by Soviet scientists?  They might have not been 'Soviet' scientists after all, rather Yuri's own forces then working for the Soviets using their mind control powers to improve the suggestibility of the Squid mind.  The fact that the squids have apparently and suddenly switched sides in a manner that shows either intense loyalty or simple control makes it obvious that the Soviet scientists never really had any control over these animals, and it was amazing they were able to use them against Yuri for as long as they did.

Apart from the apparent defection, the Squid behaves exactly as it did on the Soviet side, so use the same tactics you always have.
 

BERSERKER

As of this point in time, the Boomer no longer exists.  Like the Magnetron/Infernus it has been given a makeover to a brand new concept.  By being tentatively named the 'Berserker' by Yuri's army you can get an idea as to what this naval unit now does.  Long story short: It is no longer a submarine-type unit; it instead floats above the water like any other ship.  Consequently its torpedo weapons have been scrapped, so that leaves the original cruise missile launcher which has undergone a major refit to transform them effectively into chaos missiles.  The range and power of each missile remains the same, but the Berserker actually fires two missiles per volley dealing twice the damage in a single round.  The missiles themselves have been refitted to make them smaller and lighter so they cannot be shot down by anti-missile defense systems any more.  The only way to now counter an attack is by going after the Berserker unit itself.

I did mention that these are Chaos missiles, as even after the extraordinary amounts of devastation the missiles cause, it releases the same type of gas the Chaos Drone leeches causing nearby units to basically go insane, shooting anything nearby.  The gas eventually dissipates, but be sure to move surviving units out of the area as quickly as possible.

Even after all of this, Yuri managed to reduce the cost of this unit by 500 to 1500!  Thankfully it is not without its weaknesses.  The rate of fire for this weapon is noticeably higher than its old missile launcher, and by lacking any proper short range weaponry it is very vulnerable to our own naval attacks.  So much so that you can guarantee that any smart Yuri Commander will protect his Berserker forces with other naval units.

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