| abstract
| - The Wagner is the Cybran amphibious tank, capable of submerging itself underwater and crawling along the ocean floor until it reaches it's intended destination. The Wagner is equipped with a Meson Rocket and a Heavy Electron Bolter for surface use, and a Meson Torpedo for use when underwater. The Wagner can be occasionally useful on water maps, but overall has a very poor track record. This is mostly attributed to the Wagner's extreme vulnerability to submarines. Even though it boasts a torpedo launcher, the Wagner cannot fire it without assisting sonar, and the torpedo itself does very poor damage, unlikely to destroy even the weakest of naval vessels. Additionally, the Meson Rocket has low muzzle velocity and the Heavy Electron Bolter has extremely low DPS, making the Wagner poor at operations on the surface as well. Wagners may be able to clear out a small area of enemy occupied territory to allow Transports to land, and their Meson Rockets are quite effective against T1 Point Defenses, but they will not be able hold that ground against any significant retaliation by themselves. They should be used accordingly. In Vanilla SupCom, Salem-Class Destroyers are a better bet due to their walking ability, bring along some T3 engineers to quickly put up Tactical Missile Defenses, as parking Destroyers outside coverage is asking them to be eliminated, two missiles can kill one (from a Tactical Missile Launcher structure, not a mobile one). In Forged Alliance, however, the Wagner gains a significant advantage over its obvious alternate choice: the Rhino. The Wagner is about twice as tough as the Rhino, and gets about 30% more damage. For double the life and a significant damage increase, the Wagner only costs 50% more than the Rhino. In addition, the Wagner boasts other benefits over its cousin, one of which is a ballistic arc. The Rhino fires a beam weapon which has no arc, meaning it will often be blocked by small hills and terrain deformities. This can seriously hinder a force of Rhinos. The Wagner fires a projectile, which will miss a moving target more often, but will be completely negated due to terrain less often. Given the simplicity of the AI, a Wagner missing a moving target will eventually hit and score a kill while a Rhino missing due to terrain will blindly fire into the hill forever (or until either the moving target or the moving Rhino is no longer obstructed by the terrain) . Given these facts and the versatility of amphibious units, the Wagner stands out as a superior choice in the role of a Cybran heavy tank. Another way of looking at this is the Rhino being a half cost, half health and lower DPS alternative to the other faction's heavy tanks and the Wagner being their equal. It may even be preferable, considering its superior speed and the fact that it is amphibious. However, the Rhino is still far superior at holding the line against hordes of T1 units, due its high ROF and very little overkill. The fact that the Wagner moves underwater rather than hovers over it like most amphibious tanks, coupled with the fact it's the cheapest unit that traverses the ocean floor and the fact it has a low profile makes for some interesting stealth strategies. The low profile of the tank allows it to hide in even shallow water, making for some sneaky tactics in areas with no sonar and no omni. A good Cybran commander will use his Wagners to stage ambushes on maps with only a little bit of water, such as a river, as most people won't bother making naval units in such maps, in fact there may not be any room for such. In maps such as those, the Wagner becomes very useful, both as a T2 assault unit and a surprise attack unit. Most players constructing shore defenses on such maps will strive to achieve domination over as much area as possible to prevent such an attack and then rest safe (and build experimentals) knowing that the enemy will have a fairly hard time cracking their line. Such defense lines are good, but if the enemy is not careful and has no Torpedo Launchers in the water (or can't build any because it's too shallow), Wagners could potentially surface inside the radius of a heavy shield, quickly kill it, and leave the other structures open to direct attack. These strategies with the wagner will NOT, however, work against more ardent or paranoid Turtlers.
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