Guide to Xmas as the USSR
Xmas is the multiplayer version of the symbolic battle fought in the World in Conflict campaign, where for the first time; the USA won a significant victory. This is where they drew the line and held it. It was also the debut of the Tactical Nuke which marked the USA’s grim determination to drive the USSR out of America.
Obviously, the map plays out a bit differently in multiplayer, so let’s take a quick look at it. First off, it’s rather open – ie. not much forest. There’s snow, a hill on the right, a city in the middle, and a farm on the left. As for hot spots, well, they’re all over. The fighting on this map is pretty scattered. Choppers will be all over the place, so keep your cursor close to that ‘pop smoke’ command. As far as center of activity goes? If you’re playing as the USSR, it’ll be mostly around the Farm (right) and City area – not so much on that hill to the right.
Now, without further ado, let’s dive right into this guide.
Starting Out
When starting out on Xmas, you will be able to spawn in the area pictured below. The area outlined in red is the USSR spawn zone. For the remainder of this guide, yellow will be the color of USSR infantry, green will be the color for armor units, cyan will be the color for air units, and support units will be a regular blue color. If the units need specification, I will state such. Note that infantry units will be represented as a whole, not as individual soldiers.
The indicated spawn points are pretty much rough guidelines on how you should be setting up anyway, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to remember. Note that I have only one armor spawning on the left flank. He’ll be responsible for capturing East Suburb (the hill) so I would recommend an initial “buy” of two medium tanks, and two heavy. The center position (armor) will want to go all light tanks and transports as you’ll see in a minute. All Air players should go all heavy choppers. Infantry – no real strategy here so go for personal preference. I would recommend a mixture of anti-tank and regular infantry to set up in the town area in all those buildings. This map isn’t too bad for artillery, the West Suburb area especially has some good moment when artillery support will come in handy. So build hvy artillery and AA.
Taking a Look
Now, before we start out with the real meat of this guide, let’s take a quick look at our command points.
West Suburb
The hill. It will be the duty of your left flank armor player to take this command point.
East Suburb
Yeah, I know, the suburbs can get kinda confusing. Especially since the ‘West Suburb’ is actually in the middle of the map. Just try to think of ‘west’ as more left and ‘east’ as more right. Note all the buildings – excellent cover if you’re playing as infantry. Also note that this is the only command point on the map which requires you to take three different command points. All are vulnerable, so keep your eye out!
Drive-in
The USSR’s “free” command point, as it were, since it’s very easy to take and very rarely falls to an enemy attack. This is around where support players like to camp out.
Farm
Focused firepower. That’s right, the ‘hot-spot’ of activity if you’re doing this guide right. Don’t worry though, as long as you’ve got a good mix of units, you should be fine.
High School
And then of course there’s High School, right by the enemies starting positions. Don’t even bother with this one, unless you feel REALLY comfortable about your defenses.
Now, it’s time to move on to the real guide.
Bringing Rushes to a whole new level
That’s right; I’m telling you to rush. But this is no “everybody buy transport trucks and win, lolz” rush, this is (hopefully) a well organized and more heavily geared rush. First off, as indicated by the arrows, you can see the right flank is making a push for the East Suburb. A fairly obvious tactic. His two medium tanks will move in and secure the position and then hold out until the heavier tanks reinforce them. Make sure to stick around and build up your fortifications (earn some neat TA points too!). If choppers come prowling, just pop smoke and call for backup. It’s all you can do really.
Now, for the meat of the rush as it were. Now, in the center, you should see colored dots indicating a spawn point for each role. The armor will have light tanks and transport trucks. Infantry will have whatever you decided to go with. Air will have medium choppers. We’ll talk about the support in a moment and air later.
Now as you can see from the diagram, I have both the armor and the infantry players push towards West Suburb. But, it’s important to realize the sequence of events. The armor player should definitely send his tanks packing towards the command point, but he’ll want to have his trucks stick around until the infantry player can load his troops into the trucks. Then you can ship over towards West Suburb and fortify the buildings. Then, as is once again clearly marked out in the diagram, the transport trucks will make a rush for Farm. This might not work, but if the air players follow through, you’ve got an OK chance. As for the support in the center, any AA they built should move out with the light tanks ASAP to give that much needed security against choppers blitzing through neutral areas.
Moving on to the air players. One should head out towards Farm and blow up anything on the ground near that command point. The other player should move out towards East Suburb in case of a heavy armor attack over there. The choppers should save their hellfire missiles for the heavy tanks and not waste those on those tin cans people call a “light tank”. Use standard fire for them. Also, remember to avoid infantry and AA (duh) since you’ll just get shot up and the armor players can deal with them easily enough anyway. Air player’s priority is enemy tanks. Also, if you go around the back, you can start blowing up artillery but note that the artillery will probably be heavily guarded by AA, so don’t expect to scoot in and out without being scathed there.
Now, obviously on the left flank, they should first move towards the USSR’s “free” command point, Drive-In. The armor player hopefully spawned with all heavy tanks because his next move after taking Drive-In should be reinforcing Farm (or taking it, depending on how the transport trucks fared). The air player should be there ahead of him dishing out missiles to all opposing foes. The support player should have built AA to send with the tanks in case of enemy choppers. Infantry should follow along, slowly, using the forests as cover and remember to use the sprint ability.
Holding the Town
It’s between three and six minutes into the game. Your rush is out of fuel. You’ve (hopefully) taken East Suburb, West Suburb, Drive-In, and Farm. The advantage is yours.
However, you now have a problem. Because you used light units to rush the enemy, the USA’s attack will have a distinct advantage. Outnumbered, outgunned, your advantage won’t last long. Let’s examine the positions, going from left to right.
First off, East Suburb. The hill. Your tanks should’ve captured the position and built up fortifications. Roving choppers can be delayed by popping smoke. NOTE: don’t select multiple tanks and pop their smokes. Do it one at a time. You’ll get that much more needed cover while you wait for allied support. The air player in the center’s medium choppers should be patrolling to make sure your tanks are kept safe. In case of infantry assaults, use your tanks to trample them. Once all the fortifications are built, sticking around is a pointless waste of tanks. If there aren’t any enemies around, have them move out towards West Suburb. Those hopefully four tanks should improve the defenses there.
Moving on the main part of this subsection. Now, your center rush of light tanks and infantry have fortified the position. Your anti-tank soldiers are in the buildings and the tanks are fortifying the command points. Reinforcements from East Suburb are on their way. The storm is coming.
Artillery will probably be a bug at this point, so I suggest asking your air player ally to swoop around back and eliminate them.
The armor player should have about three or four light tanks, make sure the majority of them are on the command point closest to the bridge. When the enemy approaches, you’ll want to give them everything you’ve got . Which, at this point, ain’t much. However, this is when the support comes into play.
The support player maneuvers to the edge of town and fires on the bridge, keeping any invading force back. Any AA should move up to protect against heavy choppers.
Blowing the Bridges
It’s finally time. Eight or nine minutes in, you’re strong enough to feel comfortable bringing down the bridges. Wipe out the center bridge to prevent against tank assaults from that angle. Use your artillery, or, if you feel like it, use TA strikes to take it down. Two laser-guided bombs should do the trick, for a mere 20 tactical aid points. Now, pull everything to Farm and pressure that position. Your fortifications should prove able to the task of defending West Suburb from flanking forces and amphibious transports. That’s right, you can not forget about amphibious transports. The enemy will undoubtedly send squads of them across the river, attacking the command point nearest to High School. Also, it’s at this point where you have to start really fearing choppers since the other team will probably swap out someone for an extra air player. Counter this by also switching an armor player (in the center) for an air player. Have him build medium choppers to beat off the enemies heavy choppers.
Defending the Farm
You must be prepared to defend the farm now, what with the enemy focusing a lot of effort into taking it. There’s basically three things to watch out for.
Enemy Tanks:
Opposing armor players will send convoys of light tanks in a rush at your position. Hit these fast and hit them hard. They’re the only ones who can actually take the command points at the farm. Everything else is just there to stop you from stopping them, if you know what I mean.
Enemy Choppers:
Obviously, if you’re a support player, make sure you’re building AA. Heavy AA would be best. Have them stick pretty close to the base so those tank convoys don’t cause trouble.
Enemy Artillery:
These guys are a pain. They’ll bombard your defenses, staying nicely out of range themselves. Two different ways to deal with them.
- Option A) if you’re an armor player, have your tanks sweep across the FAR left flank up the hill, around enemy tank attacks, and then swing back to find the artillery. Use either light or medium tanks for this since heavy tanks aren’t worth it. Plus you’ll need speed in order to avoid enemy choppers. Remember to pop smoke, but not all at once. Have your leading tank pop smoke, and then when the cover is gone, have the next guy pop smoke, and so on. That way, you may actually live long enough to find and eliminate those pesky artillery pieces.
- Option B) If you’re an air player, repeat option A, but make sure you’re keeping medium choppers with your heavy choppers to deal with those enemy helicopters we talked about. And beware of the AA that often guards enemy artillery. I think all different types of helicopters have the special ability to drop flares (which deviates incoming missiles) so make sure to be ready to do that.
And that’s it. If you follow my advice and remain coordinated with your allies, you should do fine!
Launching an Attack on High School
Remember way back at the start of this guide when I talked about how attacking ‘High School’ is absurd and will only result in the loss of your units? Well, I lied.
To clarify, it was only a half-lie. You will lose your units. But, if you do it right, it will also result in disrupting the enemies last remaining command point. So here’s how you do it.
Right Flank Armor Player:
Train up some amphibious transports. You’ll want to hook around the very left flank, cross the river, and at the appropriate time, scoot your treads into those command points. Make sure to do this after your air allies wipe out enemy fortifications, or else your rather flimsy little trucks will be wiped out.
Air Players:
This is your hour! Launch a full wing of heavy choppers at the enemy, coordinating fully with your allies, and wiping out all ground resistance. You will die – make no mistake. The AA concentration around that area is tremendous. But if you make good use of hellfire missiles, you stand a pretty darn good chance of wiping out those pesky fortifications around High School. If you manage to complete that goal, don’t bother retreating to allied lands. You’ll just die with no additional gain. Instead, pull back even farther behind enemy lines where there AA isn’t hovering. Then, either pull back to safety along one of the flanks, or wait around in order to give your ally much needed support.
Support Players:
If you’ve got artillery, bring ‘em up. Those choppers will have done a pretty good job at recon, so you’ll have plenty of targets. Give them hell, so to speak.
Center Infantry & Armor players:
Think back to your initial rush, and do sort of the same thing. Armor player builds amphibious transports while infantry builds anti-tank units. Armor player transports infantry across the river in the middle. Unload and unleash bazooka fire on those blasted tanks sitting around.
Left flank Armor player:
Stay back and protect the farm in case of enemy counterattack. You want to make sure that this attack isn’t overextending your forces.
All players:
Make sure Left Flank Armor Player and Right Flank Armor Player have a good amount of TA, since their roles are in many ways the most critical for this operation.
Finishing the Fight
That’s right, we’re talking nuke time. Drop one right into High School and the game is yours. Way to go.
Ok, not really. A nuke at this point is ridiculous, a complete waste of TA. Save your points for things like AA strikes (very useful against rogue choppers) and fuel bombs.
However, if you really feel the need to splurge on a nuke – pool up with your buddies so the cost is shared. And make sure to have a good recon on the area you’re dropping your nuke. I cannot stress that point enough, I see so many nukes wasted because a team mate decided not to take the proper time and just drop it any which where. The foolish team mate usually ends up blowing up either nothing, or his buddies. Not really the best thing to spend all those points on.
I hope you enjoyed this guide. Thanks for reading!
- Atzy
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