The Guards are a Soviet subfaction in RobZ that tend towards more expensive and higher-quality units. They sacrifice a lot of the variety that default Soviets get, along with a lot of the spam-friendly mechanics they have (e.g. the discounted bulk purchase thing you can get with Soviets every other time you buy a particular unit, and the Conscript charge SP unit). In exchange, Guards infantry come with excellent skill ratings and superior weapons on average.

Guards tanks and anti-tank guns also generally have an extra 10 meters of range when compared to their regular Soviet counterparts. This second part is immensely valuable, as it puts Soviet 76s on par with the German KwK 40 (as used by StuGs, PzIVs, Jagdpanzers, etc.) and the US long 76. It also gives the Soviet 85 equivalent range to the German "short" 88 on non-veteran units. For some perspective, that means that a Guards SU-85 has the same range as a Tiger I (and can frontally penetrate it at max range if you know what you're doing), which is more than twice as expensive. So, to give you the bottom line up-front, the Guards are great for players who like the Soviets' core roster, but want a greater emphasis on range, accuracy, and general quality over spam potential and niche units.

A detail I should mention early on is that the most recent build of RobZ seems to have nerfed Guards snipers a bit - which is a good thing. They used to be incredibly oppressive in the early game and had very little opportunity cost associated with buying them. Guards snipers are still incredibly valuable, but not as dominant as in previous builds. The elite snipers are largely untouched, but as a special point unit, they carry an important drawback I'll get to later.

To conclude, I highly recommend you put some time into Guards if you haven't already. They're effective against every other faction at most skill levels, and more importantly, are quite a bit of fun to play with.

Playing as Guards in the first ten or so minutes of a match can be challenging if you get off on the wrong foot, as their units tend to be expensive and their infantry almost entirely lack the entrenching equipment that comes included with so many other factions' infantry. On most balanced maps, barring any unusual circumstances, I like to buy the 220pt assault rifle squad. You get 3 SVT-40s, some SMGs, a DP-27, and some veteran Mosins. Generally this squad can give a good account of itself at any range and against most opening purchases. My only gripe is that it has practically no entrenchments included (only one foxhole/sandbag). This can be partially mitigated by spreading your troops out and seeking cover and concealment on the map as much as possible. Obviously this is common practice with any unit, and doesn't fully make up for the lack of entrenchments, but the higher-than-average skill rating and good weapons keep this squad from being totally outclassed.

After this, you may want to get either MG teams or AT rifles depending on what your opponent is bringing. Most early-game vehicles are easily dispatched by the PTRS, which is easily one of the best AT rifles in the game. Buying sappers can be useful if the points you're contesting lack natural cover, but generally going without them is fine in my experience. Once they become available, snipers are a no-brainer. Their accuracy is still very good, and their ability to spot units at range and behind concealment/partial cover makes all of your other units more effective. Unless you're playing on a map that doesn't reward late-game heavy tanks that much, I would recommend against buying the elite snipers. As good as they are, spending any SP at all precludes you from getting the elite IS2, which can singlehandedly win matches if used properly. This one unit's value is difficult to overstate - I would only say that you should try it out against players of any skill level, and see what I mean. If you're not big into the "spend most of the game microing a small number of high-value vehicles" thing, you can go ahead and get the elite snipers. They're extremely accurate and the exploding bullets their Mosins fire will always oneshot any infantry they hit. The little car the elite snipers come with also gives them excellent mobility.

Otherwise, the Guards have a decent lineup of infantry squads that all do about what you would expect them to do. The shock SMG squads come with flamethrowers, which can be helpful. Shock units also have significantly higher HP than do normal infantry, which is always nice. The Recon squad, unfortunately, doesn't really enable you to reconnoiter anything, but rather serves as cheap disposable infantry that you can rush up to capture a point or serve any other role you could envisage for a cheap infantry squad. If you're coming from a Germany or US background, I would discourage you from buying too many a-la-carte MG teams, as the DP-27 isn't as good as the M1919 or the German MGs. They're worth buying from time to time, but do not provide the same force multiplier effect that you get from having an elite MG42 or M1919 team helping your normal infantry squads. Another point of note is that you can use support crew as ersatz riflemen in a pinch, as they have four skill points on their Mosins, which is better than some mid-tier infantry from other factions.

As for emplacements, I highly recommend the M-43 and either the SG-43 or DShK. They're all versatile and deadly in their own respects - particularly the M-43 and DShK, which can counter lighter vehicles very well without you having to buy dedicated AT guns. An M-43 combined with an AT rifle team can protect you from most early-game vehicle tactics perfectly well.

The Guards' light vehicles are not that great versus anything heavier than a Puma, but can be used to good effect against infantry, and slipping a T-60 behind your enemies' lines is easier than you might think given a busy battlefield. If you have to use light vehicles versus German or US light vehicles, I recommend using slopes and other cover to close the distance as fast as possible, as neither the T-60 nor the T-70 are any good at slugging it out with SdKfzs or light tanks at their maximum engagement ranges.

The last unit I think you could reasonably call an early-game unit is the SU-76. It's a light tank destroyer that can also act as an artillery piece in its indirect fire mode (I don't recommend this as the HE rounds don't have a large area of effect and the indirect fire mode is highly inaccurate). As a tank destroyer and assault gun, this vehicle is great. With 200m range at 380 MP apiece, it can be an effective counter to Panzer IVs into the midgame but truly excels at killing Pumas, PzIIIs, and similar vehicles that have at most 190m range and relatively poor armor layouts (with the exception of PzIIIs). It comes with a lot of HE, so the SU-76 can fill an additional role as an infantry support platform - a role in which its comparatively small stock of WP shells also prove useful.

Overall, the Guards can perform well in the early game, but lack the variety that most factions can offer in that domain, along with the dearth of entrenchments for normal infantry squads can be a hindrance.

Once you're past the first ten or so minutes of a game, your unit menu should start to open up a lot when it comes to higher-end vehicles and crew-served weapons. The AT guns all benefit from the extra range, so you can't really go wrong with any of them, but I particularly like the 52-K for its good terminal performance and 220 range (hitting the 'Tiger Threshold' that I mentioned in the introduction, and something which you might detect I care a lot about as someone who mostly plays against German mains). The BS-3, while very capable, is a unit I rarely - if ever - purchase. This is generally because the mobility of tank destroyers and tanks appeal to me, and if you're paying 1,000 MP for something, it had better be worth the price. I generally don't think the BS-3 is worth buying unless you want a lower-profile AT gun that can perform well against late-game heavies.

The SU-85 and T-34-76 are good for the price, but for only a little bit more, you can get the true star of the middle game for Guards - the T-34-85. Being a 220 range heavy-hitting medium tank at 750 points makes the Guards' 34-85 my most bought unit by far. They have deceptively good armor, are maneuverable, and can reliably kill anything short of a 250-range endgame superheavy. Against enemy tanks/TDs, remember the following: manual control and aim for MG/viewing ports. It's technically possible to do this against the vast majority of vehicles, but those with particularly good frontal armor and superior range are a bad bet. Tigers and non-veteran Panthers (though they have 10 range on you) are the scariest tanks I would use a T-34-85 against in a frontal engagement. If it's at the bottom of their tank tab they can only spawn it after 30min+, don't engage frontally and hope for a chance to sideshot them with the 85.

Another midgame tank I think is quite valuable is the KV-1s. With a load of machine guns (including one facing rearward if memory serves) and excellent armor protection, this tank makes a great babysitter for infantry and light emplacements you might have defending a point or holding a line of contact. It has range parity with midgame German 75s and US long 76s, so you won't have to worry about getting sniped most of the time (veteran German units can frustrate you here). The normal tank employment rules of keeping them in cover and supported by infantry still apply, it's just that you get way more room for error with the KV-1s, and it can still stay in the fight for a long time even while immobilized, as a lot of players have a hard time killing it with most midgame units. German 75s can reliably kill it, but shot placement is much less forgiving than on T-34s. The KV-1s also has a tendency to survive multiple penetrating hits without losing its crew, which can be of great value to you and great annoyance to your opponents. If you take good care of this tank, it will take good care of your squishier units. There are also times where it works very well as an offensive bulldozer. If your opponent has an area that is generally lightly defended but may have one or two AT guns lurking behind the fog of war, sending in a KV-1s with some infantry will often serve you well. The KV's durability and generous ammo allocation make it useful for baiting out shots from midgame AT guns, and then quickly delivering counterfire.

Unfortunately, the KV-85 and IS-1 are somewhat underwhelming in my view. While capable, they are too expensive for the gun and armor layout you get - under most circumstances. There's nothing wrong with them, but the T-34-85 is cheaper and more mobile - and it gets a full load of APCBC-HE, which the KV-85 does not (having one round of it already loaded, and the rest being APHE). While the IS-1 gets the good stuff ammo-wise and is the best-armored tank in the Guards' arsenal, it's really quite expensive for a slow-moving Soviet 85. If you play Guards for a while, you will find instances where these tanks are valuable assets, but I would stick to T-34s and KV-1s's as a rule.

The Guards' higher-end TDs (the ISU-122 and SU-100) are also capable in their own respects, but I honestly prefer to buy the T-34-85, as the turret adds a lot of flexibility and at 1100 and 1600 points respectively, the Guards' heavy TDs are pricey.

I tend to avoid Guards tube artillery altogether. I have never been enamored with towed or self-propelled howitzers in RobZ, sparing the little field guns that you can get early on (and the German sIG, which functions like a grown-up version of those field guns). Rocket artillery, on the other hand, can be a very useful tool in certain circumstances. Whether serving as counterbattery assets, preparing a position for an infantry assault, or immobilizing/destroying a high-value vehicle, all of the Guards' rocket artillery platforms are great, and you should use whichever one suits your requirements at the time. I would call out the Katyusha as being particularly good as a counterbattery platform, and the BM-31-12 as being useful for attacking high-value armor in defilade. The BM-8-24 and BM-8-48 are also perfectly serviceable while providing counterbattery fires, but truly shine in my view as preparatory fire assets.

For mortars, I would recommend the PM-38. I personally find light-to-medium mortars underwhelming in RobZ, as they are quite inaccurate and their limited warhead sizes make near misses unlikely to do much of note. The PM-38, on the other hand, will make its presence known to your opponents so long as the unit lives and has ammunition. Incendiary and WP rounds work quite well against infantry (especially those garrisoned in buildings), and HE is useful for pretty much anything aside from anti-armor work, but mortars are almost invariably bad at that in RobZ anyway. The Guards PM-38 doesn't come with smoke rounds, so if that's why you use mortars, you may be better served by the 82mm BM-37.

You will also notice that Guards don't get a lot of the specialty units that the regular Soviets do (the KV-2 and flame tanks come to mind). While flame tanks and assault guns have their place, I do not think that the Guards are that much worse off for not having the same breadth of niche capabilities. I also think staying away from some of those units can also make you a better player all around. Low-velocity assault guns effectively delete some of the important tradeoffs players will encounter in RobZ and MOWAS more generally. Especially on Germany (which has a lot of units like this, and they're all quite good), units like the Brummbar make it so that players have an accurate, non-line-of-sight, mobile unit all in one - and one which delivers an immensely powerful round to boot. Flamethrower vehicles, while not nearly as toxic in my opinion, do take a lot of the thought and preparation out of dislodging defending infantry.

Your general approach with Guards should be to keep units well dispersed and deliberately positioned. While this is important for all factions, the expensive vehicles and lack of entrenching equipment with most infantry squads make judicious unit positioning and frequent micromanagement especially valuable to a Guards main. Think very carefully about what you buy and when you buy it. Infantry sans-entrenchments are likely to suffer higher attrition than those with foxholes and sandbags, all other things being equal. That means you will either have to invest additional resources in buying dedicated engineering units, or you will have to risk higher attrition rates for your infantry on most maps. As Guards vehicles tend to be more expensive, and you may well be incurring higher infantry-related costs (either by buying sappers/engineering vehicles or through more casualties), MP can be tighter than on a lot of other factions.

I'll cut to the chase here, the IS2 is one of the Soviets' (including the Guards) best units. Its mobility and armor, while decent for a heavy tank, are not worth writing home about. The APHEBC, while capable of doing a lot of damage, often fails to penetrate other late-game tanks' frontal armor. So what's so good about the IS2? It's the HE shell. That's it. You're paying 2100 MP or 20 SP for an armored 122mm HE slinger. This shell can take out anything you point it at, and the IS2 mod. 1944 (the only one the Guards get at time of writing) can accurately fire it out to 250m. Frontal shots on a Jagdtiger? No problem. The first hit will, at minimum, cause spalling and stun the crew. Hits to MG/viewing ports or other weak spots are usually a one-and-done affair, but sometimes follow-on shots are required. This is fine, aside from one part - the IS2's reload speed is slow enough that sometimes stunned crew can recover and take you out (or at least lock down your sightline or escape) before the next round is downrange.

That's where the 20 SP elite IS2 comes in. It has a much faster reload rate on its main gun (and improved accuracy on top of that). Land a first hit with HE, and you will win 99% of engagements. Other tanks can frontal pen and kill you, but they have to be careful about where they aim to even reliably stun your crew/do damage. You don't - so long as your round doesn't hit the tracks. So long as you can get the first hit of the engagement, the elite IS2 is basically unbeatable. As much as it might surprise you, this unit used to be even more ridiculous than it is today. Back around 2020, the elite IS2 used to have 270 range - 20m greater than literally any other direct-fire unit in RobZ. That was patently unfair to fight against, so RobZ patched the super-broken version of this unit out. However, I firmly believe that waiting for marriage and only giving up your SP for the elite IS2 is worth the loss in early-to-midgame capability. While it's nowhere near as good as the HE, the APHEBC is useful for shooting tanks through buildings/other destructible cover, and eliminating lower-tier vehicles that you don't need to be as scared of. If you're careful with your points or are in a very high-MP game, you can also just replace a lost elite IS2 with a regular one, which your opponents will surely appreciate having to deal with all over again.

The only caveat I would add is that the IS2 is a very micro-heavy vehicle. Its armor is not as good as the Tiger II/German super-TDs, and the reload rate is so slow that you need to make sure it doesn't fire without you knowing what it's targeting. The elite IS2 thankfully mitigates the reload rate issue, but doesn't fully resolve it. Tiger IIs and, if memory serves, Pershings/Super Pershings out-reload it handily. Particularly for the Tiger II and its ace variant, main gun rounds are a lot more disposable. You need to retreat the IS2 while it reloads basically every time you use it (except if you stunlock a single enemy superheavy). The German "big cats" can get away with staying put while reloading more often - especially in light of their very thick frontal armor (quite the deterrent to anything besides an IS2 with HE loaded).

The elite IS2 is maybe 1/3 of why I like Guards so much. Nothing is safe from the HE round's reign of terror. A lot of non-Guards mains also do not appreciate how much shorter the reload is on the elite IS2 when compared to the regular one, which can lead them to challenge your hold on a sightline under circumstances inimical to their welfare.

I cannot overstate how fun the IS2s (particularly the elite one) can be to play with. These tanks epitomize what Guards is all about - deadly high-quality units that require proper positioning and careful micro to fully realize their potential. While I spent a long time talking up the endgame tanks, the rest of their roster is also great (as I discussed in previous sections). Please consider giving the Guards a spin when you next play RobZ, and happy HE smacking.