Noobs in Combat Units & Roles Overview

How to read the Noobs in Combat roster

Noobs in Combat is a turn-based co-op strategy game where your loadout is a compressed army: a handful of unit types that must cover capture, damage, vision, anti-air, and resupply. This page explains roles, not every stat line. For letter grades see the Tier List Hub, Infantry, and Vehicles. For unlock order use the Tech Tree; for deck building use the Loadout Planner and Best Loadout.

Units span roughly interwar through late Cold War aesthetics. Skins change models only—details on Skins. Currencies you will hear beside unlocks: Research Points, Gold Nuggets, Gems, and match Tix budgets.

Infantry roles

Infantry capture buildings, hold awkward terrain (forests, towns, mountains), and often carry the Radio and Capture perks that make artillery and objective play possible.

• Mainline assault: Troopers → Shock Troops → Grunts — your default PvE bodies.
• Radio rifle line: Riflemen → Rangers → Marksmen — longer rifles, radio, higher cost per squad.
• Gunners: Medium Gunner → Light Gunner — delete enemy infantry, especially on the move with Light Gunner.
• Engineers: Sapper → Combat Engineer — mines, repairs, utility pistol work.
• AT infantry: AT Rifle → Bazooka → RPG-style evolutions — Ambush tools against armor.

Infantry without a plan become morale-broken speed bumps. Infantry with radio + artillery backing win campaigns.

Armor and mechanized roles

• Wincon heavies: Medium / Heavy / Battle Tank lines punch through armored opposition.
• Transports: Transport Truck → APC → IFV / Wheeled IFV ferry infantry and add fire support.
• Tank hunters: Tank hunter (V6.1 TD pre-evo) into Tank Destroyer / Missile Tank paths.
• Towed AT: Anti-Tank Gun → Heavy AT Gun for defensive chokepoints.
• Recon chassis: Bikers, Scout Cars, Armored Cars, Scout Tanks — vision and harassment.

Armor without infantry screens loses to AT ambushes. Infantry without armor stalls on open maps.

Artillery and indirect fire

Mortars, field guns, howitzers, rocket batteries, bunker busters, and close-support guns reward positioning and Radio spotters. Many indirect weapons cannot freely dump shells into fog without a radio-capable friend in range (or specific close-support exceptions restored in V6.1 for some radio-capable indirect guns).

Artillery is rarely your only win condition; it is the multiplier on good Grunt/Marksmen spotting.

Air and anti-air

V6 expanded helicopters and related air toys; V6.1 added air slots, moved AA trees into air slots, and introduced SAM battery as an AA cannon evolution beside mobile SPAAG answers. Treat air and AA as a shared planning budget: every SAM or attack heli competes with something else that could occupy those slots.

If enemy air is light, spend elsewhere. If helis dominate the mission brief, SPAAG/SAM jump priorities—see Vehicles.

Logistics

Supply Wagon → Supply Truck → Supply Carrier keep ammo and combat readiness alive. Engineers repair; suppliers refill. Long Guest-saga and historical tabs punish decks that forgot a truck. Logistics is a role, not a dumpstat.

Naval transports and landing craft matter on island maps; do not force them into plains loadouts.

Perk glossary (the four you must know)

Radio

Units with Radio can call artillery or naval fire onto targets within their radio radius, enabling strikes that ignore some line-of-sight limits depending on the battery. Radio range differs by unit—Riflemen-style packs are short; specialized spotters reach farther. Without radio bodies, many expensive guns underperform.

Capture

Capture lets a unit take adjacent buildings and eligible neutral/surrendered units. Mainline infantry live or die by this perk. Vehicles that cannot capture should not be your only units near an HQ flag.

Scouting

Scouting grants bonus sight after staying still and not taking fire for the required window. Defensive holds and overwatch Marksmen-style play love it. Do not expect scouting bonuses while you yo-yo the unit every turn.

Ambush

Ambush auto-fires at enemies that step into weapon range—even on their turn. Tank destroyers and some AT infantry punish reckless advances. If a unit has multiple attacks, Ambush typically triggers the primary weapon only—check the unit card.

Other perks (Fuel limits, Multi-attack, Transport capacity, Healing, Cloaked, Sniper hide) matter, but Radio / Capture / Scouting / Ambush explain most beginner mistakes.

Building a role-complete army

Ask four questions before deploy:

1. Who captures and radios? (Grunts or equivalent)
2. What is the wincon damage piece? (Battle Tank, artillery package, or air)
3. What answers enemy armor and air? (Tank hunter / Heavy AT / SPAAG / SAM)
4. Who resupplies and repairs? (Supply Truck, Combat Engineer)

If any answer is “nobody,” fix the preset. The Loadout Planner turns those questions into a checklist inside tix and slot caps.

V6 roster highlights worth learning first

From V6.0: Rangers, Marksmen, Combat Engineer, Troopers tree, Wheeled IFV, Tank Buster-style air evo, AA Tank path, helicopter rebalance, tech tree reorg, UI overhaul.

From V6.1: Tank hunter, Heavy AT Gun, SAM battery, Australia skin pricing, French infantry visual overhaul, AA slot policy, campaign tab reorg.

Read condensed notes on the Changelog. If your older unlocks vanished after the place move, finish V6 Migration first.

Practical study order for new commanders

1. Finish Getting Started and tutorial tabs.
2. Learn Grunts + Supply Truck + one gun.
3. Add Light Gunner and APC/IFV.
4. Research Battle Tank and a basic AA answer.
5. Only then specialize into Marksmen, SAM, or heavy AT niches.

Claim Codes when available, but do not expect codes to replace understanding Radio timing. Watch one real tactics video if you learn visually—then come back and rebuild presets with roles, not random favorite models.

Related pages

• Players Hub
• Skins
• Tier List Hub
• Guides Hub
• Updates Hub

Master roles first; chase exotic naval or joke units after your core five roles are automatic.