--- So in no particular order, here are some ground units and tips on how they work, how to use them etc. More an inane, aimless ramble than anything else, but I'll try to be concise, yeah? I won't go too in-depth on more "common" units like say, a Static unit with Heavy Bombardment, because that's fairly straightforward and others have done a better job at that than me anyway. In this thread even to boot.
The Main Battle Tank: - Eponymous in the modern military lexicon, the Main Battle Tank (or MBT for short) is the workhorse attacker of any major conventional army. This is true in Aurora as well, where this unit is most commonly represented by a Medium Vehicle, itself clad in Medium Vehicle Armor and armed with both a Medium Anti-Vehicle weapon (MAV) and a Crew-Served Anti-Personnel weapon (CAP). This unit functions well versus both Medium Vehicles and Infantry, while being overkill against Light Vehicles in most cases. In some games I have made modifications to this type of unit, one of which involves swapping the Crew-Served Anti-Personnel weapon for a Heavy Crew-Served Anti-Personnel (HCAP) weapon to make the tonnage a nice, round 70 Tons versus the 62 Tons of a typical MAV/CAP. Another modification I've made is to swap the Medium Anti-Vehicle weapon for a Medium Autocannon (MAC), a modification that I'm quite fond of, mainly due to how well it combines with the next unit.
The Tank Destroyer: - The ubiquitous Tank Destroyer of WW2 fame is often represented in Aurora by a Light Vehicle armed with a Medium Anti-Vehicle weapon. Light Vehicles are restricted to Light Vehicle Armor and only sport one slot for a module, versus the Medium Vehicle's two, but make up for it by being smaller, cheaper and by being harder to hit... and therefore harder to damage. This last advantage, however, can only be used when on the attack making the Light Vehicle an excellent choice for a Tank Destroyer. I like to pair these with MAC/CAP Main Battle Tanks to deal with enemy tanks more effectively. Their bonus evasion I find quite helpful when paired with the bigger, beefier tank to soak enemy fire for it.
The Infantry Fighting Vehicle: - Perhaps others have a recipe for an Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) that differs from my own, but this is mine and it's loosely based off of the real life Bradley IFV. A Medium Vehicle with Light Armor, my IFV is armed with a Light Autocannon (LAC) and a Light Anti-Vehicle weapon (LAV). I typically use it to "hide" about 15~20 tons worth of Infantry, as the way Aurora's target selection rules work, the bigger units take priority over the smaller ones via a weighted random selection process. I very often pair this vehicle with the Tank Destroyers mentioned above, which I call a "Light Attack Vehicle" (LAV), as well as the MAC/CAP Main Battle Tanks and the aforementioned 15~20 Tons of Infantry to form a cohesive and versatile Armored Vehicle formation for the purposes of attacking. This IFV does quite well against enemy Light Vehicles while still retaining some effectiveness against Infantry. It's rather survivable against said targets as well, thanks to it's Medium Vehicle Hit Points. A simple upgrade would be to use Medium Vehicle Armor instead of Light Vehicle Armor, but I prefer the latter for flavor... and cost.
The Armored Personnel Carrier: - Infantry are quite a poor choice for an offensive force, however they do have one merit in this regard and that's density of firepower. This same virtue also makes them much more resilient in the face of losses, requiring the enemy to kill more of them to reduce their firepower than other units. However, this resilience is effectively nullified by the squishy-ness of Infantry, they have the lowest Hit Points and worst armor of pretty much any unit. Enter the Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), a Light Vehicle armed with a single CAP that can be used to effectively shield 5~20 tons of Infantry from the ire of enemy Infantry. Yep, turns out that the best counter to Infantry is usually Infantry of your own, armed with Personal Weapons (PW). Using Aurora's target selection to our advantage however, we can leverage the APC's superior Hit Modifier, Armor AND Hit Points to soak damage for our Infantry if we so choose to use them on the attack.
Pro Tip: Do NOT use Infantry for offense.
Pro Pro Tip: If you DO use Infantry for offense, make sure to use a lot of them. Shouting URRRAAGGGHHH! is mandatory optional. 
The Assault Gun: - An unorthodox design that I'm nevertheless fond of and field with abhorrent frequency is what I consider to be my take on the Assault Gun of WW2 fame. Partly for function, but mostly because I'm all about that StuG Lyfe, this unit serves in my "Flex" Infantry... itself an abomination. This unholy thing is a Medium Vehicle,
usually clad in Medium Vehicle Armor and armed with a Medium Autocannon and a Medium Bombardment weapon (MB). "Flex" Infantry is something i use from time to time in Planetary Defense Forces (PDF) and as part of "Second Rate" units... units that are smaller and less powerful which I use on smaller transports escorted by smaller fleets to attack less important / more poorly guarded enemy targets parallel to my main thrust. This unit serves to allow these units to serve a, albeit inefficient, support role to my main forces in lieu of juicier / more worthy targets as "Second Rate" units, while as PDFs they can help the cheaper, squishy-er Infantry to hold the line alongside larger, purpose built defensive formations until the main force arrives to reinforce them or the enemy starts to falter... at which time they can be "flexed" into the attack role to press their advantage. In larger PDFs such as those on more important worlds or those reinforced ahead of an expected attack, these serve in said "Flex" Infantry by providing Medium Bombardment to proper formations, shoring up defensive formations if they get chewed up, and/or helping to press the attack if the enemy begins to falter / retreat. The combination of Medium Vehicle Hit Points, Medium Vehicle Armor, and it's MAC/MB armament make it a really big target to help it soak while also letting be effective against Static and Infantry elements. A very cursed vehicle indeed.
The Maneater: - This unfortunately named unit is something I very rarely use due to how...
gamey it feels. Little more than a pair of CAP modules mounted on a Medium Vehicle clad in Medium Vehicle Armor, this thing not only chews up enemy Infantry, but it does so while being more or less impervious to the kinds of weapons they can field in retaliation. A far more expensive version uses a Heavy Vehicle instead, replete with Heavy Vehicle Armor and a pair of HCAP modules in lieu of the CAP modules. This one isn't just better protected, nor even just more effective against even Light Vehicles, but it's also far more future proof. For as time marches on so to does your tech, and by extension what was once able to be eaten up by CAP eventually gains the armor to resist it. Likewise, what Medium Armor once stopped with relative eventually begins to chew through it like a tweaker through a Crave Case. As I mentioned... I don't use these because they feel gamey, but they DO work quite well as the final word in Anti-Infantry. Expensive though...
especially for their role.
The Support Tank: - Another cursed unit courtesy of my demented mind, and again another unit I tend to field quite regularly despite it's... affronting lack of sensibility. A Medium Vehicle with Medium Vehicle Armor that's armed with a combination of LAC/MAC. Yes, two autocannons. Of different calibers. On the same tank. However, I find them to be quite effective against everything as big as or smaller than a Medium Vehicle. Despite sub-par penetration against Medium Vehicle Armor the sheer volume of S H E T these things throw tends to chew them up regardless. Against Light Vehicles it is all the more pronounced and against Infantry... well, it's a
really inefficient CAP with enough armor to shrug off most Infantry weapons. I have never made a "Heavy" version, as it seemed to me that the Heavy Autocannon (HAC) paired with the Medium Autocannon wasn't nearly as useful as the former. These I typically pair up with Tank Destroyers since their size let's the zippy, nippy little bastards do their job while their peculiar armament complements their weaknesses while enhancing their strengths.
The Heavy Battle Tank: - Essentially a Heavy Vehicle version of the Main Battle Tank I mentioned earlier, this unit not only uses a Heavy Vehicle as the base, but also uses Heavy Vehicle Armor AND swaps out both the MAV and the CAP for a Heavy Anti-Vehicle weapon (HAV) and Heavy Crew-Served Anti-Personnel weapon. I find this version tends to age more gracefully than it's predecessor, with both the HAV and HCAP losing effectiveness more slowly as time marches on, while the Heavy Vehicle Armor likewise retains it's potency for longer against MAV and even HAC to a lesser extent. The Heavy Vehicle's higher Hit Points also help quite a bit as time goes on. Unlike the MBTs, I typically don't build a HAC/HCAP variant since unlike the MAC/CAP this unit doesn't really benefit as much from the Tank Destroyer or even the IFV really. Often enough I'll pair these up with the Support Tanks I listed above, as their LAC/MAC combo does wonders to complement the HAV/HCAP of this unit, while the bigness of these HBTs, or perhaps H-MBTs, allows them to soak damage that would otherwise slaughter the squishy-er Medium Vehicles.
The Blursed Artillery: - A Medium Vehicle, with either Light or Medium Vehicle Armor to taste... I go with Light myself, and armed with both a Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) weapon and a Light Bombardment (LB) weapon. I place these in artillery formations to both defend them from Ground Support Fighters (GSFs) and provide some Light Bombardment to the units they're supporting. Currently however, it is worth nothing that Non-Player Races (NPRs) do not use GSFs, so the LAA is wasted. A blursed unit indeed.
The Blursed-er Artillery: - Nothing fancy, just a Medium Vehicle with Light Vehicle Armor armed with both a Medium Anti-Air (MAA) weapon and Medium Bombardment weapon. As stated before, NPRs don't really use GSFs, so the MAA is wasted, but it's worth noting that MAA functions when assigned to support a formation directly, thus increasing the utility of this particular configuration. MAA also defends it's own formation against GSFs, so this unit can be thought of as the big brother of the Blursed Artillery, definitely Blursed-er and quite possibly the Blursed-est of all.
Mah Mighty Howitzer: - Last, but
certainly not least is my favorite Self-Propelled Gun (SPG) recipe. It's worth noting that SPGs, when used in the Support Position like Artillery should, do not really have any impact on the gameplay more than any other vehicular mounted anything. Neither Tactical nor Strategic mobility is modeled. That all said, Mah Mighty Howitzer is a Medium Vehicle with Light Vehicle Armor armed with both a MAV and a Long-Range Medium Bombardment (MBL) weapon. I like it for several reasons, not the least of which is that due to how breakthrough mechanics in Aurora work, it's very likely that the forces breaking through will be some flavor of vehicle, thusly the MAV tends to be nasty surprise for them. As well, these units can be shifted to an Attack position to provide additional Anti-Vehicle against faltering enemy forces, although this tends to do terrible things to squishy-er units that share a formation with them and as such tends to work better when they are in a formation all their own. The MBL allows the unit to fire on enemy MB, MBL and Heavy Bombardment (HB) armed units when fielded in the Support position. A more expensive, but likewise more dangerous version can be had by merely up-armoring this unit to Medium Vehicle Armor. However, I do eventually like to produce a Heavy Vehicle version complete with the Heavy Vehicle Armor, HAV and HB, which is able to effectively soak counter-battery fire and deal grievous damage to enemy Light and Medium Vehicles that manage to achieve a breakthrough.
