UKF 2021 Guide
Faction Overview
Copying this over from the discord. In this guide I won’t go in detail about every single unit that the UKF has at its disposal but will try to give general advice to how you approach using it and to improve your decision making. Upcoming balance changes may affect these but I doubt for the foreseeable future they will change things to a point that you need to completely relearn the faction. Advice I give is mainly oriented on 1v1 while there are some things that are transferable keep this in mind.
UKF’s Main Advantages:
Infantry Sections are very powerful with the right upgrades
Potentially very snowbally with cheap technology
Great vision and healing options
UKF’s Main Drawbacks
Potentially static playstyle counted by snipers and indirect fire
Holes in stock army (Rocket Artillery, flamers and mobile mortar)
No snares on mainline infantry
Infantry sections are the core of the UKF roster, using them correctly will be crucial in getting a lot out of the UKF as a lot of their “power budget” is in them. Infantry sections take more damage and reload much slower out of cover. They also have compared with other mainline infantry poor moving accuracy. To help with this relative weakness on the attack, Infantry sections have AOE healing from an upgrade to help heal up after taking an entrenched position, the pyrotechnics upgrade can call in smoke or base mortars to help push a point.
Early game the UKF tends to grab territory and place sandbags on key points, to enable this I recommend you work your way up to 3-4 Infantry Sections early and use the universal carrier as mobile support and to harass the enemy preventing them from contesting your capping. How you do this varies between the two factions but in general you will want to establish map presence early to make full use out of the UKF cover bonus.
Early Build Orders
Restricting this to Early orders as builds get more fuzzy the longer game goes on, I will offer a few for you to try out
Standard Allround
IS->IS->Tech-> UC (immediately upgrade with Vickars MG)-> IS/MG/RE
This build lets you get good capping power and the Universal Carrier lets you push out of your core capping area supporting your infantry when attacking. Handled correctly the UC will heavily punish OKW’s that recklessly push in the open and can do a lot of damage to the 4man grenadier squads. Build engineers if your UC took a lot of damage, I like MG on maps with good buildings. Follow up with bolster to transition to mid game.
Aggressive UC
IS->UC->IS->Tech->Vickars MG upgrade->RE
Potential build against OKW, push first section up near their oil point, use the UC to push volks around out of cover and let sections pump rounds into them. Damage done to strumpios is a priority so take it every time you get a chance without taking too much damage. The fuel disruption should slow down the OKW tech and force them to respond or move to the other side of the map. Royal Engineers and 3rd IS can backcap while you dig in and prepare for a bolster push or a sniper.
Lend Lease
MG->AS->AS->MG/AS->Tech->Engineers or Sniper->AT
I would not recommend this against against OST for two reasons, it weak against sniper starts which OST players tend to do against UKF and Assault Sections perform really badly against 5 man grens. If you want to try it I recommend subbing out an early unit for a mortar to drop smoke. The trick behind this is to use the power spikes of Assault sections and their upgrade to keep the other side reacting using machine guns aggressively to take map control.
Use sight blockers like hedgerows to avoid damage and the 1 Target size on Assault Section can lead to heavy damage if you move directly at squads already in cover. Attacking areas in the open lead with the machine gun and use the sections for cover. When doing this build get medics or if you have the resources a forward assembly with medics in the HQ zone as your army will have a lot of units that can’t heal themselves like sections. As you don’t get any infantry upgrades with this start you should be able to get a cromwell or m10 out very fast.
Mid-> Late Game
Midgame gets a bit harder for UKF as without bolster Axis infantry will perform better against the sections and your mainline infantry not having snares means Axis light vehicles tend to have more freedom of movement against UKF. Countering this requires a solid grasp of the way UKF AT works and good built positional play (later section.) As UKF struggles at this part of the game to retake territory, using your engineers to wire off easy cover, lay mines to stop flanks and replace destroyed sandbags is important. Use IS upgrades, shock units like the commandos or a Cromwell to bounce back from particularly hard retreats but try not get tunnel visioned when you could move into unoccupied parts of the map. UKF AT is mixed, unlike other factions with snares on their mainline infantry an unsupported AT gun can be circumvented by a panzer 2 as your Infantry sections helplessly fire into the side. Mirror Light Vehicles with your AT guns and engineers, get a second AT gun if you are significantly behind on oil and consider early PIATs on your engineers.
Later in the game UKF tends to do well relying on comets or doctrinal heavy tank callins, UKF also has a large amount of powerful mapwide buffs and offmap commander abilities which combined with upgraded sections should give you a good chance if you have kept key units alive. Comet’s WP round blocks AT guns and machine guns forcing them to reposition or take damage. Doctrinal churchills work best as an anchor for a push soaking up damage while at-guns and potentially a firefly push in.
Army Composition
Ideally you will have 3-4 squads of infantry in all games, this will let you have capping power, the ability to fight simultaneously on multiple parts of the map and screening for your tanks in pushes. At least one squad of engineers is needed for the midgame to place mines/wire, sweep mines, snare vehicles and repair. The UKF reliance on RE’s for AT grenades pushes you to get more than 1 squad as otherwise later in the game you won’t have any snare capabilities while you are repairing or mining.
2 AT guns can help a lot to support this as the 6 pounder is potentially the best AT gun in the game, pairing them with an AEC, sniper or engineers can slow enemy vehicles while the AT gun does work. Use the ability on them to rapidly move them out of incoming artillery or reposition to a tank flank. In terms of anti-infantry you can rely on your sections or get commandos/MG/sniper with spare popcap to enable attacks, cover flanks or inflict bleed. For commandos I strongly recommend giving them brens as they have a very damage model and can maintain their great dps at longer ranges.
Finally in terms of tanks most players stall for a comet as it has well balanced anti-tank and anti-infantry in addition to being fast and well armoured for its price. Cromwell can be good especially if used with the UKF’s oil efficient teching but it is slowed significantly if an AEC is bought and performs suboptimally against the Panzer 4 and is vulnerable to a well controlled Puma. The UKF is a pop-cap intensive faction with a lot of specialised units so keeping this balance can be hard if you don’t have the right composition.
Handling UKF Counters
The UKF by their design has a number of units that are very good against them. I will give some mixed tips to handle them but if they were easily handled people wouldn't use them. The OST sniper is a very common build combined with osttruppen to fill their frontline with cheap units. It is effective as the moving accuracy of the sections is weak so it will rarely take damage if its walking backwards towards an supporting unit. Use good practice against snipers (such as using vision blockers to avoid snipes as much as possible) The universal carrier will do good damage to an exposed sniper so hold it near where you think the sniper is on the map, AEC also has the damage bonus. The UKF sniper comes out slightly later but can counter snipe if needed. Commandos can sneak up on and delete the sniper, especially with brens which can kill a sniper in a short volley at medium range. Finally the section bolster is a soft sniper counter as it gives you more time to fight allowing other elements to kill it. Ambush camo is another good OST doctrinal ability, use light vehicles and tanks to flush out ambush locations. Play conservatively with the universal carrier as explosive MG42 rounds from ambush will nearly instantly kill it.
On the OKW side theres two main ones, battlegroup builds can be very good against UKF. ISG’s provide good firepower and range, the efficient healing allows them to field healthy infantry. My advice against this is to try to flank and use your light vehicles as much as possible. Static cover to cover gameplay will end poorly especially in yellow cover. If they have ISG’s they won’t have the manpower for multiple rakkens or elite infantry. JLIs/Fallstrumjaegers are very strong against Infantry sections, if you see an OKW go for multiple squads of them get extra infantry upgrades to keep up. These units don’t have snares so use vehicles as much as you can around them.
Commanders and Loadouts
For bulletins pick the ones that boost your sections with accuracy and shot cooldown reduction. Grenade throw range is another good potential one. Going into a game it's a good idea to have a plan with what you want to use your commander pick for. Some like Lend Lease need to be picked minute one, others can be used to respond to developing situations (like needing a Flamethrower or Rocket Artillery.) I will post them in order of how often I pick them but its up to you.
Artillery’s main benefit is the Valentine tank. It is a very powerful pseudo-medium tank that doesn't get engine damage at full HP from a snare. Concentrated barrage can be useful in a pinch as well for indirect fire as airburst rounds stun tanks. Avoid the sexton unless you know what you are doing.
Engineer’s main use is access to the AVRE and flamethrowers. The AVRE combined with crew repairs and hammer warspeed can be a pretty good late game comet alternative though its lack of a main gun I would recommend you pair it with anti-tank gun support or another tank. The command vehicle can be put on your AEC to get cheap scout planes and give an area of effect buff that really helps your tanks and infantry at the cost of making the AEC much more vulnerable and slow to attack.
Tactical support's main benefit is the ability to drop a mortar and AT gun for 100mp+75 munis. The recovery engineers have access to smoke nades even without smoke, giving them valuable options to support your sections and tanks on attack. FOP gives you access to a lot of offmap support options, and really can help later in the game. It can be hard to setup if most of the buildings have been destroyed though you can upgrade a forward assembly for the same effect. Flame crocodiles give a great lategame alternative to Comet spam though support it with AT.
Vanguard operations is a very flexible doctrine, it has access to crew repairs, commandos and a flame crocodile callin. The raid/logistics glider gives you good map presence, cheap commandos and potentially a retreat point. Try and use sight blockers like buildings to hide the glider as well, Axis players can punish badly placed forward respawns with indirect fire and tanks. The plane callin has an anti-tank and an anti-infantry plane so its a very nice call in for an attack. Flame crocodiles give a great lategame alternative to Comet spam though support it with AT.
Lend Lease I have covered above in the builds section but in addition to that the mobile mortar team and the Half Track are useful additions to give extra support to your pushes. Use vehicle crew repairs later in the game to keep aggressive cromwell use going. Avoid picking into OST.
Mobile Assault is a pretty good all around doctrine giving access to engineer flamers, commandos and the land mattress rocket artillery. I find compared with the other rocket artilleries though the land mattress is pretty weak and vulnerable to being decrewed. This unit can be good if an OKW has multiple ISGs or it can split up a Pak wall during an attack. The flamethrowers and commandos make it a decent doctrine to have if you need them though.
Commandos has a number of good offmap callins and mapwide buffs, I find it hard to save up to use them and make full use out of them and keep mining/upgrading your sections and commandos. Air supremacy operation can be extremely good to delete recklessly placed OKW trucks combined with some damage. Assault gives a good mapwide infantry buff along with scout planes.
Special weapons I would only really pick with a Soviet buddy to drop them Vickers lmgs for their penals in a 2v2. Their vet abilities give them crazy damage to make up for them not having a AI upgrade so this can make them OP. Everything else in the regiment is pretty bad since engineers got a snare, AT sections that really do not have a niche (RE can repair, mine and do everything else.) Get your flame croc from a better doctrine.
Advanced Emplacements has seen some use in high tier play but I would heavily recommend against playing Emplacements as they are extremely map dependent and both Axis factions get non-doctrinal counters. When you lose the map with multiple emplacements its pretty much GG.
Additional Notes
The UKF being reliant on sandbags to use their section means sandbag placement is extremely important for UKF players. Use these tips to place sandbags that are useful by letting you cap a point while denying its use as much as possible against you. AEC and anti-tank guns are good at killing enemy sandbags with attack ground.
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