Why?
Because without a doubt it is the one of the worst commanders in the game. But the community seems to ignore it heavily. Some even tout it as one of the best doctrines.
And why is that?
Because M10 can crush...
So lets break it down:
Advanced Vehicle Crews
Basically an empty slot and the 2 year holder of worst commander ability award. Because who doesn't want to spend 90 muni on a squad with 0 combat vet and abilities.
And don't give that shit about switching them out with RE. If that's what Relic wanted they would have just given it to REs and avoided the whole redundancy of switching them.
Assault engineers
Sure these guys are good opening units, but even early on they are sort of mediocre. But that's not so bad, they also give you access to mines and flamethrowers, which is great.
Unfortunately they are a 4 men close combat squad with little to no defensive scaling they won't last. They simply can't do their job wothout getting killed as the game progresses and you'll be lucky if they survive the mid game, let alone the late game.
280mm Artillery Barrage
Not the worst call-in strike, but let's be honest, no one is picking this commander for this ability. Highly erratic results and highly expensive. Perhaps the only ability I've seen cause the person using it to lose the game.
105mm Sherman
Because who doesn't want to spend more for a sherman that can kill infantry a tiny bit better then a regular sherman... maybe. Sure it has a bit better health and armor but schreks still seem to pen it rather reliably.
One things for sure it ain't no KV-8 and given it's role and price, I kind of expect it to be. But you can always get one if you want a Anti-infantry tank that spends more time running from schrek blobs then killing it.
M10 Wolverine
Ah, the great M10! Who doesn't love it! A great flanking tank destroyer and it's cheap enough to be spammed in great numbers to overwhelm your enemies. Good thing it's easily countered by infantry.
Oh wait.. that's right it can't. Gren going to snare you? Crush. Schreks going to kill you? Crush. Because what's better then a hard AT unit that can kill infantry thanks to a silly mechanic. I mean that's the way it was in vCOH and vCOH was perfect and never did anything wrong
What should be done?
- Remove crush from the M10. It's a tank destroyer and a cheap one at that. Players shouldn't be able to just suddenly turn it into one of the best infantry killers just because they are good enough to make it do a little dance.
- Put the 105 into the majors building. We've already determined that using doctrines to skip out on teching is already a bad idea. I have no idea why Relic decided that armor company should be the exception.
- Give the 105 more range, armor, or faster rof. Something so that's it's actually better at what it does then it's cheaper multi-role brother.
- Change assualt engis vet 2 to give them an extra man (no not vet 3 you goobs they'll be dead by then)
- Do anything to Advanced Vehicle crews! Literally anything is better then what it is right now! Just stop ignoring it! Please!
Do what needs to be done. Expose armor company for the shitty gimmick commander it is, and then fix it!