UKF Strategies for high level combined arms

Hi Guys

So UKF is currently in its weakest state after the SBP and the lower unit performance is really being felt. Its no secret the UKF had glaring holes in its faction design, made up for by some powerful crutch units. Now that powerful units have been brought in line, one really has to use combined arms, but what options are there?

I've noticed that the really good players (rank 50+) in team games have been making full use of the SBP changes, using extensive combined arms attacks which are difficult to repel. Ost are particularly hard to deal with, with them having a very complete and well rounded army roster. OKW are just as capable but take a little longer to get up to speed with their combined arms.

There are loads of potential scenarios to discuss but three aspects in particular have me a bit stumped: Early game garrison play, appearance of pgrens and keeping your team weapons alive.

-> UKF counter garrison options have always been bad but after SBP, the lethality of mortars against garrisons means axis can deny you garrison cover even quicker, putting you on the retreat the whole time and making it very easy to loose your HMGs entirely.
What can be done in this situation? Should one be spamming more expensive tommies or have people had more luck with bren carriers? Are flamer RE the way to go, given that you have no viable smoke options. Smoke raid operation come into play or is it unlocked to late?

-> Aggressive Pgrens use appears to be the new meta as well, especially on more confirmed maps. Apart from an already setup vickers, I'm not sure what else can stop them if they manage to close a bit of distance. Double bren tommies seem to melt at anything other than far and behind cover. Throw in a flamer HT or 222 for extra shock value and I find my self constantly on the retreat. An AEC to counter their light play is immediately shut down by pgren shreks.

-> Another meta habit I've noticed is good player will specifically target your support weapons above all else. It makes sense of course, as they are they are the units that will do the most damage. What do people do to keep them alive apart from constantly re-crewing with RE?

I've tried looking for replays for high level UKF team play recently but it seem people aren't playing UKF any more :-/ .


Anyhow, just wondering if others have come up with tenable unit and commander combinations that help deal with the UKF shortfall.

Going off your signature, I'm going to assume this is for team games. XD
Brits are pretty rare in solos anyway I believe.

To be honest, I've had quite a lot of luck recently with them despite the nerfs. In team games the best thing I think you can do is do what brits do best and try to guarantee your team your point/fuel. I've actually found myself avoiding triple tommy meta in favour of rushing tech for AT and early sappers. Use churchills, they're single greatest battle implement ever devised.

My opening build order for team games atm: MG-UC-T-Tech-RE-AT-Pit-(T if i need more men)
I find this gives me a well rounded start capable of dealing with everything if managed well.

I rush point and get the UC vickers K as soon as possible. Opening with the MG and UC gives you a lot of width early on and craploads of firepower, the vickers can just slay anything that runs at you because of it's dps, before they get there or once they're forced to retreat depending on whether they rush point as well I build a trench on the fuel/cap and garrison it with tommy's, they cannot cap unless they clear the trench which they cannot do early on especially when backed up by Vickers and the UC vickers.

With your men garrisoned on the point basically invulnerable to attack and you slaying all of their men with a vickers and vickers k, you farm a lot of vet very quickly, and they get none, you need to bleed them hard early if possible as it means it will take them longer to respond to you as they waste manpower reinforcing. The vickers k UC can 1v1 most MGs still despite the nerf and rushing sappers I can repair it soon after anyway. My main goal is to get my UC to vet 2 where the vickers K becomes a laser gun and everything in front of it evaporates. Enemy mgs must not be fed otherwise they vet up and the UC is useless due to incendiary rounds. I use the second tommy squad to cap or get my teammates to do it for me.

People normally respond to me in one of 2 ways. They either start building mortars to clear the MG and trench, or build Light vehicles, I normally have a fair amount of manpower floated after that so I can either go mortar pit or AT depending on whether they have rushed a mortar or not but due to float they both arrive about the same time, mortar pit will squash all their team weapons so the only thing that is an immediate issue are infantry blobs flanking me. If I lose my UC I replace it with an AEC if I'm not close to armour.

People normally go centaur or cromwell. My first tank is nearly always a churchill because people are never ready for an infinite HP, infantry slaughtering, medium tank voiding heavy tank at 13 minutes. Spamming mortars? just roll it into them and wipe them all. AT gun in the way? who cares, churchill stronk, churchill no care, wipe that too with the grenade ability and destroy it. On the off chance they snare the churchill? who cares, they literally cannot field anything with enough dps to kill that thing at 13 minutes, I just move my at up to cover it's retreat, the churchill can self smoke if needed or the mortar pit can resmoke afterwards if you do actually need to get it out. Churchill scales better than the others as can quite happily fight off panther, especially when backed up buy the 6 pdr.

I normally play royal engineer reg right now as it means you can get away with less infantry as the avre just deletes theirs and 10 inch incendiary deletes their mortars. Less infantry = moar churchills. Brits are unique in that you can spam heavy tanks, which no one else can do. If you can get artillery superiority with your teammates, a 17 pdr is very useful to counter panther spam or superheavies but ONLY if you can get artillery superiority.

I don't claim to be 'the greatest player' at all, but this does me solid in nearly every game I play and I nearly always have my point for the entire game win or lose.

If you're playing like this, encourage your teammates to play off you, you are the anchor and if they utilise that the rest of your team should be able to take the other point/s giving you the win. I'm not saying refuse to move, support them as best you can but don't compromise yourself or you risk losing all the points.

P.S.- If I find myself floating MP which I can do often because people throw themselves at me like fools. I build all the caches. The only thing I sometimes fall trap to is if people also rush an at gun as that can be RIP UC if you aren't careful.

Hi HoverBacon

Thanks for the detailed response, much appreciated.

The new patch has certainly means that more diverse unit composition is required in order to make any head way with Brits but the glaring holes in their design continue to make then tricky to use.

Your strats are certainly interesting and I imagine them working well in 1v1 or 2v2, but the reliance on the UC (which can be great in the right situation) is a problem in team games. UC usually gets shutdown quickly by either a quick racketen, gren faust (who's range is way too long) or magic bullets. If the opponent is dumb enough to not get any of those, then the UC can have a whale of a time. Good players will know how to deal with the UC making it effectively useless a lot of the time. Have had some success with double brits spamming UC which just overwhelm the axis positions, but its a gamble and more of a cheese tactic.

As for garrisons, its fine for tommies, if no sturmpios are around. but I find that the best strat for the vickers is to keep it outside of garrisons as currently they are just death traps. Having the HMG sitting out in the open works much better against mortars and flames nades and if the crew gets wiped, you can still recover the gun. Keeping HMG's alive till the late game is massive challenge but still your best bet towards controlling axis murder blobs.

Speaking of which, dealing with axis inf blob is a problem, as you don't have the luxury of rocket arty to punish blobbing. I find that fully upgraded tommies just don't cut the bacon towards the later game and it gets especially bad with vetted up gren, volks and obers, which just lazer through every thing. I've instead had more success with relying on commandos as main line inf instead but its tricky and situational.

A mortar pit deep in the back lines will make a big difference with the smoke ability, I've started building them more often than not, but its still very much map dependent. While mortar pit use will always be controversial for both sides, the one thing I think it could do with is the ability to deconstruction it, once the front lines change.
One piece of advice I can give is to steal any and all team weapons when you get the chance, including allies (if they don't intend to recrew). MG42 is way better at controlling blobs and the magic bullets are well, magic. Better are mobile mortars, the ability to smoke or barrage where needed makes all the difference to Brits. Steal everything!

I've not yet tried to rush out a churchill as I normally get a Centaur or Cromwell depending on what the axis have been up to. A centuar is a absolute requirement if reacon planes are spammed, crommie used if they rush for a rocket arty or a problematic flame HT or luch running around.

Churchill is good bang for buck, and good for storming lines when it first appears or it there is a single AT gun around but I think you drum up the churchill to be more effective than it actually is. More than two guns will put you on the retreat, and its does end up being a bit out of its league more towards the late game when there a few panthers and jp4's with a bit of vet (Speaking from team game perspective of course) so I never have more than one.
Spamming fireflies seems to be the only option you have in the late game, mainly because you have no other choice thats effective and stands a chance of surviving.
AT guns gets wiped all day long by arty, offmaps or anrgy mobs while a 17pdr doesn't stand a snow flakes chance in hell in a team game against competent players. Fun fact, a jagtiger, elephant and KT all take the 17pdr on head on and always win. 17pdr only wins when it gets to vet2.

Getting arty superiority is very difficult in team game, not unless you have good USF and SOV players on your side who get reacon/offmap combos and are prepared to tank dive to deal with rocket arty. OKW spamming flares is an on going headache and I have not real counter to it, other than to run away whenever you happen to notice the flares.

I’m no strategist or top 50 player but I’ll throw my 2 cents in I guess.

I like to open with UC -> Vickers -> tech -> sniper -> royal engineers -> aec sidetech and aec -> royal engineers.

The biggest problem with this opening is not having a lot of initial capping power which doesn’t matter at all for teamgames but in 1v1s sometimes I’ll build a second IS before I tech in lieu of getting a second RE after the aec, but it’s not preferable. If you play it right, you can do a lot of damage with just the UC, tommies, and vickers working together and sometimes I’ll even be able to not lose a single model before I get a sniper out by making sure I support he tommies with the vickers and vice versa and abusing the shit out of the UC (careful not to get fausted or stray into the arc of an mg42). You also have a very small window until 222s start rolling after you get the sniper so getting the aec as soon as possible is a must or else you will almost certainly lose the sniper and UC as it counters both very well and tommies have no snares. Losing the sniper is a serious blunder as it is the main way to deal with team weapon spam and garrisons and in the lategame, can be really annoying for axis elite infantry (as well as pretty much all of ost infantry.

At this point I either go vanguard or mobile assault depending on whether I want infantry flamers and land mattress or officer charges and a crocodile, but I always choose as soon as I get 3 cp at the latest because I immediately get a commando squad or even two if manpower allows. I put piats on one of my engineer squads and possibly even get an at gun if I’m on the back foot (it’s very possible to have well over 700 manpower before you get commandos if you keep the bleed to a minimum). I tech to t3 and get a Cromwell out when I can as well.

Commandos are great but to use them to their maximum potential you should mak th most of their camouflage to always take the first shot and always have an advantage over the enemy when using them (being in close range and not overwhelmingly outnumbered). Having them guard a random point is also borderline OP and a cheesy grenade has gotten me many a wipe. Don’t forget that they have smoke grenades as well (they’re just normal shock trooper style smokes now) and that they are even better with double brens, even at close range, and can fire on the move with them and are more accurate than tommies (it’s actually almost a bit ridiculous but it’s the only thing British infantry have now). It’s also fairly easy to wipe weapon teams by sneaking up in camo and chucking a nade at them, and I like to steal ost mortars in this fashion.

The great thing about this build is that even if they get a tank out well before you do, it’s very possible to kill it even without an at gun. If it overextended at all (which many times it will as brits have no snares and the aec is a juicy and often underestimated target) you can hit it with a treadshot and start circle strafing. To make this even easier, the sniper’s vet1 ability will turret lock a p4 or stun a stug, allowing your aec almost free reign. Bring in the piat engineers before the treadshot wears off and that tank is definitely dead.

In the late game I’ll go hammer and start spamming as many comets as possible (which means like 2 of them) or if I went vanguard I’ll sometimes get a croc and back it up with at guns (mostly and especially in teamgames). Land mattresses are 100% situational and you’ll know if you need them. At this point you have a strong, decently versatile (and probably maxed out on pop) force that should be able to deal with pretty much anything.

Well problem with UKF is they started the faction as crossover between USF and OKW and then they wrecked the whole commander rosters with loads of nerfs. Like USF, UKF should be able plug faction design holes via commanders.

For example: If you go Airborne or Recon commander with USF you can tweak your side teching(cause you can airdrop team weapons that are locked behind side teching)

UKF had this, but with the commander nerfs we had to stick to the vanilla unit rosters. Now they nerfed that too so you gonna be need to really picky about your commanders and tactics now.

I stopped using vickers for example because unless you go Royal Arty or Enplacement commander you are stuck trying to micro and protect vickers fire zone. What i found useful is trying to play UKF like USF or OKW. I always start with aggressive 3 tommies push and after seeing how enemy reacts bring up either vickers or UC(prefer UC more but sometimes it is hard to hold on to muni points in team games).

If you push back and cap enemy points this way either wave of infantry spam or light vehichle supported infantry assault will commence. Again depending on your choice of commander you can deal with those. Enplacement commander works wonders with Bofors(against infantry spams) though you gonna need to save up muni and have at least 1 bofors with 1 mortar pit(also i should remind you using mortar accuracy bulletin along with vicker accuracy and bofor armor will improve your odds so configure your load out carefully). Special Weapons regiment can deal with any infantry and light vehicle issue but as soon as enemy notices you went special wep reg he will bring up double mortars or ISG. Last but not least Commando Reg can break enemy indirect but you gotta be careful and micro the commandos harder than ever. One wrong step and you will either catch some mg fire or worse lose commandos.

If you can survive up to this point with at least %50 map control you should be able to roll some armor(trick is though discarding side teching, I started to side tech if i really need to now thanks to bren nerf).

All the stuff i said above works for me most of the times in 2v2 team games. But we all know that games are heavily depended on your team mate's skill. One last tip i can throw here is; use snipers. Sniper unit is more crucial than ever now. Cause facing 3/4 grens and 4/5 volks(or 3/4 sturms) is lot easier, you can bleed MP and have some snarish ability for incoming armor combat.

As LoopDloop stated above i'm only going hammer tactics now, those arty shells combined with churchill are life savers, SBP gave large benefits to Axis for using team weapons, airburst shells can do some good against those team weapons.

I can upload one of my games for an example. https://www.coh2.org/replay/73470/2v2-ukf-soviets-vs-double-ostheer/page/1#post_id677707

@CombatWombat Sorry, I probably wasn't specific enough for a lot of it as I was aware how long my post was getting.

No, I never garrison my MG either, I garrison a squad of Tommies in a trench on the capture point, backed up by my Vickers, with the tommies garrisoned, they must clear the trench in order to cap the point, as long as you watch for grenades as you should be doing anyway, it means you have to reinforce your men less as they take significantly less damage. Sturmpioneers are not a counter to this, sturmpioneers have enormous hit boxes and get cut down by tommies when entrenched even at point blank range providing you are prioritising targets well. If they grenade you, just step out of the trench and then get back in and If they incendiary, you, they can't incendiary your vickers. Congratulations, they played themself.

I do rely on my UC a lot early game, yes, although I never have the problems you stated really. If you are getting fausted you're too close or not microing it properly and if they rush at, congrats, they're down an infantry squad, rush them and it's gg for them. A lot of my strat essentially works off coercing the enemy into having to take certain counters to me so I can predict what I'm facing next. I force them to take early at, and I force them to take tank destroyers rather than tanks, It means you know what to expect and If they don't take that, they don't counter you. I nearly always get a 3 star UC in games often with 20 kills or so. The thing is cheap as hell anyway, even on the off chance I do lose it early, it's cheaper than replacing infantry. It's never useless, only a fool takes axis AT straight off the bat, they need the infantry or tommies will just cut them down, later on if I do face at, I use it to help allies or backstop enemy advances.

I like royal engineers due to the avre mostly, it punishes blobbing as any blobbing idiot should be punished but more importantly, it wipes their veterancy. As Brits you must keep on top of their veterancy or your infantry can't do their job. Especially on Volksgrenadiers.

I agree with you about the centaur if they recon spam, however right now, due to the price decrease I would take the cromwell over it nearly every time if I do need an early tank, like I said I normally prefer to risk fighting an early P4 without a tank, using mines and at guns, in favour of saving for a churchill. Recon plane spam I wouldn't say is a problem early game (i.e.- when you get your first tank) as they lack the CP to use it effectively. Although I would much rather an ally invest 40 fuel in an aa halftrack than me invest 100 in aa. Although if I do I normally just make it a command vehicle anyway as the centaur strafing fire is all you really need it for anywway.

Like I said with the UC, with the churchills: Sure they can build 2 at guns to counter you if they want but they're sacrificing infantry again, you can just waltz into them with infantry or shell them out (although multiple times I've just killed 2 at guns with my churchill anyway because I still insist it is amazing, maybe people are just bad idk) Jagdpanzer is best counter I guess? but when backed up by a 6 pdr it just doesn't have the dps or pen to do any real damage before your 6 pdr forces it to go repair.

I personally prefer to destroy enemy team weapons, other than maybe the MG42, I prefer my men to be able to move otherwise they'll just spam mortars at you and that hurts with team weapons because that's axis 101 right now.

I agree about the 17 pdr, It's difficult to field although I'm not sure It does lose to an elefant? I've never seen that, no elefant sticks around long enough. Thing is, you don't actually need to support it that well, it costs 70 fuel for christ's sake XD it's basically disposable, if every time you build one it kills a panther and dies, it's still profitable for you. Point is, it stops them TD creeping which is extremely dangerous.

I've also been using commando reg recently and yeah commandos are great but it can be risky, they cost a lot to reinforce so if you start bleeding, you bleed hard. I've been using them a lot with 1 piat recently, as 4 stens/3 and a bren is normally good enough, especially late game when the map is covered in craters, you can sneak them all the way round and start assassinating rocket artillery/ low health retreating tanks with them.

P.S.- this convo is a great idea, plugging holes and optimising each others strats etc.

I've been running some tests on UKF units to get a better feel about their performance in contrast to their axis counter parts, the following are results I found surprising.

- 17pdr
Tested it numerous times just to be sure, but the 17pdr will loose to the axis super heavies (KT, JT, elephant) every time as RNG has a minimal effect in the fight. The reason it looses is its slow rate of fire and lower HP pool compared to the heavies. This changes at vet2 when the 17pdr gets a 30% fire rate increase. Most people don't seem to know this and stay out of its range or wont to risk the heavy taking too much damage.
Conversely the pak43 will always wins against axis super heavies due to it not being a structure and higher base fire rate.

- Comet
Its no small secret that the comet is underperforming, but its expected to at least perform better at anti-infantry than the panther. Testing however shows that the panther (with pintle MG) kills infantry faster than a comet simply because the mgs are better, while the comets mgs are weak and the main gun misses a lot. Sometimes the comets gets a lucky hit against a clumped squad but thats rare and unreliable. Tested at medium range and not taking into account abilities of the comet.

- Tommies
They took a massive hit with the bren nerf and now are weak against getting overrun. While inf combat is very RNG based, here are scenarios for which it is more likely that double bren tommies will loose. Tests do not include using abilities.
- Pgrens advancing to zero range against tommies in green cover, pgrens win but take heavy loses.
- Grens with lmg, at long range, both behind green cover. *This fight is vet dependent but I can't remember off the top of my head, in which order it goes - need to test again.
- Obers with lmg/IRstg44 will aways win.
Needless to say, tommies will loose more often than not out of cover against all upgraded inf except against Osttruppen.

I'll be testing other unit matchups and I'll post updates here.