Dear Relic,
thank you so much for giving us the brits in company of heroes, really thanks so much. Hopefully you can detect the sarcasm there as the game in its current state is almost unplayable, that is for the 3v3 and 4v4 aspect of the game which of course requires 6+ people for testing god forbid - yes this sets the tone.
You have to wonder with all the pretty cool voice acting additions to the game Relic have miscalculated their budget and under employed their testers and QA to the point their only tester/QA is Jonny who comes in once a week on a Friday afternoon to keep a seat warm who secretly believes a fantasy of Britain dominating in Europe at the start of ww2 through their great use of tanks, long range Vickers and superior banter.
Let’s break it down as to why the brits are so broken. The biggest gripe is the centaur, this early game tank appears on the field when very little at the time can stop it. The centaur wipes your infantry faster than a relic employee gives up on performing a unit test, even faster when it pops out of the shadows on a squad already engaged with losses. Another amusing oversight is garrisoned troops die even faster as they are standing at windows enabling precision strikes to the forehead from the centaurs 1939 lasers. At this point the only viable counter is a stugg 3 or a well defended pak which will fend off centaur from the front lines for the time it takes to eat a crumpet.
Failing to protect the early stugg investment your lines will fold faster than a hot mars bar and you will be left sitting in your base praying your adversary shows some compassion or is bored of 15 minute games and not capture your fuel income.
Worse can be said of the okw counter, a jagdpanzer expensive at 135 fuel, slower, has no anti inf capabilities(these don't balance the better main gun than the stugg) and because of the higher fuel cost you are left in the field of combat longer holding your John Thomas waiting for something to scare the centaur off. Mid-Late game both these tanks unless roaming in packs of 2's or 3's(very hard for okw) will not stand up to the next stage of that game that will see Britain’s very own blitzkreig coupled with an overhead bombardment of airpower not seen since pearl harbour or the soviet levelling the German occupied part of Stalingrad - I'm not kidding here you will feel the effect of the British player left clicking "select area to delete all units". If you happen to be okw and with a fhq there and haven't retreated faster than a Frenchman back to home HQ then you really are up s**t creek without a paddle and hope your team mates support your vote of surrender to end the humiliation.
If the above air support is not baring down on you with bombs then expect another form of terror coming from the clouds in the form of commandos. They are the fleshy version of centaurs that can wipe your units in a flash. If you don't see these guys drop in behind you are royally screwed, you can bet your foe will go for nice soft target like the backs of your static guns you were hoping to keep alive to slow onslaught of the brits blitzkreig. Your foe will be falling off their chair loling watching you try move/retreat paks and machine guns to the theme tune of Benny Hill.
Other minor gripes are the Croc tank, this beast is just a rolling shell sponge. Anything near this beast that is not more potent than a panther is a cooked sausage or a canned cooked sausage. Static mortar positions are a nightmare. They are hard to kill - the brace is stupid imo, why does 4 men hugging mortar tube make then hard to destroy than some medium tanks? With their 2 tube salvos combined with arty and air strikes in the mid-late game you are more likely to see a new Italian reinforcements doctrine than a squad with all its models at the front line.
So Relic please test before you release. 3v3 and 4v4 games yes I know Jonny needs to play other people so maybe start a user testing group with the community. If you are going to bring out high dps units on one side think about a nullifier or equal dps on the opposing side that can be used around the same time. Rant over.
Regards, CyberdyneSystems ex coh fan.
p.s I am British. |