Profile of Antemurale

Guard Rifle Combined Arms Report Card:

(I intended to test and post this yesterday, but my roommate used up my internet upload quota so I lost internet for 24hrs. FeelsBadMan)

This doctrine is a mainly defensive anti-infantry commander.

Hit the Dirt
Great to see that it works in cover now; it can allow Conscripts to win cover-to-cover engagements. However, it doesn't synergize terribly well with PPsHs because most of the time you would want to quickly close the distance to maximize PPsH DPS, which usually is within 10m.
I would suggest reducing the CP requirement to 0. This would make Conscripts much stronger in early-game engagements against other infantry, especially the MG42-reliant WM. It shouldn't be too overpowered as conscript DPS is relatively low, but it would definitely tip the Cons vs Grens engagement in SOV favor.

Guards Rifle Infantry
Guards feel a lot more reliable against enemy infantry due to the return of 27 damage for their PTRS rifles. Hit the Dirt is an engagement-changing ability: a Vet 1 Guards squad with 2 DP-28s can win an engagement against vet 0 Obers. Additionally due to the fact that they have PTRS AT rifles they consistently destroy enemy green cover. I would say that they are very well balanced.

PPsH Package
I would say that the PPsH package works as advertised. Interestingly they can beat vet 0 Assault Grenadiers at close range with over 1/3 health to spare.
I would suggest reducing the CP requirement to 2, allowing Conscripts to gain access to much more firepower at the same time Grenadiers can get G43s.

ML-20 152mm Howitzer
Remains very effective against static units/buildings/garrisons. Reliably does about 1000 damage to OKW HQs (slightly more than half their HP). The move to adjust static artillery cost from purely MP to MP and FU was a good decision. However I would say that reducing the fuel costs by 10 to 15 would make the much more attractive.

IL-2 Anti-Infantry Loiter
Much stronger ever since v1.5.1. It is an extremely effective anti-blob tool; quickly suppresses and pins the whole blob, and if the blob doesn't retreat, the blob will get wiped out. The two planes do consistent damage, kill models, suppress/pin infantry, and occasionally wipes infantry.

There are two main issues I have with this ability, neither of which I have an idea of how to fix but they both seem a little odd to me:
- Infantry recover from a state of suppression and even from being pinned in red cover between strafes.
- As mentioned before, the cannon fire often gets eaten up by world objects such as trees, but if the infantry are standing behind garrisons, the garrison does not eat up the fire and they get pulverized.
- The cannons do nearly no damage to garrisons if they target infantry inside the garrison (the infantry still take considerable amounts of damage). Not sure if this is a bug or not.

You get something in the order of 10-50 FU and MU per wreck, depending on the class of the vehicle (from kubelwagen to King Tiger). We don't know how to correct that UI glitch that you mention though.

Well, that's a bummer. At least I still get the resources!

We'll probably remove hull down depression for the reasons you mentioned. An opponent can quickly verify whether a depression is hiding a tank by hovering over with their cursor. Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix the green-shield thing, short of permanently giving soviet tanks a yellow cover effect.

I see. Also a bummer, the animations are great!

We've given this effect to a few select soviet tanks. However, it's a bit painful to copy over the necessary values needed to every possible capturable tank.

Very understandable.

I don't know of a way to add target-table damage that hinges on conditional requirements. The reason ATG damage was changed to reload was that damage was too weak (purposely below the 200 threshold to avoid 2-shotting lights).

A reload buff on the tanks could potentially make them more deadly vs infantry, but we'll see. Perhaps, the most powerful aspect of tank camouflage is being able to gain a flank on an enemy with a turreted tank.

I'm not very skilled with the mod tools, but instead of giving this ability modifiers for the main gun, why not have the tanks fire separate projectiles? In my mind it works like Camouflage + Target Weak Point.

If this is possible, you could retain high alpha damage, high penetration, and high accuracy, but make it nearly useless against infantry by making the AoE very small.

From my experience with the commander so far, the commander is a bag of highly-situational abilities. Every time I've tried to use all of them at the same time, I ended up hurting myself more than I hurt the enemy. Perhaps the right approach is picking the right tools for the right moment, and try not to overdo it; sort of like the commando doctrine.

I agree with this. Often it's the combination of PMD-6M + Conscript AT Grenade Volley, or T-34/76 Ambush + IL-2 PTAB.

Due to how I play this commander, I don't really use the ATG (except if I steal a Pak 40).

A bit off topic, but I go 3 Cons into 3 Penals, T-70 next, then T-34/76. I use Penals and Cons in pairs. After 3CP, Penals make up the anti-infantry power that Cons lose when I upgrade them with 3x PTRS, while Cons cover up the anti-vehicle deficiencies of Penals. Really great synergy, thus I don't see a need for improvements to the Penal AT package. Also, you don't need to tech AT Grenades for Cons to use their AT volley.

Tank Hunter Report Card:

First thoughts, this is a very situational commander in the sense that almost all abilities are very situational; good performance is assured only happen under certain circumstances. But when it works, it works shockingly well, which is why this commander is extremely fun to play now. Setting up ambushes require a lot more thought and planning.

AT Ambush Camouflage
Coming early at 2CP is a much-needed buff. It works quite well, now that it is akin to a real-life "double-tap" ambush tactic (where the loader already has another shell and will immediately load as soon as the gun fires, making the gun fire very quickly for two shots). I assume that the bonus penetration and accuracy remain?

Conscript AT Package
Works quite well against light vehicles due to the fact that it gives the squad 3 PTRS rifles instead of 2. Allowing Conscripts and Penals to build PMD-6M light AT mines is good too. AT Grenade Volley feels more responsive as well.

Engineer Salvage Kit
The bug where it could not be upgraded in conjunction with flamethrowers/ minesweepers is gone. However, the UI is still bugged; when you salvage a vehicle, it shows a "+0" on top of the munitions and fuel icon. The resources are claimed, no problem with that end. May I ask for the resource values for salvaging vehicles?

Tank Ambush
Allowing the vehicle to rotate slowly works wonders, greatly improves the viability of this ability for SU-76Ms and SU-85s. Works quite well, also the bushes no longer appear in the fog of war. I assume the workaround was to give the bushes "ownership"?

However, there are several issues with this ability:
- The hull-down depression in the ground is still visible in the fog of war.
- If the camouflaged tank is within view radius (either through Spotting Scopes, or if the tanks are in Prioritize Vehicle and don't fire at infantry) you can use infantry squads to detect their position; hover over the tank and it will show you green cover.
- Assuming the Soviet player captures other players' abandoned tanks, will they also have ambush camouflage? So far I have only tested other Soviet tanks. The T-34/85, KV-1, and IS-2 have the ability, while the KV-2, M4C, and ISU-152 do not.

IL-2 PTAB Bombing Run
Very potent against enemy vehicles, has always been. Also destroys garrisons reliably.

On both ATG and Tank ambush:
If the reason to remove extra damage was to reduce infantry-wiping power, why not rework it into bonus damage vs vehicles? 40 bonus damage verses vehicle would make both ambushes much more dangerous due to how much burst damage a couple tanks/ATGs could deliver, which would force the Axis players to be much more careful.

Alternatively, I would say giving tanks the +25% reload speed buff would also work.

Our intent for those two abilities is to allow the Brit player to forego weapon upgrades for these ones, without becoming obnoxious if the Brit player has access to a ton of munitions (e.g., Assault Bren-blobs in live)

Personally I've never seen this happen, mainly because most of the game that I've played are 1v1 and 2v2. It is very effective, and it works well with Commandos, and I understood the notes correctly, IS can fire on the move just as effectively as if they were stationary (but not in cover)?

The primary strength of the ability is establishing a strong foothold that will allow players to shift the front. If you haven't called a glider down next to a MedHQ when committing to a push vs it, you haven't seen the sheer strength of it yet.

I think I saw a match where Redxwings had this thing used next to his forward base.

Ahh, I see what you mean; this means that it is a disposable forward reinforcement point. I had assumed that Gliders could only reinforce within friendly territory. I've always landed my gliders defensively; this could make aggressive Glider insertions an interesting strategy.

Yes, I've seen a match that Imperial Dane cast where RedxWings dropped Smoke Raid and an aggressive Glider at the same time. Map was Semoisky Winter if I recall correctly.

One thing about this ability is that WP shells also block vision, and weaken teamweapons, which you can pick off from an ambush, or a glider drop.

A highly-concentrated barrage might also be too deadly (e.g., Rifle Company WP barrage). A more dispersed barrage still causes team weapons to relocate, since a stray WP shell will eat a lot of HP away; though it could suit the doctrine better.

When trying out the doctrine, I do feel that the vision blocking effects of smoke raid and mortar cover have a lot of overlap. I found I would use mortar cover most of the time, but that was before smoke raid v1.5 changes.

What you're suggesting then, is replacing the WP/HE barrage with an HE-only barrage that performs similar to the light artillery barrage from Jaeger Infantry?

In a sense if we put vision-imparing stuff to smoke raid and damage-dealing stuff to mortar-cover, then yes, the doctrine suddenly gets the benefits of a mobile mortar support (smoke/displacement).

The question, then, becomes how affordable it is to keep throwing resources, and for how long your infantry can stave off without weapon upgrades.

What I mean here is to keep the same number of mortar shells (and the warhead types) per unit area, but have the ability affects a smaller radius. This would allow this ability to serve as both a tool to inflict MP bleed/ force reposition as a regular HE mortar barrage, and because it would drop a few WP shells, it would also serve the LoS-blocking role of a Smoke barrage.

Essentially, an extremely flexible barrage that could be used on cooldown (as long as you have enough munitions) to make up for the fact that you don't have a mortar pit. It also gives the Brits another (albeit doctrinal) answer to garrisons.

The recon flight and the strafe are mostly a friendly reminder for the enemy player to GTFO before the RAF comes. In a busy fight, it might be possible to ignore the minimap, and the results can be disastrous.

We want to encourage aggressive use of the doctrine through any means. Thus, we want to prevent people from OHK stuff from as far. Instead, players are expect to push together with the offmaps.

A 250MU bombing run is in a sweet spot of having accessible access to offmaps when needed (Brit concentration barrage is 250), while forcing you to make do with other means if necessary.

I see the purpose of the recon run and the strafe now. I also stand by the no-one-shot principle, so I agree with having less bombers.

Commando report card:

Smoke Raid Operation
It was a bit lackluster when you could only target a zone in LoS, now that it can be put in FoW it's a lot more useful. Great against WM or a support-weapon heavy build.

Assault
Much more useful now that it effects all British Infantry. Great against OKW or an infantry-heavy build.

Commando Glider
Much more viable now that it costs much less. Glider as a reinforcement point is reasonable, as it's so massive and squishy a target that it can be easily denied. Commandos are much better now that their smoke grenades work as a vision-denying tool. However the icon might be misleading, it still shows the yellow cover shield.

Mortar Cover
Not as powerful as it was before, still very effective against garrisons or team weapon formations. However I would not say it is cost-effective.

If I could change this ability, I would make Mortar Cover a 4CP ability, affects a small 10m radius, and is priced near 75MU. Then reduce cooldown to 60 sec. This would make it an option for this commander to have access to artillery without the need for a static Mortar Pit.

Air Supremacy
I don't really see the purpose of having the recon plane and the Typhoon strafe. The ability is a targeted circle so you can't really point the recon flight in any particular way. The strafe is pretty useless, as it just does damage to the infantry which would get flattened by the bombing runs later on anyway. The bombs are still quite potent, incapable of one-shotting OKW trucks but can still serious damage to anything it hits.

If I could change this ability, I would remove the recon and the strafe, then decrease the cost of this ability to 200 or 180 MU.