Profile of Kalvadra

Like Kallipolan was saying, the British faction has a notably weak early game, if you overextend you'll end up being pushed back and losing a ton of territory. Make sure your tommies are engaging from green cover with vickers support when you can, and if they're losing get them somewhere with support. Kubels loose combat when your tommies are in green cover or have support. All this support I'm talking about is most usually UC, against OKW I consider it a must buy, it tilts engagements completely in your favor and now has crew repairs at vet 0.

Many other problems you posted are all remedied by the AEC. Once you take the previous steps, you should come into mid game looking pretty great, and unless you're doing a weird strategy or something like that you should go AEC. AEC counters all axis light armor (half-tracks, 222's, luchs) with it's gun and small-arms resistant armor. Once again though, do not overextend even now that you have a tank. It is not all that against infantry and will die without support, even quicker if you get close enough to get fausted.

The key for emplacements is not to over-invest in them. They are not invincible, even though they can get pretty close with advanced emplacement doctrine (75 muni for better survivability per emplacement, 400 mp for repairing advanced assembly). CoH2 is very big on "manpower bleed", and emplacements don't bleed unless you keep using mp to defend them. Don't focus on keeping one alive if it will cost you more than your opponent. The mortar pit is the most important emplacement for Brits, it is your only indirect fire solution; plan on building one. Advanced assembly is a pretty good building that you should not forget about, the ability to reinforce units in-field provides better map presence mid-late game. All the other emplacements are extremely situational and 9 times out of ten not worth building.

I played with the vanilla commanders for a long while and they worked pretty well, winning games is in good micro and macro. The level that commander choice makes the difference is pretty high.

A well micro'd sniper is worth it pretty much every game. Against OST it can counter snipe if that's were he chooses to put his mp (very common). Against okw just keep it safe from kubels and it'll bleed him like crazy. Also, UC can harass sniper and kill or force retreat early game; they get bonus damage versus snipers.

In summary - UC is good - nearly must buy against OKW, AEC is must buy for most strats, emplacements are there for support - they are not your core, snipers are great

IS are really strong opening units, but only when used correctly. They are great in cover, but seldom pull their manpower cost otherwise. Earth's post is the traditional opening and it benefits greatly from the units that follow very quickly. The Engies coming out quickly contribute to map control and turn firefights and positional engagements in your favor by allowing flanking maneuvers to be executed. Once the AEC is on the field it will be very difficult for any axis faction to meet you head on, as your combined arms will already have started to form.

The problem with MG spam is that it is too slow. MG's have set up/tear down times and don't do so well on their lonesome due to the effectiveness of flanking imposed by their arc of fire. Map control suffers against decent players. MG's are support weapons, and the vickers is very good in that role.

All this being said, there are minor variations of this opening that you'll see at high levels, often adding another tommy squad for extra map control early on or (particularly against OKW) getting a UC to turn firefights in your favor. Perhaps if the traditional method is coming up short, these variations might be more your flavor. Personally I've been playing around with the idea of varied tier 0 play, but the best performing strat that I've seen is the one Earth Posted. It's just really strong.

In short, use your first 2 IS in cover and with Vickers support to get the best results. Add a UC with OKW. After that, brits will probably make much more sense.

Hello all, been busy but trying to get in as many games as I can, thought I'd give an update on how this strat is going.

First things first, I've found out this doesn't work too well against anything but low/mid level wehr players, so sticking to classical strategies like the luvnest opening Earth mentioned works much much better.

Next what I've found is that tank hunters are not the counter I was hoping they would be. They can be kited too well by a Luchs. However, I do think they work well with an anti tank gun to prevent any face hugging from the luchs, this way has the benefit of not costing 75 of the early game fuel from having to go to the aec, which I have found is only really good for countering early light vehicles and looses much of it's function when racketenwerfers come onto the field, or the panzerschreck upgrade gets issued.

To Latch: I'm not that great at micro, but I've found it workable (even if challenging) and worth the effort in the long run. I haven't seen a luchs out too much faster than the tank hunters. Also, after the point where I stopped you can transpose into the sort of mid/end game you talked about; that's up in the air, I'm just talking opening.

To Spinflight: I haven't run into manpower issues yet, although as of late I've cut a tommy squad from my BO, so maybe that's been helping. I've noticed that it helps reduce the manpower bleed I've experienced just in the fact that when you outnumber and outgun your opponent, they will rarely be in a situation to push and punish like they would otherwise.

To Tobis: Wouldn't the 5 man squads be providing the early field presence? It increases the staying power of a squad pretty significantly, as well as the firepower, which I've found allows me to push around my opponent better, for the manpower price it seems a pretty good investment early on.

Thanks for the responses y'all! I'll definitely be thinking about all the advice given as I try to work this out more, and any more y'all have to offer would be greatly appreciated!