Tried British today...

[logik]

...pretty interesting for a guy who plays armor most of the time anyway. any good tips?

[Rafterman Profile Website]

...pretty interesting for a guy who plays armor most of the time anyway. any good tips?

It's common knowledge around here that I play the Brits 99% of the time, so I have some info you might find useful.

• The Brits are slow to muster, but hard to stop once they're going.
• They excel at defensive tactics, so if you have this mindset while using them, you'll be much more successful.
• Produce a Lieutenant early on so you can get the 2nd command truck, which will allow you to get the very valuable Sappers into the field. The Tommies are good vs. infantry, but as soon as that first German armored car enters the fight, you'd better have some heavy-hitting AT soldiers/emplacements at the ready.
• When fighting early on with infantry vs. infantry, send 2 Lieutenants with your group of 2 or 3 Tommy squads. You will double-up their attack and defense abilities with a couple Officers nearby. Squads that are upgraded will have not just one, but two yellow stars above their heads. Also, mix up your Tommy upgrades. Have some squads with the Bren gun upgrade and some with the rifle grenade upgrade. The recon/sniper upgrade isn't that great IMO.
• Place your Captain into a Bren carrier, then drive him to a location you want to attack. Once he's there, select some of your Tommies or Sappers and click the "Retreat to Captain" button. Your forces will haul ass to the Captain's location and will be immune to suppression as they're running and less likely to get killed by enemy fire. Just make sure that wherever you send the Bren carrier to has a clear travel path with few or no enemies or you can wave goodbye to your Captain. The Bren can't take much damage and one Panzershreck or tank hit will destroy it. Your Captain will bail out when the Bren blows up, but then he's pretty much toast anyway.
• While each Vickers MG emplacement you build will cost you 3 popcap points, the American MG emplacements are free. That said, have them build the MG nests instead of you whenever possible. That 3 points you save can build another brutal 17-pounder AT gun instead, so spend your points wisely.
• To destroy an emplacement to free up popcap, click the emplacement and hit Delete on your keyboard until it blows up. It will show in the end-of-game stats as a building loss, but the popcap gain is worth it. This technique is particularly useful with 25-pounders. As your army advances, build a new 25-pounder closer to the front lines, then blow up the old one farther back. Same goes for MG nests, AT guns, etc.
• If you're playing with other guys on your Allied team who are producing armor, spend more of your popcap on emplacements and Sappers to help keep the team's defenses strong and the tanks repaired. If the Germans break through the Allied armor line and you didn't set up sufficient defenses, they'll march right into your base and pummel you.
• If you do have a base truck of yours getting nailed by the Krauts, don't pack it up and try to drive it away unless you have no other choice. The base trucks are much easier to damage when they're in mobile form than when they're parked and deployed. At least if the Germans are busy pounding on one of your trucks - which will be stronger if over-repaired by your Sappers - they're leaving your other forces alone.
• Depending on the map, choose your command tree wisely. If it's a 3 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 4 battle on a HUGE map, artillery won't be much use. Go with the Commando or Engineering tree instead. The Commandos can get behind enemy lines and harass them/capture points while the other option gives you beefed up Sappers, stronger emplacements (can handle more damage) and boosted resources from your trucks, not to mention a slightly higher popcap than your allied buddies.
• Park all 3 of your trucks on resource points unless absolutely necessary to do otherwise. If you have teammates, make sure they leave you some uncapped points to park your trucks on. Don't bother setting up your truck(s) on a resource point that already has an allied command post built on it. You'll get some extra points from the command post structure they built, but you'll get even MORE points by putting a truck on it and upgrading that truck with the "improved resources" feature or whatever it's called.
• The resource boost feature can only be used on one of your trucks, so choose wisely. If you go with the artillery tree, park a truck on a high (or at least medium) ammo point and upgrade that truck. A truck on a high ammo or fuel point with the resource boost upgrade will get you a whopping 34 points of either fuel or ammo.
• Park your first and second trucks farther back from the front lines than your armor truck, primarily for 2 reasons; 1) if the Germans break through, they'll nail your trucks as first priority and then you're really screwed because you have to start over from scratch and 2) the British armor is slow to move. If you're making a lot of tanks, you don't want them to have to drive all the way across the map, especially in the end stages when you're trying to finish off the Germans.
• Unless your battle is on a small 1 vs. 1 or 2 vs. 2 map, don't bother making Cromwell tanks. They're good vs. infantry, but by the time you have the ability to make armor, the Germans already have Panthers rolling around, which will decimate the Cromwell. Build a Cromwell command tank or Staghound armored car (whichever option you chose in the army settings) first, because one of them must be built first to unlock the Sherman Fireflies, which have the powerful 17-pounder AT gun as their main cannon.
• Speaking of the Cromwell command tank, I only use it if I plan to have lots of Fireflies in my army. It does give tanks a slight boost in capabilities, but the Staghound armored car is MUCH better to use in battles where you're up against lots of enemy infantry. NEVER forget to upgrade your Staghounds with the .50cal gunner upgrade either. A group of 2-3 Staghounds will DECIMATE infantry. Plus, they drive pretty fast, making them quick to deploy anywhere you need them. They are great to use for defending foot bridges you don't want the enemy to cross. They are weak to heavy armor and Panzershreck crews though, so keep an eye on them wherever they're deployed and have Sappers nearby to repair if necessary.
• Sappers have 3 upgrade options, the Piat AT weapon, mine detection/demolition, and expert engineering. I go with the expert engineer upgrade about 95% of the time. I prefer to let my 17-pounder AT emplacements, Sherman Fireflies or Piat Commando units handle the heavy armor killing and keep my Sappers mainly for repairing vehicles and emplacements. Plus, the expert engineers can "over repair" any vehicle (including base trucks) or emplacement, making them MUCH more durable against enemy fire.
• If you're in charge of defenses for your team - but especially a bridge defense - keep a couple crews of Sappers (with the expert engineer upgrades) just behind your forces, but far enough back so that German off-map artillery or Nebelwerfers won't kill them. Keep either a base truck or your Captain just out of harm's reach so that if your Sappers are repairing something and you see the smoke of enemy artillery about to come down, you can retreat them to safety, then quickly send them back to do repairs after the barrage is over with.
• Creeping barrages (only available through the Artillery tree) are the best attack - offensive or defensive, Allied or Axis - in the entire game, period. They cost only 150 ammo points, cover a HUGE area, destroy anything (infantry, vehicles and emplacements), only drop one inconspicuous smoke nade before obliterating the target, and can be fired from a LONG ways off.
• Both 25-pounders and M7 Priests can fire standard or creeping barrages. The standard barrage is "free", but it's not very accurate and takes a LONG time to recharge. Creeping barrages cost you ammo, but they recharge FAST. After the last shell hits, a Priest or 25-pounder will be ready to fire again in like 20-seconds. If you have 3 Priests (the max allowed) or several arty emplacements, you can time them to fire in succession so that you basically hammer the enemy with a constant, unrelenting rain of shells.
• If you choose the Artillery tree, try to park ALL of your command trucks on ammo points. You'll need it.
• The Overwatch ability on the Artillery tree is very valuable for things like defending bridges and resource points. It will pepper the enemy with scatter-burst shells that wipe out entire squads of men and damage armored cars and light tanks. Use fixed 25-pounder emplacements for overwatch and save your Priests (if you have them) for more mobile artillery attacks.
• 25-pounders use 10 popcap points each and there's no limit to the number you can have as long as you're within your max popcap. Priests take 12 points and there's a max of 3 allowed at one time, but their mobility makes them worth it. After you fire with them, drive them to a slightly different location so that the enemy doesn't know right where they are and drops Fallschirmjägers to attack them or sends an anti-tank plane by to destroy them. There's no limit to how many you can re-supply yourself with if they get blown up, but they cost like 620 manpower points each, so they're expensive to replace.

That should give you a pretty good start. I'll post more tips as I think of them.

p.s. I really want to play CoH now.

[logik]

that's a ton of info and i thank you. first and only question of the moment, because i'm eager to play...

is there an advantage of british at over american at?

[Rafterman Profile Website]

that's a ton of info and i thank you. first and only question of the moment, because i'm eager to play...

is there an advantage of british at over american at?

American AT guns are more mobile because...well...they're mobile. A British 17-pounder emplacement is fixed, so you'll need to keep it repaired if it comes under heavy fire. AT guns in general are very weak against infantry, so don't leave them alone anywhere or they'll get blown up pretty easily. Always support them with some infantry, an MG emplacement or a light vehicle like an armored car or Stuart tank. You do NOT want the Germans killing your AT crew then manning the weapon themselves to use against you.

The Sherman Firefly is like a mobile 17-pounder AT gun, but they cost 10 popcap each whereas the emplacement is only 3. Based on the situation, you'll be able to determine whether 3 fixed guns is better or 1 mobile gun. For example, if there's a bottleneck on the map you're trying to break through like a bridge or valley, go with the Firefly because it can easily advance as you destroy enemy forces. If you're defending a bridge or a certain area of the map and mobility is not an issue, use the emplacements instead.

[Stevo Profile]

Dang Ted!


Even I got several nuggets out of that post!

[|ax|Shifty Profile WebsiteYIM]

infantry is expensive, so light vehicles like the Bren carrier and stuart are good against infantry, their artillery is most effective in my opinion. Also nothing can take on a squad of Firefly's.

[logik]

Gotta say, I'm starting to LOVE the British.

We played a 4 player vs Expert Computer on Blue River Island last night and I ended up with 100,000+ points myself to their 60,000 points for the whole team. It was me, Arcaos, KeithC, and Rhino and we just completely obliterated the match in just over an hour. Rhino performed a BEAUTIFUL maneuver in taking one of the "towns" very early in the match and it was all downhill from there for them.

Also, for ANYONE... I've been living on this site alot lately: http://companyofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/C ... eroes_Wiki

It talks only a little about strategy, but what it makes up for that with is pure information on the abilities, weaknesses, etc. of each unit available in the game.

[boog22 Profile]

infantry is expensive, so light vehicles like the Bren carrier and stuart are good against infantry, their artillery is most effective in my opinion. Also nothing can take on a squad of Firefly's.

except a squad of double zooka pe infantry.

[Bielab Profile]

Also keep in mind while playing the British...

* The Lieutenant and the Captain are the veterancy for the British infantry. Lieutenants and Captains gain veterancy when nearby infantry kill enemy units in battle.

*As the Lieutenant levels up, more and better offensive bonuses are granted to nearby infantry. As the Captain levels up, more and better defensive bonuses are granted to nearby infantry in friendly occupied territory only.

*As your officers level up, it is important to keep them alive. As your officers start taking damage to their health, withdraw them from battle. Once withdrawn, have a Tommy squad build a casualty clearing station. For 40 munitions, you can heal your units for a period of time and you can keep your officers alive. If the casualty clearing station happens to be close to battle, the medics from the station will scavenge for injured soldiers and you could get some free/zombie Tommy squads.

* Your officers also provide speed boosts to infantry moving through neutral and enemy territory. All British infantry except the recon squads and the commandos have movement penalties (move slower) through neutral and enemy territory.

*The British Command tank is the veterancy armor unit for the British. It gains veterency when nearby vehicles kill enemy units in battle. The Command tank is not designed to engage enemy armor, it just provides bonuses to nearby vehicles when in battle. Supposedly at full veterency the Command tank will increase the Sherman Firefly's fire rate by 40%.

I hope these tips along with the book Rafter provided helps.