And that's where we're just going to disagree.
Some more variety with units that are only one human decision to ship away from seeing combat is fine.
BP is not a fantasy. The Ratte is a fantasy. The BP is a real bit of kit available from January 45 that just never got moved to the frontline.
But it wasn't available, that's the point. They were prototypes that never saw combat because of more than just "one human decision". The design wasn't close to being viable in 1945, with the main problem being that it was considered almost uselessly slow, and their role was entirely usurped by the superior design of the Comet, which basically obviated the BP, and the Churchill line entirely.
Variety for the sake of variety isnt a virtue, especially if you have to start dredging unfinished prototypes for some unexplainable reason.
The BP isnt analogous to the Ratte. It's Analogous to the Maus, which should not appear for exactly the same reason as the BP.
But it could have been.
But it wasn't, and the British went with tanks in the style of the Comet instead. Plenty of things "could have been", and weren't, and there's seriously no reason to include them in a CoH game, since CoH is distinctly /not/ an Alt-history series.
The challenger is a medium, and would not fit the heavy lumbering aesthetic they have clearly gone for specifically with the Armour Company.
This aesthetic would be fit just as well as with the Comet. A commander that needs a "fast" 17 pounder tank would then have the Challenger. How many commanders really need slightly distinct 17 pounder tanks?
The 75mm would cause all matter of wehraboo whining if it was given the same punch as a 17pdr would about how the gun is overpreforming.
What? How have you come to that conclusion? Anyone who's arguing that Aesthetics should come before functionality is not someone who should be commenting on balance. This is a bit of a strawman argument. I don't know why people keep inventing these magical "Wehraboos" who exist to support any any all arguments.
A 75mm churchill overperforming would be more believable than a BP being magicked into being a workable tank and appearing in Italy.
And not all of them need to end in a 17pdr. But they should all end with something. Asymmetry in basic toolkit is bloody awful for the balance and was the cause of years of overhauls and balance issues in CoH2.
Then how many DO need to end in a 17-pounder? Just one? If so: Just use the Comet. If two? Then the Comet and Challenger. If you have two commanders who both need heavy tanks with 17 pounders for some reason, I'd both ask WHY this is the case, and why you need to have two slightly different heavy tanks with 17 pounders for these two commanders.
I assume (and we need to wait for it to be out of pre alpha to see) that the list will include the BP, maybe the Crocodile, the Comet. All three of which we know to have existing models.
Royal Artillery has a larger than usual field gun instead, so it's not all heavy tanks, but it is all late game units.
I'm not seeing "well we don't KNOW that the game doesn't ALSO have the Comet, Croc, AVRE, etc, so we might totally 'need' the BP!" as a really convincing argument. There's nothing that currently justifies using the BP when the Comet exists as an actually used alternative.
Theres also absolutely nothing supporting the idea that there are going to be a million billion commanders that all have totally unique rosters, either, so I'm not sure why you're floating that as a possibility. We don't yet even know how the "commander" system will function in the final version of CoH2.
Not recycling the same vehicle a dozen times over in marginally different commanders to pad the roster is not good game design.
Right, but you're the one suggesting that there are going to be a "dozen" commanders that must have a 17-pounder equipped heavy tank in them.