Hello everybody, I've been away for a while due to both real life and my main system hard drive having an major failure but for those concerned about updates to my mod, I was able to recover most files so that's still coming.
Either way I just wanted to give my overall opinions on the update and the possible BGs that we might see in the future.
First off, this DLC was largely unexpected and I think I'm with the majority in saying that when I hear the word "Expansion" I think of more factions, units, single player campaigns, etc... So while new content is, as always, greatly appreciated, I believe that 2 "new" Battlegroups which had most of their content already hidden in the game and some cosmetics are a bit unjustified for the price that was asked from those of us who bought the Premium Edition and is still being asked at around 20 dollars. I'm not really counting the British Sea and Air BG for the Italian campaign as I'm mostly a tank player and for the record I am very much against Pay 2 Win, however for that price I think most of us expected a new faction such as an Italian Army for example which made the most sense to me, not content that can be unlocked by just normally playing the game.
Anyway moving on, going back to GachiGasm's post about the leaked BGs (
https://www.coh2.org/topic/108904/coh3-file-digging/post/872463) from what I understand the Coastal Defense, Defense and Italian Artillery were combined into what now became the Italian Coastal with the Coastal Reserve infantry, Artillery Officer and Obice da 210/22 artillery emplacement along with the bunkers taken from all 3, leaving us with just the Recovery Halftrack, Nashorn and Gebirsjägers which are referenced in the files as new units for potential future BGs for the Wehrmacht. Oh and of course the rest of the Italian units already present for DAK.
Then we have the US Advanced Infantry Battlegroup which looks to just be an improved version of the original CoH Infantry Company with more focus on the Rangers and the inclusion of the M2A1 105mm Howitzer in the multiplayer which was only previously available in the single player Italian campaign. That leaves us with just the Light Mechanized BG which features the Command Halftrack which has a working model in the game and both the M20 and M3 Lee which both have references in the files I believe. However the Priest comes as a surprise here since it's not mentioned anywhere but it would still be a welcomed addition in my opinion since the US look like they need more Artillery options.
Lastly we come to the Brits who I expected to see receive at least one of their 2 confirmed but still unreleased Australian and Canadian battlegroups, each respectively with their own national themed infantry as well as the 2 pounder AT gun for the Aussies and Churchill Croc for the Canucks. There's also mention of the Marmon-Herrington Armoured Car but I see no references in the files for it and from what I know it never really saw action, at least major such.
DAK seems largely left out for some reason in terms of leaked new content, there's only a 253 Halftrack model and mortar team in the files for them. However I think a Fallschirmjäger themed Battlegroup inspired by the Ramcke Brigade since we already have the falls models for the Wehrmacht which would probably only really require light re-skinning to get right and it could feature the previously mentioned GrW 34 mortar team as well as probably the Wehr mobile flak AA gun. I don't see the problem with a bit of overlap since that's already present in other BGs either way and there's probably other combinations that can be made for some unique new content with stuff that's already present but not utilized in the game.
This is generally it, I just wanted to share my 2 cents like I said. Mostly talking from a modder's perspective I'm overall happy with the new content that we can play around with but I'm still hoping for more in the future and also of course improvements to the modding tools as well since with what's already present on the workshop it's obvious a lot of people are playing the game with custom content and enjoying it so further expansion on that would most likely also mean more sales for people looking for said custom content.