Profile of thedarkarmadillo

Commander have a lot to do with faction design since they influence the performance of core units directly or fill blank spots in core roster. So they have to be looked at when you are balancing the core game.

Take the UKF Emplacement commander for instance. It directly influences the performance of emplacements and makes core emplacements hard to balance as a result. There are multiple examples of commanders that give abilities or additional weapons to core units.

If we have a look at the two mentioned commanders:

Mechanized Support Tactics
Guards
AT-Gun Ambush
Mark Vehicle
IL2-Precision Strike
ISU-152

-> Fills spot of elite infantry and super heavy AI unit. In addition you get a passive ability and two very good munition depended abilities, which give soviet a way to spend their munition in another way than spamming mines. Great designed commander which influences the core of how soviet is played.


Royal Artillery Regiment
Early Warning
Concentration Barrage
Valentine
Sexton
Perimeter Overwatch

-> Good abilities on first glance but a horrible designed commander in the whole. Why? Valentine comes far too late in 3vs3 and 4vs4 to have a real combat value other than calling down the Concentration Barrage for munition. But even more disturbing is the fact that pretty all commander abilities are munition depended (including Valentine somehow) while UKF is pretty low on munition generally (IS upgrades + Brens + grenades/mines + heavy sappers and so on...). There you have a further context between balance of core design and commander design.


So while Mechanized Support Tactics adds a lot of interesting doctrinal stuff that can be used and removes some blank spots, Royal Artillery Regiment is solely about indirect fire in such a bad overburdened design that you can never use all the commander abilities to full effect.

You are missing my meaning entirely.
Commanders are optional. As such they have no direct weight on the faction balance. They can easily not be brought or not be owned whilst the faction core is ever present. The core faction needs to work regardless of what commander.
Brits need work and while that work is done commanders shouldn't even be considered in the process as they can be tuned separately and individually as needed without impacting anything but themselves

even discounting the barrage, given the 6 man crew the AT performance is more than in line with its cost. it isnt THAT much lower in terms of output than its contemporaries

For the record, you don't need to flank with sturms to beat tommies. Sturms will win attacking across no cover into tommies sitting in green cover ever since their damage was reduced from 16 to 12. I tested it about 20 times (not the BEST sample size but it was tedious enough and reliable enough for me) unless 2 Sturm models drop before they get to point blank tommies will lose. Across no cover at all, in a head long charge in the "defensive infantry" with no utility in green cover.

I'd like to see something like:
Bolster not global
Choice between bolster/medic/pyro
EACH take a slobuff Bren slightly

This means there are effectively 4 versions of core Tommy to chose from, each with their own "niche" durability, healing, scouting/smoke/arty support or firepower

Look at giving unupgraded tommies a snare when nades are teched giving more CHOICE to the player.

Emplacements redesigned to have most functionality locked behind being garrisoned but cost and upkeep reduced dramatically to compensate. Furthermore, health slashed but with a damage reduction modifier WHEN GARRISONED that makes them more durable

This means garrisons are strong prepared positions but not no micro cancer. If abandoned they are easy to destroy.

Exclusivity of bofors and AEC removed as both are fairly important parts of the lineup-AA at the cost of the centaur is too expensive (ost at least has pintles and the 222 as AA so they don't have to shell out for ostwind)
Bofors as part of rework does not engage ground targets unless garrisoned.

Something else fitting of the hammer/anvil style in place of aec/ Bofors tech slots
Suggestioms include:
H- cheaper stock infantry abilities and weapon rack weapons
A- faster cover build/ maybe improved trenches?

H-remove cover bonus mechanic
A-double down with increased bonuses and penalties.

Something in line and provide interesting choice to tune to playstyles

Mortar pit-only 1 mortar fires unless garrisoned. Pyro sections can call in a mortar barrage without smoke with no range requirements if mortar pit is up

Garrisoned pits fire both mortars in both auto fire and barrages.

17lb is probably fine given the whole 2 times Ive seen it since Brit release...

AEC still requires a path to be chosen to unlock (for timing purposes) but teching up does not. Bofors TBD if this is necessary given the changes to it

The rest of the faction really inst awful. Sappers changes could also be applied with stage 1 hammer/ anvil changes. Something like better target size with hammer or faster build times with anvil or a proper demo charge or something like that.

I'd like to see the comet and churchill limited to 1 at a time as well and buffed slightly, especially in pop cap to compensate so the cromwell sees more sunlight and help clean up team games a bit.

Oorah! - 15 munitions, 10s duration
Tactical Movement - 40 munitions, 20s duration
Cover to Cover - 60 munitions, 20s duration

Tactical Movement is a pretty weak ability in my mind. Mass sprinting just isn't really useful to most factions, but especially Ostheer. I usually only care about a single squad getting in range to throw the snare or beating a squad to a house. It doesn't really help chase down fleeing squads, and rapidly closing distance isn't beneficial to a long range focused faction.

Cover to Cover works because it provides smoke cover and the faction is based on closing and maneuvering. Oorah works because it only affects a single squad that benefits from snaring and flanking. Tactical Movement..doesn't really gel with the faction at all.

hmm i guess i was thinking of the molitov cost instead of oorah.
at any rate, for 40 mu the ability isnt really bad., i dont use it offensivly though, i usually use it to recover from a route since ost doesnt have a forward retreat. not to close the distance, but to minimise your enemy advantage, or exploit a breakthrough in a team game. its niche, i wont deny that, but i dont think that for its cost it really aught to be more frankly... maybe a bit longer but in the end, its around the cost of a grenade. its more than anything a result of power creep, but if it was to be chanmged, as i said earlier, IT having the fire on the move sprint wouldnt be terrible because its ost. part of the reason the fire on the move for OKW is so strong is becasue its okw... on brits, ost or sov (assuming no shocks) the ability wouldnt be near as strong. USF it would be nastier than on okw...