Profile of James Hale

I asked Peter about this on Steam earlier and he said there are 'some complexities' but didn't rule it out.

Of the CE commanders, this is the only change I'd make, though. It's not about reshuffling the abilities for my own liking, it's just about making these two unique as they share the highest number of abilities of any two commanders. It also has the added bonus of giving the Soviets another commander with an IS-2 in, so it's a bit more equal with the Tiger.

I'll try and get an answer from someone in the know.

I know it has a KV-8... that's why I changed it to an IS-2.

Okay, so, I think the old CE commanders are generally pretty good as re-jumbled vanilla abilities go, but I've never been happy with these two in particular.

Why?

Because I dislike the fact that they share three of their five abilities, something which no other commander does. (I'm discounting the ToW commanders that were later added to MP, as that was clearly an afterthought).

IMO the AI guy is fine; I like his mix of abilities, and it does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Terror, however, I am less convinced by. It feels a bit clunky, and is only half a doctrine away (so to speak) from AI. It's lazy, and thus disappointing.

What about this as a revised version?

Terror Tactics (just as a recap)

1 CP: Shock Troops
6 CP: Fear Propaganda Artillery
7 CP: ML-20 152mm Howitzer
9 CP: KV-8 Flamethrower Tank
12 CP: IL-2 Precision Bombing Strike

Anti-Infantry Tactics (revised)

1 CP: Shock Troops
4 CP: Recon Flight
6 CP: Fear Propaganda Artillery
6 CP: Incendiary Artillery
9 CP: IS-2 Heavy Tank*

* currently KV-8 Flamethrower Tank

Just as a point of discussion, really. Sadly I doubt Relic will ever change any of these paid commanders as I suppose in theory, if people were unhappy with the changes they could request a refund. I dunno how editing DLC stuff works in that regard.

Anyway, thoughts?

EDIT: Made the intended change a bit clearer.
EDIT2: Switched the change to be for the AI commander instead, after feedback on the KV-8 being perceived as a terror weapon, which is a very fair point.

I love these ideas about having a Soviet squad armed with just sticks. I'd want to go back in time and see the Russian Rage Reviews (TM) after the game was released and see footage of unarmed squads being thrown at MG-42s in MP games whilst Conscripts flank them.

I hope the consistently negative feedback to the TA will be enough for the devs to admit defeat on this one and change it to a vanilla vet 3 Tiger.