Opinion: Why the British Army Would Never do Well in Company of Heroes Online

As some of you may know, I’ve been spending a lot of time recently playing Company of Heroes Online, one of my favourite strategy games. On the Forums and in the in-game chartrooms I have seen a few people requesting that the British and Panzer Elite Armies from Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts to be included in the free-to-play version at some point.

Now I loved playing as the British in Opposing Fronts, I had some fairly solid defensive tactics that worked pretty good online. In my opinion, the greatest strength of the British was their defensive structures, such as the Vickers and Mortar Emplacements, the 17-Pounder stationary AT Gun and the 25-Pounder Artillery device. If an effective line was created and no flanking was possible then breaking through this line could be virtually impossible.(There was one or two situations I was in where I only had one territory left, but I had so many defensive encampments that my opponent could not break through, and surrendered!)

The British Defensive encampments at their finest

There was one thing that was effective against the defences however and that was Artillery. A smart enemy commander who discovered my tactics would realise this and build up a few Stuka Halftracks or Nebelwerfers, and either destroy or cripple my defences before commencing his assault.

While the V1 Rocket was also able to do this, the Firestorm and Rocket Doctrines would not be as effective due to their limited area of effect and cooldown period. Only using these however could mean the commander could focus all their manpower on men and tanks, which could sometimes be enough to over-run the slightly damaged defence systems.

The Destructive German Nebelwerfer

In Company of Heroes Online however, these can be upgraded to have devastating effects, and the Blitzkrieg Doctrine now has its own Artillery option. These could completely destroy the British Defences, leaving them extremely open.

Now i’m not saying that the Artillery Options for Axis commanders are over-powered, I just feel that they will be able to counter many of the British Strengths easily. I’m sure there are some British Commanders who used to play the army a lot more aggressively than I do, so this may not be as big an issue. But I would love to hear what other people think of this!

Condottieri.