WiC Training for Covenant

[Stark]

Cov has started using his WiC key (thanks Zak) and I figure he can use a crash course in what works, and what doesn't. We'll start with the basics.

- infantry exposed is doomed to be run over, blown up or machinegunned
- infantry cunningly moved out of cover can annihilate any unit in the game through rear hits
- infantry killed by TA is draining the enemy team's TA for little benefit

- heavy armour is used for rear penetration raids where the HEAT is used on light targets. HEAT does fuck-all damage against anything armoured, even light tanks, and should be saved for HAA
- don't engage tanks with tanks if you can avoid it. use HEAT to kill HAA so choppers can kill enemy tanks much faster than you can, and break through lines to get at the light support units
- medium armour's anti-infantry attack sucks, but it's main gun is nearly as good as that of a heavy, they just die faster. If the enemy isn't using heavy armour, mediums are fine
- lights are useless for anything other than forifying and scaring away HAA

- as air, swarming is critical; either get seven mediums or five heavies. a scout placed well can provide heaps of spotting, but in pub games this isn't too helpful. Never buy air transports because nobody will ever use them.
- as heavies, set your units to not fire so you can save your rockets. force fire on ground to use rockets against infantry squads.

I'm rubbish with support so I can't help with that. WiC players of the world, EDUCATE HIM!

[Nephtys]

Covie, you're going to probably want to do the SP at least to get a feel for how the game works.

If you're running air, always keep moving. The instant the Air-Air TA plane flies by and misses your choppers, you'll be grateful.

Use the right TA for the right job. Heavy arty, while awesome, isn't the most economical solution. the 'superweapon' TA (chem attack, nuke) aren't worth it really over normal ones. Oh, and learn to love tankbuster to wipe out those annoying HAA.

Put AT Troopers into buildings if you've got nothing else for them to do. This isn't CoH, where most buildings are also known as useless deathtraps.

[Stark]

Oh yeah good call; choppers can eventually kill anything that isn't AA, but you'll want to move them in a wide circle around the target to remain in range and firing, but not staying still to get hit my the a2a strike. By the same token your speed should put you in the attitude of a roving troubleshooter - always try to be where needed, since you have so much agility, and don't get stuck 'covering' one player when everyone else needs your support.

TA costing is a thing for experience, and remember that cheaper ones often have very long cooldowns afterward - I often use triple AT-strikes to level a street full of infantry (running the strike down the rows of buildings takes most civilian stuctures out) but then there's a 20-30s wait before I can use it again.

A triple carpet bomb is FAR more effective than a nuke, and nukes are really pretty rubbish for the 80TA. The 'air support' TA gives you like, 15s of constant planes swooping by firing AT and AA missiles, so a triple of this can deny an area for some time and allow a breakthrough.

With napalm you'll need to come up with a cunning pattern to prevent erratic infantry movements avoiding it due to it's long lead time (and likewise your infantry should always be expecting napalm to be coming in) and remember - napalm doesn't hurt guys in buildings, even if you can see the little men standing on the roof. I prefer the triple-naplam MARK OF ZORRO for when you absolutely have to take out some grubs!

Oh and USE THE FUCKING Q MENU.

[Alan Bolte]

The point of the nuke is to drop it on an enemy-held command point - in addition to killing everything on there, it will neutralize the command point, and irradiate it, so that if they try to take it back and fortify their units will take damage. It is thus most useful on a command point near the enemy's deployment zone. Also, some games will give you enormous amounts of TA points - there's not much better to do with them than to get a triple nuke, drop one on a force concentration, drop the next on the deployment zone when they respawn 20-30 seconds later, then drop the last on the deployment zone again for the next respawn.

As for support, don't underestimate the usefulness of the repair vehicle. I see so many guys go out there with all-AA, or the newbs with their multiple arty. Keeping your buddies fixed up, especially helicopters, is incredibly useful because it allows them to survive long enough to gain experience. Experienced units are much deadlier - shorter ability cooldowns are the most noticeable change. Also, fortifications are important on assault map, so if you're defending, repair tanks can keep the fortifications alive for much longer, except against TA or helicopters. Of course, helicopters are why you have HAA with you. MAA isn't very good, I mostly use it for fortifying command points. Its biggest weakness is lack of smoke launchers - a smart air player can easily kill it from range, and of course smoke is your only defense against armor. I find MAA is more useful in urban environments where it can hide behind buidings, surprising the choppers that pass over with point-blank fire. HAA is just as good for that, though. Also, never go charging toward the enemy as support. It's just stupid, the choppers will pull back and out run you, and then the tanks will destroy you. Your main objective as support is to stay close behind an armor player. If the armor player goes charging into a nest of infantry, though, I recommend hanging back and asking the armor player to kill the inf or go around. He can survive running past heavy inf, but you can't. If there are a lot of trees on the map, and the enemy has good infantry, you might consider bringing a single medium arty along - its special ability burns down a small patch of forest, exposing and killing enemy infantry. It also gives you something to do if the tanks have to stop for something.

I can't believe I typed this much for testing.

[Uraniun235]

- infantry killed by TA is draining the enemy team's TA for little benefit

I'm not clear on that, does that mean that even if your infantry is killed by TA, it's okay because those are TA the enemy had to spend?

[Samuel]

- infantry killed by TA is draining the enemy team's TA for little benefit

I'm not clear on that, does that mean that even if your infantry is killed by TA, it's okay because those are TA the enemy had to spend?

Yes. It is like giving up a rook to kill a pawn.

[Companion Cube]

the triple-napalm MARK OF ZORRO

I can't believe I never thought of this

[Alan Bolte]

A single infantry unit is usually a waste of TA. Killing 2000 pts of infantry with a single light arty drop is not a waste. Inf newbs on assault maps are amusing.

[Stark]

If light arty kills you, you're retarded. You'll lose maybe 1-2 figures per squad before you escape the area, which is still good for 5TA, but you seldom see that - people try airstrikes, miss with naplam (often aligning it the wrong fucking way) even precision arty and FAEs. It's hilarious how much TA a single erratic squad can soak up, especially once you figure int he double-ups you generally get in pub teams (too much TA fired at you = you win).

The gas is also pretty much totally useless since it kills so slowly, but people still use it.

[Alan Bolte]

The only hypothetical situation in which I would use the gas TA would be if there were a cluster of several buildings full of enemy infantry that I would like to instead fill with my infantry. It's never actually happened.

Also, I meant killing 2000 pts out of the 3-4k marching toward you. Or at least scaring off the inf long enough for your armor to get on the command point.

[Stark]

I actually find the slowness of infantry makes it really hard to target them with TA, but I've seen light arty really fuck a clump up. Most people just prefer the more expensive, less appropriate TA, and I get a real smirk out of watching things crash into the wrong clump of trees trying to kill a single sniper or whatever.

I've heard of mythical coordination whereby gas is useful when covered by a smoke round from heavy arty so that nobody can see the green, but never seen it.

[Alan Bolte]

I don't play much anymore, so I tend to just get awful PuGs, where if you have heavy arty, it is undoubtedly smoking the enemy.

[Losonti Tokash]

I've used transport choppers combined with another player's infantry very successfully, but the only way we could get it to work was by literally sitting adjacent to each other so that we could point to shit on our own screen. Only trouble is that you don't get TA for hauling people around so I maybe got like 20 points for an entire game. My friend was rolling in it of course, so it evened out.

[Alan Bolte]

Buying transport choppers for your own infantry is probably the best solution, yeah. They have a very reasonable cost. On the other hand, buying infantry as air probably pointless. I don't think I've ever tried.

[Stark]

Hey Alan I just remembered, you're 'Compellor' on WiC yeah? Coffee and I saw you in a match a couple of days ago.

[Alan Bolte]

Yeah, in the unlikely event that I and someone on my friend list is on at the same time, I try to join them. What's Coffee's nick? For that matter, what's Covenant's?

[Havok]

What is WiC and why haven't you bastards invited me to play?!

[Mr. Coffee]

World in Conflict, Homie. And we'd invite you to play, but you're a dirty Mexican and don't have the game.

[Havok]

[Mr. Coffee]

If you buy the game we might invite you to play and upgrade you from Dirty Mexican to Filthy Guido, homie...

[JointStrikeFighter]

and I already bought cov the game, buy your own!

[Bluewolf]

Will probably get the game myself for Christmas so I should be in the mix soon. I just hope my crappy graphics computer can hhandle multi.

[Losonti Tokash]

Multi is loads easier on my computer than single player. Except for the map with the submarine docks, fuck that level.

[Losonti Tokash]

So now that the thread made me go reinstall WiC, when are we going to go play?

[Alan Bolte]

Whenever you want, I guess. I'm free.