WiC Training for Covenant

[Hawkwings]

On domination maps, one of the things you should definitely do is the airstrike to quick capture points. Drop three light tanks (or humvees if you really have to) into enemy-controlled points, then queue up a double (or triple) airstrike TA. Place the airstrikes over the CPs, and time them to that your tanks arrive about a second later. This works great for those points deep in enemy territory that are fortified but not well guarded. With any luck, you will quickly capture the point, and may even get a couple fortifications in. But the real benefit is making the enemy work to capture that point again, which can make the other team break off an attack, or give you time to organize one of your own.

Other tips:
As armor or support with heavy AA, ripple-fire your smokescreens when faced with lots of heavy choppers so that they cover your cluster of units for longer. Of course, watch out for the inevitable TA strike on your smoked units.

Maneuver your tanks to surround the enemy. And don't get surrounded by enemy tanks.

Armor, support, and air traveling together in a big mob will crush anything, but watch out for TA. Which leads to...

A triple heavy arty barrage is amazing, and will kill pretty much anything in the area. Use it to break big masses of units. Alternatively, you can use the Heavy Air Support TA, which is my favorite TA in the game. The real benefit to the heavy air support is that it lasts for a while, so units moving into the area will get his as well.

Nukes. They're pretty, but the only real uses for them are: endgame humiliation, breaking assaults, and capturing points. If you use a nuke, make sure to airdrop in units right before you nuke, so that they will arrive shortly after the nuke goes off, and capture the points. And don't underestimate the nuke as a last-ditch hail mary comeback creator. I've had a couple games where a critical nuke wiped out pretty much their entire force on the map, cleared CPs, and led us to victory.

[Stark]

Nukes aren't terrible, but 'nuke focus' or 'nuke hoarding' is fucking retarded. Every time someone drops a nuke at 10s to go, that's 80TA the little shit didn't use to ACTUALLY HELP THE TEAM WIN.

Timing TA in the way Hawkwings describes can instantly turn a map around. I once saw a team drop triple carpet bombs over three points, with airdrops so well-timed they actually landed in the smoke from the explosions and by the time it cleared they'd just captured 60% of the map. Amazing.

[Dominus Atheos]

I just bought the game, is there any SDN group or anything I can join?

[Stark]

There's a defunct SDN clan, but real men don't roll with clans!!! IT GIVES YOUR TEAM STACKING AWAY

There's Losonti, Mr Coffee, Covenant, JSF, myself, and Alan Bolte (Compellor) and several others that are still playing. Post your Massgate ID and we'll add you?

Shit I should add Covenant too.

[Dominus Atheos]

Dratheos

[Stark]

You're not showing up on Massgate user searches yet. Don't worry.

We'll find you.

[Phantasee]

You're not showing up on Massgate user searches yet. Don't worry.

We'll find you.

Dominus, RUN! THEY'RE COMING FOR YO

[Losonti Tokash]

phant that's almost as retarded as that candlejack bullshit

i mean they always interrupt themselves in the next li

[Losonti Tokash]

highlight of tonight:

1a) dude calls in carpet bombing on the interstate bridge after we've captured it, killing his entire team
1b) dude spams with sorry for a few minutes

2) guy with nothing but snipers who never leaves the rear staging area

3) neither of these dudes got kicked for their bullshit, in fact no one was until i called heavy air support on a heavily contested chokepoint and killed the entire enemy force

apparently only noobs save the team from defeat?

[Covenant]

By the way, my massgate name for WiC is "Liberty Prime." I'm not on much yet, I had a real busy weekend, but I've got 26 games under my belt and I don't suck. It's all that CoH I've done, I'm sure, which has given me a slightly increased paranoia about open-field engagement versus anything while I'm infantry. But the fact that tanks are man-smashing bubbles of death is a bit new. Is that realistic? I'd never really heard much about real-life infantryman being run down by tanks. I know it's theoretically possible, it just seemed a little unusual.

[Havok]

Are FANPIRES susceptible to tanks?

[Covenant]

Are FANPIRES susceptible to tanks?

Why do you hate everything I love.

[Vympel]

Moved to G&C. Might be worth keeping here. See how we go.

[Hawkwings]

Well, maybe the "running infantry over" mechanic is supposed to simulate the coaxial machinegun hosing them down at point-blank range?

Yeah...

Anyways, playing infantry in open ground requires quite a bit of micro, but it can be done. Just have to move your squads individually and take advantage of WiC's tank movement funnyness. And hey, if you've got heavy infantry running around, those tanks won't last too long at all. Just watch out for light arty TA.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Well, maybe the "running infantry over" mechanic is supposed to simulate the coaxial machinegun hosing them down at point-blank range?

Yeah...

Anyways, playing infantry in open ground requires quite a bit of micro, but it can be done. Just have to move your squads individually and take advantage of WiC's tank movement funnyness. And hey, if you've got heavy infantry running around, those tanks won't last too long at all. Just watch out for light arty TA.

Fuck that man, I run infantry over all day in my tanks. Charge formation using force move, pop smoke as you approach to break their aim, run over, pop smoke again as you roll out.

[Stark]

Yeah, so long as you save a smoke charge for the move away, you'll throw off most of the surviving AT guys. Then you just turn around and do it again; 4000pts of units killed, 20TA, huzzah.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Yeah, so long as you save a smoke charge for the move away, you'll throw off most of the surviving AT guys. Then you just turn around and do it again; 4000pts of units killed, 20TA, huzzah.

50 Gustavs to the rear armour may be bad.

[Hawkwings]

Another thing I remembered after playing today:

rank <> skill

There are some massively stupid four-star players out there, and really good "enlisted". Of course, the higher rank a person has, the more likely the are to be good. But don't count on it.

Also: if the other infantry guy has 4000 points of AT infantry bunched together there for you to run over, and you have enough smoke to carry out that plan of yours, this is called having a bad opposing team.

Another point: my most feared opponent is a good USA artillery player. Oh god, it can be horrible. And before you say "lolz kill w/choppas!" I'm talking about a GOOD artillery player on a decent team. If your choppers are tied up and the arty guy is moving around to not be found, a nuisance quickly turns into a game-changer.

Oh, and USSR arty sucks.

[Stark]

Don't be retarded. A battle never goes by as armour where I don't run down heaps of infantry; while only idiots move their infantry as blobs, 90% of WiC players are idiots. Turns out when you're well behind the lines raping a spawn, people don't expect to be run over 2s after they become vulnerable. Clearly, tanks are a super-unit because they allow you to win in coordination with others and once the initiative has passed to your team.

Frankly, saying 'xyz unit is super-effective if team is good' is totally useless. Utterly, totally useless. In a good team, regular infantry can win the battle for you, nobody calls that a super-unit. Wow, heavy arty + effective frontline control + defensive micro + air defence in depth + holding enemy in place = awesome? Wow, it must be because artillery is so good, and not any of those other elements.

[JointStrikeFighter]

The USSR medium arty is way better than the nato or US one anyway.

[Covenant]

Infantry are a bit of a pain to move around open terrain, but there's not much to be done about that. Moving them inside trucks is just asking for the trucks to get fragged even faster than the infantry division. It's suprising that infantry can't move more stealthily than they do, but blob or not, getting them through open terrain is really going to end in tears. Using trucks is just not an option most of the time, and while I'd like to be able to justify using a chopper to move them around, I generally can't find the cost worth the effort. It's really pretty obvious that the solution to getting run over by tanks is to move your infantry through dangerous territory in formation with tanks, and if that is too costly, to deploy your some infantry defensively in a safe enough area and take the heat off your co-commanders until they can afford to send tanks and air that way.

It would be kinda fun if my infantry squads had a few more mobilty options that were affordable, and maybe some self-support options, like a mortar team or low-end field artillery. I do understand how each squad-type gets it's own slice of the pie, but in a way if I had to design WiC2 I'd include a few more units that synergize with what you specialize in. I'm going to do some experiments with purchasing air transports for my troops, but it's expensive to do. It's admirable for them to try to make the Infantry/Air/Armor/Support teams all co-dependant by making it cheaper for airforce to transport the infantry than for the infantry to transport themselves, but I feel the division is most prominent in focus and not in deployment. The airforce is primarily tank killing and rapid response, from what I've seen. Their AA ability is weak and erasing unescorted infantry on the move is a simple task for anyone. Making the airforce guy give up some ability to complete his main directive just to help the infantry guy would be good teamwork, but unnecessary and very hard to manage, since now he needs to be aware of multiple people's concerns instead of just focusing on his one part of the battle.

It's not that this is too much to ask, just that it seems unnecessary, given that everyone is already co-dependant. Infantry, even if mobile, can't escort transports or take terrain all that well. Armor, even if they were able to field some slightly more reliable anti-air and repair, can't defend territory as well as infantry and can't quickly respond. And so forth. Regardless though, it's only a minor issue, so long as people work together.

[Stark]

Cog, if you set infantry to hold fire teyre invisible in cover. They reveal themselves when they fire.

[CaptHawkeye]

Another thing Cov? Never cap points with infantry squads. You just make them stupid easy targets for precision artillery strikes. This is the reason you should be using trucks. Bring your infantry to a nearby forest, dump them in there, and then park your trucks on the caps. Trucks are dirt cheap, get you virtually free TA while your enemy pointlessly wastes his.

Remember that Riflemen are really good at AA. If you're strolling around in some trucks and you get jumped by choppers, pile everybody out all at once. It's nice hardy "SURPRISE MOTHER FUCKERS!" to em.

Snipers kill other infantry like mad. I've killed entire groups of infantry with two snipers and they can shoot at enemies from waaaaaay far away. The best weapon to use against infantry in the game is ironically only available to infantry. Anti Tank soldiers rape armour but are useless against anything else. Occasionally i'll spawn all AT squads but only if the other team insists on Tank spam.

If you're heading for cover as infantry? Don't follow a straight path. Aim for a treeline, runs towards it for a few seconds...then go for some other treeline. Guaranteed they're about to napalm the trees you were going for. I've watched people dump tons of TA on treelines they thought I was going into when my infantry were just sitting in the open field or in an opposite treeline watching the fireworks.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Sorry to necro this thread, but I just wanted to let the participants know that I just bought this game and this thread has given me a lot of good tips.

If anyone wants to add my, my Massgate is FADM JD