| Why UKF is the worst faction in the game (fact, not opinion) Posted: 05 Jan 2020 03:38 PM PST The reason I call it a fact is that almost nobody plays them in tournaments. Finals never feature them. Russians and US all the way. I often wondered why and then I realised: they are a weak faction. The fact that pros don't use them is clear evidence to this. If you got 4 digit money to win, you'll use whatever is most effective and that is evidently not UKF. You cannot debate this, until I see the best players use them in high-pressure situations I will remain unconvinced, no matter how many downvotes I get. (bring it!) To clarify: That's not to say NOBODY EVER played them in a tournament, but they are rare and aren't used by the best players in challenging games. This is where the facts end. From here on it's my speculation about 'why' they suck so much. I could be wrong about any or all of these The rough summary is that they are one-sided, passive and have glaring weaknesses that can only be covered by doctrinal units, and you can't cover all of them. First, let's see what's good about the Brits: Infantry bonus in cover. Ok, that's good. If there's a relaxing country 1v1 shootout between a group of Tommies and grenadiers IN GOOD COVER, my Tommies will win. Great. Good AT gun. I'm not gonna lie, that thing is a beast. Sherman Firefly. Nuff said. Don't have to use engies to build the base, however, this is also true for the US and they suck far less (evidenced by the fact that they are the 2nd most popular choice after the Russians and people actually DO play them). Now let's look at what is supposedly good about the UKF, but isn't: Good on the defence. So good in fact, they reaaaally don't like attacking at all. We will see later why. This is their Achilles heel. If you need to attack, you are boned. You must take control of the game early and never, ever lose ground or you won't get it back. (being somewhat hyperbolic here, but still true). Sitting around in a defensive position just doesn't work, you must maintain a mobile force that can react to any situation. Good emplacements...which will get bombarded by artillery. 'Oh, just go take out the artillery'. But how are you going to do that if you are playing a defensive faction that just invested into even more defences? By sheer numbers alone, the enemy must have more stuff than you. Even if you weren't terrible outside of your comfy defences, it still wouldn't work if the enemy player was competent. And now, let's look at the bad stuff...fvck, where do I even begin?: No grenades without special research. You can't just toss a fire nade into a house or onto an MG in the first 2-3 minutes. The weakest artillery in the game. Not a single mobile arty that's not doctrinal. Base HQ arty is weak, expensive and awkward to use because you have to get a soldier close enough to toss the flare (plus equip them with it). Good luck getting that flare on top of that PAK 88 or on anything you'd actually want gone that isn't the very first machine gun you ran into. Mortar pits suck, because they aren't going anywhere and because they aren't going anywhere they will die. Anything else requires a doctrine. Poor selection of smoke. Armoured Car can puff a little, but that won't help you in attacking a defensible position (because they get knocked out instantly should they attempt to lead the charge and you just used their only means of escape.). Cromwell can fire a smoke shell, but again, that's not enough to attack a strong position. Churchill can fart smoke, but that's a huge investment and the Churchill sux a massive one. Mortar pits can fire smoke that's actually useful, but we already talked about those things (they suck, they get nuked, they don't work). No reliable way to deal with machine guns super early. The fastest non-doctrinal unit that can actually dislodge an MG is a universal carrier with a flamethrower, but that requires T2, a UC, and a flamethrower installment and even then you'll take a lot of damage before you force the retreat. It was also a huge investment that is about to die to a halftrack, a luchs, a sneaky raketenwerfer, panzershrek, faust spam, etc. So whatever value you got from it will swing right back. No way to deal with 2 sturmpios headed for your cut-off early, unless you know for 100% they will do it and have all of your units nearby to repel them. Very few ways to deal with Sturmpioneers and Ass Grens in general. They just run at you and your dudes die. They can even force the UC to back away and the UC itself won't do jack shit to them. If you really did do your best to set them up in nice green cover, the Huns will just take the initiative and attack from a different angle. Speaking of which... Concedes initiative to the Germans. In general, you're always reacting to what Fritz is doing and not the other way around. They are agile and fast, you are clumsy and slow. As we established, their artillery is also better, so they can force you to play the maneuver game, which you will lose. Trash early and trash late. There's so many things the Germans can do to you early and by the time you counter it you lost map control. Now you need to attack. You're bad at that. And if the game drags out til late, especially in a 3v3 or 4v4 game you are boned because... Your tanks suck ass. Cromwell loses 1v1 to any German medium. I don't care if it costs like 20 fuel less, both will arrive around the same time and I'm the one with the weak tank. Firefly is only good vs tanks, completely defenceless vs infantry. Comet and Churchill are both memes, Comet is just a fat armored car and the Churchill is a joke. Be honest with me Axis players, when was the last time you said 'oh shit, a Churchill'? IT HAS THE SAME TRASH GUN THE CROMWELL HAD THAT WAS ALREADY INADEQUATE FOR A MEDIUM!!! On an expensive, T4 heavy tank. Yeah right. Your only mobile anti-air is also a tank... Go ahead, invest into it, I dare you. See what happens. Not exactly a huge deal, but a downside none the less. Slow-firing sniper. I don't care if it can do a little damage to a halftrack, I want it to be better at what it was supposed to be for: manpower bleed. Kill more dudes. If I want to kill tanks I'll get a specialist tool for that...oh wait Trash infantry-held anti-tank options. You can't just faust stuff early and shreks are much stronger in the mid game than that lame-ass piat. Engineer AT nade comes out later and with a shorter range than the faust. The aforementioned sniper does little damage and can't do shit to even a luchs or a PZ4 (especially not without veterancy, WHICH HE GAINS SLOWLY BECAUSE HE KILLS SLOWLY). Thus, your infantry needs to constantly be babysat by something that can kill the tanks because they won't do anything to them on their own. German infantry is a lot more self-sufficient. Poor selection of infantry-held automatic weapons. Bren guns are good, but not as good as German MGs. No spicy guns, not even for your own doctrinal paratroopers (gammon bomb is sweeet tho). Reliance on medkits means sometimes you just can't heal some guys, because there just so happens not to be a medkit-carrier around (remember, at least one of your Tommies must take those stupid flares) and you can't just drive up with a medical truck or run back home to your T2 that autoheals. You'll rarely benefit from the mobility of the medkit, because you either attacked and got repelled (R), or you attacked and somehow succeeded, in which case you will (R) after you capped the point. Either way, you might as well have the hospital at home, because that's where your units will actually be able to heal each other reliably. I'm sure there's more that I missed, but this essay is already long enough and will probably be downvoted into oblivion, because I dared to call the king naked. As I said, my reasons may not be perfect or even sound, but seeing the rarity of UKF in tournaments has to mean something and I can't see what else it could mean other than they SUCK. At least against competent players who can exploit their glaring weaknesses. submitted by /u/Vajrajina [link] [comments] |
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