British/Commando unit pool costs are out of wack

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[Smokaz]

I'm basing this on Commando doctrine availablity.

Commandos are 4 to supply - stormtroopers are 3.
- Stormtroopers have more spammy type of builds available to them (triple bundle nade) and don't have a munitions requirement to just have a squad, yet they are cheaper in pool cost?

Firefly is 5(7) out of 12 available armor pop.
- Without the cct or support, a firefly barely defeats a rushing p4 and has a good chance of dying if the p4 has any doctrine buffs. The firefly is more expensive than the p4 yet completely rotten on its own. That puts a firefly-cct combo at 7 armor pool cost. A tiger is 8. The combo ends up being too expensive. Firefly should go down to 4.

Piat commandos are 3 infantry pool.
- Why? These fill exactly the same role as tank busters or grenadiers which are both 2.

Since my regular british support weapons are mostly rotten, I am forced into buying commando support teams even when I dont want them to avoid having to pay pps for oversupplying my company because of the high pool cost of certain units coupled with small pool sizes.

British officers
Here's where it get really crazy. Neither royal engineers or commandos get any significant amount of buffs/abilities that increase the attractiveness of their officers, yet they have to pay out of their ass in supply to give leadership to their mainline infantry, while RCA gets tons of useful stuff for their officers for the same supply cost. The only thing commandos get for their officers is mark target, an ability available on their recon squad and sniper as well.

3 pool cost for officers is just madness, outside of the RCA doctrine. There has to be other ways to balance out the officers other than making him this expensive. Officer stacking was removed yes? So fielding more than 1 officer of either type, other than for the purpose of spreading out leadership to a larger amount of units is pointless. This only hurts people who wishes to have replacement officers available for their infantry and use a intended leadership mechanic for Brits. Also, british officers do not suffer from the annoyingly high offensive capability of the other officers, unless they have picked up weapons.

Lt -> 1 pool cost
Captain -> 2 pool cost

[Mukip]

Yeah Commandos run out of availability way too fast and you don't even have that many squads.  If you take a moderate number of Commandos units, such as 2 Commando squads and 4 Commandos Piats for instance (just six squads), you've just used up 20 of your infantry pool already.  As soon as you add a couple Tommy Squads and officers you are eating into your reserves. 

(PE has the opposite problem, their stuff is so cheap you end up paying pp's just because of the sheer number of units in your company, even if it's fairly balanced in composition.  In addition to Smokaz suggestions, raise the PE infantry or vehicle pool slightly.)

[Mysthalin]

I agree on the suggestions, particularly the Commando one. I'd say rangers and airborne are also worthy of a pool cost decrease.

[CommieKillerz]

As a mando player myself, i completely agree.

I would say lower mando pool cost, and move officers and piat mandos to support.

Why are the officers categorized as infantry and cost 3 pool cost?

[Mysthalin]

They're categorized as infantry to make sure that a huge blob of brens and officers aren't running around destroying everything...
Though, with the officer buffs being forbidden from stacking, I think it would be fair to reduce the pool costs.

[Smokaz]

Thats also a great solution, moving the officers to support. Cause thats exactly what they are normally, support units that dont do any serious damage themselves until they are graciously given a dropped weapon.

ARGUABLY the munitions ht is a weak form of PE infantry officer, and it is sorted in the population cap. What then lies behind making the british infantry officers take up points from the infantry pool?

Piat commandos should stay inf though, why should they be support? Im afraid I dont see the point of that. All other handheld at infantry units take up infantry pool points.

[CrazyWR]

Airborne pool value is 4, Airborne Rifles are 3.  I believe Commandos and Commando Piats are in line with those numbers.  Falls however are 3, as are Storms and KCH.  Rangers are also 4 which I think might be lowered to 3, but thats not for this discussion. I think most of these units should be uniform in their price in the pool...

All officers cost 3 in the infantry pool across the board.  I'm ok with that...otherwise you'd see many Brit RCA players with the following builds: 20000000 tommie squads, mostly with brens, officers supporting the blob, with firefly support and 1 command tank and 1 priest.  Having officers cost 3 pop in infantry limits the amount of possible tommy squads, which IMO is a good thing...nobody wants to see the VCOH Brit Blob.

Also, I don't agree with the Firefly change. Its by far the most effective tank destroyer the allies have, it should be priced as such.  Being able to field 4 Fireflies with a Command Tank for a total of only 18 points in Armor while not having to buy more than 1 fuel bonus to do this would be ridiculous IMO...Those extra 4 points would require more PP or use of the reserve pool, thus theoretically lowering the amount of Tommy Spam to cover them.  As it is, a pair of fireflies covered with 2 bren squads can pretty much take out any pair of tanks that show up and hardly get scratched.  No need to make them more prevalent...

[Smokaz]

I agree with the RCA problem, it was mentioned in the original post and I also think that needs solving if the pool cost is changed. Seeing as how this doctrine gets "canadian" infantry, why not give it "canadian" officers as well? It solves the problem of officer pool cost being too expensive for the other two doctrines.

The firefly has the potential to be the best tank destroyer with support, but on its own its a frail and inefficient unit. You may add all kinds of support for describing how hard it will own with it, but then I too can add all kinds of unit (for population cost) that can beat up the firefly. You add a tommy squad, I add a shrek team flanking the tank. Theory-crafting ftw.

I dont think we should excuse poor pool pricing of the officers with tommies being good, if tommies are too good its a issue that needs to be dealt with on its own.

[Sharpshooter824]

Tommies are 5 less manpower then grens, i think they are fine how they are, and they really fail without a LT or brens..unless they have doc buffs

[bbsmith]

Tommies are 5 less manpower then grens,

Grens cost 240 and Tommies cost 255?

[puddin]

Commando Piats are 3 pp or a 3 man unit... 

They barly survive... I just got a mortor round that hit NEAR, nto on BUT NEAR my vet 2 commando squad, 2 shells and boom died.. 

Id the axis fart to hard they die, So commando piats are no where near Storms.  And everyone here would agree i know about storms. 

Maybe the 5 man commando piat squads at teir 4 with 1 extra piats if they come liek that would be worthy of 3 PP.

Piats CAN be very very powerfull... But at the same time, many times i see them bounce off countless front armor shots, and while i can normally manuver them for a good shot, Its ver6y very hard to and keep them alive. 

[DisposableHero]

British officers
Here's where it get really crazy. Neither royal engineers or commandos get any significant amount of buffs/abilities that increase the attractiveness of their officers, yet they have to pay out of their ass in supply to give leadership to their mainline infantry, while RCA gets tons of useful stuff for their officers for the same supply cost. The only thing commandos get for their officers is mark target, an ability available on their recon squad and sniper as well.

3 pool cost for officers is just madness, outside of the RCA doctrine. There has to be other ways to balance out the officers other than making him this expensive. Officer stacking was removed yes? So fielding more than 1 officer of either type, other than for the purpose of spreading out leadership to a larger amount of units is pointless. This only hurts people who wishes to have replacement officers available for their infantry and use a intended leadership mechanic for Brits. Also, british officers do not suffer from the annoyingly high offensive capability of the other officers, unless they have picked up weapons.

Lt -> 1 pool cost
Captain -> 2 pool cost

I've been on this bandwagon from day one. Lowering Tommy squads to 1 pop was very helpful in making a British company (let alone a Commando one) feasible with the limitations placed on it by 3 pop cost officers. Honestly, I think they either still need to go down to 2 for the lieutenant, or at least move Captain to Support. Tommy spam is already largely countered by their huge price cost at 255MP - the most expensive general purpose infantry (and for the Brits their 'basic' infantry too). That's without upgrades (of which they lack any hard handheld AT without doctrinal unlocks), or the addition of any officers (which are really necessary to make such units truly effective).

Also, I don't agree with the Firefly change. Its by far the most effective tank destroyer the allies have, it should be priced as such.  Being able to field 4 Fireflies with a Command Tank for a total of only 18 points in Armor while not having to buy more than 1 fuel bonus to do this would be ridiculous IMO...Those extra 4 points would require more PP or use of the reserve pool, thus theoretically lowering the amount of Tommy Spam to cover them.  As it is, a pair of fireflies covered with 2 bren squads can pretty much take out any pair of tanks that show up and hardly get scratched.  No need to make them more prevalent...

Bull.

It is priced as such. 480MP and 320 FU is already pretty expensive. That's an extra 100 MP and FU over the Cromwell and 80MP and 60FU over the P4. It even beats Churchill variants by 70MP and 50-120FU. The only things more expensive are heavy tanks like the Panther. That's without considering the cost of the CCT required to unlock its full potential (another 180MP, 65FU and 2 more points in the Armour Pool).

In your scenario, that would be a total cost of 1470 MP, 180MU and 640FU (assuming the FFs don't come with any upgrades themselves). Hardly cheap as it is, without considering pool value limitations.

At 5 pool value per Firefly, you would only be able to take a single CCT in your Commando Company before using up your 12 Armour pool and eating into reserve. Three tanks, two of which are combat capable, and both dedicated to AT. That's it.

'But you have 10 reserve pool!,' you might cry. 'That's another two Fireflys!' Except it isn't, because you're running a Commando Company, and your infantry pool drains real fast when you consider that officers are costing you 3 infantry at a time, and you still want to have Commandos and Commando Piat teams and enough basic infantry to keep up with all that grenadier spam.

At 4 pool value, you could - god forbid - take three Fireflys before your Armour pool is used up. Of course, you'd then have to eat into Reserve for a CCT. But more importantly, you would still be paying through your nose to use them. In fact, the more you take, the less MP you have to spend elsewhere (such as on your feared Tommy spam).

Incidently, has anyone unlocked Commando AT teams? What is their cost/Pool value compared to 3-man Piats?

Generally speaking, I always thought that Commando Piats being 3 pool was to make up for the fact that they can glide, use smoke and can carry grenades and demo charges. Seeing as how there are only 3 men, however, it would make some sense to see them go down to 2 pool, though, I guess.

[Pak88mm]

i remember people getting a raging hard on about that the commando/airborne reinforcement combo...woooo that was awful cuz commandos are awful.

[n8d0g]

I am in full agreement that commandos take up wayyy too much in the infantry pool.  In my company I only have two simply cause anything more started to drain onto my tommies (in addition to my Piat Paras).

The overall effect is a very limited Commando type company where most of the other Doctrines (AXis and Allied) have a bit more of the elite troops that give it more flavour (my own infantry company had 6 Ranger teams, i often see WM players carry 4 Teams of KCH)

Tho i find Firelfy is generally ok. Ive play with, against and as companies with multiple fireflies. It is a big drain on the pool, but its able to kite enemy tanks and used well its definetly worth the pool cost.
Additionally, its more AT for a company. Since otherwise I wouldnt be using the Tank pool anyways.
I mean, who needs tanks when you have staghounds?

[Smokaz]

Cromwells are great anti infantry, they murder the majority of PE units with impunity if you micro them well. So yeah, i'd like to field a crom or two even if staghounds excel better at mushing squads from point blank.

[nated0g]

Thats always an option, personnaly tho i find cromwells ineffective for their pop (12). If it was 10, maybe. But for me, 12 gets me a ChurchillCroc.

[Smokaz]

Which brings another question, how does royal engineers afford fireflies and still have a flavourful amount of churchills and bangbuses?

[deadbolt]

resource advantages

[CrazyWR]

When I went RE, I ran 2 FF's, 2 Crocs, and 1 AVRE...that was all my fuel iirc...