Unfortunately, COH3 still feels like a pretty average and badly balanced game to me. A lot of the problems that already existed in COH2, like American infantry blobbing, are still here, and sometimes they feel even more noticeable than before.
In COH2, Wehrmacht and Oberkommando at least had really strong armor and you could actually feel that it was one of their biggest strengths. In COH3, without the right battlegroup, you often won't even see a proper heavy German tank on the battlefield, and by the time you finally get there, the game can already be basically decided.
Of course Wehrmacht has Marders, Pak guns and StuGs, but simply having anti-tank units does not mean the faction has a good answer to upgraded Shermans and Allied late game in general. The Marder is cheap and can penetrate tanks, but it's made of paper, has no turret, and one bad move can make it disappear instantly. Panther or Tiger? Again — battlegroup.
Recon is a similar problem. I don't mean that Wehrmacht is literally blind, because it has the Kettenkrad and other units with better vision. What I mean is the ability to actually check what is happening deeper behind the frontline — a flare, a recon plane, something that lets you see whether there are three AT guns and half the enemy army sitting behind the fog of war. USF has much easier access to this kind of utility, while Germans often have to look for it inside specific battlegroups.
And this is probably the biggest problem with Wehrmacht — battlegroups often don't feel like an addition to the army, but rather something you need to pick just to patch holes in the basic roster.
Want better recon? Pick the right battlegroup.
Want a Panther? Different battlegroup.
Want a Tiger? Another battlegroup.
And you can only pick one.
USF, on the other hand, already has a very flexible core roster, and its battlegroups mostly just give it even more powerful tools. On top of that, there are extremely strong air strikes that in 4v4 can wipe units off the map. There is something especially frustrating about spending half the game saving resources for an expensive German tank, finally getting it onto the battlefield, and then immediately having to run away from another air strike or risk losing it.
This is where the problem is most obvious to me in 4v4. German factions spend a huge part of the match simply getting overwhelmed by more infantry, vehicles and indirect fire. Instead of controlling the pace of the game, you are constantly reacting to whatever the Allies throw at you.
And while I am busy trying to stop all of that, my defensive line of MG42s and Pak guns can simply get wiped out by a single air strike, a rocket barrage from a battlegroup, or British artillery that does not even require a specific battlegroup.
Yes, Wehrmacht has the Nebelwerfer, and I know someone will immediately point that out. The problem is that it just doesn't feel like the same kind of answer. It can punish stationary infantry and team weapons, but its damage feels pretty underwhelming compared to the amount of indirect fire the Allies can throw at you.
Compare that to the Panzerwerfer in COH2. That thing could actually punish an infantry blob. If you caught several squads standing in the wrong place, a good Panzerwerfer barrage could absolutely ruin someone's day. It fired its rockets quickly, hit hard and could suppress whatever survived. It genuinely felt like a weapon that made someone think twice before grouping half their infantry together.
I really miss having something like that in COH3.
That is another reason why playing Wehrmacht in 4v4 feels so exhausting. You spend resources and time setting up a proper defensive position, carefully placing your MGs and AT guns, only for one barrage to force you to abandon the entire position or lose everything. But if you spread those units out too much, you make yourself more vulnerable to the infantry and vehicle blobs you were trying to stop in the first place.
So the game often turns into the same cycle:
Rifle blob? MG.
Shermans? Marders and Pak guns.
Air strike? Run away.
Rocket barrage or British artillery? Move your entire defensive line.
Another blob arrives while you are repositioning? Good luck.
Your answer to their blob — the Nebelwerfer? Fire a barrage and hope it actually does enough before they simply move away.
And then you get to do it all over again.
Even when you finally reach your stronger late-game units, the enemy often already has so many tools to deal with them that there is barely any feeling of being rewarded for surviving into the late game.
Then there is the DLC model. COH2 also sold commanders, but at least you could eventually unlock them by playing. In COH3, battlegroups are sold in packs for multiple factions. If I mostly play one faction, too bad — I still have to buy the whole package just to get the one battlegroup I actually care about.
And that is probably the most disappointing part. More than three years after release, I still feel like the developers do not really know what direction they want to take the game in. Patches keep changing the balance, but many of the fundamental problems are still there.
The latest DLC also received a mixed response, but I cannot really say much about it because at this point I have simply stopped playing.
It is a shame, because I genuinely wanted COH3 to be a worthy successor to COH2. Unfortunately, right now it frustrates me far more often than it is actually fun.
