1st COH AAR 9-21-06
Bane and I played against Dark Viper and Clawhammer last night; we played as the allies. Bane and I temporarily used the 42nd TS channel to coordinate our attacks last night.

I knew Bane and I were in trouble when their snipers came out early. My guys couldn't take a point anywhere near their base without a lot of reinforcements hunting the sniper down. I had three anti-tanks units along with 2 infantry squads, an engineer squad, a Sherman and a Crocodile Sherman blitzing the north end towards Dark Viper’s base in my first big push. All was going well until I shifted my infantry squad from the main group to take control points. This left my 3 anti-tank squads vulnerable to infantry attacks as my tanks and engineers broke off to assault Dark Viper’s base at a shorter range. Dark Viper wasted no time exploiting this weakness. His tanks immediately came out of nowhere and made mincemeat out of my tanks after his infantry took out my AT squads. My infantry squads took the points around his base but were helpless in defending against Dark Viper’s tanks.

When I finally built another sizable force to counter assault Dark Viper in the north, Bane requested my tanks. My fundamental mistake was that I hesitated for a second before I sent my tanks to assist him. By the time they made their way toward Bane’s forces it was too late. Bane was overridden. To make matters worse, my tanks got caught on a bridge just north east of Bane’s position- right smack dab near Clawhammer’s forward stronghold. They were prime targets against his bazooka squad? Or AT squad (couldn’t tell at that point). At the same time my ground troops to the north (previously being escorted by the tanks) were being overridden by either a half track or armored car with accompanying squads. My tanks were destroyed on the bridge not long after and my infantry units couldn’t hold their ground against the mech units.

My final desperate move was to take northern flags near Dark Viper’s base in an attempt to draw their forces away from Bane’s camp. I dropped airborne squads three times at different locations and each time DV magically had a tank and a squad moving through my drop zones. I knew right then that it was over because his tanks and ground units were just reinforcing his troops that were massing uncontested to my northern flank. In the end, Dark Viper’s forces annihilated my base. Bane’s guys couldn’t assist me because the bridge connecting our two bases was blown up by dumb luck. By the time he had the bridge repaired it was too late for both of us.

It was a lot of fun and can’t wait to get back in it with the rest of you. Next time I’m going to use the Armor Doctrine against Dark Viper since even in Company of Heros, Dark Viper is a tank whore.