Overview
This guide intends to give an introduction to the commander role, how you should play, an explanation of your responsibilities and what abilities you have. This guide is more focused towards new players and those who are intimidated by the role. Veteran players might not find this guide to be very helpful. Veteran advice is welcome in the comments if it will help new players.This guide will be updated in the future with any corrections or changes to the commander role. any changes will be listed in the ‘guide updates’ section at the bottom of this guide.
Introduction – What is the commander role?
What is the commander role?
This role is in charge of commanding the team on the battlefield. you create strategies and command your squad leaders on what to do and where to go.
You are the leader of the squad leaders. You provide information to your squad leaders and direct them on what to do.
The commander has access to assets that are not available to the other classes. This includes but is not limited to:
- calling in a bombing run
- airhead spawns
- spawning in armoured vehicles
- supply drops
Before playing the commander you should understand some of the responsibilities, requirements and other things of the commander role:
- you should have a mic, effective communication through voice chat is important, bonus points if you have a good mic so they can clearly hear you
- you are the primary source of supplies for squad leaders so they can build garrisons and for engineers to build fortifications
- you are responsible for deploying armoured vehicles for the tank squads
- communicate, communicate, communicate!
- listen to what your squad leaders tell you
This role seems very intimidating for new players but it isn’t as intimidating as it looks, this guide aims to deal with that. Understand that you are not solely responsible for the command of your team. Your squad leaders still need to pull their own weight.
Section 1 – How should you play the commander?
You should play the commander how you would like to. But here are the two main ways of playing the commander that i have seen from my experience so far:
The HQ commander
image credit: Britannica
You command from the back of the frontline at the HQ spawns. As a HQ commander you can help with the artillery guns while doing your commander roles. You have your screen on the map most of the time, looking at your troop movements and capture progress.
You’re unlikely to be killed because of server rules (depending on what serves you play on), your team preventing the enemy from getting behind your lines, the size of the map and the terrain.
You can focus on communicating with your squad leaders and using your abilities without anything getting in your way.
cons
You are not going to be doing a lot of fighting yourself so it can be a bit boring depending on how you like to play the game.
Some players might not like their commander hanging in the back. You could be building a garrison or helping to capture an objective. you also can’t speak to your infantrymen who aren’t squad leaders directly because they are on the front-line fighting the enemy.
This leads us onto the second way of playing the commander
The Rommel
image credit: Facebook page – Arras Counter-Attack 1940
You fight on the front line with your officers and infantry man. you’re in the middle of the action, shooting enemies while commanding your squads. You can communicate to your infantrymen directly without having to go through your squad leaders and hope that they tell their squad what you said. You also at more risk of dying, this way of playing is where the commander’s loadout comes into play.
German commander loadout:
American commander loudout:
Currently this is the only loadout avaliable for the commander. You fight like a standard officer and assault infantryman. If you have experience with those roles, you are fine. You fight at close range and use your smoke grenades to cover your advance or blind the enemy. Bandages are for healing and you have binoculars for spotting things at long rang
However, the commander only have access to the smoke grenades unlike the officer role (they can also use fragmentation grenades). The commander can also use a stop watch to build garrisons but the commander can’t build an outpost.
You can build garrisons now that you are out of your rear. If you have the chance to, drop yourself supplies at a good location and build a garrison.
Summary
At the end of the day what matters is your abilities and effective communication with your squad leaders. Play how you like. These are just general suggestions.
Section 2 – Introduction to abilities
Ability types
The commander has three categories of abilities at their disposal:
- Manpower
- Munition
- Fuel
Abilities under a certain category will use that specific resource, you’ll start the game with some resources but you will need resource nodes if you want to keep deploying tanks, bombing runs and supplies
You can use your abilities by pressing M to bring up the map. on the right side of the map are your abilities. You click on an ability and then click somewhere on the map if that order requires it.
Example:
spawning in tanks. you have selected to spawn in a 76mm Sherman, now click on the map. notice that cannot spawn the tank in the middle of the map. You have to click around one of your HQ spawns. once you’ve selected an HQ to spawn the tank at, click the order confirmation icon located to the right of the selected ability.
Abilities cost a certain amount of resources to use that ability depending on which ability you want to use.
Resource nodes
Resource nodes are small structures constructed by engineers. These can’t be built at HQ, they have to be built out in the battlefield. Theses resource nodes generate more resources per minute the further away it is from your HQ.
It costs 50 supplies to build one resource node. The support class can put down 50 supplies the engineer but you can do a supply drop which is worth 100 supplies. The engineer can only build one resource node of each type.
As a commander, you cannot build resource nodes yourself, you need to ask your squad leaders to tell their squad to build these nodes. some will do what you ask, some won’t. Your effectiveness depends on how many nodes can be constructed.
Section 3 – Manpower abilities
Encouraged:
Sectors will generate more resources for a bit if there you got nodes there. I don’t know the exact statistics behind this.
Final stand:
Your team won’t lose any resources for a while. This is useful if you got guys on artillery making it rain with shells.
Dismantle garrison:
Select a friendly garrison on the map to dismantle. This is useful if you got no one near a useless node that needs to be removed.
Establish airhead
This will drop a temporary spawn anywhere on the map (depends on the exact location, won’t land on some spots because of buildings or other objects). This will be visible to the enemy as it drops down, there is some risk and enemy will camp or dismantle it.
Section 4 – Munition abilities
Supply drop
Drop a crate of supplies (worth 100 supply points) anywhere on the map
Recon plane
When using this ability a bar along the map will appear showing the flight path of the recon plan, this can be rotated by clicking on the recon plane icon when it is on the map.
Strafing run
A fighter plane will spawn in and do a long but thin strafing run. good for infantry with little to no cover. The direction of the strafing run can be rotated by clicking on the strafing run icon when it is on the map.
Bombing run
A devastating bombardment from a friendly bomber. It doesn’t have the range of a strafing run but can be very effective against infantry and armour. The direction of the bombing run can be rotated by clicking on the bombing run icon.
Section 4 – Fuel abilities
Heavy armour:
Spawn in a heavy tank.
America: 75mm Jumbo
Germany: Tiger 1
Medium armour:
Spawn in a medium tank.
America: 76mm Sherman
Germany: Panther
Recon:
America: M1 Greyhound
Germany: Puma SD.KFZ.234
With any of these vehicle spawns, just click on any of your HQ spawns and it will tell you if you can spawn the vehicle in at that location or not. If it won’t let you, try one of the other HQ spawns.
If you can’t spawn any at all, you are either out of fuel or don’t have any space at any HQ spawns to call in another vehicle.
Guide updates
Update 1 (7/09/2020)
- minor grammar corrections and and capitalisation of letters
- the addition of a guide updates section to the guide
Another update will be coming this week with some more information for parts of the guide
