BF3 Ultimate Squad - Part 2

This is the second in a series of five blog posts specifying, what I believe to be, the best combination of classes for a four man squad. Whilst the Battlefield is most certainly a fluid, living system requiring at certain points direct modification of behaviour to counter a specific threat, it is my belief that the following squad can counter most – if not all – threats. Click here to view myfirst blog.

My second pick for the ultimate squad is the Engineer class.

Title: Anti-Tank Engineer

Weapon: Carbine

Side Arm: Silenced

Gadget 1: RPG/SMAW

Gadget 2: Mines

Squad Perk: Explosives

Reason: I believe, apart from Metro, every map in BF3 has some form of Armoured Vehicle. It should come as no surprise then that for a squad to be successful and self-sufficient that an Engineer is needed with Anti-Tank capabilities. RPG/SMAW, when utilised effectively, are superior to the Javelin and the Carbine is almost, if not equally effective as an assault rifle. All together it makes the most single handedly destructive soldier and henceforth I'll break down the mentality/abilities.

As with all classes, PDW/Shotguns can be used with this class alongside the exclusive weapons of the class – in this case Carbines. In reality, you would pick your favourite gun from the list available to the Engineer, as you need to be comfortable engaging infantry. Utilising a suppressor is an option, however, the firepower of the Carbines alongside a Recon already favouring Stealth means that it isn't a necessity. The player should travel with the rest of the squad and provide backup when needed.

RPG/SMAW is chosen over the Javelin for a few good reasons. The most obvious one is that Tanks/IFVs can utilise smoke, rendering the Javelin all but useless. Of course, not every Tank/IFV will run smoke, but it is of my belief that any player using an Armoured Vehicle should run Smoke, so it would be against logic to advise Javelins for their disposal. I have verified it myself that it takes 2 in the rear, 4 from the side to destroy a Tank, with a similar amount for IFVs. Utilising these facts for disposing of Tanks/IFVs will leave you with rockets to spare and will be just as effective as a Javelin. Another reason to go against Javelin using is the sad fact that SOLFAMs are not common place on the Battlefield and that smart tank drivers can use buildings as cover.

When an armoured vehicle appears, every effort should be taken to flank said vehicle in order to maximise damage. Moving with another member of the squad, preferably with a suppressed gun, the 2 man team should move to the rear of the vehicle before engaging. Once the initial shot is fired, assessment of the situation should be made so as to engage the vehicle again from the rear or side. With support from the second soldier, it should be possible to remove the vehicle with minimal team losses.

I have picked Mines for Gadget 2. Clever, concealed mines can hugely benefit the team and help rid the Battlefield of enemy vehicles. Since mines don't disappear after death, the Engineer can place and forget. It is of my opinion that mines should be placed in areas that are hard to see when driving, such as a slope or inside a crater, as a mine in the open will easily be seen by many vehicle drivers.

Finally, the squad perk I have chosen is Explosion, for obvious reasons. Double the amount of RPGs/Mines seriously benefits yourself and allows you to be less dependent on ammo resupplies. 

In conclusion, the Anti-Tank engineer has a well earned position inside the ultimate squad. Providing Anti-Tank capabilities, the player can engage and destroy enemy armour whilst the rest of the squad provides backup/diversions. Mines allow a place-and-forget attitude to destroying armour elsewhere on the map and finally, the firepower of the Carbines allow engaging of infantry.

Visit again next week for discussion on the 3rd member of the ultimate squad.

BF3 Ultimate Squad - Part 1

This is the first in a series of five blog posts specifying, what I believe to be, the best combination of classes for a four man squad. Whilst the Battlefield is most certainly a fluid, living system requiring at certain points direct modification of behaviour to counter a specific threat, it is my belief that the following squad can counter most – if not all – threats.

Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon. The four available soldier classes. With the ability to choose unlocks, different perks and gadgets – what is the best class for the squad of four to pick?

My first pick for the ultimate squad is the Recon class.

Title: Stealth Recon, Squad Leader

Weapon: Silenced PDW (UMP-45 Recommended)

Side Arm: Silenced

Gadget 1: T-UGS/MAV

Gadget 2: Spawn Becon

Squad Perk: Grenade

Reason: The Recon class should always be an integral part of a squad; although I believe it isn't being used as it should. Firstly, although sniping is one of the main draws of playing the Recon class, it should not be the main one. For my ultimate squad, the Recon should have the job of Squad Leader and be played with the perspective of being an advanced, stealthed soldier.

To expand on the last point, the Recon player shouldn't, and can't, be the killing machine. Many, if not all, Battlefield maps allow the player to slip behind the frontline to attack from a different angle. As a Stealthed player, utilising the Suppressed gun allows the player to choose his battles. Too often players break from what they were originally doing to go grab a kill. This isn't how the Recon player should play. Even with a suppresor, a big skull on the enemies radar alerts everyone in the vicinity that a death occurred and draws attention to the reason. Choosing not to engage in conflict, unless it is absolutely necessary, allows the player to place a Beacon down behind, or aside, the objective. Having a fixed, advanced spawn point allows continued assault from the rest of the squad from a different point – stretching the enemy and more often then not securing whatever the objective is.

Gadget 1 is left open to the player and depends on the map, game type and circumstance. In general, having the T-UGS is most often the preferred choice. T-UGS gives the player an extremely powerful tool in the enemy showing up on the radar. Having the drop on the enemy greatly improves your chances in any circumstance. If on an exposed map, such as the first MCOMM on Operation Metro, the player can communicate and guide the rest of the squad to the objective – an extremely powerful and underestimated option. Describing, guiding and alerting negates the missing firepower from the fourth soldier. I have not recommended the SOLFAM in this analysis – this is mostly because I believe the ability to know where the enemy is on the Battlefield is superior to the additional damage done by the Javelin.

In closing summary – Stealth, Forward placing Spawn Beacon and T-UGS. This turns a class often used to sit 500+ meters away from the Battlefield and being any use to the squad into a game changing soldier. Playing solo, I am able to drag a team that is stuck in the same bit of the map killing each other in the same place into an interesting battle, capturing flags and blowing up MCOMMS before the enemy can realise what's happening. Together with clan mates, it often leads to victory after victory.

Next Monday, I will give my verdict to the next class that a squad member should utilise. Check back on the 17th!

For those interested in my BF3 stats, click here

Battlefield 3: Armoured Kill - My Take

My good friend and fellow bloggerist Herby wrote a very good initial take on the new Battlefield 3 DLC "Armoured Kill" which you should read. It's located here. I haven't played the new DLC as much as Herby has, so my views won't be as in-depth as his, nor would you want to read the same thing twice.

First impressions... it's decent. My main fear for this DLC would be the size of the maps ruining the console experience, and to some extent this is true. 24 players just doesn't work for Conquest on maps with this much scale to them. There's too much emptiness to the battles, as people focus on the flag that has access to the AC130 (which is what I expected), leaving the other four flags to be a battle between a couple of guys from each side. With a good team on your side you can easily dominate the game by capturing the remaining flags and ignoring the AC130 as it does little to affect the battle in Conquest. The way the flags are laid out leads me to think that there will be a smaller, 3-flag version of Conquest made available for 24 player servers in the near future, which will certainly make things different... hopefully in a good way.

As for the maps, I think they all have their pluses and minuses, but overall they're good. I've played a fair bit on all four of the maps and my favourite so far is definitely "Armoured Shield", which I seem to be in the minority in thinking. I had a very good Rush match on this map, although that mode is flawed which I will get more into later, and left the match feeling like I had just played "Oasis" on Bad Company 2. "Bandar Desert" is only okay in my opinion, the vastness between the flag areas leaves a lot to be desired on console, but with more game time on it I could perhaps come around to it more. I only played Rush briefly on this map, and it seemed like it had a nice flow to it and had potential for some good games... if it wasn't for that dastardly AC130. "Alborz Mountain" is a map I have hardly played, and I'm pretty sure I have touched in it Conquest. It looks great, but it has too many rocks for me to crash into. Rush seems like it could be the most balanced on this map, as the defenders get the high ground while the attackers get the air support. "Death Valley" is the map I have played the most in Conquest, and it's below average. The night time setting is good, although the moon is too bright, but the map layout just doesn't feel 'great' to me. Perhaps over time it will grow on me, but early signs aren't too promising.

As I've said above, Conquest feels too empty on 24 man console servers which would lead me to play Rush more, except there's one big problem. The AC130. The attacking team get access to the AC130 which leads to a huge balance issue. Not only do they have ground vehicles in the form of tanks, they also have air superiority in the form of a massive, take no prisoners, cannon. With the location and close proximity of the MCOMMs the AC130 cannot be ignored. It takes around 4-5 stingers to be shot down, more if flares are used well, and it does devastating damage to the ground troops who will be focused on shooting it down thus leaving them to be shot in the back and the MCOMM to be planted with ease. The AC130 needs a nerf of some sorts in Rush, perhaps limiting it to only 2 flights per base or significantly increasing the respawn time of it. A good team can hold it off, but a good gunner can outclass any defenders.

I haven't touched on Tank Superiority, but in my brief encounter with that mode it seems a fairly decent addition and will be good for a change of pace from the regular game modes. Perhaps the flag capture area needs to be larger, but other than that it's a good addition.

Overall I think the new DLC is decent enough and adds some more depth to an already deep game. I would find it difficult to recommend it to a friend or foe; but to a dedicated BF3 gamer who has already splashed out on the Premium upgrade for the game, I'm sure they will gain many more hours of pleasure from the new additions.

The best addition to BF3 though? The new patch that was released on the same day.

BF3 Armoured Kill: Initial Review

So, Armoured Kill launched on the PS3 for Premium players on the 4th and I've had a couple days of fairly extensive play to give a brief analysis. There won't be any sort of grading system at the end of this “review”, what really changes an 8 to a 9 or a B to a B+? I'm approaching this review as a player who got sick of the game a couple months back; the lack of teamplay and balance combined with overall fatigue of FPS. Will Armoured Kill get me back in the FPS groove or turn me of BF3 for good?

First up, I'll analysis the four maps from a Conquest point of view. My favourite, by far, is Alborz Mountain. It seems fairly balanced; I've been on rubbish teams with both sides and still managed to pull a victory out the hat. The Gunship is effective but not overally so – a problem I have found in other maps. It doesn't feel too lonely on your travels either. The worst map for loneliness seems to be Death Valley. Perhaps its the night time theme, meaning I can't see everyone engaging in pretty battles, but I found the fighting was centralised around the Battleship flag, with A and E hardly ever being captured. The night time effect is cool but man, that moon is shiny! I've never had a glare problem from the moon before in my everyday life. Armored Shield is good fun although, once again, the fighting is centralised over at B – the flag controlling the Battleship. The map can feel lonely at times, but overall the design is good. Bandar Desert is the worst map overall, in my view. Feels so much like Gulf of Oman, but with the Battleship flag stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Although the fighting does pick up a bit in the city, it just doesn't feel as good as the other maps.

In terms of Rush, Armored Shield stands tall as the most fun map. The inclusion of the river for a boat attack is brilliant – allows for a bit of sneaking in the midst of all this armour focus. The first set of MCOMs is a standout feature, with some real intense close quarters combat. Bandar Desert is the hardest for Attackers to get a foothold, from experience. Seems like its taking it's style from Kharg Island but the MCOMs are a bit closer together. Para-dropping from the Gunship helps, but it is just a massive target and it seems that people just wait for it to re-spawn before attacking again. Not much fun. Death Valley is so-so. It feels like the Gunship has a bit too much power on this map. Death rains from the sky, being a real pest to the defenders – I'll touch more on this later. Finally, Albortz Mountain is fun, although I don't seem to remember much of the Rush mode on this map. Must just not stood out as much as the rest.

Tank Superiority is the new mode added by DICE to Armoured Kill. I didn't know much about this mode pre-release, as I wasn't really paying much attention to Armoured Kill at all. It is a pleasant surprise. For some reason, it reminded me a lot of the Tank missions in Company of Heroes, but a more suited comparison is obviously the Single Player mission involving the Tank Divison. The mode seems to shine on Bandar Desert and Armored Shield. There's plenty of flanking areas, allowing you to get the drop by going behind enemy lines and setting up mines or just blending in with the other tanks for a surprise attack. There are choices in terms of going sniper for SOFLAMs so as to enable troops to use Javs and tanks to use guided shells, or keeping to engineer to repair your tank. I'm not too much of a fan of this map on Death Valley. It seems to me like the Russian team of tanks spawn too far away from the flag, giving the opposing American team too big an advantage. I have yet to see a Russian team win from about 5 attempts, take from that what you will. On Albortz Mountain the mode is passable; not too much fun though like on Bandar Desert or Shield. Bit disappointing that tank shells don't damage the ice.

The addition of the AC-130 gunship is the biggest change in gameplay brought about by the expansion pack. The slow flying, constantly circling aircraft has a major influence in Conquest and Rush – Rush moreso. In Conquest, it's a race to the gunship controlling flag, with most teams opting to attack said flag more then others so as to gain the gunships ability. In the Conquest maps, the AC-130 isn't really overpowered. It does effect the ground battles, but planes, helicopters and the patched Stingers (THANK YOU DICE) really does limit it's powers. On Rush, however, I don't think it's balanced. Having the attackers with the AC-130, aiming at the relatively shortly spaced MCOMs and its defenders is just not a good idea. It works well in Conquest because of the huge arch the plane takes – meaning some flags are protected from constant barrage for a few minutes before the plane gets in range. In Rush for the attackers, the AC-130 is nearly always in range, meaning the defenders are sitting ducks.

The new Tank Destroyers really remind me of 1940s tanks. Boxy and rectangular. Aesthetics aside, they arn't all that interesting. The ATVs shine; they are great fun to zoom about in and are the right mix between vulnerable and speedy. The MRLS is slightly disappointing. Once people work out the projectile distances, they will become valuable I'm sure, but in these early days they are too lightly armoured and difficult to use to make them practical.

The biggest concerns I had coming into this DLC was if the maps would be too big for us console players. The answer in my opinion is they are, but only just. You don't have the feeling of battle that you get on, say, Canals or Metro, but what you do get is spectacular tank battles mixed in with aircraft dogfights and people zooming around on ATVs. The big picture seems more deserted but more spectacular; more like a Battlefield. Which is the point, really, isn't it?

There is still the fustrating hit detection, annoying moments that make you consider chucking your controller and the overall IQ of the people playing the game hasn't really increased to make the game play like it should (I kid you not, some guy got to a MCOM and tried destroying it with his pistol). However, these things existed pre-Armoured Kill and the DLC can't be judged on this. What it does offer are 4 new maps which are graphically beautiful, more hardware to blow things up with and another reason to return to BF3 after the pre-Armoured Kill problems got too much.

There real acid test will be if I'm still playing this a month from now, which is why on the 5th of October I'll attempt to get my thoughts up as to if this DLC has any real staying power or if the shiny DLC clouded my judgement. Overall, I'd say it isn't worth £15 but if you want to get Premium and can see yourself getting another DLC, I'd certainly say this is a fun expansion of what Battlefield should be about. It doesn't fix anything, Rush is annoying with the Gunship and it can feel lonely, but it is still getting me to play the game again and it highlights just how fun it is to destroy tanks.

Initial thoughts: I wouldn't buy this DLC if I didn't have Premium for the price. If you have Premium, download it and give it a go. It is fun, just not £15 fun.