Most worthless hero and One That's Sorely Missing

[adiekmann]

Which hero do you most roll your eyes and sigh when you see it being awarded to you? For me, though it's got some competition, it's got to be First Aid. It's nearly useless for lots of reasons. The only situation where I can foresee using it is in defensive late war scenarios where your infantry unit is hunkered down, probably entrenched, and trying to hold a position. But even then, you are more likely to either attack a weakened enemy unit adjacent to it, or need more than one replacement for that turn. Plus, infantry is inexpensive enough that there's minimal prestige savings and it's never a limited supply type of unit, like a prototype tank for instance.

Relatedly, which one is most missing and should have been there all along? A Field Repair hero for aircraft. This makes a ton of historical sense too. Aircraft were constantly being patched up, at least as much as tanks and other vehicles. What to call it though? I remember Kerensky in another thread asked that question too. This leads me to believe that such a hero is already under works or seriously being considered. I can't think of a better name than "Field Repair." Maybe "Airfield Repair?" Or "Airplane Patcher-Upper?" But really, I think that the same hero could be used, just expand it to include aircraft as well as vehicles.

[nexusno2000]

No Surrender.

Lamest hero?

[Tassadar]

I actually like First Aid. Defensive scenarios like Saarbrücken aside, it also can be useful in fast paced missions on large maps where there are large distances between objectives. This allows the infantry to heal in transit and shaves off a turn or two of their use. Not to mention that such healing effect will help increase damage when the unit does get into combat. Finally, with Overrun it further allows to heal more since like Field Repairs this trait actually counts if a unit has an attack action left, not if it did not attack at all.

On No Surrender I must agree. I mean, if things go insanely bad then it indeed can save a unit, but that's got to be so incredibly rare circumstances, that it is not going to come up often.

However, even worse for me, at least counting those that are actually given to the player are Sixth Sense and Ferocious Defense. First one can be used on recon planes to safely sweep the area, but you never want to fly directly over airfields anyway. There's also the argument of Partizans or bad weather, but that's what recons are for as well and in all honesty, I can't remember when it was the last time my unit got ambushed by anything... Ferocious Defense is arguably even worse, since it only affects chances against enemy engineers and flame tanks and these are really not that plentiful. AO does make Ferocious Defense that tiny bit better by adding more flame tanks on maps, but even then it's mostly the player who's setting up the fights and flame tanks are easily countered by AT support.

[adiekmann]

I actually like First Aid. Defensive scenarios like Saarbrücken aside, it also can be useful in fast paced missions on large maps where there are large distances between objectives. This allows the infantry to heal in transit and shaves off a turn or two of their use. Not to mention that such healing effect will help increase damage when the unit does get into combat. Finally, with Overrun it further allows to heal more since like Field Repairs this trait actually counts if a unit has an attack action left, not if it did not attack at all.

On No Surrender I must agree. I mean, if things go insanely bad then it indeed can save a unit, but that's got to be so incredibly rare circumstances, that it is not going to come up often.

However, even worse for me, at least counting those that are actually given to the player are Sixth Sense and Ferocious Defense. First one can be used on recon planes to safely sweep the area, but you never want to fly directly over airfields anyway. There's also the argument of Partizans or bad weather, but that's what recons are for as well and in all honesty, I can't remember when it was the last time my unit got ambushed by anything... Ferocious Defense is arguably even worse, since it only affects chances against enemy engineers and flame tanks and these are really not that plentiful. AO does make Ferocious Defense that tiny bit better by adding more flame tanks on maps, but even then it's mostly the player who's setting up the fights and flame tanks are easily countered by AT support.

Nah, I still hate First Aid, especially when I've gotten it a couple of times in SCW. But yes, the others you have all mentioned are contenders for me too. No Surrender I probably dislike the least among those, because there are those couple occasions that it did save my unit. I have always put it on a Recon unit because those are the ones who venture ahead and find themselves most often in sticky situations. But even then, I much prefer prudent, resilient, and evasive to No Surrender. But in the end, we've all mentioned the ones that come to mind. I remember when the game first released and I got "Tenacious Defender" or "Ferocious Defense" I got a bit excited. With those good names you would expect something much better than what they are.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

like Field Repairs this trait actually counts if a unit has an attack action left, not if it did not attack at all.

Can confirm that it does not repair after overrun with attack action left, at least for Field Repair. It actually says "when you don't attack", so overrun also disables repair.

[sakura006]

This is a pretty interesting question. In my opinion, the usefulness of a hero is determined by how often the effect is triggered rather than how powerful the effect is. To find the most worthless hero is basically to find the hero with the effect that almost never trigger. Well in this case, first aid is not a worthless hero. Yes, it is obviously worse than its vehicle counterpart field repair, but you can still get some strength back close to the end of a mission. That is not a lot of prestige, but you can still reliably get about 100 prestige per map.

Here are some heroes I think is completely useless. Well, at least they are worth 1000 prestige.
1. Sixth sense. If you always move your recon first, your ground units will never be ambushed. Your air unit can potentially be ambushed when they fly back to their base, but you never know which one will be ambushed. Therefore, even in the rare situation where your aircrafts are ambushed, you can't prevent it by assigning this hero.
2. No surrender. Reasons are similar to sixth sense. You never know which unit will surrender. And it is completely avoidable if you don't play too aggressively.
3. No retreat. Exactly the same reason as no surrender.
4. Resilient. The only situation where my unit lose more than half strength in one go is on my artilleries. Again you never know which one. And when it happens, resilient can't save it.

[BaronVonKrieg]

so we have heroes that buff attack stats, what if we get heroes that improve defense stats like ground defense or air defense ? what do you think

[Scrapulous]

like Field Repairs this trait actually counts if a unit has an attack action left, not if it did not attack at all.

Can confirm that it does not repair after overrun with attack action left, at least for Field Repair. It actually says "when you don't attack", so overrun also disables repair.

My experience has been the same as Tassadar's here, for both Field Repairs and First Aid. If the unit still has a red "can attack" icon when the turn ends, it will recover a point of strength from the hero, regardless of how many attacks it already made in that turn.

My defense of First Aid comes from the core I played with the General Trait that prevents reinforcement during a scenario. That was an interesting run because some scenarios required me to rotate injured units off the front line and replace them with fresh(er) units. First Aid and Field Repairs both allowed me to return the damaged units to the front line after a few turns, which gave me more breathing room in some very difficult situations. A big part of what I love about this game is resource management, and First Aid provided a resource that my incompetent General (me) couldn't. I enjoyed that run a lot. I still use First aid heroes - I like that you can get repair while on the move.

I also despise the No Surrender hero, but probably roll my eyes the most at Ferocious Defense (entrenchment of this hero cannot be ignored), which I seem to receive a lot of. I can't remember it ever being useful, but enemy turns can be chaotic and hard to follow, so maybe I just don't appreciate it enough.

I agree that Ground Crew, or whatever the aircraft version of Field Repairs will be called, is desperately lacking. I have also sometimes wished for a Transit Logistics hero, who would give all units that start the turn next to this unit +1 move. The people who schedule road and rail use are usually unappreciated in these games, but are vital to large troop movements.

[adiekmann]

like Field Repairs this trait actually counts if a unit has an attack action left, not if it did not attack at all.

Can confirm that it does not repair after overrun with attack action left, at least for Field Repair. It actually says "when you don't attack", so overrun also disables repair.

My defense of First Aid comes from the core I played with the General Trait that prevents reinforcement during a scenario. That was an interesting run because some scenarios required me to rotate injured units off the front line and replace them with fresh(er) units. First Aid and Field Repairs both allowed me to return the damaged units to the front line after a few turns, which gave me more breathing room in some very difficult situations. A big part of what I love about this game is resource management, and First Aid provided a resource that my incompetent General (me) couldn't. I enjoyed that run a lot. I still use First aid heroes - I like that you can get repair while on the move.

I also despise the No Surrender hero, but probably roll my eyes the most at Ferocious Defense (entrenchment of this hero cannot be ignored), which I seem to receive a lot of. I can't remember it ever being useful, but enemy turns can be chaotic and hard to follow, so maybe I just don't appreciate it enough.

I agree that Ground Crew, or whatever the aircraft version of Field Repairs will be called, is desperately lacking. I have also sometimes wished for a Transit Logistics hero, who would give all units that start the turn next to this unit +1 move. The people who schedule road and rail use are usually unappreciated in these games, but are vital to large troop movements.

You make some good points that I hadn't considered before and have made me appreciate First Aid a bit more, though I still will never be thrilled to get it. I also have never tried to play with the negative trait that you mentioned. That would certainly change things too. Field Repair I have always liked, and would like to see it or a new one work for aircraft too.

I also miss some basic hero attributes from PC1. Like Tassadar said, a simple +5 Ground Defense, +1-2 Spotting, or a few others would be very welcome. But I think they largely avoided those because they are now earned through "awards" and they don't want to step on their value. However, they are hard to get if you do not import a core in AO41 or 42.

[P5138]

For me I have trouble finding units for Evasive. It's such a milquetoast trait that I roll my eyes when I get it, which is often. It's not bad, but it's not really all that good. It's just "meh."

The other traits, I tend to find uses for:

No surrender and no Retreat are good for recons (especially if you play with inefficient supply). Recons run out of fuel often, and are in the front lines a lot. If they get dogpiled, they will often be forced to surrender when they can't retreat. It allows you to be a little more aggressive while still having a safety net.

Ferocious Defender (I've never got one) would probably be good on a Bridging unit. They are often on water tiles and get entrenchment penalties when attacked.

Sixth Sense: Recon Aircraft. It's rare they accidentally hit an enemy plane when returning, but you often lose the unit when it happens. Sixth sense protects them, and is a good use of the hero slot since the planes can't really be used offensively.

As for a missing heroes, I think there should be more ones that grant unique abilities. Maybe something like:

- "Lightweight": Can be transported on aircraft.
- "Paratrooper": Can be dropped from a transport plane. (does not make unit air-transportable.)
- "Marine": Disembarking from transport vehicles doesn't spend an attack action.
- "Air Defense": Will defend against incoming air attacks, suppressing with the soft attack stat.

Straight buffs are fine, but heroes that make other units into new classes of unit are what I think are missing. Heroes like Overrun, Artillery Support, and Vigilant totally transform units. More of those would be great. They also are a little bit less universally useful than straight buffs, which I think is more interesting.

Also an equivalent of Field Repairs for aircraft, as has already been said. It would really help with all the rare, limited aircraft drops in the AO.

[PaxusZero]

While I agree with the ones posted already, I want to add cheap replacements. I hate getting it, and usually don’t have it in deployed units by the end of 1941, when you have lots of heroes. It can be good on expensive units like strat bombers or artillery, but 9 times out of 10 they are taking minimal losses and you aren’t repairing them til the scenario is over anyway.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

No surrender and no Retreat are good for recons (especially if you play with inefficient supply). Recons run out of fuel often, and are in the front lines a lot. If they get dogpiled, they will often be forced to surrender when they can't retreat. It allows you to be a little more aggressive while still having a safety net.

No Surrender/No retreat should be more valuable on units with low speed, say Pioneers and towed guns. When they happeded to be forced to retreat, there will usually be another enemy unit follows and attack, causing a surrender because they used up movement points. But if they refuse to retreat/surrender, the former attacker will block the hex to attack them and save the unit, as long as you are not putting such units alone and totally exposed to the enemy. Nobody can save them in such a situation, anyway. Recons, instead, has the best movement range in all ground units, so as long as they are not completely blocked, they are the most difficult unit to be forced to surrender.

[P5138]

No surrender and no Retreat are good for recons (especially if you play with inefficient supply). Recons run out of fuel often, and are in the front lines a lot. If they get dogpiled, they will often be forced to surrender when they can't retreat. It allows you to be a little more aggressive while still having a safety net.

No Surrender/No retreat should be more valuable on units with low speed, say Pioneers and towed guns. When they happeded to be forced to retreat, there will usually be another enemy unit follows and attack, causing a surrender because they used up movement points. But if they refuse to retreat/surrender, the former attacker will block the hex to attack them and save the unit, as long as you are not putting such units alone and totally exposed to the enemy. Nobody can save them in such a situation, anyway. Recons, instead, has the best movement range in all ground units, so as long as they are not completely blocked, they are the most difficult unit to be forced to surrender.

Play on "Inefficient Supply" and then say Recons are difficult to surrender. My most surrendered units are Recons*. Recons use fuel really rapidly, and there are times when, if you're not careful, you will be left with 1 or 0 fuel and no way to move because the terrain is awful. And since recons are usually out front, they get attacked and surrounded, and are put into a position where you can move them 1 hex, repair them, then survive another barrage of attacks, move 1 hex, repair, barrage, repeat.

My towed vehicles sometimes get lost to surrenders, but if I'm in a position where my lines have broken that much, then I'm probably in a position to restart the map.

*Edit: They really should have made Cavalry Recons so there was one no-fuel option for that class.

[Scrapulous]

I also miss some basic hero attributes from PC1. Like Tassadar said, a simple +5 Ground Defense, +1-2 Spotting, or a few others would be very welcome. But I think they largely avoided those because they are now earned through "awards" and they don't want to step on their value. However, they are hard to get if you do not import a core in AO41 or 42.

It's an interesting design, isn't it? Awards are in some ways more precious than heroes, because they become harder to obtain. In DLCs through '42, I always encountered a problem near the end: some units are at the xp cap, so do I put them in reserve so other units can get xp? Or do I keep deploying them so they can pursue the ever-more elusive awards despite the waste of xp it represents? Or do I spend 1000 of the unit's xp to convert it to another unit type that will probably never earn the awards it already has (like fighter > tac bomber for a bf-110 with +2 air attack, for example)?

I think a +1 air attack award is still better than a +1 air attack hero would be, because it doesn't take up a hero slot. So there's probably some room in the design to exploit that difference, but it's not much.

[Panzer73]

I tend to agree with the "useless" heroes mentioned above, but I have found that each hero has a context-dependent use. First Aid is useless to me because I don't use the two reinforcement negative traits, but I can see it would be very valuable for those that do play with one or both of them. Sixth Sense and Ferocious Defense are heroes that I don't find useful, but I don't trade in my heroes so they end up on one unit or another.

As for a hero that I would want included in the game, Reduced Fuel Consumption would be awesome - a hero that reduces fuel consumption by 50%. I play with Inefficient Supply most of the time and such a hero would make sense for that case. Alternatively, Efficient Supply could be the trait, making sure the unit is fully supplied (ammo + fuel) every turn... The increased sight or defense heroes mentioned above sound very good too.

Or do I spend 1000 of the unit's xp to convert it to another unit type that will probably never earn the awards it already has (like fighter > tac bomber for a bf-110 with +2 air attack, for example)?

I think a +1 air attack award is still better than a +1 air attack hero would be, because it doesn't take up a hero slot. So there's probably some room in the design to exploit that difference, but it's not much.

In the AO DLCs it is possible to get tactical bombers with +2 air attack by the end of AO'42 without converting a fighter. I have one. It is a Bf109Z with a Superior Maneuver hero, and it has been one of my primary plane killers in AO41 and AO42. It upgraded from the original Hs123 to Ju87 (SCW) to Bf110 (AO39) to Bf109Z (AO41).

I agree with the awards vs. experience conundrum. But with more DLCs in the future, I think it is a safe bet to choose experience for the earlier DLCs. My first core was small, experienced and with lots of awards. My latter cores have had more and more units which I switch around for experience.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

Play on "Inefficient Supply" and then say Recons are difficult to surrender. My most surrendered units are Recons*. Recons use fuel really rapidly, and there are times when, if you're not careful, you will be left with 1 or 0 fuel and no way to move because the terrain is awful. And since recons are usually out front, they get attacked and surrounded, and are put into a position where you can move them 1 hex, repair them, then survive another barrage of attacks, move 1 hex, repair, barrage, repeat.

If recons are the most surrendered unit with Inefficient Supply, then any other unit can be much easier to surrender because Recon has 8 Speed and you have used that up while others are only with 5 or 6 mostly. It's not recon's fault, but your tactics.

[Mojko]

First aid and Field repairs are really valuable when you play with Delayed reinforcements. I played with Delayed reinforcements through AO Spanish civil war, AO 39, and 40. I agree that some heroes are underpowered/overpowered and rebalance would be beneficial. I'll post some rebalance suggestions later.

Also, it would be great to have a mechanism to trade heroes for the one you can about (those that match your play style and commander traits),

[P5138]

Play on "Inefficient Supply" and then say Recons are difficult to surrender. My most surrendered units are Recons*. Recons use fuel really rapidly, and there are times when, if you're not careful, you will be left with 1 or 0 fuel and no way to move because the terrain is awful. And since recons are usually out front, they get attacked and surrounded, and are put into a position where you can move them 1 hex, repair them, then survive another barrage of attacks, move 1 hex, repair, barrage, repeat.

If recons are the most surrendered unit with Inefficient Supply, then any other unit can be much easier to surrender because Recon has 8 Speed and you have used that up while others are only with 5 or 6 mostly. It's not recon's fault, but your tactics.

It's not speed that causes the surrender, it's fuel and the fact that Recons are wheeled vehicles. Offroad, some hexes cost 4 fuel to move into for recons (except for the Pz2 Recon). You only get 4 fuel a turn at best with Inefficient Supply. In rainy maps, you get 2 any turn that it's raining. You spend considerably more fuel than you get per turn, so you'll end up with recons stuck in the mud by turn 5 or 6 if you aren't careful. Since tanks have both tracks and much fewer movement points, you almost never run out of fuel for them even in bad terrain.

If a unit is forced to retreat, but it has no fuel, it surrenders regardless of how many movement points it has left.

[BarbarianHunter]

A fine idea!
Maybe we can convince the devs to include the fictional master aircraft mechanic Sgt. Micklin from the old 1970's WW2 based TV show Baa Baa Black Sheep for the new Pacific expansion.
https://ww2-movie-characters.fandom.com ... ew_Micklin

[adiekmann]

I tend to agree with the "useless" heroes mentioned above, but I have found that each hero has a context-dependent use. First Aid is useless to me because I don't use the two reinforcement negative traits, but I can see it would be very valuable for those that do play with one or both of them. Sixth Sense and Ferocious Defense are heroes that I don't find useful, but I don't trade in my heroes so they end up on one unit or another.

As for a hero that I would want included in the game, Reduced Fuel Consumption would be awesome - a hero that reduces fuel consumption by 50%. I play with Inefficient Supply most of the time and such a hero would make sense for that case. Alternatively, Efficient Supply could be the trait, making sure the unit is fully supplied (ammo + fuel) every turn... The increased sight or defense heroes mentioned above sound very good too.

I like the idea of a "Reduced Fuel Consumption" hero. Even better would be one that would cause your unit to use less ammo. Panzer General II had such a hero that I believe was called "Fire Discipline." In it you used only 1/2 ammo for every shot, effectively doubling your total ammo for that unit.