Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Developer(s)	Relic Entertainment
Publisher(s)	THQ
Designer(s)	Josh Mosqueira
Series	Company of Heroes
Engine	Essence Engine
Platform(s)	Windows XP, Windows Vista
Release	November 2007
Genre(s)	RTS
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts (abbr. CoH:OF or simply Opposing Fronts) is the stand alone expansion pack to Company of Heroes, a RTS game for the PC announced on April 5th, 2007. Opposing Fronts is being developed by Canadian-based RTS developer, Relic Entertainment and published by THQ. It will be released in November 2007.

New Armies

British 2nd Army

The British are the new Allied army in the game, and are mainly focused on defense. They mainly rely on officers, such as the Captain and the Lieutenant, to improve effectiveness, and more defenses, such as trenches and anti-tank emplacements, can be built. The British bases can also be redeployed, and they have a mobile tech tree. Veterancy for the British is also unique, where only the officers can become veterans, and as they gain rank, they gain new abilities.

The command trees for the British are based on famous regiments. These are:

• Royal Canadian Artillery: this heavy-artillery based regiment allows the player to use creeping barrage, counter-battery fire, overwatch, and allows the player to deploy Mobile Artillery Platforms.
• Royal Commandos: players who choose this regiment can deploy Commandos ,who are adept at harassing enemy infantry, and the light Tetrarch tank via a Hamilcar Glider. As long as the glider remains on the field, it is capable of reinforcing and producing specific units (depending on which glider was called in). Other abilities include having the ability to see through the fog of war, intercepting Axis messages, and seeing enemy build queues.
• Royal Scottish Engineers: this regiment gives players access to three variations of the Churchill Tank (MkIV, AVRE and Crocodile), and also improves entrenchments and the mobile H.Q.

The campaign for the British Army is based around 2nd Army's involvement in the Liberation of Caen.

German Panzer Elite

The Panzer Elite draws its inspiration from the mish-mash of German units that opposed Operation Market Garden, including the 2nd SS Panzer Corps and Luftwaffe paratroopers. The single player campaign for this faction focuses on this battle.

The Panzer Elite is mainly focused on speed and vehicles. They cannot build static defenses; but instead they use halftracks to hold territory and increase resource income. Unlike other players' halftracks, Panzergrenadiers (the standard Panzer Elite infantry) can fire heavy weapons, such as Panzerschrecks, FG42 automatic rifles, and mortars, from inside the vehicle. However since the Panzer Elite halftrack doesn't have a closed top, this means infantry inside will be vulnerable to enemy fire.

Another unique feature to the Panzer Elite is the fact that they can recover destroyed axis vehicles and tanks using the Bergetiger, provided the wrecked vehicle had not been completely destroyed.

The three doctrines for the Panzer Elite will be:

• Scorched earth: Allows the player to construct environmental defenses (ie, blocking a road with a tree, or making impassable craters). Players can also completely disable strategic points, or booby trap them.
• Luftwaffe: Allows the player to deploy Flakvierling cannons, Henschel Hs 129, and Fallschirmjäger in skirmish battles.
• Tank Hunters: Allows the player to deploy the Jagdpanther and Hetzer tanks, as well as improve infantry's ability to detect and combat enemy tanks.

Wehrmacht

Terror Doctrine

The Tiger Ace is now replaced by the King Tiger but, like the Jagdpanther, only a single one will be allowed to be fielded the entire game.

U.S. Army

Armored Company

Only one M26 Pershing is allowed on the field at a time.

Beta

It has also listed the minimum system requirements to run the game.[1]

• Windows XP
• Direct X 9.0c
• 2.5GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD Athlon XP Processor
• 1 GB RAM
• 3GB Free Hard Drive Space
• Nvidia GeForce 6600 and above with 128 MB Video Memory, or ATI x800 and above with 128 MB Video Memory
• DirectX® 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
• Keyboard, Mouse

CoH with CoH:OF compatibility

Company of Heroes players will be able to play against Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts users. As such, owners of both games can pit either the Americans or the British against the Wehrmacht or the Panzer Elite, choosing to play as any of these. Those who purchase Opposing Fronts without previously owning Company of Heroes, can only command the two new sides. This so-called "hybrid" expansion method was used on the previous Relic game Dark Crusade, in a less developed form (Previous Dawn of War users were unable to play against Dark Crusade players without the game).

External links

• Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts Official Website
• Relic Podcast announcing the game
• THQ Press Release