A grey morning at the coast of England. A mild fog hung above the Channel while a lone group of four soldiers patrolled the shoreline. "Sarge?", one of them, Private Matthew Baker, asked his superior, Sergeant Shawn Finley. "What's up, Private?", the NCO asked back while taking a bite out of his breakfast sandwich. It was only a few minutes past 5 and his team was among the unlucky few that had been scheduled for patrol duty while the British Army field garrison in the nearby town of Ramsgate was still asleep. "Mind if we stop for a second? I gotta take a piss", Matthew explained, cheeky and boyish as usual. "Uuh, too much information, Matt", complained the team's medic, Private Meryl Mitchell, who had only recently been assigned to the unit and wasn't quite used to the men's casual tone yet. Finley signalled the team to halt while Baker disappeared behind the treeline. "So...", the Sergeant attempted some small-talk with his new squadmate, "What was your motivation to join the Army, Mitchell?" The young woman who was only a mere 17 years old remained pensive for a brief moment, then proceeded to explain: "Well, I've always had a thing for helping people and it's a way to pay my dues to our country. I was planning on serving a few years, then apply for the advanced education programme to study medicine." Her tone got increasingly idealistic as she went on. "I even considered signing up for a tour with the ECA; always wanted to visit the other countries on the continent, see different places..." The Sergeant nodded: "Too bad that's all out of the window now with the war going on there." Meryl agreed: "Yeah...But now I'm here and I gotta do my part!"



"GUYS!?", Matthew's voice sounded through the bushes. "Come here, you've GOT to see this!" "No, mate, we don't need to see whatever the heck yer doing over there!", Corporal Derek MacLeod, who had been too busy lugging the team's heavy grenade machine gun to take part in philosophical navel-gazing barked back, expecting another one of Baker's 'hilarious' pranks. Nonetheless, the soldiers followed his call, only to find Matthew pointing frantically at the sea: "There, Sarge, y'see those things in the water!?" Finley's face froze up in shock as he peaked through his binoculars, only to recognise the shapes of amphibious landing craft and BMP troop transports slowly emerging from the fog. The team stood above the cliff for several minutes, watching in awe as more and more Russian vessels approached the coast before the Sergeant gave the order to retreat and warn the local garrison. "This is bad...", Derek stated the obvious while the unit sprinted down the coastal road. Suddenly, the quietness of the morning was ruined by the noise of aircraft engines as several squadrons of Russian Il-76 transports, escorted by an armada of Frogfoots and PAK-FAs zoomed across the land. "Oh shite, this is REALLY bad!" Derek repeated, struggling to carry his heavy weapon. After a few minutes of running, the winded soldiers reached their garrison in Ramsgate whose population had already been evacuated in anticipation of this unlikely, but possible worst case scenario that had just become a reality. The British troops swarmed out of their quarters, grabbed their gear and took shelter in prepared defensive positions scattered along the shore, manning countless mortars, howitzers and gun emplacements.



Sergeant Finley and his fireteam holed up on the upper floor of a tavern, with only some 150 metres of open ground between them and the harbour front. As the sun slowly rose in the east, more and more vessels came out of the ghostly mist and somewhere in the far distance, the vague, threatening shapes of Russian warships manoeuvred into position. "Bloody hell, this is it, guys!" Matthew observed, his voice torn between thrilled anticipation and suppressed fear. "Our longest day, our finest hour! We will fight them on the beaches! We will fight them on the landing grounds! We..." "Shut your gob, Private! No time for fancy speeches - Focus!", Finley interrupted his tirade. "This is the moment we've been training for and we need to keep our wits about. Equipment check!" Derek worked the charging handle on his grenade launcher, which was safely mounted on the window ledge: "Ready to give 'em what-for, Sah!" "Rifle zeroed, loaded and ready, Sarge!", reported Matthew while Meryl took inventory of her elaborate collection of bandages, painkillers and surgical tools and recapitulated the standard emergency routines in her mind: "Medical equipment on-hand...God help us." Moments later, the first wave of Russian vessels came ashore and all hell broke loose...

I know this is kinda teasing, but I love the Grenadier's accent

Nice update, I assume that grenadier was the one firing out of the structure in the trailer at the last part.

One nit pick about the MTG, wouldn't make more sense to evacuate the Royal Family to say Canada?

The unit firing in the trailer is not actually the Grenadier. In fact, these blokes are basically mobile turrets and they can't fire from garrisons in-game because they'd be unkillable then--although it makes sense for them to do so here for dramatic purposes. As for the royals, evacuating them across the entire Atlantic right away seems kinda defeatist, especially considering that the King would most likely have a military background himself by then, so they merely moved up north so they can still be with their people in these troubled times. They could still high-tail it to Canada if things get REALLY messy after all.

Holy **** they actually made it all the way to England? How are things in the other sectors then? Did they topple over France so quickly? Is this the beginning of another continuous series update? Did Alek turn the Eiffel Tower into a giant tesla coil like in that weird RA2 mission? Questions keep popping up from left and right!

Moving the Royal family to Scotland seems like the better move. Moving them to a non-Brit, non-ECA place like Canada would effectively demoralise the troops. And they could use all the moral they have when facing those tesla units. Luckily from the way that soldier was giving a fancy speech it seems like the move worked and the troops still have a good bit of moral.

Totally love everything about the Grenadier. The idea of "portable turrets" sound awesome. I guess their deployment and fighting is similar to the RA2 GI? Nice to see them carrying the faction theme with totally unique weaponry. Interesting lore on the medic. They should be pretty handy.

Will either of these two units become unique to Charles later?

Nope both are generic ECA units

When Europe falls, at Russ-ian aggression,
Aro-o-oose our pilots to meet them fair,
Arose, arose, to defend our friends,
This was the action, the action of the land.
Our guardian a-a-angels flew against the bear!

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the skies
Britons never, never, never shall be Red slaves.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the skies
Britons never, never, never shall be Red slaves.

Still hark, the ru-u-umble of artillery as it rise,
More dr-r-eadful than has had been heard before,
As the loud blast, the blast that tears the skies,
That serves to rout thy enemies more.

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the skies
Britons never, never, never shall be Red slaves.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the skies
Britons never, never, never shall be Red slaves.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Heh...Britian might be in the ECA, but we're still our aloof egotistical selves. Top show! Huzzah!

I've actually just noticed this when I posted the update: There's almost a whole year between this (September '47) and Swamped (August '46). According to Swamped, the Russians got completely bogged down in the Be-Ne-Lux countries until the mud froze over and even though Aleks wanted to do a parade on Champs Élysées by Christmas, it took another half year until Paris was taken. This gap is not actually an error, but a space that could potentially be used for future updates. I always like to keep a few different options open.

But yeah, by the time this happens, it's basically the ECA's darkest hour and the next two updates will deal with this invasion in-detail. Both the Medic and the Grenadier will have Brit accents in-game but they'll be a common unit.

@ Motty:
Yeah, right? Speaking of the other countries 'on the continent' and the war going on 'there' seems kinda typical and considering that the UK pulled out of the in-universe EU BEFORE the GLA showed up, it seems kinda reasonable for them to be a bit more at a distance but nonetheless important in the course of the war.

So we have IG Heavy weapon teams now? Great!!!

BTW, can the medic revive dead troops?

Medics actually have an 'evacuate wounded' ability. ECA infantry units that reach zero health don't 'die' per se; they actually drop to the ground and remain there as wounded for several seconds (much like Russian wreckages) and a Medic who uses the ability will turn them into a cash-refund for you. And yes, you can ONLY recover them if they did NOT die due to flames, tesla, toxin, high-explosives etc.

Interesting to see the ECA actually seems focused on bring A-game infantry to the fight. This makes the ECA have the most number of infantry, doesn't it?

They certainly feel very infantry-heavy considering the number of stuff they can simply -do- using foot soldiers.

So the corpses will disappeared and we got cash back instead of reviving them? This is quite a unique idea.

Seems like i will make a lots of infantry rush game playing as the ECA when 1.8 is out

Basically, we chose refund over revive because it'd look a bit odd to see a bloke who just got shot up with bullets to just jump up back at full health and move on until he gets shot up AGAIN. The refund basically allows you to get some of your lost money back in order to spend it on other stuff as needed. It also makes sense for the ECA to have this kinda thing story-wise because a.) they're being invaded so they need EVERYONE and b.) Europe is already suffering population shrinkage today and regardless of how the war ends, they just couldn't afford to let all of these people die on the battlefield. It may seem more like a USA thing, survivability and all, but the American's seem to be more focussed on not getting dangerously hurt in the first place.

Large scale landing attempt on a fortified beach without turning the coastal zone into smoldering ruins?

I bet this is not going to end well

1 more question: Do we have to manually click the refund button on the corpses just like the Russian recovery vehicle or will the medics do this automatically? Or will it be clicking with a large refund radius as it will be very stupid to keep selecting every medics and clicking over on every corpses just to get less than 1000 $.

The moment your selected Medic is ordered to evacuate the wounded, you'll get a refund for all fallen ECA infantry units inside a radius around her.

The way I see it it's unique and quite different from US's doctrines. US focuses on keeping their units alive, enables them to gain veterancy faster and focuses on transferring veterancy if a veteran vehicle is destroyed. On the other hand ECA "refunds" the fallen troop as more of an economic measure.

Gotta love the "counter GLA-ish" theme ECA presents every once in a while.

Same here. I bet the Pandora is gonna come in the end and blow their asses into oblivion.

You'll get to see the Pandora soon enough, albeit not as part of this sub-plot...and it's not going to be as glorious as you might imagine for reasons I cannot reveal yet.

Good update, will the team continue english sub-plot for some time?
Do grenadiers get deploy button? In short, how will they function?

Yeah another update!

The General Charles was pretty cool, I like your MTG card.

Finally the bears stepped in England, this was the dream of the Soviets and now has become a reality, the Russians must have planned this invasion with details and detached a large number of troops for the invasion.

There will be a continuation of the battle between the Russians and the British in a future update?
-----------------------------

The idea of increasing the female presence among the units of the game is something valid about the new healing system of the ECA I can only say one thing: AWESOME! It will be really cool to play with ECA and resurrect the infantry who fell in combat, I already imagine this technique being used at large scale in multiplayer matches.

The Grenadier unit is another fantastic, I loved the concept of the infantry he seems deadly against all types of land unit and its second attack me curious to discover their true potential.

It's not resurrect as such, we'll have to drive the reinforcements all the way. But very very handy in infantry vs infantry combat near bases.

I hope Venom at least is glorious

so stalemate in france and then they decide to open a new front in the UK? wonder if thats an actual good idea

Hmmm, I read again the explanations, now I understand how this system will work.

Not just Pyros. ECA infantry killed by flames, toxin, radiation, tesla as well as those that got run over by vehicles or splattered to pieces cannot be saved either. Wouldn't make much sense to get a refund for a bloke that now fits into a soup can.

As for the Grenadiers, they do have to deploy before firing which takes a few seconds.

That means that those medics are similar to Battlefield 2 Medics ?
Sounds interesting.Medics use Scorpions . . . It seems in the end that Czechs will have their part at ECA side although it is only a detail.

So grenadiers are more of a defensive soldier.
Can they fire out of Garrisons?

Oh and on the subject of medics, Does microwave screw up the refund?

I am pretty sure they do, as microwaves burn infatry to death. The only difference from napalm is that it burns you from inside..

Great update, did definately not expect it. That makes it even better
I love the grenadier
And nice to see a second female unite

Greetings

It may seem like they can in the story for dramatic purposes, but in-game, they cannot be garrisoned. Believe me when I say that a structure with 10 Grenadiers would wipe out pretty much everything that doesn't fly our outrange them.

As for the microwaves...Like HELL it does. The guys are set on fire and explode into pieces. There's no recovery from THAT.

Han's EMP cannons?

Unless counts as explosive, i would say no. But flame hans will surely do.

Some questions came in mide as a read the story again:

1. You said there were IL-76 transport aircrafts.. does this mean that Orlov is going to invade GB with his VDV?
2. And as PAK-FA's are escorting it, does Aleksander paly also a role in the invasion of England or is he still in France?
3. Are the BTR-80's (I've seen them in RL pictures two times now) making a appearence?
4. I forgot to ask you this in the "The Fourth Estate" Updage: Jäger said: "We are coming for you, Aleksan*static*".. what does he mean.. does he know something about the complot of Suvorov and Aleksander or is that only because of the cruelty of his shockdivisions?

1. You'll learn more about the composition of this invasion in part 2 it would obviously have an airborne component as well.
2. Aleksandr is basically an evil version of the WW2 general Eisenhower: He's the supreme military commander directly in charge of the Russian invasion and pulling the strings from his headquarters in Berlin.
3. Time will tell.
4. As said above: Aleksandr is 'in charge' of the invasion, he's in Berlin and he's a heartless bastard. That's plenty of reasons for a guy like Jaeger to declare a personal war on him.

I'm guessing we'll see Charles' artillery seen in the teaser in usual update form in the next part or third. Also is it me or are the frequency of the updates going faster as we get closer to release (Christmas release ?) ?

Hush, don't remind the team and enjoy the show.

MARS, I totally accept the lore reason why Combat Medics arm themselves. I am, however, a bit curious of the game mechanics reason: I am guessing that you wanted to avoid the "issue" that if you order an armed & unarmed mix of units to move to attack a target (i.e. not attack move) the unarmed units will stay put and the armed units will charge ahead without support from the unarmed support unit, just like the case with (vanilla) ECM Tanks when you order your battlegroup to attack a structure. How close to the truth am I?

That's completely spot-on, actually.

Well, enjoying the ECA and I have some big hopes and the prospects of playing the faction.

I had a big guess way back that the combat medic was going to come in from the initial images when ECA came out (I think it was the FELIN update).

POSSIBLY I may have misinterpreted that image, maybe it was a gen. power or some other infantry ability, but hey, at least I had some correct prospects of infantry healing.
Went through my little checklist, of course it's not an ambulance or some healing tower, so it would probably be infantry.
Besides the fact I was a big Charles fan from his lore way back in 2011, and I guessed he probably needed good infantry, combat medics.


Now with the updates up and coming, I just have a few questions:

1) (and I have a feeling someone will quote "not definitive, still need balances"), how does Charles stack up against the previous general, Zhukov. I feel like they both would be pretty even.

(this is probably wrong or it slipped my mind), isn't Zhukov the one who deploys the miniature, money-hungry Topol?

If so, I'm guessing that Zhukov is designed for the "shotgun from the skies", "LEVEL the playing field", "clean sweep the area, mop up, repeat", "drop enough shells and missiles, they'll cover up our precision".

While Charles seems slightly more like US Artillery doctrine (Tomahawk, not WASP). Precise, "one shell, one hit, at that one moment", coupled with Air Force. Seems more like a "combined arms" type of commander.
Is my hunch correct?
So how will these two stack up? Fairly even in an Artillery "shoot out?" Or will it be on a "case-by-case" basis?


2) This is the obvious, (dumb to some), and humorous question to me.
Will the medic be able to level up? Or will it be treated slightly like the sentry drone (no leveling)?

3) How does grenadier stack up to the ECA panzerfaust soldiers? More AoE, increased precision, lower mobility, increased price?
I'm also assuming range, since I do recall the "put ten of these guys, they will blow everything up that's not air or artillery". So..."pathfinder-ish" range?

4) And now, for the wild guess.
I'm assuming this guy will be the one who gets to use gen-power infantry deployment?

A lot of you questions will remain up in the air until 2.0 becomes a reality.

Medic levelling up, as far as I know it won't from healing and I haven't had one alive long enough to see it level from attacking (Had one garrisoned but didn't check back.)

Grenadier isn't the same roll as Panzerfaust it's kind halfway between them and FELINs, supresses vehicles and infantry well but doesn't excel at either.

I just love it... The all idea of a russian invasion to the British Island really freak me out.
Very nice update comrades.

After reading about the Medic and what some people have said I can't help but picture one shovelling a soldier's ashes into a coffee tin by hand.

*Meanwhile at an ECA base*

"The Russians have been repelled from the British shoreline captain, with minimal casualties too!"

"Minimal? Ivan must have had at least five thousand men coming over that channel. How the bloody hell did we manage minimal casualties!?"

"Well, sir the medics did a great job or recovering the wounded!" *Holds up a coffee tin*

"What the hell is that?"

"It's the Blackwatch sir!"

Technically those are casualties
The dead ones are fatalities (or did they change that?)

@Genmotty- great song! We the RF cannot wait to hear it from our prison mines in Siberia! haha jk, but ya I liked it, it kinda reminded me of the song sung mid mission halfway through the campaign in Ace Combat 4! Good times

@Massey- need more BMP! lol but nice caption of the moment, FYI I love that map!

Below is my comment from ModDB that which i C&P ...as for my vote, I may have or have not voted for ROTR a week ago, but that is classified and reserved for a RTS Expansion mod that is sweeping the world of RTS off its feet.

The current invasion of Ramsgate, UK would project that the Russians currently have a hold on the Belgium territory and northern French coast (possibly and most likely so, as it would be needed in order to launch a safe attack against England of this size quickly). I project that the harbors at Knokke-Heist or Dunkirk and that it is a possible combined attack of Tactical Ballistics General, General Zhukov (less likely, but its been a year since his "muck up" in Netherlands and its obvious that the Baltic sea or at least the North Sea and Northward are Russian inhabited waters) and Advanced Weapons General, General Aleksandr and his Shock Divisions.

I have a theory about the Blackout Nodes. Alek's Shock Divisions and even Spetsnaz teams would likely be able to infiltrate foreign territory undetected as part of a covert operation to tamper with cellular towers, antennas, satellite dishes, whatever it may be, so long as it can send out and/or receive wave frequencies. The teams would begin installation of a device or program (which ever is more appropriate). Blackout nodes being stealth themselves, makes it even more believable as the node would blend in with its environment unless detected by technological means. The other, less effective way to theorize the "how the hell did that get in m base undected" is simply that the parent device-X was hacked from somewhere like Moscow.


...though I am curious if there will be a mobile blackout node-base unit for on of the Russian generals like Russia has in RA1, I believe it was one of the expansion games if not the original that blackout tech was used.

1.) While they do seem kinda similar, there's a major difference: Zhukov's artillery units (Topol excepted) still work under the usual in-game artillery mechanics whereas Charles gets ECA Howitzers and the Claymore, which have greater range than any other artillery that can be mass produced. Zhukov also gets no special planes whereas Charles will have both the Goshawk and the Harrier. To compensate, Zhukov's artillery will be ultra-splashy and backed up by the ground assault capabilities of vanilla Russia, making him arguably more powerful at forcing a massive breakthrough than Orlov or Aleks. Also, it's worth noting that the ECA is very different from the US in that many of their weapons are also quite splashy. It's basically a western faction without the US precision theme which also adds to their unique feel.
2.) I do think they can level up just like any other unit since they can technically kill other infantry; they're just not good at it at all.
3.) Grenadiers and Panzerfausts are not filling the same niche. Panzerfausts are dedicated AT, garrisonable and more mobile whereas Grenadiers are walking turrets that, when set up, dish out massive damage against infantry and light vehicles but they're kinda lacking if you try using them offensively due to setup/displace delays.
4.) The special infantry unit that was hinted at earlier will actually be available to all ECA generals via gen-power.




Good thinking. The Russians are meant to have the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France by this point, allowing them to mount an invasion across the Channel in an area where the trip would be relatively short, but somewhat predictable. Mr. Knjaz was actually right when he pointed out how messy this is going to get: The Russians are basically assaulting a fortified town without bombing it to crap - they want to take the docks intact to bring in heavy hardware once they consolidate. Someone has already pointed this out on ModDB: It may seem odd that this massive invasion force was detected by a group of footsoldiers rather than long-range radar, satellite recon etc. but the Russians -do- have those nasty Blackout Nodes.

Just exactly how effective is the blackout node? I mean lore wise, It seems it just works on radar on something, i really don't see how it can work on regular spectrum light.

They don't render things invisible to the naked eye, but it's been stated years ago that the Russians successfully masked much of their initial invasion force at the border with the help of Blackout Nodes. For all we know, the naked eye is about the only thing that -can- reliably detect something covered by them which is also represented in-game: Units under a Blackout Node are not actually stealthed in the sense that you need to bring detectors, but covered in fog, meaning that you can't target them with powers/superweapons and that you have to get a guy there to take an actual look at them.

And the USA can just clear the fog with their satelites.............

only for a mere moment, but the Americans are not getting involved until they get kicked in the shin- IE the Embassy is harassed/assaulted by ECA or RF. They will do what they did before they entered the war in WW2 and just leave it to Europe to deal with while they sit back with a baseball glove in one hand and a beer in the other. They are likely being evacuated/ quarentined from the continent anyway- kinda like a snobby euro way of saying mind your own business!

hmmm Bruce's little fanfic comes to mind here....perhaps Bruces lady will be a volunteer medic