This guide will teach you how to win as axis, since lots of players seem to have trouble with the recent balance patches. We're going to address how to handle the early game strength of the allied factions, as well as tactics to carry you through the late game and ultimately bring you to victory.

Factions:

Wehrmacht - Due to recent changes, I would only recommend Wehrmacht to players who know what they're doing with the faction. This faction is not exactly gimped, but if you're newer to the game there are a lot of little nuances and interactions to learn.

DAK - This right here is the one. Select Italian Infantry battlegroup.

You're able to get Guastatori squads in your T1 with this battlegroup because relic's balance team enjoys imbibing in jenkum. This squad literally has a 0 second minimum reload on their dual flamethrowers, (seriously check the editor.) This means you can spray flames nonstop while all the other flamethrowers in the game have to actually operate like a flamethrower would IRL and shoot in bursts. Not only that! They can also build bunkers and lay mines. Those boys must have some strong backs, carrying multiple flamethrowers, bags of concrete, and mines around. Gotta be that German engineering that won them the war IRL I guess. You don't even have to worry about any counter to these guys because MGs can't shoot them as they have a smoke grenade for free and let's be real the German armor will smoke a scott or an AA half track before it can even get a chance to shoot at these guys.

In your T2 on your other tree, you can get propaganda drop. Have you ever been losing to someone who is more skilled than you? Have you ever wished you could just install malware on their PC and spam the "R" key forcing them to retreat anytime they did something you didn't like? Well good news! Now you can with the instant response propaganda drop. This was a garbage crutch ability in COH 2, but for some reason it is back and better than ever. Simply click on the enemy player's units, and it does not matter how much better they are at the game, their troops will run straight back to base. Good game design involves creating mechanics that literally just nullify the other player's ability to use their keyboard and mouse. Now, this does come at a cost. You can't use the light artillery barrage if you take this ability, but that's okay because you get an even better one in your T3 in this tree, and the other ability you could choose for T3 is trash so you won't even consider getting it.

Overall, I think axis is weak and should be buffed. Axis players should actually just be given a victory screen the second they load in to the game. But upon further review, I believe forcing players to load into the game to win is actually pay to win, because having a PC that loads the game may be unattainable for axis players. When they click the "Find Match" button, they should actually just receive the victory screen there.