Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is a real time strategy video game stand alone expansion pack to Company of Heroes. It was announced on November 3, 2008 and was released on April 9, 2009.

Gameplay
Tales of Valor includes new units, additional maps and further multiplayer modes, such as 'Stonewall', where the player commands a small number of troops against waves of increasingly difficult enemies, and a feature called "direct-fire", where the player 'Points and shoots' (seen in Soldiers: Heroes of WWII, Faces of War and Men of War).

Plot
Company of Heroes: Tales Of Valor has three single-player episodes.


 * Tiger Ace — Set in Villers-Bocage, the episode is a backstory of Kampfgruppe Lehr commander Major-General Maximillian Voss and Hauptmann Josef Schultz who is the main antagonist in the original. Hauptmann and Oberst are in the 101st Tigergruppe and they fight the British 7th Armored Division entering the town.


 * Causeway — Follows a company of paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division as they try to secure the La Fiere causeway for other Allied forces to pass through out of the Normandy beaches.


 * Falaise Pocket — Features a unit of SS Panzergrenadiers and Wehrmacht stationed in the town of Trun, that they must defend against an Allied assault while other German forces try to escape through the area.

Operations
The expansion pack introduces three new multiplayer game modes:


 * Assault: Very similar to the popular online Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients, with 3 members per team. They choose 7 "Heroes" each different in their Offensive, Defensive, and Support abilities. Ranging from a Pioneer/Engineer to Paratroopers/Recon, the goal of the game is to destroy the enemy's base, which requires the player to fight through three separate lines of defenses. Protected by mortar firing bunkers, these also act as the Player Respawn point. By destroying each bunker the player is able to progress closer towards the enemy headquarters. Once the gas tanks inside of a base has been blown up, that team that destroyed them has won and the game ends.


 * Stonewall: 4 players are the defenders of a small town, defending against 16 waves of enemy attacks. Allies players face waves of Axis attacks progressing from a small band of Volksgrenadier to the mighty Tiger tanks; Axis players defend against waves ranging from Riflemen to M26 Pershing tanks. There are always four critical buildings in the town: the Church, that automatically heals units next to it; the Garage that repairs all allies' vehicles; the bank that gives a boost in manpower; and finally the Manor that gives an increase in population cap. The 4 players must work together in order to defend the town, as the team in Relic designed it so.


 * Panzerkrieg (tank war): Similar to Assault, with the "Hero" units being replaced by tanks. The Axis Team can procure 3 tanks: the Hotchkiss, a small mobile tank hunter, the Panzer IV, the all-around tank, and the Panther tank, which specialize in head-on armor conflicts. The Allies have the M18 Hellcat, a mobile tank hunter, a Sherman tank that is meant to counter the Panzer IV, and the Churchill tank, which is the answer to the Panther.

Development
Tales of Valor includes three new short campaigns; one where the player commands a Tiger I tank crew using the 'new' direct fire mode (Based on the Battle of Villers-Bocage), one as escaping Germans in the Falaise Pocket and one with US paratroopers based around taking a causeway. There are new online units to replace old ones, such as the M18 Hellcat, T17 Armored Car, Schwimmwagen, H39 Geshutzwagen (a conversion of captured H39 Hotchkiss tanks into a self-propelled tank destroyer), Tiger 205, Kangaroo Carrier and the Hotchkiss H35. There are also three new online multiplayer modes.

Reception
The reception of Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor was mixed. Many reviewers were confused as to what the game had to offer. Most of the reviewers appeared to brand the game as average and gave it a rating of around 70%. Citing that the game had some interesting features and game play modes, but only a short campaign and no new armies to command.