My strategy: attack, attack and attack

In a typical Assault Lines game, the EU team moves slowly forward from its starting base, supported by its huge Goliath assault tank, and PAC defends and counterattacks with its Hachimoto Speeder. Assault pods, previously seen in the Titan game mode in APCs and Titans, make an appearance as a fixed structure on the Liberation of Leipzig map. Both new vehicles and the addition of Assault Pods to a Conquest map serve to concentrate players in hotspots that move as the game progresses. While this certainly creates "intense action" as promised by EA, it also tends to degenerate the game into Rock'em Sock'em matches, where the two sides bash their heads together until one runs out of tickets.

The imposing Goliath tank

The first of Northern Strike's new vehicles is hard to miss because of its size and firepower - if you somehow managed to not see it, you're probably dead. The EU's Goliath represents a brute force approach to warfare. It has room for a driver and four gunners, regenerative armor, and it moves like a snail. The Goliath can provide support and cover for a large number of players on the EU side, as they advance to take PAC's flags. The Goliath automatically repairs and rearms vehicles around it, but it can be destroyed by concentrated attacks from PAC engineers. Unfortunately, the Goliath makes 16-player games on Liberation of Leipzig and Bridge at Remagen maps rather unbalanced, as the PAC team tends to lack the firepower to take out the massive tank.

The nimble Hashimoto, strong as a tin can

PAC's Type 36 Hachimoto is the second new vehicle, a hovering attack speeder that has room for a pilot and a gunner and very little armor protection. The Hachimoto relies on its speed to stay out of trouble, and it has effective weapons against both infantry and vehicles. It requires quite a lot of skill and cooperation between pilot and gunner to make the Hachimoto effective on the battlefield, but properly used it can counter the EU's Goliath and generally harrass the opposition.

The EU's "horizontal pod launchers" advertised in pre-release press and the official documentation make an appearance in the Liberation of Leipzig map. They are, in fact, initially controlled by the PAC side and their impact on gameplay is a lot less significant than one would expect. The launchers' range is rather limited and a flying assault pod is extremely easy to spot, which makes landing in hostile areas a very risky business. Assault pods are also featured in the Port Bavaria map, in which they are a key feature. Read the lowdown on the new maps on next page!