Men of War: Assault Squad 2 – Guide to Playing Japan

I already know what you’re thinking, “This is gonna be another guide telling me to arty spam.” Well let me tell you how wrong you are! This is a tried and true guide to playing Japan. The underdog faction in Men of war.

Guide to Playing Japan

All credit goes to {PC}the lone berserker !

Put more faith in your units than your micro.

Yup, you read that title, your units will win you the battle before your micro does.

Before continuing on, please watch this video I made, it will help you out more then you think. Your units are your best friend, so don’t put them all on the front lines thinking that they will win. Japans best units are their SMG’S and fast light tanks. At the start of the battle buy a unit of assault infantry, they are your best bet as they come with a lot of SMG’S. Follow this up by buying 3-5 single SMG’S, this will catch your opponent off guard and give you an advantage over most starting units.

Deploy your men in an ambush type scenario – aka put them in houses, behind rocks or buildings where they can get the first shot off. Take as much of the map at the start as you can – Japan heavily relies on map control. Once you do this, never ever (I can not stress this enough) let your opponent get the map out of your control

Map Control and manipulating.

This is where the match gets heated. You need at least 70-80% of the map to win the battle – yes I know that this is a challenge at the start but you have to succeed if you want to win a total victory. Your opponent will attempt to wrestle back his side, DO NOT ALLOW HIM TO. No matter the losses, hold as much of the map as you can, with as little as you can. A lot of people hate on the Japanese armor, but in my opinion it is some of the best in the game. Its light and fast, it will clear out infantry very quickly. So use it to push back the enemy assaults. The best tanks for this are the Ha-Go, Chi-Ha47 and Ki-nu. They are extremely cheap and can do enough work to mentally wrap your opponent up like a cheese cake.

Allow you opponent enough room to think that he is safe, this will make him attack your SMG’S with full force. I should add that Japanese infantry should never fight in the open, hide them for as long as you can. Now here comes the manipulating. You have your opponent down in funds and he is crying as he tries to break your steadfast line. Buy Japanese Ho-Ro – or if your me buy the 105mm howitzer. You now begin to bomb your opponent harder then pearl harbor, make him suffer as long as you can.

How to deal with armor. No its not as hard as you think, you’re just bad.

So, your opponent has resorted to what most players do – bring a very strong tank. Japans most effective tank, is its Chi-To. The Chi-To will hold off just about anything, but will lose to anything higher then a Tiger. So what do you do when he starts steaming down the road with a massive tank and forcing your infantry back? Well nerd if you paid any attention to what you’ve been reading you shouldn’t have to worry. Deploy anti-tank infantry all around the map. If this fails bring a 200mm rocket. Easily Japans best tank killer.

Now if you miss with the rocket or he somehow kills it, do not worry, Japan has another tank killer. The Ho-RI. A monstrous tank. If anyone challenges the Ho-RI its an automatic death sentence. Its armor is thick and the gun is powerful. But do not let it get tracked, you will die a thousand deaths for losing this tank. Well your crying opponent is dueling your Ho-RI, send either a Ha-Go or a Ki-Nu around the map and strike his rear with APCR. Only an opponent with the generalship of Hannibal Barca will be able to counter this.

Stop saying Japan is a bad faction.

Japan is not a bad faction, their armor good, infantry is absolutely amazing and art is the best in the game. In no way shape or form should Japan get as much hate as they do. People need to learn that just because a factions armor is worse then others, doesn’t make them bad. In short, you don’t need the best armor in the world to win a battle. Just because sending your tanks directly into the enemy 50 times in a row doesn’t work, don’t complain. I hope this helps my fellow Japanese players. Thank you for reading, best of luck in all of your coming battles.