TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Character Attributes
- Recruitment
- Leaders
- Support
- Marksmen
- Scouts
- Heavies
This article was written under Classified France '44 Game Build: 2321, P4Stream: Patch103, Change: 50005, Built: 14/05/2024 11:50:12
I am happy to make any corrections if more accurate information is discovered. If you have any comments, you can either post here or e-mail me at: [email protected]
All of the screenshots in this post were taken by me.
1. INTRODUCTION
Squad-based tactical/strategy games like the XCOM and Jagged Alliance series usually include an element of squad management where you build up your team members and level up their skills with XP.
In Classified France '44, you'll only have 8 characters in each campaign from a total pool of 12. This character guide is going to highlight the 12 different characters, identify what makes each of them distinctive, and highlight which ones I think are the strongest and weakest for the various classes.
2. CHARACTER ATTRIBUTES
Each of the 12 characters has a name, a codename, a class, a nationality, a gender, and a unique skill. All of these are fixed except for the codename, which can be changed/customized.
There are 5 classes in the game - Leader, Support, Marksman, Scout, and Heavy. Class determines what skill tree the character has and what primary weapons they can use. All classes can use the same secondary weapons (pistols), melee (knives/daggers), and grenades. Some classes have a skill that opens up a second grenade slot.
The combination of nationality + gender determines what types of clothing (head + chest + legs) the character can equip. In Classified France, there are four combinations of nationality + gender:
American Male:
- Willard "Jockey" Cassady (Leader)
- Luke "Utah" Anson (Marksman)
British (includes Canadian & Australian) Male:
- Tom "Crown" King (Support)
- Vincent "Rocket" Tremblay (Scout)
- Ollie "Grog" Johnson (Heavy)
French (includes Moroccan & French West African) Male:
- Charles "Zero" Belanger (Marksman)
- Henri "Felix" Vittel (Support)
- Jacob "Emil" Bloch (Leader)
- Sami "Olive" Alami (Heavy)
- Moussa "Butch" Comba (Scout)
French Female:
- Anna "Vega" Martineau (Leader)
- Lili "Wolf" Pierry (Support)
Although the base appearance of each character is fixed, their visual clothing and weapons will change based on what they have equipped.
For the most part, the various nationality + gender combinations have access to equivalent items. That means that the main difference between two characters of the same class are their different unique skills. Those unique skills tend to have relatively minor effects. So while one character might be slightly better or slightly worse than another, they are fairly equivalent. Also, for the most part, the differing unique skills don't tend to result in significantly different builds. With Classified France's fatigue mechanic, which is similar to that of XCOM's, I usually just alternate between different characters of the same class and it is usually easier to just select identical skill trees for them.
3. RECRUITMENT
You always start the game with the same four characters:
- Willard "Jockey" Cassady (Leader)
- Tom "Crown" King (Support)
- Charles "Zero" Belanger (Marksman)
- Vincent "Rocket" Tremblay (Scout)
Your first two missions (after the tutorial missions if you enabled them) on Day 53 and Day 51 are to recruit two new team members out of a pool of four:
The first choice is between one of the Heavy characters (either Ollie "Grog" Johnson or Sami "Olive" Alami) and one of the French Male Leader/Support (either Jacob "Emil" Bloch or Henri "Felix" Vittel).
The second choice is between the other Heavy character and the other French Male Leader/Support.
It does not seem like the game ever has you choose between the two Heavies or choose between Jacob and Henri.
Your final two recruitments take place starting around Days 43 and 39 (though there may be greater variation in the Days by this point), after the first enemy unit appears on the campaign map and you learn about the reprisal mechanic.
You will get two sets of paired missions where you can recruit two characters from the remaining set of four:
- Anna "Vega" Martineau (Leader)
- Lili "Wolf" Pierry (Support)
- Luke "Utah" Anson (Marksman)
- Moussa "Butch" Comba (Scout)
There is a Steam achievement, The Gang's All Here for recruiting all 8 of the characters. This normally requires at least two campaign playthroughs. You only have to recruit the characters - you don't actually have to finish the game with them.
Due to how the characters are grouped into pools, you will end the game with:
- 1-3 Leaders
- 1-3 Support
- 1-2 Marksmen
- 1-2 Scouts
- 0-2 Heavies
of which they will consist of:
- 1-2 American Males
- 1-3 British Males
- 2-4 French Males
- 0-2 French Females
Although there are 5 French Male characters because of how 3 of them are grouped together in the first pool of which you can only recruit two, you will always have at least 2 French Males but you can't have all 5 in the same campaign.
It is possible to have zero Heavies. At least in earlier versions of the game, the Heavy class was often viewed as the weakest. I don't think they are the best but I do think they have their uses. If you completely skip Heavies, you can save some supplies since you don't need to spend anything on Heavy weapons.
On the other hand, if you have zero French Females, you won't save that much on supplies because there isn't that much good clothing to buy for them in the shops. Some of the female clothing you can automatically start with from the Guerrilla Pack DLC is quite useful though (Guerrilla Hat provides an accuracy bonus, Guerrilla Sweater gives +1 firearms damage, and Guerrilla Trousers offer +1 action point).
In fact, because there is a limited amount of high level clothing, it's actually better to have a variety of nationalities + genders on your mission team rather than have three or four characters fighting for the same hat!
For my first playthrough, I had 2 Leaders, 2 Support, 2 Marksmen, and 2 Scouts (recruiting Jacob, Henri, Luke, and Moussa). And for my second playthrough, I had 2 Leaders, 2 Support, 1 Marksman, 1 Scout, and 2 Heavies (recruiting Anna, Lili, Ollie, and Sami).
Alternatively, if you want to recruit each character during the course of two campaigns, you could split the two heavies and end up with 2 Leaders, 2 Support, 1 Heavy, 1 Marksman, and 1 Scout, and then have one extra Marksman for one playthrough and one extra Scout for the other.
4. LEADERS
Leaders are always good. Because a character's turn normally ends after they attack (unless you have a certain skill that lets you attack one more time), typically a character can only kill one enemy a turn (unless you can catch someone else in the spray area). That is why the Leader's Order skill is, IMHO, the best skill in the whole game. It circumvents that restriction allowing you to essentially take another turn with limited AP. Also, the Leader's Rally skill is important to keep your team's morale up.
Jacob's unique Inspiring skill is probably the best among the three leaders. It is always active and it helps any characters who need it (i.e. have suffered morale damage).
Even though every campaign starts you off with Willard, I actually think he is the worst of the three leaders. His Unwavering Conviction skill only helps with his own morale, which severely limits its battlefield versatility.
Anna's Galvanized unique sounds good on paper but is actually more limited than you might think. First of all, the trigger (when an ally takes damage) is outside of your control so you can't rely on it. While extra action points is normally great, remember that it does NOT translate into an extra attack since your turn normally ends after your attack. The extra AP does allow her to move further distances or to reload or use her other active skills. Also, when combined with the Leader's We're Not Out Yet passive skill and a Scout (Vincent/Moussa) who has the Move Out! active skill, it allows for some really abusive combos involving repeated Orders. So while Anna is better than Willard, I think Jacob is more generally useful.
5. SUPPORT
Support characters are your healers with the Medic, Take Your Meds, and Quit Messing About skills. Using hip fire shotguns, they tend to rush into battle where they can one shot enemies with low or moderate health.
Both Lili and Tom have okay unique abilities. I think Lili's Helper skill is slightly more versatile. She provides Fortified to characters who are likely in need of it since they are in the line of fire.
Tom's Gambler's Fortune means that he can't be crit'ed, so he is unlikely to be one shoted. That does mean your Support medic will be more likely to be around to heal your other team members. But the skill only applies to him when he is not necessarily the one in danger. (I compare it to how Jacob's unique ability is more flexible than Willard's).
Henri is easily the worst Support character. Since you only have one grenade (two if you spend a skill point to unlock an Extra Grenade) his Nailbomb special will only apply once or twice each mission and then it's situational whether the extra frag radius actually matters.
6. MARKSMEN
Charles' Precision means you won't deal damage or morale damage to allies. For new players unfamiliar with the spray mechanic, this gives you a lot of leeway from making silly mistakes. For experienced players, you can strategically use this ability to set up chokepoints and consecutive attacks that you would not be able to do with other characters due to collateral damage.
Luke's Weapon Master skill sounds amazing. But Marksmen have access to the Ready Up skill that lets you automatically reload for free after a firearms kill. And since you can only recruit Luke mid-game, you can already get that skill. Yes, there are times when you might need to reload after a miss or after shooting an officer (oops, you realized you simply "wounded" him and that it doesn't count as a "kill"). But because Ready Up is such a crucial skill, Weapon Master becomes partially redundant.
7. SCOUTS
Vincent's unique Indomitable skill is helpful because you never have to worry about him being broken (which means he would get no action points, is less effective in battle, more vulnerable, and would also get an injury). That makes him reliable when you are under fire.
Moussa's Untouchable is just okay. It's essentially an extra level of Dodge. I normally don't bother with the Dodge skill so I don't particularly value Untouchable. I suppose you could go all in with a Moussa Dodge build by selecting all three Dodge skills which, when combined with Untouchable yield an overall 60% dodge chance and then equip with + dodge clothing. However, Scouts have lots of great skills to spend their points on and there's a steep opportunity cost to those 3 skill points. Thus, I prefer Vincent's unique skill over Moussa's. It is important to point out that due to Moussa's class + nationality combination, there is a special Steam achievement, Marseille Mafioso, that only he can unlock (using a Black Homburg, Suit Jacket, Suit Trousers, and Thompson .45).
8. HEAVIES
Both Ollie and Sami have unique skills that improve their survivability.
I think Ollie's True Grit is slightly better than Sami's Momentum. First of all, there are other ways of getting Fortified such as the Heavy's I'm Bulletproof active skill or Lili's unique Helper skill when she uses healing. Those don't stack with Momentum because Sami's already Fortified whereas they would complement Ollie's True Grit. Also, True Grit means you are less dependent on having a Support medic around, which gives you some flexibility with squad choice or lets your Support save their healing for your other characters.