[2021] Silverhand VS Falchion is a Pointless Debate

Although my last post about this whole fiasco came before Devs released the numbers, I'm surprised by just how little about my stance has changed. As a result, this will be a relatively short message.

The Silverhand vs Falchion debate is pointless because the Silverhand and Falchion are not comparable vehicles. Silverhand has been and always will be a command tank/assault vehicle. It's a very complex vehicle catering towards clans, as they are generally the ones who can afford to build, arm, and crew one. Meanwhile, the Falchion is basically a bigger and better armoured version of the light tank. It uses standard 40mm ammo which randoms can generally get easily, only takes three crew (5 if you want to crew two), and is just generally a good all rounder. As I described in my longer breakdown, it's a prized vehicle even among Warden clans. Many of us use two man Falchions to support a Silverhand, but it also makes a great command vehicle in its own right if there aren't enough people for a Silverhand.

We should not be surprised by the fact that Colonials put more Falchions in the field, distributing them to low rank players, while most Warden clans kept their Silverhands in storage after going offline. The way the Silverhand is designed encourages Warden clans to store it between ops, as it takes a considerable amount of time to build a new one and acquire the two ammo types needed for it, and it's very hard to get a group of four randoms who can properly coordinate the two different guns. At the same time, the Falchion is perfectly designed for use by randoms both cost wise and in terms of crewing complexity.

The problem comes from the fact that clan hoarding of the Silverhand, although encouraged by the devs through how they designed the tank, is neither fun nor productive in the long haul. Being the main line tank on the Warden side since the BT was removed, it is absolutely imperative that as many be sent to the front as possible. But this can never happen because the clans believe (not altogether wrongly) that this will just lead to privates and corporals getting them destroyed. And so they sit in storage rather than being used, with their owners either asleep or unable to gather the four players needed to crew one during the critical actions.

TL;DR: Both sides are playing to their tank's strengths. Stop telling Wardens to use the Silverhand like a Falchion, and stop telling the Colonials to use their Falchion like a Silverhand.

Balance is not just about numbers on a page, but also how those numbers encourage players to act.