We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

From Russia with love: Heroes & Generals update adds Soviet faction, 1,000 new battlefields, and 14 new vehicles

heroes and generals update soviet army retro moto

Reto-Moto’s been working on one of Heroes & Generals largest updates. Not content with adding new maps and refining the game’s core Battlefield 1942-style combat and metagame of continental conquest, the studio’s released a whole new faction to play with.

The Soviets have arrived with 14 new vehicles and planes, more than a dozen weapons, and 1,000 battlefields to fight over.

Check out some of the Soviet faction’s gear in the launch trailer:

Since launch players have only been able to play as either the US or German forces. Every battle was fought between those same two sides. The plus of the Russians isn’t just the new gear to play with but now battlegrounds can be a three way conflict.

“Our community has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Soviet faction, and this update transforms Heroes & Generals with far more than new characters, equipment and battlefields,” Jacob Andersen, Game Director at Reto-Moto said in a press release mailed to us by fetching messenger pigeon wearing a hammer and sickle medallion pinned to its breast. “The gameplay dynamics are enriched for both the Heroes on the battlefields and the strategic management of the Generals—with three separate factions each comprised of thousands of players fighting across Europe it’s a war on a whole new scale!”

Soviet players will be able to get their hands on famous weapons like the Mosin-Nagant rifle and PPD-40 submachine gun, and the brutally effective PTRD 1941 anti-tank rifle.

Vehicles-wise, Reto-Moto’s added in two variants of the T-34 medium tank, the SU-85 tank destroyer, and, best of all, the Yak-9B fighter plane.

You can read through the full list of new weapons and vehicles on the next page.

Changes to the meta game sees battles fought over supply lines instead of just access points, so canny generals will send players to fight in skirmishes that will cripple the enemy’s’ ability to reinforce in the battles further away from home.

Over the page is the full changelog for the Timoshenko update.

Changelog Timoshenko Update

Gameplay

  • Resource Pools

    • All units show up in battle and are pooled together.

    • Accesspoints have 1 resource pool per flying/non flying resource type

    • A resource pool has a point system that controllers the speed at which resources can be used

      • Delay pool starts at max

      • Defender town accesspoint gets a multiplier depending on number of accesspoints they own at match start. Multiplier on Regen and Max

      • Support Vehicle

        • Max: 1200 (3 simultaneous)

        • Cost: 400 (3 per min)

        • Regen: 20 per sec

      • Motorcycles

        • Max: 1200 (3 simultaneous)

        • Cost: 400 (3 per min)

        • Regen: 20 per sec

      • Halftracks

        • Max: 4800 (2 simultaneous)

        • Cost: 2400 (1 per 2 min)

        • Regen: 20 per sec

  • Squad System

    • A squad consists of a number of character slots

    • Each character slot has some required resources and some optional resources

    • There can be one vehicle spawn per character slot

    • A squad is attached to one accesspoint

    • All resources are drawn from the squads assigned accesspoint

    • At mission start only one of each type of squad per accesspoint will be sent to the action game, new ones will be requested as they fill up

    • The action server requests a new squad of the same type from the war server every time there are no more free slots. This is done per accesspoint

    • Mobile spawn

      • If a member of your squad currently “owns” a valid mobile spawn vehicle then it can be chosen in the spawn menu

      • The mobile spawn vehicles are:

        • All accesspoint players

        • Tanks

        • Squad members

        • Transport planes

        • Halftracks can be used by all accesspoint players (Since they are limited per resourcepool)

      • Selection must be done within first 10 seconds of vehicle life

      • Player must have no spawn delay penalty

      • Vehicle and player must come from same accesspoint

    • Paratroopers

      • Paratrooper will first draw all the airborne resources from their accesspoint

      • If no more airborne then they will draw grounded

    • Vehicle spawning

      • The ability to spawn a vehicle is determined by

        • The squad slots optional and required resources

        • Resource availability from the squads accesspoint

        • Enough points in the resourcepools delay point system

        • Can be queued for in spawn menu

        • Ingame limitations(no spawnpoints, no room, etc.)

    • Vehicle despawning rules

      • No owner

      • Not being unlocked

      • Not being spawned in

      • More than 100m away

      • Owner died

      • Owner took a different vehicle

    • Vehicle enter rules

      • Empty seat

      • Not occupied by another team

      • Not owned by another team

    • Spawn delay

      • Defending armor teams have 15 sec extra spawn delay

  • Scoreboard

    • Shows all players

    • Assault team overview removed

    • Kills and deaths split into separate columns

    • Lives is the number of times a team can spawn, taking into account resource limitations

  • Spawn menu

    • Shows available spawns from Resource pool delay point system

    • Mouse over on accesspoints with resources shows a resource overview

    • All active capturepoints are shown

    • Cancel warning added when cancelling spawn selection

    • Cancel spawn selection when waiting for resource pool delay

      • Releases your reserved points so another player can take them

      • Players already in queue won’t benefit from a player canceling

  • First blood support for the Soviet faction

  • A lot of small changes to make 3-faction fighting functional

  • GUI Updates

    • Added a kill box with info about your killer

    • Weapon name is the name the player has renamed his weapon to

    • New rank icons

    • New faction icons

  • On team kill a player doesn’t drop his weapon

  • Weather Settings – Adjusted Tracers and Particles (intensities) to match the different weather settings better.

  • Screen space reflections for ingame objects (enabled for medium and high quality settings)

  • All characters have been re-skinned.

  • All characters have the fresnel (glow effect) adjusted

  • New Uniform variations:

    • Soviet Recon Uniforms

    • German Infantry Uniforms

    • US Infantry Uniforms

    • Soviet Infantry Uniforms

  • Handgrenades now damage the Anti-Air guns

Maps

  • Village Skirmish adjustments:

    • Extended the map-borders slightly

    • Slanted the terrain downwards towards the map-borders to break line of sight for snipers.

    • Added some trees and flooded areas to increase graphical fidelity of the map edges.

    • Created a new flanking route (SouthAp to the Chateau).

    • Added an AA gun emplacement at the crossroads of the new flanking route (SouthAP to Chateau).

    • Chateau: Added a ladder to the top floor to improove flow.

    • Chateau: Added a window at the top of the staircase to improove flow.

    • Chateau: Added a stack of crates by the garage to allow players to gain access to the garage roof.

    • Chateau: Made the eastern entrance through the compound wall smaller, to prevent halftracks being jammed in there.

    • Added a new flanking route (Chateau to Farm), in the east. Via this riverford you can now cross the river further downstream with vehicles.

    • Removed Brush in the center of Ruin due to it being abused as a hiding spot.

    • Added roads and terrain deformers to better indicate the riverfords at the tip of the forrested island.

    • Changed the ingame map to reflect the changes.

  • Airfield: Expanded O3 capture zone to include entire bunker.

  • Fixed a lot of texture errors on all maps

  • Being killed by an indirect HE shell now shows the killcam (Unless Camouflaged Badge is equipped)

Weapons & Vehicles

  • Soviet Faction Weapons

    • Added PTRD 1941 Anti-Tank (Anti-Tank)

    • Added Mosin-Nagant 1891-30 (Bolt-Action)

    • Added Mosin-Nagant 1891-30 Scoped Rifle (Sniper Rifle)

    • Added Tokarev SVT-40 (Semi-Automatic Rifle)

    • Added PPD-40 (Submachine Gun)

    • Added RPG-43 (Anti-Tank Grenade)

    • Added NR-40 (Melee)

    • Added Vulkan Stalin (Melee)

    • Added Tula Tokarev 33 (Pistol)

  • Soviet Faction Vehicles

    • Added BT-7 Model 1937 (Light Tank)

    • Added T-38 Model 1937 (Light Tank)

    • Added T-26 Model 1933 (Light Tank)

    • Added T-34 76 Model 1942 (Medium Tank)

    • Added T-34 85 Model 1944 (Medium Tank)

    • Added IS-2 Model 1944 (Heavy Tank)

    • Added SU-85 (Tank Destroyer)

    • Added GAZ-67 (Jeep)

    • Added Harley-Davidson 42WLA (Lend Lease) (Motorcycle)

    • Added BA-64B (Scoutcar)

    • Added M3A1 (Lend Lease) (Halftrack / APC)

    • Added Yakovlev Yak-9B (Fighter Plane)

    • Added Douglas C-47A Skytrain (Lend Lease) (Transport Plane)

    • Added Maxim M4 Quad Artillery (Anti-Air Gun)

  • All weapon values have been tweaked and changed

  • All upgrade have been tweaked and changed

    • All modifications you bought pre-Timoshenko have been removed and refunded in Credits

    • All weapons have a default ammo equipped

    • Fewer mods to chose from

    • Improved way for showing stats when modding

    • Added condtion bars to item renders on all screens showing weapons

  • Weapon & Vehicle silhouettes overhaul

  • New flashier and crispier MuzzleFlashes for the Pistols, Rifles, SMGs, LMGs and mounted LMGs (less dusty looking and more firery looking) – Also a bit more aggressive for the LMGs in general.

  • More smoke coming from the weapons together with the flashes.

  • Added N-K M3 6×30 US Optics (Binoculars)

  • A player can only have 10 active mines in a match at any one point in time. Placing nr. 11 will return the oldest mine to your stash

  • The already available Soviet weapons and explosives have been added to the Soviet progression tree

  • Weapon variants:

    • PPSh-41 Weapon variations: LightWood, DarkWood, VehiclePaint, Black, Used

    • PPD-40 Weapon variations: LightWood, DarkWood, VehiclePaint, Black, Used

    • Mosin-Nagant Weapon variations: LightWood, DarkWood, VehiclePaint, Black, Used, Camo

    • Mosin-Nagant Scoped Weapon variations: LightWood, DarkWood, VehiclePaint, Black, Used, Camo

    • Tokarev SVT Weapon variations: LightWood, DarkWood, VehiclePaint, Black, Used, Camo

  • Unlocks

    • Added all Soviet unlocks. Too many to mention

    • Captured spades now unlock on 2 levels for each enemy faction

    • Captured knives now unlock on 2 levels for each enemy faction

    • Moved SMG modify internals from level 7 to level 6

    • Moved SMG modify barrel from level 9 to level 8

    • Moved SMG modify sights from level 11 to level 10

    • Moved SA rifle modify internals from level 5 to level 8

    • Moved SA rifle modify barrels from level 4 to level 7

    • Moved SA rifle modify trigger from level 3 to level 4

    • Moved SA rifle modify sights from level 2 to level 3

    • Disabled infantry from purchasing NEW sniper rifles – existing rifles are kept.

    • Move unlocking basic enemy handgrenades from level 7 to level 5 (to align with soviet grenades)

    • Moved German Unlock of US-AT mine M1A1 to level 4

    • Moved US Unlock of German-ATmine Tellermine to level 3

    • Moved German unlock of Soviet AT-mine to level 3

    • Moved US unlock of Soviet AT-mine to level 4

    • Moved US and German captured AT-grenades to level 11

    • Moved captured bazooka/panzerschreck from Explosives ribbon level 11 to Tank Destruction Ribbon level 9 & 10

    • Moved AT-mine unlocks to level 1 from level 2 Tank Destruction ribbon

    • Moved US unlock of German s-mine from recon level 9 to level 11

    • Added unlocks for soviet vehicles

    • Moved unlock of bolt-action rifles from level 2 to level 5

    • Moved unlock of LMG’s from level 6 to level 9

  • All factory ammunition now costs credits (very minimal amount)

    • Credit gain tweaked to compensate for this cost

  • Added wrench for Pilot

Strategy & Soldier Selection

  • Bombs away badge is now a multiplier on resupply time for fighterplanes instead of extra bombs

  • Battle System Changes

    • Skirmish missions do not take place on accesspoints anymore.

    • Friendly ATs are placed on the center of the battlefield.

    • Friendly ATs reaching a location with an assault battle can pass through and join the defenders at battlefield center.

    • Losing faction of an assault battle has to retreat, and no subsequent battle is triggered on the battlefield.

    • ATs placed on the center of town treat any friendly accesspoint on that battlefield as their retreat starting point.

    • If an attacker accesspoint is captured by defenders, all ATs are retreated from that accesspoint.

    • Newly deployed ATs are deployed on the battlefield center of friendly towns, not on accesspoints.

    • While a war mission has not been “activated”, the third faction can join the mission. After activation, the mission gets locked with the original 2 factions and the third faction will have to wait till the current battle ends.

  • Campaign Victory Condition Changes

    • First faction with 12 major cities wins the war.

    • If one of the factions loses all its major cities, but none of its enemies have 12 major cities. Then the faction with the highest number of major cities wins the war.

  • AT Retreat Behaviour

    • Each AT has the ability to retreat from a mission.

    • Each retreat will reduce the resources on that AT by 25% of its max strength, or all resources, whichever is higher.

    • Any resources left from a retreat cannot be retrieved by the AT post battle, nor can the AT earn warfunds from their actions in the action game.

  • Mission Setup Changes

    • Each war mission will not be “activated” for 10 minutes after battle creation.

    • The AT prioritized selection system has been removed.

    • All ATs reaching a mission, are commited to the action game.

    • Individual ATs do not show up in the action game.

    • Each AT “type” per accesspoint is represented as a grouped “pool”, containing resources from all ATs of that type on the accesspoint.

    • When action players spawn from these “pools”, warserver randomly deducts spawns from one of the AT belonging to the pool.

    • When a spawn from a “pool” kills another resource, warserver randomly assigns that kill to one of the AT belonging to the pool.

  • Optimization – the war server supply queue process has been optimized.

  • Added 3 faction support for War is over screen

  • Updated Battle report to support 3 factions in leaderboards

  • Updated Campaign game victory / losing conditions on map of Europe

  • Updated mission details to support and better show 3 factions / 2 factions

  • Simplified weapon description system

  • Added support for better way of seeing queue numbers and added support for seeing how requested a resource is on the faction production overview

  • Changed flow of repairing and reloading weapons, now you get the option to repair the weapon and then you can enter the modify weapon area both for upgrades and for ammunition

  • Added option to auto repair vehicle ammo when repairing all ammo

  • Assault teams moving into a battle where they are not welcome (third faction) automatically moves back

  • The warmap has been changed a lot, almost to black and white, in order to bring out elements better.

  • Added outline to supplylines.

  • Added a ‘Strategic color scheme’ to supplement the ‘Friend or Foe color scheme’.

    • The toggle button is visible next to the Major City overview on the campaign map, and on every action game map in the flash client. The toggle changes the setting globally, and the settings are saved across sessions.

  • Generals may now retreat assault teams from battle, using the retreat button in assault team control in the right side of the campaign map.

  • Fixed the chat and notification tray buttons so they match the others in size and sharpness.

  • Added a notification for when users receive refunds.

  • The old mission/battlefield action map view has been ditched, and the one from the battlereport with capture points and attack lines is used instead. Currently, only the access points have their status set, and the rest of the points show up as neutral.

  • Fog of war visibility now shows for Assault Teams stationary on supplylines (mostly when they’re in a skirmish)

  • Generally fixed up UI to accommodate three factions.

  • Multimarkers now have a small indicator for the amount of troops present. It uses the symbols from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Mili … Unit_sizes and is only based on the number of soldiers present multiplied by 10 – vehicles are not taken into account.

  • Assault teams of different factions moving onto the same supply line now creates a skirmish on the supply line. They are placed into different stacks on their opposite sides of the skirmish.

    • Assault teams from the third faction cannot move onto the supply line while the skimish is going on

  • Multimarkers should only ever contain assault teams of a single faction.

  • The resources of assault teams are now pooled together in an overview shown when a multimarker is clicked.

  • Fixed a lot of minor issues on the warmap (e.g. the battlefields disappearing from the right side when zoomed out to max)

  • Support for 3 factions in match maker

  • New Warbond image

  • New Buy weapon image

  • New Buy Gold image

  • New ammunition images

  • 1000+ new battlefields on campaign map

  • 23 major cities are there now

  • Enabled 3-faction fights (12vs12vs12)

    • If a faction is kicked out of a match it will become a 18vs18 fight (Unless the battle is in Ending Status)

    • In a 3 faction match the defender gets a spawn delay boost while they control all the objectives

    • The defender can be depleted, kicked out, while the two attackers are still battling for objectives

    • Minimum state to start battle => (6 vs 6 vs 6) or (9 vs 9)

    • Max difference in players=> 2 between defender to largest attacker

  • Reinforcements now spawn from the closest Major City (unless it’s blocked)

Sounds

  • Added sounds for all new weapons

  • Added sounds for all new vehicles

  • Replaced sounds for:

    • PPSh-41 SMG (Reload)

    • DP28 LMG (Reload)

    • FG42 Assault Rifle (Shot)

    • M1 Carbine Assault Rifle (Shot)

  • Soviet Capture Jingle

  • Germany Defeated Jingle

  • Soviet Defeated Jingle

  • US Defeated Jingle

  • Thrown grenades now make noise again

  • Various other sound adjustments and additions

Other

  • Pistol_US_02A (Revolver) – Fire animation has been speeded up (the revolving barrel was too slow)

    • This is only a cosmetic tweak and shouldnt have any gameplay effect as the total anim time is the same.

  • Adjusted Pistol and revolver position on screen

  • Adjusted Knives position on screen

  • Fixed the Canopy not animating (opening and closing) for the Messerschmidt

  • Cheat Detectino & Cheat Prevention updates

  • Modification changed to Upgrade

  • Localization updates

  • Added Soviet Union Theme music option.

  • Added options in Misc to choose if you want to preload soldier and rank images, default is bare minimum.

  • Various backend fixes and optimizations

  • Implemented system messages to all players

  • Moved Brightness adaptation from GPU to CPU to make LDR and HDR more equal (fog was very different)

  • LDR now has adaptive tonemapping

  • Tessellation (DX11) can now be disabled (now only enabled for high quality setting)

  • Adjusted ribbon-booster prices

  • Fixed several Crash Report errors

Known Issues

  • 32-bit Windows XP requires the /3gb switch to run

  • /3GB switch is NOT supported by ATI cards.

  • Currently (build 101724) possible to join campaing missions making them overpopped, you cannot spawn, but it leads to longer spawn queues