So, I finished the campaign after 30 hours. Doubling upgrade point cost made late game army building at 1600 points kinda retarded, but the game was still fun.
The final mission was oddly anticlimatic, because it ends as soon as you fulfill the objective, which was on the third turn for me. Overall the campaign was fairly high quality, there were only three missions I disliked (first protect the Battle Sisters mission because saving them is impossible on max diff due to enemy spawns, the first genestealer mission because it is too slow and long and the helldiver mission where your secondary objective is to send 5 trash squads to their death). My favourite mission was the last protect the battle sisters mission, because it was both very difficult and very fair, and the missions where you protect a corpse of someone because those were epic amounts of nids.
I won't play much planetary supremacy because the AI generated maps are much worse than the campaign ones, but I still wanna jot down my thoughts about unit balance for company captain single player:
S tier:
Furioso Dreadnought with Heavy Flamer.
Below 200 points and they consistently clear 2 enemy stacks in a single turn. They can even turn those annoying flying stacks with 40hp per pop into dust. The only unit that I would consider as broken.
A tier:
Land Speeder and Land Speeder Typhoon with Flame Throwers.
Speeders are great. Fast, high vision range, decently tanky, and their main gun can take out one model from those 3 model elite units like warriors and the poison fags. Default speeders have a very good activatable ability that debuffs ranged armor and is great for melting targets with huge hp pools and mediocre armor, basically anything big that is not the tyrannofex. Tervigons get fucked after being marked by this skill. Flame throwers can delete 2 enemies per turn aswell, for 0 ap even, but they have cooldown every other turn making them much worse than
Intercessors.
These are very very good early game when you get their upgrades, they fall off hard however, because they excel in taking out small things with their full auto bolter, as one of the few upgrades worth its points on Company Captain. The grenade is good against gargoyles aswell. The problem is they struggle hard against decently armored targets, and can easily be killed by Exocrines and Air Strikes late. I didn't field a single one in the final mission, but rushing them will make the early game much smoother.
Librarians.
Weird unit, very expensive, but no upgrades is generally good in Company Captain. They are the second hardest unit to use well, but there is a lot you can do with them. Their sword has 3 hits and good splash damage, so getting behind the 3 unit elite models like warriors means you can annihilate them, sometimes for a single AP. As such I mostly used them as an elite hunter for 3 model stacks. They can also round up trash with their spells fairly well, but the flame throwers are better at that. What really makes them shine is that they can use surge really well, surging their aoe psy blast gives it ridiculous range and surging their jump spell turns it into a huge defensive steroid and makes it 0 AP. Late game you will surge very often, because 3 of your heroes get skills that buff surge accumulation.
Sanguinary Guard.
The hardest to use unit in the game. Super squishy, super mobile, super high point cost, super high damage and a chance for double turns. Jumping in, activating their killing spree ability, taking out 5 models from a spam or midrange enemy stack, and then attacking a huge high point model for 200-500 damage is pretty much the strongest thing any unit can do in its turn. Jumping in, failing to kill enough enemy models to get the extra turn and being stuck deep in enemy territory is a death sentence for the unit. Their axe upgrade is worth it lategame, as with their high crit rate the axe allows them to oneshot tyrannofexes with some luck.
B tier:
Aggressors.
The best tank you can get, because you can aoe heal them with the priests. Free 0 AP attacks every other turn with aoe damage. Good melee damage against heavies. They could be higher, but their mobility sucks and tanking is usually not the best idea in the first place.
Librarian Dreadnoughts.
Pretty good unit, expensive but 2AP and high melee damage. If you don't run Sanguinary Guard you will probably need them to take down enemy superheavies, because melee into the back is the best way to kill superheavies with 100% accuracy and +50% damage. I got more mileage out of Sanguinary Guard due to the insane mobility of the jumppack, Librarian Dreads usually need to eat an opportunity attack to get behind their enemy.
Techmarine and Sanguinary Priests.
Healers with 2AP and decent offensive output for their point cost. You don't really need more than one of each, and you get one of each for free in the heroes. Doubling up is not a bad idea if you like splitting your army or you run a mech only/infantry only army so you only need to double up one of them.
Battle Sister Squad.
Extremely cheap, good default weapon, good activatable abilities. Late game they will get oneshot by enemy bombardments, I fielded them in the last few missions anyway because it is so very easy to get more than 50points of value out of them.
C tier:
Inceptor Squad.
Hypermobile Infantry hunters. Why tho? Infantry gets the flamethrower. Turning them into anti midrange with the plasma pistols is a bad idea due to the doubled costs for upgrades on company captain. The upgrade where they can jump on top of enemies to deal damage for 0ap is very cute. Usable if you really dislike flamethrowers I guess.
Baal Predator.
I love this unit. You have no reason to field it. It is like 100 points more expensive than a flamethrower Furioso if you want it as a flamethrower wielder, and almost as expensive as a Librarian Dreadnought as a midrange hunter, but it has only 1AP. It will perform well as either, it is highly mobile and tanky as fuck if you want to BBQ nids, and the autogun can kill warrior stacks in a single volley if you crit well. A supercharged Baal Predator with a Flamecannon and like 3 different buffs active made me win the final mission on turn 3, because I killed all of the Hiveguards in a single turn through surging, but I could have done the same for cheaper with other units.
Assault Marines
Usable. Very squishy, but they don't cost requisition actions and melee attacks have such high accuracy you can just use them as cannon fodder. Have them jump in, krak grenade something, and then stab it in the back for high damage. Not my prefered playstile, but it gets the job done for the low point cost. The special attack from your hq unit that summons a free attacking assault marine squad is probably the best of the three special attacks, and they also use the assault marine upgrades. I prefer to not give them different weapons, because the chainsword is their best weapon anyway.
D tier:
Battle Sister Seraphim.
Bad default weapon, more expensive than the standard Battle Sister and not really better abilties either. They can wield better weapons with upgrades, but upgrades are gay and overpriced on Company Captain.
Hellblasters.
Ranged Anti Elite is a terrible idea, you kill enemy elite units by meleeing them into the back for the titanic damage boost and perfect accuracy. If you babysit a few throughout the entire game they become good due to the veteran system making them very accurate and crits synergise well with high damage weaponry. Their elite weapon also gets the company captain double tax.
Death Company.
More expensive and pretty much worse Assault Marines.
My final army was 2 Furioso Dreads with flamethrowers, 3 speeders 2 of them fitted with flamethrowers, one baal tank with a flame cannon, a librarian, a sanguinary squad and a battle sisters squad to fill the points. Maybe a second librarian or a sanguinary if that is not enough points, I forgot. The balance is overall very good, as you see from my musings, almost all of the bad units are bad because company captain makes their reliance on upgrades into a liability. I guess it was needed to punish flame thrower spam somewhat, but maybe just have it increase the flame thrower prices.
The final mission was oddly anticlimatic, because it ends as soon as you fulfill the objective, which was on the third turn for me. Overall the campaign was fairly high quality, there were only three missions I disliked (first protect the Battle Sisters mission because saving them is impossible on max diff due to enemy spawns, the first genestealer mission because it is too slow and long and the helldiver mission where your secondary objective is to send 5 trash squads to their death). My favourite mission was the last protect the battle sisters mission, because it was both very difficult and very fair, and the missions where you protect a corpse of someone because those were epic amounts of nids.
I won't play much planetary supremacy because the AI generated maps are much worse than the campaign ones, but I still wanna jot down my thoughts about unit balance for company captain single player:
S tier:
Furioso Dreadnought with Heavy Flamer.
Below 200 points and they consistently clear 2 enemy stacks in a single turn. They can even turn those annoying flying stacks with 40hp per pop into dust. The only unit that I would consider as broken.
A tier:
Land Speeder and Land Speeder Typhoon with Flame Throwers.
Speeders are great. Fast, high vision range, decently tanky, and their main gun can take out one model from those 3 model elite units like warriors and the poison fags. Default speeders have a very good activatable ability that debuffs ranged armor and is great for melting targets with huge hp pools and mediocre armor, basically anything big that is not the tyrannofex. Tervigons get fucked after being marked by this skill. Flame throwers can delete 2 enemies per turn aswell, for 0 ap even, but they have cooldown every other turn making them much worse than
Intercessors.
These are very very good early game when you get their upgrades, they fall off hard however, because they excel in taking out small things with their full auto bolter, as one of the few upgrades worth its points on Company Captain. The grenade is good against gargoyles aswell. The problem is they struggle hard against decently armored targets, and can easily be killed by Exocrines and Air Strikes late. I didn't field a single one in the final mission, but rushing them will make the early game much smoother.
Librarians.
Weird unit, very expensive, but no upgrades is generally good in Company Captain. They are the second hardest unit to use well, but there is a lot you can do with them. Their sword has 3 hits and good splash damage, so getting behind the 3 unit elite models like warriors means you can annihilate them, sometimes for a single AP. As such I mostly used them as an elite hunter for 3 model stacks. They can also round up trash with their spells fairly well, but the flame throwers are better at that. What really makes them shine is that they can use surge really well, surging their aoe psy blast gives it ridiculous range and surging their jump spell turns it into a huge defensive steroid and makes it 0 AP. Late game you will surge very often, because 3 of your heroes get skills that buff surge accumulation.
Sanguinary Guard.
The hardest to use unit in the game. Super squishy, super mobile, super high point cost, super high damage and a chance for double turns. Jumping in, activating their killing spree ability, taking out 5 models from a spam or midrange enemy stack, and then attacking a huge high point model for 200-500 damage is pretty much the strongest thing any unit can do in its turn. Jumping in, failing to kill enough enemy models to get the extra turn and being stuck deep in enemy territory is a death sentence for the unit. Their axe upgrade is worth it lategame, as with their high crit rate the axe allows them to oneshot tyrannofexes with some luck.
B tier:
Aggressors.
The best tank you can get, because you can aoe heal them with the priests. Free 0 AP attacks every other turn with aoe damage. Good melee damage against heavies. They could be higher, but their mobility sucks and tanking is usually not the best idea in the first place.
Librarian Dreadnoughts.
Pretty good unit, expensive but 2AP and high melee damage. If you don't run Sanguinary Guard you will probably need them to take down enemy superheavies, because melee into the back is the best way to kill superheavies with 100% accuracy and +50% damage. I got more mileage out of Sanguinary Guard due to the insane mobility of the jumppack, Librarian Dreads usually need to eat an opportunity attack to get behind their enemy.
Techmarine and Sanguinary Priests.
Healers with 2AP and decent offensive output for their point cost. You don't really need more than one of each, and you get one of each for free in the heroes. Doubling up is not a bad idea if you like splitting your army or you run a mech only/infantry only army so you only need to double up one of them.
Battle Sister Squad.
Extremely cheap, good default weapon, good activatable abilities. Late game they will get oneshot by enemy bombardments, I fielded them in the last few missions anyway because it is so very easy to get more than 50points of value out of them.
C tier:
Inceptor Squad.
Hypermobile Infantry hunters. Why tho? Infantry gets the flamethrower. Turning them into anti midrange with the plasma pistols is a bad idea due to the doubled costs for upgrades on company captain. The upgrade where they can jump on top of enemies to deal damage for 0ap is very cute. Usable if you really dislike flamethrowers I guess.
Baal Predator.
I love this unit. You have no reason to field it. It is like 100 points more expensive than a flamethrower Furioso if you want it as a flamethrower wielder, and almost as expensive as a Librarian Dreadnought as a midrange hunter, but it has only 1AP. It will perform well as either, it is highly mobile and tanky as fuck if you want to BBQ nids, and the autogun can kill warrior stacks in a single volley if you crit well. A supercharged Baal Predator with a Flamecannon and like 3 different buffs active made me win the final mission on turn 3, because I killed all of the Hiveguards in a single turn through surging, but I could have done the same for cheaper with other units.
Assault Marines
Usable. Very squishy, but they don't cost requisition actions and melee attacks have such high accuracy you can just use them as cannon fodder. Have them jump in, krak grenade something, and then stab it in the back for high damage. Not my prefered playstile, but it gets the job done for the low point cost. The special attack from your hq unit that summons a free attacking assault marine squad is probably the best of the three special attacks, and they also use the assault marine upgrades. I prefer to not give them different weapons, because the chainsword is their best weapon anyway.
D tier:
Battle Sister Seraphim.
Bad default weapon, more expensive than the standard Battle Sister and not really better abilties either. They can wield better weapons with upgrades, but upgrades are gay and overpriced on Company Captain.
Hellblasters.
Ranged Anti Elite is a terrible idea, you kill enemy elite units by meleeing them into the back for the titanic damage boost and perfect accuracy. If you babysit a few throughout the entire game they become good due to the veteran system making them very accurate and crits synergise well with high damage weaponry. Their elite weapon also gets the company captain double tax.
Death Company.
More expensive and pretty much worse Assault Marines.
My final army was 2 Furioso Dreads with flamethrowers, 3 speeders 2 of them fitted with flamethrowers, one baal tank with a flame cannon, a librarian, a sanguinary squad and a battle sisters squad to fill the points. Maybe a second librarian or a sanguinary if that is not enough points, I forgot. The balance is overall very good, as you see from my musings, almost all of the bad units are bad because company captain makes their reliance on upgrades into a liability. I guess it was needed to punish flame thrower spam somewhat, but maybe just have it increase the flame thrower prices.
