Age of Darkness is a mod set in the historical period spanning the two world wars of the 20th century, revolving around the struggle between the forces of liberty, socialism and reaction.
Perhaps the oddest vehicle in all factions, any faction given (and also the most ahistorical) the armoured truck may well be the most bizarre unit in all of Age of Darkness. You may be asking yourself, "Well! why should I build these? they don't even supply my troops in the field!"
Well, there are several reasons to do so. Firstly, armoured trucks are cheaper than armoured cars - they do not consume as much oil as normal military units do - in fact, they don't even have an oil-based ramp cost - that one is replaced by timber instead. Secondly, unlike armoured cars which need specialised facilities (the munitions factory) to build them, armoured trucks are instead built at the armoury and are much, much easier to build.
Even so you must be wondering, "Gee, if they are so cheap and quick to build, why not just ditch tanks and armoured cars?" Well you see, there is a problem: firstly, they are armed only with rifles, so they don't deal a lot of damage. And secondly, while they have extra armour that makes them impervious to bullets, they are easily taken out by assault infantry and antitank guns. Yes, even lowly Tankgewehr grunts can take these monsters out given the chance. Finally, because they aren't as well-built as armoured cars, they have the horrible slowness of supply trucks, although their added armour means that they can be useful as a "heavy" breakthrough vehicle.
So armoured lorries, while rather strong in the beginning, are thoroughly useless in later eras. Needless to say, they are the common favourite unit of most western partisan groups, which will use them alongside the FT-17 in large numbers during CtW scenarios, being cheap and fast enough to be used as infantry and support escort.
The British do not build armoured trucks, but instead get the M3 Bison mobile pillbox, which has better attack and armour but is substantially slower.
But this looks like Mk VIII, or I'm wrong?
My friend, you are absolutely right. Which is why I have changed the pic! :P
Now it's awesome
I like it! And the skull and crossbones are a nice touch.
But trust me, you don't want this unit going near enemy anti-tank rifles or assault infantry - they will make short work of them. The only use armoured trucks give in Age of Darkness is actually escort duty and to supplment your cavalry. Think of them like the Tabors from Rise of Kings - while they are quite powerful against some infantry and can take damage, bring in heavy weapons and they all die.
Spam 'em in early game and keep some of them in later game purely for fun is what I want to do XD! Also they can team up with infantry and cavalry.
Yeah, but once your opponent starts dancing rings around you with armoured cars, light tanks, planes and heavy rifles (esp if you're playing against Germany in the beginning) then you realise you are in deep trouble.
Are there any factions without those heavier weapons that we can pick on?
All factions all can create assault infantry as well as artillery, if not FT-17s, so it isn't really going to be easy spamming armoured trucks although they can be trained from the armoury early on. Theoretically you should use armoured trucks to attack machine guns, and then use your rifle infantry (we call them "line infantry") to kill off your opponents' assault infantry, but you have to remember that armoured trucks need to close in quite a bit before they can start attacking - if the machine guns pick off your riflemen, your opponent can then use assault infantry to disable your rush. Both assault infantry and armoured trucks come from the armoury, so if you can build one you can build the other too: you will need a munitions factory to build artillery and armoured cars, and a heavy engineering depot to manufacture tanks.
Gee! Then I just have to use the lorries as...rifle infantry XD! Other toys will function like normal.
If I have good economic thought =.=
Anyway what's the assault infantry?
Guys armed with sub-machine guns. Although they have poorer range and accuracy, they have greater attack and strength, making them useful against lots and lots of targets - infantry, vehicles, buildings. Their only downside is that they still die to machine guns, and rifle infantry can out-range them. In Age of Darkness, the German Fallschirmjaeger and the American Rangers are classified as assault infantry