Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is a real time strategy video game stand-alone expansion pack to Company of Heroes. It was released on April 9, 2009.
Gameplay
Tales of Valor includes new units, additional maps and further multiplayer modes, such as 'Stonewall', where the player commands a small number of troops against waves of increasingly difficult enemies, and a feature called "direct-fire", where the player 'Points and shoots' (seen in Soldiers: Heroes of WWII, Faces of War and Men of War).
Rewards
The game offers special units as rewards for completing a campaign and can be used to replace certain deployable units in multiplayer games. For the Allies, the US faction receives the M18 Hellcat and T17 armored car, while players using the British faction gets the Kangaroo carrier and the Staghound (T17E1) armored car. Wehrmacht players can make use of the Schwimmwagen Type 166, the H39 Geschützwagen (a conversion of captured Hotchkiss H39 tanks into light self-propelled tank destroyers), and Voss' special Tiger I, while the Panzer Elite will receive the Schwimmwagen Type 139 and the Hotchkiss H35.
Plot
Company of Heroes: Tales Of Valor has three single-player episodes.
Tiger Ace — This campaign is inspired by the historical exploits of Tiger ace SS-Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittmann in Normandy. Set in Villers-Bocage, the narrative is a backstory of Kampfgruppe Lehr commander Major-General Maximillian Voss and Hauptmann Josef Schultz from the original. In the campaign, the two are members of a Tiger I tank crew as they penetrate the town. They are forced to abandon the tank when it was immobilized by an anti-tank gun and try to escape British forces in the area. The tank crew returns the following day in one of two new Tigers, spearheading a Panzergrenadier assault on the town. In the end, it is revealed that Voss was promoted to major-general and sent to Holland, setting the stage for the Opposing Fronts campaign. Schultz stayed in France and died during the defense of Autry. Causeway — Follows a company of paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division as they try to secure the La Fiere causeway for other Allied forces to pass through the Normandy beaches. The campaign focuses on Sgt. Wilson and Sgt. Frank Craft. After the 82nd's airdrop goes badly, Wilson's Able Squad links up with Baker Squad and assemble paratroopers to send to the town of Cauqigny. After the two squads take Chef du Pont on the other side of the causeway, the paratroopers at Cauquigny fall back due to heavy German resistances. The airborne forces retake the town and Wilson is run down by a German tank. As the Army's tank units head south from the beaches, the airborne units, headed by Craft, engage the German forces. Able and Baker find and destroy the tank that killed Wilson as they assault a castle complex near the causeway. The ending cutscene reveals that Craft later participated in Operation Market Garden, where he dies in the successful defense of a bridge over the Meuse (Maas). Falaise Pocket — The campaign features a mixed unit of Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht troops stationed in the town of Trun. Because of an artillery strike over nearby Chambois, the Germans figure that both towns must be held to allow the other units of the Seventh Army to escape the Falaise Pocket, resulting in several intense battles along the riverfront of Trun. The ending cutscene states that about 10,000 Germans were killed and 40,000 captured.
Operations
The expansion pack introduces three new multiplayer game modes: