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Me and my brother currently play late war, he play's Germans which I think he is going to stick to if we decide to start Early War. I on the other hand play British but if I was to switch to Early war would want it to be a different nationality. What would you guys recommend? I was thinking French, maybe but I'm not sure. What are some Pro's and Con's of each of them?
What do you guys play?

I have a reasonably successful EW French armored company that uses S35 tanks as the main strength. From the 20 or so games I've played, the French tanks seem to be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, though in fairness I have yet to play a British Armored Squadron which I've heard is very good. The French tanks armor is very good for early war, and even manages to be halfways decent in late war (I have a looted panzer company from the Earth and Steel book) The only major drawback of the French tanks are that they all suffer from the one man turret rule, which pretty much means that the main gun isn't all that accurate on the move, and it can't fire all its turret weapons at the same time. It's relatively easy to work around though.

I've heard that the French Tanks are very powerful for the time, and much better than Tanks of other nationalities at the time. Are there any French Resistant lists out there? I think that would be fun to play against my brothers Germans.

The French had terrible leadership which squandered their army which was arguably the biggest and best equipped at the time.

Leave it to the French to blow a golden opportunity, because they're to busy eating Crepes to come out from behind their Maginot Line! Sorry, that was rude of me, but really. I love the design of the army and want something else to play that isn't British and I hear Early war is very fun. Plus most of our terrain is built around France and Holland

France lost because its armies were too scattered and too static to react to the highly mobile and concentrated German attacks in depth. It had nothing to do with crepes.

Stay well away from artillery in EW, they are massively overcosted.

Most nationalities are viable in EW, except German panzers. Poles are quite a good choice, lots (and lots) of good quality infantry with some good support options. Britian is quite limited in what they can field but they have some nice options and British infantry is always good.

French tanks have good stats but they all have the 1 man turret rule which makes them very static. Their infantry is decent though.

 Palindrome wrote:

Most nationalities are viable in EW, except German panzers.

Just curious, I haven't tried EW yet, but does this go for all German Panzer lists, including the ones equipped with Czech tanks? Are they over-costed? I had had my eyes on doing a Panzer 38(t) company at some point.

The problem with German panzers is that they have no way of dealing with heavy armour aside from taking extremely expensive options like a bunkerflak.platoon. I have a leicht panzer kompanie and while it shreds infantry companies (as you would expect 17 Pz IIs to do) the only thing that I have that is capable of killing Matildas and B1s are my Stukas (unreliable), my pioneers (who are only AT 3 with no flame thrower option) or getting extremely lucky with Pz IIl side armour shots.

 Palindrome wrote:
France lost because its armies were too scattered and too static to react to the highly mobile and concentrated German attacks in depth. It had nothing to do with crepes.

Stay well away from artillery in EW, they are massively overcosted.

Most nationalities are viable in EW, except German panzers. Poles are quite a good choice, lots (and lots) of good quality infantry with some good support options. Britian is quite limited in what they can field but they have some nice options and British infantry is always good.

French tanks have good stats but they all have the 1 man turret rule which makes them very static. Their infantry is decent though.

The French had a host of problems leading up to their demise though;

I believe throughout the late 20's and early 30's they had several governments come and go in the blink of an eye, leading to serious instability.
Prior to the spring of '40, they suffered through a brutal winter and their front-line troops' morale suffered leading to desertions.
Their combat doctrine was Defensive in nature and it revolved around a 'static' approach similar to the last war.
Their Leadership didn't keep up with the times as their main HQ was holed up in an old chateau and used bike couriers to ferry orders around due to not using any land-lines for communications
Their armor didn't use radios or at least FM versions. The Brits took note of that after De Gaulle's failed armor counter-offensive in the Battle of France.

Even with all of these problems, their armor was more than a match for the Germans, but their leaders' ineptitude and failure to think in current war terms instead of WWI terms cost them on that front. When they actually started fighting with a purpose, they did do well but tit was a little too little too late.

Still, in EW they do pretty well and their Panhards are very viable if you need a mobile element. Their colonial troops are good as well.

 Palindrome wrote:
The problem with German panzers is that they have no way of dealing with heavy armour aside from taking extremely expensive options like a bunkerflak.platoon.

Actually, there are several options for dealing with Allied heavy armor - Stukas, 88s, Pioneers. Also, heavy armor suffers from being very expensive and having low model counts. As an EW Panzer player, I worry much more about BAR and French Recon companies. EW Panzers simply require more careful planning and keeping the initiative than their Mid & LW counterparts.

 ancientsociety wrote:

Actually, there are several options for dealing with Allied heavy armor - Stukas, 88s, Pioneers. .

Stukas are very unreliable, especially when the allies get 25 point interceptors. Pioneers are only AT 3 and 88's range from 200 points (for a single gun team) to 450 for 2 FA 1 vehicles, both of which will be a priority target and will not last long. Panzer lists have no reliable way of dealing with heavy armour.

I have beaten a Matilida infantry tank company with my list but I didn't kill a single tank, it was all down to poor deployment on my opponents part.