I'm ZillionBrain at the site. I should be at least. Hopefully I can get around to trying it this weekend.
Now I'm wondering, and some have been mentioned, but just who are the "broken 5?"
Actually, I'll give a full tier list.
GOD TIER:
- Grit: It's impossible for most COs to beat his artillery+infantry wall for cost.
- Colin: Strong D2D, snowballs his COP until he has infinite money.
- Hachi: The day before you use your COP, build nothing but infantry to save money. The next, neotanks everywhere! When the neotanks get destroyed your meter will be full again.
- Javier (3+ towers) Becomes a golden god with this many towers.
BORDERLINE GOD TIER:
- Kanbei: He literally does twice as much damage to you as you do to him. (There are a handful of maps he is bad on, like if his expansion is delayed by a day due to increased cost transports)
- Sensei: Endless sea of infantry makes it difficult to attack anything of value.
- Javier (2 towers) Defense bonus and powers start to get out of hand.
HIGH TIER:
- Eagle: Best SCOP in the game.
- Sami: Mech flood is extremely efficient, very hard to beat on small/terrain-heavy maps.
- Rachel: SCOP is death on small maps.
- Nell: Not as broken as she sounds, because it's not that easy to keep full HP infantry on the front lines, still good all-around though.
- Kindle: That city attack bonus is gigantic and her COP is excellent. Varies a bit with city placement on the map.
- Von Bolt: 110/110 is bigger than it sounds. Wins wars of attrition due to his stats.
MID-HIGH TIER:
- Javier (1 tower): Javier's sweet spot for balance.
- Lash: Great attack power. Powers are kinda meh, though.
- Hawke: A generalist that's good on all maps. Considered by many to be the most balanced CO.
MID TIER:
- Andy: Godlike SCOP, trash otherwise.
- Drake: Decent powers, nothing going on D2D since sea isn't that useful. (On maps where expansion by sea is forced, though, he's a beast)
- Olaf: Sort of like Andy but SCOP is less impressive.
- Grimm: Hard to play. Oddities in the damage formula make his stats worse than they look. Powers don't offer any new options. Still okay overall.
- Sasha: Ideal for team games. Okay by herself since her D2D is good, but both her powers are pretty bad one-on-one.
- Jake: Unimpressive across the board, but no real weaknesses.
LOW TIER:
- Javier (0 towers): Actually playable since his indirect defense is pretty nice. His powers don't do much though.
- Adder: No real weaknesses, but requires creativity. Better on maps where he can send mechs charging over mountains and such.
- Koal: Worse than Adder IMO, since he doesn't have the advantage of the 2-star COP, but maybe playable on some maps.
- Jess: Worst infantry in the game means her vehicles get bogged down and can't do their jobs.
- Max: His artillery basically do nothing, which really really hurts his ability to hold ground. Better on maps where he can safely abuse BCopters.
- Sonja: A mixed bag, very annoying to fight, but in the long run her bad luck puts her at a bit of a disadvantage.
TRASH TIER:
- Jugger/Flak: Nell is strictly better. Nobody else has powers that increase their disadvantages.
STURM TIER???:
- Sturm: He's very weird and completely map dependant, but probably above average overall.
I was a huge AWBW player back in the day. I actually made the graphics for Red Fire and Grey Sky :V