Sound like a Tanker may be for you. Some ones you might want to consider:
Ice/Energy - All the range in the US it seems.
Stone/Battle Axe - OMG t3h uberzorrz!!!!1111oneoneeleven
Invun/Super Strength - Rage rocks, and Invun's not too shabby.
Tankers do not play like Brutes. Brutes are all about damage, damage,damage. Tankers get very little in the way of good attacks until late in the game.
If you like being the first one into combat,
If you want to take the hits for an entire team,
If you like to be the centre of attention ( of the ememy ),
If you will be overprotective of anyone in your team and sling a taunt their way if a mob even sneezes at them,
If you want to pick up almost all of your primary,
If you are happy taking your 3rd attack at level 22,
then a tanker is for you.
@Unthing ... Mostly on Union.
wow couldnt of said it better myself 
but dont let people get you into more doodoo than you need by come running back to you with pulls you werent prepared for.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Well, on a totally unrelated note, level 12 may not necessarily be the best time to decide whether you like a whole archetype or not.
For example, since we're talking */regen, you become a _lot_ less squishy when you get Integration at level 16, and IH at 28 lets you basically turn into a (very) light tank for a brief time. A Regen with FH+Integration+Health three-slotted for heal regens roughly as many HP per second as an equal level Stone Tank with Rooted+Health on, but without the speed penalty. Not only that, but Integration marks the end of all your Sleep/Hold/Knockback/etc problems for ever. That's it. Once you get it, you'll never be mezzed ever again.
It also depends on the build and what you had in mind.
E.g., _the_ reason why I liked */regen isn't actually even the Health regen. It's the Endurance regen. With QR _and_ Stamina you're basically on infinite endurance. You're a relentless rear-kicking machine with close to no downtime ever.
MA is also a very high damage single-target set, once you get a good attack chain, with some disorient and KB effects thrown in for good measure. Used wisely, they can be both damaging and a kind of damage mitigation. (Of the "someone dead doesn't hurt you any more" kind.) E.g., one Cobra Strike _kills_ a Tsoo Sorcerer, because he'll be insta-mezzed, his whirlwind drops, and he stops teleporting.
In the even longer run (think: the 30's) the _massive_ endurance regen also allows you to buy other defenses. E.g., Resilience+Tough puts you at about 27% damage mitigation for Lethal and Smash, and CJ+Weave shaves a little damage taken too, especially from the minions. It's not quite Brute class, to be sure, but combined with the health regen it does raise your survivability quite a bit.
Basically, I don't know, if you liked to smash things relentlessly as a Brute, a MA/regen may actually be closer to that than Tankers are. Mind you, it's not a direct equivalent by any kind of reconning, but then again nothing else is a 1-to-1 equivalent of any COV class.
But, again, it also depends on what role you had in mind. If you used your Brute to tank for COV teams, then a Tanker is far closer to that. A */regen will always be too squishy to tank most AVs, at least without some massive debuffing the AV by Defenders or Controllers.
Do have to aggree here to a certain extent, Brute and tank are very different, to me the most similar to brutes are scrappers. I nearly gave up on my MA/Regen at lvl, but as Moraelin said, once you get integration it makes it all so much more bearable (break free? what's one of them).
But saying all that, tanks are fun too......
[ QUOTE ]
Integration marks the end of all your Sleep/Hold/Knockback/etc problems for ever. That's it. Once you get it, you'll never be mezzed ever again.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not really true, I'm often knocked out of Integration while fighting any large groups that mez.
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Hmm, could be that I've fought different groups or had a very good tank or defender around. The only ones that _do_ occasionally mez my MA/regen are Sappers in the 40's. When the endurance hits zero, Integration goes too, so the Hold kicks in. (So ok, I've exaggerated the "for ever" part a bit.) Still even that is fairly rare. If I see the Sapper first, he's toast.
Respect to Sturm as a excellent PvP player, from both sides of the field.
Brutes 'ability's' tend more to Scrappers than Tanks. Tanks soak damage, Scrappers deal it out and having seen you in action, I'd say a */Inv would suit you down to the ground. 
I agree with Unthing. Tanks are abt protecting. Tanks that is, as they were originally designed to be. Not talking scrankers here.
My philosophy of tanking:
First on the Battle Field.
Last to leave.
Leave no one behind.
Death before dishonour.
I made the opposite move. Long time COH player - moved to CoV. I played a Brute; liking the fact that I damage more. I think of the brute as more of an armoured scrapper; rather than as a tank.
I currently hav my stone/fire at L31. A long hard slog I can tell u. I only hav 3 of my secondaries (of which one is taunt). I hav all my primaries.Tanking is a very slow process till abt L32. VERY slow. I found that with a Brute, thigns started improing at the late teens to early 20's stage.
hope that helps mate.
[ QUOTE ]
My philosophy of tanking:
First on the Battle Field.
Last to leave.
Leave no one behind.
Death before dishonour.
[/ QUOTE ]
Strange that, apart from the first one, thats how my Empath works - ALWAYS last to leave a mission. Yes, argued the "after you/no after you" thing with the team tank many a time and always won!
"Pride is all well and good but a sausage is a sausage"
For Lent I gave up...
Hope
I bought CoH, i guess waiting for I7 and with my brute sitting at 40 was the reason.
In my recent days of PvP i noticed those ICE/* Tankers. The set sound funs, those slow and holds are quite annoying. But PvP and PvE are different matter for sure..
I made a martial arts/regen scrapper. She is now lvl 12 but scrapping is not for me, i'm afraid. At least, */regen scrapper.
So i'm looking at Tankers AT now. The thought of making a "good" Sturmovik 2.0 INV/SS Tanker came to mind but i want to try something new
Now before i fall in another week of Altitis (ie new alts every 10 or so level), what would you suggest for a CoV player with a Brute background as the only 40 character he has. Tanker of course :>