Lenny's Rifle Disruption Tactics Guide

Hey! I'm Lenny, and I am about to introduce a different - but legitimate - playstyle! It focuses on heavy map presence and an overwhelming amount of units. I have a cast made by Romeo of me playing against StephennJF, where I used all I could from this Commander, in order to obtain certain advantages in the large engagements we had. I was so glad I picked NKVD in the end... First of all, please let me offer you some whys and wherefores about this specific strategy.

• This Commander is really fun to play with!
  
• The Commander can be used in strongly offensive, unexpected and different ways.
  
• Guaranteed Large Army!
  
• With such an overwhelming amount of Conscripts, flexibility is guaranteed!
  
• Can form strong Skillblobs, with an amazing amount of skilled troops!
  
• Easy to secure decent map-control, or just decapping enemy fuel!
  
• Given the number of Conscripts, it is easy to form a good defensive position with 100s of
  sandbags!
  
• People will believe that you are a novice with this Commander in your line-up! (Deceive them!)

• Massive spending of munitions for commander abilities. Preservation is needed (Few mines etc).
  
• Conscripts will be outscaled at some point.
  
• Very vulnerable to support weapons.
  
• Very vulnerable to AI units in general.
  
• Really micro-intensive, depending on your build order.
  
• Heavy reliance upon tank/AT-gun micro.
  
• Reliance upon unit match-up knowledge (mainly Conscripts vs 'X'. It is easy to pick bad fights!).
  
• Reliance upon a good early and/or mid-game.
  
• Without at least 1 munitions point you will have a hard time.
  
• It's hard to keep the vet on squads, but it's crucial.

Obtain valuable information about the enemy: everything from calling in units to building construction – Uh! You even obtain information about mines!

Are you sitting in a corner, crying, scared of what the enemy might have beyond your line of sight? Obtain a tactical advantage, by calling in a Recon flight, which will tell you exactly where the enemy is! Now you do not have to be frightened of the dark! - you can simply use a small amount of time to plan your next attack on the enemy!

Are the Axis giving you a hard time? Is the enemy player mocking you with a huge amount of “Skill-blobs”? Have you given up on the game – maybe even life? Fear no longer, because it’s the enemy's turn to be hit in the face... with sheets of paper! The enemy can become so scared, that they will fall to the ground pinned and bow before your excellence!

Tips:

• This ability will even make the Ostheer Pak40 RETREAT (!) - if hit directly with artillery.
  
• Note that you cannot always be sure, that the squad will get hit by the very first strike of paper sheets, so it might take some time to convince the skilled Obersoldaten to bow to you! (… so you can easily run them all over with your T34-76).
  
• This ability also works as a slowdown, if enemy squads do not get pinned or retreat!

This is the main reason why this Commander is great! It’s the core ability around which this build is constructed! You should use this ability to recruit a large army really fast. That’s right! Just keep spamming the ability until you think “Ok, now I have more than enough squads!” The amount of destruction you can cause is just... immense! Please note: if you know that you will soon rack up 12 losses in total, and you need to lose 2 conscript models, do not hesitate to lose them on purpose. Trade: 40 manpower for 1 Conscript squad(worth: 240 manpower.

Maths behind it: 2 new squads, by the total cost of 120 munitions + 240 manpower (replacing losses). “Why is it viable to give 120 munitions for a lousy Conscript squad?”….... you might ask. You see, taking all the potential losses of enemy units into account, I would contend that it’s definitely worth it. If you charge with a 'skillblob' consisting of 5-6 Conscripts, you will achieve a lot of kills before even losing models! Provided you do not get hit by a lousy 'Skill-Mortar/ISG-of-MLGness'.

Tips:

• Captured enemy support-weapons-crew will not be counted as losses upon death, neither will Irregulars, if you roll with the Soviet Reserve Army Commander!
  
• If you capture enemy support weapons during the duration of this ability, your transferring units will count as losses. Use this to your advantage!
  
• Even the newly replaced Conscript squads benefit from this ability. What does this mean? When you get your first “free” squad, order it out onto the battlefield immediately, for more destruction and replacement!

Duration: 80 seconds. Did your Conscripts get outscaled in the late game? Fear not, Comrade! The Sturmovik has come to save the day! This expensive ability adds a nice touch to your large-scale attacks, if concentrated around a certain point....(you guessed it…). THAT’s your call-in spot! It can do heavy damage to enemy targets, and it’s really nice when you get the enemy AT-guns decrewed, before you launch an attack with 3 T34-76s! The downside: it features auto-target, so you cannot make an attack path. You do not get that many strafes. It is not a very reliable ability – yet it is still neat in certain situations!

Note: Easily countered by Ostwind/OKW HT/Broken OKW Base Defences.

The build is pretty straightforward, but it varies from game to game, because you play to adapt! (Love you. Jesulin!). If you want to fortify certain areas a lot on a map fast, or just have a nice amount of flamers in the backline, then you might want to start off with an extra engineer!

An example of the build could be:

(lack of map presence possible)

You are advancing well, but now the enemy has a double MG as well as a mortar and is successfully making you fall back, so better make Medics (just protect your current territory) and go T2 and build a mortar/double mortar.

Smoke the area, in order to make the MGs useless. This is just one way to becoming a little creative. Remember! The core unit is Conscripts, for flexibility, so try not to research too many support weapons, since you would be better off with a different strategy/commander!

Just one important note: It's perfectly fine not to select the NKVD of skillness early, if you want to ensure that you have the munitions to make your desired play! But, if you pick the doctrine too far after CP6 (the mid/pre-late game), the Commander will start to lose its value, because you do not grow your army fast enough for the insane skillblobs in the lategame.

You can get an army of 8-10 conscripts, eventual mortar, AT-gun and 2 tanks relatively easily and rapidly, if you keep pressing the Rapid Conscription button: this is awesome, if you still follow the first Excellent Early Game build!

Medics

Should be early, but not too early, since you want huge map presence in the early game! So 5-6 Conscripts before Medics is the ideal, even though it’s normal to recruit Medics after 4 Conscript squads.

Molotovs

They will bleed your later munitions, if you spend too much, but the upgrade is excellent to force an MG to reposition, or to clear a garrison without having the need for a flamer.

AT-nades

Get them as soon as you see the first vehicle, but the ideal scenario is when you get it just before! (so you can kill a nasty SC222 for instance).

T2

If you play vs the Ostheer, you can wait quite a while before selecting T2, and sometimes it is not even needed, but you do need the T2 building, in case you require AT guns later on, this is why you don’t get T1. You will have so many conscripts on the field typically that you can take down everything you need t1 to deal with anyway. It's typically a good idea to go straight for T3 for a fast T34-76 if you have good early game! If you face the OKW, it’s really good to have an early AT-gun, to take down a Luchs with AT-grenades + an AT-gun, or just to kill that annoying OKW Half-Track!

T3 or T4?

Select one of them as soon as possible! Note that it's sometimes worth teching both if the games drag out for too long. What to choose and when... Look in the Game Phases section under Preparing For The Late game.

When should I use Rapid Conscription?

All the time... Use it until you think your army is big enough! Then you should spend the munitions elsewhere on the tech tree! … may I recommend the Fear Propaganda Artillery? Generally, just try to reserve your munitions for Rapid Conscription, until you have enough conscripts!

This should be the easy part, but it can be tricky dealing with the OKW. What you should do in the very beginning of the match, is to cap everything you can and kill as many isolated units as possible. Heavily garrisoned map? - Get a flamer or two. Note that you might need a munition cache then... Just do the usual stuff like with any other heavy conscript build!

You have the map, but you have some trouble, since the Axis players are beginning to set up some strong counters to your "winblobs of OP-skill" (... or your Conscripts)! This is where you use Rapid Conscription to make a powerful wave, with the intention of destroying as much as possible, until you lose about 12 models (for new squads). As soon as this happens, play normally, retreat damaged squads, play the safe game! This can be done with a really high efficiency-rate, because you obtain more confidence in your army, due to the fact that you do not take that big a risk, and you will be rewarded with a larger army afterwards, if things go to plan! You require: HEAVY destruction of enemy units and territory, until you lose 12 models. Duration lasts for 2 minutes!

Pray to RNGesus - joke!

Select your AT-gun, if you are not 100% sure that you can deal with armor, without it. This goes for any part of the game. T3/T4 is critical. Which choice is optional depending on:

>How well did it go? - Opponent got steamrolled? GET DAT T3 --> T70 or T34-76
>Playing against the OKW and fear a Panther on an open map? - Consider SU-85!
>Failed to amass the desired fuel for your army of armor? - Consider T4, since it's much safer.
>You have the whole map? - Great! Now you can spend some munitions on mines!

You try to outplay your opponent with whatever you have until now, while you should have a decent amount of munitions to spend on your abilities to help you out with engagements. Wanna see how it's done? Check out Romeo's cast: Lenny12346 vs StephennJF. Sick match!

It's basically easy to counter, but this is why you want to adapt all the time. What to adapt? That depends on your opponent's counters! I will list some of the crucial counters below:

• Grenblob - play it smart, as soon as you see a Grenblob: make sure that you will win the engagements! Do not be scared of not getting experience from lethal battles for rush to CP6 and rapid conscription. What you need do here is just play patiently, and do not pick bad engagements! He should be forced to blob his Grens, so just cap the map or isolate his units!
  
• MG - If he get's it early, you should have an easy time getting territory, so play around it. If he gets it later! (4 volk --> MG) then try to swarm it or tech Molotovs, if you have a problem with it. Then you will force it to relocate
  
• Mortar - Not a direct counter, but it can be really game-changing. Stop blobbing like a retard and spread your dudes out, so they can still easily support each other... Like a blob, but now with range!
  
• Halftrack - This can be really tricky since your opponent will not lose firepower over time if the HT is present in a certain engagement! Yet, if your skillblob is big enough to inflict more losses than his, then still try to get a shootout going! (Do the math: Grens cost 30 manpower to reinforce and Cons cost 20MP. He will lose 30MP every time you kill a model, if your blob is big enough then it should be worth it, retreat before your overall DPS gets too low for you to benefit from the shootout)
  
• Ostwind - If he techs Ostwind, you should have AT-nades, AT-gun or T34-76s ready... Just do not get isolated and you should be alright!
  
• Werfer - If he techs T4, you should have had plenty of time to get SU-85s or T34-76s! Spread out your units, blob when it's on cooldown!

• Base Structures - Just play around them until you have some neat armor, or if you are feeling confident, get it with AT-guns. Try to keep map presence all game long, so the opponent will not have a nasty Schwehrer Command set up aggressively. It can be really tricky to kill then! And you lose so much map presence! Be careful and take down the buildings before they set up! - Be smart!
  
• Volkblob - See "Grenblob"
  
• Half-Track - This one is tricky, if you expect him to go Mechanized/T2, then make sure to get early AT-nades! You can try to swarm it by letting 1 Conscript bait the first burst of shells, then let some other Conscripts throw some more AT-nades on that vechile; now it has to turn the turret or maybe even reload!(Tip: dies to 3 AT-nades)
  
• Fusiliers - Tricky! See if you can get a nice edge, by having them outnumbered at medium range. You could also HEAVILY outnumber them on long range!
  
• Luchs - Since I believe the Luchs is overperforming in some areas, I have learned to respect this little piece of mechanical death! AT-nades ready immediately, if you have not yet researched them, and if you have not teched to an AT-gun yet, then you are screwed. GET IT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE! Try to bait/outplay the Luchs! Do not rush in with AT-nades: this is almost never a good idea! (Dies to 4 AT-nades)
  
• Stuka - Blob and die, use the fueladvantage to get a fast T34-76 out and get the vehicle before the Panther. You need to be flexible, so waiting on T4 tech might earn you an easy loss
  
• Panther - Tricky, such heavy armor requires AT-guns, a serious T34-76 army (3 of them at least) or a nicely micro'd AT-gun. Try to outplay. T4 is good here
  
• Obersoldaten - Not a problem in the beginning, but if you turn your Conscripts into "Cannon fodder", you just grow the Obersoldaten to vet 3, 4 or 5. Then you suddenly have a huge problem. Kill them with as few losses as possible, or you might lose the game faster than ever, because you will be unable to deal with them. Late game: Prioritise the Obersoldaten with your armor!

Conscript buffing, AT-gun buffing or Tank buffing should be ideal here.
My preferences:
#1 Making conscripts shoot faster and aim more precicely
#2 Making T34-76 the ultimate tank
#3 Making wire faster to build. YOU CAN GET -30% IN TOTAL IF YOU STACK THEM! It's nice when I decide to go double CE before the match for more wire!

Good maps

Kholodny Summer - Just an all round nice map for Conscripts, with relatively safe resources
Semois - Easy to save your muni and fuel
Semois Winter - ICE = more movement, a little tricky when it comes to fuel, easy to get munitions!

Bad maps

Kholodny Winter - Only 1 munition point
Faymonville - Cons get easily countered on this map without support. Houses too OP

Worth mentioning

Kharkov - Not necessarily a bad map, but Conscript spamming is easily countered by MGs on this map, so are tanks due to AT-guns/Tank destroyers. Also a nice map for nasty tellers!
Langres - Easy to cap with the amount of units you have, and T4 is really strong here!
Breakout - Many Conscripts = easy-to-camp buildings.

Have you reached the late game? Do you lack munitions and/or love? Do you feel abandoned? Are you confused? Then it might be a really good idea to have planned or to immediately build some muni caches! Now you can spend the new munitions/confidence on propaganda or your skill-plane/IL-2 sturmovik to gain that edge in the full popcapped late game engagements! (because they will appear often!!) This happens because you will have a laaaaarge amount of Conscripts from Rapid Conscription easily, so just use this to your advantage! The IL-2 might not be the best, but it's pretty good once you spam it over and over again!

Do you feel like you have waaaaaay too many Conscripts on the field for your popcap? If you have enough manpower to create stronger units, go ahead and merge the weak Conscripts into the killer-vet-skill-Conscripts! Losing squads, but you keep your momentum! Seriously! Do not spam Rapid Conscription if you are in the late game/very late game with a REALLY HIGH popcap!

REMEMBER THAT PROPAGANDA GET PAKS TO RETREAT (Video timestamp: 19:00) NOTICE THE PAK RETREATING.

First 15 minutes. Low XP gain from both players, I control the map, while Stephenn holds the top left, to ensure munitions and to obtain easy access to fuel (or at least to have an easer task in regaining ground). Cat-and-mouse play. I am having a hard time in picking good fights. Result: I get bad-ok fights, but I gain map control. Conscript squad-counter: 9 (I think maximum squad counter was 11 ) Note that I get Molotovs, to ensure that his MG repositions all the time.

15 minute mark. I just teched immediately from T0 -> T2 -> T3 and I ensure that I get a fast T34-76 out for offensive play, and I am confident that I can take down Axis armor. NKVD chosen at 6 CP. Not ideal, but it's still a good spot, because now this Commander gets to be worth the waiting! With around 300 ammo in reserve, I have some nice options.

The rest of the map was some crazy play. Conscript-hordes and 4 T34-76s vs a really good defence, including P4s, Pak43, Ostwind and a lot more!