Sniper Scout Car Rush - May Need Review

Fast Tier 1 for a Sniper and Scout Car using Conscripts as meat shields/scouting units, followed up by Guards to deal with German Scout Cars.

This strat seems incredibly difficult to beat without blobbing your units, at which point you lose a lot of map control. The reduced Panzerfaust range makes kiting even easier.

Thoughts?

Sorry to Apfelsaft for making him deal with this in an automatch. He wasn't too thrilled, as this strat is insanely gimicky.

Just lost to it and it's been lame for several patches tbh - not something new.

I can't understand how relic hasn't patched this yet.

My beef comes with the blizzard which I voiced during our game. the loss of the LOS and innacuracy of shreks during blizzard maps (apparently) is game ending. It's a bs strat, and I'd encourage you to be a part of the solution by playing germans and finding a way around it then padding your stats as the problem.

Scout car is so strong already (and rightly so for 25 fuel, tho maybe it needs a manpower increase) that you don't need to be able to put units inside of it. I guess if you made the units in the M3 extra extra easy to kill it'd be OK, but right now it feels really broken.

Scoutcars (ClownCars) need a little Fuel Increase (or you need a upgrade with the scout cars so you can transport units).
MG42/Mortars from germans are useless at the moment because scout cars are overpowered. In the closed beta they were ok.

Guards = Nerf Anti Armor. Or you need more command points until they are unlocked. 1 point for 120mm mortar and Guards? Sure...

Even more popular is the clowncar spam in 2v2 now, i counted 7 m3s at the same time driving around. Ofc it is beatable when your teammate goes fast t2, but even then vs decent opponents you will loose your AC-s if you are even a bit careless.

Relic, WHY DONT YOU FIX THIS?

toughts?i did it first

Scout car is so strong already (and rightly so for 25 fuel, tho maybe it needs a manpower increase) that you don't need to be able to put units inside of it. I guess if you made the units in the M3 extra extra easy to kill it'd be OK, but right now it feels really broken.

According to current CoH2 stats, M3 costs 80 manpower 20 fuel?
The german scout car is 80 manpower 25 fuel 60 munitions and feels like a Jeep vs anything else than light vehicles that can't shoot back.

The most obvious fix would be to remove the garrison ability and leave that role to the currently underused M5.

toughts?i did it first

what did you do first

According to current CoH2 stats, M3 costs 80 manpower 20 fuel?
The german scout car is 80 manpower 25 fuel 60 munitions and feels like a Jeep vs anything else than light vehicles that can't shoot back.

The most obvious fix would be to remove the garrison ability and leave that role to the currently underused M5.

Seems reasonable.

Remember that the increased AOE on the upgunned AC didn't apply with the last patch, together with the one of the StuG. Maybe we should wait to see how much it changes the AC before talking about further balance

Remember that the increased AOE on the upgunned AC didn't apply with the last patch, together with the one of the StuG. Maybe we should wait to see how much it changes the AC before talking about further balance

The AOE doesnt mattet in this case, what matters is why relic brought back "bren carrier", you can feel the mix of british faction and the minds behind the OF expansion team in CoH2. bren carrier is a little pussycat when it comes to the M3. :/ It's really annoying to play vs 5+ scout cars in a 2v2. Luckily i've been quite lucky in 1v1.

Still overpowered, sc comes with t1, ac needs to be teched and costs a way more... As you can see in the replay it is useless anyways from the point where the Russian player gets guards. I totally agree and hope relic makes the sc like the German half track and leaves the opportunity to garrison to the m5.

I don't see how the M3 could be any useful if you can't garrison it. Also, the AOE matters because if the upgunned scoutcar turns to be also an effective AI unit it would be not only worth its cost, but even a better investment vs both Russian players who go for mass infantry->Shock Troops or those who go for M3s->Guards. Also, with the AOE increased radius the AC should be able to:

a) damage the M3 even if it doesn't hit it directly but it hits the ground close to it
b) do more damage to units inside the M3

Which could potentially change things. The problem in my opinion is how fast you can reach M3s and how spammable they are, and the solution (imho) is not in changing the M3 directly but in making it harder for the Russian player to accumulate so much early game MP to invest in snipers/guards/multiple M3s without any real risk (which means that you can go whatever you want because you will always feel comfortable enough to invest that MP in those units).

That's the reason because both Sepha and I think that Conscripts reinforce cost should be increased, this would probably delay the M3 of at least 30secs/1minute, enough time to give the German player the chance to have some more stuff on the field to counter it.

The only thing I would change to the M3 is its penetration, I would decrease it a bit.
And I would decrease the range of the PTRS to match the shooting distance of an upgunned AC, so at least it would be a question of microing and skill.

Having said that, we'll see in the next tourneys if there's any player who found out a way to stop the M3 push

I don't see how the M3 could be any useful if you can't garrison it. Also, the AOE matters because if the upgunned scoutcar turns to be also an effective AI unit it would be not only worth its cost, but even a better investment vs both Russian players who go for mass infantry->Shock Troops or those who go for M3s->Guards. Also, with the AOE increased radius the AC should be able to:

a) damage the M3 even if it doesn't hit it directly but it hits the ground close to it
b) do more damage to units inside the M3

Which could potentially change things. The problem in my opinion is how fast you can reach M3s and how spammable they are, and the solution (imho) is not in changing the M3 directly but in making it harder for the Russian player to accumulate so much early game MP to invest in snipers/guards/multiple M3s without any real risk (which means that you can go whatever you want because you will always feel comfortable enough to invest that MP in those units).

That's the reason because both Sepha and I think that Conscripts reinforce cost should be increased, this would probably delay the M3 of at least 30secs/1minute, enough time to give the German player the chance to have some more stuff on the field to counter it.

The only thing I would change to the M3 is its penetration, I would decrease it a bit.
And I would decrease the range of the PTRS to match the shooting distance of an upgunned AC, so at least it would be a question of microing and skill.

Having said that, we'll see in the next tourneys if there's any player who found out a way to stop the M3 push

Fanboy on sight , i will deal with you on steam!!!!!! you probably need more MG strat marcu to see how OP soviets are now

I don't see how the M3 could be any useful if you can't garrison it.

From watching Dev Diaries, this is usually the point when, as a designer you should go: "Maybe this is not a unit we need to put in the game, it overlaps roles". Too late for that now though....

The role the scout car should fill, is that of a scout, with a little bit of firepower (same for AC). There are, right now, no dedicated scout units in the game. The only unit that sort of feels like that is the AC with spotting scopes on

Not sure about balance, and snipers shooting from scout cars should be limited in some way, but to suggest that no units should be able to shoot from scout cars because you aren't fond of the strategy is not compelling to me. If its too easy and cheesy, that should be dealt with by balancing it, but to remove an optional way of playing seems like a way of reducing the overall strategic depth of the game by shrinking down the potential openings in favor of somebody's version of "good play." I'd rather play and watch game match-ups can vastly differ in their composition. The only thing that needs to be looked at here is whether or not the scout car strategies limit potential ostheer play, and if so some solutions should be put forward that fix that problem, rather than just taking away from the game.


Balancing the scout car by up-ticking the fuel cost for the privilege makes sense to me, since this will almost certainly reduce the likelihood of watching a player build his 3rd or 4th scout car in the course of the first 6 minutes.

Just encountered this strat on Moscow Outskirts and was able to defeat it, although with some difficultly and only because my Soviet opponent made some mistakes during the midgame. The Soviet build eventually culminated in 3 sniper squads, 1 scout car and 4 guards.

The reduced range of the faust really makes any t1 counter to the sniper/scout car combo unrealistic, forcing me to tech into 2 222's of my own which were taken out by the guards in very little time.

The long retreat paths also turned my grens into nice targets on their retreat path and I ended up losing 7 squads throughout the early game mostly on their retreat paths. I've played plenty of vCoH as well as CoH2 and am by no means a new comer to the game, and its very rare that I lose more than 1 gren squad per 1v1 game. Something is definitely off with the mechanics of sniper/scout car, and the gimmicky effect is magnified when fielded in larger numbers.

From watching Dev Diaries, this is usually the point when, as a designer you should go: "Maybe this is not a unit we need to put in the game, it overlaps roles". Too late for that now though....

The role the scout car should fill, is that of a scout, with a little bit of firepower (same for AC). There are, right now, no dedicated scout units in the game. The only unit that sort of feels like that is the AC with spotting scopes on

I would venture to call the T70 a dedicated scout unit. Vet 1 let's it capture points, it has built-in auto repair and you can pop the driver out to DOUBLE your sight range (so good for scouting and mortar spotting.) As Tycho puts it, putting your T70 into capture mode is "asshole mode."

Here's an example of me flat out stealing a game from four Panzer IV's who come crashing into my base at the last second simply by using asshole mode throughout a blizzard to drain his VP's: http://www.coh2.org/replays/4571/opponent-nearly-annhilates-me/page/1#post_id47040