Early Game Riflemen Rant

I'll keep this short.

The unit absolutely eats the dust against axis in the early game -especially because of the map pool. (Edit : Wording)

Early game,
You get beaten by Volks and Grens at long range.
You get beaten horribly by Volks and Grens if you decide to charge at them.
You beat Volks marginally and beat the Grens handily at close.
Which both cost less than the rifles and has access to their weapon upgrades without any side techs.


The issue is compounded even more when you consider the supporting units of axis factions:

Against OKW:
***Sturmpioneer eats your rifles and your measly Rear Echelons for breakfast.
***Kübelwagen bleeds you to death from range.

Against OST:
***Pioneer does better than your Rear Echelons, provide good support to Grens if you decide to charge them and provides sight to MG42 which you don't have any counters against unless you go for sidetech + leuitenant/captain/your rear echelon with your rifles or the worst mortar in the game (which also creates another weakness with sub-optimal build)
***MG42, mentioned above.
***Sniper, that is literally uncounterable without Pathfinders or LV (Captain one, which is the meta, arrives too late against sniper aswell).


In the end, Rifles are much more micro-taxing and annoying to use while their performance is gated extremely behind veterancy and sidetechs. I don't know if any more updates are coming to the game but if there are, then I hope the rifles are addressed.

1) no
2) replay pls

more or less true

Extremely true and based.

Pretty much, yeah.
As a person that plays USF competitively exclusively, I can tell you that you do not want to fight long range with rifles. Not even medium range.

Against OKW you preferably need luck with the model drops against the sturmpio, otherwise, the sturmpio will dominate the echelon and you'll have a spio + volk + kubel vs rifle + rifle; which will lose hard.
Against OST, you want to force the pio away as early as possible. While pios are squishy, they do have a lot of firepower close range. I've provided proof that pios can charge, over neutral cover, to green cover REs and win the engagement easily. First fight is pio vs RE with rifles coming and an MG42 most likely; and pios just have to charge. REs can be in the perfect green cover, pios will still win if they charge over anything BUT red cover. REs would have to spend muni to win this.
And you definitely don't want to go medium/long range vs OST. Rifles don't have enough DPS to contest the MG42 behind the perfect green cover. Hence why USF needs to be played extremely aggressively.
Biggest problem is that the USF mortar is downright sh*t. It's basically a smoke dispenser. You might get a few lucky hits on clumped up squads, but in terms of bleed/dmg, it's just a population hog. It's better to try and play around and wait for pak howi than to go for a mortar.
That's from a 3v3 perspective, where MG42s can lock down a sector easily and spios can be close to a kubel whilst not losing any capping (as the ally is capping other points). Since 3v3 is basically a 1v1 on "lanes", a lot of the OST/OKW weaknesses disappear in a heartbeat.

Balance team knew it, but they still decided to nerf rifles close range power, whilst not buffing rear echelons. But hey, then Sander wouldn't have an easy time in 3v3s, spamming his favourite fussies. Or Sturmpanther in arranged team 4v4s....

OKW

Sturmpioneer is OP vs riflemen, for 300mp you get a unit that fight extremly well with no need for combat upgrade vs a unit costing 280 and needing 60/120 munition to perform the same. Cheery on the cake was the stun grenade gifted from nowhere because reason.

Kubel's nature is a hard counter to riflemen, even more with a SP close by. Modding team new it but still went that direction and nerfed RE vs it a patch later or so. Same for the 221, buffed it vs riflemen and nerfed RE vs it.

Volks shouldn't get sandbag vs USF but need them vs UKF and Soviet. With sandbag they value 280 mp in term of efficiency.

OKW Elite infantry in general just hard counter riflemen in almost every situations, usually they simply destroy them at long range and to fight them you must build a sherman/scott.

OKW is atm in a situation where they get better early game, even mid game and dominate late game with the association of elite infantry and superior armor.

Ostheer.

Pio 42 range makes early game harder for USF.

Gren are the best mainline infantry atm, almost no need for micro just a-move.

Superior HMG, superior mortar and the sniper.

222 competes with OKW HT for the best light vehicle title, good vs everything, comes in same tier as pak and supported with long range pfaust. Riflemen get destroyed by it.

As USF you just need to play perfectly to win, as Ostheer not so much.

OKW

Sturmpioneer is OP vs riflemen, for 300mp you get a unit that fight extremly well with no need for combat upgrade vs a unit costing 280 and needing 60/120 munition to perform the same. Cheery on the cake was the stun grenade gifted from nowhere because reason.

Kubel's nature is a hard counter to riflemen, even more with a SP close by. Modding team new it but still went that direction and nerfed RE vs it a patch later or so. Same for the 221, buffed it vs riflemen and nerfed RE vs it.

Volks shouldn't get sandbag vs USF but need them vs UKF and Soviet. With sandbag they value 280 mp in term of efficiency.

OKW Elite infantry in general just hard counter riflemen in almost every situations, usually they simply destroy them at long range and to fight them you must build a sherman/scott.

OKW is atm in a situation where they get better early game, even mid game and dominate late game with the association of elite infantry and superior armor.

Ostheer.

Pio 42 range makes early game harder for USF.

Gren are the best mainline infantry atm, almost no need for micro just a-move.

Superior HMG, superior mortar and the sniper.

222 competes with OKW HT for the best light vehicle title, good vs everything, comes in same tier as pak and supported with long range pfaust. Riflemen get destroyed by it.

As USF you just need to play perfectly to win, as Ostheer not so much.

Come on man. USF definitely has its problems but this is exaggeration. but The 222 definitely isn't good vs everything. Sturms fall off hard the further the game goes and Volks trade their early game for being next to useless in the lategame.

Come on man. USF definitely has its problems but this is exaggeration. but The 222 definitely isn't good vs everything. Sturms fall off hard the further the game goes and Volks trade their early game for being next to useless in the lategame.

222 is good vs anything USF can oppose when it hits the field. It's a very versatile unit and get smoke with the right commander. You need to invest twice its cost in fuel to keep it at bay as USF. It's not difficult to stay out of atnade range with it because the unit is well responsive, has a good acceleration and good speed.

Sturms don't fall hard vs Riflemen, don't mixe with other matchup. Sturm is a unit that get freely with vet what you need to pay with fuel and munition for your riflemen. They start falling off against riflemen when you equip 2xBAR which seems legit when you compare the cost.

Volks don't trade anything. They get outclassed late game vs USF only if you equip 2xBars on riflemen, but hey you have a 260mp/60mu losing vs 280mp/120mu and this occurs only during late game. Test it yourself, equip only 1BAR on your riflemen and see if they trade that well vs a vet4-5 volks.

Pretty much, yeah.
As a person that plays USF competitively exclusively, I can tell you that you do not want to fight long range with rifles. Not even medium range.

Against OKW you preferably need luck with the model drops against the sturmpio, otherwise, the sturmpio will dominate the echelon and you'll have a spio + volk + kubel vs rifle + rifle; which will lose hard.
Against OST, you want to force the pio away as early as possible. While pios are squishy, they do have a lot of firepower close range. I've provided proof that pios can charge, over neutral cover, to green cover REs and win the engagement easily. First fight is pio vs RE with rifles coming and an MG42 most likely; and pios just have to charge. REs can be in the perfect green cover, pios will still win if they charge over anything BUT red cover. REs would have to spend muni to win this.
And you definitely don't want to go medium/long range vs OST. Rifles don't have enough DPS to contest the MG42 behind the perfect green cover. Hence why USF needs to be played extremely aggressively.
Biggest problem is that the USF mortar is downright sh*t. It's basically a smoke dispenser. You might get a few lucky hits on clumped up squads, but in terms of bleed/dmg, it's just a population hog. It's better to try and play around and wait for pak howi than to go for a mortar.
That's from a 3v3 perspective, where MG42s can lock down a sector easily and spios can be close to a kubel whilst not losing any capping (as the ally is capping other points). Since 3v3 is basically a 1v1 on "lanes", a lot of the OST/OKW weaknesses disappear in a heartbeat.

Balance team knew it, but they still decided to nerf rifles close range power, whilst not buffing rear echelons. But hey, then Sander wouldn't have an easy time in 3v3s, spamming his favourite fussies. Or Sturmpanther in arranged team 4v4s....

This yet is another false post about Riflemen having their close DPS nerfed.

It time to ask the question is this habit of complaining about things that are false (and bushing the MOD team about them) intentional or accidental?

Fuck Kubel.
How the fuck a little car can defy a whole USF opening ?.
And how the fuck it equipped heatbeat sensor aka hack minimap in 1944 ?.

Come on man. USF definitely has its problems but this is exaggeration. but The 222 definitely isn't good vs everything. Sturms fall off hard the further the game goes and Volks trade their early game for being next to useless in the lategame.

While I agree that volks are useless late game. Truth be told, they do scale poorly.... but then again, OKW does have obers. And 280 MP 120 Muni vet3 rifles will maybe take down one vet2 LMG ober in longer ranges, while the obers on average will kill 2-3 models.
Hence why scotts are popular vs them. I mean, they have around 1/2 of the target size with veterancy. Good luck hitting that with BARs on anything beyond point blank. Not to mention that ober LMG long range DPS is the same as ranger tommies close range DPS. Sure, obers get one LMG, but rangers need to close in.

If volks scaled well late, then obers would need a price buff and a big performance nerf.

I'll keep this short.

The unit absolutely eats the dust against axis in the early game -especially because of the map pool. (Edit : Wording)

Early game,
You get beaten by Volks and Grens at long range.
You get beaten horribly by Volks and Grens if you decide to charge at them.
You beat Volks marginally and beat the Grens handily at close.
Which both cost less than the rifles and has access to their weapon upgrades without any side techs.


The issue is compounded even more when you consider the supporting units of axis factions:

Against OKW:
***Sturmpioneer eats your rifles and your measly Rear Echelons for breakfast.
***Kübelwagen bleeds you to death from range.

Against OST:
***Pioneer does better than your Rear Echelons, provide good support to Grens if you decide to charge them and provides sight to MG42 which you don't have any counters against unless you go for sidetech + leuitenant/captain/your rear echelon with your rifles or the worst mortar in the game (which also creates another weakness with sub-optimal build)
***MG42, mentioned above.
***Sniper, that is literally uncounterable without Pathfinders or LV (Captain one, which is the meta, arrives too late against sniper aswell).


In the end, Rifles are much more micro-taxing and annoying to use while their performance is gated extremely behind veterancy and sidetechs. I don't know if any more updates are coming to the game but if there are, then I hope the rifles are addressed.

It seems to me that you are exaggerating. Riflemen is a very strong unit. Can 1v1 Grens at any range but long. And 1v1 Volks at any range any day of the week.

Riflemen are very versatile and can be equiped with Bars, Zooks or 1919s according to the game situation.

The only real problem are Kubels and SPios. But hey, cmon, 2 blobed RM can easily force them to retreat.

While I agree that volks are useless late game. Truth be told, they do scale poorly.... but then again, OKW does have obers. And 280 MP 120 Muni vet3 rifles will maybe take down one vet2 LMG ober in longer ranges, while the obers on average will kill 2-3 models.
Hence why scotts are popular vs them. I mean, they have around 1/2 of the target size with veterancy. Good luck hitting that with BARs on anything beyond point blank. Not to mention that ober LMG long range DPS is the same as ranger tommies close range DPS. Sure, obers get one LMG, but rangers need to close in.

If volks scaled well late, then obers would need a price buff and a big performance nerf.

100%. have no problem with their poor scaling being a weakness given that OKW have stock access to very powerful elite infantry, it makes sense because of this. The Esxile rifles vs volks comparison being so disengenious, it's nice to read a sane post on the topic.

The only thing that saves Riflemens in the early game is a great grenade, I have many times forced a player out of the game simply by wiping his Sturmpioneers with one grenade in the first minutes of the game. The rest of the Riflemens are pretty so-so. I'll try to replace them with Paratroopers and give the bazookas to Riflemens.

The only thing that saves Riflemens in the early game is a great grenade, I have many times forced a player out of the game simply by wiping his Sturmpioneers with one grenade in the first minutes of the game. The rest of the Riflemens are pretty so-so. I'll try to replace them with Paratroopers and give the bazookas to Riflemens.

Which rank are you playing that you tech nades that early on and not get punished? Spending fuel and MP so early for nades in any decent rank, delaying the AAHT/Stuart will net you a loss, especially since that early on, it's real easy to dodge nades due to there not being a lot of chaos/units on the field. I'm guessing that early nade tech is great against slower players.

Which rank are you playing that you tech nades that early on and not get punished? Spending fuel and MP so early for nades in any decent rank, delaying the AAHT/Stuart will net you a loss, especially since that early on, it's real easy to dodge nades due to there not being a lot of chaos/units on the field. I'm guessing that early nade tech is great against slower players.

I always unlock a grenade after the second squad of Riflemen. In my experience in team games (3 vs 3, 4 vs 4) this is the best start with which Riflemen will be most effective. As I said, many times I got to get one of the players out just by wiping his squads with grenades.

Edit: The last time I played for the USA I was 17th rank. To be honest, this is too easy a faction for me, so it's not interesting for me to play for the USA.

Which rank are you playing that you tech nades that early on and not get punished? Spending fuel and MP so early for nades in any decent rank, delaying the AAHT/Stuart will net you a loss, especially since that early on, it's real easy to dodge nades due to there not being a lot of chaos/units on the field. I'm guessing that early nade tech is great against slower players.

It depends, the nade cost maybe be covered if you manage to get back the 10 fuel of it. Keeping your own fuel point or taking your opponent because of the nade.

USF suffers more from map design, rather then its faction balance. Problem being that rifles are very dependant on cover and positioning.

If rifles are positioned well enough or managed to get into the position quickly enough, they are really good unit.

But ultimately they suffer from all the disadvantages mid\close range inf suffers from. After all the changes, game really favourite long range model sniping fights. with either LMGs or general high DPS or super early CQC inits which works just because there arent too many enemy units to fight.

On top of the general game problems, USF in particular don't have any options to properly play in 3v3+ game modes, instead they rely on just objectively overpowered gimmics be it pathfinders meta or aggressive early ambu. Making it frustrating to play as and against USF.

Not to mention:
*OKW has fussiliers to help with early snare, handheld AT or being strong mainline.
*Ost has Ass.Grens to help on maps where grens struggle
*Sov either cons\penals and guards\shocks
*UKF mid\close range raid sections, semi-close range 5 men support engis, close range ass.sections
*USF literally every inf call-in - close\mid range orientated. With an exception of Pathfinders - which right now works unintentionally, airborn with LMGs and rifles LMG. But still, you dont have any properly designed 0 CP options like other factions.

Rifles only have a poor matchup vs okw. If you know how to use your ranges you will demolish grens, their only counter is camo essentially.

While I agree that volks are useless late game. Truth be told, they do scale poorly.... but then again, OKW does have obers. And 280 MP 120 Muni vet3 rifles will maybe take down one vet2 LMG ober in longer ranges, while the obers on average will kill 2-3 models.
Hence why scotts are popular vs them. I mean, they have around 1/2 of the target size with veterancy. Good luck hitting that with BARs on anything beyond point blank. Not to mention that ober LMG long range DPS is the same as ranger tommies close range DPS. Sure, obers get one LMG, but rangers need to close in.

If volks scaled well late, then obers would need a price buff and a big performance nerf.

Only Thompson (tommy gun) Rangers have good DPS even at MID range.

They have around 93% DPS of LMG obers at range 20 and up to 138% higher DPS closer.

But is that is not really related to Riflemen.