Countering Penal/early Guards combo

Hello everyone

I have encountered a soviet strategy where he builds t1 + 1 con squad and then double penal, double guards and an m3 somwhere i between.

Grens and even Pgrens get shredded by guards and penals and the mg42 gets outflanked by the m3.

Any tips on how to go against this?

Hello everyone

I have encountered a soviet strategy where he builds t1 + 1 con squad and then double penal, double guards and an m3 somwhere i between.

Grens and even Pgrens get shredded by guards and penals and the mg42 gets outflanked by the m3.

Any tips on how to go against this?

Wouldn't just straight lmg grens be cost effective? The more engagements you have the better off you are. Damage wise last I knew penals and lmg grens are approximate equivalents but penals have a higher reinforcement cost. If he is going double guards FHT could be a bit risky.

If they have double guards FHT is risky. I personally tend to build Gren, MG, Gren, MG, Gren, Mortar. Use the MGs to cover each others flanks. If he has a flamer car, keep Grens near the MGs to faust. Use true sight to hide them around corners if you are expecting the M3 to come around your flank.

Do be careful about satchels. They will blow you up hardcore, and they seem to be gaining in popularity. The MGs must support each other so the penals dont get close. The best thing you can do is setup your MGs to cover each other, and then use the grens to give them line of sight on their full arc so they pin faster. Use the mortar barrage on squads that get suppressed, and even go so far as to start the barrage ahead of where the opponent is walking into your MGs so it starts hitting them right as they get suppressed.

MG micro goes a long way in this situation too. You can manually order your MG to attack a particular squad in its cone of fire. The MG42 has a high horizontal traverse (which is how quickly it changes target), and the automatic behavior of MGs is to attack the squad that is closest. If you have a squad suppressed at long distance (or pinned), and another one attempts to flank within your cone of fire, tell your MG to attack the other squad as soon as it enters your cone of fire. This will make up for some of the slowness of the horizontal traverse. What will happen is, you will have 2 squads suppressed/pinned at different sides of your MG arc. You have to follow this up by ordering the MG to attack the first squad again, so it remains suppressed/pinned. Drop the mortar on them, and micro the MG so the squads both get suppressed/pinned. It should force a retreat. Rifle grenade on a bunched of blob is also devastating.

NOTE: The MG should not pack up and change its arc. If you accidentally pick it up and move it when your intent is to change target without moving, you might be screwed. Be careful when you tell your MG to attack a different target, make sure you click on the squad and not the ground.

If they have double guards FHT is risky. I personally tend to build Gren, MG, Gren, MG, Gren, Mortar. Use the MGs to cover each others flanks. If he has a flamer car, keep Grens near the MGs to faust. Use true sight to hide them around corners if you are expecting the M3 to come around your flank.

Do be careful about satchels. They will blow you up hardcore, and they seem to be gaining in popularity. The MGs must support each other so the penals dont get close. The best thing you can do is setup your MGs to cover each other, and then use the grens to give them line of sight on their full arc so they pin faster. Use the mortar barrage on squads that get suppressed, and even go so far as to start the barrage ahead of where the opponent is walking into your MGs so it starts hitting them right as they get suppressed.

MG micro goes a long way in this situation too. You can manually order your MG to attack a particular squad in its cone of fire. The MG42 has a high horizontal traverse (which is how quickly it changes target), and the automatic behavior of MGs is to attack the squad that is closest. If you have a squad suppressed at long distance (or pinned), and another one attempts to flank within your cone of fire, tell your MG to attack the other squad as soon as it enters your cone of fire. This will make up for some of the slowness of the horizontal traverse. What will happen is, you will have 2 squads suppressed/pinned at different sides of your MG arc. You have to follow this up by ordering the MG to attack the first squad again, so it remains suppressed/pinned. Drop the mortar on them, and micro the MG so the squads both get suppressed/pinned. It should force a retreat. Rifle grenade on a bunched of blob is also devastating.

NOTE: The MG should not pack up and change its arc. If you accidentally pick it up and move it when your intent is to change target without moving, you might be screwed. Be careful when you tell your MG to attack a different target, make sure you click on the squad and not the ground.

Thx for the advice. I've found double gren, double mg, mortar, t3 ostwind/p4, to work pretty well. The problem is fighting defensively for too long will bring forward his t-34/85 call in.

The way I tackle it is with a sniper and upgunned 222 Scout car as the key units. 2-3 Grens and 1 MG42 to fill in the gaps.

The 222 Scout Car upgunned must be used defensively for when an opponent over commits there M3 scout car and you are certain the Guards will not be able to kill it. Use it to cover the Sniper constantly from any M3 rushes and keep a Gren squad near the sniper as well if possible.

If their is not direct confrontation occuring your sniper should be constantly picking off Guards/Penals for a heavy manpower drain. If they have 2 Guards/2 Penal the likelyhood of a Soviet Sniper should be low but be weary of a counter snipe. If you force a retreat on Guard squads note it and be more aggressive with that 222 to kill their M3's.

This style of play can fail big time if you make a mistake or your opponent pulls off a solid tactical engagement. Give it a few chances if you don't suceed at first.

Option 1 - Sniper - 30 MP/shot in bleed on Soviet = $$$$

Option 2 - Mass LMG Grens - you'll play the attrition game here in that you'll be trading models for models but your guys are cheaper to reinforce and will kill faster.

Option 3 - Mass G43 Grens - Penals will die like flies, Guards will die quickly, G43s are secret OP.

222 can be risky against early Guards but might be necessary depending on how annoying the M3 is, but this takes away from G43s/LMGs if you're going that route.

If you want to get an MG42 and/or Sniper you just have to be super careful about positioning and knowing where their M3 is.

Overall just find ways to bleed them out. Penals and Guards are very expensive to reinforce unless they're merging cons constantly in which case upgraded Grens should shred things. LMGs against 1.0 armor = ownage.

Since I find my mg42 micro to be very slugish I'll try some of the more flexible strats you guys mentioned.

Going sniper/sdkfz 222 against this sounds very risky, but where there is big risk there can be big reward .

I guess I just wasn't used to a t1 opening like this so I got a bit overwhelmed. Now when thinking about it, I could have come up with some of those ideas myself .

Thanks guys

No problem. Let us know how your going with it. Cheers.

If I see guard and penals combo I go MG+sniper, MG+sniper. This will stop them dead. Gren squad should be close to Faust clown car. Keep your mgs and snipers in pairs, covering the flanks. Secure the fuel and tech further.

What do you do if the opponent also has a sniper combined with guards and / or penals? If he has guards, you can't really do anything with a scout car to kill his sniper...

It is indeed much harder to deal with than shocks probably, since the sniper keeps your infantry away making your squad useless at fighting just after one shot. Guards on the other hand keep your scout car away from the sniper.