Penal Battalions and Assault Grenadiers

Penals need an armor buff to 1.5 if they're ever going to be remotely useful as a flamethrower shock unit :/

I mean they can't even throw a satchel at one pg squad

You wanna kill a sgt44 squad with tinner smg's?!

Penal are great but 360mp is too costly, 320mp would be nice.

Whenever I use them I always have a conscript squad lingering in the shadows ready to reinforce then so they can stay on the field

Penals perform ok and the armour is what makes them a good unit to merge with to save some manpower and keep a damage dealing unit on the field, it also gives merge actually a good use.
The only thing worth thinking about would be a cost decrease to 300 or 320 manpower (and maybe 7 or 8 instead of 9 population cost).

Penals have a role and are good at it, however in most scenarios they are too costly for it. Their manpower and population cost put them in the same league as elite infantry which they're not quite.

When one squad needs to constantly rely on other squad to make it work, then it means it doesn't work.
ESPECIALLY if we're talking frontline infantry and not weapon teams.
Current penals role is quick feeding exp to LMG/G43 grens and panzergrens.
They are good vs AGs only because AGs are cheaper, weaker and have no upgrades.
Agreed on cost and pop, AGs could also use 40mp drop.

You wanna kill a sgt44 squad with tinner smg's?!

Who? What? Where? How?
Whatever a "tinner smg" is - Penals have SVT40s (rifles ). And trust me, even with the 1.5 armor, a pg squad would still chew up the shtrafniki. It would just take a bit longer

When one squad needs to constantly rely on other squad to make it work, then it means it doesn't work.

Your assessment is not correct. Complementing the penal squad with a conscript increases time the penal can stay on the map and inflict damage. It improves it. The penal doesn't rely on the conscript to be valid.

As mentioned the penals are ok, their manpower and population cost are maybe not in line with their performance (maybe adjust the cost to 320 manpower and 7 population).

Penal troops are problematic. They are good in the early game with their nice DPS and the flame thrower upgrade which can really do a lot of damage to grenadiers before they start to get too many LMG42s. When in cover and equipped with a flame thrower, they can also hold their ground against in incoming panzergrenadier squad.

However, in the later stages of the game they loose a lot of their punch. Once the grenadiers are equipped with LMG42s, they can go head to head with penal troops. Which makes the penal troops cost-ineffective due to their 50% higher upkeep. It gets even worse when the opponent has G43 rifles on their grenadiers. Penal troops, supposed soviet anti-infantry specialists, get absolutely demolished by these much cheaper german soldiers.

Now this would not be too bad if it was easy to get a penal squad in the early game to support early pushes. But, penal troops come from the rather expensive T1 building, which provides no units that can help you in the later stages of game. Just getting a single penal squad isn't worth it. And getting more will just lead to higher man-drain loss via upkeep against cheaper upkeep upgraded grenadiers.

Penals are my favorite unit in the game. I can't comment on their pricing with any authority and certainly wouldn't cry if they were reduced in price, but they have some really interesting properties that allow them to turn battles.

*They are decent long or short range(with flamer).

*they have satchel charges- which are just awesome and turn tides all the time, including catching a jammed up fht, forcing mass retreats, killing garrisoned mgs, at guns, blowing chunks out of engine damaged tanks, etc.

*they reinforce from cons without loss of combat effectiveness(I have been told this and it seems to be true). This is great early game for maintaining a strong offensive output on the field during the first couple skirmishes.

*they get oorah at vet 2, and that coupled with satchels definitely keeps them viable into the late game.

I think 340 would be the ideal cost, but people seem to be pushing for about 320, which might not be too cheap, but seems like Christmas to me.

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If assualt grens are too narrow in their window of viability, maybe that should be addressed in vet, namely vet 3. I don't think it would be a horrible thing if a vet 3 squad could faust, or had better armor, etc. All I know is that I never see them anymore, so something is probably not right. Did anybody use them in SNF?

tbh i think assgrens do pretty darn good at vet 3. i build 2 of them and have other units to supplement the AT. leting the assgrens be my shock absorbers.(pun intended) usually add a pgren or 2 later. the trick i think is keeping your assgrens in pairs once shocks hit the field. (or just in general )

i havn't played enough games with them to be certain but they seem pretty darn good.

2 assgrens >/= 1 shock

Assault grens could be make to scale better if there was an option for 60 munis to upgrade at vet 2/3 to STG-44s. Not 5 STGs, but maybe 2-3 or so.

AssGrens are very well balanced right now. They provide a decent edge early game and serves well the whole game as long as you don't overbuild them.

Instead of 60 muni for stgs' why not give them the ability to use fausts once t4 is unlocked.

Instead of 60 muni for stgs' why not give them the ability to use fausts once t4 is unlocked.

For the same reason why shocks are not getting AT nades when T4/T3 is built.