"L2Play!" - Ok, can someone help me do that

One of the most demoralizing things in the world is when you get constantly stomped online, then you go to the forums and people are complaining about how OP your faction is, how things need to get nerfed and how it's for skilless babies.

So I've been playing USA lately. Used to do Ostheer and my AT partner and I go fairly good at them, sort of mid-tier play. We don't try to be pros, we don't have time to be pros, but we do like to be able to actually win as often as we lose. Since WFA came out, we've been getting murdered like Brazil at the world cup. Games tend to follow the same pattern:

1. We have a strong opening, we do quite well.
2. We have a strong early-mid, we push the enemy pretty well.
3. Everything fucking collapses; we can't handle anything, we lose.

Sometimes we will encounter genuine noobs and crush them, but against competent players, we seem to be getting just... anihilated. All the time. So I come to you, forumgoers, for strategy advice. I am uploading our two most recent games to illustrate how they went. I would greatly appreciate a critique, an explanation of how the US metagame is supposed to go beyond the first 3 rifle squads and solid builds. Thank you in advance.

(God I hope this thread gets a reply or I'll feel even more humiliated).

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  2

  VS

  Adam sloth_bear

  TW-nabobo Gorgutzer

  I suck, part 1

  by: ThoseDeafMutes map: Semoskiy Winter

  2

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  0

  VS

  Adam sloth_bear

  [CTAS]MepH1sT0pHeLeS [CTAS] AxXxeMaNN

  I suck, part 2

  by: ThoseDeafMutes map: Semoskiy

  1

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Please accept this as an offering of good will:

Hey, I've watched the first reply (vs. double Ost) to the 14:30 mark, and I've got enough comments that I think it'll be a good place for you to start. Broadly speaking, I think your confidence in your early game is misplaced, and for now you should focus on that.

Very early game:

1) Your RE squad can't 1v1 anything, so don't send it to cap points where it might encounter the enemy. I know getting the fuel quickly is a goal, but if you'd sent your RE to the sourthern corner at first, both your RE and your first rifle squad would hit the fuel area around the same time.

2) Related point: your squads were spread apart far enough that they couldn't support each other. When two gren squads are firing their guns and only one rifle squad is, the overall MP bleed favors the enemy. There are cases where this is okay due to other considerations (like map control tradeoff), but you didn't gain enough value for the bleed you suffered.

Early-Mid Micro Issues:

3) Related to point (2), when you put one rifle squad in a building to protect it from three gren squads, the MP bleed *still* favors the enemy, just because there's so much more DPS coming out. You garrisoned building in the face of overwhelming odds a couple times, which would be fine if you had reinforcements coming up and just needed to hold the ground for a few seconds. As it was, you bled the enemy a little bit, he bled you a lot, and you were forced to retreat anyway.

4) That fighting position was very poorly placed. The way you had it, it could be easily flanked on both sides. If you watch the replay, the enemy actually sees it and sends one gren squad perfectly up the left and another up the right. IMO, that area of the map is too open for a bunker, and you'd have been better served to put it among the buildings or on the north side of the church to cover the north road into town.

5) You used specific units incorrectly. Solo REs never beat LMG grens in green cover, even with Volley Fire. Pathfinders have great DPS, range, and LOS, so they should always be with or near your main force in the mid game, providing intel and fire support. Your captain should also be with your main force, so he doesn't get assassinated (like he did) and so he can prey on any vehicle that catches a lucky rifle AT grenade. You didn't drop an MG to anchor your army until a good while after unlocking it. Mostly, this is just about getting familiar with what uses each unit can be put to.

Early-Mid Macro Issues:

6) ZOMG you floated so much MP, and your teammate was even worse. If you turn on resources, there's basically no point after the early game during which your team isn't floating several hundred more MP than the enemy. You desperately needed an ambulance of your own and never bought one. You unlocked air drop .50cals and waited *far* too long to actually use one (not to mention dropping it dangerously close to the front). My advice: if you even have 200 or more MP and you don't already know what your next unit is going to be, go OP a fuel point. If it happens again, OP a muni point. Pumping out HMCs, Jacksons, and Strafing Runs is how US wins the late game, and that'll go much faster if you invest in your economy.

7) Speaking of munis, I saw you tech grenades, but didn't see you ever actually use one. In light of your massive (300+) stockpile, I think you should've been throwing them like candy. Into buildings, onto MGs, sure; but also just into green cover that the enemy is heading for. Hell, you had so much that tossing a few just into open ground the enemy was walking through would've been a good move. There's no point in slowing your tech for nades if you don't use them.

8) Speaking of slow tech, you didn't start your captain until 120 fuel (he only needs 80), even though that was the only reasonable use for fuel at the time and you were at the point where enemy vehicles were becoming a concern. Same with the AT gun. You had the Captain out, plenty of field presence, and floated manpower, but you didn't start your AT gun (and then left it in your base) for far too long. This is about anticipating vehicles - having an AT gun ready to welcome the first Puma (or whatever) is a *huge* strategic win. You can be certain that at some point enemy vehicles will hit, so preempting them should be a priority as soon as you're not desperate for more infantry on the line.

9) Your enemies had a huge number of MGs and mortars, so your teammate really should have gotten a mortar HT to scare them off. If you had air dropped a couple MGs, and he had called in a mortar HT, you could have shut down that entire horde of MGs, mortars and grens that the enemy kept pushing on the southeast side of town.


I hope all that helps. Overall, I think you never had that game (in the first 14:30 I watched) locked down the way you think you did. You had good map control, but never really denied the enemy fuel so they kept up in the tech race. Similarly, your map control came at the cost of some pretty poor manpower trade offs, resulting in you and the enemy having reasonable equal sized armies; this was exacerbated by the amount of float your team suffered. Your micro on what your screen is focused on seems fine, so I'd recommend trying to relax your mind enough to think about what's happening in the rest of the game. Best of luck improving your game.

Okay, I got curious so I watched the rest. I don't think the Tigers were even the key factor; the enemy could have spent the resources on other tanks and you'd have had largely the same issues. Mostly, it was same logistical issues I noted before that were the problem, but there were three crucial tactical decisions that are also worth pointing out.

Micro:
1) The first major armor engagement went down like this: Your teammate swooped two Shermans into the fog of war and promptly ran into an effective combined arms force of AT guns, infantry, a Stug and a Panzer 4. He ran away while under fire and met up with your Jackson and AT gun. The enemy gave chase, and in addition to infantry deaths on both sides the total losses were: 1 Stug, 1 P4, 2 Shermans, and 1 Jackson. This is a *catastrophically* bad trade for the allies: 1030MP/345fuel losses in Allied armor, vs only 580MP/205 fuel losses on the Axis side. Don't push aggressively with just two tanks in the mid-late game; have support and ideally an exit strategy in case you run into more than you can handle.

2) You didn't use your AT guns effectively. Sometimes they were behind houses (in the early game, you had a stug pounding on an MG in a house that your perfectly fine AT gun was inexplicably hiding behind), sometimes they weren't faced properly (at one point, two AT guns were close together, with one engaging the Tiger Ace and the other apparently covering the flank), sometimes they were just too far back (you'd have killed the Tiger in the first engagement with it if you'd moved up your AT gun closer to your Jackson).

3) You didn't finish the Tigers off. At one point, you had a second Jackson entering the town just as your first went down to a Tiger & AT gun combo. At that point, the Tiger was one shot from death, so if you'd pushed hard the result would've likely been that you'd trade your Jackson for the Tiger. In contrast to the situation in (1), this would've been an *excellent* trade for you to make, especially in light of the fact that the enemy can just repair the damaged Tiger (as he did) while you'll never get back the lost first Jackson. Alternatively, you could've gone haring after the fleeing Tiger Ace, though this would've been a higher risk & reward play. Either way, this was a situation in which it'd be okay to take firm hold of your balls and YOLO into the enemy.


Macro:

4) I didn't see where, but at some point you spent your great big muni stockpile. If you'd had 240munis at the point when both the Tiger and the Tiger Ace were at slivers of health, it would've been gg right there, even without thinking about trading a Jackson for a Tiger. As an Airborne player, you know with 100% confidence that at some point you'll have a decisive encounter with heavy German armor, and that if have that encounter while you also have 240muni and 12CP you'll almost certainly win it. Whatever you used this munis on, was it worth not finishing off two Tigers? This also goes back to my point about dropping OPs to invest in your economy.

5) You never built a howitzer motor carriage. I assume this is because you've never used them much, because they're face meltingly awesome. Their barrage counters enemy mortars, which kept hurting you through the whole game. Their indirect fire & barrages decrew AT guns and MGs so your army can push. Their direct fire breaks up enemy infantry pushes. In a pinch, they even have decent damage & penetration on German heavy armor; last night, I took down a King Tiger with one Jackson and one AT gun hitting its front and two HMCs hitting its side. Build HMCs for the late game, my friend. I'd recommend it being your first unit out of T4, and certainly no later than your second.

6) Holy shit your teammate. I didn't see him go below a thousand floated manpower any time after about 10 minutes; that right there could've been an RE squad and 4 OPs. If the main area I'd recommend you work on is thinking about the best way to use each unit, my recommendation for him would be to just pay more attention to his base. OPs, MGs, (more) AT guns, that damned mortar halftrack to counter weapon teams; any of those would've been great options for him. EDIT- Just so I'm not shitting all over the poor guy, here's some real advice: Use F1-F4 to select your base buildings without moving your screen. When you have 80 fuel, just hit 'F3' and then 'Q' (I use gridkeys, YMMV) to build your captain. This is also great for managing your war machine in the late game: 'F4' and 'E' builds a Jackson, 'F4' and 'R' builds an HMC, no need to move the camera.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Regarding manpower float, our builds are in a spot where we're reacting to earlier games where we got out more inf and support units but then had serious manpower and micro difficulties, particularly whomever went AB since they ended up with rifles+paths+AB.

In order to minimize float, how many units, and of what should we get more? Like what should my forces look like @ 10 mins, or 15? By my i mean both players.

Mortar HTs have been really underwhelming for us in the past. Are they any better now? We gave the T3 howitzer another shot this game but again it failed to get the job done, even while pounding great blobs of infantry in the middle.

I'll provide a stream of consciousness playback and try and follow it up with some quick remarks on strategy;

Double US vs Double Wehrmacht

• sloth_bear ~1:30: Random barbed wire while capturing the fuel. Lay tank traps instead and use them as green cover if you're looking to channel your time early game.
  
  
• sloth_bear ~5:30: Recognize and respect an enemy hardpoint. The enemy has two MGs and three grenadiers by their cutoff point. This location is just too tough too take on but you try to garrison and use the graveyard. Using the church to keep an eye on the enemy is wise. Use the rest of your forces to hit the enemy fuel which is not guarded as well.
  
  
• team ~6m: Use your fuel! Sloth is at 120 fuel with no tech choices yet. He could have a Captain out to compliment your Lieutenant right now. Fast Captain is really good in team games. Don't underestimate the Pack Howitzer (particularly for campy Wehrmacht players!) Adam you're getting your M15 AA Halftrack around the time when you've nearly got resources for two. You can use the F1-F2-F3-F4 keys to access your base while you're fighting.
  
  
• Adam 12 minutes: Your excellent control of the map and fuels is paying off big. You could have Sherman building right now at a really early time. When you have a big advantage over the enemy like this I personally suggest the M8A1 Howitzer Carriage. If the enemy is behind and low on fuel then they will need Pak40s (Indeed, we see one firing across the ice even now). Pak40s need artillery to be safely disposed of. The M8A1 offers you this while also offering great anti-infantry and light vehicles. Spend your fuel aggressively!
  
  
• Adam, 14-15 minutes: Pay attention to the movements of the enemy and try to use the right units for the right job. The enemy takes back the entire left/northwestern part of the map while you are helping your ally fight off an enemy push. Diverting a few Riflemen squads to at least keep the fuel out of their hands would have been good. Any time that the enemy is capturing a fuel point alarm bells should be going off in your head. Your M15AA could have provided fire support to your ally while two of your Riflemen attack-moved to the fuel. Rifles are stronger than Grenadiers 1v1. Try to use this to be on multiple parts of the map at once.
  
  
• Adam, 16 minutes in: The loss of your M15 AA was pretty avoidable. When you've already seen a StuG and a Pak40 you should play cautiously with the vehicle now. It is blessed with great range and suppression. Early game you can use it viciously. Late game you should treat it like an MG: Keep it behind your lines and let it suppress and kill units that push too far. Wow! It didn't even die until a mortar shot! Jump out and use the Repair Critical power that your Vehicle Crews have. The M15's engine could have been brought back and you could have driven it away. Repair Critical is basically a get out of panzerfaust free card. Engine damage is gone in no time!
  
  
• Team, 16-17 minutes: SymbolSix above is right. Such manpower bloat is not good.
  
  The enemy has a Pak40 and multiple Mortars. The Captain Tech player (sloth_bear) should probably get a Pack Howitzer to spend his manpower. An additional AT gun can help too.
  
  The LT. player (Adam) should probably get a .50 Cal HMG and some resource caches.
  
  I'll detail a build for both players at the end after this "reaction" bullet list.
  
  
• Adam, 18-20 minutes: Jesus man. 1700 manpower! Invest those resources! Riflmen with Bazookas would help against the armor. Riflemen with LMGs would help lockdown the map. If you are struggling to spend that then grab a Captain and spam out some AT guns at least.
  
  
• Adam, in general: You're playing Infantry so use your suprerior infantry to stop these back-caps on the left. Riflemen with .30 cal M1918 LMGs (Infantry Pick-up Weapon) have a special power called Defensive Stance. When you take a point that the enemy will want back just sit on it with Defensive Stance. He keeps taking that point back. Defensive Stance turns your squad into a 360 degree MG. He would have been sent back again and again trying to capture that area. This is also really good on points that are out of the way and less travelled. The only thing that goes out to such points are infantry. Camp those points and create a defensive line that forces the Wehrmacht players to move their tanks and mortars!
  
  

I think I've seen enough. I breezed through the rest of it.

Strategy Suggestions

• Indirect Fire
  You have to work Indirect Fire into your gameplan. The enemy camped out on two Pak40s, three mortars and three MGs in that corner of the map the entire game. Over-running them right outside of their base with just Shermans and Riflemen will never work. Get some indirect fire.
  
• Keep a firm control over the map
  The enemy kept taking the left again and again! Lock down the map with your Riflemen and use your tanks not to rush into the enemy's hard points but range them out in the areas less travelled. The enemy killed most of your tanks with Pak40s. If you had used those tanks to pressure the left and steal points over there then the enemy would have had to cross the treacherous frozen lake and spread their forces out more. You should always try to "pull" the germans apart. Pressure them from all sides! Your fighting was 90% down in that southern fuel island and in the city square. The Germans are strongest when packed together and fighting side by side. Don't play their game! Force them to break formation by taking distant points. Use your first Sherman to pressure a foreign/less traveled part of the map.
  
• Have a plan and a build.
  You should spend your resources ASAP all of the time unless you're saving for a super unit (of which the US have none really).
  
  Let me suggest some:
  
  For the Lieutenant Player:
  -Three Riflemen
  -Ambulance
  -Lieutenant
  -.50 Cal HMG
  -M15 AA Halftrack
  -Bazooka Research (grab some Bazookas mid-game).
  -Major
  -If you are ahead (holding fuel):M8A1 Howtizer Motor Carriage
  -Sherman
  -Jackson
  -If floating manpower; build resource caches, grab a Captain + AT gun, extra Riflemen.
  
  For the Captain Player
  -Three Riflemen
  -Ambulance
  -Captain
  -Pack Howitzer
  -Stuart Light Tank
  -AT Gun
  -Major
  -M8A1 Howitzer Motor Carriage
  -AT gun
  -Sherman
  -Jacksons
  
  Aim for these armies. Try to make good decisions based on what you see. These are basically doctrine non-specific but you can change them based on the doctrine you are going.
  
  I actually wrote my "In Before the Blitz" guide for Airborne players who want to get a fast Captain. It is basically the build above but in team games I always suggest a Pack Howitzer if you go fast Captain. They're pretty nice and the powerful early game of the US forces means you can afford it.
  
  Plan for Tigers.
  You need a plan for heavy armor. Win early? That's great. Make sure you grip all three VPs and never lose them. Not winning early? You need Jacksons, AT guns, Bazookas, Shermans. If you have an Airborne player then have him save up munitions and use the P-47 Rocket Strafing run. It's really effective against Tigers who are rushing your line.
  

I'll breeze through the other replay now.

The issues are very similar.

You have a pretty clear read that these guys are going to play defensively. Battlegruppe HQ, MG-34s, basically whenever you see the Medical HQ truck they're going to camp around that truck. It's all that they can do.

How do you break the trucks? You smash the defenses and you snipe them with AT guns. That's really hard to do on Semsoisky but you can smash their defenses. Indirect fire was needed.

Let's talk about Infantry Company. Everything about this company is basically designed to give you a defensive advantage and then let you smash your opponent open with indirect fire.

Mortar Halftrack early is probably a good plan against this kind of opponent who is just camping with his Medical HQ.

Riflemen Defensive Stance could have held the middle easier. Dig in and don't let them advance. Your ally, sloth_bear, actually had an AT gun that could have slowly sniped the middle FlaK-HQ. He got overrun though because you didn't have Riflemen in defensive stance and you didn't have and early .50 HMG. I think he would have done it too as he used his Jackson + Attack Ground to kill the other truck. He should defend his own AT gun but hell you've gotta help too.

Sloth_Bear used his Pack Howitzer badly. Both the M8A1 and the Pack Howitzer have decent barrage powers but their real strength comes from just auto-attacking. He should have moved into the city and let his Pack Howitzer open up with it's auto-attacks. If he had gotten it faster, like in the build above, he would have also benefited.

The same advice applies to the left side of the map again. They keep capturing it. All they have for AT weapons are AT guns that are pinned by their trucks. You can't just "react" to enemy captures. Keep the pressure on! Throw Riflemen in defensive stance out on those points and stop them from getting them in the first place. Use your M15 AA not as a reactive "oh shit they're capturing" but kill and pin those units before they even get close. Force the Germans to break ranks in the middle!

Then there's the awful resource bloat again. You've gotta shake yourself into spending those resources. You get some .50 Cal HMGs but way after they are optimal. Grab these from the start and use them to lock the city down and let you siege the enemy trucks. Bring out a Mortar Halftrack and grab a Captain so you can get Pack Howitzers and AT guns if you're floating this much. If you can't spend your manpower without fuel then grab fuel caches mid-game and then channel manpower in to M8A1s and Shermans. As the LT. player you will not have AT guns necessarily so Jacksons can be safer.

Good luck out there.

Just to remark though;

While I think the value of indirect fire for US forces is high I don't necessarily suggest the Mortar Halftrack or the Priest. I just don't like them. They're sort of weak.

I would rather have a Pack Howitzer and two M8A1s respectively. Not the same prices really but not too far off either.

Give them a shot if you like.

I've noticed that the Mortar HT is pretty crappy myself which is why I stopped getting them. The WP barrage has a decent enough effect but is a constant muni drain if I need to keep it up over time. The regular fire is really underwhelming. As for the priest, I don't think I've ever had good utility out of them. They seem to take too long to get a shell on target, and even when it lands it doesn't have the kind of firepower you'd hope from it. It's good against static emplacements I guess, the "area of fire" or whatever it's called is rather small, but this also somewhat prevents it from being good against large blobs. I would take a Panzerwerfer or something over a Priest any day if I could - the whole barrage striking at once in a pattern is enormously more effective than a slow pounding over time.

I would sell my soul to get a Sherman Calliope doctrine ;_; 7

Well we just played 3 games trying out the advice.

Crushed 2 opponents and lost horrifically to one. The victories didn't feel like proper ones though, in both cases we had extreme map control and were wiping squads like mofos. Not sure how good the other team really was. The one we lost, I had a series of brainfarts and bad luck; I had 2 units on the field 8 minutes in because I lost about 4 in 60 seconds at multiple locations. I just surrendered on the spot, lol.

End of the day all you can do is keep playing together and practice. Its ok to have a firm build and "battle plan", but every game presents different situations and will eventually boil down to your micro, unit-preservation and teamwork and ability to predict and adapt to these situations. The more you play the more you will learn.

Let me suggest some:

For the Captain Player
-Three Riflemen
-Ambulance
-Captain
-Pack Howitzer
-Stuart Light Tank
-AT Gun
-Major
-M8A1 Howitzer Motor Carriage
-AT gun
-Sherman
-Jacksons

Aim for these armies. Try to make good decisions based on what you see. These are basically doctrine non-specific but you can change them based on the doctrine you are going.

I actually wrote my "In Before the Blitz" guide for Airborne players who want to get a fast Captain. It is basically the build above but in team games I always suggest a Pack Howitzer if you go fast Captain. They're pretty nice and the powerful early game of the US forces means you can afford it.

I can't watch the replays because im at work but i can tell you that a properly microed stuart is probably as valuable if not more than a jackson, and its half the price.

I can second this for airborne, proper micro of the stuart and using its 3 shot blind/stun ability with the captain backing it up can annihilate early light armor without taking any direct damage from the armor(watch for AT guns and AT inf though). the stuart also blends effectively into the late game better than the flaktrack, especially on 2v2 maps where their are a lot of large open maps and usually german turtling armor.

mid game
before the heavy german armor comes out, use the stuart to back up 1 rifleman squad that is harassing the lesser defended areas, this will force the germans to send some kind of AT, keep it far enough back that the enemy can't see it when they hit your riflemen, but when they do, bring it up and micro any threats then fall back, rinse and repeat. You can effectively lock down the weak areas with proper riflemen placement and stuart support. And if you can afford a airborne x2 1919 squad GG to any light counters your way.(if an MG/AT gun comes, smoke the MG and push your airborne for a flank(you can also use this tactic to demo charge bunkers with airborne). Don't push your stuart if a light armor/infantry comes though, just put some shots into it, push it back and hold the line, your stuart presence is more valuable as a threat than actually trying to get a kill with it, especially if you are already holding both fuels.(you'll out tech them nullifying the light armor once you can get a sherman or jackson up for support)

late game
once the heavy armor starts rolling, shift the stuart back to your strong front and keep it behind your AT and jackson. Once you see an armor push, your .50/howitzer/sherman .50 should lock down any infantry, use the stuart to flank and stun shot the heavy armor, push a riflemen squad up to AT nade it, flank with your sherman and let your jackson/AT guns tear it apart with armor piercing ability rounds from afar. A very effective thing to get good at with proper armor micro is to use ctrl-(1-9) to set your unit hotkeys, i usually set artillery (1) stuart (2), sherman (3), jackson (4),(always set the same starting out for muscle memory) this allows you to quickly cycle and position them. Another method is put two or more shermans in (2) then hit "tab" to cycle in the group, this way you dont have to punch 1-6 to get all your units.

Once the german armor is taken out, pop smoke on any hurt shermans, shermans can pop smoke but they have to stop moving to do so(if you have 2, shoot the smoke from the healthy one to protect the hurt one) howitzers also can provide smoke for your retreating stuart(fire this ahead of time) and riflemen also smoke. It will take a while to get good at but if you can, it can be extremely punishing to an over zealous german. Once you force the retreat push your line up quickly, lock down your new area close to their HQ. At this point you pose a dangerous threat to their main base and are probably in howitzer range of it, either forcing the other player to shift his armor(weakening your friends front) to halt you or suffer the base rape.

tips
hotkeying your stuart/captain in mid game is also advised.

always right click and drag the direction you want the armor to face.

shift click specific routes for tough terrain.

Try to get directly behind the enemy armor with the stuart at pointblank range for three reasons, one, if your round penetrates it stunts(immobilization), two, you can use your pointblank ability to do more damage, and three, you can block the armor from retreat if your riflemen can't get an AT nade in. once your 3 shot ability is done get out of there, the stuart has done its job.(howi/riflemen smoke the retreat path before the Stuart gets behind the armor).

If you see any armor push you with an HMG/AT gun firing behind it, always start with your artillery at hotkey (1) to blind it with smoke before microing your armor. howitzer smoke is more effective in large attacks to blind the enemy HMGs/AT guns than direct firing HE. if you can stuart stun and cut off its infantry AT/support with smoke from your hopefully large arsenal of smoke machines you'll decimate the armor then be able to mop up the remaining infantry.

When retreating your stuart, usually moving to the flanks of the engagement is the safest, an easy minimap click will send it on its way without you have to worry about it, i usually send it far back behind my lines till i can repair it. If you have good situational awareness you can also send it behind the smoked out AT guns to make quick work. Unless you're playing really good players they probably wont be able to to notice it to turn their guns one you with their panther/tiger getting annihilated.

I forgot to add,

If you find yourself forgetting to set hotgroups in the mid/late game, to practice it, just do it as soon as you start. I do Riflemen(1)(2)(3), RE (4), very good for quickly reacting and flanking once you get into contact, especially if your playing against OH with MGs.

There is pretty much no circumstance where you wont start out 3 riflemen to ambulance if you want to hold your ground. The only exception i found to this is Riflemen, riflemen, RE, ambulance. I found on CQB points against only OKW, if you rush RE to build a fighting emplacement and garrison it to fire grenade launchers. the OKW cant do anything against it till they get tier 2-3. It's amazing in city centers where they will try to garrison buildings. Typically they will turtle outside of it till they can push you, if they bunker up, just wait till you get airborne, push your infantry, smoke it, force a retreat, drop airborne and demo the bunkers.

As for the priest mentioned above, the only time i find it viable is if i've located a OKW truck that's in range of it from my front and the player tends to mass retreat. It's much more effective to punish him as he heals rather than try to hit moving targets assaulting you.