Jadame!'s Rifle Commander

After having a bit of a conversation with Jadame! in a topic regarding 4v4's as allies. A discussion broke out regarding the rifle commander and, what I feel is a pretty common and vaunted strategy in large team games as a USF player, which I will hereby attribute to him, unless someone wants to argue otherwise. Without further adieu:





Here's the build:

- 2 Rifles
- 2 Elite Rifles
- Lieutenant *
- BARs
- Ambulance *
- Sherman Easy 8's

Very simple, and fairly effective. The key here is early game pace, you are to take and hold VP's. Take and hold. Once you blow your German opponents off of the map, the key is to slow down and apply mid-game pressure. Lots of pressure, force them to counter attack. Multiply your force with BARs. The pressure comes from the ambulance which if utilized as a soft retreat point allows your force to never leave the field.

Ones late game in my opinion is the largest weakness when utilizing this build and will stretch your rifles to their breaking point whilst waiting for CP's to call in the E8's. The numbers will alarm any classically conditioned RTS player taught not to float. Stockpiled resources will skyrocket into around 500ish fuel and 2K+ MP, but you mustn't fret. As far as I can tell the Sherman's will arrive around 15 minutes*** but it will take some work. After building 2 Caches, afflicting 10K pts of damage which equated to around 280% efficiency I was awarded the CP's. From that point forward what followed could only be described as a gravy train of Sherman's which was very satisfying.

My impressions and potential tweaks to be made:

*** In the third trial game, after building a single cache late, inflicting around 11.6K pts of damage equating to 393% efficiency the E8's arrived around 20 minutes in which I felt verrryyy vulnerable. Any sort of tactical adjustment by our opponents and I think I would of been done for.




In my best efforts the E8's arrived just before Panthers and other heavies but, I really missed the 10 minute Sherman, my force lacked the pure killing power at that time from HE rounds and tank crushing.

I usually only ever got BARs late in the game after my first Sherman, and even then, usually only applied one per squad, saving munitions for P47's. However I was really quite pleased with how my rifles performed in the mid game. You can put so much pressure on, so much so that I was making a lot of micro mistakes, because you will need to be relentless, which can also be very exhausting, in that frame of mind it's also much more difficult to temper aggression with recklessness (please excuse the game on La Gleize, i thought the game was over and was testing the crushing power of the E8, I didn't realize we were still in it).

Finally a small note about the flare, which was more useful than expected, providing LOS for team mates, which combined with the ambulance could lead to great synergy ** in the third game, I actually decided against building one as my team mate had one already, not that the resources were an issue. I think they could be better utilized to help bridge the gap for E8's, just not sure how ATM, but that's what discussion is for.

In closing, please lets workshop it, I think this build could be implemented without the rifle commander and the standard USF armor to be more effective a little earlier, but this is certainly something one could use to contend in team games as USF.

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  turbotortoise A-pink son na eun Nyx kloop007

  KMS Bismarck SUBOSD  Dynames Nightingale_Y

  Rifle Co - Trial 1

  by: turbotortoise map: Lazenrath Ambush

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  Nyx Rogue Ranger thReality turbotortoise

  SUBOSD  Cell Dos. vn.nguyennam

  Rifle Co - Trial 1

  by: turbotortoise map: La Gleize

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  dejavu r4cad ElixRose turbotortoise

  Vex Annunaki Bolan t@t

  Rifle Co - Trial 3

  by: turbotortoise map: Lienne Forest

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Thank you Jadame! and thank you for your time.

Pleased to see you spend your time on writing serious guide from what little i typed.

Just some more-depth, but, probably, most important details:

1)As this strategy very-mp heavy early on, fast ambulance is crucial (untill you have ally with medics) as healing drastically reduces models loses and thus mp drain. If your first engagement went not so-good, you were forced to retreat (and with this particular build retreating half-wounded rifles with all models alive, which common in fighting against kubels, mgs and from buildings is really what you want to do), you need that medics form ambulance more then everything. Never reinforce retreated units until you already have 4 rifles - better call fresh vetted ones and wait with wounded in base. Then, if you really need fast ambulance (2+ units need healing badly), build it BEFORE lieutenant. Then, as soon as you got ambulance, if you don't have enough mp (you still need that lieutenant straight after, remember?) to fully replenish wounded units, just bring them close to the front with ambulance along, and when you will be there, you should accomulate around 100 mp to complete their healing and reinforcement without sacraficing liutenant timing.

2)As soon as you unlock t1, it is crucial moment to decide what to do next. If your team is winning, and/or mgs and kubels huge pain in your rifles arses, and enemies don't have mechanized truck for pumas, aa-halftrack would be amazing choice as its huge damage gives you a lot of cp. Just decide where you want to push (enemy fuel in Lienne Forest is good target to make entire enemy team to react, thus giving almost whole map to you allies if you manage to keep enemy busy long enought), bring all rifles to the meeting point, wait till aa arrival (it is crucial - do not attack without aa, you do not have luxury of fighting without your whole force, and you will need it, because, most likely it is going to be 1v2 or even more), then, using rifles as spotters make you decisive move. You will strike around time when okw players setting up theirs t3 flaks, so, with little luck you can catch them and destroy before they would be completed. Another good move is to attack their most exposed medic forward hq, as aa-halftracks does a lot of damage to it and suppresses everything around in no time, allowing you rifles shot crawling volks and sturms in their stupid faces, even if they desperately trying to reinforce.

3)As soon as you got enough ammunition for 3+ bars and retreating troops on the way to pick them up, unlock bars, and give to units with most vet. This have lower priority then rushed aa-halftrack, and if your units are busy on the field, it is better to wait and build caches instead.

4)You should always have your rifle-blob strong. Never lose units, but if some wicked rng or op obers wiped rifles squad, conciser calling another one immediately. Few exceptions consist of rushed aa-halftrack, as timing is crucial, or another e8, as tank is always preferable.

Thats pretty much it, everything else comes from better usage of rifles and game understanding.

Some personal remarks: games are different, and i don't know exact details, but you shouldn't float more than 300+ mp EVER before coming closer to cp requirements of e8s. Build caches, build caches everywhere, even in contested sectors, caches give your cp, destroyed caches give you even more cp, personally i never remembered to float everything near 1k mp with this build, but, on the other hand, i play very aggressively and my teammates rarely have spare mp on caches, so i have a lot of space in this department. As Rifle doc is very-ammo heavy later on (tons of bars, dozens of shermans to upgun), it could be wise idea to make second and third caches ammo ones.

Thats how game looked with this build when kubels were balanced:

7 shermans. heh. Good times.

those flamethowers upgrades mostly just backfire right or do you get them on urban maps.

TBH i found I really miss the HE sherman when fighting volks. the easy 8 feels a bit like a t34 int eh AI department in that it isnt reliable enough against those blobs.
I prefer a jackson+HE sherman to two ez8s all day.

those flamethowers upgrades mostly just backfire right or do you get them on urban maps.

And there is literally zero word about flamethrowers Double bars all way to the top!

TBH i found I really miss the HE sherman when fighting volks. the easy 8 feels a bit like a t34 int eh AI department in that it isnt reliable enough against those blobs.
I prefer a jackson+HE sherman to two ez8s all day.

I never build shermans as usf, unless i know i can finish game with this first sherman. Jacksons is way to go, rifle/para blobs do their work not as good as obers but not much worse either. Just my specific approach to the faction, why use shermans ever, if you can use those amazing jacksons to cover allied mediums. They at least good at finishing retreating panthers unlike su 85s.

He rounds is good against infantry tho, but on maps like Ettelbruck, where you can not rely on jacksons e8s really shine.