How to deal with the New Ostheer 1v1

Hello Folks,

So in the current patch I am struggling against Ostheer as USF much more then I probably should. Most of the time its due to losing Mapcontrol to the MG42 and SUPER VISION SCOUT CAR PIO!!!! Combination. It usually goes like this.

Rifle Rifle Rifle and out I go to cap Around and BAM retreat due to an MG with one of them. Then in comes the Grens and I bleed some mp and bleed them until the MG comes up and Rifles retreat.

By this point I have lost some of the early game resource advantage I used to enjoy so my LT is delayed a bit. Out comes the M20 and look at that the new and improved 222 is there to prevent it from doing its work. So running around the map again doing my thing. Retreat a couple more time as MGs do their thing and upgrade to Nades.

Right about now the Stug E shows up and I may have a Sherman in production or may be close to an M10 depending on how many MGs are making my life hell with their buddy the I SEE YOU!!! Pio.

And now the scale problem starts to show up. Grens are getting their superior Vet 2 and LMGs are showing up...I am bleeding more. Dealing with the STUG E and or Early P4 and next thing you know TIGER!

So I have managed to lose all the wonderful USF Early game advantage and have to fight the Tiger with equal resources and it becomes the fun USF end game we all enjoy.

So in essence I am happy Ost got their early game made better but with Rnades being what they are and scaling for Ost always being pretty good I am struggling.

Any tips to deal with an extended T1 after you have lost early fuel advantage would be appreciated.

If you provide a replay Cookiezncream will gladly review it for you

I am sure I could just looking for General advice is all.

Well, play similar anount of battles as Ostheer vs USF ( as u've played as USF) and u will find the answers

Well, play similar anount of battles as Ostheer vs USF ( as u've played as USF) and u will find the answers

Wow a troll! How cute. Back to the Balance forums with you.

Sounds like you should be introduced to smoke grenades

A lot of USF players are just dead set on going M20 rush into Sherman. Every game.

Try using both officers, smoke, pack Howies,M3 halftracks,etc.

Replay would help too I can't visualize what you're going through from just text

Sounds like you should be introduced to smoke grenades

A lot of USF players are just dead set on going M20 rush into Sherman. Every game.

Try using both officers, smoke, pack Howies,M3 halftracks,etc.

Replay would help too I can't visualize what you're going through from just text

Yep ill save the next one. Its a pretty specific situation and therfore not in every game. I have just noticed what a huge difference Pios spotting ability is making.

I have tried smoke but i tend to be suppressed before I know the MG is there so waste of Muni. As once your suppressed the Pio can keep you suppressed. Not to mention that it messes with the Rnade logic.

And its only against good Ost Players that will Move the MG around therfore when I come back once again its somewhere else nearby and the Pio Spots me again and here we go....

I hate to have to Solve this with Pathfinders as I am so bored with Airborne TBH.

The M20 actually helps with this because it can now see the Pio before the Pio can see it.

USF no longer can completely run over ostheer early game, and this is a good thing, however, it is still quite easy to do very well against ostheer, here are a few things you can do to maximize your victory chances.

Vetoes: Vetoes are very important for this matchup. USF is best used on CQC maps and wide maps with many flanking routes, and easy to harass territory. As a result, you usually want to vetoe focused, narrow maps that allow for easier mg play, such as road to kharkov, minsk pocket, langreskaya, and any other map of your choosing.

Early Game: Your early game is the cornerstone of the USF vs. ostheer matchup, and is the time when you will be most powerful. Usually, you will want to go 3 rifles -> LT. The rifles, built sequentially, will give you quantitative equality with ostheer, and an undisputed advantage over grens. Your job should not be to secure territory. Take your rifles and immediately head to your opponents fuel/ cutoff point, and force an engagement, attempting to isolate gren squads and push your opponent off the field. Remember to attack from several locations at once (I like to use my first two rifles together on the first engagement, and use my third squad for reinforcing during the engagement). If you can catch an mg42 out of position, or flank it quickly, you can easily push it off, or even wipe it and steal it. If there are buildings in the combat zone, attempt to take control of them, as grens have a very hard time countering entrenched units. I go LT usually, as it is my preference, but LT vs. captain is usually a choice between early game power and better scaling power. Also, in the opening post, it sounds like you are blobbing. DON'T BLOB. It makes mgs far more powerful than they really are and mitigates USFs early game power. If you can't micro 4 units at once, practice microing multiple units simultaneously before going into another 1v1.

Early-Mid Game:
I almost always go LT, so these tips will be in terms of LT tech.

Going LT is a big bonus vs. ostheer, as it forces your ostheer opponent to tech up (or get run over by light vehicles), while giving you access to a free bar+thompson rifle squad. Use the LT to push your opponent even farther back and reinforce your frontline. You now have a choice to make.

M20: Not as powerful vs. ostheer, but nevertheless, is a good unit to apply quick pressure and force your opponent to build a scout car or a pak. Use it at range to support your rifle, using the M20's speed to flank grenadier positions and deal unmitigated damage. M6 AT mines are very useful to cripple enemy armor later in the game, and destroy pumas and scout cars that are chasing your light vehicles. Remember, ostheer (unless CAS), is always low on munitions, so if you find an unsupported gren squad that you don't think can be wiped, feel free to move close and bait a pzfaust. Every pzfaust is 25 mu that aren't being spent on rnades or lmgs.

AAHT: The AAHT is a useful tool to suppress enemy grens squads, and is a hard counter to the 222. It can deal very nice damage to enemies, and can only be reliably countered by a teller mine or a pak AT gun. It can also be useful late game to quickly vet your first tank (vehicle crew), and to shoot down enemy loitering air strikes.

Grenades: Grenades are not unlocked from the LT tech, but they are an integral part of the early-midgame vs. mg-42 heavy play. These are only 250mp and 25 fu, but they are exceedingly important to help with building clearance and mg-mitigation.

I typically build both M20 and AAHT, but usually you will want to buy one or the other. If you are doing especially well early, you can even skip these and tech straight to major for an extremely fast sherman, maybe building a .50 for support. Pressure is the name of the game, and you want to do whatever you can to keep ostheer low on manpower and munitions, and delay the upgrading of grens to lmg grens as much as possible.

Mid-Late Game:
As USF, you typically have 3 "lategame" options. Sherman, Jackson, and Scott.

Sherman: The Sherman will typically be your first unit out of T4, it is a versatile unit which is perfectly built for mobile warfare and supporting infantry pushes. Use these in groups of twos with HE rounds to attempt to wipe as many squads as possible. If the game devolves into a pack + mg wall, use the sherman to smoke targets prior to an infantry push, and to wipe side-capping squads. They are the "meatshields" of your armored forces.

Jackson: The Jackson is the USFs best nondoctrinal AT. It is a fragile vehicle, but it is capable of countering the heaviest enemy armor. At vet 1, they gain AP rounds, but be advised that activating AP rounds will break "prioritize vehicles," so you will always have to manually re-target enemy vehicles after activating the ability, then "refresh" the "prioritize vehicles button."

Scott: The scott is a mobile pack howitzer. It can quickly move around the battlefield, using smoke and HE rounds to blind and disrupt enemy forces. They are quite fragile, but effective if microed carefully. Remember that scotts have the same range as paks, so barraging a pak without an LOS blocker usually leads to a dead scott.

You will usually build a sherman, then a jackson, then another sherman out of your t4, changing the order of units purchased with battlefield conditions. I typically focus on having 1 jackson and 2+ shermans, as I find the scott to be an unneeded micro sink.

Late Game:
Whatever your build, know that a tiger is almost definitely coming. You should have done a good job cutting off your enemies' fuel early, but usually your opponent will still have enough fuel to deploy 1 tiger, he just will be hard pressed to field more. Do your best to keep it contained. purchase a new M20 if you need to and lay more mines, to punish him if he overextends. Keeping your jackson on hand will be very important to dealing with it. You will be on the back-foot now, as you have lost most of your advantages. Use your numerical armor superiority to strike at multiple points of the map simultaneously, and force your opponent to react to you. Make use of the forward retreat point you have in order to force engagements. Remember that your opponent has to retreat all the way to his base, while you don't, so forcing retreats from your enemy with equal losses on both sides will lead to an advantage for you.

Your best bet usually is to not let the game rag out into the late game, but if it does, be prepared for an extremely tough fight.

Doctrines

USF has 6 doctrines, and they are just about all viable. Airborne, rifle, and infantry are the most popular as of this point in time, for various reasons, but I will merely detail the doctrines that I use below briefly.

Mechanized: My go-to doctrine, this doctrine is a bit of a noob trap. Never build the WC51 or the M3 halftrack. They are wastes of fuel and are too fragile for their cost. Instead, take advantage of the "withdraw and refit" ability to build both the M20 and AAHT to apply great midgame pressure, while recycling them after the end of their usefulness to gain back 75% of the fuel and manpower (for the M20, the main bonus is the manpower recycling). Use it to recycle a sherman if you lose your jackson and are lacking fuel for a new one. Remember to pop out vetted vehicle crews and replace them with fresh crews/ RE squads to help you retain veterancy. Mechanized artillery is very useful vs. OKW trucks, and immobilized vehicles. Recon is always a must for lategame armor pushes.

Rifle Company: My secondary doctrine, this doctrine is mainly used on urban maps such as Stalingrad or semoisky, in order to supplement USF building clearance. You typically want to use many smoke grenades with this doctrine, as flamers need to be close to do work, and USF flamers have a tendency to explode if sneezed at. Use Elite rifle training to replace losses lategame, as non vet-1 rifles cannot snare vehicles. Use the e8 to supplement your shermans lategame, as a slightly better counter to axis heavies. Flares take the same role for recon, but it is typically more cost-efficient to use major recon. WP artillery is useful for punishing blobs and defensive positions, but beware that the WP artillery does not actually block LOS very effectively for whatever reason. You an use this to your advantage to allow your units to shoot at retreating low health squads.

Infantry: Used only on long range focused maps (which are typically vetoes), infantry company gives USF access to powerful long range infantry firepower in the form of M1919 lmgs. Use them with defensive stance to slow down and hurt ostheer infantry lategame, but beware of rifle grenades. The priest is a very good unit to attack enemy defensive positions, and the mortar HT is immensely powerful to provide indirect fire-support with HE and WP rounds. WP rounds are very useful prior to an assault to damage enemy units, force mg re-positions, and screen infantry. This WP does in fact block LOS.

These are just my thoughts on USF as a 1v1 and 2v2 faction vs. ostheer. If you have any questions on stuff I forgot/skipped, go ahead and ask.

Easily.

This is not the balance forum. If you are going to post on the strategy forums, you should have something intelligent and unbiased to post. These one-word troll answers help no one and don't further the discussion in the thread at all. If you think USF has an easy time vs. ostheer, thats great and all, but the OP asked about tips on how to do better, so please help him with that.

Yeah I was confused as the OP looked like a balance rant under disguise. Well tech up asap and finish her off with your AAHT.

Bleed her grens so he won't be able to get a pak.

Snip.

Thanks Ash. I know the USF rather well but I appreciate your insight none the less. Pretty clever idea with Mechanized actually. From my Soviet days I tend to have a specific plan for my Doctrines to cover holes and Mech doesnt do this so never really thought of using it that way.

All the ways you mentioned dealing with MGs is pretty vanilla stuff. And it used to work exceptionally well. But I am finding that its not anymore. It obviously depends on the map. I will obviously have to get you all a replay when I find the time to play next and run into this situation.

The Crux is I am finding if Pios are kept near MG42s smoke is of little use if I too lack a scout unit. Because often with AOE suppression being the selling point of the MG42 and the Pios now able to see rifles before the rifles see the Pios I tend to get multi squad suppressed VERY often now in the current build.

When I do smoke will not help me. Because the Pio runs up and hugs the rifles and keeps them that way so I will bleed if I dont retreat. This is obviously very good play. On small maps its pretty brutal as its very easy to have a PIO MG and PIO MG on two places covering quite a bit.

Before I wouldnt worry as smoke was more effective then it is now indirectly. As in it was easier to smoke out an MG before getting multisquad suppressed. And just move the other squad out to flank it. Now its easier to pull this off for a smart Ost player because they can setup at Max Range near a Choke point and see you well in advance so your smoke wont be near enough to the MG and they can easily spot your flank attempt and just re-position and get your flanker too.

So when the retreat is exploited in the early game its compounding my problem because it will delay my light vehicles slightly giving them a less useful lifespan while boosting Osts ability to hit me with a quick P4 before I can have Shermans out or a Stug E.

Next replay where its not a total Ostheer stomp and I play a decent player i will include the replay. You may not see it at your level of play because people get comfortable and want to win so dont change tactics often. And may not have noticed how strong this combo can be early game vs the USF.

I have read two posts so far, suggesting this thread should go to Balance.

No! It will not.

If you think a thread is lacklustre, far better to suggest that it goes to the Scrap Yard.

(removed to US Forces Strategies)

You should consider dropping the fast m20 build.

This build is something I've been working on to try and learn to be more patient. Its supposed to be center around strong early rifle play with a ton of capping power and infantry. (2x RE and 4x rifles). Then captain, and if I have decent map control, Sturt, at guns (1 or 2) and maybe pak howi if they camp. Then only Sherman's and priests.

It focuses on a strong late game and becomes very hard to break the line with USF at guns that have long sight and lmgs functioning as mgs. With proper positioning and pressure, you can get a very solid base lock going.

It also avoids the weaknesses in fast m20 (flak, puma, sc, STUGE) bc a captain and Stuart together can counter all of them. It also gives tools to remove a forward HQ with capt Stuart and the time on target arty. The high amount of rifles is useful for dealing with ostheer CAS and support weapon usage. Essentially, it trades some shock value for what I see as a long term investment. If I float munis, the inf mines also pair very well with the at guns.

This build let's you cap around and flank mgs with ease, while negating the strength of the STUGE and SC. You can also check some of my more recent replays on how to use this build.

You should consider dropping the fast m20 build.

This build is something I've been working on to try and learn to be more patient. Its supposed to be center around strong early rifle play with a ton of capping power and infantry. (2x RE and 4x rifles). Then captain, and if I have decent map control, Sturt, at guns (1 or 2) and maybe pak howi if they camp. Then only Sherman's and priests.

It focuses on a strong late game and becomes very hard to break the line with USF at guns that have long sight and lmgs functioning as mgs. With proper positioning and pressure, you can get a very solid base lock going.

It also avoids the weaknesses in fast m20 (flak, puma, sc, STUGE) bc a captain and Stuart together can counter all of them. It also gives tools to remove a forward HQ with capt Stuart and the time on target arty. The high amount of rifles is useful for dealing with ostheer CAS and support weapon usage. Essentially, it trades some shock value for what I see as a long term investment. If I float munis, the inf mines also pair very well with the at guns.

This build let's you cap around and flank mgs with ease, while negating the strength of the STUGE and SC. You can also check some of my more recent replays on how to use this build.

That sounds incredibly solid. I have been considering the captain against Ost more and more but I really hate the fuel cost. That and having AT Guns that arent protected by some kind of suppression is challenging. LMG and defensive stance sounds good. Very campy playstyle it sounds like. I will have to watch some of your replays.

With all the overtime I have been working I havent had a chance to even launch COH2. So I will get a replay to the thread the soonest.

Appreciate all the feedback thus far.

The m15 AA HT is my best buddy.

And smoke. Of all kinds.

The m15 AA HT is my best buddy.

And smoke. Of all kinds.

I love it but against Mechanized with the Stug E I tend to keep armored Slotted to smack the Stug E like the little bitch it is. M15 delays this.

@Antilles

I've watched a couple of your SCK matches abd that build is solid, but I was wondering if you think cutting a RE could help you speed up your tech to get the captain/Stuart faster?

Especially when you seem to like fighting pits. I guess it depends on how much that hurts capping power.

Yeah, I've been playing wehr neigh on exclusively after the patch dropped. teller mines and even mobile defense, and the stalwart mech assault, gave me a lot of room to defeat Lt. builds. Like every good counter puncher/defensive faction they excel when pouncing on mistakes, so going nuts with the m20 can get you in trouble. Which isn't to say it doesn't have use. Those mines can win games.

Personally I think the Cpt. might give a little more power against the wehr, pack howitzers and flanking stuarts nullify support weapons, and the 57 makes the stug e think twice. however; if you can avoid tellers and you don't see mech assault, the M15 used cleverly will let you cruise to victory.

great strategic overview post from commash too. from there it's just a matter of applying tactics, base of fire and flanks.

I love it but against Mechanized with the Stug E I tend to keep armored Slotted to smack the Stug E like the little bitch it is. M15 delays this.

When you build the lieutenant you should always unlock zooks couple of minutes later. If you go M20, always replace its crew with a RE one so you have a zook squad. Now I know stugE can easily kill any of your squads, that's a risk to asses every time.

It is really map dependent but going 2 or 3 RE can make you overwhelming him. Use the RE as scouting and capping squad and building holder while you use your rifles to flank.

2 or 3 RE start let you go easily to any commanders. its a trade-off for pushing power to capping power.
2 RE start with a bunker in a strategic location to hold until you get enough force to push.
3 RE start, no bunker but building holder in a strategic position.
4 RE start to Rifle commander performs well on many maps. It is really effective in term of manpower management but I wouldn't do 4 RE start with any other commander.

Remember that Ostheer need to keep his pio near to his MG to keep it effective, which mean for him less capping power or to replace a grenadier squad by a pio one.

Cons: more than 2 RE start make you really vulnerable to Grenadier spam. (just talking about early game)