Assault Grenadiers everywhere

Did anyone else notice the massively increased use of the mechanized assault commander? I encounter him all the time (at mid level) since operation charlie fox ended. I guess a lot of ostheer players suffer from acute "if I use the same commander as the champ I'm as good as the champ" syndrome. Fun thing is that I don't recall DevM ever producing a single assault grenadier unit. But his newly won accolytes do it all the time. Sometimes even the mechanized grenadiers.

I find those games very easy to win.

So, thank you Devm.


Edit: because I'm so wrong

No. Its just a really solid commander.

It's a solid commander yes but AssGrens totally suck

No. Its just a really solid commander.

I'm not saying it's not a solid commander. I just wondered if other people noticed a significant increase in it's usage sine OCF. And I find that players with this commander I encounter generally over invest in assault grenadiers.

I rarely see any assault grenadiers anymore tbh, but perhaps we play at different levels, I don't know. I do see mechanized assault fairly regularly, but I already saw it quite often before OCF.

I guess a lot of ostheer players suffer from acute "if I use the same commander as the champ I'm as good as the champ" syndrome.

1. Assault grenadiers are pretty terrible, and
2. DevM didn't use Mech Assault at any point, I believe, picking Lightning War the majority of his games, and Mobile Defense versus Jove. Even in the winner's interview he stated that lightning war was a very strong commander.

1. Assault grenadiers are pretty terrible, and
2. DevM didn't use Mech Assault at any point, I believe, picking Lightning War the majority of his games, and Mobile Defense versus Jove. Even in the winner's interview he stated that lightning war was a very strong commander.

oh balls. There goes my seemingly clever conclusion out the window. In my memory he used the Stug E and Tiger together. I really could have checked that. Sorry for wasting your time.

Maybe it was just random that I saw so many Assault Grenadiers resently. (because I did see an awful lot of them in the last ten days)

Assault grenadiers used to be godlike, now they are atrocious.

1. Assault grenadiers are pretty terrible...

It's funny, but I like more assault grenadiers than shockers. I find close combat unit for 280/27mp, 7 cap and 0 CP better then 390/32mp, 10 cap and 2 CP. Well, shockers have smoke grenade but that's all.
Returning to the topic, I see this doctrine in each second fight.

I'm not saying it's not a solid commander. I just wondered if other people noticed a significant increase in it's usage sine OCF. And I find that players with this commander I encounter generally over invest in assault grenadiers.

Its old strat, to be honest always 2-3 good solid players play with taht doc in so opening, last who won with that strat tourney was DBMB in spring in last SCC (if im not mistake).

Imo the reason everyone is using that commander is purely the Tiger buffs, almost everyone owns that commander since it used to be pretty op, then it got nerfed and now after the tiger buff, everyones using it only for the tiger

It seems kind of odd to me to take this Commander and not use it for Agrens. It lacks powerful off map or munitions abilities and the others are more useful even before the Tiger.

If you want a Tiger Commander you also have:


Assault Support

Which most of the older players will have because it unlocked at a certain level rather than now being DLC/Warspoils
Gives you the AI strafe and the bomb run and the AFO

Spearhead

MHT, Recon, Smoke, Bomb

Basically everything there is great

Lightning War

G43s, Stuka AT Strafe

It seems kind of odd to me to take this Commander and not use it for Agrens. It lacks powerful off map or munitions abilities and the others are more useful even before the Tiger.

If you want a Tiger Commander you also have:


Assault Support

Which most of the older players will have because it unlocked at a certain level rather than now being DLC/Warspoils
Gives you the AI strafe and the bomb run and the AFO

Spearhead

MHT, Recon, Smoke, Bomb

Basically everything there is great

Lightning War

G43s, Stuka AT Strafe

I saw it used a ton in OCF especially by OMGPOP but he and the others never built AG just used it for Stug E, off map artillery and tiger. IMO when I use this commander I always get just 1 because it is nice to have a unit with built in sprint ability to close on MGs as well as something to help guard your MG flanks as any infantry getting close enough for a grenade/Molotov will be close enough for you to engage at short range if you are paying attention. Their lack of snares, expensive grenade assault and no armor mean they aren't that great in any kind of large numbers though as a smart enemy will annihilate you with vehicles and laugh as your MP40's ping off the armor.

Did anyone else notice the massively increased use of the mechanized assault commander?

No.

Pose yourself the question whether your perspective is perhaps just a case of heightened awareness of its use now?

Even if I haven't noticed it, you may be right about increased use because in my observation of players of this game, it's the nature of most unfortunately to be willing to exploit any unit which they perceive offers an advantage even where its overtly OP and grossly unfair. In the case of Mech Assault Comm however, I wouldn't categorize it as such either versing it or playing it.

There are a couple of commanders you will see in every Soviet lineup in 95% of games. For the same reason Mech Assault Comm (MAC) features in most of my Ostheer loadouts, especially in 1v1 auto loadouts. It's the fallback goto commander just like Luftwaffe is for OKW. But I've always played this way since experimenting initially with the game, and that choice has nothing to do with OCF.

Often it is not optimum, but it is just a balanced, versatile adaptive ability tree. In the face of so many Comms which are tantamount to pointless, its just a natural pick to anyone with an IQ exceeding a single digit.

Importantly it makes up for the opening infantry shortfalls of Ostheer vs Brit/US/Soviet inf spam in the particular. It's certainly not all powerful, and each unit has a 'use by date' past which it underperforms. If anything, the StuG III Ausf E call in is disappointingly underperforming for an anti-infantry assault gun, especially for its CP entry window. So MAC has pros and cons. One just needs to be aware what those are and exploit the pros before the cons can impact. Momentum is a powerful ally.

It seems kind of odd to me to take this Commander and not use it for Agrens.

Precisely, and the primary reason it is the goto commander if being pressed in opening as aggressive Brits and US spammers are wont to do. IMO, if going MAC, is best to make the decision to do so and choose it immediately the game loads.

Assault Grens may have been nerfed and need to be used prudently, but used well, they still work sufficiently well enough to be worthwhile. i.e. 5 man composition offers resilience, weapons pickup without loss of an entire partially depleted squad, and importantly they have sprint so they can engage at their optimum range. Those three characteristics and abilities are gold. They also offer an unsupported capping independence that pioneres don't. But even more importantly they are available instantly placing more infantry in the field immediately in opening without having to build a building then build 4 man Grens sacrificing valuable time, position -which can be critical, and MP.

Whilst the Mech Assault Group HT mounted PzGrens might be overpriced and not scale particularly well, again, within their initial availability entry window, the HT can be a gamesaver for shock overunnning of deployed MGs or dealing with BS Brit commando or BS Soviet partisans in the particular. Abuse is prevented by their cost.

The Stug E underperforms generally, but it can be critical against early vehicles.

The Tiger at the end is solid as well.

IME all of the above can work especially well with both Ostheer players going MAC in 2v2 auto on some maps in certain situations critical in gaining early control of key positions for denial, which if your opponent is overly aggressive or overloaded, will see him bleed MP.

For the record, re Assault Mechanized Commander (doctrine) abbrev. MAC play.

(Nerfed) Assault Grens and Mech Assault Group FTW!

What follows is a specific warts 'n all soul bearing example in support of my affirmation of this commander in the two preceding posts for those interested. If not, move along. Nothing for you here.

My regular 2v2 partner and I used this double MAC 'shock strat' last night, well early morning actually, in a contiguous 2v2 automatch session from 2300hrs through 0600hrs local. We were on an 8 win streak including the previous night's results (+2) until our first loss against a way higher ranked US+Brit pair with all the PTW Über-commanders who also were lacking any embarrassment at their exploitation of them.

Not to deny their 'give it their all' play or ultimate victory in that match, but it was a longer game in which we equitted ourselves respectfully well versus Über-spam from 'the blobster' US player in particular, and which as a game could easily have gone either way for most of the match until a decisive crux.

Rather than the MAC strat, the critical contributory factor to our loss on this occasion was my teammate's fatigue after 6 games in the following circumstances. I had started fairly fresh having had four hours sleep immediately prior to our session, whereas he had been up all day after a similiar all night session the previous day. I saw his critical thinking and situational awareness curves just crash with the fatigue combined with higher level of pressure from these particular opponents excacerbated by the fatigue of having played 6 games immediately prior. Not grumbling. We're a team. Our fault. Our loss. How it goes. Just saying is all, pointing out aspects of the game that influence outcomes other than just commander choice and raw play ability when any player is at their optimum. i.e. Warmed up, but not fatigued.

It should be pointed out that we are both at a tech disadvantage in terms of hops from the battle server, and my partner in the particular is hobbled with a low performance PC for this game, not that mine is actually anything resembling a ball tearer either. In fact, I'd consider mine minimum acceptable. I don't really know how he copes with a slower CPU. And those factors count, much more so in COH2 than COH1 IME. I have an upgrade on the cards purely motivated to do so for this game to include SSD (already purchased), Skylake i5 6600K, Z170 mobo & 16GB Skylake optimised DDR4 with a replacement GPU as well, although might hold on that until AMD top dog of the moment segment tiers or my mate wants to flog off his 980GTX. 8GB R390 would be where I'd go ATM if I bought NOW, but I want to try and avoid the power consumption of that prev gen AMD die. But I digress.

At the point of the first loss when I noticed his sudden onset of fatigue -about the 6th or 7th consecutive game, we should have just stopped playing then. But he, we, both wanted to continue much even though we shouldn't have because we just enjoy playing. Unfortunately we drew the same map detested by both of us, Vaux Farmlands, which we should have deselected. Ouch! A subsequent 2nd loss. Realising a primary factor being his fatigue, rather than continue and in all probability incur an -8 streak on our Ostheer profile, we decided to lighten up and switched to double Soviets. Much to our surprise, we won the next two quite tough games against considerably higher ranked opponents on Rails and Metal (Wehr+OKW) and then Minsk Pocket (double OKW => Jagtiger+KT) before losing the next two. My fault. I should have insisted my teammate hit the sack as he was all but physically alseep and unable to scan or multi-task at all by then. Kudos to him for hanging in as well as he did. Those of you who are nuts about the game will understand how hard it is to stop playing when you aren't stats obsessed. All in all a monster session through the night and morning hours of darkness with games ranging from 14 minutes (quickest opponent surrender) through around and hour.

MAC works as you can see from our initial six games when we were fresh winning all, four of them against considerably higher ranked opponents. I really don't think the MAC is OP in reasoned analysis. What it is however, is an unusually well balanced solid doctrine which just needs to be used appropropriately, and probably particularly well suited to the temperament ipso facto dominant inherent natural play style of a player. I find it a doctrine which suits an RTS 'eagle' who has a mobile and aggressive opening play style but who concurrently has the nous to consolidate on those advantages rather than abuse by overuse (spam) which is a mistake. For example, we generally find we deploy only one expensive Mech Assault Group in any game, but usually together which has an awesome impact at the time of deployment within its entry availability window. In double deployment, the overall impact of double AG opening supported by an MGs and MAG is simply SHOCK and DISRUPTION for which we find many opponents are simply not prepared or able to adapt throwing their intended strat plan into disarray. Especially good if able to inflict lots of early total model loss casualties against a Brit or double Brits which really hits their MP curve hard. Schweiß für Blut!

According to my experience there are still some players out there using heavy ass gren spam right at the start in order to quickly seize the majority of the map. This will eventually allow them to spam stugs E quite early. If you don't have at least two at guns or a sherman / t34 out by then, you're are pretty done.

According to my experience there are still some players out there using heavy ass gren spam right at the start in order to quickly seize the majority of the map. This will eventually allow them to spam stugs E quite early. If you don't have at least two at guns or a sherman / t34 out by then, you're are pretty done.

Spamming AssGrens early does not work against USF cause Rifles will rape you

Most of the time the ass grens will avoid attacking the rifle squads and instead of harass all your unattended resource points. And if they just come around the corner, they are also able to take on your rifle squad by using sprint. But you are right, this ass gren / stug E strategy is a very delicate one.

Spamming AssGrens early does not work against USF cause Rifles will rape you

100% agree.