[1v1] I keep throwing games as Ostheer

One very salty moderator here. I've been playing Ostheer lately and they're my favourite faction, but I can't help but lose. The problem is not that I lose but how, because it's always in frustrating ways, I frequently do rather well in a game, vs USF, Soviets, Brits, doesn't really matter which, and then it hits late game and I pull the biggest throw ever.

The biggest problems I face are:
- Throwing
- Unit preservation
- Macro management

A slight disclaimer, my ranks are not entirely representative of my skill due to the number of times I have been interrupted, disconnected, lagged for half the game etc, but we probably know that about leaderboards already. I play an absolutely abominable machine which frequently has micro freezes, huge input lag and frames that only hit 25 at the absolute tops. I'd like to think i'd be better if I had a good PC but that's probably not true

My Relic website playercard will show my recent matches since I can't post replays (disabled them for FPS boost, not convinced it works though).

Throwing

I often reach the point in a game where I am in control, not entirely, maybe marginally, but I can see it out. Most recent examples would be a pair of games on Kholodny vs Brits where I didn't push my advantage enough or got distracted and found I later didn't have enough punch to beat my opponent or lost a lot in a botched push. This happens a lot as I lose control of all my various units, which are often suffering lagged commands, so I am pretty susceptible to otherwise easy to beat tactics such as blobbing, I either fumble around too long or I can't react in time with the game.

Unit preservation

Lag plays a part but I am not completely innocent either. I often lose units around the midway point in games and whilst I can maintain an advantage, soon my unit bleeding gets on top of me. I notice in most games I play my opponent, despite being on the back foot, is far better at unit preservation than I am, and in the end their veteran units always overcome my efforts of control.

Macro Management

Not good in this department, I often ignore tactical map as it is on the 0 key on the right side of my keyboard and I often don't use control groups. This has the effect of me forgetting units in far out places and suffering attrition as well as leaving units in a place too long or teching late as I forget to build the building.

I would appreciate any feedback apart from "OMFG just upgrade ur pc alredy dude". That can wait.

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  Swiftsabre

  Multihog

  Mobile Defense vs Shock Rifle

  by: Swift map: Crossing in the Woods

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Got my friend to save this one we played.

Classic example of me throwing a game late because I botch an engagement.

Welp, I made lengthy post for yea but damn fuckin shity website logged me out for being afk or whatever bs but regardless.

Let me write this again...

I'd recommend to start using control groups for at least some units such as HMGs or Snipers. This way you can quickly jump to units and such and will help somewhat with micro (or is it macro? meh) than clicking you can simply double tap a number to check a unit. Another is making a habit of checking your unit bar to see what they're doing either being idle or somewhere you want them to be.

To try and counter the loss of units mid/late game try to keep your army in one area. Ofc you'll lose some map control but you should be able to overwhelm the enemy and cutoff/cap the map. This way you can keep a tab on everything. For lag, which I can understand playing on a crappy laptop at a cafe, try to foresee where your enemy will come from and move cautiously. Setup MG42s first then send in supporting units to scout the area. Attack moving can help somewhat too to help stop your units dead in their tracks and not moving. Do you shift click to cap? This can help too with micro, just keep an eye on that unit bar. If you're forced to send squads to cap try to send expendable units like unveteran Grenadiers, Pioneers, and Osttruppen. These are the best you can do in terms of being able to throw away troops. Still hurts but you could do worst and you can ill afford a lost HMG42.

I can also give advice on that match but I didn't want to comment on it unless you wanted some peeps to do that. (I'd watch it already before posting the post above.)

Anyway hopes this helps and I don't mean to come off as harsh or anything if it looks like that.

Snippety snip.

Not at all, any advice is useful even if I know some of it already, because I don't everything right or I wouldn't be posting here.

If you did take a look at that replay I'd love feedback, I watched it again myself and I played very passively and often didn't commit to fights, with poor mining and terrible unit preservation, so please, any advice at all.

Here is a game from today which Show Spoiler

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  Swiftsabre

  Multihog

  Mobile Defense vs Shock Rifle - the re-run

  by: Swift map: Langreskaya

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Alright, I'll give both a look again and give feedback later tonight.

Thanks. Also you should be able to see my playercard now, for some reason my options for my playercard were set to private.

I wish my playercard would fuckin show up too else I'll keep looking like a scrub a dub (name is Space Marine Dave) crapping out random advice. Anyway going onto those games. (btw I don't care much of your playercard as my bro told me you were a good DoW2 player which I can't even at that game.)

First I'm a idiot as I thought the first match was against a randumb and that your friend saved it through observing, not playing . Derp on my part but moving on.

I guess I'll start with the good. You seemed to not have as many idle units as the first match and more importantly your build was a excellent counter to your opponent. Granted you knew what he was building but still. The Grenadiers supporting each other was also great (fire and moving, focus fire, etc) as this did let you force him to react to you but your micro did wane when having to move three plus units. Sniper play was moderate but you need to constantly be sniping models to have a good effect but you kept him alive.

Now for the advice. (I now know he is your friend so you probably expected what he would build but nevertheless) Try to predict what your opponent will go for as when I saw those maxims bulletins I knew he would go for T2 with some maxims. Same with his commanders, if he has elite infantry such as shocks or Guards than snipers work well on bleeding them and maxims. One rule of thumb with OST is where there's a pio, there's a HMG42. (Unless pio is capping ofc) Try to keep the MG42 next to Pio's for them to act spotters and to mutually support each other. Take advantage of any buildings and place the MG42 where it can cover a wide area or have good LoS.

Same with Grenadiers as they should be close enough to support each other when the situation dictates. If you've pushed hard/off don't try and spread out to defend or attack everywhere but focus on one point to break or somewhere he doesn't expect. Tried to brute force your way through where his mg were set up already. On the mortar you did fine but try to get them as close as possible to bombard your enemy as it'll be accurate and give them a beating. (But this is micro intensive to constantly set up and move)

One issue was the build for the first match. Osttruppen do awful against veteran/elite troops and attacking (can't do shit flanking unless in cover which restrains on where they can go) so don't bother with them unless you want to capture abandoned weapons or some cheap capping units. Other hand they do decent as a sniper counter being cheap and all. Panzergrenadiers are a great assaulty unit as they can do that well for chasing AT guns or maxims even going toe to toe with shocks. They also work well for defending your MG42 flanks.

The Puma call in was a good choice for a easy way to counter a rampaging light vehicle but don't get two as a Stug provide much better anti-tank. Another one wastes fuel and MP as they do poor against heavily armored medium tanks and heavy tanks. Command Panzer was a decent choice as he lacked any mobile anti-tank and you did well on bullying enemy squads. You were rather passive as there were times he left his anti-tank guns alone or unsupported which would have been easy pickings. (Almost every time a big push fails by the oppenent you want to counter attack with whatever you have but try not to overextend. More times than not they'll have nothing to protect their weapon teams or AT guns.)



Rushing for T4 for Panther was an odd choice if you guess he was going for IS-2. (which you did)Stugs would work better as you could afford three or so for one Panther at the cost of survivability and chasing ability. (I know it sounds like wanking off to the Stug but it's really a good cheap tank destroyer that better than the puma with MUCH better scaling)

Overall, you have a good grasp of OST but it's just playing and improving your micro and such.
I hope this was decent advice as again I haven't done this before.

TL;DR you suk, kill yourself as you'll nevar be pr0 mlg stug 4 lyfe like moe

Thanks for watching them both, my friend was convinced he played terribly in the second game but oh well.

Yeah, the Panther play was because I thought I was further ahead than I actually was, I hoped for a Panzerwerfer too but it never happened because I screwed up. I often make the mitake of replenishing losses with Ostruppen and they just feed more vet to Shocks.

A slight disclaimer, my ranks are not entirely representative of my skill due to the number of times I have been interrupted, disconnected, lagged for half the game etc, but we probably know that about leaderboards already. I play an absolutely abominable machine which frequently has micro freezes, huge input lag and frames that only hit 25 at the absolute tops. I'd like to think i'd be better if I had a good PC but that's probably not true

I would appreciate any feedback apart from "OMFG just upgrade ur pc alredy dude". That can wait.

Giving you moral support for spending money on a new pc, swiftsabre.


Biggest thing on my end is being focused. There are times when I know I could be playing better but i'm not in the right headspace or people just got home and are making noise, or I have to answer the phone, etc. Try to minimize that.

Don't have time for a full-fledged reply for specific strategy but focus is the biggest thing for me, I must say.

Giving you moral support for spending money on a new pc, swiftsabre.


Biggest thing on my end is being focused. There are times when I know I could be playing better but i'm not in the right headspace or people just got home and are making noise, or I have to answer the phone, etc. Try to minimize that.

Don't have time for a full-fledged reply for specific strategy but focus is the biggest thing for me, I must say.

I know exactly what you mean, I sometimes lose games because I don't feel the right mindset or someone comes along and tries to talk to me and if I haven't played in a week I find it hard getting back into it.

I wish my playercard would fuckin show up too else I'll keep looking like a scrub a dub (name is Space Marine Dave) crapping out random advice. Anyway going onto those games. (btw I don't care much of your playercard as my bro told me you were a good DoW2 player which I can't even at that game.)

First I'm a idiot as I thought the first match was against a randumb and that your friend saved it through observing, not playing . Derp on my part but moving on.

I guess I'll start with the good. You seemed to not have as many idle units as the first match and more importantly your build was a excellent counter to your opponent. Granted you knew what he was building but still. The Grenadiers supporting each other was also great (fire and moving, focus fire, etc) as this did let you force him to react to you but your micro did wane when having to move three plus units. Sniper play was moderate but you need to constantly be sniping models to have a good effect but you kept him alive.

Now for the advice. (I now know he is your friend so you probably expected what he would build but nevertheless) Try to predict what your opponent will go for as when I saw those maxims bulletins I knew he would go for T2 with some maxims. Same with his commanders, if he has elite infantry such as shocks or Guards than snipers work well on bleeding them and maxims. One rule of thumb with OST is where there's a pio, there's a HMG42. (Unless pio is capping ofc) Try to keep the MG42 next to Pio's for them to act spotters and to mutually support each other. Take advantage of any buildings and place the MG42 where it can cover a wide area or have good LoS.

Same with Grenadiers as they should be close enough to support each other when the situation dictates. If you've pushed hard/off don't try and spread out to defend or attack everywhere but focus on one point to break or somewhere he doesn't expect. Tried to brute force your way through where his mg were set up already. On the mortar you did fine but try to get them as close as possible to bombard your enemy as it'll be accurate and give them a beating. (But this is micro intensive to constantly set up and move)

One issue was the build for the first match. Osttruppen do awful against veteran/elite troops and attacking (can't do shit flanking unless in cover which restrains on where they can go) so don't bother with them unless you want to capture abandoned weapons or some cheap capping units. Other hand they do decent as a sniper counter being cheap and all. Panzergrenadiers are a great assaulty unit as they can do that well for chasing AT guns or maxims even going toe to toe with shocks. They also work well for defending your MG42 flanks.

The Puma call in was a good choice for a easy way to counter a rampaging light vehicle but don't get two as a Stug provide much better anti-tank. Another one wastes fuel and MP as they do poor against heavily armored medium tanks and heavy tanks. Command Panzer was a decent choice as he lacked any mobile anti-tank and you did well on bullying enemy squads. You were rather passive as there were times he left his anti-tank guns alone or unsupported which would have been easy pickings. (Almost every time a big push fails by the oppenent you want to counter attack with whatever you have but try not to overextend. More times than not they'll have nothing to protect their weapon teams or AT guns.)



Rushing for T4 for Panther was an odd choice if you guess he was going for IS-2. (which you did)Stugs would work better as you could afford three or so for one Panther at the cost of survivability and chasing ability. (I know it sounds like wanking off to the Stug but it's really a good cheap tank destroyer that better than the puma with MUCH better scaling)

Overall, you have a good grasp of OST but it's just playing and improving your micro and such.
I hope this was decent advice as again I haven't done this before.

TL;DR you suk, kill yourself as you'll nevar be pr0 mlg stug 4 lyfe like moe

I approve this message StugLIFE!