Soviets V OKW, looking for advice and tips please

New topic

New Reply

Posts: 184

Hi guys I was hoping someone could have a look at this game with me as Soviets against OKW. I won this game but it was fairly neck and neck in terms of army values throughout so it could have went either way even with the big VP deficit. The other player is also probably slightly better than me, we play a lot and it's fairly even in terms of who usually wins.

Any advice would be great, good things, bad things, anything I can work on to get better.

Thanks very much!

0

VS

borobadger

Michael

Soviets V OKW
by: borobadger map: Kholodny Ferma

1

-

Posts: 4314 | Subs: 7

K, I´ll give it a look today

Posts: 184

Any luck or does anyone else want to take a look?

Posts: 4183 | Subs: 4

If Hector wishes to pass it on I'll look at it. I'll wait for his permission though.

Posts: 4183 | Subs: 4

Hector has given this replay for me to review. I'll post thoughts shortly.

Posts: 4183 | Subs: 4

Things you did well:

Retreating from bad engagements: Excellent work here. When you didn't see a way to win an engagement you retreated immediatly and saved manpower this way.
Capping order: Pretty solid. Captured the south and then went for northern cutoff, VPs, and munitions garrison.
Unit composition: Also pretty solid. You had your AT guns, infantry, armor, supporting MGs. The only thing I would have added is maybe a mortar to dislodge garrisons and attack support weapons like the rakatten.

Things to improve on:

Immediatly selected shock rifle frontline: This is a mistake and limits your commander selection while you gain nothing from the commander immediatly. The moment you select a commander you should be gaining some form of advantage unless you know for a fact you're going to be required to lock in that commander at a later stage. Locking in shock rifle frontline doesn't give you anything until 2 CPs. I recommend you wait and see if it's required by at least 2 CPs.
Teched molotovs: This was a premature teching of a sidetech anti garrison tool. You did eventually need it to clear the garrison by your forward house but you could've just taken that fight from long range by the tank wreck or fence. Sturmpioneers are "ok" at range but will always get out damaged by a long range squad like conscripts as long as the squad uses cover. Molotov tech also does not need to be researched. It was rather redundant for you to get an engineer flamethrower and molotovs. The flamethrower should be fine to use alone especially since you can keep it on the field when you need it since conscripts can merge. Also you will need to pickup another engineer later in the game since eastern front armies repair speeds are slower than the western front armies. Plus you'll need a sweeper against higher level players.
Unsupported MGs: I saw MGs go unsupported when they were setting up in garrisons. Even inside a garrison a good player can just continuously flank the MG and force it to rotate while getting consistant damage while your MG cannot shoot back. You need to avoid this if possible by supporting it or waiting till you can move up support so you can take the garrison. Losing your MG because sturms are circling it will just force a retreat out of you. Also once you saw his JLI you should know it is the scavenge doctrine, and that that doctrine holds infiltration grenades. Infiltration grenades will level wooden buildings when thrown from high model counts. Usuaully 5 or 4 if the building is slightly weaker. Be wary of MGs jumping in as you could lose it immediatly to these grenades.
Charging sturms just to throw molotovs: Bad. Upper level players will see the long whind up and dodge it and advance on your cons with sturms and force a retreat. It is better to just engage at long range behind cover if posssible and force a flank maybe. Also I saw you double toss molovtovs into a garrison at 13:27. This will inflict more damage but he just got out of the garrison and retreated. Cancel the 2nd if he exits the garrison.
Keep your squads active: I saw squads go AFK sometimes even on negative cover. This is more of a micro issue and should improve with more gameplay and time, but it will improve faster if you really focus on keeping your squads active. You can use the tactical map or the icons in the upper right hand corner to see if you have any squads that havn't been given orders in awhile.
Lack of mines and demos: You only planted mines in the alley behind the church. When you have munitions to spend you should always plant mines and demos. Protect your flanks with them so you are less likely to be flanked.
Light vehicle shock value: Light vehicles are more potent the earlier they arrive in the match. When you started teching up to T3 you could've already had a T70 for about 3-4 minutes. That time is time the T70 could've been bleeding your opponet while taking no bleed yourself because T70s don't bleed manpower; they can only die. It's also time you could've applied more pressure to VPs, cutoffs, fuel and gained vet on the light vehicle. Build your light vehicles faster for the most impact.
Vehicles: You should avoid snares at all costs with vehicles. Taking a snare reduces your vehicle effective threat substantially. You drove your T70 directly up to a volks squad and then wiped it and you were not snared. This is a missplay on his end as well as yours. You should stay at range and he should've retreated or attempted to snare. Do not rely on your opponets missplays to make your own missplays.
Katy alpha damage: Your 1st barrage of the katy was from far behind your frontlines and thus resulted in massive scatter and not a single kill. Your 1st barrage is when your katy is at its most lethal as your opponet doesn't realize you have one. Get it as close as you can to reduce scatter while keeping it safe from anything that can kill it and then shoot it.
Tank positioning: Once you saw his 1st p4 your T70 went into AFK fear mode. I think you were just to scared to use it while a p4 was on the field. You can still use it as the lone squad police to force retreats from extended squads at bot or top. Or you could have kept it mid and put it in recon mode so you could have had extended sight for your AT guns and tanks. SU85 was an alright choice, however you should never dive like that after 3 tanks with turrets with an assualt gun(turretless tank). You need to keep your IS2 infront of of your SU85 so your opponet cannot flank it as easily or get shots as easy.
Could have snared at least 1 p4 at bottom just before you killed the panther but snared the wrong tank and then didn't throw the other AT nade. With no snares you only got a kill becauase his panther overextended into your AT guns. Good work on bringing those AT guns in though to cover your retreat and flank.
Map: After the 1st p4 showed up you did not move any unit to the upper half of the map for about 15 minutes and this relaxed pressure against him. You need to make him move and force him out of position if you wish to break defences. Otherwise you enter this tug-of-war for a single part of the map(central VP) and enter ultra lategame. And OKW is the last faction you ever want to face in the ultra lategame. KTs, panthers, p4s, command panthers and of course veterancy 5. All horrifiying when they can support each other. See if you can try and setup a siege position on his schwer HQ. Losing the schwer HQ as OKW is game losing since it costs so much.
Soviet AT gun camo: While this is nice when stationary, it makes you move slower than cloaked rakattens when you try and move. Disable it, move, setup and then reapply the cloak. Otherwise you probably will not have your AT guns in an optimal position by the time another push may come.
Arty barrages: Lost a maxim because you didn't exit a wooden house when you saw an arty barrage coming. You should make all units leave the area when you see an arty barrage coming and always take units out of garrisons since they will instantly die if the garrison collapses.

Overall: You did well in the early game with capping order and composition. Try and focus on keeping your squads busy and teching up when appropriate to get the most from your armor. Always plant mines and demos if available, and avoid arty barrages.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns do not hesitate to ask.

Posts: 184

Thanks very much for the detailed reply! Really appreciate the time it took to do that. All of your points I agree with entirely, only really been playing coh 2 for the last month or so (had 100s hours in coh 1), so I still make a lot of daft mistakes. I normally delay light vehicles because I'm so scared of a Luchs winning him the game and tend to spend manpower on at guns before I go for a T-70 which is maybe a bit negative. I think I've been getting better at harassing other areas of the map but when things get heated I just get zoned in on the action a bit too much, which is probably also why some squads are idling.

Thanks again for the reply

Posts: 4183 | Subs: 4

No problem. Preemptive AT is fantastic and you should always get it, but you can also attempt to judge his fuel income by how much territory he has and how much you've cut him off. If you've cut him off a lot maybe you can slide in another MG or tech up. If you havn't cut him off at all it may be best to stick with the safe approach and get AT.

/set green

Posts: 184

I've been having a bit more success in 1v1s recently by making sure I have preemptive AT, I lost several games to light vehclies and just not being ready for them I so I'm a bit paranoid now even if I think he doesent have fuel. Do you play much Soviets yourself?

Posts: 4183 | Subs: 4

Nope! I'm a heavy OKW player but I've played all factions to some extent and understand their costs and how their units function inorder to understand what I'm going to be up against.