The Penal Problem

You need to factor in that one M3A1 will take those kubel out in seconds. Rarely do people go t1 and only go penals.

but rarely do they get one out fast enough to win the first fight, and put down a mine to cover the retreat of the kubel.

I think there are some problems with penals: The Satchel charge is way too versatile, you can destroy bunkers with one, hqs with 3, crew weapons in one (if you didnt start to retreat your mg before they throw, its dead), most buildings in one and quite early and can even stop enemy vehicles from pushing because of sticky satchels, which always damages the engine and deals massive dmg. Especially late game that can prevent Panther pushes etc, even more effective than normal snares. Another problem is the wipe potential even long range. A one-man squad passing by Penals will go down most of the times without any chance of survival.

However, it should be noted that you have problems of map control in early game (but then usually you come back extremely strong in the late early game and mid game) and that Soviets have nearly no viable alternatives. Cons are mostly useless and you cannot rely on maxims. Penals are a no-brainer therefore. Imo, Penals should be toned down (at least for the early game), but the other alternatives should be made viable again.

If you think Penals are OP, then please. PLEASE play PVP. As Soviets.
If you get a 1000 game win streak, I will believe you.

But conscripts are not worth it cost effectiveness wise. Most recent
patch gives them a -50% accuracy nerf on equipped weapons? (includes PPSH)

Maxim nerfed into the ground.
DDSHK nerfed
Guards nerfed.
T-35 mine nerfed
Demo pack nerfed
Flare mine nerfed (!)
Dual sniper nerfed even more (!)

Penals have been nerfed from original and had their flamethrowers removed.
Giving them PTRD rifles was so it wouldn't be auto guard commander all the
time.

Penals were not a problem before. "Maxim spam was". And the Penals were
stronger (and so were the conscripts!) then. Why have you only just now
discovered this?

When I play Germany, I know what soviets are capable of, and eat them alive.

I find - very - amusing, when you talk of Penals + Mortars in same sentence.

"I know MGs hard counter Penals, but Soviets can counter MGs with mortars"

"Panzers can be countered with AT guns, but AT guns can be countered by
grenades. ie: Grenades are OP".

Edit : Not to mention that allies are much harder for beginners to get into.
Nerfing allies endlessly ... is problematic.
Platying Germany is much more noob friendly.

PS2 : German equivalents are always better. But Soviets get them slightly earlier.

Conscripts vs Grenadiers.
Penals vs PanzerGrenadiers.

This is why you have trouble.

As for Luch being useless, all light vehicles were nerfed vs AI recently. ALL of them.
Even Allied ones. The Luch is one of those that were the least nerfed. Overall, this lead
to Penals being perceived as problematic where they were not before.

Un-nurf Luch, you need to un-nerf Quad AA Halftrack and others... which ends up german inf being
raped harder and so on.

What a load of sh*t.

If the EFA patch goes through soviets will be getting alot better especially with cons buff.

How can you compare panzergrenadiers to penals, penals get used like mainline inf, thats the problem

You call for nerfs against the penals... penals is all soviets have to stay in the early game. What do you want to use cons? Maxim? The problem with penals is that there is realistically no other real option for infantry for soviets, and this is because of the scope (tm).

The real problem is that, in the name of not limiting soviet options,
they have done nothing but make the only worthwhile meta be Penal spam.

However, consider US : Rifle Spam
British : vickers, Infantry Squad Spam

And so forth. Most factions have pretty restrictive openings.
Soviets used to have a lot more options. Recent patches have
made Penal Spam the only - worthwhile - option.

stop with this spam shit. no good allied player will make more than 3 squads, not only because it is counter productive, it is also because you simply can't spam them without delaying your tech.

not to mention the immense hypocrisy of you claiming spams when axis spam proved time and time again to be MUCH more effective than the allies.

- Honored Penal buff, before the patch they were one of the worst infantry units (only the flamethrower was good)
- conscripts always sucked
- undeserved Maxim nerf

Players pushed to spam the Penal, because they have no other alternative. I'm really surprised: everyone is spamming, but everyone are crying about what spam is bad. This game is built on spam, and combined arms operations require more skill and less profit.

you guys also seem to miss something very important.

Penals on their own are ass, this is why dshkas are mandatory nowadays (because 300mp and instant spawn for a very good MG is a million times better than paying 380mp AND 20f for a single awful maxim)

Go into the game and test it, then. Two Penal squads each with a single PTRS-41, versus a single Luchs. Luchs loses, almost always.

Luchs range > penals PTRS range

If you kite penals with your luch, they will never ever damage you. And even if you get too close, and the actually start aiming, just quickly reverse back. PTRS aiming time is so long, that you should be able to evade them, even if they start targeting you

but rarely do they get one out fast enough to win the first fight, and put down a mine to cover the retreat of the kubel.

I would disagree with the timing. My build is pio > t1 > penal > m3a1. M3 can reach the front at almost the same time as the penal.

A mine is very much an option. I would counter that delaying shrek by any amount of time, even to put down medlacks, can make a t70 even more dangerous. A ratken you say? Most unreliable POS in the game imo.

There are always counter plays but I would say Russians have a very strong open vs OKW.

So you admit your argument was silly? That is what your post implies, proved you wrong.

When people refuse to show their playercard or replays of their game, that's a huge sign that the problems they might be facing are not due to balance but rather their own skill set.
In a similar way, solution to problems might not be feasible depending on the skillbracket.

Ex: kitting penals PTRS with light vehicle/tanks. This is something i would generally say, but if i'm advising someone at the 1000/2000 or even lower ranks, i would suggest other approaches.
Same if i tell anyone to use a sniper. At those levels i'll rather tell them to get another unit cause microing a sniper takes the few APM they have in a single unit they might not take full profit out of it.


OP: Penals opening without conscript or double CE means jackshit map/garrison/cover control at the beginning of the game.
Garrison dance makes it impossible for them early on to get you out. Early M3 (as 3rd unit built) means even less map control which you can abuse. Single CE flamer also means they won't be able to defuse your mines. Don't sit on munitions early once you know it's a T1 opening (which you realise pretty much at the start by their map presence).
If it's a M3 clowncar DO NOT OVERCOMMIT low model/health isolated squads deep into enemy territory, specially around the 3:30/4:30 mins of the game (timing on which flamer can pop out).
Every single Penal squad that you can force your opponent to make them upgrade PTRS, means a dead squad for the later stages of the game. Penal PTRS don't do shit against infantry and they are a slot weapon. This means every time you kill a model, their AI goes down as the PTRS must be given to another model.

Playercard/Replay and game mode will go a long way in getting more valuable feedback, if that's is your objective.

I would disagree with the timing. My build is pio > t1 > penal > m3a1. M3 can reach the front at almost the same time as the penal.

A mine is very much an option. I would counter that delaying shrek by any amount of time, even to put down medlacks, can make a t70 even more dangerous. A ratken you say? Most unreliable POS in the game imo.

There are always counter plays but I would say Russians have a very strong open vs OKW.

But then, this is not about Penal blob spam which is what OP is complaining about. T1 combined arms approach (M3 + Penals + Sniper) is strong specially if combined with Lend Lease but it also drops down on effectiveness as the game drags. It's basically a minigame of how much damage it can do before those units drop down in value.

Show Spoiler

I thinks that's a good example of things done right and wrong on both sides.

The recent miragefla's brainstorm gave them a funny nade, remember?


They repel and/or destroy vehicles.


INB4 someone says "don't get close", ignoring the common aknowledge that axis AI vehicles don't do jack shit at range.

You are clearly not using your axis vehicles correctly

Luchs range > penals PTRS range

Same was true for volks panzershrek, but that got removed too.

I think it's biggest problem is it's insane moving accuracy which allows it to often snipe the first hmg model and walk past it.

Hi!

hi

The meta is to blob Penals and it works almost every time.

there are a lot of counter to beat easily penals ( MG per exemple)
Since the penal have been heavily nerfed, i believe even their sprint ability got removed so you can pin them down easily.

You tried to compare penals with some okw (doctrinal & undoctrinal) units, and found that penal beat volksgrenadier ...
well, they are not the same price
penals = 6*28 Mp = 180 MP
Volks = 5*25 MP = 125 MP

So basically, penals should perform for their price 31% better than volks.
This said, penals don't have Flame grenadies / Panzerfaust / STG44 upgrade and infiltration nades.


There is not a problem with penals, only with your lack of knowledge.

The problem with Penals has to do with Soviet T1 and conscripts. The problem with Soviet T1 has to do with Soviet T2 and conscripts.

This problem has been relatively unchanged since game launch.

So we just have to acknowledge the fact that penals are a ´problem´, but we can´t offer any counters to said problem? What is the point of this thread then?

A lot of people provide viable solutions, yet they are put aside because: "let's not get into the counter to counter to counter play!"

Wut?

You misunderstand. The point is you are encouraged to suggest counters to Penals, since those are the units being dicussed in this thread. The 'let's not get into the counter to the counter to the counter' is to try and protect the thread against derailing (Katyusha versus Panzerwerther anyone?). The assumption is that everything has a counter (Stuka zu Fuß is a decent counter to Penals (though not available early-game, when Penals rule the map), and is obviously vulnerable to counter-arty and especially to tank rushes... but we're not here to discuss the Stuka and its counters), and we're here to discuss Penals not other units.

People who say make MG and sniper seem to magically forget that from the same building as penals you can make a sniper and a half truck which is super powerful in early game. People forget that SU players usually build a sniper with their penals. That sniper counters MG and sniper for WM. If not sniper then M3 is perfect too.
Yes, penals in isolation can be easily countered, i agree as a WM player at least. But penals in isolation are not a problem. But if penals would not be so strong sniper and M3 would not be a problem.

hi

Indeed, hi.

there are a lot of counter to beat easily penals ( MG per exemple)
Since the penal have been heavily nerfed, i believe even their sprint ability got removed so you can pin them down easily.

When I used to play Ostheer (I probably have around 150 hours as OST) I would typically suppress blobs with an MG42 and shred them with double or even triple Panzerwerthers to ensure a wipe. However, you may have noticed that OKW have no decent MG. The MG34 is impotent and takes a good while to suppress, and thus the only MG-equivalent OKW have are flaks. Specifically, the Flak HQ and the mobile flak halftrack (the Flak 38 does surprisingly little to suppress, almost as bad as the MG34).

You tried to compare penals with some okw (doctrinal & undoctrinal) units, and found that penal beat volksgrenadier ...
well, they are not the same price
penals = 6*28 Mp = 180 MP
Volks = 5*25 MP = 125 MP

So basically, penals should perform for their price 31% better than volks.
This said, penals don't have Flame grenadies / Panzerfaust / STG44 upgrade and infiltration nades.


There is not a problem with penals, only with your lack of knowledge.

You seem to have skimmed over the rest of my post, but allow me to clarify: I compared units not only based on who beats who, but also on cost-effectiveness. Penals cost 300 MP, Volks cost 250 MP. At close and mid range, 5 squads of Penals (1500 MP) beat 6 squads of Volks (also 1500 MP) by a fair margin, every time. At long range, the 6 Volks lost most of the time but did barely managed to pull off a win once.

The conclusion is that Volks are not a cost-effective counter to Penals and only stand a chance if by some miracle you manage to only engage the Penals at long-range... which is going to be extremely hard, considering OKW has no viable early-game MG, and you cannot fire while running backwards.

Edit: I was unable to reproduce the 6 Volks v 5 Penal long-range victory, must've just been a fluke. In which case, Penals are more cost-effective at all ranges.

Edit2: Reading over your post a second time, you seem to have used the reinforce cost to evaluate value. I noticed that the reinforce cost for Volks is 25 MP (10% of their build cost), while the reinforce for Penals is only a mere 28 MP (9.3% of their build cost). This actually proves my point further.

Edit3: Penals also have 45-muni satchels which can often wipe multiple squads. Volks have weak 30-muni incendiary grenades which are only useful against static targets such as MGs.

Same was true for volks panzershrek, but that got removed too.

They got stg so OKW doesn't have to rely on hmg and elite infantry like falls to hold the allies hordes in the mid game.

Also shrecks have longer range and slower aim time. And 1 shreck didn't cripple volks AI as much as PTRS on penals do

PS: as an USF player I liked shreck on volks, because I could have been constantly crushing them with m20, disallowing them to fire. Now, since they got fausts, I cannot do this anymore :/

Edit3: Penals also have 45-muni satchels which can often wipe multiple squads. Volks have weak 30-muni incendiary grenades which are only useful against static targets such as MGs.

Often wipe multiple squads with satchels? I cant remember ever having wiped more than one squad with satchels in about 1100h COH2. You need to be sloppy with your micro in order to loose infantry to satchels. MG´s and AT-guns are a bit more tricky but even them should not get wiped by satchels if you have a decent level of micro.

On the other hand Volks incendiary grenades are very good because they deny garrions/cover and have no fuse timer. They are also very good vs. mg´s and at-guns. They are everything but weak.

Satchels vs tanks and light vehicles also require your opponent to have bad micro. A well microed tank/vehicle is never going to get satcheld unless it has engine crit.