Penals are currently unbalanced

Merging is definitely bad when it comes to weapon teams other than maxims and DShK. Standard soviet weapon teams are cheaper to reinforce than cons.

Which TBH i think was part of the problem with maxim spam and old cons. Why would anybody use a unit that cant fight for shit and bleeds more than a unit that can supress and reinforces for cheaper but costs the same to get? Silly relic

Which TBH i think was part of the problem with maxim spam and old cons. Why would anybody use a unit that cant fight for shit and bleeds more than a unit that can supress and reinforces for cheaper but costs the same to get? Silly relic

That is why cons got buffed. If we go this path any further than that, we can say the same about grens. And we all know mg42 isn't exactly the replacement for gren squad.

So it's not the cheap reinforcement cost that most team weapons share that made maxim spam a thing, but its old performance and terrible stats of cons.

Penal with PTRS are lack anti infantry ability, use Obers and STGs Volks.

That is why cons got buffed. If we go this path any further than that, we can say the same about grens. And we all know mg42 isn't exactly the replacement for gren squad.

So it's not the cheap reinforcement cost that most team weapons share that made maxim spam a thing, but its old performance and terrible stats of cons.

I meant that i believe it compounded. Obviously cons were total trash but them bleeding more was the icing on the cake. The pair were just as mobile but one could fight and the other could not. All i was sayin.

I maintain that if cans had remained as they were prepatch but got cheaper to build/reinforce as the player teched they might have seen more use, especially with merge (and the annoying feature of merge sucking the whole squad in if a model drops or something)

I meant that i believe it compounded. Obviously cons were total trash but them bleeding more was the icing on the cake. The pair were just as mobile but one could fight and the other could not. All i was sayin.

I maintain that if cans had remained as they were prepatch but got cheaper to build/reinforce as the player teched they might have seen more use, especially with merge (and the annoying feature of merge sucking the whole squad in if a model drops or something)

If cons were cheaper to reinforce, that would be totally OP. Also I prefer when all squads follow the general reinforcement cost rule. That way it is more consistent. What we have now after reinforcement cost changes to some units is just a mess.

And here I remember people like luvnest wreck face with conscripts for years. They're a ton of health to damage, can build green cover that fits the squad, and could deal significant damage over time, albeit inconsistently (hence, requiring time).

Then something changed and they were deemed total trash.

...right around the time volks got stgs and a flame nade to invalidate cover.

If cons were cheaper to reinforce, that would be totally OP. Also I prefer when all squads follow the general reinforcement cost rule. That way it is more consistent. What we have now after reinforcement cost changes to some units is just a mess.

Well the idea being its a gradual thing. Say 10-20 mp off buying them at t3 and t4 and 2mp of reinforce at each. Of course this was before their revamp, back when they were meatshieldy. The idea being that cons are there to minimize bleed and provide capping power but little more by late game. But with current cons it would be mucho OPo

And here I remember people like luvnest wreck face with conscripts for years. They're a ton of health to damage, can build green cover that fits the squad, and could deal significant damage over time, albeit inconsistently (hence, requiring time).

Then something changed and they were deemed total trash.

...right around the time volks got stgs and a flame nade to invalidate cover.

Conscripts were trash against OKW, pre or post rework. That's why people went for clowncar/maxim spam. Maxim spam in fact wreck old OKW.
Or you don't remember SwS truck pushing your units while suppression Kubel arrived at your cut off followed by a Sturmpio creating indestructible reinforced barbwire or using the SwS to destroy itself while you completely blocked a bridge (Semoisky) forcing specific build order unless you want to get completely shutdown on the map (USF got completely screwed if you didn't know this). Unless you went for a T70 rush victory, scaling through either normal Volks, call in infantry or Obers, completely killed you as Soviets, unless you constantly wiped/reset veterancy through things like demos.

Conscripts COULD work against OH. As it always has been cause early on the match up is balanced and later soviets had enough bs to overcome scaling from OH. But then steadily OH had to be buff and adjusted to be able to match up against USF. Stug-G went from old Su76 levels to the current monster it is now. More mp was given initially (which offset a bit the early pressure you could make with conscript spam) and MG42 was given at T0. Small buff to Pios and BIG overbuff (through ninja bug) to 222 which basically cemented the idea of either spamming maxims or might as well play USF if you want to play "better" conscripts.

Conscript spam was a mean to a specific end: get enough early pressure and map control to get a T70/KV8/whatever call in tank, which you could steamroll to end the game prematurely.


You make it sound really simple but OKW went through a big transformation went they got lava nades and SGT.

-Volks lost schreck but got both AI tools to be able to not longer realistically need the late game scaling BS which made OKW a special snowflake.
-Kubel no longer suppresses and now instead caps.
-Trucks no longer arrive automatically.
-SPios are not as scary and you can now realistically deal with reinforced barb wire (GOOD LORD They removed ghost ones)
-MG34
-SNARE!! This is the biggest one. While annoying to fight blobs of schrecks, you could push over and over the model which carries it. Specially early on when there could be at most 1 or 2 (specially if you didn't have triple cost bulletins).
-JPIV on medic goes to Flak HQ and Luch (it was even worst than old Su76 due to timing) finally becoming relevant.

Oh, to top it off, at some point we had VeterancyGate scandal. This further cemented the concept of maxim spam and conscripts been relatively fine, because ALL INFANTRY SQUADS, wouldn't benefit from offensive vet. Conscripts been walls of HP, specially at vet3, offset any scaling the enemy had through vet or weapon upgrades.

i wonder every time why the good player dont use this great feature....it brings much advantage:

- instant full squad
- save MP
- right use it means u doesnt must retreat...when used on field

The amount of attention (micro) doesn't offset the effect it provides.

1- You can't leave a single squad for constantly merging in base cause that's mp drain through pop.
2- It's faster to reinforce 2 squads at the same time than reinforcing only conscript squads for later merging them.
3- A single conscript can work, but generally i see people strictly going for full Penals. More than that, you are going for mixed army composition which isn't as effective as either going full Penals or full conscripts. And having only a single conscripts, you can't have it been everywhere.
4- Even when it helps for a short term uptime on the field, you want to go to base in order to heal. Retreating with as much models as possible with the lowest health is how you actually save mp.

Merge is a situational tool, not something you could base your whole strategy off.

rant?

Yes, this is all true. Almost none of this has anything to do with how trashy conscripts were perceived in light of such infantry powercreep. I mean, I'm not sure what SwS crushing and USF performance against Ostheer has to do with anything.

Yes, this is all true. Almost none of this has anything to do with how trashy conscripts were perceived in light of such infantry powercreep. I mean, I'm not sure what SwS crushing and USF performance against Ostheer has to do with anything.

Because u imply that something as simple putting STG and lava nades on Volks, was the main cause conscripts were bad.

Conscripts without PPSH had always been bad against OKW (and even with them, they didn't made the cut) and mostly workable against OH but OP clutches such as T70, demo or KV8 made them work.
You are saying Luvnest has been able to make Conscript work for years, but one of the best players can make anything work on ladder.

All that "rant" is giving context to my premise that vanilla conscripts had always been bad post WFA till now. You imply that they were just bad when they rework OKW and gave them those AI upgrades.
Show Spoiler

And while i didn't like the core concept/direction they took with the rework, i still think it fell short (which is why years later it still needs reworks been done). But i'm not saying it was an easy task to do nor to analyse due to the circumstances (vetgate).

The SwS kubel opening further made you go for alternatives to conscripts. USF performance forced heavy changes and buffs to OH, which alter the established dynamic between SU vs OH. So unless you were Von Ivan spamming maxims, why bother playing SU with conscripts when you could play USF Rifles for that kind of style (specially with Rifle Company at that time).

You mention powercreep which is the whole root of this discussion. OH vs SU and conscripts vs gren were fine till WFA released which their core design was BS main line infantry with crappy support weapon playstyle and gimmicks. So i fail to see how this is just a problem of the playerbase perception about conscripts instead been the crude reality that conscript got obsolete at that time.

Yes I could have been far more exhaustive in describing the ways conscripts became considered trash. I opted to simply name the last major change that significantly impacted the role that conscripts could fill against axis.

Before stgs volks had a weakness: close range.

I certainly don't disagree that WFA power creep put conscripts in an awkward position, as well as the many changes to accommodate WFA and Brits as you described.

My apologies for not being as exhaustive as I could've been. I still think the Stgs eliminated the last vestige of conscripts functional role for SU, but it certainly wasn't the only thing that made people feel the way they did about conscripts.

Yes I could have been far more exhaustive in describing the ways conscripts became considered trash. I opted to simply name the last major change that significantly impacted the role that conscripts could fill against axis.

Before stgs volks had a weakness: close range.

I certainly don't disagree that WFA power creep put conscripts in an awkward position, as well as the many changes to accommodate WFA and Brits as you described.

My apologies for not being as exhaustive as I could've been. I still think the Stgs eliminated the last vestige of conscripts functional role for SU, but it certainly wasn't the only thing that made people feel the way they did about conscripts.

But they were still "bad" at close range due to schreck sniping and that cons are effective at weird medium range. Old scaling of Volks and ease of getting, made Cons irrelevant for lategame.
Volks major weakness was Guards, Shocktroops, double bar/1919 Rifles. If you tell me that STG change effectively kills Shocks, i would absolutely agree.

Conscript dps did indeed peak at a middling range this is true.

But this does not mean conscripts were always most effective at a middling range.

The factors that are missed in the dps math is squad health/entity number aND the opposing squads most effective range.

Close range was still most effective due to that being the least effective range of the squads they fight. That dps was completely ruined by cover usage. The 50% reduction in accuracy was insurmountable for cons until they got to point blank range.

And yeah stgs certainly had a cooling effect on the already frozen corpse that are shock troops.

Conscript dps did indeed peak at a middling range this is true.

But this does not mean conscripts were always most effective at a middling range.

The factors that are missed in the dps math is squad health/entity number aND the opposing squads most effective range.

These were factored, always.
Remember that cons do not teleport to the squad they want to attack as soon as it gets in LOS, they are forced to close in directly at that squad shooting at them WITH 100% accuracy while they will have theirs halved during approach and will suffer plenty of damage on approach, if unlucky model will drop and that's already enough to lose to grens at mid/close range.

Close range was still most effective due to that being the least effective range of the squads they fight. That dps was completely ruined by cover usage. The 50% reduction in accuracy was insurmountable for cons until they got to point blank range.

That's incorrect as well, if you check DPS curves of all squads, the one singular squad in game that isn't much, much more effective at closer ranges then longer are tommies as grens and volks DPS goes up all the way to CQC where they both considerably outDPS cons. You'd be right if volks/grens had DPS curve similar to that of Tommies. What allows cons to have a go at them is reliability of DPS(post patch) and luck to not suffer too much dmg on approach. You can't approach under the cover at all times and both axis mainline infatry gets stock upgrades which further contributed to ineffectiveness of cons.

Remember cons dont teleport? Axis stock upgrades made volks more ineffective? Oh you.

It's pretty easy to get beyond the manpower bleed with penals. You have a token squad of cons just to reinforce and merge into your penals. Saves a lot of mp.

But then you are trading out SVT laser rifles for nuggets. You are lowering your dps on an already AI dps gimped unit assuming you already picked the ptrs package.

But then you are trading out SVT laser rifles for nuggets. You are lowering your dps on an already AI dps gimped unit assuming you already picked the ptrs package.

Think you got it wrong.

When conscripts merge to squad they keep their vet 0 properties and gain the weapon of the unit they merged in and all veterancy bonuses of that unit.

If conscript merge to Penal they get free SVTs , while retaining their 1.087 target size.

Conscripts were trash against OKW, pre or post rework. That's why people went for clowncar/maxim spam. Maxim spam in fact wreck old OKW.

-

Small buff to Pios and BIG overbuff (through ninja bug) to 222 which basically cemented the idea of either spamming maxims or might as well play USF if you want to play "better" conscripts.

-

Oh, to top it off, at some point we had VeterancyGate scandal. This further cemented the concept of maxim spam and conscripts been relatively fine, because ALL INFANTRY SQUADS, wouldn't benefit from offensive vet. Conscripts been walls of HP, specially at vet3, offset any scaling the enemy had through vet or weapon upgrades.

This is what I've been saying for a long time. Nerfing maxims into the ground with set-up, suppression, and MP cost nerfs was a terrible idea. It was a response by the community to the sorry state of everything else Sov infantry. Instead of addressing the root cause for the maxim spam relic smacked down the only solution. So now here we sit with most 1v1 Sov players foregoing Maxim openers alltogether in order to gain map control early which only encourages OH players to start double HMG or in the case of some of our chinese players quadruple HMG spam. It is a vicious cycle.

Think you got it wrong.

When conscripts merge to squad they keep their vet 0 properties and gain the weapon of the unit they merged in and all veterancy bonuses of that unit.

If conscript merge to Penal they get free SVTs , while retaining their 1.087 target size.

WHAT!?!?

This is counter to everything I learned in the past few years. Was this changed at some point? I mean this was why you never merged cons into shocks. Or is that because while they get the ppsh they dont get the armor?