Soviet unit composition approach question

Hi, another novice question. I am mostly a soviet player but i have been playing some germans lately. And i have found ostheer faction to be easier to play in terms of how to figure out your unit composition. Let me explain that a bit.

When playing any faction in any RTS game i am trying to compose my forces around a single central element that is my main damage dealing component. The rest of the force is playing a supporting, amplifying and niche roles (like harassment, detection, etc.). Unit composition is not fixed and can shift as game progresses.

With ostheer i found this approach to be pretty straightforward to implement. In the early game grenadiers with the best DPS and armor on the field at that stage (as well as rifle grenades) are your damage dealing core with MGs and mortars nicely playing a supporting role. In the mid-game you also have a variety of choices for this role: LMG grens, panzer grens, FHT, even scout car recently. Late game can either shift to flakpanzers/P4 for that role or retain previous units, depending on what your opponent does. Point is, i found it pretty straightforward to implement this unit composition approach with the ostheer reacting to opponent's unit composition. Even if my micro is shit i find most games i've played to be easy wins so far.

Going back to soviets i am having trouble implementing this approach. Seems like most soviet units are support units. Conscripts don't have too much health and DPS and later play light AT support role. Same goes for guards. Shock troops are nice but very expensive and depend on commander choice. T3 tanks are also nice but still fail to be the backbone. T4 consists entirely of specialized units. KV-8 is close but still depends on a commander choice.

So my question is, am i missing something or soviets just aren't designed for the unit composition approach i have described? What principles do you use to build your soviet unit composition?

If anything, Grenadiers play a support role to mg42s to prevent flanks. But then in this game you normally don't have a 'core' unit outside of tanks, with things to consider like vps, cutoffs, map control, fuel/munition control dictating how you split your forces. Conscripts shine at capping around german players and allowing you to field things like heavier infantry, snipers, tanks, etc.

Standard 4 or 5 conscript build is not designed to run head on into upgraded Grenadiers or lmg42s, but rather try to get map control while fielding more appropriate counters.

First of all, forget other RTSs. CoH is pretty unique, specially when it comes to unit composition

If what you are looking for is a main damage dealer that will work against *every* unit type, then of course there is no solution. Almost every unit in CoH is (or should be) specialized in killing some specific type of unit. And they will all have some sort of hard counter against them.

So, what you really should be doing is trying to play more combined arms, rather than having this "central element" you are talking about. For instance, snipers and shock troops are highly specialized to kill infantry, with extremely high DPS against them. But they will fluke at the sight of a simple scout car or flamer halftrack. It should be like this for *every* unit in the game. If a unit doesn't have a hard counter against it, then it's probably a balance problem.

So, what you really should be doing is trying to play more combined arms, rather than having this "central element" you are talking about.

That's what he is trying to do, but hes just expressing how it seems to be a little harder when playing as Russians is all. Though I may be reading him wrong.

I'd kinda mirror that observation. I haven't played enough Germans to really get a good feel for them but I get a sense that their basic units are just a little easier to use, and as an army, the composition is a little easier to do. Its not a complaint, just an observation.

Russians have some extremely powerful units (snipers and SU-85s) but they are very specialist, and you really need to think about the units you use to support them.

From what I've read on here and other forums, it looks like the vast majority of Russian 1v1 players have found a functional build order and army structure that gives them the best chance to win. Conscripts > T1 (clown car and snipers when possible) > T4. Anything outside of that is really really hard to make work. 2v2+ is even hard to find any kind of balance.

Thats not to say that it other strats wont work, and the latest patch has helped T3, but they are harder to make work is all.

Vanilla Cons=Vanilla Grens.

Vanilla Cons=Vanilla Grens.

. Gren beat conscript pretty badly in a 1v1 no ability use, same cover

Vanilla Cons=Vanilla Grens.

Except grens can be upgraded with LMG which makes them better then cons without doctrine choice.

Stats dont lie.

Relic has test-bedded them in 1k+ instances.

They are equal.

. Gren beat conscript pretty badly in a 1v1 no ability use, same cover

They will both win around 50% of the time. Grenadiers do more damage and have more armor, conscripts have more models for more overall hp and less damage.