I haven't seen a Soviet AT gun in at least six months.

That's not an exaggeration.

Now, I don't play a lot, so we're not talking hundreds upon hundreds of matches over the past six months, but still, I play enough to notice patterns, and this one is absurd.

Every single Soviet player I play against never brings out so much as a single AT gun, instead upgrading every single infantry unit (Conscripts? What are Conscripts?) with AT rifles.

This results in one of two outcomes:

• The Soviet player loses spectacularly because he fell into this enormous noob trap
  
• The Soviet player wins by combining these Universal Soldier units with tanks and various complex tactics
  

Neither of these situations is acceptable.

OKW players had Panzerschrecks essentially removed from their faction to prevent this very thing.

Yet now, every single match against Soviets is a match against nothing but AT rifle equipped Guards and Penals, with Penals also, for some inexplicable reason, being allowed to retain their satchel abilities when equipped with handheld AT weapons, which can, also inexplicably, penetrate literally all tiers of tanks except maybe heavies.

When are these absurd double standards going to stop?

Note: I'm not arguing FOR Universal Soldier squads. I don't think they belong in any faction, and I was happy when Panzerschrecks were removed from Volksgrenadiers.

But as mentioned above, allowing Soviets to have entire teams of universally capable squads is detrimental to literally everyone. It traps newbies into impossible situations where their infantry ends up outnumbered, and it takes away the challenge of proper army composition management from experienced players who opt in to using these units as crutches.

And frankly, it's getting boring as all hell. Match after match after match -- the same thing, requiring the same counters and the same resource considerations.

No machine guns, no AT guns, no mortars, nothing -- just spammed Universal Soldier squads.

This needs to end.

You know, I don't agree with all of it, but he has a fair point. Anti-everything has never been done well in this game. Volkschrecks, DP28 guards, former KT, prenerf Comets. Although I think there are many other underlying issues that contribute to those units being notorious for overperformance, rather than just being able to attack different targets.

Excuse me, but do members of this "elite gaming society" ever play outside 1v1 field?
Because right now I can see only two ways for that strategy in OP to work - either 1v1 penal spam, or 1v1 guard spam. And if it is guard spam, then guess what, you need to stand still for your DP's to fire. That makes them perfect tools to HOLD the area, not to ASSAULT and hold.
Guards damage output on move is terrible. Situation gets a little bit better with penals, having their russian copies of G-43's, but still pretty bad. It is either good AI-squad, or below-mediocre AT squad with short window for satchels, and even then, if enemy is fast to response, he can easily pick your troops with their own satchel(Extra cheese-points, if armored car wasnt killed in process).
Same tactics won't work in 2v2 - mostly because of no so strict resourse manegment. In 1v1 2 or 3 early wipes almost means the game, in 2v2 or 3v3 you can loose some squads or even your first light veichle, because most of the time you have resourses to do so.

At least one reason for me not to bring out zis-2 canon is it slowness to do anything. It is really slow on aim and reload, but at least we can use it as mortar-like thingie to support your conscripts/shocktroops. It is not so powerfull tool as OST PaK'44 - fast and hard-hitting - or OKW pupchen - stealthy little thingie crawling across battlefield for your arty. Another problem is in tank department. Unlike germans, Soviets does not have mulity-purpose tanks, they forsed to go either full-AI with t-70 and t34, or full-AT with SU-series. Then check out germans - PZ-4, Panther and Tiger.
Thats why Societs need another way to support their AT with infantry.

And btw, Tank-hunters doctrine is still a thing in 2v2 or 3v3 especially against these pesky armored cars and OKW light tanks.
Screw the PENAL SPAM, now the CONSCRIPT is my best friend!

AT penals/conscript lose an extremely large portion of their anti-infantry effectiveness, STG volks and lmg grens have no problem running them over on in a 1 to 1 fight.

guards are have both anti-infantry and anti-light vehicle, but theyre effectiveness against tanks is pretty limited, unless the tank is alone and is getting shot at by 6+ ptrs, at which point it kinda becomes a l2p issue.

you see soviet at guns in the majority of decent skill level games that go long enough.

I guess this is a 1v1 issue, cuz team games I often see Soviets go tier 2 instead of tier 1.

I even switched back to it in recent times, in part to counter blobbing but also to have more tools to play with instead of just using penals.

no only sov runining around with infantery blobbs which is effectiv vs all taregts. USF and UKF have this possibitly to. And they use it very often and nood no big skill.

Volks was nerfed for this reasons...while all allie faction has this way of cheese...

well when you consider that penals are soo costly and that going tier 2 after you go penals is no realistic in early game, you ll understand why.

Penals are problematic but not QUITE comparable to volks of old as they do not self heal, they are 50mp MORE, no FRP their at package replaces 2/6 their rifles instead of 1/5 AND is less bursty. 6 penals are not going to insta gib your tank the instant they smell the fumes like a volks blob did.

Not to say penals don't need changes. But pretending they are anything like the cancer that was volks Shrek blobs weakens your points

Well, might be that you personally haven't seen an AT gun in a while, but at least checking out the GSC2 meta this would be rather unusual at high level gaming.

Soviet T1 and T2 starts were almost perfectly 50:50, including the winner, Talisman, typically going for T2 (with Cons, obviously, barely anybody tried Maxim spam...).

Moreover, in 113 out of 206 games at least one Zis-gun was build, 191 Zis guns in total. For comparison, Pak-40 appeared in 107 out of 173 Ostheer games, with a total of 162 Pak-40s, which are almost the same ratios; this is even more remarkable considering that Ostheer players almost always had T2 available, whereas (as mentioned) about 50% of Soviet players started with T1.

Edit: Btw, 520 conscript squads where built vs. 262 penals.

I guess, though, that a lot of lower level players do not realize that "upgrading" penals reduces there AI by a significant amount as the typical logic would be that if you pay extra for something, the resulting squad surely should be better in every aspect, right?

for comparison: double schreck pgrens has nearly no AI anymore. they will schredd by any other infntery easily

no only sov runining around with infantery blobbs which is effectiv vs all taregts. USF and UKF have this possibitly to. And they use it very often and nood no big skill.

Volks was nerfed for this reasons...while all allie faction has this way of cheese...

That's just Guards.

And blobbing Guards at any sort of high level is going to kill you with manpower bleed.

Well, might be that you personally haven't seen an AT gun in a while, but at least checking out the GSC2 meta this would be rather unusual at high level gaming.

Soviet T1 and T2 starts where almost perfectly 50:50, including the winner, Talisman, typically going for T2 (with Cons, obviously, barely anybody tried Maxim spam...).

Moreover, in 113 out of 206 games at least one Zis-gun was build, 191 Zis guns in total. For comparison, Pak-40 appeared in 107 out of 173 Ostheer games, with a total of 162 Pak-40s, which are almost the same ratios; this is even more remarkable considering that Ostheer players almost always had T2 available, whereas (as mentioned) about 50% of Soviet players started with T1.

Edit: Btw, 520 conscript squads where built vs. 262 penals.

I guess, though, that a lot of lower level players do not realize that "upgrading" penals reduces there AI by a significant amount as the typical logic would be that if you pay extra for something, the resulting squad surely should be better in every aspect, right?

Qualification tourney 1 stats when?

That's just Guards.

And blobbing Guards at any sort of high level is going to kill you with manpower bleed.

tell us: why? They deal with obers and with armor. Obers cost more per model.

to have the same impact like guards u will need 2 squads as axis player. Not other squad has this performanche vs all targets.

Guards are simply OP.

My suggestion would be to make AI from PTRS and change their vet 1 ability.

Their vet ability now is called take aim, it is timed and unit goes to ground and PTRS gain AI.

That's not an exaggeration.

.......

This needs to end.

Are you talking 1v1, 2v2, or more? I've been playing mostly Ost in team games lately and usually see a soviet AT gun or two. Occasionally, I do see people running around with large groups of PTRS penals or bazooka blobs. It does make tier 3 relatively pointless but rushing a Stupa (Brummbaer) is gonna be fun. I've had 60+ kills with a single Stupa against people that want to play COH like it is Starcraft.

The other reason you probably don't see a lot of AT guns is that they don't counter units like the Stupa at all. The Soviet AT gun might get 3 shots in before it gets wiped, and on a good RNG day may penetrate on two of those shots. The USF AT gun does worse.

Well, might be that you personally haven't seen an AT gun in a while, but at least checking out the GSC2 meta this would be rather unusual at high level gaming.

Soviet T1 and T2 starts where almost perfectly 50:50, including the winner, Talisman, typically going for T2 (with Cons, obviously, barely anybody tried Maxim spam...).

Moreover, in 113 out of 206 games at least one Zis-gun was build, 191 Zis guns in total. For comparison, Pak-40 appeared in 107 out of 173 Ostheer games, with a total of 162 Pak-40s, which are almost the same ratios; this is even more remarkable considering that Ostheer players almost always had T2 available, whereas (as mentioned) about 50% of Soviet players started with T1.

Edit: Btw, 520 conscript squads where built vs. 262 penals.

I guess, though, that a lot of lower level players do not realize that "upgrading" penals reduces there AI by a significant amount as the typical logic would be that if you pay extra for something, the resulting squad surely should be better in every aspect, right?

You are a good dude and I am thankful that you provide this information.

Qualification tourney 1 stats when?

...

You know, I don't agree with all of it, but he has a fair point. Anti-everything has never been done well in this game. Volkschrecks, DP28 guards, former KT, prenerf Comets. Although I think there are many other underlying issues that contribute to those units being notorious for overperformance, rather than just being able to attack different targets.

The issue with anti-everything units is that they are too proficient at being anti-everything. Jack of all trades units shouldn’t be able to beat handily beat specialist units. For example Guards shouldnt handily beat comparable axis AI specialist infantry when Guards are more versatile overall.

The issue with anti-everything units is that they are too proficient at being anti-everything. Jack of all trades units shouldn’t be able to beat handily beat specialist units. For example Guards shouldnt handily beat comparable axis AI specialist infantry when Guards are more versatile overall.

Ok but where do you draw the line between elite vs non elite? Then you get into the 6 men vs 4 men issues, side abilities, buildables etc. And then you have a really sad pastry dish that could've been amazing but just looks awful

He didn't say elite. He said specialist.

A squad that's sole purpose is to fight infantry should beat a similarly priced squad that's got both AI and AT capability.

That shouldn't be a controversial statement.