4v4 Soviet Strategy Against OST & OKW

I was wondering if anyone had advice to help counter OST & OKW in 4V4. I generally build Penals for the dps however I cant manage to build enough penals to counter the infantry spam (bleeding units STG-44 Volks , Sturm Rush, and MG42 / G43 Grens) nor do I have enough to deal with support weapons even with the clown car. Should I back tech to support for maximum / mortars to counter the blobs and risk being behind in tech? Currently I'm mainly playing urban defense for the forward HQ and Shocks. On occasion, I'll build the Light AT gun as a response to P2, 222, and Flamer Halftrack. I don't go T-34 for the most part because I feel that its a liability in the late game especially against axis late game armor thus i go SU-85. Tanks usually start appearing around the eight to fifteen-minute mark. I put alot of mines down as soviets. I even have the 6% price reduction to spam them on the feild however that dosent seem to deture the enemy. Thanks for your time / consideration.


General Build order

T0

1. Engineer (Flamer Upgrade) (starter)

2. Engineer (Flamer Upgrade)

T2

1. Penal (PTRS)

1.5 M3 Scout Car

2. Penal (PTRS)

3. Penal (PTRS)

4. Shocks (Callin)

5. Foward HQ (Ability)

T3

Side Note: Around this time im building munition caches for mines and penal satchels.

1. SU-76

2. SU-76 or M5 Halftrack to counter infantry / anti-air

T4

1. KV-2

2. SU-85

I am also curious what the pros say here. Using the response most players give "Play as OST/OKW and see how your enemy beats you" I have some ideas.

But there are too many variables. It depends a lot on the map and on what your team mate is doing.

Ways I have been utterly rekt by SOV:
- Two SOV players both make flame cars and keep them back then both attack at the same time. So your feeling good that you have the fuel etc and then two flame cars come out of nowhere and annihilate all your stuff.
- Fast t70. The last game I played against a T70 the thing won them the game. Had well over 40 kills. By the time you can faust it 3 or more of the volks are dead. And a Raketen just scratches the paint unless you have two of them. Which means you have no infantry so you get run over by the penals.
- Depending on the map, snipers. Ewww I feel dirty just typing it.
- And of course mortar spam can win many 4v4 matches that have static front lines.

I played with a guy who spammed Conscripts. And my immediate thought was GG we lose. But he kept them alive and retreated until he hit critical mass. Then he got a good flank off and utterly ruined the axis team. Then made an urban defense forward HQ and it was GG.

I suck at all factions and somehow have the worst RNG in the game. So I always make maxims and mortars. If I make penals they get rekt. If I make a sniper it gets rekt. Clown car, boom rekt.
Oh, and my maxims never suppress anyone. Ever. Not even close. So they also get REKT. So I have zero advice for you

I was wondering if anyone had advice to help counter OST & OKW in 4V4. I generally build Penals for the dps however I cant manage to build enough penals to counter the infantry spam (bleeding units STG-44 Volks , Sturm Rush, and MG42 / G43 Grens) nor do I have enough to deal with support weapons even with the clown car. Should I back tech to support for maximum / mortars to counter the blobs and risk being behind in tech? Currently I'm mainly playing urban defense for the forward HQ and Shocks. On occasion, I'll build the Light AT gun as a response to P2, 222, and Flamer Halftrack. I don't go T-34 for the most part because I feel that its a liability in the late game especially against axis late game armor thus i go SU-85. Tanks usually start appearing around the eight to fifteen-minute mark. I put alot of mines down as soviets. I even have the 6% price reduction to spam them on the feild however that dosent seem to deture the enemy. Thanks for your time / consideration.


General Build order

T0

1. Engineer (Flamer Upgrade) (starter)

2. Engineer (Flamer Upgrade)

T2

1. Penal (PTRS)

1.5 M3 Scout Car

2. Penal (PTRS)

3. Penal (PTRS)

4. Shocks (Callin)

5. Foward HQ (Ability)

T3

Side Note: Around this time im building munition caches for mines and penal satchels.

1. SU-76

2. SU-76 or M5 Halftrack to counter infantry / anti-air

T4

1. KV-2

2. SU-85

The first thing I would do is look at the base to see who your up against? OKW have black "splotches" where their base is that lets you know its them. That lets you know what kind of split your up against. Then make not of who your battle buddy is....He Russian? Ask him, "You make the maxims, I'll make the penals"....if its a USF, I usually say, "hey, you bring the infy, ill bring the mgs".... 4v4's take synergy for optimum results.....usually doing something like that lets ur teammate know that your serious and willing to work together, its amazing how that changes the game immediately, if they aren't super new.

I will typically make at least one conscript regardless of which batallion I go first to allow diversity....you can use it to oorah and flank/molotov mgs out of buildings while your penals do more of the heavy lifting....it also allows some earlier infy presence.....with two Wehr, not a bad idea to go sniper early for bleed if you can micro well......but it should be situational and hopefully complimentary to your battle buddy.

I dont recommend going all PTRS on penals in 4v4. Typically you can rely on your teammate going at as long as he isnt t1 soviet also. You will need some non PTRS penals to deal with Volks as normal Penals do pretty good into volks but PTRS penals typically lose to them.

Id recommend the t70 over the su76, su76 hasnt been that good since the nerf. T70 is excellent against OKW and OST if they are overwhelming you with grens or volks.

If you don't want to rely on your allies for AT then either go Guards or 1 penal ptrs. Also going t2 if behind for an AT gun is fine also. 1 Penal PTRS and Guards is plenty to ward or 222s or luchs.

I recommend going atleast 1 t34 variant in the game. Mediums are great and come early and the t34 is a solid AI tank. Rushing a SU85 is pretty meh because you are missing a window where the t34 is good. Plus in 4v4 income is high and youll get a su85 out pretty quick after the t34.

Another alternative on some more campy maps (IE Port of Hamburg) katusha rush is a great pickup. Its great against big okw doom blobs. Its also pretty hard to get dived since you have 3 other buddies who can snare/kill a diving tank before it reaches the katy

I think that is a penal squad you do not always need i like the double engineer opening as it allows you to cap or scout positions so you can use your first penal and the following m3a1 to highest effectiveness. I would recommend getting a single flamer Engineer with yur first munitions (depending on enemy playstyle a mine as second or maybe even first). The first great thing about the m3a1 is the high CP gain if you fight with it a lot and are fast at repairing it - the second thing is the synergy with the forward hq as you can force your enemy out of buildings you want to use to keep the pressure up.
I would usually recommend getting the hq as early as possible if it is in a offensive postion as it gets easier to counter the later it appears so depending on how the match goes first the 1 cp hq then at 2 cp either shocks or m42 atgun.
Generally speaking i do not think that playing without minesweeper is a very clever thign to do especially as soviets against teller mines which could instantly destroy a m5 flak, t70 or su76 if you need the extra flamer i would recommend a 3 engineer start with a faster m3a1 and 2 penals after that or getting the 3rd engineer after the shocks.
Penals with Ptrs make a nice addition to existing at-options, but they do not take down vehicles by themselves (maybe with for mother russia) so i would recommend pairing them with long range focused at like guards (with button and hit the dirt) or m42 at-guns (maybe backtech to zis-3 after t70 if things are looking sour and you have no m42). Another problem about Penals with Ptrs is that the ai-performance goes bad with the light at rifles and they start losing engagements while costing quite some munitions - i would recommend upgrading the ones with the lowest vet and using 1 squad in the m3a1 to counter early ost vehicles (or okw flak hq) or to scare off/hunt down damaged okw light vehicles.
If you want to play with Ptrs units (guard, conscript or penal) the t70 is usually needed as anti infantry support else you get pushed off the map (or lack the tools to take your enemies side of the map).
Instead of t70 you can try to rush a t34, katy or even a kv8 if your fuel economy was good.
Usually the games after a t70 look very different and i can't generally say what to use when this is the time where you have to adapt to your enemies and find out whether you want to get a su76 and wait for a callin, backtech to t2 get needed supportweapons and then tech to t4 or wait for a callin (or howitzers if the enemy cannot counter them) or tech to t4 if your economy allows it and your teammates can hold their own.

Its not always recommended to play with the Forward Headquarter (it slows tech), on long range maps Guards might be a nice addition to your army and kv8, t34/85 or ml20 howitzers migth be nice in some situations call-ins might be needed if you like to play with su76s the isu152 can be quite scary even against elefants or jts if you manage to support it with mark target, penal satchels, button or the il2 bombs.

Soviet is, in my opinion, the hardest faction to play in 4v4 in current meta. However, I do prefer to be the only Soviet player in the team for the following reason:
1. Soviet is the only ally faction that has a stock rocket artillery. Yet it is far less efficient compared to the German counterparts; it is still needed for counter german blobs.
2. To prevent the possibility that there is only offensive/defensive units on each side. As you know, USF is extremely aggressive, and UKF is somewhat more defensive. It will be an absolute nightmare to have either 2 USF or UKF on the same side. Playing as soviet will prevent the above mention from happening considering you can change your playstyle in the early game to become either defensive or aggressive.

So, as I have described above. The key of playing soviet in a team game is to make sure YOU ARE ALWAYS SERVING THE TEAM. Here are some of the tips for you: oh, just want to introduce myself a bit. I have played 4v4 for years and once made it to top 10 as Soviet and USF. Always happy to help people if they needed.

1. As for the start of the game, see who your teammate is first. If it is a USF, go for T2 since USF lack defensive team weapon. If it is a UKF on your side, go T1 instead. However, if there is a Soviet player. wait until they have decided their strategy first and always build the tier that your teammate does not build

2. If you have chosen to build T1, I personly do not recommend to order a CE as your first deployment since it will delay your deployment of the first penal. As for your second unit( excluding the staring CE), you can either wait for another penal or go for M3, play either one and figure the best one out by yourself. Either way, please do make sure to have at least 3 penals on the field at the same time at least. And, most importantly, DO NOT UPGRADE THEM PTRSs ONLY IF YOU HAVE SEEN YOUR OPPONENTS HAVE A VEHICLE. And, in every game you play, only upgrade one of your penal squad with PTRSs. I personally do not recommend to have more than 2 PTRS squads on the field at the same time.

3. As for T2 start, here is the build order I have used for a while and works out just alright. However, just want you to know, the current Soviet T2 build is not the meta. I personally do not recommend to go for it unless I have a USF as my side mate. 1. CE --> 2. HMG--> 3. HMG--> 4. HMG--> 5. Cons-->6. ATG--> 7.T3. Here is my basic strategy: 3 HMGs is enough to build up a push power even if you want to murder an MG42 face to face purely. 2 CEs all upgraded with a flamethrower is the primary way to deal damage, it is very common for me to have two vet3 CEs for this kind of build. Cons are only for frontline merge and snare. However, building up such a defensive army as soviet is basically cry for OKW to rush for walking stucka. So personly, I do like to skip T3 and go straight for T4 and rush for t-34 so you can counter those German arties.

I'll find a time and introduce you to my late game build. Try out my mentioned above, and hope they will help.