Suggestion: penals immune to suppression

Because it's what happens ingame. Something that you wouldn't know about. I'm glad whenever I see a penal battalion because it means there are less conscripts on the field. I mostly build penals when I want to troll people, definitely not when I'm actually trying to win.

It doesn't help that my view of penals ingame is biased by the game situation that building them creates, ie. forcing the soviet player to always be on the attack because they've lost map control they could've had if they only had more conscripts. Walking up to grenadiers that DON'T have an LMG42 results in more manpower losses to penals than to the grenadiers, and with the LMG42 you're fucked no matter what. And not like penals come out markedly faster than the first LMG42 anyway.

Ok, tell you what. Show me a replay that proves your point as it was presented earlier (ie: both as vanilla, and obviously on equal footing), and I will not post on Coh2.org for a week. If you cant, you dont post on Coh2.org for a week. Bet?

Also, why on earth are you walking up to Grens with Penals?!
Again, I cant understand how you can say, with a straight face, that you are actually walking up to Grens with Penals?!

(Tip: If you actually looked at the stats I posted, you would see that Penals have twice the DPS of Grens at ALL RANGES)

I'm glad whenever I see a penal battalion

This. (not that you can actually get a 1v1 as germans atm, but w/e...)

I so dearly want to build penals, but the opportunity never arises.

Mobile meat sacks with a big bomb... I dunno, the damage stats are impressive, but I don't remember penals ever doing that much. To be fair, I probably haven't even used them since beta, and I like to try different strategies... but i just can't find time for them, not at that price.

I think the whole "unsupressable suicide squad" thing sounds cool, but inevitably throws up balance issues.

I agree with a slight price reduction though, they're a glass cannon unit (like the rest of sov t1)

Ok, tell you what. Show me a replay that proves your point as it was presented earlier (ie: both as vanilla, and obviously on equal footing), and I will not post on Coh2.org for a week. If you cant, you dont post on Coh2.org for a week. Bet?

Also, why on earth are you walking up to Grens with Penals?!
Again, I cant understand how you can say, with a straight face, that you are actually walking up to Grens with Penals?!

(Tip: If you actually looked at the stats I posted, you would see that Penals have twice the DPS of Grens at ALL RANGES)

Can't really do that, because I don't generally save replays unless I consider them a good game and any game where I make penals or the opponent makes penals tends to be over in 10 minutes. In a crushing defeat for whichever side had the brainfart idea of making them.

I guess if I actually see someone make them today I'll save it. But really can't promise anything because on average I see a penal battalion maybe once in 25 games unless I build them myself and I don't really want to build them and thus lose games just to prove a point. Even if your offer is very enticing.

I'm walking up with penals because I need to cap points. Points I would probably have had control of if I hadn't wasted 200+360 manpower in bringing penals to the field.

Really bad idea IMO. That would make MG's significantly worse. The essence of CoH has always been the ability of certain types of unit to counter multiple types of another unit. Making one unit immune to another's ability is lazy and poor for dynamic play

Penals are good as they are now. I use them often at a high level (top 50 with each faction - Ozena) in both 1v1 and 2v2.

Really bad idea. I would prefer it more if they received an hoorah ability like conscripts but instead of giving them a speed boost it gave them a suppression breaker to help kite around the outer edges of the field of fire (this may be unbalanced though). Charging them at machine guns is a terrible idea. They are a 360 mp unit you are using to take out a 240 mp unit and you are fine with them taking casualties?

Last I checked the stats - and I believe I am interpreting them correctly - penals are the soviet soft counter/equivalent for lmg upgraded grens. They do very similar damage, require a similar timescale of resources and have near the same health no?

I think a better fix would be to just reduce the reinforcement cost a bit, maybe not down to script level but a bit lower so they are less of a manpower drain.

Really bad idea. I would prefer it more if they received an hoorah ability like conscripts but instead of giving them a speed boost it gave them a suppression breaker to help kite around the outer edges of the field of fire (this may be unbalanced though). Charging them at machine guns is a terrible idea. They are a 360 mp unit you are using to take out a 240 mp unit and you are fine with them taking casualties?

Last I checked the stats - and I believe I am interpreting them correctly - penals are the soviet soft counter/equivalent for lmg upgraded grens. They do very similar damage, require a similar timescale of resources and have near the same health no?

I think a better fix would be to just reduce the reinforcement cost a bit, maybe not down to script level but a bit lower so they are less of a manpower drain.

Yea, the big difference though is that Penals are built from a completely different building. This disables you from using mortar, anti tank guns and machine guns because they are built from a separate building.

So, if you go penals you basically have snipers or penals to choose from which is why people are discussing the possibility of penals being immune to mg fire.

Do you actually think that a decent Ostheer player will be so stupid to just leave their Panzer Grenadiers to fight at range??...PGrens will always charge the Penals position,if you have a good tactic to somehow make the PGRens stay at range,please share it,otherwise not working dude,make them 300 MP,even then I would think twice investing in them instead of Conscripts,Guards or Shocks...

Yes let them move up so I will satchel charge their ass.

how about a easy button? you just start the match make a penal and push a button and win. QQ l2p

For me they are good, only price are too high.

Really bad idea IMO. That would make MG's significantly worse. The essence of CoH has always been the ability of certain types of unit to counter multiple types of another unit. Making one unit immune to another's ability is lazy and poor for dynamic play

Penals are good as they are now. I use them often at a high level (top 50 with each faction - Ozena) in both 1v1 and 2v2.

Conscripts are the core unit of Soviets. Stop trying to make Penal Squads the CORE of the soviet army. Also, just because you play 1 or 2 games with "TRYING PENALS OUT" doesn't make them bad.

Soviet players can get penal squads at the same time and for the same cost as soviet snipers. Whenever you get snipers, HEY you can buy a penal squad. Think as penals as a More defensive/more hp sniper squad and they A.) counter grens and B.) counter bunkers/heavy building play.

Also, the metagame for ost. is x5 Gren squads into LMGs (or what ever the hell they want), therefore, Penals DO beat grens (un-upgraded) and beat them when penals have Flamethrowers.

I've been trying a x3 con-Molotov-T1-x1-2 penals, start, when my opp. starts as x5 grens and its been effective(there is a window where you can get pushed off so it's difficult but, when the 1st penal comes out, you get to push back).

If I have time tonight and my enemy goes x5 grens start, I'll try my afroementionedd BO and I'll save the replay (regardless if my enemy is awful or not, hee hee. However, that doesn't mean: SEE I BEAT THIS GUY WITH PENALS, PENALS ARE GOOD, that's my not point of the post/replay. My point is to show penals aren't "god awful/cannot win game"). Are penals a little expensive, maybe. are their reinforcement costs too high? yes. Are they useful in EVERY GAME? no.

For immune to "PINNED" (should be the title), I completely disagree. I do not want to have nightmares of DAWN OF WAR2- NO PINNING HMG games. Penals in small arms fire dominate MG42s, your conscripts should be the ones 'absorbing MG42 fire" and/or flanking with molotovs anyway.
If anything, MG42s need a slight buff.

Penals are practically Conscripts with a higher rate of fire,demolition charge and without Merge,AT Nade and Ooorah!!!...
Despite their damage,they die too quickly to actually make a difference in battle
So yeah,even if they were 300 MP they would still be useless
And to be On-Topic I don't like this no surpression idea,every unit should be equal at least in that category,charging MG's like a fool should result in surpression->pin

the penals really needs to get some type of antitank ability like upgradable guard weapon or some high calibre shot that would be similar to paunzerfaust, at the moment if u going t1 u forced to go guards to counter early vehicle or conscripts, getting few penal squads and few conscripts nearly guarantees that you will be fucked vs vehicles not even talking about no mp for a while

the penals really needs to get some type of antitank ability like upgradable guard weapon or some high calibre shot that would be similar to paunzerfaust, at the moment if u going t1 u forced to go guards to counter early vehicle or conscripts, getting few penal squads and few conscripts nearly guarantees that you will be fucked vs vehicles not even talking about no mp for a while

Modest numbers of both M1 bazookas and PIATs were furnished to the
Soviet Union. Reportedly, the Soviets didn't like either very much.
Because they were reasonably satisfied with the ATRs they had, the 14.5mm
PTRD and PTRS. The larger-bore bazooka could achieve the destruction of a
tank, but it always was an iffy thing, and it was short-ranged. The anti-tank rifles
nearly never destroyed a tank, but they could almost always damage critical
parts of it, disabling it or forcing it to withdraw, and they had range and
accuracy.
It seems Soviets though were more pleased with captured Panzerschrecks and Panzerfausts

Yea, the big difference though is that Penals are built from a completely different building. This disables you from using mortar, anti tank guns and machine guns because they are built from a separate building.

So, if you go penals you basically have snipers or penals to choose from which is why people are discussing the possibility of penals being immune to mg fire.

Um... So what is your point? You think T1 for soviets need an easier way to fight German support crews - specifically mg's?

T1 or T2 with conscripts has the tools necessary to deal with German T1 and T2.

240 mp penal squads, done. they are already very different from conscripts and making penals a lot cheaper would make them a lot more viable. remove the svts so they won't be OP as hell.

the only reason you would get penals is because of their ability the satchel charge and they are a big squad with a very powerful flamethrower. i think a cheaper 240 mp penal squad with conscript's rifles would be the best change.

240 mp penal squads, done. they are already very different from conscripts and making penals a lot cheaper would make them a lot more viable. remove the svts so they won't be OP as hell.

the only reason you would get penals is because of their ability the satchel charge and they are a big squad with a very powerful flamethrower. i think a cheaper 240 mp penal squad with conscript's rifles would be the best change.

That seems like a bad change... If they went through with your suggested change why not just give scripts the satchel charge at that point.....

The soviets do need a unit with a higher base amount of damage than conscripts and it needs to not be a call-in unit

i kind of agree with nullist the unit i think if kind of fine statwise, pricewise not so much. the unit itself plays very strange for a unit. to me it feels kind of go foward, wait for the enemy to come to you and get flamed. retreat. or maybe satchel then retreat.

Penal should have a cost reduction to 300MP and armor rise to 1.5 to compensate the 30MP/men.

That's it, still don't get it why the penal battalion receieves SVT-40 semi-auto rifle

Penal should have a cost reduction to 300MP and armor rise to 1.5 to compensate the 30MP/men.

That's it, still don't get it why the penal battalion receieves SVT-40 semi-auto rifle

That would be ridiculously OP. About 2x the dps of grens, and 50% more HP for only slightly more MP? For 360mp, sure (that would be just a change of armor to 1.5).

I would also support a straight MP reduction to 280mp with no other changes.

Here's another idea, how about we switch penals with cons (So penals to T0, cons to T1, cons have same cost as before) and reduce penals with 200 MP and have stats slightly better than ostruppen.