Why all the hate for riflemen?

On the forums, many seem to have a "Riflemen are bad and cost inefficient" attitude that I do not share. Maybe it is due to my probably relatively low player rank and the different meta that is played there compared to high rank matchups, but still I don't get why they are shittalked like that, since also in high skill play, many fights are just stand offs of squads shooting each other, which is purely rng.

Compared to Volks, Riflemen are about 10 % more expensive, but at least judging from my game play experience I'd say that they also perform at least 10 % better. In my eyes they trade reasonable well at least until Volks are upgraded. And even after that they don't get completely wreched by them. Against grenadiers, they usually win even if they lose a model while closing in.
They're 5 men, so reasonably beefy and resilient to rng wipes, have high mobility and decent stock firepower.
There are some drawbacks, such as the need to sidetech for grenades and weapon upgrades, as well as the vet1 requirement for snares that sometimes comes in too late to deter light vehicles, but in most of the games their firepower is good enough to get a tank first before side-teching. Then you can put 1-2 BARs on them which gives them good firepower, or you have the slightly off-meta possibility to give them bazookas and use them as an AT squad with five men to endure some tank shots and the potential to snare afterwards.

On a faction scale, USF has always been on the strong infantry side, which is partially caused by the "free" officer squad for teching, but also Riflemen do play a strong role in there as Riflemen have been the only infantry option for USF for very long.

So, why all the hate for Riflemen?

Are you refering to this forum?
Because I dont often see complaints about riflemen bein UP here (not counting a certain dumbass who has also littered Steam Forums with a considerable amount of mind-wreckingly stupid threads)
And I agree, they are well balanced.

That being said, USF has zero chance to survive early game 1vs1 against equally competent OKW, but thats hardly a problem with Rifles or USF in general


BTW Im often running into teammates who try to go with builds containing zero Riflemen

I noticed that too.

Riflemen are way better than what people give them credit for.

They do have intresting knack for having better damage up close than volks or grens.

Are you refering to this forum?
Because I dont often see complaints about riflemen bein UP here (not counting a certain dumbass who has also littered Steam Forums with a considerable amount of mind-wreckingly stupid threads)
And I agree, they are well balanced.

That being said, USF has zero chance to survive early game 1vs1 against equally competent OKW, but thats hardly a problem with Rifles or USF in general


BTW Im often running into teammates who try to go with builds containing zero Riflemen

Yes I do.
Usually when a thread is derailed into "Volksgrenadiers are too good" or just the general mainline infantry discussion, there are some posts about Riflemen being bad. I can't recall how many of those were made by the same person.

I noticed that too.

Riflemen are way better than what people give them credit for.

Their early game performance sucks hard vs OKW, that is the issue with them.

Their early game performance sucks hard vs OKW, that is the issue with them.

But that´s because Sturms are way better than RE. Riflemen wouldn`t suck vs Volks at minute 0 if it wasn´t for Sturm support.

USF gets free officier squad after only 35 fuel and early LVs. So USF early game isn`t that bad IMO. It´s way better than Soviets for sure.

Their early game performance sucks hard vs OKW, that is the issue with them.

Against OKW I got the problem that usually one Riflemen squad gets chased off the field by Sturmpioneers. So you always have to move two of them around or catch Volks in 1v1 to not lose the early game. Which is difficult of course, but that's not a problem with Riflemen, but Sturmpioneer start

Their early game performance sucks hard vs OKW, that is the issue with them.

But that's not because Riflemen are bad, but because OKW has 550 manpower worth of highly efficient combat power right out the gate with another 250 coming straight after, while USF has only 280 MP effective fighting power and then 200 MP worth of... capping power and welding tank traps. Rifles are great, they can just get overrun by OKW's faster deployment in the first 3 minutes. This matchup could probably be fixed by slightly lowering OKW's starting manpower.

Riflemen weren't/aren't bad. They were just inefficient for a while there because you could field more effective early game units from the get-go before the rounds of nerfs hit.

Ass Engies originally could be called in immediately for instant field presence. Can upgrade a Flamethrower at half the cost of Double Bars for garrison denial and improved CQC effectiveness. While having access to Demo Charges to instantly wipe squads when placed correctly.

Not only that, but Pathfinders had the same instant field presence, could be vet 3 in a couple minutes of basic infantry fights, have a pseudo-sniper for wounded squads forcing early med bunker/med-kit on top of being upgradable with double Bars for terminator potential. Plus your doctrine had Paratroopers to shore up any infantry trouble you might have going into mid-game.

Thing was, the only thing you traded was the ability to snare on all your infantry, so you just built a single Rifle if you thought you needed a snare.

After the "starting on cooldown" nerf both those squads received and the veterancy nerf that pathfinders got hit with they're a lot more in-line with Rifles.

OKWs opening is just too strong. Rifleman are plenty good, OKW just needs it's opening nerfed. I really don't think sturms should be the starting unit, but that could be just me

I think Riflemen are kind of awkward because they have a power spike at 3m. They're good if they're hugging the enemy, but it's not very intuitive that semi-auto rifles work best at a shorter range than SMGs.

I think Riflemen are kind of awkward because they have a power spike at 3m. They're good if they're hugging the enemy, but it's not very intuitive that semi-auto rifles work best at a shorter range than SMGs.

Year ago I had suggested that they profiles sould be changed so that only SMG benefited bellow a certain range. The rest of the weapon could man out at certain ranges or even get negative DPS curve.

But that´s because Sturms are way better than RE. Riflemen wouldn`t suck vs Volks at minute 0 if it wasn´t for Sturm support.

USF gets free officier squad after only 35 fuel and early LVs. So USF early game isn`t that bad IMO. It´s way better than Soviets for sure.

Sturm is only 1 of the factors.

Volks trade efficiently with Rifles at range superior to 20. Combine that with sandbags and you get a hard squad to dislodge early on.

USF get's outspammed during the first 4 mins of the game. Most people get LT/Cpt after their 3rd Rifle/Call in unit.
If you tech up perfectly, you are sitting for more than 1 min with 3 Rifles + RE while OKW would be having 4 Volks + SP while building their SwS. Ambulance vs medkit is also another mp effective exchange which only leverages during the mid game.

PD: USF get their goodies on the mid to late game mostly.

OKWs opening is just too strong. Rifleman are plenty good, OKW just needs it's opening nerfed. I really don't think sturms should be the starting unit, but that could be just me

I've heard rumors about slight nerf to OKW's opening strength next patch, together with slight nerf to Tommies, compensated with slight buffs to other UKF units.

#BelieveInUSF

I've heard rumors about slight nerf to OKW's opening strength next patch, together with slight nerf to Tommies, compensated with slight buffs to other UKF units.

#BelieveInUSF

That would actually be pretty great

I've heard rumors about slight nerf to OKW's opening strength next patch, together with slight nerf to Tommies, compensated with slight buffs to other UKF units.

#BelieveInUSF

Yeah because USF needs more nerfs to their opponents. They aren´t good enough already. After recieving 2032534560 buffs in the last patches 12305430964355 more are needed.

Yeah because USF needs more nerfs to their opponents. They aren´t good enough already. After recieving 2032534560 buffs in the last patches 12305430964355 more are needed.

well the starting mp of okw could see a cut but it needs to be compensated by starting fuel or a cut to the cost of the trucks

too OP

Yeah because USF needs more nerfs to their opponents. They aren´t good enough already. After recieving 2032534560 buffs in the last patches 12305430964355 more are needed.

Nerfing OKW and UKFs openings is about just USF? Not at all about the eastern front factions who need to build buidlings just to unlock units as strong as the ones UKF and OKW start with?