Profile of B.Lastbar

The Tiger Ace itself will defeat 1 T34/85 in the frontal duel and has quite good chances in defeating 1 IS-2 as well. Note that the Tiger Ace has Target Weak Point, Blitzkrieg and Panzer Tactician, which you an all use to your atvantage in a tank duel. Also it is a Tiger on Vet 3, of course. However, it seriously shrinks your ressource income, so if you get it, you should try to end the game better sooner then later.

When attacking with the Ace, use some Grens with the LMG upgrade for fighting infantry( the Grens have to stand to use the LMG!) and shouting Panzerfausts at tanks that come too close. It's not different from medium tanks in the sense that you should not have it stand in Pakfire too long. It can, though, decrew a Pak-gun from shooting at it.

I think the Vet-ability you get at 0 CP needs more thought than rolling out the Ace. Generally, I would never use Vet on Grenadiers. They get better through it, but smart unit preservation can do that for it as well. Also, if you vet them, you want to do it as fast as possible, which puts you too much behind in fuel for a marginal gain that can be accomplished with purchasing an LMG 42 as well. Some people do like vetting a mortar or MG 42 immediately. I never do it, but at least I would say you notive the difference more.

My favorite part of the Elite Troops doctrine is that you can use Panzer IVs extensively in the mid game and still get a rather fast Ace if you have too, as the Ace does not cost any fuel. Most of the time, I get a Panzer IV and then Vet it immediately. I think Panzer IVs are the best units to vet, as they get Blitzkrieg on Vet 1 and improved armor on Vet IV. Vetting once gets you nearly to Vet 1 and vetting twice gets you nearly to Vet 2. You can vet the Panzer IV once, then send it out to battle, and when you repair it the first time in the base you vet it again, thereby it does not have to wait for the cooldown of Vet.

I would like to have a random button as well. In terms of UI, it could be done like the following:
On your playercard, you've got 4 boxes you can tick or untick, ticking one of them equals having this faction for random selection. Now, for your loadouts, if you click your playercard while in random mode, you get a new window where you have one slot for each faction, and in those slots you can customize your loadouts for each faction. Maybe you could even have several loadouts per faction, so you do not only get a random faction, but a random loadout as well. For those who have a kink for playing Osttruppen sometimes, maybe.

Why don't we take this idea to the extreme and make the SU-76 able to MERGE with the Conscripts? Iron and flesh, combined in one blasphemous machine, moaning and screaming in agony as it marches toward the enemy, just like out of a David Cronenberg movie about the Second World War. Was it not this what Bismarck had in mind when he gave his "Blood and Iron"-speech? This, my comrades, is what the Red Army needs!

Do you se how aesthetically pleasing it would be to have a tank destroyer of the Red Army fueled by red russian blood? It would instill absoulute terror in the enemy, show that RTS games can still be innovative in 2014 while asssuring absolute historical correctness, and make the Soviet tiering system less stale.

Maybe it could even be arranged that when you build a SU-76, you get a SU-76 squad consisting of six SU-76, each one as big as a dog, while equipped with PPsHs. This way, each member of a Shock squad could have its own pet SU-76, maybe even teach it some tricks like like "Sit", "Roll over" or "Walking Stuka-barrage on the enemy medic truck". Truely, I think this is the future of CoH2.

Against Soviets, I toyed around with Mobile Defense (Fast Capping, Call 2 Osttruppen squads, Smoke on tanks, Puma, P4 Command Tank), while using the same buildorder as Colonel0tto. The Pumas give you a good presence in the midgame against T34s, while the Command Tank is good against infantry and on some maps can be used to give a good chunk of your army the defensive buff. The cost of a Puma is really nice (70 fuel), while you get them fairly early at 7 cp. The doctrin kind of replaces T3.

Against USF, I play in the same way as you. However, I wonder if it would be better to build an ammo point instead of a fuel point. In my opinion, ammo is a much more important ressource to Ostheer than fuel. You need ammo to upgun the scoutcar (~60), get a medic bunker (~60), buy some light MG42(~50), and there are also situations where you want to get a vehicle mine, use a Panzerfaust or a grenade. Fuel, on the other hand, is not that important, as in the early game we only need to tech Battlephase 1, get T1 and T2 and then build a scout car, all of which are limited by manpower as well as by fuel, and fall in the early game, while we have not gotten that much fuel out of our point. Furthermore, in the next minutes our ability to deploy a Stug G while be limited by command points, not by fuel.

Generally, I want to ask how you deal with the ammo shortage of Ostheer. I had to learn the hard way that you always have to remember you need the ammo for scout car upgun and medic bunker, and can not shoot around with your ammo as you can do when playing soviets.

Another thing I would like to note is, that I really like building a squad of Panzergrenadiers against USF. They are good for the same reasons as Assault Grenadiers, while also they can be upgraded with 'schrecks if you need something on foot that can kill or scare away a Jackson.

I would also like to ask how you deal with having no map domination in the early vs USF. Ressource wise, it is not that much of a problem if you learn how many points you need to hold to get the units you need, but I have lost many games because by the time I started coming back, my VPs where down to 100, and my opponent's army was quite well teched because of him having map domination. I find it hard to pressure the other side of the map, because as Ostheer you can not put as much manpower into basic infantry, because you need to put some of it in support weapon teams and teching, while USF field mostly riflemen in the beginning.


I think a standard matchup would be like 2 Grens, 1 Ass grens, 1 MG 42 versus 3 riflemen, 1 lieutenant. The thing is in my opininion that the OST player has to retreat from any confrontation unless he outnumbers the enemy, can put is Ass grens into good position or can utilize the pinning of the MG 42. If something goes wrong, like the MG 42 is flanked by 1 riflemen squad, most of the OST troops have to retreat to prevent huge manpower loses. I think this stays this way until we get our call in Stug, which is the first unit the USF forces player really has to respect. The 222 is too fragile to fulfil that role, as it can lose the fight vs the utility car (mines/bazooka from the crew), the flak half track, the Captain and even riflemen, if they get a good rifle nade, or they just shoot at it for a minute. The Stug G eats all of those units alive if managed correctly, and is able to defeat the Stuart as well.

Don't get me wrong, I like the challenge of this matchup and have played quite well in it in the last days, but I think this is the challenge a contemporary OST player has to overcome to win against the USA.

Despite having 2 times more kills than deaths, I was not able to cap more than my half of the map in the midgame, and pushed back even more by ISUs in the late game. I am having the feeling that I am playing way to cautious while I am in a good position, so I would be glad if someone could advise my when and how they would have launched an attack. Of course, I take any other advise as well.