Profile of Diogenes5

They are not supposed to be your backbone or anything. I think this is how call-ins should be in general, pretty bad but have its situational use and more than anything they should be fun. If you are going versus Soviet T1 you can probably suspect Snipers and Guards. I got some good training in automatch versus this guy that was pretty high rank, about 30-60 not quite sure and he would always go t1 on Semoisky.

This one game where I actually do some damage to him and challenge his snipers was a three assgren start into quick SC. Doing that, mainly you just want those assgrens spread out and avoid fighting him AT all. Sprint away if you have to or get inside houses. My SC managed to chase one sniper down to his base and nearly killed the second one before he could get his Guards out. After he had got like 3 of them it was pretty much GG though since I didn't have a follow-up. I went for an Ostwind but Guards are too strong and when he had the CPs he could get 4 t34/85s out.

I like to go mobile defense against that kind of start. Ostruppen are 10 mp to reinforce. He can snipe all day and I will bear it and take control of the map. Then I can push with weapon crews and ostruppen and a half track (unless I can chase down with scout car, which can sometimes be difficult if they play well).

Of course with the assault grens, you are usually going at least a triple assault gren start before you even know what they are doing. And the reinforce cost is significantly more than a normal grenadier. I tend to just cap the other side of the map and use LOS well. You really have to do one big multi-prong push and try to isolate the sniper while not bleeding too much MP yourself. Snipers also miss half the time against garrisoned units.

Snipers still cost 360 MP and have poor capping power and are easily chaased down. Just don't bleed the manpower.

Well the range and penetration is more than the panzer 4 gun but the scatter is also greater. The RNG of this game can be really frustrating I guess. Chasing an almost dead tank and missing 4 times in a row given good stop and shoot micro is kind of bs but that's the nature of this game.

I guess pumas are really meant to be use as more mobile paks given their range and stun. Flanking with them is a suicide run given the stupid scatter (even though I was happy to trade 80 fuel for 115).

I've used the puma a bunch of times and it always misses. I stop and attack and it missed 4x in a row on 3 separate occassions on critically wounded tanks. It then dies in 1 or 2 shots from AT fire. Considering it costs 80 fuel and I only used it to chase down a tank, are pumas just worthless?

I really hate the RNG bullshit in this game.

Assault grenadiers are almost exactly the same as the volksgrenadiers from vCOH once you upgraded them with mp40's. They have bad accuracy on the move I think so you can't use them like you would panzer grenadiers to chase down retreating squads. You have to flank and then put them standing still in cover and they will kill anything at close range. They are useful for starts where you don't bother with building Tier 2 at all.

Just get 3-4 squads of Assault grenadiers and swarm the map.

Remember Tier 2 delays your ability to cap the map because you have to have your pioneers build the building and spend manpower on it while Americans and Russians just build units and cap. Assault grenadiers keep you more even in terms of early capping and if you micro them well, they can give you much better map control than other starts. Also in general ostheer is designed such that grenadiers always lose 1on1 versus the other side's basic infrantry unit (conscripts or riflemen). Assault Grenadiers can actually almost always win in early fights if you micro them well.

The tradeoff is they don't scale as well into the end game. G43's let you flank and chase down units at range more effectively and lmg42's just rape. And you don't get panzer-fausts either.

In general you go for a stronger early start in order to have more resources to use call ins like the halftrack and assault stug.

The bad thing is they don't scale as well becau

There's a bit too much whining go on in here. Rifles are well balanced given the game's dynamic. In COH1, Rifles were better at everything except long range. Now rifles are slightly better at long range, but that's probably because USF is so limited compared to COH1 (in COH1 they could start off going a weapons support strat). This allows the rifles to close distance with a grenadier squad early game and have a good chance to win.

I camped my opponent's fuel spot on Semois with a full-life grenadier squad and the other guy approached me with one squad of riflement to take it back. I ended up getting a lucky crit which snowballed. 4 riflemen died and I had 4 very low HP grenadiers. In general, I would normally expect to lose that fight. But the riflemen advantage at different ranges is a lot more muted when they have to move forward out of cover to attack you.

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As for dealing with riflemen, OST have a lot of options. You can simply always pair your grenadiers and use smart LOS and cover to isolate and engage lone riflemen squads. Because of the snowball effect, you can often kill 3-4 riflemen with the loss of only one grenadier if you are smart.

2 Grenadiers squads can beat 2 riflemen squads this way if you isolate each squad first and kill them. This is easier said than done of course, but should always be taken into consideration.

Pairing 1 Grenadier with an MG is also an effective strategy. Combined arms should always win out. This is best done on more open maps and is not that effective on urban ones like Stalingrad. I usually only like to get one mg because they scale so badly into the late game but against Americans it seems worth it in order to not get overwhelmed by the short retreat distance of an ambulance and constant attacks by 5 riflemen squads. You can trade profitably without 2 mg's but often you will lose at least 1 or 2 capture points and that will eventually mean game loss if he's doubling your income.

MG spam seems like it could work too but I am always weary to play such a cheesy build. MG's also don't scale particularly well into the end-game. But if it gives you the advantage you need to tech then it may well be worth it.

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The basic thing you have to concede is that the USF will always have more map control early game. There's is nothing you can do, they have 4-5 mobile squads that individually can beat any single one of your squads. Using combined arms is great but limits capping power. As long as you have one fuel and one munitions you are fine. Just survive, trade well in the MP battle, and save up for some beefy German tanks.