Profile of general_gawain

Devm vs Vonasten

barely 24h ago in the finals of 'Master League Affiliate Event: Olvadi's Tactical Resurgence' by Devm.
Unless you think Devm was trolling, it actually might be a good commander.

Since I didn't saw it I can't comment it. But having a Pro Gamer making use of a commander doesn't means that it is strong automatically. Try to replay it as he does.

Airborne drop is insane value, lets you get a paratrooper (and a pak howi for 80muni)... tell me thats a bad deal and i will ask for you playercard

Yeah it is a good value for the first drop, I won't question that. After that it rapidly looses its value for further drops. In addition dropping with Howitzer forbids droping it behind enemy lines which is pretty sad and limits its options.

Greyhound is a decent light vehicle, yes stuart is better no doubt but they also have different roles. Stuart is a light vehicle counter with decent ai while the greyhound is an ai vehicle with terrible at BUT is a call in and doesnt need tech which means you can get it as a replacement LV or as an additional vehicle for a mid game push.

You just can't skip tech that easy anymore since AT grenades are depended on that now. In addition there is a good chance you will have the Stuart first. Without the additional 60 MU Cal.50 upgrade Stuart even doesn't perform any worse at AI than Greyhound. And if you really want AI take AA HT instead. The problem of the greyhound is that it is a jack of all trades without doing anything good at all. USF has a nondoctrinal option for all it can do, but better.

Raid tactics is a very fast capping ability - only for light vehicles sure - but tell me another ability that allows your 4min m20 to just ignore all the volks and drive at the cutoff and decapp it? Just casue its situational doesnt mean its bad, you just have to get value out of it.

Ignore the Volks? They have a snare and their small arms fire penetrates a M20. This may work if you are really strong at microing your light vehicles. How many of us are able to pull that off like Devm or J4J?

Check UKF Raid Operations please. That is a useful capping ability, that will help you at capping in various situations for a mere 10 Mu more per use. You can use it for a UC or a Comet, it is up to you. And you ge a nice capping buff for infantry too. And its even more useful for UKF since they can't decrew or have Secure mode like Soviets. Thats what I call a decent capping ability (and not a situational one).

How about making Raid tactics a combat focused ability that improves USF light vehicles in different ways.
For example the AAHT gets 5 extra range, Stuart/Greyhound get improved reload, M20 gets suppression.

Its is a funny idea indeed but I do think people will get confused by the different combat buffs. What the f..k was that again? What I do get for Greyhound? Speed? Reload? Accuracy? ;-)

If you would name it Recon Tactics for example that gives a global +10 sight to all infantry and light vehicles for about 45 seconds (stated in the description) it would be crystal clear what it does.

What I mean to say is that i despise them when I'm playing Axis. It's extremely difficult (if not impossible, in some cases) to escape from the AOE with team weapons, and as you say; if you call it on an FRP with good timing, you can obliterate a LOT of units.

Its a good ability, I just don't like being on the receiving end.

Okay, i guess I got you wrong.

If you see what you are up against you have to move your team weapons instantly once the red smoke drops. that way you should escape. As the ability was released the mines hit you a lot faster after red smoke was dropped, that was really op. Now you should be fine in most cases, just don't build a forward retreat point and hit mass retreat then.

I like your changes, they're generally pretty obvious improvements, particularly in the case of splitting the Pack Howitzer and Paratrooper abilities.

If you're removing Raid Tactics, instead of replacing that ability with the Pack Howtizer (This is arguably a nerf to the commander, outright losing an ability) I would instead bundle the Pathfinder and Greyhound abilities, and turn them both into CP0 buildables rather than callins (Though delay the Greyhound until a certain tech level is reached), and then provide Recon with some other ability to /actually/ replace Raid Tactics.

Incidentally, perhaps the Greyhound could be reworked into an AEC/Puma type vehicle, rather than what it currently exists as? Such a vehicle doesn't currently exist in the USF arsenal (Except arguably through some of the Stuart's abilities). Alternatively, it could be reworked into more of a "supportive" vehicle as follows:

The Greyhound could provide the benefits of the Pathfinder beacons, but on a mobile platform, allowing Paras to reinforce around the vehicle as though it was a halftrack (Though they'd still paradrop in). Perhaps it could be allowed to "Dig in" like the 250 HT to provide paths/paras with a mobile strongpoint?

Yeah, that are all options to rework it somehow.
- binding to tech is mandatory
- buffing M8 Greyhound recon slightly (better than M20) should be the case too
- then you a have a lot of options for a combat or versatility buff, you named a few that could work

I still despise the M83 cluster mines, but I won't advocate for changes there.

If you time it right at a forward retreat point for example, it can be quite devastating. It is all about using it at the right moment. Calling it down on a blob will do nothing if your opponent isn't afk.
You have to wait for the right opportunity.

(How do "Reserve" Paratroopers differ from "Regular" Paratroopers, anyway? I know the Recon and Airborne Paras have different weapon upgrades, but you make it sound like there's some other difference between the squads)

As you seem to know both can be upgraded with M1919A6 turning them into the same unit with the additional suppression ability. Normal Falls can be upgraded with 4 Thompsons or at racks with 2 Bars or 2 Super Bazookas. So since Reserve Paras can be upgraded with Bars and Super Bazookas at racks too you may ask whats about this Super Bazooka Upgrade at Reserve Paras? Seems they just have one weapon option less than normal Paras. The answer is that they get additional abilities when equipped with Super Bazookas. They gain the ability to lay the standard 30 Mu mines which USF only has at doctrinal Rifleman Field Defences and they get Camouflage + hold fire when in cover. So you could lay traps with them actually. This would be even more interesting if you could drop them behind enemy lines without giving away a howitzer to the opponent (since the bazooka upgrade works outside of own territory).

So I want to make a suggestion for a Company that I really would like to see getting in action more often.


Recon Company

(0) Raid Tactics - ability makes no sense since this commander hasn't so much light vehicles in comparison to other USF companies and USF generally just could disembark crew to take point if really needed, a poorly designed ability for this faction

-> swap with: (4) Howitzer drop (for manpower and munition)

(0) IR Pathfinders - ability is fine

(4) Airdropped Combat Group - since Howitzer drop has its own drop now, just delete it

-> swap with: (3) Reserve Paratrooper drop (for manpower) - without howitzer you could drop them more offensive and in the end you won't need so much howitzers as you want to field Reserve Paratroopers (sometimes you won't even need a single one)

(7) M83 cluster mines - ability is fine

(4) M8 Greyhound - keep but needs adjusting


Greyhound

Lets talk a little about the Greyhound which is the one real unique unit of this company.

Timing: First I would delete CP requirement and place it in HQ and bind it to having build both officers or one officer plus appropiate tech. That way it would come pretty at the same time as Stuart / AA HT.

Its problem is that these two nondoctrinal choices perform better, with the exception of sight.
If you want same AT perfomance but better AI performance take AA HT (+ strong AA defence), if you want same AI performance but better AT performance take Stuart (+ has better survivability). If you want to have just the recon part take the M20 which costs a third of the fuel a Greyhound costs, grants the same sight and levels super quick to Vet1 to get +10 sight (+ lays heavy vehicle mines). The greyhound really struggles to be somehow special at all.

50-cal (purchased for 60 MU): It can boost its AI performance for 60mun at least getting better at AI than Stuart, but you have to invest for that and you still suck at AT and have less survivability (you loose vs a Luchs for example).

Canister shot (40 MU per use): Was overpowered versus blobs so it got nerfed harsh. Has the additional problem that its range is so short that you will get either hit by infantry AT weapons or by snares, so you have to choose your targets very carefully.

Recon proposals: This unit needs something. First of all you can strengthen its recon part (hey its Recon company after all) and give it back some of the deleted huge +30% sight bonus it got at Vet3 once upon a time as it was a real recon vehicle. Either give it a +10 sight toggle Recon mode at Vet1 which disables weapons and weapon abilities or give it +10 sight at Vet3. If you want to rework sight overall I'm all in for timed sight abilities as I wrote at another thread, but that is optional.

Combat proposals: Buff its combat performance somehow slightly. There are different options I could imagine. Here are some thoughts about what could be done to put it in one or another direction without turning it into something op:

- give it the smoke pots it had in reality for better survivability
- add some range to canister shot and give it yellow suppression (don't kill the blob, but suppress it)
- buff either damage or reload of main gun slightly so that the matchup Luchs/Greyhound gets more about even
- give it a timed suppression ability for munition after 50-Cal upgrade instead of quirky Canister shot