Profile of isoul

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The mainline inf is fine as it is, they just need to reduce guards costs and make infantry call-ins back to 1 CP instead of 2.

Guards and Shocks being 2 CP is a fucking joke.

Actually they are not fine!

The fact is that Conscripts are dealing low damage and have the same durability, as far as I remember, no matter whats their veterancy level.

Initially, the 6-man squads helps them remain on the field but late game they are almost a joke as opposing armies have every sort of weapon/upgrade to kill them fast. So, by end game, you have Cons that deal somewhat better damage but can't stay on the field long enough, they lose DPS rapidly (cause of individual models being killed really fast) and, no matter what, they feed enemies veterancy.

Another mistake you do is that in your mind Guards and Shocks are a "replacement" for mainline infantry.

These are call-in, doctrinal infantry units! They aren't stock infantry, they aren't available to everyone and many commanders don't even utilize them. The fact that most people prefer to have a commander that has some sort of call-in infantry, simply confirms that Consscripts alone are lacking to some extend and that, with the lack of dependable late-game tanks, forces Soviet faction to be hooked on certain commanders...

But it's not cheap. Not where it matters. You can point to the fuel cost all you want, but if you actually try spaming them you'll quickly realize you'll start to float fuel, because the manpower costs are too high. The low fuel cost never actually helps.

And to add up...

Given you need to support it with infantry, cause of the presence of Shreks and PaKs, and given that Cons aren't scaling good and die way to easily you get more MP drain...

From one point on, at mid-game, it feels like Cons are more of a liability than an asset (unless you keep them for merge, stealing abandoned weapons and vehicle snare).

By late game they deal not enough damage, models die too easily (bleeding you MP) and they feed my opponent squads XP to vet faster!

Things are quite simple for SU faction... I won't say its weak or strong overall, By no means its totally underpowered but neither overpowered.

The fact is that SU has a rather large set of under-performing units.

1) Cons : They are cheap and their utility is great BUT they scale worse in late game than any other faction's infantry in game, while not being the strongest infantry and the utility they got isn't for free (some upgrades needs you to pick certain commanders like PPSh). SU needs to rely on doctrine infantry or upgrades for Cons. By late game the casualty rate of Cons is like feeding your opponent XP.

2) Penals : They start out better than Cons but they scale way worse into late-gate. They come from T1 which means no early AT unless you go T1->T2. Penals simply end up in the 2nd place even if you compare them to themselves!

3) T-34/76 : Its dirty cheap for a medium tank but its the weakest of all mediums and comes rather late (cause of the necessity of T3 and T4 being rather expensive).

4) SU-85 : While its very good aganist med-tanks its expensive and comes late to be considered a dedicated medium-tank-killer. It was designed for heavy-tank hunting but its performance isn't good enough for that role.

5) BM-13 Katyusha : A barrage of rockets that simply isn't on par with other rocket artillery. Not a bad unit but surely weaker that other rocket arty.

The Soviets largely rely on Commanders/Doctrines to make up for their weaknesses. Compared to other factions, were Doctrines augments armies, the Soviet choice of commander is more essential and quite often isn't there to augment your army but to cover-up certain liabilities (ex. doctrinal infantry, call-in tanks).

... it needs to be ineffective vs mediums (so there remains a use for the su76 but scary for heavies.... Sort of like EVERY OTHER FACTIONS TD. ATM its definitely not worth teching up to and buying, hell I probably STILL wouldnt tech up if they gave me one for free when I did USF style....

What do you mean "ineffective vs mediums"?

Tell me one tank or tank-destroyer that can deal respectable damage to heavy tanks but its ineffective against medium tanks. Damage wise this just can't be.