Profile of Mr.Smith

Might be remembering incorrectly but are you sure it doesn't happen when you tell them to capture a point too? I could even swear they fail if you give them a simple move command

It could also happen there, however I haven't noticed it. I've only noticed that for garrisons *shrug*

To be honest, I think Guards with Shocks aren't crazier than Obersoldaten and Stormtroopers or Rangers and Riflemen. Also, the manpower bleed speaks for itself.

Shocks are meh, and you are right-on about the bleed.

When I mentioned rethinking commanders I was mostly thinking about Guards + DSHk/Lend-Lease/Mother Russia/Rapid Conscription/Radio Decryption/Partysons.

Currently, the things I mentioned are the things you gave up for going for a Guards commander.

My overall arguments were that whilst I respect all of your noble intentions, in bringing T1 into better use whilst simultaneously providing an alternative to guards by using penals...

It is unfortunately at complete odds with the inherent design and theme of penal battalions. They were suicide squad of alleged cowards and criminals condemned to die in combat, not elite multi weapon specialists, and it just doesn't work from a design perspective. Whilst I usually think competition rts > realism, this is a bit too much.

Two solutions I think would be good:

1) Revert to old pre buff penals, just make them a lot cheaper, and make T1 cheaper (a bit).

2) Experiment with penals as a 'not one step back' suicide squad, that can't retreat but can 'hit the dirt' instead. Just my idea as a role for them that would suit design. They would be great at keeping points from being captured or allowing you an anchor point to fight around.

I think with the nerf to guards and a buff in cost to T1/ penals you could break the meta whilst not being too elaborate and breaking the design.

If we have to make Penals look like guards, then perhaps the better idea would be swapping Guards with Penals, as I've seen people recommend. However, to even trial this option we need the entire Soviet faction to be in scope, as that would change so much for both Guards doctrines and any other doctrines (imagine Guards with Shocks). At the point of this writing though, Conscripts are out of scope, thus it's too late.

The design we're converging to is that, in fact, there's not that many changes needed for Penals to break them out of their one-dimensional role (kick infantry's arse, everywhere, but get pushed over by vehicles).

Hit the dirt would be a nice idea, regardless, though.

1 In relation to their speed or damage/pen? Would even a price increase help there?

If you only increase the price, that's going to make Brits the new pre-rework OKW, especially in teamgames. There, camping it out and getting armour meant you could steamroll anything the enemies could field by that point.

3 How so? STG's/BARS/LMG's are no brainers, what would make Brens less so? Bring them in line with the aforementioned? No problem with that.

- STGs are almost no-brainers, except for the fact that they take up both slots.
- Bars, in theory, prevent you from getting LMGs. However they are no brainers anyway. You wouldn't put bazookas on Riflemen either, anyway.
- Grenadiers have non-negligible DPS on the move. Currently the only faction Grenadiers can use that and get away with it are Soviets. Thus, the LMG42 is at least a quasi-no-brainer.

Tommies, unlike other non-ostruppen squads in existence don't have mobility at all (moving DPS). They need to stand still, and at range, to hit anything. Thus, upgrading to Bren guns is a no-brainer.

4 What do you mean by frontloaded?

Vet0 Tommies in cover start with a 0.72 received accuracy (compared to 0.91 for Grenadiers), with rifles that have better DPS when stationary. Part of that received accuracy bonus could be postponed and moved to later Vet levels.

5 By all means, it's useless anyway as it comes far too late and doesn't engine damage heavier vehicles

Having access to snares means that enemy LVs can't just yolodive for the sniper. This would allow the sniper to fire with near-impunity and get to Vet1. At that point all LV investment that the enemy has made is in danger.

Also note that the Brit sniper is the only sniper with 100% accuracy vs garrisons. In live version, where there are no viable anti-garrison tools that's necessary.


The point about the sniper might already be the case in WBP with the new PIATs, but that needs a lot of testing.

Nice new notes as per usual. Are Greyhound and Valentine out of scope for the light vehicle changes? How come the Stug 3 E gets to see changes but neither of these vehicles? Can we get Soviet Molotov wind-up and behavior the same as Volks Incendiary Nades please?

Valentine/Greyhound are, unfortunately, out of scope. The reason Stug-E got picked out was that it's OP as fuck for a certain gamemode. UP light vehicles are not a priority currently, and will be looked at when we look at underpowered commanders.