Profile of ShadowLinkX37

If you've only played this game for one month, you're a very unique player. I mean that in a good way, you utilized so much more than I expected a newer player to use and it was most impressive.

Things you did well:

• Capping order
  
• Build order
  
• Overall micro
  
• Cover usage
  

Things to improve on:

• Floating resources, specifically manpower
  
• Aggressiveness
  
• Late game squad retention
  

Now you may look at this improve section and think "there's only 3 points, so that's good!". Technically yes, it is but these points were so prominent that they alone lost you this match.

Floating resources: This was where you had your major advantage early game, and it began to decline. All because you didn't spend your manpower. Unless you've got your opponet on the ropes and bleeding him out that he can't increase his squad count, he'll be continuing to build squads as you should. So once you stop, you're going to be down 1 squad, and then 2, and then all the sudden you're down half an army. Obviously this is bad. You can always use something more on your composition unless you're specifically waiting for a unit to fill the remainder of your popcap. For example. You went lieutenant, so you had the ability to make 50 cal MGs. However you didn't build one until the 35 minute mark. This was a unit you could've used the entire game. You could placed them in key garrisons such as the northern munitions house or the middle church to secure those points. Placed them at the VPs to extend your lead, or move them with your army if your micro is up to it so suppress incoming squads.

If you don't want build more units, build fuel or munitions caches with your excess manpower. Turn that float into something you WILL use so you get some benefit from it. You don't benefit from floating without intention.

You could've used an 81mm mortar to smoke the middle garrison which had an MG42 in it for most of the game which prevented the capture of the mid VP. Or you could've just shelled it with HE mortar shells till it died, left or the house was destroyed.

Aggressiveness: This is where your mid game advantage went away. You had a tremendous lead, fielding an EZ8 by 14 minutes. However instead of pushing your opponet completely off the map with your armor advantage you just held your ground. This is a strategy that can be employed but needs to be used with caution or you'll end up in the situation you did. You need to ensure you have both resource and VP advantage before employing this strategy otherwise you may allow your opponet to reenter the match. Here you only controled 2 VPs because you did not push the middle garrison. Doing so once you had an EZ8 would have been easy. You could've pushed up with your infantry to either smoke the garrison, or use the EZ8 to smoke the MG then destroy it. Use your tank to attack it frontally, use your infantry to flank it and circle. Use mortars to shell it. Any means neccesary. With only 1 VP draining on your opponet, it allowed him to eventually field armor and gain veterancy with enough losses.

Late game squad retention: Lategame you lost many squads, starting with your major I believe. The major is useful as a forward retreat point + ambulance to heal and reinforce combo. It also holds major arty, which you used, and a recon sweep. Many times I saw you attempt to soft retreat away from battles, this is a good skill to have but soft retreating and then hard retreating doesn't get you anything if that's all it's used for. If you soft retreat with your injured squad to capture a back point you missed while pushing, that's a good use of soft retreating.

Eventually you just lost enough squads and veterancy that his overwhelming amount of squads and veterancy just ran you out of the match. This occured because of all 3 of the above points in combination with each other. Each one added to the snowball and caused a full 180 of the match.

Other things:

I saw you build a tank trap early on the southern munitions for heavy cover. This is very good, but be sure to wire the side your opponet will come from, so he cannot use it against you. Also I only saw the 1 tank trap, and although it was a good use, if applied more it can create situations where your opponet struggles to push you off yet you do not struggle as hard to push back.

Good use of sherman smoke, I believe it was over used though. You don't need to smoke every time you get hit with a single pak 40 shell. It's perfectly acceptable to just back off and repair and use those munitions for some upgrade or a call down ability.

Unsure if you knew you could double equip squads with weapons. You had single BAR/zook on your squads except the LT which comes with a BAR. 2x BAR rifles are more powerful than 1x BAR, but cost more. If you've got the munitions though go for it.

Lacked a sweeper on your RE. Opted to go for the flamethrower because of rifle company doctrine. It's good to have a flamer to clear garrisons and allow for the RE to have the bolstered combat potential, but if you don't have a sweeper you're going to run into mines which can cripple your vehicles and infantry. As you probably noticed with your M20. If you want both, just make another RE squad.

Good placement of M6 AT mines. Many people don't take the time to place m20 mines but those mines are game turning if you can follow it up. Unfortunatly his armor missed all of them, but better to be safe than sorry.

Overall: Very impressive skill for only a month in. A little rough on some points, but easy fixes. This game is largely about pushing your advantage and snowballing. If you've got the lead, seal the deal. If you're on the back foot, look for opportunities to out maneuver your opponet and gain the upper hand.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns do not hesitate to ask.

ShadowLinkX37

Personally I'd like both abilities removed. On the axis side Stuka CAS is "I click, I win" If you're anywhere under topspeed. For USF p47s are unreliable and because their damage output is based on the physical rocket projectile hitting the target, it can be negated by high density building areas and maps such as City 17. Not to mention that the rockets do tend to miss a lot. Overall though I'd at least like to have stuka CAS toned down a bit and definatly remove the ability to stun/critically damage vehicles. P47s I think are more or less fine, just reduce price to 200 like stuka CAS.

That's for the Stuka loiter though ^, I think the Close air support doctrine with the stuka straffe should still cause stuns, but not critical engine damage since it still requires similar time for the loiter to arrive, but hits a fixed area preset on callin.

Looks like I won't get to play

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Its nitpicking (forgive me), but it should just be "chance to pen", and not "PERCENT [chance] to pen." I know what you meant, and you know what you meant, but i just had to, sorry.

Nothing wrong if no harm done

Thx for reminding me

Hey man you gave us all a true underdog story. Was a great watch. And when in doubt, you can always say it's OP

Any reason you havn't declared yet?