Profile of Protos Angelus

Well grenediers win vs:
1) conscripts long and medium range
2) Rifles long range

They lose vs IS on long range but win close if I'm not mistaken.

MG42 gives them a substantial firepower boost, making them melt enemy infantry, especially if blobbed.

However, even though grens are extremely cost efficient and are probably the best mainline infantry alongside conscripts, they don't really carry the OST faction. The main thing is, the rifles and cons start to fall off as the game progresses. Cons do have the 7th man which is invaluable to their playstyle, but against rifles they dominate. Brits IS are good long range, but with the lack of a snare, quite vulnerable to vehicles.

Again, it's mostly map dependent. A lot of maps favor long range engagements in larger modes unlike smaller modes. They synergize extremely well with the defensive nature of OST. On one hand, you need to displace and probably force the retreat of the MG42, but on the other, grens will melt you if you let them.

All in all, well balanced.

@Devm Thanks for your input



Can you elaborate a bit more?

Well, I won't speak for 1v1 as I don't play it, but Rifles are high maintenance close range units. First OKW unit is the sturmpio which, if it gets a good angle/ambush, can wreck both echelon and rifles 2v1. You know that USF will go for 3x rifles into officer (I go for ambo in teamgames), which leads to known engagements. If they go for paths spam, OKW can easily go for either double ISG or flak/luchs and close out the game due to lack of snares.

You know that Volks win vs Rifles long range and lose short and you know that Spios win vs everything early on. It's not hard to control 2/3 of a map with the sturmpio doing the Lord's work of giving you the edge in engagements in those two thirds.. Not only that, but USF has no mines or sandbags. Echelons can construct green cover but which is extremely unreliable. Even in a wall of 5 tank traps, the enemy MG can suppress like if there were no cover (one model will always be "outside" or in a bad angle due to the shape of the traps). USF also has to tech for weapon upgrades and retreat to pick them up. Nades are also separate tech.

Then you get to mid game. Either lieutenant for MG or captain for AT gun. Most 1v1s are lieutenant for the LV rush. You really want to snowball early as USF with the light vehicles. Stuart can take care of luchs/flak and can stand up to a Puma, but with raketen being able to retreat, and the small size of the 1v1 maps (retreat path is short), raketen can be played extremely aggressively. Captain does have the AAHT which objectively gives you the most firepower, but at the cost of extreme unreliability (driving with "U", and the rotating loop if you "Attack" something) and being 2 shot to kill.

In the end, there are two scenarios with USF: You either snowball hard and close out the game early or you lose.
Of course, you could be losing hard and the enemy makes a couple of costy mistakes and that turns the tide, but let's assume that the enemy is methodical.

If you don't win with USF early, you're done for. The game shifts away from close range engagements to long range where Axis units are generally much stronger. Only long range unit for USF is the doctrinal paratrooper with the LMG upgrade.

You can see it in lots of high ranking games. USF either dominates early and wins fast or they get bled to death as the game progresses.

Basically

Sherman loses to both P4s, ATG is unreliable and a munition sink (especially since later on, USF really needs those nades, smoke and explosive). Jackson is paper thin, and with no mines, vulnerable to Panther dives. Rifles fall off hard as the game progresses and get dominated by vet3 grens/obers/pgrens
Pak howitzers are far too slow and have a narrow arc of fire to be effective. After the AOE nerf, they also don't pak a punch, which means that they need to be built in pairs, which is another problem. They have 1.25 RA so even a vet0 unit can easily decrew them, and they are expensive to reinforce and move extremely slowly (to get to base or ambo).
Stuart falls off. The saving grace is the vet3 sight bonus but you need to get it to vet3.
M20 is used for scouting purposes and mines, so there is that, but ONLY IF you teched lieutenant.

AAHT, as brilliant as it is, needs a lot of micro and is a 2 shot so ... gl
Pak howi, nerfed to the ground
ATG, unreliable vs mediums without munitions
That's if you tech Captain.

Sherman loses to P4, effectively only used as a pot shot HE vs infantry
Jackson is great, vulnerable only to dives
Scott, also great in 1v1 but overlaps with the pak howi.

So while USF as a faction is fun to play, and is indeed strong, it's got glaring weaknesses that people who know how to play COH2, can easily take advantage of. Hence, USF tries to close out the game with LVs and win.

Soviets have everything and have an answer to everything and have no glaring weaknesses/holes in the roster. T34 is cheap and has great AI in the MGs and if it's going down, it can go down with a bang. SU85 is reliable and can survive dives due to the smaller form factor.
Katyusha is your bread and butter vs team weapons.
Where Scott can bleed one or two models, the crews can easily reposition and stay in the field, but once the rockets start raining down, it's retreat or goodbye. Of course, scott can fire all the time, while katyusha has a cooldown... but that's why it forces a retreat, by the time the weapon teams are back, you'll have another salvo ready.
Quad halftrack is easy to use and position, less firepower than AAHT, but much easier to handle and focus specific squads without if rotating constantly.
T70 is your bread and butter mid game with great recon late.
Cons are great, engies lay great mines...

UKF is a shittier faction which I won't even comment on.

I'm not talking about higher skilled games. I'm talking about the fact that it works at any skill level at all. It shouldn't. It should be the easiest thing in the world to counter with a single MG. But it isn't, and that's stupid.

Everything is a blob in 3v3+ because the maps are not proportionally bigger than 1v1 and yet they house 400 to 600 more population. So you have a much denser infantry population in larger game modes. It's completely impossible to play 3v3 as you play 1v1. The real "definition" of a blob in 3v3+ would be 5+ squads in a small radii. Otherwise you distribute them along the frontline. And it doesn't work most of the time. Just now played a game vs g43 pgren blob. 3 pgrens with g43s and one JLI with g43. They literally melted one rifle squad in yellow crater cover on Steppes in 2 seconds. One volley and poof. Rifles gone. Do you know what happened next? My Pershing came and nuked the squad, instant retreat. I lost 0 territory, 1 squad and induced bleed/time to heal/retreat time on the enemy, on a large map. Blobbing can work, but it can also backfire immensely

Geemo trashtalking in team chat. Everyone watching this: Do not play like the brit did. Geemo, if you're watching, this is all the proof you need to understand that in all the games we played, you always trash talk and end up making everyone lose.



So you can trashtalk behind the safety of the team chat, but in the end, there is a clear distinction between a good player and a bad one.

To everyone else, USF and axis, gg. Was hard fought and good luck next. A really enjoyable game that made me click a lot of buttons really fast, constantly.

Map: Whiteball, 3v3

best AI strat

1. get airborne
2. 2x pathfinders
3. 2x airborne with lmg upgrade.
4. upgrade pathfinders with double bar
5. ctrl +1 all the above.
6. A-move blob and melt enemy infantry squad

And lose them all to one werfer or stuka or lose the battlefield presence by a mass retreat. Blobbing 3x obers is against non-soviet (katy) a viable tactic, with a-move raketen or JPs, but blobbing paths and paras as USF will net you an easy loss against anyone with half a brain cell. It only ever works against low rank players.