Sturm officer force retreat also buffs the rest of the remaining enemies, a double edged sword, unlike commissar prop arty.
Force retreat is best used at chasing away a team weapon, mostly hmgs, while prop arty can do the same job with high probability (just suppressing/pinning is usually enough too) or send a whole blob home... for less muni.
Pios are totally fine combat wise, they usually win against CEs (tho I haven't checked with the new CE buff) and they can beat most core infantry units if they catch them at close range. Later on they continue supporting your forces with their sight range.
I had a similar commander idea in my mind, tho it would have combined outdated german and stolen soviet equipment, such as it would contain panzerbüchse AT packages for grenadiers, pioneers, or the short barrel Stug E.
The treatment I would maybe give them is to make them cost some ammunition too to deploy (since they get free guns and camo), but as a result they would be cheaper to reinforce.
But again, it's optional, the current system promotes their use when necessary, but discourages spamming them.
Does anyone else find the ostheer sniper incendiary round a bit weird? I mean probably it's more useful as a guaranteed wipe tool on single retreating models than the infantry stunning ability it was intended for, the latter feels a bit meh when put in contrast with the soviet and british sniper abilities.
Replace TWP ability with something more useful.
Add direct fire MOD.
IIRC there were plans to add a free pintle mg as a vet rewards instead of TWP. Alternatives could include a barrage ability or switching to AP ammo, weaker than stug G, but in emergency situations it can come handy.
Ya, stormtrooper schreck is a tricky one. Costs 75 muni, even more expensive than the sturmpio 70 muni schreck.
But on the other hand the storms still do quite well at AI job with 3 Mp40s (before you either had schreck or stgs) and they have free camo too, so it sort of explains the massive price for the schreck. (and vehicle detection hotkey is still conflicting with smoke grenade... yeah, I know, I mention it every single time, maybe the mod team notices it one day)
It depends on the gamemode, in team games going for battlegroup is generally better, it provides most of your support unit needs (mortar, AA, recon, except stuka), and once schwerer is up you can upgrade it for FRP.
They felt like Grenadiers that could upgrade to Panzergrenadiers. I wasn't impressed with them personally.
They were identical to PGs with the STG upgrade with slightly lower target size and flipped vet2 and 3 bonuses. What made and would make the difference is the tactical advance ability on them.