Profile of Corp.Shephard

I'll provide a stream of consciousness playback and try and follow it up with some quick remarks on strategy;

Double US vs Double Wehrmacht

• sloth_bear ~1:30: Random barbed wire while capturing the fuel. Lay tank traps instead and use them as green cover if you're looking to channel your time early game.
  
  
• sloth_bear ~5:30: Recognize and respect an enemy hardpoint. The enemy has two MGs and three grenadiers by their cutoff point. This location is just too tough too take on but you try to garrison and use the graveyard. Using the church to keep an eye on the enemy is wise. Use the rest of your forces to hit the enemy fuel which is not guarded as well.
  
  
• team ~6m: Use your fuel! Sloth is at 120 fuel with no tech choices yet. He could have a Captain out to compliment your Lieutenant right now. Fast Captain is really good in team games. Don't underestimate the Pack Howitzer (particularly for campy Wehrmacht players!) Adam you're getting your M15 AA Halftrack around the time when you've nearly got resources for two. You can use the F1-F2-F3-F4 keys to access your base while you're fighting.
  
  
• Adam 12 minutes: Your excellent control of the map and fuels is paying off big. You could have Sherman building right now at a really early time. When you have a big advantage over the enemy like this I personally suggest the M8A1 Howitzer Carriage. If the enemy is behind and low on fuel then they will need Pak40s (Indeed, we see one firing across the ice even now). Pak40s need artillery to be safely disposed of. The M8A1 offers you this while also offering great anti-infantry and light vehicles. Spend your fuel aggressively!
  
  
• Adam, 14-15 minutes: Pay attention to the movements of the enemy and try to use the right units for the right job. The enemy takes back the entire left/northwestern part of the map while you are helping your ally fight off an enemy push. Diverting a few Riflemen squads to at least keep the fuel out of their hands would have been good. Any time that the enemy is capturing a fuel point alarm bells should be going off in your head. Your M15AA could have provided fire support to your ally while two of your Riflemen attack-moved to the fuel. Rifles are stronger than Grenadiers 1v1. Try to use this to be on multiple parts of the map at once.
  
  
• Adam, 16 minutes in: The loss of your M15 AA was pretty avoidable. When you've already seen a StuG and a Pak40 you should play cautiously with the vehicle now. It is blessed with great range and suppression. Early game you can use it viciously. Late game you should treat it like an MG: Keep it behind your lines and let it suppress and kill units that push too far. Wow! It didn't even die until a mortar shot! Jump out and use the Repair Critical power that your Vehicle Crews have. The M15's engine could have been brought back and you could have driven it away. Repair Critical is basically a get out of panzerfaust free card. Engine damage is gone in no time!
  
  
• Team, 16-17 minutes: SymbolSix above is right. Such manpower bloat is not good.
  
  The enemy has a Pak40 and multiple Mortars. The Captain Tech player (sloth_bear) should probably get a Pack Howitzer to spend his manpower. An additional AT gun can help too.
  
  The LT. player (Adam) should probably get a .50 Cal HMG and some resource caches.
  
  I'll detail a build for both players at the end after this "reaction" bullet list.
  
  
• Adam, 18-20 minutes: Jesus man. 1700 manpower! Invest those resources! Riflmen with Bazookas would help against the armor. Riflemen with LMGs would help lockdown the map. If you are struggling to spend that then grab a Captain and spam out some AT guns at least.
  
  
• Adam, in general: You're playing Infantry so use your suprerior infantry to stop these back-caps on the left. Riflemen with .30 cal M1918 LMGs (Infantry Pick-up Weapon) have a special power called Defensive Stance. When you take a point that the enemy will want back just sit on it with Defensive Stance. He keeps taking that point back. Defensive Stance turns your squad into a 360 degree MG. He would have been sent back again and again trying to capture that area. This is also really good on points that are out of the way and less travelled. The only thing that goes out to such points are infantry. Camp those points and create a defensive line that forces the Wehrmacht players to move their tanks and mortars!
  
  

I think I've seen enough. I breezed through the rest of it.

Strategy Suggestions

• Indirect Fire
  You have to work Indirect Fire into your gameplan. The enemy camped out on two Pak40s, three mortars and three MGs in that corner of the map the entire game. Over-running them right outside of their base with just Shermans and Riflemen will never work. Get some indirect fire.
  
• Keep a firm control over the map
  The enemy kept taking the left again and again! Lock down the map with your Riflemen and use your tanks not to rush into the enemy's hard points but range them out in the areas less travelled. The enemy killed most of your tanks with Pak40s. If you had used those tanks to pressure the left and steal points over there then the enemy would have had to cross the treacherous frozen lake and spread their forces out more. You should always try to "pull" the germans apart. Pressure them from all sides! Your fighting was 90% down in that southern fuel island and in the city square. The Germans are strongest when packed together and fighting side by side. Don't play their game! Force them to break formation by taking distant points. Use your first Sherman to pressure a foreign/less traveled part of the map.
  
• Have a plan and a build.
  You should spend your resources ASAP all of the time unless you're saving for a super unit (of which the US have none really).
  
  Let me suggest some:
  
  For the Lieutenant Player:
  -Three Riflemen
  -Ambulance
  -Lieutenant
  -.50 Cal HMG
  -M15 AA Halftrack
  -Bazooka Research (grab some Bazookas mid-game).
  -Major
  -If you are ahead (holding fuel):M8A1 Howtizer Motor Carriage
  -Sherman
  -Jackson
  -If floating manpower; build resource caches, grab a Captain + AT gun, extra Riflemen.
  
  For the Captain Player
  -Three Riflemen
  -Ambulance
  -Captain
  -Pack Howitzer
  -Stuart Light Tank
  -AT Gun
  -Major
  -M8A1 Howitzer Motor Carriage
  -AT gun
  -Sherman
  -Jacksons
  
  Aim for these armies. Try to make good decisions based on what you see. These are basically doctrine non-specific but you can change them based on the doctrine you are going.
  
  I actually wrote my "In Before the Blitz" guide for Airborne players who want to get a fast Captain. It is basically the build above but in team games I always suggest a Pack Howitzer if you go fast Captain. They're pretty nice and the powerful early game of the US forces means you can afford it.
  
  Plan for Tigers.
  You need a plan for heavy armor. Win early? That's great. Make sure you grip all three VPs and never lose them. Not winning early? You need Jacksons, AT guns, Bazookas, Shermans. If you have an Airborne player then have him save up munitions and use the P-47 Rocket Strafing run. It's really effective against Tigers who are rushing your line.
  

I'll breeze through the other replay now.

I am like 90% sure that smoke doesn't actually work on the Jagdtiger as long as he has some unit spotting you.

It ignores line of sight and terrain.

Destroying trucks is a huge blow. Loss of tech and additional bonuses like auto repairs, medics, etc.

I am sort of shocked you consider the King Tiger such a threat. SU-85 has greater range and vision than it and is faster than it. A single SU-85 can keep KT at bay.

That's little use on a map like Ettelbruck but...

I don't know for sure but I know that the Puma Aimed Shot is not supposed to kill an entire garrisoned building no matter what.

It must be un-intended. Who knows when/if they'll get around to fixing it though.

Suggesting that Puma Aimed Shot is a good garrison clear is pretty silly. It's true. It's unintentional though and he's talking about OKW design.

It's a bug. It will get patched out.

It also needs vet 1 to become relevant so your anti-garrison is tied to like... 8+ minutes before you can reliably deal with a garrison. Granted it instant-kills all duded in the garrison.

The Infantry support gun does very little damage to Structures (could do with a structure damage buff?) and has to pretty much hit a model in a garrison to deal damage to it, unlike mortars that can just hit the roof and the splash will do the work for you. Stuka is expensive and comes a little late for using on a garrison.

I am honestly shocked to hear you don't like the Infantry Support gun for this purpose. I find it is unparalleled in at the task of tearing down buildings. It chunks off building health and does great damage to the troops inside. It's pretty good at this task.

I find that in team games the Walking Stuka makes any building a tomb. Even this counter can take some time to pay off but it is fairly effective and safe to get early. A quick walking Stuka can sometimes work in 1v1s against Soviets. It's an option with relative safety due to the high cost of light armor for Soviets. Realistically you will not get a fast vehicle hunter for Soviets until T-70 which can hit around 200+ fuel.

The US pose more issues because they're such a double threat of light armor and superior infantry.

Very reliant upon Pumas - Pretty much what it says, Especially in 1v1's you become very reliant upon pumas and need them to get lucky vs larger tanks - main issue being here is vs US, the Jackson our ranges anything Okw can get except the Jagdtiger (maybe Jagdpanzer too?)and when you move to engage it, there is almost always at least 1 AT gun + 2 zook squads.

This is sort of true but I think the Jagdpanzer offers a good alternative. It's hard to get one in 1v1s though and the light vehicle metagame of US forces players to go Mechanized Regiment first to compete.

The Jagdpanzer has 60 range just like the Jackson. Puma has 50 and thus actually gets out-ranged. If he's bringing infantry borne AT weapons you should do the same. This is not a weakpoint of the OKW. Volks wtih Schrecks and Raketenwerfer offer good anti-tank from infantry support. Even the Infantry Support Gun offers good anti-tank when it has a direct fire situation.

Finally lack of reliable Anti-infantry tank/AoE. - The most "reliable" source of anti infantry for late game you have is the Sturmtiger, but it's a one shot thing and smart players will force you to waste it vs one squad or take its health low while you hold the shot for something better then rush in and finish it off. But remember its 1 shot every minute or so if you are lucky. Same for Stuka, but even worse, the rocket scatter/RNG damage is silly, I've seen direct strikes wipe armys and also just take a model or two, I think the last 3 rockets from it don't calculate damage properly as they never seem to do as much as the first 3. Again Field gun is a bit RNG, more reliable once it has vet, but even then half it's vet abilities are broken.

This is an issue but I feel it is supposed to be mitigated by superior infantry. Panzerfusiliers and Obersoldaten are really good against infantry for their cost. To a lesser extent Fallscrimjagers can carry you against infantry as well. Leveraging your superior infantry is always a great challenge granted.

I am interested to see the new Panzer II some more in action. I still think that it comes far too late to be particularly viable but I did get the thing in 1v1s occasionally already. It is an interesting little tank and 80 health will go a long way to help it survive. AT guns were a little too good at two-shotting it before. The Panzer II and the Walking Stuka are the best anti-infantry armor you'll get until the heaviest hitters.

I can't agree with the caches idea at all. Remove it from all sides but then give it to OKW? Ehhhhhhhh. Just remove them from all sides if you're going to go to that extent.