Profile of ZombiFrancis

10/10 for general changes that affect gameplay for all factions.

6/10 for faction changes that seem to be more about balancing around a specific meta than the game itself.

Pumas got range.

Nothing like sniping Shermans and chasing tanks while shooting from out of their range.

Pumas are more than capable of handling the entirety of the Soviet stock army. The same cannot be said about USF or UKF, but that's the thing: it's a great commander v Soviets, which means it isn't 100% always the best choice for an Axis player when they aren't playing against Soviets.

When you're playing with Mobile Defense or watching someone using it, take note of what factions they are fighting against.

Only thing about Guards is that I wish I could choose to upgrade into PTRS. That aim time is disastrous when you have to stay mobile. You think the DPS drop is bad when you move an LMG squad...

I dont think thats true...
veterancy is definitely squad based.

Based off your example, If i merge some conscripts into a vet 1 maxim, the conscript models wouldn't sprint alongside the vet1 maxim models because theyre using conscript vet instead of the maxim vet?

Sprint is an ability that is unlocked with vet, that when used, applied sprint to the entities.

Or if i merge conscripts into a vet 2 penal, are you telling me the cons arent gonna get the oorah ability because they're cons not penals?

Again, abilities aren't triggered on the entity level. You don't select individual conscripts to oorah.

Or merging cons into vetted engineers means my engineers will repair slower?

Perhaps, as they may not get bonuses to repair from veterancy. A vet 3 engi squad getting vet 0 conscripts may very well repair slower. But the fact that there is such a thing as conscript repair, I really am unsure exactly how repair works with merging conscripts. That's actually an interesting question.

But anyway, the veterancy is squad based, yeah, but when bonuses are applied from that squad onto the entities, those effects are retained by the entities when they change to a new squad.

This is why, I believe, there were issues with modifiers being duplicated in the past. This all may be entirely different, especially with the fixes to said veterancy bugs. But I believe if you got vet 3 cons to merge into a vet 0 squad, you could potentially stack vet. But that would only be on an individual entity that merged. Once that guy died it'd be lost. That could be different now.

So 'to' the model rather than 'by' the model would be more accurate, I guess. But once again, this may not be the case anymore. I haven't really looked into vet that closely after that patch.

Just watched the replay.

A few things to keep in mind: pios have a larger sight range. Units reveal themselves when attacking from fog of war, and units in buildings can be revealed through fog of war by clicking on them.

That said, there were no planes, infra halftracks, or pios sneaking a sight of units from afar. Those MHTs were also unlikely to correctly AND randomly barrage random bits of cover.

Even the most ridiculous spots of guesswork luck don't really account for those barrages.

***edit

Although I do believe you can scope out units in cover by hovering your mouse over the objects with an infantry squad selected. If the cover is open, the dots will appear, but they won't appear where units are already, friend or foe, fow or no.

M20 mines.

If I use an M20 as USF, I do my best to try and lace the map with mines to deal with the onslaught of Axis armor. If a luchs, p4 pr panther hit it, then that is just as good, but it's hard to keep an M20 around after the earliest stages of the game.

I've found that you've got to score that engine crit or the KT will be able to crawl its way to safety more often than not. I also try to steal axis AT guns for the job through the game. Honestly raketens are preferable to the 57mm mostly for the retreat feature. If it's a team game you also have the potential for things like Soviet Mark Target or stealing Ostheer paks.

The main thing to be sure of is to neeever try to capture a point that a KT is camping. It's probably the best tank for gibbing squads as they try to cap.