Profile of Blovski

Alright, so doctrinal Ostruppen are a

0cp
120mp 6-man unit with very quick recharge on the call-in. I believe 3 or 4 squads come out at around the same time as the first conscript
with a 10mp reinforce cost and near-instant reinforcement
gives very little vet and gains a lot of vet very quickly
require no tech building, unlike almost all other German infantry

their stats are weak, but with the cover and the accuracy bonus that's mooted by trenches and buildings, in which they become perfectly effective.

Stats courtesy of Tensai Oni:
For 240 MP, you get units with 576 effective HP (20% more than Conscripts) and potential DPS equal of 80% of Conscript potential DPS (without cover - it's up to 160% if all squad members would be in cover).

can

Faust (this requires the Tier 1 building, I believe)
Build bunkers

and at 1cp

build trenches
for free
in neutral and enemy territory
and cap and deny caps from inside them
(trenches, incidentally, can be entered and left almost instantaneously AND unlike buildings have only a low (I believe it's 25%) chance of killing any model inside them on destruction.)


changed since this post: Ostruppen now cap at half speed

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So... 1) does anyone think that's remotely balanced?

2) the rapid reinforcement or whatever it's called Ostruppen, which takes some skill to deploy at the right time, come out mid-game (3 cps, right?) are obviously a lot less useful than the call-in Ostruppen spam because they arrive later when the Soviet can already be established on the field, they cost munis and require the loss of a comparatively large number of higher MP models to deploy (so, a minimum of around 150mp of models need to die, if they're all pios, for instance). And they don't come with trench-building. Do other people agree with me that there should be some sort of improvement for that as well?

4) further questions for the people who think it's balanced right now:
a) what do you do to counter it on a map like Semois or Kharkov which is heavy on buildings? have you had any success on these maps against players who are just as good as you Ostruppen spamming?
b) what is your recommended counter?
c) at the earliest time your recommended counter can hit the field, assuming even map control, how many Ostruppen squads can be on the field?
d) what is the cost of your recommended counter (include the manpower cost of T1 or T2 if you have to build that straight off the bat...) - how many Ostruppen units does it cost?

5) how do people think this should be fixed?

(postscript: can we please avoid any p2w/dlc commander arguments here and focus on the balance of the unit)

Put bunker on fuel very early = delayed enemy capture of fuel long enough so you already won by fuel conquest

If your opponent has gone Tier 1 with the bunker like a good player not abusing flavour-of-the-month bullshit, cutting half a gren squad, an LMG and some wasted capping time on a gren or pio squad from the start should let you get enough map presence to cut off the fuel or bully them and lock down the other fuel until you get some guards or an AT gun out to knock the bunker down.

So true. I am okay with it being as fragile as it is. However, the damage it does just doesn't impress me. I mean it does some damage, but really the only way to think of it is as a delivery system for flamers. The German car at least can vet up and be a threat. This thing though not so much. It is actually the standard problem with German vs Soviet stuff. Many German units have good upgrades that allow them to vet easier by increasing the damage they do. Only a few of the Soviet units have this option.


As for Penals, I would actually like to see the satchel charge do more damage so it could destroy bunkers.

I actually really like Penals. Not to say I wouldn't take a buff though. The satchel charge is nice because it can punish those that charge them (if you time it well and the opponent isn't paying attention). I think that is the same reason they have the flame thrower (to keep the enemy at distance). Too bad it doesn't really work out so well. You really want a long range weapon as an upgrade so that they can do more damage at range.

Penals are great once you get them vetted up. The thing is though, you often need to land a few satchels to make that happen in a reasonable amount of time.

It would be nice though if they could throw the satchel charge and not have to back up to avoid taking damage.

Overall, when I play Tier 1 the thing I fear most is the Scout Car to Halftrack build. I avoided using guards forever and you simply cannot compete in any way if you are Tier 1 and they have the Scout Cars and Halftrack out(okay, you can if you get lucky with an AT grenade or mine on the Scout Car). However, the Halftrack is going to dominate.

I am open to any tips as Tier 1 (beyond using guards or T70 rush) to deal with a heavy light vehicle build from the Germans.

I've been trying to use the M3A1 some effect this patch. The flame car is kind of hoping for a squad kill but also lets you bully lone grens and is hopefully going to force a lot of munitions expenditure in the form of wasted panzerfausts so you see less LMGs and probably no FHT. On maps like Moscow Outskirts with the really long roads you will usually get a squad kill, and if you catch an MG out of position, you can often steal or kill it.

The big problem is that using and M3A1 is kind of a plan to force the Ostheer to overspend on countering it if you play well and the Scout Car at 15 fuel is now so cheap that it doesn't slow down the Ostheer tech noticeably even if it's just thrown away.

Scout Car + FHT is less of a problem in my experience than the Ostheer player just holding the fuel with conservatively-placed grens and getting a P-IV out quickly.

+1. Grenades go where you click, not just in the building. Aim for the window with the MG.

Yup. Had a lot of molotovs not killing a last man in the building because I aimed at the side the MG wasn't point out of.

^

Nice cast; I think the reason Inverse was happy to go into the middle was that the conscripts hopping in and out of the church had given him vision over that central area for pretty much the whole game, so he could feel reasonably confident there were no tellers there.