Profile of Trashkitty

Been playing all throughout the open beta and I have some concerns over general lack of Ostheer options which boils down to core gameplay features. I'm going to review both units and strategies which I think are detrimental to the development of the game and/or a match. Generally speaking, it boils down to, in my opinion at least, five main concepts.

1) Lack of flexibility in strategy/weakness of T1
2) Support squad weakness
3) Munitions Starve
4) Anti-tank vs Anti-Infantry balance
5) Veterancy

1) Tier 1 is pretty much worthless.

a) Grenadiers aren’t more powerful nor are they as versatile as Scripts. They lack the mobility of Hoorah. Rifle nades are ok, but tovs control the buildings better which makes them superior early . Upgrades to make grens better either come online too late (G43) or have drawbacks that make them not worthwhile (LMG slowness + muni drain). Compound this with the fact that they require a building to construct means they can’t even go toe to toe in map control. Panzerfaust is worthless in countering Clown Car vs good players who know how to kite the range.
b) MG42 is easily flanked by Hoorah unless you have a second MG42 to protect its flank. This means going MG42 requires you to get 2 less you risk giving your only HMG to the enemy. Requiring dual MG42 means you cannot aggressively control the map and relegates you to focusing on a single interest point (Usually Fuel+Cap node). Predictability isn’t good. MG42 also gets dominated by clown cars.
c) Mortars teams only have 3 men. When 2 die the last retreats. To protect one mortar squad, you need 2 Grens using LoS to protect vs clown cars and 2 HMGs to prevent Hoorah’d scripts. This still requires you to play defensively in a single sector and doesn’t provide much benefit as a Russian player won’t be rushing you when he already has 66% of the map for free. Additionally, if you go mass support troops the heavy doctrinal mortar will be the death of you.
d) Snipers are the 2nd worst unit in the game only eclipsed by the pak. Six unit squads means the german sniper is for all intents and purposes half as lethal as it’s Russian counterpart and over twice as easy to kill. Mobile scripts and abundant clown car strats makes this unit entirely obsolete.

2) 6 men make all the difference.

a) If German support squads get killed, a Russian squad can sustain 33% unit loss and still man the unit and retreat to replenish. German units must sustain 0% unit loss in order to retrieve support weapons and still be able to replenish.
b) The only unit that can aggressively flank and try to steal support weapons is the Panzergrenadier. Panzergrenadiers have no defensive bonuses AFAIK over the Gren. Now, this problem is compounded in point 4 as the PG is generally speaking your best anti infantry option and you 100% cannot afford to lose them to man guns as they need vet levels ASAP.
c) The overall lack of German capability to aggressively push and steal support weapons is a problem. The flame HT nerf made it nigh impossible to take them.

3) Too many units require munitions to be effective.

a) Grens need to upgrade their weapon to be able to beat scripts who aren’t using HTD. These munitions can’t be used early as they need to be saved either for fausting clown cars or upgrading scout cars or HTs.
b) Mid game you need to liberally use PG grenade bundles in order to retake the majority of the map from Russian infantry.
c) End game you have to decide between using your area denial artillery or setting up teller mines.

4) Bazookas and you/ Some units and upgrades make no sense.

a) Some units like the Ostwind make no sense. It can’t be acquired before your opponent can acquire it’s direct counter, the T34. Also, the units it’s designed to kill can throw an AT nade and cripple it’s engine so it can’t even retreat.
b) Since the Ostwind can’t reach battlefield effectiveness as an Anti-infantry unit, this leaves your sole means as Panzergrenadiers. Because of this, your PGs should rarely, if ever, upgrade to bazookas as you’ll be left with nothing to take territory from enemy infantry.
c) Compounding this fact is that german armor only really excels at killing other armor. The stug was overnerfed which leaves the panzer 4 as the best go to tank. The main problem with the stug is that to kill a tank generally requires it to move forward to try to land killing blows, but AT nades critting its engine makes it wildly susceptible to follow-up flanks as it doesn’t have a swivel turret gun. This forced defensive posture for the tank wouldn’t be so bad if the Stug’s gun hit infantry like the T34, but it doesn’t.
d) Upgraded scout cars are necessary to kill clown cars, but after the upgrade they cannot even stop a solo engineer vet 0 from capping a node completely.
e) Pak guns are a 100% joke. As it is, German fuel is used to kill tanks and german manpower is used to kill infantry. SU-76, ZiS-3, Flanks, heavy mortars, and ISU all completely shut the unit down to the point where it rarely fires a shot let alone kills a unit.

5) Who wants to live forever?

a) Panzergrenadiers need vet levels ASAP in order to remain relevant against HTD PPSH Scripts or shock troops. I like this idea. The problem is with things like the ZiS/ISU/HMortars completely one shotting full hp vetted Panzer Grens sometimes. Obviously you need to do your scouting with your infantry, and when scouting causes you to lose your entire squad with something you can’t even react to, then there is a problem.
b) There is no counterpart for the germans to instantly kill Russian squads outside of the joke that is the Brummbar. Good Russians rarely ever lose a squad which leads to triple vet infantry all over the place for them.

To Summarize, I don’t think everything listed needs to change. In fact, I think plenty of it would be quite fine remaining as is. The problem is when all of it coincides, it causes the matches to become stale and repetitive. Germans can never go tier 1. Some units are rarely purchased even with the required tech (Pak/Brumm/Panzerwerfer). Some units are so niche that it requires other units which should be more versatile to become niche themselves. Etc. Etc.

I welcome any thoughts/feedback/critiques.