Profile of Adder

I feel dirty posting this, but I think it's important to spark discussion.

A little background:
I'm about an 80/20 ostheer/soviet player. I have a pretty good win ratio against most builds, with the single exception of maxim spam. I'm 0-6 against Maxims (and about a 70% winner overall). I really think that Maxims are far too strong, and that it ultimately becomes the Soviet's game to lose if they go for it. However, as the age old strategy game maxim goes (see what I did there?), "play what you think is overpowered and see what people do against it).

Since switching to Russians full time, I've won 11 out of 12 games. All but one opponent was at least level 40. Most games were pretty well decided by ten minutes. The worst part is that it didn't even feel difficult. In most of the games I never once felt like I was really in danger of losing. It was comical watching people try to attack- gren spam, PGs, P4 (HAH!), Ostwind, even snipers.


Here's the outline of the build:
-First engi captures
-Second engi builds Support Weapon Kampaneya (I know there's a slight manpower delay here, i tend to build it towards the outskirts of the base to minimize lost time)
-Maxim, Maxim, Maxim, Maxim
-Select "Guards Motor Coordination Tactic"
-Guards x2 with DPS LMG
-Fuel Depot
-Attack move the enemy, cut off their supplies, set up shop and use pioneers and 1-2 mgs to cap
-lay mines EVERYWHERE (there's literally nothing else to get munis with besides DPS)
-Get SU-85
-Finish the game with Rocket Trucks and another SU-85


This hard counters Grenadier or PG spam. No micro necessary- attack move to win.

Snipers are dealt with rather hilariously. Use MGs to suppress infantry that are screening it, then run a full six-man MG squad AT the sniper. If he stops to take a shot, immediately attack him. Your fast deploy speed means it's quite likely you will get a burst of fire off at him, which will usually kill or severely injure his sniper. 120mm mortar later can also be used to kill him with either the massive AOE of barrage or Precise Shot.

Mortars can be killed by your own 120mm, or more commonly overrun by your plethora of MG teams.

No T3 vehicle can defeat the SU-85, especially with Mark Vehicle. Just make sure to keep your SU-85 way back and use it like an AT gun. They do have trouble penetrating Panther armor, but you can get T-34/85s to Ram it if you'really having a lot of trouble.

Flame halftrack is easily the trickiest thing to fight because of your mediocre mid-game anti-tank abilities (just Guards and mines, though Mark Vehicle helps) and the fact that it can quickly jump around the map, attacking your flanking cappers. However, in all but two of the games I was able to kill it with either Guards or mines + Guards. Planting two mines adjacent to each other can help as well.

Triple pio starts make it a lot harder for you to seize the early game decisively, I've noticed.

Thoughts? Counters? I think something weird like double or triple sniper combined with mass pioneers might work.

Full description of the build is here.

Your quickest access to AT as Soviets are anti-tank grenades for your Conscripts and mines for your engineers.

After that it's Guards.

Next up is the ZiS-3 AT gun, followed by the light tank and SU-76 (requires identical amounts of fuel to reach).

One key to strong play is understanding that you can't always have a hard counter for your opponent's units immediately available. For example, if he built a couple of scout cars early to harass you with, you don't have a reliable AT option until Guards (and that's only if you selected the doctrine). or AT guns (which are fairly immobile) Even so, it's actually not a big deal to let them just shoot at you and lose some men. Stick them in cover or in a building and wait till you have something that'll wipe the cars out easily, like a T-70.

There's a full list of AT weapons separated by phases here.

Tactical Movement costs 30 munitions. I wish it only cost 5 munitions and would be restricted to a single unit, like Oorah.

G43s are actually good. They don't do as much damage as LMG, but they deal it more consistently since they can be used while moving.

IMO the primary weakness of the Jaeger Infantry doctrine is that it's TOO infantry focused. Camo, G43, tac movement, but also incendiary artillery (vs. normal artillery) and the stuka that comes too late and for too high a price. If the artillery was normal that'd be fine. It's unlikely if you're playing this doctrine that you'd be losing against infantry anyway.

I think a key point of his is that he's only really tried it in 2v2.

I'd agree that you'd get rolled trying this in 1v1, though. They'd have way too much map control over you.

Yeah, sorry. No matter how much I look I can't find someone managing clown cars with grens.

I apologize if I made it sound like I thought spamming grens is an effective strategy against clown cars. When I see a clown car, I think, "oh shit, this is going to suck for a while". So far it's just that I'm usually able to maintain enough map control through sheer number of grenadiers that clown cars not my primary issue.

If you're willing to post your 1v1 replays against the best players you've faced using your strategy I'd like to take a look at them. Who knows, maybe you've found the perfect Ostheer strat for the current build?