Profile of rumartinez89

Good point. I somehow connect the airborne rally point with airborne Guards, probably because they have existed only in combination for a long time.
The accuracy veterancy bonus not especially bad. Guard Rifles get +30% as well. Almost every unit in the game either gets +30% or +40% in total. On a quick search, I can't find a real pattern, it is not depending on elite/non-elite nor the optimum range. However, that doesn't mean though that Airborne Guards couldn't use a +40% buff instead the +30%. Maybe that is what they are lacking.

Cons/Shocks/AssG/Commissar all get 40% which makes it fairly strange but Guards do get the best REC ACC bonus out of all of them. That leaves Airborne with the short stick as it is technically two units in one. I think the VET ACC was dropped since cloak>First strike bonus plus 40%acc could lead to some BS wipes if nades are used. However as that doesn't apply to LMG Airborne it left them in a weird spot.

As A soviet main I would like to see all Guards variants get firing positions. Could lead to some interesting performance.

As I have messed around with the different Guards I have noticed they each have some funny quirks. IF you have any for other units please post.

Penals:
1. If you manage to pick up any LMG it is a good idea to upgrade that squad to PTRS as the opponent wont be able to tell from a quick glance.
2. This trick does not work well with flamethrowers, if you order the Penal to attack a LV it will attempt to close in and attack with Flamethrower instead of staying at max range with PTRS.
3. Picking up just 1 PTRS allows a regular Penal squad to use AT satchel while still having most of its AI.

Airborne Guards:
1. If you pick up a weapon the DP upgrade will drop to 40muni and only give you 1DP.
2. If you pick up a weapon, going for the PPSH upgrade is the better choice as you get cloak and smoke. So you can have a LMG42/5PPSH that can shoot on the run which makes for a great chase down squad. This also allows easy usage of 1st strike as you now have an LMG squad that can get a camo bonus vs trying to stay stationary and hoping you shoot first with just PPSH.

Assault Guards:
1. IF you pick up a weapon you can no longer get the Thompson upgrade.
2. However, if you upgrade Thompsons first you can still pickup another weapon. Flamethrower is a great choice as you will dominate all short range squads. LMG is also good as you will do great damage at all ranges. Shreks/Zooks work extremely well also as Assg get a unique reload bonus at VET2 along with zook specialist. So you end up with a do it all squad.

On paper Guards are one of those units that are nice but in actuality are shit because they don't offer anything new that Soviets don't have access too already.

Penal Battalions come out sooner than Guards and thus will have veterancy compared to Vet 0 Guards. You can upgrade them and the AT Satchel is a good enough deterrent against dives that Vehicle Button is not needed.

What I am saying here is that the Soviet base kit is strong enough that it doesn't need Guards. It is not like USF and Pathfinders. Guards are not a bad unit but are worthless. Against a player with a brain, they are not going to let your Guards sit in prone for 30 seconds while they take you out. They will be hit with grenades, hit with mortar barrages, Stuka/Panzerwerfered or even air striked.

The lack of mobility make Guards an easy way to drain your MP when you can simply have other units that are cheaper and almost as effective.


This is why Airborne Guards are vastly superior. Not everything is about damage and 1v1 but more about how they fit into the army as whole. Airborne Guards are better due to the more mobile combat of COH2, and the Vet 1 air strike may not do alot of damage but it can force the enemy to move while your units are safely shooting at them.

Forcing movement is a very powerful tool when utilized correctly as a soft form of crowd control. Take for example a situation where you have a Maxim and it is getting flanked by an OKW blob. Normal Guards can't do much to help you accept touch the ground and await the anal pounding that is about to happen to your Maxims.
Meanwhile Airborne Guards with Vet 1 can force the enemy to move buying you time to reposition allowing you to hold the position or avoid a hard retreat back to base.

If your a Penal player, I would assume you would know at best you will have 1 Vet2 Penal at CP2, if all your units have seen equal action you might have all Vet1 Penals. The moment Guards hit the field and get DPs they are similar to or better than Penals at ranges 20 and above. At R20 Guards do 15.7 while Penals do 18.7, that is comparing 4 models to 6 because I am not sure if the PTRS damage figures are accurate if you include them Guards beat them at R20. And just so we are clear, Guards Vet1 is not being used for DPS calculation.

You also need to remember that Guards will Vet faster compared to AI Penals since they can reliably damage and chase away if not destroy LVs.

Next you want to upgrade Penals with PTRS, that now means you have 1 squad that is now useless in an AI battle. 3Penals/1Guard is going to beat out 2Penals/1PTRS Penal/1LMGAirborne thru sheer DPS along with Guards PTRS having way better performance due to the bug. Now you might want to include Airborne VeT1 ability into this, that pass takes about 3-4 secs to come in. Moving and resetting your units separately will negate it just as it would in you weak example of the OKW blob vs maxim. Literally breaking the blob into 2 smaller blobs would completely negate and force you to retreat just as it would with regular Guards.

Now the weird thing to your arguments is that you act as if Guards have to stay in fighting positions for their performance. They don't, they just perform better when they are. So PW/Stuka/nades/air strike/mortar will do the same to them as any other unit, also they can retreat while in fighting positions I am really not sure why you brought that up.

Honestly. Sandbags cover to cover fight between late game units is silly. Extremely silly. I can't remember when was the last time I fought green to green cover with vet3 paras/rifles against obers, grens....

The only realistic scenarios are:

Late game vet3+ units: Yellow crater cover
Starting engagements: Yellow map cover and green cover

Sandbags cover is only realistic in early game and MAYBE 1v1s mid to late game. Pure late game, it's quite silly to test sandbags as they won't survive for long.

While I do agree that it is silly to test sand bags for late game, all testing is done under ideal situations that are not 100% replicable in game. Fire fights are started at the same time for both squads which hardly ever happens, one unit usually needs to get in position before it starts firing so that one will most likely lose if units are fairly evenly matched. Using only light cover will most likely just show Obers dominating all the LR squads as the other units have worse EHP compared to guards. I will not pretend to understand the RNG system but I would assume using green cover allows the fight to take longer so that RNG can smooth out compared to testing several light cover battles were a lot of the fight depends on if Guards get favorable RNG with PTRS.

Guard motor is a complete doctrine. It has gaurds, 120mm, t34 85, self repair, mark target. This is the reason its picked, all options bring something valuable to the table.
So if you disagree please explain how just having guards makes a doctrine viable, as their as doc with gaurds wich arent so good or even bad depending on the game mode.

Shocks are as good but in different situations. Always map dependend. But since we only have laney and open maps wich are picked or used in tournies shocks or any other cqc squad have next to no use.
Gaurds in all their forms are the only long range squad soviets have. And with only open and laney maps they work excelently.
Again they need to be immobile to do anything, force them to move and you already stopped them. they drop weapons almost like bread crums. If the ptrs is bugged it should be fixed, but i never noticed it.
I do stand corrected on the cost of the upgrade. Would have sworn it was 100 at least.

If they are so OP why isent every wiped penal or cons squad replaced by guards in many games?
If they cant or rather shoudnt be allowed to stand up to obers in even a few situations should we buff their at power? Wich in the late game is limited at best imo. As button is more valuable then the ptrs in the late game imo. But axis magic escape card ptact hard counters it.

So for Guard motor if your replace Guards with Shocks/AssG/Airborne Guards do you think it is better or worse?

The maps have favored long range squads for a while now, and as you said most maps are lany and open so it is fairly unimportant when Shocks are good because it ain't happening often enough for it to pay off.

You are still making wrong statements about "Guards". AssGuards are not long range so they do not come LR in all their forms. Airborne Guards do not need to be immobile to fire their LMG. While they do drop weapons their weapon drop rate was reduced significantly. I do not mean to come off as snarky but you seem to talk about "Guards" as if they aren't completely different from each other.

What is many games? Are you talking about games you play or games you watch? I would place more emphasis on higher ranked players as they know how to handle in game situations best. So using tightrope as an example when he lost a squad(Guards) he replaced it with more Guards. Hell he even titled the video "Guards make Soviets easy mode" where he uses the team focused Guards commander with howi and bomb drop which is probably the worst one for 1v1.

It is pure foolishness to replace Penals with more Penals in the lategame. You should be replacing them with either cons or Guards where cons can merge and damage engine while Guards help create the chance to snare the vehicle due to PTRS and button. Point being that there is more to Guards performance than just commander abilities or raw DPS.

Perhaps prone position should be removed from guards then and given to airborne guards only? Idk if that solves everything, but I think it directly addresses the point your making here

I think USF paras can do okay vs obers with their abilities. The suppressing fire is pretty good, will at least force the obers to cancel it out with their smoke

I agree with both statements.

I have tried to think of different solutions such as giving them the same camo as PPSH, better vet, or better DP base stats. I think your right in giving Airborne firing positions would solidify them as the LR soviet squad, maybe make Button a VET1 ability for Guards to smooth out their utility.

As both squads can perform suppressing fire that would be hilarious to see.