Profile of HS King

That's much easier said than done, especially against good players. They can just move the Katy as soon as they hear the Stuka firing. Good lucky getting Volks that far behind enemy lines. A sneaky puma might work but that relies on not hitting mines or running into a Con squad. Ostheer has better options via a 222 or even a 251 loaded up with 1 sweeper pio and a schrecked up Pgren squad, but it is still extremely dangerous/difficult to properly counter a Katyusha.

The larger issue at play in my opinion is actually the 120mm mortar/Pack howi/B4/ML-20. The fact of the matter is, if you do not have a stuka dive bomb in your team-game, you WILL lose to the B4. You can build the B4 inside your base sector, or so far behind the front lines that is will be effectively impossible to reach. After thorough testing last night the only truly guaranteed B4 kill is flare or recon + stuka dive bomb - other off-maps have the potential to de-crew but not fully kill the gun (although some do sometimes depending on the RNG of the shells landing). Either way it completely pigeon-holes Axis into playing Jaeger Armor, because for whatever reason Luftwaffe Supply is banned in tournaments (I think the fear of feeding OKW fuel for a super fast KT, although I think the B4 is way more game-breaking than luftwaffe supply).

The 120mm mortar out-ranges every other mortar in the game, except the ISG which is absurdly over-priced for its current performance. It has the best AoE profile of every mortar in the game, has a small area in which the barrage ability will scatter, a 6 man crew, precision strike, and can retreat with 1 model alive. It's completely stupid. The only threat to the 120mm is a walking stuka, once again pigeon holing the axis players into spending an exorbitant amount of fuel on a single piece of indirect fire in order to counter your man-power only based mortar, which inevitably leads to being over-run by masses of medium armor.

Pack Howi is mostly an issue with the vet 2 bonus which freaking DOUBLES the damage that it does... I'm not sure why this was ever considered to be a good idea. Relic tested damage increasing Vet on Rifles in the WFA alpha and it was abundantly obvious that units gaining damage with vet completely broke the game - so I honestly have no clue why the B4 and the Pack Howi gain bonus damage.

Spreading your army out against any of these units only minorly reduces the chance of having units instantly die. In my opinion none of these things should have the capability of wiping a full health squad off the face of the map. There's just no counter-play. You hear the B4 start shooting, you can maybe guess the general area in which it is shooting but unless you are able to move everything out of the area between hearing the shot fire, correctly guessing the point at which the shot is coming, and the shot actually landing you will always have a chance of having something die. Also, it is essentially impossible to move everything that quickly out of the area with the way support weapons have to pack up. And during combat you can't predict where a 120mm/Pack howi shell is going to land, eventually you WILL lose squads. I cannot remember a game in which I built a 120 or Pack Howi that didn't 1 shot at least 1 squad, generally I lose track of the number of squads I wipe with these things. Oh the M8 Scott is another big felon in this department.

Anyways, the notion that Player B has to go a specific doctrine in order to counter the doctrine that play A chose is poor design in my opinion. This is true for the B4/ML-20. The notion that indirect fire should have the capability to 1 shot squads with impunity is also poor design in my opinion. I play CoH 2 to satisfy my inner WW 2 nerd as well as try and tactically out-play my opponent. To beat Axis this patch you pretty much just make a couple 120s, bombard any forward truck on cool-down until it is dead. If there are no forward trucks just put the 120s somewhere safe and wait till you hear "We fucked up that squad!" over and over again. It's really dumb. I spent like 5 hours playing 2v2s with Sib as allies yesterday going strictly captain tier with a Pack Howi. Didn't lose a single game. My Pack Howis always 1 shot squads and generally ended games at vet 3 with a disgusting amount of kills.

+1

The way the large mortar is designed is just a joke - it has every advantage but no disadvantage at all. The precision strike ability has to be one of the worst thought out ones in this whole game.

Hey I thought this replay is quite interesting - because its a COH match with armies that are basically available in COH2 on what is essentially a COH2 map.

I did not know that the map crossing in the woods was originally a coh map - watch this game, its quite different as the standard openings are much more like COH2 ones, as are the tactics used in this battle.

Many important lessons can be learned about mines, veterancy, early game strategies, and map control.
I know some people wont like the sniper play - but it shows how making the wrong teching choices and unit builds can have a big effect down the track - something that COH2 simply does not have.

I have to say this isn't the best game I have seen or anything, but its likeness to COH2 is quite uncanny and I think it can show a lot of COH2 players why people regard the original game in such high stead.

I think relic could learn a thing from this replay as well


http://www.twitch.tv/sundaynightfights/b/310693644

EDIT: I think another very vital thing to watch for is the pacing of the match, how the early game progresses, how long it takes for something like the tiger to come out - as well as the effectiveness of vehicles ( m8 for example) these are very strong in the right situation, but never overpowered much like vehicles in coh2 which tend to over do things.

I wanted to share a great replay - and as it was mentioned its a COH forum not coh2. Plus you wouldn't have said that if you actually watched this match..

about $19.50 too expensive in my opinion

The very idea of having off map arty like the USA p4 and this anti tank is beyond bad gameplay. They require no skill to use what so ever and basically win you the match with a single click.

Not only that, it takes no effort to save munitions as all points give fuel and muni, so you can expect to see them more than once per round.

Evading them is next to impossible due to the slowness of all vehicles in this game, and even if they were evadable they are implemented into the game about as badly as one could imagine.

They are one step down a "I win" button. It actually sickens me a bit to think anyone would think this is a good idea in a Company of Heroes game.

I genuinely cant believe the mindset of anyone that defends this sort of bs. I am reaching the point where I genuinely have nothing in common with a COH2 fan.

For the mouth breathers that defend this - explain how you "wont blob" your tanks, or move out of the area in a.) terribly designed maps where you are forces to blob ( nearly all maps) or b.) as you are pulling off an attack ( you units are all in pretty close distance) and then at the very best case scenario you will take heavy damage from these planes and then either escape with little not no health or be destroyed by the opponents army.

The closest thing COH had to this was the strafing run, which was a pinning move. This meant it was no OP but still a bit lame. It cost 200 muni in a game where 200 muni actually meant something and would not win you the game in a single pass, unless you got damn lucky and your opponent really messed up.

Not perfect but definitely could live with it.