Profile of Aerohank

Guards are mediocre as anti infantry. Their PTRS AT rifles have a 5% chance to instantly kill infantry, and when the RNG god doth shine down upon thee it can mean very good news.

The PTRS is the worst anti-infantry weapon in the game and it does not have a 5% insta kill chance.

Guards PTRS rifles have 5% accuracy at close range, down to 2.5% accuracy at max range. A single PTRS round does 40 damage, which is not enough to kill a full health model, except snipers and ostruppen.

The average DPS of a single PTRS at close range is roughly 0.4; meaning that on average, a single PTRS will kill one model per every 3:20 minutes at close range. At max range it's half of that, meaning that a single PTRS will kill about 1 model for every 6:40 minutes of firing at long range.

Shocktroopers would be fine if they were to be put back to 2 cp.

Nerfing them and keeping them at 1cp would just be a huge 'F*ck you' to soviet players. It would make them soviet panzergrenadiers without the option for AT weapons and an added cost of 1 less commander slot.

No, keep the shcktroopers strong. Let the soviets have something that can stand up to upgraded german infantry. Just put them back at 2 cp.

When I build sandbags to fortify a position, I usually build them at an angle that will protect my troops from frontal assaults, while at the same time providing little protection when used by the enemy.

Here is a sketch:

Enemy attacks from the top, I defend from the bottom.

|.........|
|.........|
|.........|
|.........|
|\........|
|.\.......|
|..\......|
|.........|
|.........|

| = wall, impassable terrain.
. = open ground.
\ = sandbag position.

My units will be be protected from frontal assaults and are hard to flank in this sketch. However, if I get pushed back, the enemy soldiers will be easily flanked due to the angle of the sand bags.

It's a team game. Have a teammate protect you with an elephant.

Penal troops are problematic. They are good in the early game with their nice DPS and the flame thrower upgrade which can really do a lot of damage to grenadiers before they start to get too many LMG42s. When in cover and equipped with a flame thrower, they can also hold their ground against in incoming panzergrenadier squad.

However, in the later stages of the game they loose a lot of their punch. Once the grenadiers are equipped with LMG42s, they can go head to head with penal troops. Which makes the penal troops cost-ineffective due to their 50% higher upkeep. It gets even worse when the opponent has G43 rifles on their grenadiers. Penal troops, supposed soviet anti-infantry specialists, get absolutely demolished by these much cheaper german soldiers.

Now this would not be too bad if it was easy to get a penal squad in the early game to support early pushes. But, penal troops come from the rather expensive T1 building, which provides no units that can help you in the later stages of game. Just getting a single penal squad isn't worth it. And getting more will just lead to higher man-drain loss via upkeep against cheaper upkeep upgraded grenadiers.