most of the time thats not the end of the world.
it gives the germans 2-3 minutes of dominance just like i dominated 2-3 minutes before with the penals in the m3.
after thet a t70 or a t34 rolls out wich turns the tide again.
then the p4 arrives and the osther again has the upper hand.
at the end of the day it all comes down who is the better player.
i dont think that penals are overperforming or as good as cons with ppsh, shocktroops or guards.
but: if you choose a doctrin that dont has any of these. they are a very viable choice the way they are now.
most times i use the doctrine with radio intercep +crew repais+ 2* t34 85+ is2 + stafe.
all of them very powerfull abilities but the doctrine lacks the fancy infantrie stuff.
2 penal units give me what i need in terms of infantry fighting power in this case.
looking at the game stats after the game my penals most of the time have dealt more than 1.5 times the infantry damage that my conscrips have inflicted. and that is while i had mostly a 3/2 ratio of conscrips running around. that would be 2.25 more damage for less then 1.5 times the price because of merge.
Merge makes them just reinforce for about the same cost as Grens.
I take issue to that. G43 Grens will mow them down and do it for less upkeep (this is important in my eyes and left out of most discussions) and less initial cost while about the same reinforcement cost on a faction that really doesn't bleed that much manpower.
I find this particularly hypocritical when it comes to balance. PPSH scripts are balanced or nerfed based on whether they can beat AI pgrens (360MP) yet its perfectly OK that G43 Grens beat 360 MP Penals (not to mention what Pgrens can do to them)
I use Penals successfully all the time. But this is DESPITE their weakness and costing far too much for their performance.
I would hardly think they are fine at 360 MP. If they are going to perform worse than 240 MP Generalist unit with a 60MP upgrade that all the while has faust.
When you put them in this perspective you see how terribly over priced they are in their current state.
The only advantage they have is they are WAY better than scripts...thats like balancing Grens at a UP level because they are better than Ostruppen.