I played a few games last night and from what I have learned the "The Motherland needs no strat" strat is definitely dead. Your capping ability at the start (as russians) is pretty reliant on being where those big bad pios aren't.
The strategy that seemed to work for me was to go with the defensive doctrine and building a wall of the 45mm at guns covered by a couple of the dshk mgs and progressively leapfrogging your way across the map, then building some su-85 late in the game to do the heavy lifting on the multiple tigers that get called in due to your slow progression to regain map control.
Conscripts for me have been downgraded from the bulk of my force to merging and reinforcing at guns.
I wonder how long it will be until the "The fatherland needs no strat" strat becomes a thing and people are just spamming pios to beat up on the Russian inf.
