Profile of astro_zombie

Yeah I agree, as I said, the smoke will block fire, good or bad, from going through. You need to decide whether or not you want to be protected and apply AJAX white phosporous cleaner (trademark) with caution.

Remember that it has no turret, its biggest weakness. Most people's micro of it makes me laugh when they need to move it defensively.

You should have your own jagd or a KT to deal with it. Guards are not very good DPS even with DPs and obers or fusiliers are more tailored to deal with them than volks.

Except rifle company, that is. This commander is so good compared to everything else, if only for the E8 and vet infantry, even though that was reasonably nerfed. It has the great white phosphorous smoke artillery too. I don't even own it but when we got it free it made me realize how much the others suck in comparison.

The soviets get much better commanders as well. Ones like advanced warfare are well rounded. I feel that too many USF commanders have too many deadweight abilities.

I don't own any of the rare commanders, but I've seen the greyhound in action and it looks useless. I also cannot see the airborne battlegroup being anything but a gimmick. I really resent that I have to pick a commander for a simple thing like sandbags. Are any of the artillery options good, again, except for rifle companies? I don't think any of them are, especially not the priest either. I find myself constantly picking the airborne doctrine because there is far too much deadweight in the others, thompsons for vehicle crews, awful artillery, hell even the thunderbolt airstrike can be a gigantic waste of resources half the time.

When we pick them apart, what is useful about each?

Infantry: m1919, but I would rather not pick this doctrine and get BARs or again, airborne. SANDBAGS, ugh.

Armor: Assault engies are good for about the first 30 seconds of play and are then on demo duty if they don't get melted for the entire game. Bulldozer is as redundant as the greyhound.

Airborne: Like I said, my most picked, but the M2HB and AT gun with no crew is so expensive it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Airborne are good, but I don't see them as useful as a vet rifleman squad with a BAR or two. The airstrike that is at the peak of this doctrine can't be directed as in COH1, why? Sometimes I swear it does nothing.

Am I just ranting or crazy? Both? I think a lot of it is due to the rifle company having the late game punch that the others lack.

We are all guilty of it, but you should not retreat with one or two models. You are asking to die. Also important to note is the health of the models remaining, and not just the fact that 3 men are still standing. 3 guys with 5 hp left is not good either. You can't tell exactly how much HP they have, but if 3/5 men are left and the HP bar is 1/10th of maximum, then you can get a pretty clear picture.

Everyone has been f'd by retreat paths. sturmpios and rifles may make things tougher early game because it's not just bolt action rifles anymore, but it's the same rule since coh1.

No programmer can write omniscient code. Every situation and every retreat path cannot be accounted for to give what in your mind is the most optimal route, so it is up for you the player to make the call.

Did you hop a fence to get where you were? Then realize that the retreat path will not allow you to hop over said fence/obstacle. Is this something that can be explored? Probably. It doesn't sound like vaulting over obstacles would be too difficult to implement, but then again this game also doesn't have real side armor on tanks, but I digress...

Yeah I agree with you Von. It seems like they want you to fight with them, but why? lol. It isn't clicking with me.