Company of Heroes

How to use Riflemen




Made straight out of the barracks, the presence of riflemen on the battlefield can be felt from the very start of the game right up to the very end of it. This guide will show you how best to use your riflemen squads and their upgrades throughout the game.



Unit/Upgrade Description


Riflemen

Cost: 270 Manpower.
Good vs Infantry & motorbikes.

Good damage vs infantry and has more men than volksgrenadiers, riflemen are so powerful because they're such a diverse unit and can take on mbikes, volksgrenadiers, pioneers, snipers, even MG's when flanking them. With upgrades like BAR's, grenades and stickies, riflemen can still provide worthy firepower even near the end of a long game. Note that whenever riflemen meet volksgrenadiers in combat it's best to get as close-up as they possibly can, also make sure they're well protected in cover.

M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle

Cost: 200 Manpower & 60 Fuel
Good vs Infantry.

This upgrade is extremely expensive and slows down the allies tech by a mile, use BAR's in special situations where the axis have an infantry-heavy army and mp40's are really causing you problems. In addition to increasing riflemen's firepower output passively, BAR's add the supress ability that for 40 munitions will supress and near instantly pin any nearby enemy troops.

MK2 'Pineapple' Grenade

Cost: 100 Manpower & 40 Fuel.
Good vs Infantry, MG's, AT-Guns.

Catch an Axis player's volksgrenadier squad with one of these while he's not looking, and half the squad can be blown up. For the mere cost of 25 munitions per use, the MK2 'Pineapple' grenade will allow your riflemen to easilly beat volksgrenadiers in combat and even camped MG's that are causing you big problems. To clear out a whole building of troops at once, try and throw the grenade on the same side the MG is shooting out of.

Sticky Bombs

Cost: 80 Manpower & 25 Fuel.
Good vs Tanks, AC's.

Sticky bombs will take your riflemen into mid-late game battles where stugs and pumas will be plenty, sticky bombs will assist your AT and tank firepower by damaging enemy armor. For 35 munitions per use, once thrown a sticky bomb will fly onto a nearby AC/tank and almost always damage it's engine with the first hit, slowing the vehicle down so that any other AT nearby can mop-up the remains.



Deployment

The second after your barracks has been built, use the F2 button to quickly select the barracks and R to build a riflemen squad, throughout the game every single time you want to make another riflemen squad do this, it's fast and requires no effort at all. Set your Barracks rally point by selecting the barracks with F2 and right clicking on the map wherever you want all units to go once produced from the barracks.



It's best to have riflemen all over the field so that if one gets caught in MG fire, you can quickly bring up another riflemen squad to flank and destroy the MG team. The same goes for clearing MG's out of buildings, you can't rush in and throw a grenade inside an MG's arch of fire so aproach it from a different angle and toss a grenade in with minimal casualties.



Riflemen Tactics




Flanking Machine Guns is one of the most important things a riflemen squad can do on the battlefield early in the game, when an MG is pinning 1-2 squads of your riflemen make sure you keep them in cover and bring up another riflemen squad from behind. Even if there's a volksgrenadir squad nearby make sure you get up close and right click the MG to kill them and bring your other riflemen squads up to dispose of the remaining volksgrenadiers.




Just like the regular flank, when there's excessive firepower supporting the mg you will have to toss a grenade instead. Get just close enough to throw the grenade, if the Axis player isn't fast enough at moving the MG it'll get caught by the grenade and even the MG itself won't be left behind.




Building circling is the earliest option to dealing with mg's in buildings if you don't have any other units around to provide a distraction. Try and get up close to a building that an MG is about to enter or walk into one from behind a hedgerow and start circling around it. The MG won't be able to fire at your units since it'll keep being redeployed at a slow rate. Note: sometimes the 2 mg gunners will kill your riflemen faster than the riflemen kill the MG squad, other times a riflemen may lag behind and get caught in mg fire. This is micro intensive aswell, and very risky.




Just like with MG's on the ground, make sure you flank MG's that are in buildings the same way; use a unit to distract the MG and go in from behind to attack normally or throw a grenade in. Take caution that when throwing grenades in the MG might try to exit and enter the building again, try to cut them off by entering the building first or standing in the doorway.




When fighting volksgrenadiers in battle, it's important to get close up because volks reload time is faster and their HP is higher, this allows the volks to excell at long range fire since combat is slower giving their fast reload times an advantage and allowing damage to be distributed more between their squad members with higher HP. Even if the volks are in green cover your riflemen can walk straight up to the green cover and use it for their own cover!




Lastly when dealing with early pumas or stugs, riflemen upgrades may have delayed your tech so AT-Gun's and M10's might not be out for a while. With smart use of mines to destroy engines and slow vehicles down, Riflemen can make quick work an injured AC with their sticky bombs. That's a whole AC taken out for just 95 munitions, 1 mine + 2 stickies.


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This post has been edited by Sepha: Oct 27 2006, 16:57 PM