Company of Heroes

why?

I started doing this build order for multiple reasons. First, I was tired of getting pwned by brit mortars. Second, I was tired of getting pwned by brit commandos and fireflys.

So this strat is designed to deny them of XP and CPs, deny them of resources, deny them of late game units and take out those pesky mortars before they are even up.

Basic BuildOrder: Pio, Pio, Pio, Bike, Bike, Bike, MG, Flamer, Volks, MG, Tech, Stormtrooper, Stormtrooper…

Initial cap order

With your initial capping order, munitions should take high priority for flamers and panzerschrecks. Use bikes to harass capping tommies and chase off Lts. Retreat if necessary. Use pios to repair bikes and keep them alive at all costs! You will need to frequently repair bikes. Keep this up until your MG gets out.

bikes vs emplacements

Use the bikes LoS to scout for any treches/enplacements going up. As soon as you see one, target it with all of your bikes. Their damage vs building which are not completed is tremendous. When you see it early, you will take it out without many problems.

In the first 7 minutes...

Your mission is to get your MG firing on their HQ truck and surrounding tommies, while your pios repair bikes, and flamers are firing on the HQ truck. Since he will be firing on your bikes, he will not get much XP so long as you don't let one die. While you are picking off tommies and Lts for XP. Soon you will have enough for stromtroopers (Be sure to be teched to t2 to get panzerschrecks) If you need XP to get storms, try buidling a KKC and getting lvl 1 vet on either inf/bikes/mgs. This should give you more than enough XP for storms.
Get stuh if necessary. At some point you will need a way to deal with blobbed, upgraded tommies. Either tech to t3 for bundled nades OR wait to get a stuh OR get the assault grenades ability on the RHS of blitz. I'm still figuring out which option is the best.

bren carriers can be tricky, but bikes do good damage vs them, and the brits have to PAY munitions to repair, whereas bikes get repaired for free by pios. Just focus fire everything on the bren, and panzerfaust if necessary.

All the games in this post are wins vs brits lvl10 and under (and smurfs with good win/loss ratios). The next post are losses vs N3m and Seph who played excellent vs this strat.


I DON'T think this strat is OP! It takes some practice and alot of micro to pull it off, but it is very satisfying to beat brits in tier1!

Maps

It works on maps which dont have many buildings. Langres and Ango are good maps to do it on. I have had some success on beaux and Wrecked train as well.

Also - I'm only a lvl10 1v1 player (I dont have enough time to commit to get better atm). So i'm sure in the hands of a higher level player, this strat could be competative vs high levels

The game vs Mexico was the first time i ever tried tihs strat, and I think was one of the first times he played brits in ranked. The other games have better cap orders/micro

Give me Feedback! And post your own replays!!

This post has been edited by MrZ: Feb 9 2008, 15:35 PM

Losses vs N3M and Seph

they both played very well

This post has been edited by MrZ: Feb 1 2008, 19:13 PM

Ive actually been wondering about whether a bike spam strat would work early on. Ive always felt they were underpowered, but I will take a look

All of these arent beta replays eh? Because in the beta the Bike is even better but so is the Bren.
But I think Bikes are somewhat underused. They did very well vs Brits and since Beta vs US as well. But on the other side are Jeeps and Brens and both are a tad better than a bike. Anyway, I love bikes and with Blitz you have some nice support for them. VGs with Assault Nades and MG on the Truck = dead Tommy Blob for 50mun

Wow. That's a lot of replays. You've really tested this strat huh? I look forward to watching a few! xD

These are all retail OF. And at first the bren was causing me some troubles. But if you focus fire everything on the bren, it goes down very quickly, and I usually have a faust on the way if I need to.

The great part is bikes are only 180 MP, so it doesnt take long to pump three out, once the brit thinks "oooh bike spam" they aren't expecting MG, volks, flamer, storms which obliterate their tommy blob. Never tried assault nades, would be interesting and alot cheaper than teching to t3 for bundled nade, good idea



It took awhile to get all these. Most were from automatch, so many of my games were vs americans or on wrong maps. But the games vs seph/n3m I asked for just to try it.

I wish I had more time to test vs higher level players, but I dont, so I was hoping by posting the strat, more people would try it

also as a result of this strat, I think there is a bug on the souther part of langres. The souther part of the road (From the mid vp down to the south base) does not give vehicles a speed bonus. In fact i think it actually slows them down.

I mention it to n3m in our game on langres, but I just avoid the bug by not microing onto the road.

I was actually curious about bikes recently, can you (OP) or anyone else go into the difference of bikes vs volks? In addition to the durability of the two previously mentioned?

im not sure about the exact numbers (in terms of damage output and input) but the biggest advantage to bikes is that when they take damage, the brit does not get XP. When a volks squad takes damage and lose men, the brit gets a little XP for each man (giving them quicker commandos)

I also know that at the first level of vet for the bike, they get a .85 incoming damage multipier.

someone else might be able to answer your question better than I can.

Hey,

I just watched 2 replays and the strat is pretty nice, your real in advantage are the fast bikes vs the slow brits ánd the fact that you have way more forces on the map. You really have to kill that first mortar-emplacement or else it will destroy your MG+Pio's+Bike blob =0

Gotta try this strat out myself =)

Cheers,

taking out mortars and trenches is very important (and easy to do with bikes)

post any games you play with this strat

P.S. I like your sig

3 bikes and keeping them a live is no easy game play.
So I'm suggesting that this Strategy be used on the mid players like the 8 and up.

Also if you are having trouble on repairing your bikes with Pios right away get a Repair Bunker.
Cost you a bit of money but that means you have more free time to move your Pios around.
All you have to do is move the bikes to the area and they will repair it without your attention.

But why Blitz though?
If you are getting to T2 why not just Grens?
They also got Shrecks.

Also yeah Bikes are deadly. +2 on inf or each one and if you get 3 of them to focus fire thats an MG shooting with no long pauses. Get 4 and you have something stronger than an MG.

I find it that if you attk the units with your bikes at a longer distance it does more damage.
Like a whip.
and with Jeeps you gotta get closer to do decent damage.

i went blitz originally for stormtroopers --> stuh. Gives quick options for schrecks/armor. I also liked JgPzHetzer's idea of using assault grenades on tommy blobs.

I really like the idea of a repair bunker as well, i will have to try it sometime.

Yeah when you got an army of tanks, or in this case bikes, it helps.
Plus they have a very wide radius compared to their fellow medics.

Assault Grenades are fun to use on anyone since they have to keep on moving but thats still 50 ammunition which is quite expensive in the beginning. Wouldn't it be better used on Flames.
Plus if you keep all of your Pios alive you now have Pio Flame Army!

Been testing out this strat. It's str8 killa on Langres. Keep em coming man. Brits just whine and cry when I use it.

good strat

lol

I've run into a long streak of american players on automatch lately, and i've been busy, and playing 2v2 beta, dont have any new replays atm

feel free to post any of your games.

This post has been edited by MrZ: Feb 7 2008, 16:03 PM

i didnt watch all of your replays now, but a few.
Some questions:

What are you planing to do if the Brit goes strait for:
a) a Inf bren (like sepha) that kills your bikes pretty fast.
b) a rifle nade team that can kill your mgs

did just wonder about that while watching.

But i like the strat and are going to test it in a few beta games

good questions, as these are two of the most dangerous situations to this strat. All i can really say is micro and focus firing on those squads. those two tommy upgrades arent strat-killers, but definately help the brit player fight against bikes.

I would probably try to use assault grenades from the RHS of the blitz tree. Those could chew infantry up pretty quick. (but i have never tried this)

needs more testing tbh, I just havent played vs brits on ango/langre/beaux/train in the last week.

This post has been edited by MrZ: Feb 7 2008, 22:42 PM

i played vs 2 Brits on Ango in the beta this night.

Worked pretty well, but i have probs to micro my bikes so well...

Used assault nades both times and it was fine. They rock when used with volks! more than bundle nades maybe + you dont need t3.

i thought about using a mortar instead to kill pinned squads and stuff. but did not try