Company of Heroes

Preface:
Hello all who will listen, I am here to tell you a strategy I have been using recently vs PE. Seeing as PE are about 80% all the matches I get in automatch, I guess you could say it is my main strategy as well now.

Weapon Support Center(WSC) starts are often seen as gimmicky and not as effective as a standard 2 engy>Rax start. While I used to agree with this, I have since changed my mind. This strategy focuses on exploiting natural PE weaknesses as well as the shock value of early MG teams Snipers. It also has a pleasant side effect of denying your opponent CPs. It has done amazingly well for me so far. I have only lost 1 game against PE and I still feel as though I could have won it.

The Ideology
PE basic Infantry are stronger than Rifleman in most situations
Panzer Gren(PG) squads come out faster
PE like to blob units
PE has small squad sizes and no snipers
PE is heavily vechicle based

While I know that there is a little gray area as to PGs being greater than riflemen, I find that they usually are. The reasoning for this is that they should have at least 1 more squad than you on the field at all times and they will be blobbed while you most likely will not. My way to counter this is to not build riflemen. Also instead of directly fighting the blob, I figured I might as well supress them and make them run away.

PGs come out faster and in larger quantities (of squads) because they don't have to build a building in order to produce them. This saves them time and manpower.

Because of the unique veterancy system of the PE. Blobbing units is a very attractive option. MG suppression is a natural counter to blobbing and thus prevents one of PEs greatest strengths. It also forces your opponent to react to you by spreading out his small squads to try to flank your position. This allows them to easily be picked off by snipers and roming M8s.

The Airborne tree is a natural counter to vehicle based strategies. Coincidentally it is also home to the Strafing Run ability. When you combine these two, you have the perfect weapon to fight the blobs of PE soldiers, as well as the armor that will come to support them.

Build Orders:
Here is the basic Build order vs the usual PE opponent:



o you start with the standard 2nd Engineer. You have your first build a WSC. Send your second Engineer to cap points. Early game I focus on fuel. While I generally don't build anything that requires fuel once I get out a M8, the point is to get that M8 out as fast a possible.

:The MG team will be your first and second units out. Find a nice cozy building for them around the middle of the map. They are supposed to lock down sectors for you. Generally your opponent will run right into them and have to retreat his first couple of squads. Use this to your advantage. Decap his fuel and lay mines if you can. If your opponent gets Half-tracks, Remember to use AP rounds. They will destroy half-tracks in 1 or 2 bursts with this ability active.

:Nows where you can begin to play a little aggressively. Snipers are going to be your all around thorn in their sides. Properly microed you will absolutely destroy his army. Once these hit the field, your opponent will be in a constant manpower drain. Remember not to stray to far from your MGs with them for fear of scout cars. Also try to aim for 2 man squads for the insta-gib.

Mid Game:
:your first 50 fuel should go straight into a supply yard. It reduces upkeep and is required to tech. Later in the game if you are floating a little manpower (you will have fuel), then you can also purchase the upgrades.

:By the time your engies are finished with the supply yard, you should have enough to build a motor pool. I am torn between making an M8 or not really. I don't have good micro with it, so I am starting to prefer the AT guns instead, but by all means what you feel most comfortable with. (if your opponent is shreking his inf don't make an M8 and laugh at his wasted resources).

:If you are good with this, it will serve you well. It can kite infantry, is immune to small arms fire, and eats half-tracks for breakfast. It can also circle most tanks to kill them 1 on 1. It lays mines that explode with the force of a mini nuke too. that said, I'm not good with it, so I don't like it. However you should probably try to get good with them because they really are pretty good.

:This is what i prefer now. No longer do you have to fear half-tracks as they go down quick to one of these. If you have 2, they hard counter Armored Cars too. They also serve as P4 killers as 90% of PE players end up P4 rushing against this strat. Don't forget about the AP rounds. Like MGs they will help you tremendously against vehicles.

Thats basically it for build orders. I don't build Tank Depots of Barracks because I don't need them. All of my other stuff comes from the Airborne tree.

Doctrine
I always go Airborne. It has the best answers to axis armor as well as strafing run to take out late game blobs of infantry. In terms of paths I generally go LHS>RHS


:These will be your "Riflemen". I upgrade them as soon as I can. They do reasonably well against infantry and are very good against armor. Fire up is an amazing ability and is great for chasing down retreating vehicles. Satchel charges have their uses against buildings and sometimes infantry.

:Drop behind enemy tanks or half-tracks to get rear shots. late game drop them to bolster defensive lines. Its also pretty good for doping near retreating Half-tracks to get that last shot needed to kill them. Use AP rounds!

:I would trade 100mp for 100 munitions and 40 fuel almost always. Allows you to upgrade units or spam Strafing Runs. I don't think I need to sing the praises of this ability too much as it is simply amazing.

:I don't really use this ability much because I am usually strapped for munitions. I have heard of players who use this to destroy tanks or buildings, but i am no where near that leet.

:The game usually ends after 1 or 2 of these. They punish an opponent for blobbing his infantry. Your opponent will flame you, they will complain about how OP it is, and they will curse you and your mother. This is what makes the ability so enjoyable.

:This has its rare uses. It will knock about 50% of the health off a Jagdpanther. It will also utterly destroy infantry units caught in its path, so look to maximize its effects. Generally if you use this, you have either won or lost.

Vs other Strats
Vs Link0's PG spam. DO NOT rush for a M8. I would make a mortar or 3rd Sniper instead. If you fear half-tracks or a P4 I would drop in Airborne and make AT guns. After Airborne Inf, get strafes. If you feel bold and have 3 CP early. Strafing Runs could be the way to go. If you do this, however I would make sure to have at least 2 AT guns. Better safe than sorry. I feel the MGs and sniper absolutely wreck any attempt to gain map control with PGs alone.

Vs Armored Car rushes. Try to keep MGs in buildings and use AP rounds. MGs actually aren't bad against ACs. Fast M8 should scare them off till you get AT guns up. Also Airborne with Recoilless Rifles aren't bad against them. Just don't lose your cool and they will die eventually.

In Conclusion
I like this strategy because it is fun, powerful and different. I don't really enjoy rifle stall into fast M8 every game, so this is a nice alternative. It is almost guaranteed to throw off your opponent and it lets you capitalize on that. It is also pretty fun to instantly destroy entire squads of soldier with snipers. If nothing else, the Manpower drain it puts on your opponent should put you firmly ahead.

Above all: have fun and don't get angry if you lose

Replay spam in next post.

Most of these were against lvl 7+

This post has been edited by JohnBiolante: Aug 21 2008, 17:23 PM

hmm, see i've been advocating this strat lately also but there is a problem that i found...

(plus as i hit level 7 pe 2 days ago i was playing against mostly 8/9 americans doing that strat and found a decent counter against it)

re: early mg's

pgrens come out much earlier than mg's obviously, the better players push up pretty quickly and they do split them up slightly so you can't supress them with 2-3 bursts... as soon as they're flanked the mg will lose. k43 + unupgraded team will kill an mg if they manage to get into a building as well, if you retreat you lose, if your mg's die, you lose

mortar rounds make a lot of sense against his blobs, but his mHT will kill your mortar team as vehicles take no damage from mortar rounds almost + it will take out your mg's.

the sniper is great, i've been loving it against PE and is my fave part of the strat... however, going luftwaffe + cloaked ketten will decloak it and it'll get either mortared or iHT rushed.

overall i have won a couple games with it (level 7 on angoville and a level 9 on semois), but most of the time if you encounter players who can counter snipers fairly decently you will lose most of the time.

Also, personally I prefer rangers over airborne for better combat against both vehicles and infantry with the thompson upgrade.


overally i prefer the rax->mp for AT -> back to WSC if the situation calls for it for holding points

This post has been edited by sovietlife: Aug 22 2008, 00:09 AM

I find that on larger maps they are forced to retreat before the other squads can come to flank. And on smaller maps the angles of approach are so narrow that you can often prevent flanks by good positioning alone. For example on Wrecked train my first MG went into the house covering the western strat point and the other was protected by the river. Its often easier for the other player to avoid it than it is for them to fight it. They simply wait for a mortar HT. This will push you around a little (just repack and set up somewhere else thats close) until your M8 comes out and destroys it.

I prefer the airborne doctrine over infantry though. Airborne come out a full CP sooner and and supply drops really help with munition shortages you often face. That and airborne can actually kill a P4 with skirts.

I think the real power of the strat is in the suppression department. Suppression is just a huge killing vs Pgrens. And after that you have AT guns to counter the armoured threats. Personally, I still find the biggest problem to be Armored Cars.

After reading this, and watching a few of your replays I decided to give it a try.

Even though I had to retreat my first MG, and completely lost the beginning. My snipers did enough damage to bring me back into the game. I even ran into the immediate mortar halftrack, which I dealt with repeatedly. But it gave me minor problems if any.

it's was a very fun game, especially when I had my last surviving sniper (out of 3) stay in his base the whole game to spot for strafes and bombs on his retreating blobs. not to mention, I knew when to expect every P4 and from which side of his base. I even dropped an AT gun outside of his base to kill a P4 that just came out.

awesome powerful strategy.

check out my replay and let me know what you think.

	wsc_start.rec
	Size: 619k
	Number of downloads: 56
	Player Name	Side	Team
	tehpwnererr		1
	shiyanderu		2

This post has been edited by intenseword: Aug 22 2008, 06:54 AM

don't get me wrong, it does work well IF you can pull it off, but the main thing I was trying to note was against the better pe players (8+) it's really difficult, and the m8 usually comes out later than shreck upgrades even when you have most of the fuel on the map (50+45+30 = 125 for m8 compared to 20+40(mht)+30 for shreck = total of 90) and once a couple shrecks are on the field (you can take the m8 with one if you're a solid player) you're pretty much stuck always repositioning your mg's to avoid mortar shots which leaves them open to rushes, or other things like that... not to mention an armored car from t3 a minute or so after shreck team gets on the field (or p4)

You bring up very good points. As I've said before, I rarely get the M8 now instead preferring the fast AT gun. I only get M8s vs ACs or if I feel it can otherwise affect the game (like vs 4 man MP44 squads due to no fear of AT) The good thing about the M8 is even an average player should be able to kite 1 or 2 shrek squads or at the very least avoid them. If nothing else, it will make the ACs very weary of leaving their protective AT cover, so its a win win. I do agree though AC rush is the worst thing you can encounter using a WSC start (but really its not much with a barracks start either). I guess we just have to hope the AC nerf patch actually gets implemented.

This post has been edited by JohnBiolante: Aug 22 2008, 11:24 AM

This strat may work on lower levels(not that I'm much higher lvl than you), but this strat has a flaw - WSC produces sounds when it's being built, so your opponent will know what you're doing and he will get a MHT(negates WSC). But kudos for writting that

Overall I would say you played that game well. You seem to have the gist of the strat down. I saw a few things you could improve on:
1) Manpower floats. At times you were floating 1000 manpower. Floating 400ish is ok but once you get up to a number that big call in a para squad and use it to cap.
2) Use Supply drops the second you get them. Both call in when available and pick up when they land. If you notice right before he called gg you used 2 strafes back to back to destroy all his ground units. This is the power of supply drops. They win games.
3) Airborne squads reinforce anywhere on ther field (you obviously know that) so once they have retreated, begin reinforcing and send them back out immediately. by the time they get the the fight they should be almost full again.
4) After you get enough fuel for the Motor Pool and M8 (if you go for it) Focus on capping munition points. This strat is Munition hungry.
5) As a personal preference I don't like to get the MG upgrade on tanks and M8s Its a waste of 75 muni in my opinion. Better spent on Recoilless Rifles or Strafing Runs
6) Don't be overly aggressive with MGs early game. They are there to prevent your oponent from gaining map control mainly. You probably didn't realize that PGs with G43s will beat MGs in a building to building fight.

Things you did well:
1) For the most part your sniper micro was good. Sniper sare the bane of PE players as you well know.
2) Your M8 and Sherman micro was also very good. Lots of kills from both those turned the tide of his MP44 swarms.
3) AT gun drops behind tanks and to finish off half-tracks were very nice.
4) Satchel charge on building was extremely effective.
5) Your Strafing runs were for the most part good. You did try a bombing run on his base, but I think it wasn't very effective. At that time a Strafing Run or 2 over by his blob capping the other side of the map would have probably been more effective, but it wasn't wasted at least.
6) You did a good job of finishing off wounded squads.

Just a few random pointers I probably should have mentioned in the OP:
1) If a P4 locks down, throw a satchel on it. You had the chance, but didn't. I mean you killed it anyway, but it would have died a tad bit faster with a stchel.
2) Use AP rounds on your AT guns! They slice through tanks and Half-tracks like a hot axe through butter.
3) If you tell 2 snipers to fire on the same squad at the same time (have them both selected and in range) they will shot at the same man and only kill 1. to avoid this stagger their shots bay a brief second.


Edit: I don't know why everyone thinks a MHT is the end all be all of counters to this. Yes so you have to move your MGs every time they fire, but so what. Wehr players have to do this too. Beside if the rush a MHT you rush a M8 and kill it before it has done very much damage. Watch the wrecked train games for examples of this.
And how many people actually listen in on their opponents base and can tell what they are building, I have tried it before, but I can never tell. They will know you went WSC anyways when they run into your first MG

This post has been edited by JohnBiolante: Aug 22 2008, 12:37 PM

i can hear the difference actually but yeah it's not that valuable info.

the mortar HT comes out WAY before the m8 and shrecks come out before the m8 too. obviously you keep the mortar back and if he can use a single barrage in 1 area to get you to move that squad it renders them useless for the time being. not to mention if that's going on and he puts his k43's and a shreck team into ht's the SR is now useless, the shreck does not miss out of the HT (almost ever) meaning you won't be able to take it out with anything short of an AT gun, which is easily rushed at and disposed of OR 1 barrage of a mortar ht will take it out (especially fire rounds).

if he goes luftwaffe you're kind of screwed as that means fausts vs the m8 (no need for shrecks then) not to mention cloaked ketten to keep a lookout for the dropped AT guns the main weapon is the sniper of course, but again - cloaked ketten will find it and an AC rush to take it out will pretty much be gg for you

also - wehr players move because 1 round makes the whole squad suppresed or even pinned when the US mg takes 2-3 bursts

tl;dr version:

PE is OP vs US and if you're playing with people your skill level you will lose

This post has been edited by sovietlife: Aug 22 2008, 23:54 PM

The strat works well as it's what I have also been doing for a while in 1v1 versus PE. Having said that, I've also been stuck at L7 for a while, so something about my game needs to improve.

To the person who pointed out that if USA tries a WSC open, then the PE will just send APCs to rape their home base: quite the opposite. Since PE players in general are fond of rushing the HQ - usually when they are either losing or winning by a lot - I usually keep a HMG in my HQ. This completely repels anything but a massive early attack. The AP bullets slice through their APC. Works better than stickies and costs less in munis.

This post has been edited by spemin: Aug 23 2008, 00:03 AM

yeah it works great against up to level 7-8 PE but after that they're quite good at completely negating it.

ehhh this strat is alright. But, your missing the key point to the U.S; early game. Fast capping and the ability to have your rifles get a lot stronger as the game progresses. You have to play a stalling game with your rifles against pe. You just can't do that with engineers. It may work on lower level players. Good strat though, i enjoyed reading this and your proper use of grammar.

Hooray grammar! But seriously sometimes you have to adapt. If G43s are wrecking the meta, then change. If PG blobs own infantry, look how to counter PG blobs. The players in the replays were between lvls 6 and 8. That is where my account is right now (lvl 7). Not because I am a level 7 player, I like to think of myself as more of a level 9 or 10, but rather because I am not ranking up as fast anymore due to higher levels.

I am in no way knocking rifle stall into M8. It is a semi effective strategy that is mainstream because most players already know how to rifle spam. I just got tired of using it and started refining this. The shock factor and general inability of most PE players to adapt their set ideas of how to play against Americans is what causes them the game. As of now the few games I have lost using this strat have been on maps I untick (beaux) or do to all around bad luck (having a single vanilla PG squad kill an MG shooting at them) Overall against PE I would say I'm around 15 wins 4 losses since using this. My single biggest problem now is accidentally clicking AP rounds instead of ungarrisoning buildings. It sucks wasting munitions with this strat

If this only works against Level 8 and lower opponents then so be it. I will go back to rifle stalls. But for now I am having fun and I find this a pleasant change of pace.

A couple more reps:


This post has been edited by JohnBiolante: Aug 23 2008, 18:42 PM

personally i've been liking this a LOT :

go rifle spam -> motorpool for at gun(s) -> back to wsc for a sniper and an mg team

it's been working really well for me.

I've been using a combination of this strat and the 4ES.

It's risky but good fun. I always go airborne with this strat because the AT-guns from the air have often been the angels on my shoulder..

I love the sniper/MG/ATgun combination against PE.. And the casual strafe when the blobs get out of hand

Hey! Nice post! I tried your strategy out and it worked really well. BTW this is my first ever post on Gamereplays.org =) Great community here

Anyways, some things you should probably add to your guide: A common response to dug in MGs and AT guns are mortar halftracks with incendiery rounds. I think it would be a good idea to keep a few engineer squad nearby to recrew the weapons once the fire has died down. That way the unsuspecting PE player will rush into your "exposed" area only to see that the AT guns have been recrewed! If you've got the resources getting riflemen to recrew instead of engineers would be great, you'd only spend 81 MP instead of 140 MP. The next best thing that the PE would probably do is invest in some heavy anti-infantry and try to flank your weapons. If I've got the time I usually set up another AT to cover the flank of my front line AT and a few RR airborne squads wouldn't hurt either.

Well that's it =) Sorry if I mentioned things you've already covered.. this is my first post after all.

I've just been using rifles and a fast M8, then when his infantry start to get serious, I bring out a few snipers to help the rifles (already have BAR's by now) to send them all running before their MP44 squads can even get into range. I think starting WSC is a bit risky and not mobile enough, especially if they're going to use armored cars. Even if the game goes long enough for him go get double Panthers, you probably went airborne like most sane U.S. players in a 1v1, and probably have more than enough munitions to bombing run and finish them off with an RR squad. At which point most PE players quit, since it was pretty much just a suicidal last little attack anyway. I'm not sure WSC start has the capping ability to get you the munitions and fuel you need, since regular barracks start I always end up with tons of munitions and fuel, yet have more than enough units. Plus vet BAR rifleman are insane in groups.

If it comes to recrewing weapons I usually just use the airborne squads. It seems to work well enough. I figure the difference in manpower can be made up by the fact that I don't have to retreat to reman, or build a barracks in the first place.

Oh and welcome to GR.org





I used to do this too, but it got boring rifle spamming every game. The main difference between this and rifle spam is that instead of constantly harassing his points while he harasses yours with ket/blob, you take an area, then hold it with MGs. After he gets suppressed and retreats, you use engies to take a little more, and push your MGs forward. Snipers provide the early manpower drain as well as the whole, "I just lost a squad because I was a little slow on the spacebar" factor. Vetted rifles while good, are hard to get vs a competent PE player. he will simply blob bigger than you and slow/finish any retreating squad. Its more of a take and hold than a fighting retreat like riflespam.

Who doesn't go Airborne vs PE?

This post has been edited by JohnBiolante: Aug 26 2008, 03:35 AM

First and formost, I congratulate biolante on this write up. It seems that you spent a lot of time into it, and hey, if its working for gabjam, it means it was helpful, no matter what others may say to you

This strat probably works against link0's, and I can see it being done against fast AC.

However, it does have a weakspot, and its a pretty big one. PEpwnzya has been playing a lot of 'test' games with me lately, and one of the things he did was this strat. This strat is extremely venerable to the (I sound as if I'm advertising a strat, talking about it, and I guess I am, but to a purpose) 2PG2HT strat. The PE player can definately outcap your 2 engineers with 2 PG grens, and once he gets an HT into your base, it becomes hell. Not only will you have to dedicate an MG to defend your base, you won't be able to produce snipers (or if you did, the HT will just pwn it). With no units effectively leaving the base, and only 2 Engineers capping, the PE player will assume map control and get out mortar HTs, where apon the WSC strat starts to fall.

Now you might be suggesting AB, but this doesn't work for 2 reasons.
1. Damaging HTs do not give you exp.
2. By losing map control, and possibly using AP rounds, you are munition depleted.

But a wall of text needs some back-up proof right? And here it is. (PePwnzya plays better than this btw)

Edit: Okay, its not exactly the same, he OP'd a fuel point, but other than that you'll get the general drift.

	2pg2htwsc.rec
	Size: 143.92k
	Number of downloads: 39
	Player Name	Side	Team
	PEpwnzya		1
	PeacekeepD		2

This post has been edited by Peacekeeper: Aug 26 2008, 04:23 AM