Company of Heroes

These are examples of how to flank the two houses on langres. The house on the right that overlooks a huge portion of the map and the house of the left that overlooks the high munitions point.

if you start on the south spawn point in langres, the house on the right that overlooks the fuel is of much greater importance because it has a huge radius that it protects and it protects a lot of fuel which is never a good thing to let happen when playing against a wehrmacht player.

Macro wise you could tech up to a WSC to get a mortar or a sniper, or even an m8 but the thing is those things take time and you are getting rid of the American early game advantage when you are stalling and teching up to units that may or may not even get the job done.

So my mini guide is focusing on small and big flanks to push your enemy the map or clear that specific building without any WSC or mortar pool units.

South Side start



really early game before you get nades you can clear out that house by sending a rifle up the center first to get suppressed and a flamer up the side. the yellow lines mark roughly the units that will get suppressed around the riflesquad if you keep your stuff too close. So you want to avoid keeping your flanking units too close to the squad getting suppressed so they dont get suppressed as well.



when dealing with 2 machine guns, one in the house and another protecting it usually the 2nd mg is kept around the spot where the green lines indicate so making an all frontal attack likely to fail.

so your going to split up your forces into two main attack groups with 2-3 units on the bottom and the rest on the top shown by the yellow circle.

keep at least 1 engineer with each group so they can cut wire if its an obstacle

all the american flags just show that its either a rifle/engineer or even a jeep but the riflemen icon in this picture is because that has to be a riflemen getting suppressed because hes going to be the first one moving forward in the flank and will get suppressed and needs to have enough health (enginners don't have enough hp) to hold the mg in the building's attention long enough for your yellow top group to not get pinned and succesfully pull off their job



sometimes wehrmacht players will build a medic bunker and they will usually build that around their cut-off point or covering the center VP.

so you want to scout for that before you put your flank into action. usually wehrmacht players will put their mg in the bunker and that would protect the middle of the map from flanking.

upon seeing that bunker dont flank both the bunker and the house at the same time, do things sequentally and in my picture i am choosing to flank the house first and then i'd prolly cap and when it comes time ill flank/mortar the bunker but im not going to take them both on at the same time. and with an mg in the bunker there cant be a 2nd mg covering the house and it makes it easy to take out the hosue using a move similar to flanking the house with 1 rifle and 1 flamer engineer



the houses shown with the yellow circle are a pain to deal with coming from the south side because they switch targets often when attacking straight from your base to the houses.

you want to send 1 rifleman, again a rifleman because it has enough hp to hold the mg's attention for your other units to flank, from your base to the houses, and everyone else around the hedge and throwing nades/burn them out becomes easy.

always do things in order of most importance to least importance, sometimes it might be better to let him have your munitons point if you can decap the whole right side of the map from him because he's focusing heavily on your left side. So thats just something to think about.


North Side start



this specific building with an mg in it, shown by 3 green lines, is another tricky house to flank because the natural thing to do would be to put a rifle squad in the house adjacent to it and flank with everyone else.

however because that house is at an odd angle to the mg house it will switch targets from that rifle squad in the house to your flanking riflemen and your whole flank could be turned sour.

i dont know why it does it but the mg in the house prefers targets at more of a 90 degree angle to it rather than ones diagonal to it



This is an example of flanking the same house in a better way. i sent 1 rifle straight onto the mg in the house to get suppressed at a 90 degree angle; so the rest of my army, slightly spread apart can come in and toast the mg in the house.

something to consider is that some wehrmacht players like to cover that house with a 2nd mg shown by the 2 green lines on the ground



going back to that other house on the other side of langres, coming from the north side it is very easy to take out, just send a different squad at a different angle and the mg is easily overwhelmed.



A last one would be if there are two mg in the area on the southwest. Because of the odd angles of the houses, you need two seperate squads of riflemen to draw the fire while two seperate sets of flamethrower Engineers and Riflemen take the flanking routes.


Hope this mini guide helps your flanking on those houses in langres that can be tricky

This post has been edited by L'amer: Jul 26 2010, 20:24 PM

very useful mini guide - good stuff

very useful. thanks for posting! great job!

This is an awesome guide to flanking Sneii! The later tips on flanking are especially useful. This is what i mean when I say people need to excecute larger flanks... they need to use hedges and the map itself to come from totally diffrent angles.

The capping order of units should be done so that flanks are readily available and possible.

I'm sure this'll help some guys out Gj once more

thanks guys im glad the guide is useful

I > snej flanks... nuff said lol j/k <3 good guide...

Awesome, but relating to the topic of countering garrisoned MGs, is it possible to sandbag or wire a door?

you might be able to, but it would have to be thicker than 1 layer of sandbags/wire because it seems troops go near the door and then teleport through the barbed wire. your best off putting mines at the door facing their side of the map

I coun't have done it beter my self !!

Good job

Ah yes, cause I once wired myself in by accident. It let me warp in but since I had to shuffle out the door, I was trapped by the wire.

You have to pretty much put a big semi circle around the door with wire/sandbags. Just a line across the door wont work.

AWESOME guide, thanks for posting. I have some other points, maybe someone has an answer to them:

1. 50 munitions for flame squad comes after you have about 4 rifles on the field with a 5th one being produced. That means he probably has Volks, Volks, MG, MG, and is working on his 5th unit also. So that one garrisoned MG you're planning on taking out now probably has 2 supporting Volks, and possibly the other MG if he hasn't sent it to the other building on the other side of the map. How can you go up against this force? Its too big now, and you couldn't have gone up against it earlier because you didn't have the flame squad. It seems like the time frames where you don't have enough munitions for a flame squad and the point at which he becomes too powerful to flank overlap.

2. It takes too long for flame pios to flush out a garrisoned MG anyway. It seems to take about 10 full seconds during which time he can easily focus fire with his other squads on the engineer squad to kill it.

3. If you have 50 munitions for flame pio then he has 50 munitions for 2 mines. Any mine on a route towards the MG will end your flank in disaster.

Does anyone have any helpful suggestions for any of these comments?

post up a replay rustig so i can see what you mean with never getting a proper time to flank.

yeah mines can be troublesome, but usually people wait to get mines because mines aren't guaranteed to stop a flank and the flamer/medic bunker is usually more reliable

Sometimes it can take a while to take out the mg with a flamer engineer, but to stop volks from picking off your flamer engineer keep a rifle squad near it during the flank and focus fire on the volks with your flamer/rifle if your worried about it dying too soon. Sometimes if your concerned about there being a lot of infantry support around the mg's; grenades can be a killer upgrade instead of bars. Even if you get grenades though, always have at least 1 flamer engineer nearby your flanking rifles so that in case you run out of munitions to throw grenades you can still kill the mg in the house.

A really good time to flank is when the Wehrmacht player sends their volks/pios to your side of the map to cap you can easily run them off and then without any infantry support it makes it a breeze to push over their mg's defending their territory.

Not sure if I have any replays that show this specific problem I have, but generally it is that by the time you get 50 munitions (and wait for the flame upgrade to be about 80% complete) I get my squad to be suppressed in position, meanwhile sending my rifle/engine flame combo to the flank, the flame upgrade finishes by the time they get close to the building, but... the Wehr player is too strong at this point. He already has too many squads, and lots of times a second MG team to suppress the flanking team. Sucks.

Ideas? The only thing I can think of is restructuring the way I play American vs. Wehr. Should I prioritize ammo instead of fuel? Then focus on grenades, flame upgrades, and stickies with my ammo advantage early/mid game? I usually prioritize the all-important fuel, but maybe I'll change depending on what you do. Which do you prioritize against Wehr?

Okay I modified my opening to prioritize ammo instead of fuel. In doing so I was able to upgrade a flame squad quicker (3 rifles were on the field while my 4th unit was being built, a jeep). Usually when I prioritize fuel I have 4 rifles on the field and my 5th unit is being built before I have enough ammo for a flame squad. I still feel that this is a little late in the game for an effective flank.

If you're interested, I attached the replay.

I know I could have gone for the +16 ammo with my first engie squad at the beginning of the game, but I think its more important to get in the church to prevent the MG pin in your base. Losing that can mean losing the match.

Wehr player made a forward HQ, put an MG in it and reinforced his volks squads from there. This is effectively the same as making a medic bunker + MG, the strat everyone is using these days.

At 5:44 I finished upgrading the flame squad and theoretically could have started the flank then, but that's if you plan everything perfectly. I had some squads reinforcing at my HQ and had to delay the flank until 7:10. I ended up winning the flank and winning the game, but I only think its because my micro was better than his. Against an even skilled opponent it could have been shut down easily.

After winning the flank, I still think you're in a bad position as American because you've invested all your micro and MP into doing this flank, and I checked the Wehr players fuel, he had already upgraded to skirmish phase and had over 60 fuel leftover. That means he's just a stone throw's away from getting a puma as long as he holds onto the fuel that he has which won't be hard because you're in an intense micro war against him.

So, any suggestions or thoughts?

This post has been edited by rustig: Oct 1 2008, 20:34 PM

sure ill check it out you forgot to attach it though

Sorry for the double post and forgetting to attach.

okay your flanks were pretty good in that game, the only thing you could have improved on was spreading your guys out and trying to come from more than 2 directions; instead of keeping them all clumped together in case he had a second mg covering the flanking side so your whole flank wouldn't fall apart

Fast flamers is the way to go on semois because it takes a million grenades to clear the church vs 1 flamer

Don't be worried about tier 3 from your opponent because although he might have had the fuel, he didn't have the manpower to invest in his t3 building because he just built his t2 with a mortar and has to upkeep all his volks.

If you do get caught against tier 3 pumas when you don't have any AT drop airborne and get RR, and if you can drop a AT gun/upgrade sticky bombs

Also although he has some fuel, you had more and with that tank depot a single m10/upgunned sherman would have ended any threat his t3 would have poised

If you do a successful flank, without losing any rifle squads, you are never in a bad position because right after a battle you can cap all their fuel and seriously hurt them if they were trying to fast tech

hope that helps rustig

Yeah it does help. Maybe I'll focus on getting ammo first as American vs. Wehr. Maybe even against PE too, and just rely on RR and AT drops for their armor in the mid game, then tank depot late game. Do you prioritize ammo or fuel?

munitions vs wehrmacht, and also focusing on denying my enemy fuel

fuel vs panzer elite always, you have to get the m8 up asap with an AT gun, the faster the better

I only go paras if my enemy went for fast tier 3/4 with pumas/ostwinds and I don't have my mortar pool/tank depot up yet; or I am playing vs PE that went for a fast panzer 4. I love infantry company too much to go airborne every game