Profile of Grumpy

There's been several threads about balance recently, mostly centered around larger team games and the imbalance in win rates. The oddest thing about the imbalance is how Soviet win rates drop off in 3's and 4's. A lot of the theories have been about caches or the incomplete design of the WFA armies. I don't think that's the case given that OKW is a WFA, can't build caches, and still comes out on top of the 4v4 win rates. I really think it has more to do with the LEFH and Walking Stuka.

Here's a recent 3v3. I got around 90 kills with a LEFH. On the maps where the approach routes are restricted, it's easy to rack up a stupid amount of kills with the LEFH by just firing randomly into the approach path.

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  BMon Drink_to_Win Grumpy

  陣 thealert Partisanen 召虎

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  LEFH

  by: Grumpy map: Rzhev Winter

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Here's a cheat mod test of the LEFH versus the ML20. If just firing at buildings, they're about the same effectiveness. The LEFH starts to get great when firing at approach lanes like the one on Rzhev or the middle of Port of Hamburger.

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  Grumpy

  Snot Rockets

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  arty test 1

  by: Grumpy map: Unknown

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Interestingly, the Land Mattress was about equal to the Walking Stuka, but only if the units don't react to the barrage. However, the Land Mattress takes forever to fire all of the rockets and is affected by scatter like all other rocket arty. This replay also showed the other part of the problem with the Walking Stuka, as you'll see full Con squads get wiped by a single barrage. The all-or-nothing design of the Walking Stuka is problematic for Soviets in 3's or 4's. The games often go about an hour, so Soviets don't have to dodge just a couple barrages, they have to out-guess their OKW counterpart up to a couple dozen times. Nobody is that good so losing those vetted squads in the late game often results in a loss.

Here are the in-game numbers taken from Stein's sheet for ballistic arty, along with the few real world numbers that I could find for comparison:

Crewed Range Range Shell ROF DMG Near Mid Far Near Mid Far
(IRL) kg IRL (IRL)
ML-20 152mm 250 17230 51.5 3 200 200 30 10 2 4 6
B-4 203mm 250 25400 110 yes 640 640 96 32 2.5 5 7.5
leFH 18 Ost 250 10675 14.8 6 160 160 56 8 2 4 6
leFH 18 OKW 250 10675 14.8 6 160 160 56 8 2 4 6
M7B1 Priest 180 11270 14.8? 6? 200 200 56 10 2 4 6
Sexton 135 12253 11.5 6 160 160 80 32 1.25 2.5 6
(sorry if this isn't very readable, it doesn't want to keep the formatting)

A couple things stick out. The ML20 had a shell that was about 3x larger, but in-game has a smaller AOE and lower rate of fire. The B4 should have a massive AOE, not just a 7.5 radius versus 6. In another test that I ran, the B4 was consistently about 1/3 as effective as the ML20. I think people just like to use is because they think it's great on the random time that it hits a medium tank and brews it up.

I think the following changes would really help to balance:

Nerf the LEFH (both) from 10 shells to 8.
Nerf the ML20 from 8 shells to 6. Increase AOE ranges to 3, 6, and 8 and make damage at range equal to LEFH
Sexton - increase range to 180 (mobile arty should have shorter range than fixed or else gameplay will suffer)
Make all arty not decrewable. Put a limit of 2 total (so 2 LEFH or 1 LEFH and one WS, same for ML20 and Katy). Count rocket arty in the limits also.
Make Priest and Sexton so that they can't be abandoned.
Change the Walking Stuka so that it doesn't one-shot everything Soviet (or completely miss like it often does).

I'm not sure how the new B4 will be, but think the far AOE range should be increased. The mid shouldn't be increased unless the damage was lowered under 80.

Mostly boring 3v3 with 4 LEFH's.

Could give it a Tank commander or .50 cal upgrade, I think the turret model supports but I'm not entirely sure.

A tank commander upgrade that allows it to call in the TOT arty would instantly make this commander more viable in larger game modes. It would also give the doctrine another ammo sink.

This has been happening to me randomly for the last year but within the last couple months or so it has gotten even worse. I'd say close to 1/5 games now I start a match with no commanders, bulletins or skins. What's strange is that I don't believe it is a computer problem as I recently upgraded to an entirely new PC. Has anyone else had this problem or know if there is anything I can do to fix it?

When playing with friends, it sometimes happens when the host starts searching too quickly before someone joins the lobby. If it's happening to you when solo, maybe try waiting a few seconds to hit search.

Good morning all,

Was in a discord call the other day and was chewed out by some other randoms about how retarded I was for using a 4 cons build in a 4v4 gamemode and how you should use penals instead.

Now I'm well aware that penals are better early game, but I'm also aware that they cost more to upkeep and have less utility all throughout the game. I've been tinkering a bit between doing only cons, only penals, a mixture of the two (for mainline infantry of course, I use support weapons always) and penals always seem to get the shaft late game where they feel like papiér mache against axis tanks where conscripts can hold the line and keep my MGs and AT guns in the fight.

So really I wanted to know what everyone else thought of this question and maybe I could get some interesting insights that I didn't think of. Thanks!

It depends a bit on the map. If you're in Lienne and in the woods with its short sight lines, Penals often seem better. On Red Ball, flanking opportunities are limited so you'll be manpower-starved all game. It also depends on your opponent. If there are two OKW on your side, Penals usually make a better start. Late game, 7-man cons generally seem better than penals.