Profile of rumartinez89

Haven't played 4v4 in a bit. Martell sent me an invite so played a two game with his friends.

Ive gotten rusty on 4v4 timings/maps, so took me a bit to get acclimated. Lost early T3476 like a complete noob, tried to help USF as he was getting owned, hit mine, my katy barraged to late to save it. We were getting slapped until we got down to 150 points. At that point, T34 blob went down to help USF with all out push while my katy barraged and then USF cali followed right after. OKW literally lost every thing including buildings except for Jagdtiger. As I went terror, I was on arty killing duty with plane drop and satchels. 1 OST player literally had no army and 4 maybe 5 lefh. Which left them quite vulnerable once we started getting aggressive.

Ost opposite of me went with 3 MG opening, did fairly well against it but my allies seemed to be a team. They kind of turtled together and rarely came to help. AT one point I got Triple teamed, so we were way behind in gas. I ended up going PTRS Penals x3, got 2 OSTWINDS with them and he eventually gave up. The other axis gave up shortly after.

Good point. I somehow connect the airborne rally point with airborne Guards, probably because they have existed only in combination for a long time.
The accuracy veterancy bonus not especially bad. Guard Rifles get +30% as well. Almost every unit in the game either gets +30% or +40% in total. On a quick search, I can't find a real pattern, it is not depending on elite/non-elite nor the optimum range. However, that doesn't mean though that Airborne Guards couldn't use a +40% buff instead the +30%. Maybe that is what they are lacking.

Cons/Shocks/AssG/Commissar all get 40% which makes it fairly strange but Guards do get the best REC ACC bonus out of all of them. That leaves Airborne with the short stick as it is technically two units in one. I think the VET ACC was dropped since cloak>First strike bonus plus 40%acc could lead to some BS wipes if nades are used. However as that doesn't apply to LMG Airborne it left them in a weird spot.

As A soviet main I would like to see all Guards variants get firing positions. Could lead to some interesting performance.

As I have messed around with the different Guards I have noticed they each have some funny quirks. IF you have any for other units please post.

Penals:
1. If you manage to pick up any LMG it is a good idea to upgrade that squad to PTRS as the opponent wont be able to tell from a quick glance.
2. This trick does not work well with flamethrowers, if you order the Penal to attack a LV it will attempt to close in and attack with Flamethrower instead of staying at max range with PTRS.
3. Picking up just 1 PTRS allows a regular Penal squad to use AT satchel while still having most of its AI.

Airborne Guards:
1. If you pick up a weapon the DP upgrade will drop to 40muni and only give you 1DP.
2. If you pick up a weapon, going for the PPSH upgrade is the better choice as you get cloak and smoke. So you can have a LMG42/5PPSH that can shoot on the run which makes for a great chase down squad. This also allows easy usage of 1st strike as you now have an LMG squad that can get a camo bonus vs trying to stay stationary and hoping you shoot first with just PPSH.

Assault Guards:
1. IF you pick up a weapon you can no longer get the Thompson upgrade.
2. However, if you upgrade Thompsons first you can still pickup another weapon. Flamethrower is a great choice as you will dominate all short range squads. LMG is also good as you will do great damage at all ranges. Shreks/Zooks work extremely well also as Assg get a unique reload bonus at VET2 along with zook specialist. So you end up with a do it all squad.

On paper Guards are one of those units that are nice but in actuality are shit because they don't offer anything new that Soviets don't have access too already.

Penal Battalions come out sooner than Guards and thus will have veterancy compared to Vet 0 Guards. You can upgrade them and the AT Satchel is a good enough deterrent against dives that Vehicle Button is not needed.

What I am saying here is that the Soviet base kit is strong enough that it doesn't need Guards. It is not like USF and Pathfinders. Guards are not a bad unit but are worthless. Against a player with a brain, they are not going to let your Guards sit in prone for 30 seconds while they take you out. They will be hit with grenades, hit with mortar barrages, Stuka/Panzerwerfered or even air striked.

The lack of mobility make Guards an easy way to drain your MP when you can simply have other units that are cheaper and almost as effective.


This is why Airborne Guards are vastly superior. Not everything is about damage and 1v1 but more about how they fit into the army as whole. Airborne Guards are better due to the more mobile combat of COH2, and the Vet 1 air strike may not do alot of damage but it can force the enemy to move while your units are safely shooting at them.

Forcing movement is a very powerful tool when utilized correctly as a soft form of crowd control. Take for example a situation where you have a Maxim and it is getting flanked by an OKW blob. Normal Guards can't do much to help you accept touch the ground and await the anal pounding that is about to happen to your Maxims.
Meanwhile Airborne Guards with Vet 1 can force the enemy to move buying you time to reposition allowing you to hold the position or avoid a hard retreat back to base.

If your a Penal player, I would assume you would know at best you will have 1 Vet2 Penal at CP2, if all your units have seen equal action you might have all Vet1 Penals. The moment Guards hit the field and get DPs they are similar to or better than Penals at ranges 20 and above. At R20 Guards do 15.7 while Penals do 18.7, that is comparing 4 models to 6 because I am not sure if the PTRS damage figures are accurate if you include them Guards beat them at R20. And just so we are clear, Guards Vet1 is not being used for DPS calculation.

You also need to remember that Guards will Vet faster compared to AI Penals since they can reliably damage and chase away if not destroy LVs.

Next you want to upgrade Penals with PTRS, that now means you have 1 squad that is now useless in an AI battle. 3Penals/1Guard is going to beat out 2Penals/1PTRS Penal/1LMGAirborne thru sheer DPS along with Guards PTRS having way better performance due to the bug. Now you might want to include Airborne VeT1 ability into this, that pass takes about 3-4 secs to come in. Moving and resetting your units separately will negate it just as it would in you weak example of the OKW blob vs maxim. Literally breaking the blob into 2 smaller blobs would completely negate and force you to retreat just as it would with regular Guards.

Now the weird thing to your arguments is that you act as if Guards have to stay in fighting positions for their performance. They don't, they just perform better when they are. So PW/Stuka/nades/air strike/mortar will do the same to them as any other unit, also they can retreat while in fighting positions I am really not sure why you brought that up.