Company of Heroes

[Monte Carlo]

^ Let me know when time differences allow and I'll happily give you a game. Trust me, I'm crap, there'll be no elite spam tactics from me.

[alanschu]

ROFL I suck too.

 

I'm 7 hours behind GMT, so that would mean that I'm typically available from 0200-0700 GMT on weekdays, and pretty much whenever on weekends, assuming I don't have plans.

 

You should move to the Mountain Time Zone

[Calax]

infantry can be handled by almost the same tactics as any other infantry grouping. However you just can't use tanks so your counter is going to require you to have a hardpoint with an MG (a pair of buildings would probably be best) or just have a small unit hide in a building and fight and drop a arty strike on them.

 

Just fyi, Stormtroopers are the german equiv to he Rangers.

[Cl_Flushentityhero]

Any kind of massed infantry is susceptible to indirect fire, whether arty or mortar. There's also traps if you expect them to take a certain route. Finally, last time I played zookas didn't have quite the range of mounted guns. You are unlikely to ever obliterate a blob entirely, but if he's relying on it and you force them to retreat the field is yours until he gets back.

[Monte Carlo]

My own tactic versus Ranger blobs is Propaganda War from the Terror support tree - it costs 100 ammo but it makes them wet their fatigues and run away.

[alanschu]

FFS I patched the game to 2.101 and now every time I load it there's another patch ahhahahaha

[Monte Carlo]

^ Yeah, it's like a clean NWN2 install, then an hour or so of historic auto-updates.

 

Alan, if you want to catch up over the weekend we can have an extremely inept, attrition-heavy battle together. My current fave MP map is Lyon, which is urban warfare over three key bridges... lots of fun. You can be the plucky Bio Allies and I will be Ze Vermacht.

 

PM me your account name and I'll do likewise.

[Walsingham]

1. Stormtroopers aren't rangers. They don't get instant free bazookas. Nor are they as large squad size. Nor do they have instant free get out of suppression skill.

2. MGs don't work on rangers because rangers CAN'T BE SUPPRESSED. No suppression, no mortar fire.

3. Propaganda war doesn't kill them. It just makes them run away, and it costs nearly the same as an actuall artillery barrage. And it doesn't work when they are in buildings.

 

It is possible to kill one squad of rangers, provided you mass combined arms against them (about 2000 points to their 400). but in the same space of time the AI will have swung round with something else. Moreover, since they only cost manpower they are impossible to neutralise once he hits that stage in the tech tree.

[Monte Carlo]

Of course, Rangers are very vulnerable to nebelwerfer and walking stuka spam, which are personal faves of mine.

[Walsingham]

Of course, Rangers are very vulnerable to nebelwerfer and walking stuka spam, which are personal faves of mine.

 

The only time that has ever worked I was aiming at something for the hell of it and his rangers happened to walk into the firestorm just as it landed. My opponent was so mad he ragequit. That was on Lyons. bridge chokepoints and water are the only possible ways to nail the bastards. Or explosives on bridges, presumably. That would be hilarious.

[Monte Carlo]

If I suspect the enemy are going ranger spam I always choose luftwaffe support + snipers. Luftwaffe mooks can knock up barbed wire and obstacles that they have to run around whilst my flakpanzers and snipers eviscerate them. Whilst they are negotiating the obstacles I then drop werfers on them. Also, a well-placed Goliath (150 points) can take out a whole blob (600+ points).

 

Of course, as soon as you've made the blob go away you have to shout "Panzers, March!" and go on the offensive. Ranger spam, like all the infantry spam in CoH, is supremely annoying and I tend to avoid people who rely on it (ditto engineer and sniper spam, fought a guy who just kept storming with engineers and snipers... boring).

[alanschu]

Is this different than SP? I don't find rangers that invincible haha.

 

I should get in some skirmish games before facing off against Monte haha

[Monte Carlo]

Let's do Lyon as a sort of gentle introduction to brutal, savage house-to-house fighting. We can use the in-game chat to ensure that there's no spam and it'll be fun. Will open a decent bottle of claret and await your PM, mon ami. The arty units, IIRC, are Canadian in CoH if that helps you get in the mood.

 

Cheers

MC

 

Edit: In MP you can use your manpower to just respawn lots of rangers into a tank-slaying horde that cannot be supressed by MG fire. The CPU does it occasionally, just not as egregriously as human players can. CoH is chock full of spam-tastic design loopholes like this, it's still fun but I now pick and choose who I play.

 

Hint: Kangaroos and Brits with Royal Commando PIAT infantry on board = win button.

Edited November 20, 2009 by Monte Carlo

[alanschu]

Eeep! I just have the standalone game

 

Or can Brits be played still? It sounds like you have a more leet version than me.

Edited November 20, 2009 by alanschu

[Monte Carlo]

Sure, you can still play with me but I have the two XPs (which should be pennies on Steam etc), which means you won't get Kangaroo APCs. But it's no biggie.

 

That's the only difference I've mentioned thusfar you still get the same support companies (etc).

[alanschu]

Ah, so they allowed (most) access to new units?

[Calax]

Ah, so they allowed (most) access to new units?

There were two new factions (Brits and Panzer elite) in the first expansion, in the second expansion you just had a few reskins that do slightly different things (like germans (the elite faction) could replace their tanks with a version that could have a calliope barrage attached.)

[Monte Carlo]

^ In the last XP Brits get the Kangaroo APC, basically a Sherman tank with the turret taken off. You can fit two squads of infantry and an officer in it. It has very high armour and moves fast. If you pack it with engineers with PIATs or commando AT infantry then it becomes a cheesy, over-powered unit that can zip through enemy lines and cause havoc. You see a lot of kanga-spam in CoH, and the thing is the Brits can get them relatively low down the tech tree whilst the Germans are still racing up there to get Panthers or (gasp) the Tiger.

[Monte Carlo]

Squeezed in a quick (well, 2 hour) 3 v 3 multiplayer game this weekend, Wehrmacht x 3 versus 2 x Brits and 1 x USA.

 

The enemy obviously planned a defensive battle (British strength) with the perfectly viable tactic of the US player making nothing but rangers. Just pumping points into blobs until the pop cap was reached.

 

I built a small force of 2 x stormtroopers, 2 x StuG, a MG team and a sniper and did a recce in depth. Ranger Blobs! went up the cry on the chat-room function. I immediately sent in my two Goliaths I have in reserve at all times for this eventuality and ruined their day a little bit. I then held the line with infantry and a couple of Mark IVs and returned the serve with the only polite response to ranger blobs.

 

Werfers.

 

Yep, I just went werfer spam (6 werfers in pairs, each firing volleys of 12 almost continually) on their HQ. When my stealthed sniper saw that their HQ was FUBAR and they couldn't make rangers for a bit I rolled in the panthers, StuG x2 and a Tiger.

 

With the ranger spam out of the picture my team mates rolled over the second-rarte Brit armour and we won. If they'd been more aggressive with the ranger blobs we might even have lost, they don't play as well defensively. At last, I gained another wehrmacht level.

 

Cheers

MC

[Walsingham]

I'll consider werfers. But it annoys me that I can't use anything but luftwaffe in case the amis go rangers. Lame-o. I'll try again later.

[alanschu]

How is the StuH 42 against Rangers?

 

Had some fun with one in a skirmish.

[Walsingham]

How is the StuH 42 against Rangers?

 

Had some fun with one in a skirmish.

 

Good thought, but i suspect it wouldn't kill enough.

[Monte Carlo]

^ You have to deploy units for mutual support - StuG is great for blowing up bloody great holes in defences and area effect damage / supression... but they are very vulnerable to infantry with sticky bombs, PIAT or bazooka.

 

Try building a couple of halftracks and putting some infantry with MG42s in the back - this is a cheap and mobile supression platform against enemy infantry (you can also reinforce from the half-track, an under-used but very handy ability). Alternatively, flakpanzers are good for this, they shred infantry.

 

Lastly, always have a sneaky Goliath lurking to the rear. When you see enemy infantry, rush forward with your StuG to draw fire (it will last longer), of course if you are playing with a team-mate using panzer elite you will have a Tiger recovery vehicle right behind it repairing it in the field... when the inf take the bait flank with your halftracks and suppress or storm in with your flakpanzer. The StuG can then blast the area with those slow moving high explosive rounds.

 

If a fresh AT blob appears, especially rangers, and whilst they scent blood... zip the Goliath in - by this point, even if they see it and shoot it, it will explode and take out 3/4 of the blob, which can be mopped up with your halftracks.

 

This sort of gameplay is where CoH shines, especially in MP when you have team mates putting the pressure on, allowing you to develop tactics that might be too fiddly in a 1V1 game.

[Calax]

probably one of the hardest times I've ever had (skirmish wise) was against a computer player. Me and two friends were german and my opponents were airborne. It turned into a battle of attrition outside their front gate with us both usually running out of steam at about the same point, and our next attack would hit their recharged airdrops and start pumping out units to stop us. I can't remember which exact map it was, but the map was divided down the right side by a river so that two people were on one side and the extras are on the other. The ONLY reason we won was because the person who was on the opposite side of the river managed to roll up his opponent and then had to repair the bridges (as a matter of course we usually blew all the bridges because the computer could react quickly and cohesively if one side started to get ahead you'd see a bundle of troops zipping across the bridges to attack us and 2 armies cannot hold off three).

[Monte Carlo]

I'm online playing CoH tonight (27 November) from about 20.00 GMT (wearing my panzer commander's hat mit goggles) if anybody is interested. PM me for my username / password, I'll probalby play a game or two over the weekend.

 

Cheers

MC