SMAW, MAAW, MRAAW, Panzerjagers, etc. (resolved)

[Chiv]

These units need to seriuosly be looked at for a nerf or at least take away the HE component of them. The match I just finished was one person with an entire infantry force of SMAW.
Napalm launchers are one thing but they see limited use and in my opinion feel balanced with their 7 rpm and only 550 range. SMAWs on the other hand have a range of 875m and 20 rpm. I was consistantlly loosing two elite kommandosi squads to per hardened SMAW team my opponent lost. Each kommandosi squad being 35 points without the transport compared to a SMAW team that only costs 15 points.

When you loose a unit to naplam there is a clear counter, armored vehicels. On the other hand SMAWs can kill infantry in a split second and justa s easily take out tanks. The only way I was able to stop the constant push was to just napalm strike swathes of forest in an attempt to
delay the push and build up more forces along with shelling the woods at random in a hope that I would kill or stun the units.

[TRIUMPH]

Certain factions lack an awesome CQC unit. They have recoilless rifles to make up for it. It saves them in urban combat. 5 man squads are destroyed by high HE like bombing, buratino or 203mm arty. If these units are removed then spetz and the chinese version will walk all over infantry. A lower ROF or higher price is a fine request but a full removal is out of the question. For forest combat try mixing in reservests or line infantry as bait and then have elites, RPO or AOE launcher units of your own move up and deal the damage during reload cycle.

[FloridamanActual]

Originally posted by EPICTriumph:

Certain factions lack an awesome CQC unit. They have recoilless rifles to make up for it. It saves them in urban combat. 5 man squads are destroyed by high HE like bombing, buratino or 203mm arty. If these units are removed then spetz and the chinese version will walk all over infantry. A lower ROF or higher price is a fine request but a full removal is out of the question. For forest combat try mixing in reservests or line infantry as bait and then have elites, RPO or AOE launcher units of your own move up and deal the damage during reload cycle.

Good thoughtful responce but he does have a point, napalm INF is the same size, point level and cost yet is is almost useless in its role when fire support inf is agaianst them. Bombs and arty is a nice counter but I always though that if a unit litteraly cannot be countered by comprable units that it might need a tweak (Speznaz im looking at you)

[Chiv]

Originally posted by EPICTriumph:

Certain factions lack an awesome CQC unit. They have recoilless rifles to make up for it. It saves them in urban combat. 5 man squads are destroyed by high HE like bombing, buratino or 203mm arty. If these units are removed then spetz and the chinese version will walk all over infantry. A lower ROF or higher price is a fine request but a full removal is out of the question. For forest combat try mixing in reservests or line infantry as bait and then have elites, RPO or AOE launcher units of your own move up and deal the damage during reload cycle.

Im not asking for a reomval of the unit. I completlly understand why they were given the HE component especially with the introduction of the Chineese napalm launcher but they have over 1/3 better range and almost 3 times better ROFand the ability to take down heavily armored vehicles in 1-2 shots.

I was running a good all around NSWP deck. Yes I have the ability to run reserveschutzen but would have to give up a line unit in order to use them. Compared to the NATO militia forces I have little luck in their use and with the rof of the SMAW and seeing how quickly they killed kommandosi squads (15 men) in 1-2 rockets there is little reson to bring them.

I guess I should make this more clear. I was mixing kommandosi and Czech recon SFs in with my line infantry. I would place the line infantry and recon in the center where I last saw the units and flank that with kommandosi. But again the ROF and damage is so high that by the time my grenzers or CZ SF recon spotted them they were dead. Not to mention 875m is further than alot of MGs. So even if I ambushed them the lower range and already high accuracy of the SMAW meant It would always hit.

I was runing the Czech 1000kg bombers what were effectivelly killing them early on when he had no AA. as he got more AA I had to start napalming the woods near my men to try and delay him from gaining more ground. Due to the amount of my men dying I had no points to spend on a Dana (the only arty in that deck) since I had to replace my constant losses. If it was not for my two teammates leaving I would have ran out of infantry within the first 10 minutes.

What I would really like to see is the HE power slighlty lowered and the ROF when engaing infantry cut in half. I don't understand why the SMAW needs HE in the first place though as the US assualt engineers already have the M202 flash and other NATO nations do have engineers. What worked fine for me back in the days of EE at killing spetz. Not to mention the REDFOR engis that have napalm launcher like the RPO Rys cost the same but have lower ROF and accuracy and dont have 22 AP power as well.

Edit: You stated that some factions dont offer "amazing" cqc units. What is quite obvious as only a handful of nations have any form of napalm launcher infantry. Yet the nations that dont have engineer type troops (Norway, Sweeden, Denmark, Japan, etc.) did not recieve any such of a unit. Instead nations that already have engineers (that can easily kill units in cqc) recieved such type of units. In all honesty it doesn't make sense. For any nation in game that already has engineers to get a unit that complettly outclasses engineers at both taking out infantry and with the added bonus of killing tanks for the same price. Whats the point of me taking East German pioneres or American assualt engineers when I can instead bring a SMAW or Panzerjager unit instead?

[FloridamanActual]

Originally posted by The Chivalrous One:

Originally posted by EPICTriumph:

Certain factions lack an awesome CQC unit. They have recoilless rifles to make up for it. It saves them in urban combat. 5 man squads are destroyed by high HE like bombing, buratino or 203mm arty. If these units are removed then spetz and the chinese version will walk all over infantry. A lower ROF or higher price is a fine request but a full removal is out of the question. For forest combat try mixing in reservests or line infantry as bait and then have elites, RPO or AOE launcher units of your own move up and deal the damage during reload cycle.

Im not asking for a reomval of the unit. I completlly understand why they were given the HE component especially with the introduction of the Chineese napalm launcher but they have over 1/3 better range and almost 3 times better ROFand the ability to take down heavily armored vehicles in 1-2 shots.

I was running a good all around NSWP deck. Yes I have the ability to run reserveschutzen but would have to give up a line unit in order to use them. Compared to the NATO militia forces I have little luck in their use and with the rof of the SMAW and seeing how quickly they killed kommandosi squads (15 men) in 1-2 rockets there is little reson to bring them.

I guess I should make this more clear. I was mixing kommandosi and Czech recon SFs in with my line infantry. I would place the line infantry and recon in the center where I last saw the units and flank that with kommandosi. But again the ROF and damage is so high that by the time my grenzers or CZ SF recon spotted them they were dead. Not to mention 875m is further than alot of MGs. So even if I ambushed them the lower range and already high accuracy of the SMAW meant It would always hit.

I was runing the Czech 1000kg bombers what were effectivelly killing them early on when he had no AA. as he got more AA I had to start napalming the woods near my men to try and delay him from gaining more ground. Due to the amount of my men dying I had no points to spend on a Dana (the only arty in that deck) since I had to replace my constant losses. If it was not for my two teammates leaving I would have ran out of infantry within the first 10 minutes.

What I would really like to see is the HE power slighlty lowered and the ROF when engaing infantry cut in half. I don't understand why the SMAW needs HE in the first place though as the US assualt engineers already have the M202 flash and other NATO nations do have engineers. What worked fine for me back in the days of EE at killing spetz. Not to mention the REDFOR engis that have napalm launcher like the RPO Rys cost the same but have lower ROF and accuracy and dont have 22 AP power as well.

I agree that the SMAW is a bit BS, 20 ROF and 3 HE with incredible accruacy and no viable weakness seems off to me.

[McMacky]

ROF against infantry should be nerfed. Also, given how high the avaliability is, that could be nerfed as well. I do find the short ranged fire support squads incredibly strong when in range as the 20 ROF allows units to be stunlocked and destroyed easily. but the longer ranged recoilless rifle teams with 7 ROF I think are in a good place.

[Chiv]

Originally posted by McMacky:

ROF against infantry should be nerfed. Also, given how high the avaliability is, that could be nerfed as well. I do find the short ranged fire support squads incredibly strong when in range as the 20 ROF allows units to be stunlocked and destroyed easily. but the longer ranged recoilless rifle teams with 7 ROF I think are in a good place.

Agreed the RR units are fine as is and I would not want them changed. They have slower ROF, lower accuracy, and lower AP damage, and are balanced as is. My issue is with infanftry support squads toting rocket launchers around for the same price engineers and being able to outperform them and elite veterancy special forces squads ina matter of seconds. When a 5 man low vetted SMAW team can win against multiiple 15 man elite veterancy special forces squads than something needs to be changed. Personally I would rather see SMAWs be nerfed instead of napalm launchers increased as combat starting and ending in less than a second is too chatoic to keep up with.

[TRIUMPH]

As NSWP you have units that mirror the MAW squads for CZ and Eger. You also have two napalm launchers, one for eger and one for polski. So you can match the enemy in fire power and iirc you can get the RPG version of the MAW at 10+5 while smaw come at 15+5.

Why does USA need the smaw to be AOE? Because they would get destroyed by elite spam in city fights.

Asian factions have recoilless rifles. JPN and Kor have the M67. They have more range and less ROF. Scandi factions are not complete. They, along with NSWP have not been given anything new. The NSWP have AOE 5man squads because it’s a global change to that unit type. We’ll have to see what happens in the first DLC.

5man napalm squads don’t work well in urban combat. Elites can easily jump into a block and rape them. I have seen AOE stacks fire their recoilless rifle at enemy elites (spetz) in some CQC fights*. Napalm launcher squads are not for urban combat however when spetz jump blocks it is a nice cherry on top to stun and destroy 3+ men before you have a huge amount of high acc cqc rolls after the jump into the occupied block.

The range on the asian recoiless weapons allows them to destroy walkers or get unique angles on blocks. I don't think the other rr's need to get nerfed until people properly AOE buildings.

With all that said from my experience, I can't tell you why some minors are trash. Clearly coalitions are competitive. I'm not a dev. I'm not staff on any sites. I'm not friends with a designer for this game. Can't answer those questions.

edited a word*

[Chiv]

Originally posted by EPICTriumph:

As NSWP you have units that mirror the MAW squads for CZ and Eger. You also have two napalm launchers, one for eger and one for polski. So you can match the enemy in fire power and iirc you can get the RPG version of the MAW at 10+5 while smaw come at 15+5.

Why does USA need the smaw to be AOE? Because they would get destroyed by elite spam in city fights.

Asian factions have recoilless rifles. JPN and Kor have the M67. They have more range and less ROF. Scandi factions are not complete. They, along with NSWP have not been given anything new. The NSWP have AOE 5man squads because it’s a global change to that unit type. We’ll have to see what happens in the first DLC.

5man napalm squads don’t work well in urban combat. Elites can easily jump into a block and rape them. I have seen AOE stacks fire their recoilless rifle at enemy elites (spetz) in some CQC fights*. Napalm launcher squads are not for urban combat however when spetz jump blocks it is a nice cherry on top to stun and destroy 3+ men before you have a huge amount of high acc cqc rolls after the jump into the occupied block.

The range on the asian recoiless weapons allows them to destroy walkers or get unique angles on blocks. I don't think the other rr's need to get nerfed until people properly AOE buildings.

With all that said from my experience, I can't tell you why some minors are trash. Clearly coalitions are competitive. I'm not a dev. I'm not staff on any sites. I'm not friends with a designer for this game. Can't answer those questions.

edited a word*

MAW, SMAW, and RPGs are not RRs (recoiless rifles) as they shoot rockets.

I know that the Czech and East Germans get similar units as I have stated in previous posts. I am not complaning at all that engis have been brought down to 5 man squads and if anything are happy with this as it makes them a purely specalized unit.

You stated before that the giving HE to the SMAW, MAW, and RPG was because "Certain factions lack an awesome CQC unit" but now you are saying that napalm launchers are not for cqc. I have already stated multiple times that I know NSWP have engineers with napalm launcher infantry. The poles get the RPO rys and the East Germans get a dual tube napalm launcher with lower accuracy, and slighlty higer 50% higher ROF (15) , and a little bit more ammo. Yet the East Germans than get the panzerjager what compared to the pioneirs has 5 more ROF, one less HE damage, one more round of ammunition, does an additional 17 AP damage, has the same range, better supression, and have more avaliable and costs five points less. So whats the point of of ever bringing pioniers if they are out classed in every way.

I don't know if I have been using engineers wrong since the beta of EE but the whole point of engineers was to assist your normal infantry in clearing out towns and forests. I remember using the french flamethrowers (if manouvered right) to burn multiple squads of spetz alive even though the spetz had better optics and longer range. I don't see how in any way you still cant do this with flamethrower infantry or since the addtion of the M202 flash in ALB. Since napalm launchers and flamethrowers have limited range they are best suited for cqb enviorments, mainly towns and forests.

Special forces armed with napalm luanchers like Spetz and Li Jian have a limited number of units you can call in comparison to panzerjager, SMAW, and MAW teams. Not to mention you can have multiple stacks of SMAW cards. So I really dont understad your point of elite spam in city fights. If I can only bring six spetz and you bring 14 SMAW teams that outrange and outperform my Spetz, where is the balance? That you can kill multiple 30 point SF teams with a single 15 point 5 man team and come out with at least two guys in the squad still alive is obviously broken.

Even in ALB it was completlly possible to kill spetz with assualt engineers and I never ran into elite spam killing everything I have. The limitation of the napalm launchers are quite clear. Anything with armor will easily survive where infantry and unarmored transports will quickly fall prey. In comparison SMAW, MAW, RPG teams have the ability to kill any/all infantry squads as well as the most heavily armored vehicles and cost half the price.

In a straight up fight one SMAW squad vs one Spetznasz squad the SMAW team will win every time. They have better range, higher base accuracy, higher ROF, and more supression. The SMAW team would just stunlock the spetz and slaughter theam as the cant fire back. Just like what happened in the match I talked about where my 15 man Kommandosi and 10 man Specialani Jedokanty squads were killed off in less than three seconds by a unit half their price that only took 0-2 causalties. Its rediculous in every way.

[TRIUMPH]

CG is considered an RR. Some RR have AOE, others don't. If you want to play that card I am going to drop this convo and you can whine on the offical forums about that stuff. Moving on,
Awesome CQC unit refers to spetz. Super high ROF and accuracy rifle and cqc lmg rolls.
So take the maw away from commonwealth and they're left with a situation where spetzs would destroy them all day every day. They would need an imaginary unit that has the nzsas smg and the minimi. Even then with this imaginary elite unit the spetz napalm launcher could decide a fight before it happens when they block hop after the napalm launcher fires and kills a few guys.
Stop talking about EE or ALB. Take those as different animals. In RD flamers and in my experience RPO guys do not do anything in city blocks. Might fire off a shot and then they become useless. Why is this? I reckon it's due to the games city block design. Size and block zone size.
The rest of your post is about balance in a vacuum. Need to look at full compsitions. Like iron bombs and 203s just destroy 2 and 5man squads. I've had a buratino shot land on the german maw guys and wipe them to the point where it was more effective to keep them out of the block while my line infantry replaced them in the block so the last man in the squad could kill enemy walking inf (sub elite) during their push. It's never as easy as just infantry when talking about that.

[DarthHammer]

I'd say that the debuff of having FSP squads be five man units is pretty balancing. Sure they can dish out a lot of damage to infantry and tanks that get close, but indirect fire will kill them pretty quick.

[DelroyMonjo]

The WARGAME devs are evil geniuses for creating a game system which makes it a given that you will NEVER have the perfect deck.

[Richardguy]

No weaknesses for SMAW squads? Are you kidding? Five-man teams with the fire rates, and accuracy of USMC units, yes. I seriously do not know what you're doing wrong that a USMC MAT team can take out Komandosi teams.

[FloridamanActual]

Originally posted by Richardguy:

No weaknesses for SMAW squads? Are you kidding? Five-man teams with the fire rates, and accuracy of USMC units, yes. I seriously do not know what you're doing wrong that a USMC MAT team can take out Komandosi teams.

Did you not read the post or are you just trolling...

[Chiv]

Originally posted by EPICTriumph:

CG is considered an RR. Some RR have AOE, others don't. If you want to play that card I am going to drop this convo and you can whine on the offical forums about that stuff. Moving on,
Awesome CQC unit refers to spetz. Super high ROF and accuracy rifle and cqc lmg rolls.
So take the maw away from commonwealth and they're left with a situation where spetzs would destroy them all day every day. They would need an imaginary unit that has the nzsas smg and the minimi. Even then with this imaginary elite unit the spetz napalm launcher could decide a fight before it happens when they block hop after the napalm launcher fires and kills a few guys.
Stop talking about EE or ALB. Take those as different animals. In RD flamers and in my experience RPO guys do not do anything in city blocks. Might fire off a shot and then they become useless. Why is this? I reckon it's due to the games city block design. Size and block zone size.
The rest of your post is about balance in a vacuum. Need to look at full compsitions. Like iron bombs and 203s just destroy 2 and 5man squads. I've had a buratino shot land on the german maw guys and wipe them to the point where it was more effective to keep them out of the block while my line infantry replaced them in the block so the last man in the squad could kill enemy walking inf (sub elite) during their push. It's never as easy as just infantry when talking about that.

apparentlly I couldn't remember that on a Carl Gustav you actually close the end of the tube on the munition in order to firce the projectile foward and allow gasses to project out the back, what would make it a RCLR.

RCLRs that have an AOE munition are used as bunker busters and not as anti-personel weapoons, although they techniclly can under certain circumstances be used to engage infantry.

Back to the original converstaion



Either half of what I say is going over your head or you are not reading everything. I have never said I wanted the removal of such units from the game. So I don't understand why every post you make you either accuse me of saying so or state what could happen if they are taken out. All I am asking for is that Eugen takes a look at such units for possible balancing due to how overly effective they are. As it stands right now there is no reason to bring engineers as for the same or less price you get a unit that can take out heavy tanks, and any infantry unit.

So again I don't understand why you keep saying I want the units removed (when I never said or hinted to such) and giving hypotheticals to what would happen if they are removed from the game.

Why should I stop talking about EE or ALB, the core mechanics are the exact same. The way you use engineers is the exact same. You bring them with your line infantry so that an enemy unit is held in place and your flanking flammers slaughter the unit. It was always succesfull against Spetz in all the other games in the series and has still proven succesfull in RD.

The city block design has no influence on how effective a unit is in CQC. Look at the transition from EE to ALB and you can clearly see this point. So claming that weapons designed to take out infnatry suffer because of this is flawed.

Your stating that I am only taking in to consideratiion units of a simillar role. What is the first thing to compare since they are meant to be simillar to one another and direct competition. But again you seem to only take away what you want from what I have said. I said that early on my 1000kg bombers were doing good numbers on his SMAW teams. As he realized this he got FIM-92C squads along with Avengers. and kept them with his force in the woods. So I had to stop the bombing runs as I had already lost one of my two bombers. Instead I resorted to napalming the woods near my position to try and stop the constant push.

So lets look at this from a "larger" point fo view. The obvious counter to IR AA is to send in Infantry or aromred vehicles to eliminate the threat and re-open the airspace for your planes and helicopters. But the catch is the entire woods is full of SMAW teams that can one to two shot your infnatry, tanks, and fire support vehicles. So the only way you can even try and attempt to counter this is to bring in some form of artillery. The issue here is that you need constant infantry reinforcements to replace the troops that are dying in seconds. So the 90 points I would have needed to spend on a dana means I have to give up buying almost five squads of polish infnatry what means there is now a huge gap in my defense that can easily be exploited by the constant pushing SMAW teams.

Any decent player will be constantlly moving thier AA so that artillery can not hit them. If I wanted to pinpoint the exact locations and spend an exorbent amount of points to do so then I completlly neglect my defenses. The only way would be to get a cheap helicopter or plane and send it on a one way trip over enemy lines and mark the positions and hope your shells arrive before the enemy AA forces leave the area. So I would have to spend 35 points on a hellicopter (as the cheapest in my deck is an Mi-2) or 55 points on a Mig-21 and 90 points on a Dana. Thats now 125-145 points down the drain what is equivalent to just over 6-7 line infantry squads that are despretlly needed to reinforce my defenses in the woods.

Now as the game goes on and I consistantly watch my rank three line infnatry die in seconds I know I need to bring out the best of the best in my deck. I start calling out a mix of Piechota Zmech (my polish line inf), Kommandosi (my polish SF), Specilani Jedekoty (My Czech SFs Recon squads) and Grenzers (my cheap East German recon infnatry). My plan is to place the line infantry in the center to hold the enemy along with my cheap grenzers (that I know will die in any fight). With Kommandosi and Jedekoty on the flanks so that I can encircle the units and mow them down as they are focusing on the regulars and recon.

My deployment of forces looked like this:

Kommandosi____Zmech__Zmech__Zmech___Kommandosi
_Jedekonty____________Grenzers___________Jedekonty

The point of me mixing the recon in is so that I can hopefully spot the SMAW teams before they see me and allow me to get the first shot off. I would have brought cheaper Mi-2s to recon the area but since it's woods and a five man team has very good stealth I wouldnt be able to see the SMAW teams untill they open fired and killed the recon choppers or untill his IADS got close enough to eliminate any form of helicopter support and transport options I had. What means I would have to keep feeding 35 point helicopters just to spot a fifteen point unit. What is clearly feeding and just a noob strategy. My other reason Is I want him to think I have given up all offensive air actions and that I am only using napalm bombers to halt his advance, so that he sees them as no immediate threat and only as a defensive action. The reason being is that all my SFs come in transport helicopters so I want to keep him holding his IADS back so that I can drop off troops as close to the front as possible without the risk of loosing fifty points to a lucky stinger shot. I need troops on the front as quick as possible due to the high amount of casualties that need to be replaced ASAP if I wish to prevent a complete overwhelming of my lines.

My thought process on why I deployed this way is that I would rather have a large group of regulars take most of the fire rather than expensive units that I can only call small amounts in. The SFs with good accuracy and rate of fire should than in theory take less fire and thus less casualties but inflict sever damage on my opponents forces. In the end what would happen is my regulars woudl stumble upon one to two SMAW teams and a stinger squad and die to one rocket (or if lucky survive but be stunlocked). By the time my three squads of regualrs and one squad of grenzers were dead they at best killed two men. The SFs would arrive as the regualrs were being killed but suffer the same fate as one rocket would kill the recon SFs and another one to two would kill the Kommandosi squads. Since your fighitng in the woods and Infantry have such good stealth in the woods 90% of these fights occured within operational range of the infantrys small arms. So even with my Kommandosi (at elite veterancy) firing thier rapid fire AK-74Us they would kill a mximum of three men. So at best After loosing all of these men I would kill one fifteen point SMAW team at the cost of 160 points (each Kommandosi being 35 points, each Jedokanty being 25, each Piechota Zmech being 10, and the Grenzers being 15). In case you dont have a calculator with you or if you can't do the math in your head: 35+35+25+25+15+10+10+10=165. So the only way of taking out these units was for me to feed my opponent one hundred sixty-five points and hope I can kill one to two units and get thirty points back at best.

Now I know your going to say well you micro is ♥♥♥♥ than and you were not halting your units in time so they were not being able to fire thier guns in time when they spotted the enemy. Every single move I mad was by me pressing Q (my hot key for attack move) and then right clicking at a point behind where I last engaed the enemy. In case you are unaware attack move has your units move to a position just like right clicking but the moment your men spot an enemy they will hold and immedietlly open fire upon the spotted enemy. This for one allows line troops to use their LMGs as most require the unit to be static and two eliminates the aim penalty on assualt rifles for firing on the move.

Hopefully you may finally get the point that there is no counter to these squads especially when you opponent has any form an air defense net that he keeps any where remotelly near his advencing troops.

[TRIUMPH]

We're passed my removal reaction. We're passed why they are there and what they have to do. Your wall of text just tells me that you had a unit composition that wouldn't even be ready for assault eng spam and when you face higher ROF it gets destroyed even harder. You're trying to give reasons for other games when all that matters right now is what will get you the win. The answer there is your own AOE units and/or use polish RPO because of alpha and hit rate. Or make a deck that won't be gimped. Half of today I've been playing multi in nothing but forest/ forest islands mixing in chinese elites, bmp-1D's, AOE, and line inf on multi(buratino+ any inf picks) or multi+mech(ifv / slow mass menspam). You do have to remember that NSWP and Scandi are not finished factions until DLC 1. AT welding elites attempt to bypass and hunt tanks or in the case of recce they sit on an edge and then recce.