Nebelwerfer 42s should be limited to just one per division or made less accurate. I got totally wrecked by them yesterday, all someone has to do is to sit with AA around it and kill your arty quickly. Then it can spam-bombard you to death.
A constructive list of general gameplay issues (not specific unit/division balance)
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Highly disagree. Without the this mechanic, Jumbos, Panthers and Königstigers would get superunits, you can't deal with, when there is no weapon available, that can effectively pierce them.
Did you ever even use tanks?
You should lose a "Supertank" when u use them in a wrong way or play too risky.
Currently you just lose them because they are "falling back" which cannot really be avoided by skill or micromanagement.
The best way to buff AT guns, at least in my opinion, is to make them stealthier. Not too stealthy as to make them invisible even when, or directly after, firing, but stealthier as to make it so indirect fire and aircraft munitions don't always know the exact location of the gun thanks to a single recon team 500m away.
They might need to do a hard nerf to optics for anything that isn't a recon unit and up the stealth of infantry and towed stuff. Its making it really difficult to keep AAA and AT alive because once they fire, they're revealed to units sort of far away........................ who then bust out their cell phones to call their buddies at the mortar pits or the airfield.
I'm using less and less actual recon because my infantry is generally close enough to work just fine for forward spotting. The hunter-killer recon teams are still obliviously useful and the cheap guys on the flanks, but keeping recon with my main force, meh, pointless.
I'm using less and less actual recon because my infantry is generally close enough to work just fine for forward spotting. The hunter-killer recon teams are still obliviously useful and the cheap guys on the flanks, but keeping recon with my main force, meh, pointless.
Yes i did.
Problem of your Argument is: You don't "lose" a tank, when it is falling back, but it is out of use for a very limited time and comes back after that. It is very difficult, to lose a Jumbo, when you aproach your Opponent and it is not a Pak 43 88mm, that shoots at you. The skill is, to maneuver your tanks into positions, were they don't get panicked immidiately.
This mechanic is fits very nice in this game imho, because it ads another way of dealing with armor, than destroying it.
And to get that clear, nobody loses a tank, that is falling back. It is only a good tool, to for example stop an ennemy Approach with superior firepower, even if you can't destroy the tank.
The only issue with falling back units is when they fall back toward the enemy.
In other cases they'll often put themselves at risk, but there's always smoke for that.
In other cases they'll often put themselves at risk, but there's always smoke for that.
Joining in on the discussion pretty late, but I'd like to say that yesterday I had a game that experienced every single one of the problems presented in the OP. I was playing as 12. SS-Panzer with a 17. SS-Panzergrenadiers ally against double 2nd Infantry on Colombelles — in other words, a phase A-focused deck and a phase C-focused deck against two phase A-focused decks, in a map generally favorable to both kinds.
I took the more open side while my ally focused on the factory. Here's what went down:
I feel like conquest should work similarly to how it does in Battlefield, where the team with greater map control gets faster progress to the victory condition, but the weaker side still gets at least some. It keeps matches closer and more competitive. It's silly that the frontline can bisect the map right down the middle, but because it's 1% closer one way over the other, that side gets all the points and the other gets nothing.
Axis AA definitely needs a boost — IRL it was pretty much all they had — and rocket artillery needs to be toned down. The medium rocket artillery in Wargame that caused massive panic but didn't kill a whole lot would be a good model to experiment with in Steel Division, IMO.
As for AT guns, I think a stealth buff for them would do the trick. Their advantage over mobile tank destroyers is supposed to be that they can hide and ambush, but they're too easy to spot to do this effectively. Artillery and even long-ranged tanks can easily kill them when they're spotted by a 20pt scout. If you can't see them, suddenly you become more reliant on smoke and (nerfed, suppression-oriented) rocket artillery to cover your movements instead of laser-beam corrected HE mortar barrages.
I took the more open side while my ally focused on the factory. Here's what went down:
- My opponent goes hard on AT guns. Really big problem at first, and he does a good job at moving them around so they're hard to pin down, but eventually just as Phase C rolls around, I'm able to finish them all off with my mortar halftrack that I brought in the opening deployment. This whole time I was using just two (2) cheap hidden scout squads to spot them all, and one supply truck kept the mortar going the whole game without making so much as a dent its the total supplies. He's finally left with nothing but M10s and M4A1s to counter my armor, so at this point — over 20 minutes in — I'm finally able to make a big breakthrough with Panthers.
- Both opponents just go ham on my teammate with Allied air power and artillery. I shoot down a lot of planes with BF-109s (including using the light bomber multiroles exclusively as fighters to keep their re-arm time down) and bomb artillery, but for every one I kill, two take its place. It totally stunted any kind of attack my teammate tried to make. Eventually half my 109s get shot down by an ever-increasing number of enemy fighters and our anti-air was just too weak to make up for it. I thankfully managed to snipe my opponent's Xylophone before it did too much damage, but no such luck for my teammate, since there was lots of cover for artillery to hide behind on his side.
- For literally the entire game up until the start of Phase C, the enemy had a 1% advantage on map control. I'm not exaggerating. We were fighting tooth-and-nail and the Allied map control never passed 51%. But because of the way conquest works, they had a steady victory point income and we didn't have any. By the time my Phase C breakthrough hits, we're at a severe deficit that can only be made up for by me maintaining 52% map control on my side for the entire rest of the game. This basically means capturing almost all of my side of the map by myself while my ally, who is on the backfoot at this point from incessant bombardment, digs in.
I feel like conquest should work similarly to how it does in Battlefield, where the team with greater map control gets faster progress to the victory condition, but the weaker side still gets at least some. It keeps matches closer and more competitive. It's silly that the frontline can bisect the map right down the middle, but because it's 1% closer one way over the other, that side gets all the points and the other gets nothing.
Axis AA definitely needs a boost — IRL it was pretty much all they had — and rocket artillery needs to be toned down. The medium rocket artillery in Wargame that caused massive panic but didn't kill a whole lot would be a good model to experiment with in Steel Division, IMO.
As for AT guns, I think a stealth buff for them would do the trick. Their advantage over mobile tank destroyers is supposed to be that they can hide and ambush, but they're too easy to spot to do this effectively. Artillery and even long-ranged tanks can easily kill them when they're spotted by a 20pt scout. If you can't see them, suddenly you become more reliant on smoke and (nerfed, suppression-oriented) rocket artillery to cover your movements instead of laser-beam corrected HE mortar barrages.
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The German AA is not that bad, they get access to 88's.
AAA is terrible across the board at killing anything, even if you spam Bofors or M15's. It's just not very cost effective given the point. I think the tri-polsten is bugged or something so nobody should come in here all like 'blah blah blah the Allies AAA is amazing'. Both sides suffer from really truly awful counters to air right now.
I'm getting mauled by JU-88's and P-38's all the same. The reason why I bring up the 88's is that they are they only reliable counter to air right now. Do they kill anything? Hell no, but two 88's insta-panic ANY plane. And you can move them around about 600m behind your frontline using attack move to avoid any artillery (god damn it's a terrible micro though) and you'll make those planes panic well before they are cable to attack your lines. They also allow you to lock down your side of the map against fighters since they can't chase and kill your planes back across the map..... since the 88's insta-panic fighters too.
The problem that I'm seeing is a lot of people are using 17th SS because they've got that great artillery tab....................BUT NO 88's. 12th SS has a limited but potent AAA tab and Luftlande is nasty with their upvetted 88's. 17th is objectively left to twist in the wind.
You should have deployed your 88's over to your ally's side, IMO. Your Panthers at least have a chance to survive rocket runs and bombers, 17th doesn't have that luxury.
Edit: Does anyone know if the Mobelwagon is even worth it? Right now my 12th SS is basically 20mm at start in Half-Tracks, then a Whirblewind in Phase B, then 2xWhirbles in Phase C, I think 2x Mobels and then the two 88's. That may be too many cards though as I'm going off of memory. Does the 37mm on the Mobel do ANYTHING to kill planes or is it just an overpriced pop gun like all the rest?
AAA is terrible across the board at killing anything, even if you spam Bofors or M15's. It's just not very cost effective given the point. I think the tri-polsten is bugged or something so nobody should come in here all like 'blah blah blah the Allies AAA is amazing'. Both sides suffer from really truly awful counters to air right now.
I'm getting mauled by JU-88's and P-38's all the same. The reason why I bring up the 88's is that they are they only reliable counter to air right now. Do they kill anything? Hell no, but two 88's insta-panic ANY plane. And you can move them around about 600m behind your frontline using attack move to avoid any artillery (god damn it's a terrible micro though) and you'll make those planes panic well before they are cable to attack your lines. They also allow you to lock down your side of the map against fighters since they can't chase and kill your planes back across the map..... since the 88's insta-panic fighters too.
The problem that I'm seeing is a lot of people are using 17th SS because they've got that great artillery tab....................BUT NO 88's. 12th SS has a limited but potent AAA tab and Luftlande is nasty with their upvetted 88's. 17th is objectively left to twist in the wind.
You should have deployed your 88's over to your ally's side, IMO. Your Panthers at least have a chance to survive rocket runs and bombers, 17th doesn't have that luxury.
Edit: Does anyone know if the Mobelwagon is even worth it? Right now my 12th SS is basically 20mm at start in Half-Tracks, then a Whirblewind in Phase B, then 2xWhirbles in Phase C, I think 2x Mobels and then the two 88's. That may be too many cards though as I'm going off of memory. Does the 37mm on the Mobel do ANYTHING to kill planes or is it just an overpriced pop gun like all the rest?
Yep, Infantry/soft targets are far too vulnerable to direct fire. The whole concept of full squads being wiped out in short order by halftrack MGs (even tank MGs) is completely overblown. Once the MGs start firing, sure one or two men might be hit but the rest are going to scatter and go to ground and at that point, you could empty your MGs and likely not score any additional hits. SD doesn't seem to model that...the last guy in the squad is still just as vulnerable as the first.
In my experience, 88s aren't actually that potent and get killed fairly easily. I'll have to experiment with them more. Maybe I'll put a command car near them next time.
So far unimpressed with Mobelwagens, though. I think they're so expensive because their armor lets them resist being bombed. Might be another case of old Challenger 1 Mk.3 syndrome where armor is severely overvalued in its price.
Also, another game I played yesterday, a bunch of American AAA halftracks did a pretty solid job of shooting down airplanes unassisted. Don't know what the same points' worth of Axis AA would have done, but I was pretty impressed at the time. I just have a big pile of anecdotes as far as AAA is concerned, basically.
This is the AA I mostly use:
2nd Inf being the worst of the 3 Allies it still has better options than the Axis. They get the 1x37 2x50cal at A and the OP M16 later.
3rd Arm is just insane with the Veterancy and availability, If Triforce Polsten would be nerfed they'd have the strongest AA.
15th Scots is just BROKEN Humber is nice but Triforce is 40% more damage than Flakvierling for same price and 6 of them in A.
Now Axis and before you say I didn't pick AA X all things I did not pick are mediocre to rubbish. Like single barrel 20mm is worst of all. Single 37 is not that bad so mediocre but still not enough output for the price.
91 Luft IS SO BAD yes they get 88 and Vierling but all in C they have just BS in A and B
17th PzG is kind of the best of Axis but still worse than the worst of Allies. At least they have decent AA in all phases.
12th SS is OK in B+ but defenseless in A coupled with them getting no Air in A
2nd Inf being the worst of the 3 Allies it still has better options than the Axis. They get the 1x37 2x50cal at A and the OP M16 later.
3rd Arm is just insane with the Veterancy and availability, If Triforce Polsten would be nerfed they'd have the strongest AA.
15th Scots is just BROKEN Humber is nice but Triforce is 40% more damage than Flakvierling for same price and 6 of them in A.
Now Axis and before you say I didn't pick AA X all things I did not pick are mediocre to rubbish. Like single barrel 20mm is worst of all. Single 37 is not that bad so mediocre but still not enough output for the price.
91 Luft IS SO BAD yes they get 88 and Vierling but all in C they have just BS in A and B
17th PzG is kind of the best of Axis but still worse than the worst of Allies. At least they have decent AA in all phases.
12th SS is OK in B+ but defenseless in A coupled with them getting no Air in A
Gotta use the 88's in pairs, no not like right next to each other, just sort of supporting a few hundred meters apart. If both fire at the same target, the plane panics immediately. One 88 doesn't really do much to be fair. The enemy plane will still continue on its run.
Shitty part is I think you only get 2 88's in either Luftlande or 12th SS so they're SUPER valuable and must be microed to hell to protect them.
Also when you target something with your mortar, if that target then moves whilst being fired upon, your mortar team will actually get up and blindly follow it and potentially end up walking straight into the enemy's line of sight.
It's hard to notice this and it may happen way too late for anything to be done about it.
Perhaps once an enemy disappears, the mortar fires and forgets or just keep firing at the same spot (most logical/realistic way). Mortar teams should not track invisible enemy targets
It's hard to notice this and it may happen way too late for anything to be done about it.
Perhaps once an enemy disappears, the mortar fires and forgets or just keep firing at the same spot (most logical/realistic way). Mortar teams should not track invisible enemy targets
Okay, I followed these tips and it worked exactly as you said. Pretty cool, actually. I will do this much more from now on.
Do the 2-star ones from 21. Luftlande actually kill anything?
No. Only like concentrated fire from 37mm and 40mm reliably ever kill stuff and that's only after a plane has spent way too long over a line. I think I've seen an 88 properly kill a plane as it was leaving the area like 3 times.
Personally, I hate what the 88's can do and it only takes one person to validate something posted on a forum so I imagine more people will try it and I will suffer even more from Luftlande and 12th SS players who bring the double 88's and shut down all air. You can all thank me for pointing it out when the air game for allies goes completely into the shitter.
Personally, I hate what the 88's can do and it only takes one person to validate something posted on a forum so I imagine more people will try it and I will suffer even more from Luftlande and 12th SS players who bring the double 88's and shut down all air. You can all thank me for pointing it out when the air game for allies goes completely into the shitter.
I don't think that will happen. Last game i played two 88's were fielded simultanously behind enemy lines and apart from each other, they blocked my fighters and revealed themselves and one of em got instantly artied and the other one was attacked shortly after by 1 fighter, 2 AT fighters and one bomber and also artied in the process. It managed to panick the fighter but the rest got through and that thing was also gone for good. The axis side spend 2 cards and 260 points for panicking a handfull of air, we had no losses on the allied side. I personally still find the 88 to vulnerable especially to long range arty and even air in some cases and with one per card to scarce to be cost/ efficient but I have it nonetheless in my decks, since sadly its the best german aa....
In defense for the axis side, I should mention that we already had complete air superiority at that time
Edit: This may also point out a couple of balance problems: Arty is too effective and aa networks/ defense can be rendered somewhat useless when flooded with enemy air.
I also believe the Allies are far stronger in the AA segment. The allies got more, cheaper and better choices. With Luftlande I would even sacrifice the Flak 36, if I could chose better AA earlier to protect my ground Forces. But I simply can´t, there is just one bad choice in Phase A.
Perhaps having the Victory point tick (Conquest) only commence from the start of phase B rather than phase A would help redress this. Phase A should be about recon, probing, skirmishing and initial positioning to create a "starting front line" for the real battle for taking and holding ground which would begin in phase B.
Divisions, that have their finest hour in Phase A, like the 2e DB, would be useless then...