Feedback: Infantry combat and divisional balance

[Graphic]

I disagree that infantry combat is still too lethal. If it's toned down any further it's going to start to become indecisive, and then we get closer and closer to an artillery meta (both on-map and off-map).

If you're having problems with units getting pinned and it being "all over" at that point, just a PSA that pinned units take extremely reduced damage, and you can retreat them back into your lines with the R key.

 

[BCGaius]

I disagree that infantry combat is still too lethal. If it's toned down any further it's going to start to become indecisive, and then we get closer and closer to an artillery meta (both on-map and off-map).

If you're having problems with units getting pinned and it being "all over" at that point, just a PSA that pinned units take extremely reduced damage, and you can retreat them back into your lines with the R key.

Hugely disagree here.

I'm arguing that it should be less lethal at long range (including from artillery). Not only would artillery accomplish little other than to stress and pin down squads (which is its actual, realistic function anyway), but it would encourage close-range, decisive firefights which currently don't seem to occur much because right now you can just park a tank and a halftrack 500m away from a spotted infantry squad and annihilate them. Requiring close-range assaults for decisive tactical victories is both realistic and encourages better gameplay.

And all fall back generally seems to do is make the squad stand up, waffle around indecisively, run into enemy fire, and die even faster.

 

[Graphic]

And all fall back generally seems to do is make the squad stand up, waffle around indecisively, run into enemy fire, and die even faster.

I can only speak to my own experience, but it works fine for me on infantry. On vehicles it's really random though.

 

[DuroSVK]

Infantry combat is fine as it is right now.

 

[SomeIrateBrit]

Part of the problem is that half tracks act as fully armoured vehicles in the game right now. Historically, half tracks weren't that well protected, and were never designed to take concentrated smalls arms fire. In game they should be fairly easy to pin with infantry squads, which I think would help solve the problem as is, while still making them useful as infantry support.

 

[Karlburg]

To be fair, both of the infantry decks in this game have access to phase A armored support, even if it's crappy Renault and Hotchkiss tanks.

 

[McMacky]

I like that mounted mgs are actually useful as fire support, as opposed to earlier Wargame games. Given the increased price that mechanized units have and the fact that halftracks can advance a line and hold it makes the transport actually worth keeping alive, as opposed to earlier games in the Wargame series where they acted as little more than meatshields for more valuable vehicles. That being said, I believe that trucks should be more resistant to moral damage than they are now, and perhaps to a certain degree mg fire.

 

[Wolke]

Crappy and not really up to the task.

To be fair, both of the infantry decks in this game have access to phase A armored support, even if it's crappy Renault and Hotchkiss tanks.

Yea, but those crappy Renault and Hotchkiss tanks are hopelessly outclassed by what the opponents can bring in support of those HTs, in addition to being slow.

Also:
Phase A
3 Honey Stuarts per card
3 M5A1 per card
but only 2 Panzer 39H(f) or 4 Panzer 35 per card

How does that make sense.

 

[mitchverr]

For the 3 honey per card though, do remember that there is some asymetric warfare in there, as they need to have 3 on the card to make it a viable pick, as in phase B and C they are up against for the most part stugs and panthers, sometimes some panzer 4s but not often, meaning the 15th need to save some space for challengers in phase C, command tank and a phase B tank. I would only ever take 1 card of honeys with 3, if they drop to 2, I would likely dump the honey from my deck for other units.

As for the M5a1s, thats an armoured deck, kind of makes sense to me.

Though the luftboys could use 3 per card though imo, also armoured cars from recon in phase A would make it a much more different fight and not just let armed transports roll around too much.

Lastly, dont forget guys that the US infantry dont have MGs till phase 3 and that the UK infantry dont carry anti tank, only the command does, meaning they need dedicated PIAT or other AT choices too, unlike the germans.

 

[Wolke]

Luftlande has 4 card-slots for tanks currently (compared to 5 for the 15th Rifle).

In Phase B you -could- pick 2 cards of 1 Stug G Vet 0 each. and a Cmd Panzer III H with a command range as far as a whispering voice reaches, if you see a point in it.

The Phase B Churchills of the 15th Infantry come with 3 Cards of 4, or 2 cards of 5 of the older type.

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The 91. Luftlande Inf in Phase A with AT are the officers and 50 point Fallschirmjäger. And of course specialists in AT/Recon tab. In Phase B you get access to Grenadiers with AT, yes, but you take a hit by them only coming at 4 each card with no vet and at a price of 30, compared to 9 Rifles+ with 1 vet (even 12 in phase C) and 20 cost. You may need more specialists, but you have so much more availability that it is easy to justify some cards of them. Besides the 15th Rifle also have decent tank / support / AT-Gun options.

And compare the stats of Rifle+ 1 Vet with the Grenadier+ 0 Vet. 20vs25 points. What am I missing here?

The only tab where Luftlande 91. arguably has an advantage is the Air tab. That's all it has.And with some Fighters / AA you can make that tab easily cost-ineffective / useless.

 

[mitchverr]

Machinegun capability is what you are missing ^^

And you also miss a big point, very soon i suspect the AVRE is going to be AV 9, meaning, that in actuality, the 15ths "best tanks" will be command tanks, with the rest being rather less than average and worse than panzer 4s for most things, from what it looks like so far, the majority of german players will have access to better tanks, including the luft guys, to me it looks like they have a simular issue as what the 6th airborne look to have and what I suspect 101st will also have. Meaning that the allies will need more of the tanks to replace losses due to having worse tanks on the whole.

Though I do agree the tanks side is a problem for them, more often then not, they aint going to be fighting against tanks with AV 12 and up. Personally I would like to see the stug cards get a minimum of 3 per card in phase b, possibly 4 but they are significantly better then churchills other than the command tank so 3 would likely be enough for phase B. Though, you do get a semi decent number of marders at least.

I still suspect from looking at the other decks we have seen, that the 91 are just under strength, needing more per card as their main thing.

 

[TGApples]

I don't really agree with respect to the halftracks. Their weapons are useful in some scenarios, not in others and you pay a lot for them. Often you can just break LoS when you bump in to one. They have their uses, but I think they're balanced and priced about right.

Infantry combat lethality seems fine to me as well. The only really quick deaths I've seen has been where a squad goes from no incoming fire to massive incoming fire in a split-second. On the whole, I'm fine with that being fairly lethal.

 

[Wolke]

Yes, 15th Rifle doesn't have dedicated MGs in Phase A+B.

I am honestly not quite sure how big of an issue this is, as their excellent support vehicles and excellent availability of squads with integrated MGs more than compensate for it.

And the AVRE going down to 9 will hopefully come with a noticable reduction in cost, turning it into a more punchy, but shorter range, support-Stug analogue. They still have the Crocodile for phase A, too, to absorb AT fire.

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I agree that the first step for the 91 LL should be an increase of availability for quite a lot of cards - infantry, AT-guns, tanks, even phase A support units like the IG-18 (currently comes at 2), maybe coupled with an increase of points to 39-40.

 

[Rocksitter]

Long range effect on infantry needs to be toned down a bit regardless of what happen to half tracks or divisions.

 

[IronHat]

I think the problem is how the halftrack is completely immune to small arms. The m3 HT had 1 cm of steel, making it resistant to bullet but not immune. The gunner's cupola is also rather exposed. The Kangaroo was developed by the Canadian precisely because Halftrack lack the armor to sufficiently protect its occupant.

I think a compromise would be to make halftrack vulnerable to suppression. If possible HT should be vulnerable to small arms at 200m or below.

 

[blumps]

Anti-Air units eat up infantry in cover way too quick. Infantry can't close gap in order to engage it. Kind of upsetting that a few AA units can keep all infantry at bay and turn the game in to a stalemate or a massacre if you are heavy infantry based. AT guns can take them out but I'd have to check the ranges. Either way way I think it needs to be tuned down by just a little bit

 

[blumps]

Hugely disagree here.

I'm arguing that it should be less lethal at long range (including from artillery). Not only would artillery accomplish little other than to stress and pin down squads (which is its actual, realistic function anyway), but it would encourage close-range, decisive firefights which currently don't seem to occur much because right now you can just park a tank and a halftrack 500m away from a spotted infantry squad and annihilate them. Requiring close-range assaults for decisive tactical victories is both realistic and encourages better gameplay.

And all fall back generally seems to do is make the squad stand up, waffle around indecisively, run into enemy fire, and die even faster.

One thing they could do is give infantry weapons better range. 100m is really awful anyway when those weapons should be 3-500 yards away effective range and about 1000 yards for MG teams. This 100m crap is insanely low. It needs to be moved up or remove the "historically accurate" tag from the game. I'm a US Marine myself and 100m is not very far. We don't even qualify at that range. We qualify at 2,3 and 500 yards. Granted we aren't firing M1 Garands or something of the like, but it doesn't take more than a few google searches to see the max effective range of said weapons is about 500 yards (457m).

As of right now, infantry is only good for fighting infantry. You can't get in to range of anything without running out of cover to get in to its range (ie; AT infantry vs tanks). I want to play infantry divisions, but right now it puts me at a disadvantage against armor divisions. They can roll up an AA gun or HT w/ MG and can out range me times 3. Thats not fair at all

 

[Rocksitter]

A lot of good ideas here hope Eugen takes a look.

 

[SrsBsns]

i think its ridiculous that tanks can shoot at infantry in a building from over 500m away with machine guns and slowly chew them away. i think it would make sense to suppress them (not all the way, but to a threshold like engaged or worried for mg fire, the big tank guns would be a different matter, that would be more realistic in my oppinion). do you know what i mean? the suppression is too fast and too heavy and overall to lethal at long ranges

 

[blumps]

i think its ridiculous that tanks can shoot at infantry in a building from over 500m away with machine guns and slowly chew them away. i think it would make sense to suppress them (not all the way, but to a threshold like engaged or worried for mg fire, the big tank guns would be a different matter, that would be more realistic in my oppinion). do you know what i mean? the suppression is too fast and too heavy and overall to lethal at long ranges

I agree. However, they shouldn't be suppressed because they are behind cover. They should take damage, but not at the rate it is now. What should happen is the building should take damage. If the building takes so much damage and the infantry are inside, the building collapses and the infantry die. The stress can go up and have their return fire rate penalized in some way, but as of right now there isn't a unit in the game that can't out range them as it is. Infantry units are currently broken in this regard. MG teams can fire back, but no AT rockets, and no long range rifle fire. Its really upsetting. 100m should be 500m and the AT rockets should be maybe a little further, say 600m with long reload times so they don't make the regular AT guns obsolete.

Same for the AA guns. They shouldn't be able to take out infantry from super long range. Thats another matter entirely tho