Cons vs. Landsers and other small stuff

[Grand Duke]

Hello, everyone. While we are STILL () waiting for the new patch, I'd like to ask some questions about early game strategy and whatnot.
So, say, there's a hypothetical situation. On a rural map there is an encounter between SU's and OH's basic infantry squads: a squad of unupgraded Landsers (without MKB, G41 or grenades) versus a squad of Conscripts (they can be both upgraded with extra rifles or not - doesn't matter, and no Molotovs). Both sides have limited green and yellow cover with patches of no-cover land inbetween. So, the question is: with no help from other units who would win in a long-ranged fight? On medium-range? Close range?
Which side should try to close the distance by hopping from cover to cover and try to engage the enemy in close range, and which side is best to try and keep the enemy squad at long range while slowly whittling down their health with rifle fire from cover? To clarify, f.e., if this was about Riflemen and Volks, then Rifles would try to close in, while Volks would try to keep at long range; and what about Cons and Landsers?
What if this was a unupgraded Strelky vs. Landers fight? What distance would be best for either of them?
I hope I made myself clear, and looking forward for a nice little discussion 

P.S. Oh, and another little cosmetic suggestion, I know this is not the right forum section to discuss it in, but I don't want to create tons of new threads, and well, we're discussing Conscripts so it's kinda related.
The thing is, have the devs ever thought of diversifying the conscripts' uniform a bit, like what you did with Landsers? The current 7-man squad of clones with same softcaps and uniforms looks a bit... boring. I think making 1 or 2 models of the squad wear the same uniform the SU's AT gun crews wear (pilotka-softcap and a brown coat, you know what I mean), or for example, giving some of the Cons helmets would make the Conscript squad look more like what it is - a hastily-formed mish-mash formation of poorly equipped rear-liners and newly drafted men.

[Campaigner]

I wonder that too. I didn't knew about the Volks vs Rifles matchup until a few years ago. Never really thought about it (and also because my friends always wanted to play 3v3 or 4v4 so that matchup was irrelevant).

I hope the Conscripts are absolute crap at combat and cap at 0.5 speed but are cheap. Would really be the red tide like Orks in Dawn of War when they get free sluggas.

[Blackbishop]

I'll see what I can do about the conscript variety, but I cannot promise anything in the short-term.

[Grand Duke]

I'll see what I can do about the conscript variety, but I cannot promise anything in the short-term.

Hey, that's nice to hear, please look into it when you have enough time, that would be extremely nice 

[chaosval3]

About the Cons vs Landser match up... In the current public version Landsers overperform dramatically compared to Conscripts. If you plot both unupgraded against each other, the Landsers should always come out on top. Cover will only make the firefight longer in this case, but Landsers will best conscripts. In order to give the half-equipped cons a chance you would get them the full rifles upgrade. This upgrade is cheap and I think even cheaper in the coming versions. Because the conscripts now have a large amount of rifles (7), which means double the damage output, people tend to underestimate them and think they can just waltz over them because of their crappy HP per model. With full rifles, it's 50/50 between both. However, one squad has no upgrades and the other had to research a global upgrade. Then, the real fun begins for OH players. You get G-41's. They will throw the match up right out the window, with their crazy output at all ranges. They are cheap too (35 poorly equipped  IIRC)! Not to even mention the MKB, which has more DPS output than the whole squad itself. Currently, Cons get destroyed and have high chances of dieing in the game. I would advise you to get Strelky as quickly as possible because they will defeat Landsers easily with their upgrades. Be the Landsers upgraded or not, that simply doesn't matter to Strelkies

The public Cons-Landsers match up has way too many issues. We made a lot of changes to give Cons a fairer chance and to make sure that Landsers won't overperform, but can still be used like Riflemen (As your main infantry through the entire game). If the patch comes around, I plan to make a videocast with a friend of mine where we will try to explain all these things and changes in matchups. It should be part of the official EF channel as well.

I hope I managed to clarify it a bit. If you have any other questions, feel free to add me on Steam: warhammerchaosgod
I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Cheers!

[Grand Duke]

Hey, chaosval3! Thanks for such a detailed reply, it was really helpful. I'll probably try to add you on Steam as soon as I get my hands onto my PC.
So, let me just sum it up once again to see if I understood this correctly:
1) stock Landsers vs stock Conscripts - Landsers outperform on all ranges, only the fight will last longer the longer the range
2) stock Landsers vs 7-rifles Conscripts - equal chances on all ranges, with increased odds for the squad who have grenades/Molotovs
3) G41 Landsers vs Conscripts (upgunned or not) - Conscripts are once again getting wrecked on all ranges, except that they die even quicker
4) G41+MKB Landsers vs Concripts - Cons are annihilated in a matter of seconds on every distance
5) Landsers vs Strelky (unupgraded) - equal chances, although Landsers might be better on middle-range if equipped with G41
6) Landsers vs Strelky equipped with SMG/LMG - Strelky have decisive advantage on short range/long range respectively
So, retrospectively, it was probably a good thing to rework Landsers (giving G41 to sturmpios, replacing Mkb with MP40s), so can't complain about this one

[chaosval3]

1) Correct.
2) It depends on cover mostly, but Landsers might just barely beat full rifle cons as well as the other way around. The balance would best be put around 50/50 on medium range for both, 60/40 for cons in CQC and 60/40 for Landsers against cons at long range. Cons can easily close the gap though and have cheaper grenades, but it should all amount to the basically the same thing.
3) G41 gives them massive damage boosts on medium and close range, but also on long range in the public version. You'll mostly beat them. Forces SU player to either blob or flank around in other to force off one Landser squad.
4) Yes. MKB is ridiculous in public version. More dps than the entire squad itself.
5) Unupgraded, Strelky win hands down. They are really powerful versus Landsers. G41 might make it 50/50. Not sure on this one. One all ranges btw.
6)Both upgraded, Strelky win again hands down. Strelky even have a soft counter to them, the suppression from the DP-28 with the 'Stand Your Ground' ability.

Yes, the equilibrium is much fairer and better now if I may say so myself.
I can give you additional info, tips and tricks on Steam. Talking through the forum is rather tedious for these kind of discussions

Oh and no problem, I like to help people with their balance-related questions.

[Grand Duke]

Great! That's exactly what I wanted to know, and everything seems to be clear now. Ok, I'll try to contact you on Steam next time 

[ATL]

Pretty much like chaosval3 says, I'd like to point out more things to help out with the discussion, conscripts have 35% their accuracy when moving compared to the 50% from most other infantry rifles, Landsers on the other hand have a 65% modifier, so moving conscripts are like SMG engineers or MP40 volksgrenadiers, a complete waste of shoots. About mid range, it's more beneficial for Landsers than conscripts, so I'd rather commit to close range with conscripts or stay as far as possible, but not mid range.

What I'd do in this matchup is to get full rifle conscripts and stay long range, second option is to rely on superior numbers or combined arms, both command squad and engineers offer a long range damage boost (be specially careful about the engineers since they're even frailer than conscripts).

For the unupgraded Strelky vs Landser matchup I'd keep the strategy, since Strelky have british like accuracy at long range while Landsers have the worst accuracy of all rifles at long range, G41 and Mkb helps noticeably, but Strelky still have the upper hand. Furthermore, Landsers' rifles have penalties against Strelky armor IIRC.

So to sum it up I'd treat Landsers like American Riflemen, they got the upper hand at close range (their mid range is also above average), but they will fail against long range, full SMG troopers should beat them too (However I'd prefer to exploit their lack of long range damage).

Hope this helps, and correct me if I'm wrong with any statement.

[chaosval3]

ATL is mostly correct, however in the public version, Cons only stand a decent chance at winning from Landsers by getting in cqc fights with Landsers and then with full rifles. Even with all that, Cons have a hard time. Treating Landsers like AMI riflemen in the public version is a good comparison. However, in the new version they will be more like volks. Better on long range.

[Campaigner]

I thought G41 was an earlier version of G43. Shoots like every other second and does great damage to a single model and is therefore strong at long range. But here your saying it will be strong in close and medium range.

So much talk about ranges and stuff that I'm losing who's good at what....

So Conscripts Full Rifles is a global upgrade like BARs. Cost as much?
If Landsers become like Volks in accuracy & damage and also get an MP40 upgrade then ok, maybe works, though they sound weak.

I thought Landsers were supposed to be Ostheers main infantry like US Rifles that scale well through the game. So When Strelky comes out and beat the Landsers at every turn, what will Ostheer counter with?   Cause SU got Guards as well as Naval infantry....

[chaosval3]

It is. G41 and G43 work no different than the M1 Garand in EF. They sacrifice some long range performance for increased medium to close range performance as well as improved FOTM(=fire on the move). The public version has screwed up stats for the G41 making it OP.

About Full Rifles, no.

They used to be but then PF's were unnneeded. Instead, PF's will be your long range units while Landsers can become your cqc units. Guards are still the strongest non-doctrinal unit between both factions but PF's have great upgrades and will do a serious number on Guards. I am not sure if I can disclose more info on this particular topic so I'll keep my mouth shut for the remainder

[ATL]

Sorry if all my blabbery was confusing, in short, both Landsers and Conscripts are close quarters oriented troops. G41s and MKb both increse damage for the squad at any range (close quarters I think 1 G41=2 Kar98 Landsers), but they still excel at mid-close range. What it is being revisited is the balance of these two units.

I'd like to point out weird stuff I've experimented in some test games, a close range matchup I did with Mkb Landser vs unupgraded Guards (equal cover), not only surprised by the fact that Landser won but they performed better than G41 and MKb. That was because the Mkb could change to more hands after a casualty, but anyways... yeah, weird stuff  This makes me support the switch of the Mkb to several MP40s for the squad.

And two more questions, why the Landser leader has worse gun in the current build than his fellow Landsers, since it has the wind down time added like bolt rifles? And how it's going to change the G41 Sturmpio upgrade, is it a long range upgrade or more like a visual indicator to represent the upgrade? After that, yeah, I shouldn't do more questions about incoming changes 

[chaosval3]

Yeah, all that weirdness is gone. In the dev build, losing models means losing dps, which is how it's supposed to be. For the rest of your questions, add me on steam will ya.