Re: Overperforming Garands
Posted: 29 Sep 2018, 21:39
It's a good point that against high HP pool infantry, Ranger Garands start to shine. I would definitely favor the Ranger Garand in all situations if there were some sort of knight cross type infantry with 100-200 hp per model on them. I think the main problem is that against low-tier cheap infantry with small HP pools, Rangers underperform with their Garands because the one-hit kill mechanic doesn't matter here as much as killing them fast enough.
I had some similar games where I put Pioneers behind sandbags and held position, then watched Rangers from max range not killing my pioneers fast enough. I could stall a Ranger Squad for a good 1-2 minutes from max range or he can come closer to me and attack me from a shorter distance with the Garands but then I have an OK chance of beating him with pioneers at CQC. As I have sometimes seen Rangers just straight up lose to pioneers when getting right next to them while with Rifles its a rarer situation.
If axis equipped all their infantry with MP40s/MP44's that's a lot of munition sink down the drain that gives leeway to the US player. The US player can also just give his Rangers thompsons if it was only about CQC but at range fights I don't see a difference in performance of a Ranger Squad vs a Rifle Squad. They both seem to perform at almost the same combat power to me vs units like Volks, Pioneers, Panzergrenadiers, etc.
Perhaps the broader point I would make is that US feels like an attacker-type gameplay in first 20 minutes because of how upkeep works for them. So you need to get good map control before the axis can hunker down. Having Rangers be a distance-fighter is ok if you are on the defensive but most of the time in the early-mid game you are constantly attacking. The minutes spent on fighting enemy infantry in that stage translates to whether an axis player is stuck getting hetzers and stugs to shore up his line; or having enough to get panthers, tigers, and king tiger.
I like the weapons being diverse, I wouldn't really want Rangers to just be upgraded riflemen either. But in all cases, exception being perhaps long range(not distant), the Riflemen Garand seems to perform better than the Ranger one. I like to compare Rangers to Gebirsjagers in this regard because they get scoped-G43s. When compared to a normal G43, they fire at the same speed at all distances except the scoped one has way better accuracy at longer distances and worse accuracy at closer ranges. I'm fine with Rangers being not as good or performing at the same level as Riflemen in closer ranges with their Garands; but their longer range performance doesn't make up for it, so some tweaks could be made here for them.
I had some similar games where I put Pioneers behind sandbags and held position, then watched Rangers from max range not killing my pioneers fast enough. I could stall a Ranger Squad for a good 1-2 minutes from max range or he can come closer to me and attack me from a shorter distance with the Garands but then I have an OK chance of beating him with pioneers at CQC. As I have sometimes seen Rangers just straight up lose to pioneers when getting right next to them while with Rifles its a rarer situation.
If axis equipped all their infantry with MP40s/MP44's that's a lot of munition sink down the drain that gives leeway to the US player. The US player can also just give his Rangers thompsons if it was only about CQC but at range fights I don't see a difference in performance of a Ranger Squad vs a Rifle Squad. They both seem to perform at almost the same combat power to me vs units like Volks, Pioneers, Panzergrenadiers, etc.
Perhaps the broader point I would make is that US feels like an attacker-type gameplay in first 20 minutes because of how upkeep works for them. So you need to get good map control before the axis can hunker down. Having Rangers be a distance-fighter is ok if you are on the defensive but most of the time in the early-mid game you are constantly attacking. The minutes spent on fighting enemy infantry in that stage translates to whether an axis player is stuck getting hetzers and stugs to shore up his line; or having enough to get panthers, tigers, and king tiger.
MarKr wrote:If Rangers underperform, they can be tweaked but I would like to keep some diversity and so avoid turning them into "Riflemen 2.0" by giving them the same fire rates.
I like the weapons being diverse, I wouldn't really want Rangers to just be upgraded riflemen either. But in all cases, exception being perhaps long range(not distant), the Riflemen Garand seems to perform better than the Ranger one. I like to compare Rangers to Gebirsjagers in this regard because they get scoped-G43s. When compared to a normal G43, they fire at the same speed at all distances except the scoped one has way better accuracy at longer distances and worse accuracy at closer ranges. I'm fine with Rangers being not as good or performing at the same level as Riflemen in closer ranges with their Garands; but their longer range performance doesn't make up for it, so some tweaks could be made here for them.