Wehrmacht tactics

[Bokeh]

Introduction

The axis wehrmacht is the army in Company of Heroes with the most flexibility you can get. Nearly all infantry units are upgradeable, all have special abilities to deal with unexpected problems, and they field some of the strongest tanks out of the box. If you include some of the command specific units you've got yourself an army that can counter any other army with standard units.

It's disadvantages are very very expensive units, allies being able to steal your panzerfausts or MP44's and in general being very fuel-dependant (though this also depends on your tactic). Also,the german juggernaut takes a while to build up, so early game you are mainly defending against allied incursions and constant rifleman spam.

[Bokeh]

Infantry Units

Pioneers:

Your default builder unit. Upgrade these with flamers if you have the munitions spare.

Tip: Axis pioneers can salvage vehicles for fuel, friendly or enemy. If you are short of fuel, this is a very viable tactic.

Volksgrenadiers:

Spammable, cheap, expendable unit. Use these for early offense/defense and to replace members of heavy weapons, 88's, howitzers, etc. Because of their price they are very easy to build lots of them. Their weapon upgrade will make them killers in close combat.

Tip: If you go terror and have zeal, always upgrade their weapons. By the time you get in close combat one man is nearly always lost making them stronger.

Tip: use the panzerfaust to finish off vehicles low on health or jeeps. You'd be amazed how much damage it can do.

MG42 team:

The axis machine gun packs a bit more power than the allied one, though it has a bit less penetration. You're best off placing these behind some cover or in a house.

Tip: Upgrading support units to lvl1 veterancy makes them shoot and reload 25% faster. Definetely worth it if you're going for a mg heavy early game.

Tip: Use the medic pack to make them last much longer against infantry. You'd be surprised how much it can help.

Sniper:

Use your sniper to take out heavy weapons (AT, MG) and scout for arty. Remember, most tanks have a larger range than their line of sight so a sniper can provide them with something to shoot at.

Grenadiers:

Your bread and butter infantry. These guys can be upgraded with a portable machine gun making them able to suppress infantry or a panzerfaust. Base your upgrades on what your opponent has, if it's not clear the best course of action is to upgrade 1 panzerfaust and 1 mg or at least 1 panzerfaust.

Tip: Their medic packs make them last a lot longer especially in late game against tanks.

Tip: NEVER EVER EVER let your opponent get a panzerfaust if you can help it. If they drop it, recover it.

Mortar Team:

Your early artillery, flag cap repellant and mobile cover. Position them somewhere out of line of sight behind the front lines, prefferably in cover to help against counterartillery.

Tip: Use smoke flares on enemy squads so that their accuracy will drop. Combining a mortar and a flamer unit will allow you to take out MG's without casualties, smoking an MG squad will allow you to run past them.

Officer:

You either hate him or love him. For the price of 260 manpower his versatility can be amazing. He allows you to build buildings faster, research faster, produce faster, and if need be you have both a propaganda and a howitzer barrage to deal with base defense. Recommended to keep him in your base.

Tip: Before you produce something make it a habit to move your officer to said building

Knight's cross holders:

The ultimate anti-infantry units. They shoot hard, can take a beating from small arms fire and are very resistant to pinning. Use these guys to asault MG emplacements, bunkers, etc. Their disposable panzerfaust is decent to handle light vehicles.

Tip: don't build too much, they gobble up resources. They're a speciality unit. If you can equip them with a panzerfaust go for it, it makes them much more flexible.

Stormstroopers:

The blitzkrieg special infantry units. These guys are expensive, very hard on your popcap and a bitch to micro properly. But they can make all the difference in the world. Their stealth ability makes them great for hidden defense or luring out the enemy, it allows you to take out static emplacements or weapon crews with no risk of the enemy getting defenses in and allows you to scout or take points behind the frontline. The same upgrades as grenadiers makes them very flexible, and their bundled grenades make short work of large infantry blobs.

Tip: Use these guys to raid, not for extended combat. Sneak in, take out something of value or steal a point, then withdraw them or move out and restealth before the enemy can come back to kill them.

[Bokeh]

Vehicles

Motorcycle:

Nice to have against snipers or to run over units trying to get away from your units. A good early game unit to harass engineers and take out static emplacements still being built.

Tip: Bikes can see enemy units outside of it's actual line of sight.

Pak-38:

Axis anti-tank. They have a stealth ability which allows them to ambush tanks causing more damage on the first few hits. The only problem with pak's is their relative slowness compared to other axis units, so for offensive tankhunting you're better off using grenadiers.

Tip: ry to position these to the sides of where tanks will likely pass to do massive damage on their ambush.

Halftrack:

Every army should have one of these. They are upgradeable to either mobile artillery with a short range but devastating speed or flamethrower trucks which will make short work of enemy units with it's double independently targetable flame turrets. Allows infantry to reinforce. Great to keep behind your tanks to deal with rangers/airborne.

Tip: Build them either very early for the flamers or very late for the arty, depending on the opponent and your tactic.

Nebelwerfer:

Cheap, disposable anti-infantry artillery. Very inaccurate, high area saturation. Keep these on the move after firing.

Tip: Nebelwerfers will burn the area after launching their rockets, causing damage even after the explosions. They do wonderful against british trenches.

SDKFZ 234 Armoured Car (PUMA):

Cheap and good anti-infantry anti-light vehicle counter. Build these if you're short on fuel and the opponent is getting out an early light vehicle. With the upgrade they can even tear through lighter tanks as long as they don't get hit.

Tip: Use their speed to turn them into a mobile response unit running between contested resource points.

Stug IV:

Your early bread and butter tank. These guys are cheap, disposable and work wonders in groups of 3-4. Their only problem is slow response and a frontal gun which means the entire tank needs to turn. If you are going stug-heavy, upgrade to second veterancy to get a pintle-mounted machine gun.

Tip: Stay away from rangers, airbourne and infantry with sticky bombs. They'll tear your stugs to bit. Try supporting them with anti-infantry infantry.

Ostwind:

The ultimate infantry killer and a great counter to rangers and airbourne. They will do light damage to light vehicles but usually need support. Try keeping your ostwind behind infantry or other tanks because it's very fragile.

Tip: 2 ostwinds have a decent chance of taking aircraft out before they can do their job.

Panzer IV:

The ultimate allround tank, the panzer IV is decent against any kind of unit but excels against none. They are decent, solid tanks, and triple veterancy PIV's can usually replace ostwinds if you are up against heavy anti-tank infantry.

Tip: Use these up front. They are as expensive as Shermans but can take a lot more damage.

Panther:

The panter is a long range tank killer. Though they are not invincible, they can take a good punishment and can stand their own against infantry at double veterancy.

Use your panthers to soak damage for lighter units, and make sure their frontal armour is always facing the enemy.

Tip: Cover their backs. Their side and rear armour is extremely weak and the panther is very slow to turn.

Tip: Panthers have a longer range than their line of sight. Use this in combination with defensive units.

Goliath:

The goliath is a very specific, very misunderstood unit. They cost 125 munitions to make and are very easily destroyed.

The power of the goliath comes with its ability to detonate at will, dealing massive damage to everyone around it. Furthermore, goliaths are stealthed when in cover and not moving. This allows you to place them on a bridge or close to a well-known chokepoint and take out a large portion of your enemy.

Tip: Place these on bridges early on and take out expensive tanks.

StuH42:

The blitzkrieg's anti-infantry tank. The stuH lobs large howitzer shells which will cause massive splash damage. Although the StuH is terrible against vehicles, it will deal massive damage to units in houses, static emplacements, infantry squads, slit trenches.

Tip: Stuh's can fire indirectly over walls, low hedges, buildings, etc.

Tiger:

The last blitzkrieg special unit, the tiger is a beast. For only 900 manpower it can tackle anything it encounters, gains veterancy, plow through hedgerows and tank traps and blow up buildings.

Though the tiger is very strong, it is not invincible, so always try to support it with anti-infantry infantry and 1 or 2 squads of engineers.

Veterancy 3 tigers are beasts and can take a massive beating from rangers and airbourne.

Tip: Though you can only have 1 tiger in the game, if you play together with a panzer elite player you can use the bergertiger to recover an earlier lost panther after bringing another one in the game. This has officially been classified as "nasty".

King tiger:

The terror special unit. The king tiger by itself is an unstoppable juggernaut that can take on any unit it encounters. Again, it can be destroyed and it's very slow turning and movement speed can be exploited by a more mobile unit like rangers or M10's.

You only get 1 king tiger, ever. Always support it with engineers, withdraw it in time and bring some infantry support. It is free and usually can turn the tide of a battle. The king tiger is nearly impervious to artillery, so use it to lure an opponent into bombing it.

Tip: The king tiger, with it's massive frame, can provide mobile cover for your infantry units. Set your units to follow the king tiger and they will recieve a cover bonus.


88MM Flak-36:

The flak 88mm provides the best static defense in the game. With it's massive cannon it can take out the heaviest tanks, infantry squads and even airplanes. Their range is much much further than their line of sight so post it behind the frontlines where it's safe. If possible, support it with an MG42 or an infantry squad to counter enemy infantry, and if at all possible never let an enemy take it over.

Tip: Build sandbags around your 88 to reduce artillery damage taken.

Tip: 88's can take out buildings, hedgerows and tank traps by using the attack ground order.

[Bokeh]

Command trees

Defensive

For the fatherland: This ability can be very useful in the early game to help your MG42 crew or volks squads survive much longer for a decicive extra resource point. This ability stacks with any kind of cover making them nearly immune for a short while.

Fortify the perimeter: An awesome defensive ability allowing you to reinforce squads at bunkers and protecting your base against infantry attacks.

88MM Flak 36: See the description for the Flak 36.

Advanced warning: Not a great ability, but not too bad either. It can give you a bit more line of sight on flanked resource points allowing you to defend them better.

Registered Artillery: A great cheap artillery that lands very fast compared to other artillery, which allows you to prevent someone from capping a point or using it in defense on a large force fighting close to one of your points.

Rocket artillery: Indirect artillery that does decent damage but nothing special compared to stuka halftracks or allied artillery.

Usual teching order: tech to 88's first then fill the artillery tree.

Blitzkrieg

Infantry assault team: This deploys one squad of stormtroopers. See stormtroopers for more info.

Urban assault support: This deploys one StuH42. See StuH42 for more info.

Armoured Assault Force: This deploys a tiger. See tiger for more info.

Assault grenadiers: This enables all your infantry to throw a stream of grenades for 50 munitions. Every member of a squad will throw a maximum of 2 grenades at the target, which helps wonders with clearing out heavy weapon squads, emplacements, etc.

They are used especially well with stealthed stormtroopers because they will stay in stealth until they throw all their grenades.

Resource blitz: Recieves an instant 900 manpower for 200 munitions. For the next 3 minutes, your manpower production will be at 50%. This is a huge tradeoff. It is best not used constantly because it will cost you resources, however if you need to get some unit out NOW it can be an awesome lifesaver to bring in a tiger plus some stormtroopers.

Blitzkrieg asault: For 150 munitions, all your infantry and tanks will charge into combat fearlessly for 30 seconds. The effect is that your infantry and tanks will move 50% faster, suppression chance is reduced by 50%, and every unit shoots and reloads 25% faster. In addition, all tanks gain heavy crushing which allows you to crush enemy infantry units. The only downside is that units accuracy will be reduced.

Blitzkrieg is best used to get a decisive force past an enemy's defensive positions or to launch a surprise attack.

Usual teching order: Depending on enemy. Usually go for stormtroopers first. If the opponent is going heavy defensive you might consider getting blitzkrieg first, otherwise go for a tiger asap.

Terror

Zeal: Zeal gives all your non-pioneer infantry squads fanaticism, causing them to take more damage as they take casualties. This means that a squad of 4 grenadiers reduced to 1 man still fights like it has 2 man left, allowing them to deal much more damage before having to retreat. This is a must-have early ability because it's passive.

Propaganda war: For only 100 munitions, this gives you the ability to force any infantry squad to retreat. It is instant so you cannot avoid it.

The uses for propaganda war are limitless. Get rangers off your king tiger. Force engineers to withdraw so they can't repair someone's tank. Force units capping or defending a resource point to withdraw, etc.

King tiger: This calls in a special elite king tiget. See king tiger for more info.

Inspired assault: Inspired assault makes all your units more agressive and gives them extra damage, attack speed and reload speed for a short period. This combines especially well with volksgrenadiers and zeal, but works for any infantry unit really. The downside is that inspired assault will also make your units more vulnerable to damage, so try to get them in cover if possible.

Firestorm: Firestorm - though expensive at 200 munitions - can be devastating against infantry. It doesn't deal much damage against vehicles and tanks, but it deals massive damage against large concentration of infantry, heavy weapon squads, slit trenches, etc.

V1 rocket attack: The V1 is the single most destructive weapon in this game. At 150 munitions and a 5 minute cooldown this is not used lightly, but when you use it it will destroy anything where it lands. The V1 will take out any base building except for a headquarter, and if you can drop one on his base it will cause massive carnage.

Though the V1 drops no flares, it produces an eerie humming sound which allows you to guess approximately where it will land.

Usual teching order: Get zeal first, then depending on wether your opponent is going infantry heavy get Inspired assault then firestorm, otherwise get inspired assault then tech to a king tiger.


Wehrmacht tactics

General tactics

- Upgrade your units to counter your opponent. Remember that your infantry with MP44's can suppress other infantry
- Make sure you get at least 1 stuka halftrack or nebelwerfer out, they do wonders in defensive setups.
- If you are going for an early game defense, upgrade your machine guns with 1 veterancy for extra accuracy and reload speed.
- Consider speedresearching to a tier to get an early vehicle out. Officers can help with this.
- Build bunkers. Axis bunkers are one of the most versatile buildings as either a medic station or - even better - a repair station. 2 repair stations in a defensive position will keep your tanks alive even through heavy assaults.

Speedtiering to Stug/Puma

TBA

Speedtiering to PIV

TBA

Blitzkrieg stormtrooper harassment

TBA

Defensive w/ Artillery

TBA