"Mixed" Platoons--Yay or Nay?

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[TheVolskinator]

For the past few years of playing EiRR, I've been making use of mixed infantry platoons. What's a mixed platoon? A platoon combining a squad with a weapon upgrade and another squad with a grenade;

BAR Rifle + nade Rifle
BAR Rifle + nade Ranger
LMG Gren + nade Volk (Defensive/Infantry)
BREN Sapper + nade Tommy (RCA/Infantry)

Here's the lesson I think I've come away with from all that playtime: mixed platoons don't work. You don't have enough grenades to deliver a nasty alpha strike or fully clear out a building, but you also don't have the raw firepower to simply whore heavy cover, sit back, and duke it out with enemy units.

It also complicates the issue of properly employing your two squads; if you're in a standing firefight, do you rush your grenade squad in to throw the grenade, or sit back in cover and risk losing it without the chance to throw it? Conversely, what do you do with your weapon squad if you're trying to assault a building? Keeping them within shooting range would be a waste (terrible small arms damage vs. garrison cover) and would run the risk of taking damage or dropping models, but your lone grenade squad might not be able to clear out the building.

Furthermore, you might end up mixing combat ranges; stuff like an LMG Marine squad (best kept at max distance) combined with a nade Rifle (which has to close to at least 15-20 meters or less to get off an effective grenade) would be a pretty crummy combo; you wouldn't be able to maximize your damage at a specific range.

I rarely see mixed platoons from most other players, so I assume we're in agreement, but I'd still like to ask: what's everyone else's take on this idea?

[Shabtajus]

Sounds like a balanced coy. So nothing to do here for me in this discusion

[GrayWolf]

Follow my lead:
1. Upgrade your troops with long range weapons and handheld AT
2. Buy like 5/6 mgs, mortar and few AT guns
3. ? ? ?
4. Profit

Don't mix platoons, cause you often don't need both the Close and Long range support at the same time.

[Batgirl]

In this kind of a scenario I find I sometimes forget about the nades the other squad has - I tend to get nades for the whole call in to avoid it from happening..

Otherwise a single squad with nades is kind of easy to notice in the micro and then you can dodge the nade - and then the squad which has rushed to the front to throw the nade is pretty much dead too
--> ofc this is the average noob eirr scenario and if theres eg smoke or such things involved, then nades are kinda awesome, but i kind of never got the hang of the smoke and tend to resort to the noob scenarios..

So if I do nades I do an infantry blob and everyone got nades so its quite impossible to dodge them all (and being consistent I dont forget to use the nades)

[I2ay]

My rifle spam coys did this and it worked out k. Don't be badlence.

[jackmccrack]

I don't like mixed platoons. It feels like squads end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[skaffa]

Sounds like something that can work in 2v2 but not in 3v3.

[tank130]

Sounds like something that can work in 2v2 but not in 3v3.

Interesting ; why is that? Do you have a little more control in the 2v2 environment?

[TheVolskinator]

Interesting ; why is that? Do you have a little more control in the 2v2 environment?

I wouldn't say you have more control, but it's a less spammy environment that requires a more well-rounded build and self-sufficient call-ins. That said, non-mixed platoons still work plenty fine in 2v2s. The concept of mixed platoons simply doesn't work very well in EiR*, not unless you're facing someone who's also using mixed platoons.

*Unless there's a massive deficit in micro ability, or if you have 2-3 call-ins of infantry on the field at the same time.

[Dauntless07]

For me, mixed units are undesirable, because I like using a lot of support weapons, and squads with upgrades will already be at half strength if I crew a weapon. It's better to put multiple upgrades on a single squad, and leave the other naked.