Thoughts On The Ostheer

Just started playing the mod, bashing the AI for the most part, and these are some concerns I have with the Ostheer so far.

- Landsers feel very strong when they're upgraded. With the MK42(H), the Gewehr 41s (which should probably be called the G41(W) in the game), and some veterancy, these guys become borderline elite infantry. Which isn't a huge deal because getting those upgrades should turn Landsers into pretty solid infantry. The problem is at that point they make Panzerfusiliers and Jagers more-or-less irrelevant. Honestly, Panzerfusiliers feel weaker than Landsers even though they're far more expensive, and Jagers don't come across as a major improvement over Landsers - even though they're supposed to represent elite heavy infantry.

I'm also concerned that the changes you guys are making to the Landsers and Panzerfusiliers are basically going to turn them into carbon-copies of Wehrmacht Volkgrenadiers and Grenadiers. Which wouldn't be cool. 

- Jagers need grenades, or at least some unique abilities to make them more interesting. 

- The Brummbar feels extremely weak considering it comes (8?) doctrine points into the game. I've barely ever had the opportunity to use this thing because it arrives so late in the game, but when I have it doesn't seem like anything more than a glorified StuH.

- The medic halftrack feels kinda silly to be honest. I'm not saying it doesn't work - it works great - but it functions more-or-less exactly the same as the Panzer Elite base upgrade and it seems illogical that you can't use it outside of your home base. I think you guys can come up with a better mechanic.

- The Assault/Support Pool options are interesting in theory, but - particularly in the lategame - they are usually just annoying for reasons mentioned in another thread elsewhere on these forums. I like the idea of choosing between Assault and Support, but it needs to be better implemented.

- The Ostheer seem really, really heavy on artillery. You've got the le.IG18 (one of my favorite units in the game right now), the Panzerwerfer, the Wespe, and the leFH-18. I really don't think the Ostheer needs all those units.

- The Famo just seems like a lame copy of the Bergtiger. I don't think it really needs to be in the game. Give the Bergtiger the ability to resurrect Allied tanks as Beutepanzers.

- Marder II/PaK40. Again, more redundant Ostheer units. Maybe turn the Marder into a reward unit or something. The Ostheer don't need two T3 anti-tank options.

- Same thing with the LMG34 vs. HMG34. It's an interesting idea, but again it just ends up feeling like the Ostheer have two units designed to do the exact same job.

Last edited May 9, 2014 at 9:10 AM by Carlos Danger

The Ostheer will receive a major update with the release of our greenlight patch, which will adress most issues you're referring to.

Back in the day we had nothing better than the design that we used in the current release version, and we've reworked the stuff that felt awkward in the course of the last few months.

Greetings

These are all good points. I'm curious to see how some of them will be resolved.

yeah good points, would also like to point out:
1 the lack of heavy tanks (panzer 4 seems a bit lame vs things like comet, firefly, churchill and ls2)
2. anti tank grenades seem very week,  last nite playing friend with brits, 3 at nades barely made a scratch on a armoured car
3. how slow it is too finish, waiting till you have 6 panzer4s( is the best number to pretty much be able to wipe out a base) takes a long time to achieve, maybe the new officer will be able to supervise buildings?
4 no default defense gun emplacements makes troops a sitting duck for all the allies easily achieved and deadly mortar crews

maddogb wrote:
yeah good points, would also like to point out:
1 the lack of heavy tanks (panzer 4 seems a bit lame vs things like comet, firefly, churchill and ls2)
2. anti tank grenades seem very week,  last nite playing friend with brits, 3 at nades barely made a scratch on a armoured car
3. how slow it is too finish, waiting till you have 6 panzer4s( is the best number to pretty much be able to wipe out a base) takes a long time to achieve, maybe the new officer will be able to supervise buildings?
4 no default defense gun emplacements makes troops a sitting duck for all the allies easily achieved and deadly mortar crews

Point 1: That's intentional
Point 2: Anti tank grenades are meant to disable tanks, not destroy them. Use them together with other anti tank weapons.
Point 3: I don't really see the point of this point. Why do you wait for 6 Panzer IVs? But to answer your question: no the officer won't supervise buildings. It's a combat unit.
Point 4: Dunno what you mean, but emplacements will be improved with hte next version. A bug makes them take too much dmg.

About the OH's AT grenades, I think he might have a point. Currently Hafthohlladung (how do you spell it, anyway?) makes only a bit of damage and only 2-3 seconds of stunning on the target vehicle and you really can't do much during this time. Maybe you could add a small chance (15-20%) of doing a crit (damaged engine, main gun or something) to make the grenades-with-a-very-long-name worthwhile?

Grand wrote:
About the OH's AT grenades, I think he might have a point. Currently Hafthohlladung (how do you spell it, anyway?) makes only a bit of damage and only 2-3 seconds of stunning on the target vehicle and you really can't do much during this time. Maybe you could add a small chance (15-20%) of doing a crit (damaged engine, main gun or something) to make the grenades-with-a-very-long-name worthwhile?

HHL used to crit engines in the past, and it was overall not a satisfying option for the Ostheer AT, and it was quite lame.
HHL are receiving some tweaks with the next version.

about point 4, i mean the ost have no mg emplacements unless you choose fortress doctrine,  this doesn't make sense in any way, the germans were mostly dug in waiting for an attack yet the highly mobile allies can put up emplacements where ever.
I really like the ost can actually match the allies which i never felt the other german factions could, pity they are still overwhelmingly out gunned by the brits and i know the line, brits are flawed etc but a lot of online players use them and i feel there should be one faction to deal
with them

Yes, I agree. However 360° buildable bunkers for Ostheer seemd to be over the top in terms of supression power and area control power. That's why they're not buildable at all.
Overall, the Ostheer isn't focused on securing & holding territory (like wehrmacht does), and that's the reason why they receive less defensive options than Wehr. However, we're checking and reworking parts of Army Fortress doctrine and we'll see what we can do about this matter.

About the matter "Germans were the defense and Allies attacked" - The Ostheer is reworked and in the future you'll be allowed to fight with a more defensive start or with a more offensive start.

Last edited May 25, 2014 at 7:55 PM by Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.

cool looking forward to the rework,
oh and in addition to the landser strength in the op i don't feel the increase gained with veterancy makes them any tougher than the brits or the american rifle squads who having more members get to retreat more often especially with the allied mortars who often take out a whole squad of landsers with a single round

I don't want to take this thread completely off-topic but I think you're exaggerating the strength of the Allies, maddogb, because the Axis actually have superior units in many respects - for example Allied mortars in particular are actually pretty weak and short-ranged compared to the Wehrmacht equivalent. If mortars are giving you trouble it might be because you're not mobile enough with your infantry. Rather than trying to fortify and hold down a specific location with your Landsers you should try to keep them actively moving. Regarding Landser strength: their strength comes from their weapon upgrades, because once you have both of their gun upgrades they turn into crazy killing machines that cut through Riflemen and Soviets like a hot knife through butter. Just because the Allies have more numbers in their infantry squads doesn't mean that Axis infantry isn't remarkably powerful with the correct upgrades.

Last edited May 25, 2014 at 11:15 PM by Magyar

@magyar
when i talked of the allies strength i wasn't just referring to the infantry i meant as a whole faction, landsers seem to be equal to un-upgraded brits so tough but easier to kill quickly than paras, rifle squads or brit squads.

You can't view these factions and their strengths in absolute firepower terms- sometimes their strength lies elsewhere or in how their units are used in unique situations. That's the beauty of CoH. Here's a quick explanation for why the Axis are actually probably slightly stronger than the Allies:

Sure Riflemen are arguably stronger than Volksgrenadiers, but it comes down to how the units are used that really determines who comes out on top: Riflemen's rifles deal more damage per second up close, but Volksgrenadiers deal more damage per second from a distance and so if both squads remain at a distance and have similar cover then the Volksgrenadiers will actually win, especially if the Americans attempt to close the distance and charge head first losing their cover bonus.

HMG teams? Sure the American one deals more absolute damage, but the Wehrmacht one suppresses far faster, which is really the purpose of the HMG and plus the Wehrmacht can build really beefy bunkers for their HMGs which the Americans cannot do.

Mortars? Wehrmacht mortars are far more powerful and outrange the American and British mortars. The Panzer Elite Mortar Halftrack ridiculously outclasses all other mortars, since it is so mobile and has a special fiery ability as well - perfect for incinerating British blobs that are sitting around their Headquarter truck.

Bikes? The Wehrmacht Bike is the best of all light vehicles at countering snipers. The Jeep is a joke incomparison.

Panzershreks? It's not even funny how powerful these beasts are and the Allies have nothing that can even compare.

In terms of tanks: in absolute terms the Wehrmacht are simply better. The tier 3 StuG easily defeats a tier 4 Sherman or Cromwell if they don't keep moving around and that's pretty much the rule that rings true for most tank battles in this game, the StuG, Panzer IV, Panther, Tiger, etc. are far stronger than their Allied equivalents (aside from the Pershing but even that is just a Panther with a stronger gun unless it gets vetted up), which forces the Allies to either use their speed and mobile turrets to hit flank the Axis armour and get rear hits or they try to stay at a distance with Fireflies and Calliopes and bombard Axis tanks without receiving fire in return. In terms of absolute firepower the Wehrmacht would probably come out on top but when we factor in speed, mobility and range then suddenly tank combat receives many new dynamics that forces us to accept that sheer firepower doesn't determine who wins.

Regarding Landsers again: Brit infantry are healthy but they are also useless without a Lieutenant, which forces you to blob your infantry squads, thereby begging things like Goliaths, StuHs or Firestorms to blow them up, which is something that the Ostheer and Wehrmacht don't need to worry about... the British are essentially supposed to blob in a game designed to punish infantry blobbing. Also keep in mind that CoH has many numbers determining combat that you don't see ingame: all we see is that the Americans have 6 Riflemen, but we don't see what their actual hit points are or what type of armour they have, etc. An infantry squad can have a lot of models in it but still be weak rubbish because they have very little hitpoints and a poor armour type (ie Soviet Conscripts) and that rings true for Riflemen relative to elite infantry. Sure Paratroopers or Rangers might have better survivability than Landsers, but they're also expensive elite infantry, not basic tier 1 infantry like Landsers and yet they're still not even that remarkable: Paratroopers'  basic rifles are actual really bad, as in worse than the Riflemen's or Landsers' basic rifles. If anything, Landsers are overpowered because in the latest version released to the public they're better than most/all elite infantry, even though they're tier 1 infantry...

Last edited May 26, 2014 at 12:31 PM by Magyar

@magyar
yeah i know what your saying about the wermacht but this is about OST and whilst landsers are  tough its also dammed hard to get enough of them and keep them out there fighting,
building a second barracks early on in the game is infeasible, they are slow to build tying up the barracks allowing no support units to be built like snipers, also they have to return to base to medic, once they hit suppression fire they are sitting ducks, secondary reinforcement is via the upgraded bunkers all just slowing them down to the point where how tough and powerful thy are is almost irrelevant.
For these reasons the landsers are about right, its the other factors that make them struggle, the upgrade required to get a mortar team when the allies just build the building and start producing etc
The other strange thing is the concrete bunkers and foxholes?
I have often wondered how different the game would be following a slightly more realistic approach, the amount of times i have seen a squad of engineers or troops capturing a VP with no cover surrounded by troops firing on them only to have them succeed the cap and retreat.

I agree that Ostheer teching is rather awkward and I find the Concrete Bunkers and Foxholes largely useless as well. The Concrete Bunkers in particular are bad since HMG teams cannot set up inside of them to shoot straight ahead, undermining the structure's primary purpose.

QuoteI have often wondered how different the game would be following a slightly more realistic approach, the amount of times i have seen a squad of engineers or troops capturing a VP with no cover surrounded by troops firing on them only to have them succeed the cap and retreat.

Well, there's always the Blitzkrieg mod which makes the damages more realistic, but in my opinion it ruins the gameplay of the game as a whole. Sometimes it is frustrating to be in that situation you described but at the same time I think that's exactly what encourages deep tactics in CoH, since you need to flank, set traps and intercept retreat paths to properly eliminate units.

By the way, I remember one of the devs saying they were going to remake the way Foxholes are implemented, AFAIR they were planning to make it more like an infantry equivalent of the british "Hull down". Can someone please tell us more about this? Is it still planned for the next version?

I'm not sure if it will come in the next version, but that's the idea :).

Scheiße... Who just krappt in my foxhool?!

Wernicke wrote:
Scheiße... Who just krappt in my foxhool?!

If the EF mod will ever get unique unit voices, I demand that this would be one of the Landsers' quotes.

Grand wrote:
By the way, I remember one of the devs saying they were going to remake the way Foxholes are implemented, AFAIR they were planning to make it more like an infantry equivalent of the british "Hull down". Can someone please tell us more about this? Is it still planned for the next version?

Yes, that's planned. However if this won't make it into the next version, some tweaks have been made to the Foxhole, and it's now a more reliable defensive option for your infantry units compared to the release version.

A few additional thoughts after playing some more:

- The MG34 upgrade for the Kubelwagen is too expensive. I have to buy an upgrade from the T1 building just to actually be able to purchase the gun, and then I have to fork over a bunch of munitions to upgrade. Even then, the vehicle isn't terribly good.

- The Ostheer's two Sturmpioneer start with the extra initial manpower isn't well-balanced. It gives the Ostheer the best opening in the game, and by a pretty big margin. The two SP squads (360MP) can cap territory fast and, together, can easily beat the (450MP) British Recon Squad (currently the strongest starting unit) in a fight. At the very least, start the Ostheer off with just one Sturmpioneer squad. Giving the faction two reasonably strong combat units from the get-go is a bad idea.

- The PaK40 comes too late in the game right now. It requires the T3 building and then two further upgrades just to purchase. This gives the Ostheer really weak early-game AT (in contrast, the Wehr can deploy PaK38s at T2). At the very least, I'd switch the PaK40's position in the Ostheer tech-tree with the Marder II's - and even then I think the gun arrives rather late in the game. 

Last edited July 10, 2014 at 7:45 AM by Carlos Danger

I have always fund it a bit strange that the PAK was a part of the assault pool, and the Marder support pool.
It would make more sence if these two switched, because the PAK is a more stationary weapon, and the Marder a more mobile gun fitted for manoeuvre and speed.

Carlos wrote:
A few additional thoughts after playing some more:

- The MG34 upgrade for the Kubelwagen is too expensive. I have to buy an upgrade from the T1 building just to actually be able to purchase the gun, and then I have to fork over a bunch of munitions to upgrade. Even then, the vehicle isn't terribly good.

Kübel is decent for its cost. You have to compare it to the other starting vehicles (jeep, bike, schwimm). From those 3 it's certainly the best. PE scout cars and bren are better of course, but OF factions are broken anyways.

Quote
- The Ostheer's two Sturmpioneer start with the extra initial manpower isn't well-balanced. It gives the Ostheer the best opening in the game, and by a pretty big margin. The two SP squads (360MP) can cap territory fast and, together, can easily beat the (450MP) British Recon Squad (currently the strongest starting unit) in a fight. At the very least, start the Ostheer off with just one Sturmpioneer squad. Giving the faction two reasonably strong combat units from the get-go is a bad idea.

Recon squads are strong, but in combat they still suck. Their stats are significantly worse than normal Infantry sections.

If you have 2 Sturmpio squads (which is 6 soldiers with mp40 & 70hp per squad member) it's 100% the same as if you'd play wehr and have 3 pioneers (6 soldiers with the same weapon &70hp each). Also, if you decide to start with capping with your sturmpios instead of building you have to delay your combat units quite a bit. Because a sturmpio is trained in ~24 secs instead of 12-15 like Wehr pios or engies. A Wehr player can easily get a total of 3 pioners at a similar time as Ostheer uses their two Sturmpios to cap after building t1 or t2.

Same about Sturmpio capping speed. 1 Sturmpio squad caps at 0.75 (like pgrens). Wehr pios have capping speed of 1.00. If you get 1 additional wehr pio you already have more capping speed than Ostheer (2x0.75 = 1.5. Wehr 2x1.00 = 2.00). On top of that building Ostheer tier buildings takes longer than Wehr tier buildings.

Quote
- The PaK40 comes too late in the game right now. It requires the T3 building and then two further upgrades just to purchase. This gives the Ostheer really weak early-game AT (in contrast, the Wehr can deploy PaK38s at T2). At the very least, I'd switch the PaK40's position in the Ostheer tech-tree with the Marder II's - and even then I think the gun arrives rather late in the game.

Yes, we're aware that the higher tiers dont work out well in the current release.

We've spent the last months to rework the pool system and the tiers. Many units are now switched to different tiers. The pool system itself is also different now. The first pool switch is still for free, but after that each switch costs you ammunition and fuel aswell as taking some time to research.

Each tier contains three regular units and two pool units (one assault and one support pool). Both pool units serve the same purpose but work in a different way.

tier 1: anti-cover/anti-building, assault pool - LeIG 18 (which works like a howitzer) and support pool - 81mm Mortar team
tier 2: supression/anti-blob, assault pool - Bombardiers and support pool - hmg 34
tier 3: specialized anti-tank, assault pool - Marder II, support pool - pak 40
tier 4: specialized anti infantry, assault pool - Kugelblitz, support pool - Panzerwerfer (with fire ammunition by default)

This way the Ostheer is played more streamlined and less complicated to tech and to play.

Last edited July 18, 2014 at 11:00 AM by Hendrik 'DarcReaver' S.

Hendrik wrote:
Each tier contains three regular units and two pool units (one assault and one support pool). Both pool units serve the same purpose but work in a different way.

tier 1: anti-cover/anti-building, assault pool - LeIG 18 (which works like a howitzer) and support pool - 81mm Mortar team
tier 2: suppression/anti-blob, assault pool - Bombardiers and support pool - hmg 34
tier 3: specialized anti-tank, assault pool - Marder II, support pool - pak 40
tier 4: specialized anti infantry, assault pool - Kugelblitz, support pool - Panzerwerfer (with fire ammunition by default)

This way the Ostheer is played more streamlined and less complicated to tech and to play.

Three regular and two poolunits. Seems good but it seems to be alot of units. Twelve regular units + Sturmpios and doctrinal ones. Then again, the soviets have a high number of tanks. Will see how it goes.

Good piece of info though!  Consider updating your frontpage with this and mention how much is left to do.

Campaigner wrote:
Three regular and two poolunits. Seems good but it seems to be alot of units. Twelve regular units + Sturmpios and doctrinal ones. Then again, the soviets have a high number of tanks. Will see how it goes.

Yeah, it seems it's either there won't really be three non-pool units in some tiers, or we'll see the addition of some brand new units. Maybe some doctrinals will be made into regular units? The speculations start now! :)

T0
Sturmpios
Medic HT + Opel Blitz (maybe these two will be used to fill in the ??'s?)

T1
landsers
kubel
Marksman
LeIg/Mortar

T2
?? (not pzjgers, because they are moved into Support Doctrine)
??
SdKfz.251
Bombardiers/HMG

T3
PzFusiliers
PzIII
?? (not Luchs, as it was made a call-in)
Marder/PaK

T4
Doctrinal tank (Tiger/Panther/Pz4)
Famo
StugIII
Kugel/Pzwerfer

Campaigner wrote:
Good piece of info though!  Consider updating your frontpage with this and mention how much is left to do.

I concur! Even these small pieces of information are better than that "waaaaait for iiiit"-style informational vacuum we were in until now.

I'm not trying to be totally negative (I love the mod, that's why I'm posting here), but I'm dubious that having the LeIG and 81mm mortar require a pool choice at T1 is all that great an idea. Nobody buys artillery/mortars early in the game, so now Ostheer players aren't really going to have to think about their pool choice until they reach T2.

Obviously this is all theory, but on paper I prefer the current Marksman or Kubelwagen choice because those are actually units I might want to purchase at the beginning of the game.

Good explanation on the Sturmpioneer issue, although you can't convince me that the Kubelwagen MG34 isn't overpriced.

Quotebut OF factions are broken anyways.

They are - even the original two factions feature some dumb stuff. I wish so much that you guys would break the "we don't touch vanilla stuff" rule :(

Last edited July 19, 2014 at 6:29 AM by Carlos Danger

Carlos wrote:

Quotebut OF factions are broken anyways.

They are - even the original two factions feature some dumb stuff. I wish so much that you guys would break the "we don't touch vanilla stuff" rule :(

Hey, Carlos, pardon my asking, but what of the original factions would you call dumb? Not criticising you or anything, just asking for your opinion.
For me the most dubious things would be Wehrmacht's veterancy (when every late game unit is a crack veteran => so no need for unit preservation and micromanagement) as well as some redundant units (Sherman Croc, Ostwind, flamer HT etc.)

@Carlos Danger
Actually, the early artillery is almost a must. Soviets often tend to spam cons as quickly as possible. That's where the light artillery comes into play. Furthermore, they are units that contain extreme potential if you keep them alive, time your shots well and make them gain vet. As one of the internal balancers of EF I can tell you from my games with Darc and Ape that the OH early-game arty units are performing extremely well. Nothing like hitting a conscript blob dead center with a LEIG.

On the Kübel topic, I actually think the 30 munitions mg is epic. The standard Kübel is kinda like the Jeep, nothing special. However, once you get the mg42, O.M.G. you can completely shutdown SU early-game. Capping engenery get cut down like wheat in a field.

Most concerns that have been posted on the forums the last few weeks, months even, have mostly been taken care of. The only thing I can say is that you have to wait for the next patch so you can see for yourselves.

Grand wrote:

Carlos wrote:

Quotebut OF factions are broken anyways.

They are - even the original two factions feature some dumb stuff. I wish so much that you guys would break the "we don't touch vanilla stuff" rule :(

Hey, Carlos, pardon my asking, but what of the original factions would you call dumb? Not criticising you or anything, just asking for your opinion.
For me the most dubious things would be Wehrmacht's veterancy (when every late game unit is a crack veteran => so no need for unit preservation and micromanagement) as well as some redundant units (Sherman Croc, Ostwind, flamer HT etc.)

Things that come to mind -

- Wehr veterancy like you said (doesn't actually promote unit conservation)
- Wehr Defensive Med Bunker spam (I don't like static defenses or unit recyclers, tbh - the game would be fine without both)
- Allied War Machine
- Airborne Supply Drops (results in strafe spam)
- Off Map Combat Group (not OP, but the most uninspired ability in the game)
- The M3 and Sd.Kfz 251 halftracks need tweaking (right now nobody uses them with just the MGs, unless piospamming vs. Brits)
- Wehr Officer (nobody in the entire history of CoH has ever had a reason to buy this dude)

Not saying that these things are OP/UP or break the game, I just don't think they're very good ideas. The game would be better, in my opinion, if they were removed, tweaked, or replaced.

Anyways, looking forward to the new build.

Last edited July 19, 2014 at 7:13 PM by Carlos Danger

But EF wont change vanilla stuff  ;)

Carlos wrote:
Things that come to mind -

- Wehr veterancy like you said (doesn't actually promote unit conservation)
- Wehr Defensive Med Bunker spam (I don't like static defenses or unit recyclers, tbh - the game would be fine without both)
- Allied War Machine
- Airborne Supply Drops (results in strafe spam)
- Off Map Combat Group (not OP, but the most uninspired ability in the game)
- The M3 and Sd.Kfz 251 halftracks need tweaking (right now nobody uses them with just the MGs, unless piospamming vs. Brits)
- Wehr Officer (nobody in the entire history of CoH has ever had a reason to buy this dude)

Not saying that these things are OP/UP or break the game, I just don't think they're very good ideas. The game would be better, in my opinion, if they were removed, tweaked, or replaced.

Anyways, looking forward to the new build.

Wehr veterancy differentiates them from the US and isn't that strong. Some lvls gives minor bonuses while other lvls (lvl 2 Inf vet) gives Elite armor. I can assure you that you need to keep your troops alive. Should they die, you have to reinforce which drain your manpower preventing you from getting veterancy, buildings and new squads.

It doesn't work to spam medbunkers. They cost too much to spam, the medics are vulnerable and you need to defend them instead of being out capping or harassing. It also cements the Wehrmachts design of being a defensive faction until T3.

Allied Win Machine is definetly powerful. One of the things that's hard to deal with. It throws away veterancy however and costs 200 munis.

Strafe can be strong, but atleast there's no goddamn artillery.

No opinion on the rest.

Allied war machine may be powerful, but from what I've seen armor doctrine is not picked nearly as often as infantry or airborne doctrine. When you pick armor doctrine, you don't get access to elite infantry or infantry AT weapons either

Jeff wrote:
Allied war machine may be powerful, but from what I've seen armor doctrine is not picked nearly as often as infantry or airborne doctrine. When you pick armor doctrine, you don't get access to elite infantry or infantry AT weapons either

That's cause Armor doctrine shines in lategame which and in 1v1 you need the edge immidietly which Rangers and Howitzer Shoot (and later the Howitzer) gives.
So if you got the advantage, Calliope and AWM is the nail in the coffin.