Most useful OOBs?

[Jorge_Stanbury]

IMO, there are way too many OOBs available and it is a waste of BP to try to research them all

I would like opinions on which ones are good, which ones so-so

based on my somehow limited experience against "hard" AI:

Starting brigades:
MG Infantry --> this one is probably the best early option, at least against the AI, because somehow the AI likes to attack against poor odds. Defense posture + MGs usually means horrendous losses for the AI

Light Infantry --> cheap, a bit more offensive minded, easy to upgrade later on to mech/ motor. Once the game has advanced a bit, I also like to field 2nd rate "gendermerie" brigades: a model with the best rifle available but without armor to keep costs down, then use them to guard low risk areas against free folk marauders

Must haves brigades
Light armor --> the most important IMO, it is overpowering, at least against AI

Mechanized light Infantry --> Great companion to light armor; fast and deadly

With these 4, I can win against the AI,

Siege Infantry, RPG Infantry, Hvy MG are nice to have, but very situational
Assault Infantry is too expensive for the value it provides, IMO

is there any other that can be considered mandatory?

[Zanotirn]

Mechanized light infantry is nice, but a bit of overkill in terms of anti-soft damage. By the time I have some initial infantry and light tank formations and I can think about raising mechanized infantry, enemy majors often start getting noticeable quantities of tanks, so if you are going to get a large expensive formation anyway, might as well make it more well-rounded and use a formation that includes tanks and/or RPGs (against wildlife/marauders in open terrain I find that buggies are more convenient than mechanized infantry, you just need to put a bit of armor on them). The mixing of tanks and infantry also becomes more useful once you transition to energy weapons, since howitzers have no energy upgrade, and if you switch your tanks to energy weapons, their anti-soft damage is going to suffer. So pairing them with APCs and infantry makes sense. Mechanized storm, mechanized assault grenadier, light mechanized infantry or light mechanized assault will all work, whether to use an infantry formation including a few tanks or tank formation including some infantry depends on troop compositions you are facing and terrain.

[BlueTemplar]

IMHO mixed formations are kind of a waste... unless you have a few really exceptional commanders (which is now much less likely since their effect has been halved).
Though human opponents *might* be able to exploit separating non-mixed formations to more easily defeat them ?

Also, I still like Mechanized (Heavy) RPG Infantry because of it's speed and flexibility : being good against both soft and hard, weapon and armor.

I'm nearing endgame, so I'm going to experiment with Motorized (Heavy) Grenadier Infantry with Heavy Battledress, as APCs don't seem like they are going to cut it any more...

[zgrssd]

I totally agree with your initial list.

I would say adding some AT weapons to infantry is very usefull.
You may have to resort to AT guns, but then you suffer the related slowdown.
The real Anti-Armor weapon are the better Bazooka models.

[Clux]

For me the most useful formations are:

Heavy MG Infantry - Excellent in defense against infantry (and somewhat good in the offensive for being infantry) and if you upgrade them to quad mgs they're simply too good once entrenched.

Heavy RPG - Once you get some optimization they're the best light-medium tank killers, and once you get micro nukes rpgs they're the best formation available.

Heavy Siege - It used to be pretty good against infantry before the nerf to artillery movement, nowdays its kinda good in the defense, but not as much as before. Still I would use them to fight in forest-mountains.

Heavy Siege Grenadier - The ultimate jack of all trades of infantry, it has a bit of everything and its good all around, but its hard to get it since its one of the final formations.

Any pure armor formation - Expensive but there is nothing better in the open terrain.

Grenadier light/medium/heavy armor - Kinda cheaper than pure armor formations and its more versatile against infantry

I haven't tested the custom formations mechanic so I won't talk about any possible good combos

[Jorge_Stanbury]

what would be good custom independent formations?

I never put a lot of BP on it, and I usually create:
- Buggy + light tanks recon
- rockets + mech quad MGs (to protect them)
- Art (or AT) + quad MGs (or infantry or MG if I want to make it cheaper), same as above, the purpose is defense

maybe: Motorcycles + 10 or 20 Buggies, to give it a bit more firepower to my recon, but keeping it cheap