How do you unlock Ultimate? Do you have to win a Grand Campaign at Rommel, Guderian or Manstein? Winning Soviet Corps at Zhukov doesn't seem to qualify.

Have to say I take a minimalistic approach to this scenario, concentrating on the West side, abandoning the East entirely and mostly relying on aircraft to take-out the ships. It saves losses and prestige at the expense of missing-out on the prestige and experience for taking-on the main Allied forc...

Gripping stuff and worth the wait. Congratulations on clearing the board and preventing any Vickers tanks from spawning. As you suggested, Calais could be hard going due to the close terrain, entrenchments and time limit. I managed it on the last turn and lost a unit. Overall, I had over 2,000 more ...

I did it with Fallschirmjager. Didn't clear the map and had to deal with a spawning of Vickers MkVI tankettes in the NW at the end.

Good to see you back in circulation. That was close! Maybe couldn't have been done on the last turn on Dice Chess (which I play). I actually found Maubeuge harder than Arras, perhaps because I underestimated it a little, but also scraped home on the last turn. Got through the first forest a bit quic...

Sedan's pretty tough on Manstein, isn't it?! It's awkward enough on lower levels of difficulty because of the close terrain, entrenched opponents, counterattacks and time-consuming flank-securing operations. Decided to use two overstrengthed PzIVs to clear the artillery at Sedan, as PzIIIs don't rea...

First of all, thanks for the videos - they've certainly improved my game! I'm currently playing three parallel Grand Campaigns on Rommel, Guderian and Manstein. Straight decisive victories so far on the first two, but Manstein has been harder and I had to settle for Marginals at Lodz and Spoils of W...

No Operation Olympic on Kyushu, so on to Tokyo Bay for the finale. There was an option to use nuclear bombers, but I wasn't keen on this, even in a game (and they would probably have been prohibitively expensive, anyway), so I went for the British Pacific Fleet instead. I then found that the Brits h...

Once again, I was surprised to find no Luzon or Iwo Jima scenarios (no doubt in the US Marines expansion), with the action moving straight on to Okinawa. Rather easier than Leyte, this scenario starts with the US ashore in the centre of the island and seeking to advance to North and South. More than...

I was again a little surprised that there was no Marianas land battle, with the game moving on to the landings at Leyte in the Philippines. This scenario was the toughest challenge in the campaign. On the one hand, you have to conduct an amphibious landing and advance inland to liberate pretty much ...

Somewhat surprisingly, the game then jumps over the Gilberts and Marshalls and goes straight to the Battle of the Philippine Sea. This is a much more even contest than in real life, with three Japanese carriers supported by land-based air from Guam and Rota against, in my case, just four American ca...

As in real life, the next step is New Georgia. The Americans have to seize a foothold on the East side of the densely-forested island, then work West to capture the strategic airfield at Munda. There is a secondary requirement to take the island of Rendova, which affords a site for artillery to bomb...

In many ways, the Guadalcanal scenario is the best in the campaign. The designers have clearly done their research and, while it runs to a 'plot', this reflects broadly what happened in real life. You start off with the Marines ashore at Henderson Field and the covering fleet under attack in the Bat...

Having just battled through the American Campaign in OOB:Pacific, I thought I'd write a review of the various scenarios. I'd previously played the Japanese Campaign and the Morning Sun expansion, so it was a case of completing the set. My enjoyment of all three campaigns was seriously reduced by chr...

This is one of the biggest challenges in the game and gave me a lot of grief ! The Toyotomi start needing standard percentages to win (60% or 40+ with a 23-point margin). Even in 'defeat', inflicting 54% losses wins the game. If the Hideaki faction joins your side, you must win by 35 points and suff...

Fittingly, there's a lot to say about the climactic Sekigahara scenario, so I'm splitting the AAR into two parts. It's a large and confused battle which can be played as either side. It features some late-era units, including Later Teppo Ashigaru, who do not behave like skirmishers (no evades) and c...

A fairly small battle on mountainous terrain that can be played as either the Tokugawa or Toyotomi faction. As Ieyasu Tokugawa, you have a slightly smaller force (unless you're the AI !) but better defensive terrain on a couple of rugged hills with a valley between them. The Toyotomi force is advanc...

Another scenario that can be fought for either side. Toyotomi Hideyoshi has a somewhat larger, but lower-quality army than the usurper Akechi and must win by 40 points without losing 22. Initially, he must approach via a corridor between the forests of Mount Tenno on the left and a lake, wood and st...

Not too much to say on this one. You command a good-calibre Takeda army facing a larger but mostly raw Oda/Tokugawa force, who are behind light fortifications across a fordable stream. Both sides are initially standing on hills. Your left is especially high-quality and faces a weak, detached enemy f...

You command the garrison of Nagashino Castle, which consists of 8+ small units of matchlock skirmishers, plus a few bowmen and a core of samurai. You are outnumbered 6:1 by a Takeda army which attacks from two directions. The briefing says that the objective is to prevent the enemy getting into the ...