Excellent writeup Kerensky! First of all, let me thank you for taking the time to play against me. It has been an honor to play against a member of the development team such as yourself, especially one so bright and creative and willing to engage with the fans.
Now, that said, I was very pleased with the results of the match! When you are playing against Kerensky, the question is not whether you are going to win or lose but simply how badly you are going to lose.
So going into this match, I knew I was going up against the best in the business and my goal was not so much to win but simply to avoid getting completely stomped if I could avoid it. I remember finding Kerensky's tutorial videos on the Low Countries scenario to be a revelation. His revolutionary tactics caused me to rethink how I played the game and taught me a lot of valuable lessons. Actually playing against Kerensky has taught me even more.
Kerensky started off the game strongly, on the very first turn that our forces made contact he caused one of my strongest armored units (I believe it was a Panther) to surrender. This set the tone of the match and put me on the defensive. My playstyle is inherently cautious and defensive by it's very nature. As a general, I am probably a cross between Kesselring and George McClelland.
One of my goals was to form strong defensive lines that would seek to prevent the encirclement tactics that Kerensky is so famous for.
The battle began with his units assaulting my position in the North, I held out for a good while, but he eventually broke through and I retreated my units across the river. From there, a stalemate settled for the middle part of the game. He made several attempts to cross the river, but each attempt was crushed. This staelmate held up large forces of units upon the river that runs from the north to the center of the map. Since his forces in these sectors were so strong, I concluded that his troops in the south had to be comparatively weaker, so I secretly built up forces to launch a massive offensive toward the southern portion of the map.
By the time I attacked in the south, the game was about 2/3rd over. The offensive intially met minimal resistance and several cities fell, including an objective city. Kerensky now only led 5-4, taking one more objective would put me in the lead but resistance was beginning to stiffen considerably. The last objective was in sight, I only needed to push forward a little more but Kerensky's armored units were forming an impenetrable wall. At this point, I decided to launch a general offensive all over the map, I didn't seriously think any of these smaller offensives would gain much traction but I hoped to freak him out a bit and possibly force him to divert some forces from the south.
In the end though, my units reached the final objective but couldn't quite take it. If I had maybe one or two more turns, I might just have been able to do it. As Kerensky pointed out, I did use a large force of jagdtigers since I thought these were more cost-effective for dealing with his armor but they left me with few options to deal with his entrenched infantry. In hindsight, I should have purchased a larger infantry force to supplement my armored units and generally use less of the jagdtigers and other anti-tank units.
I thank Kerensky for taking the time to play against me. It was a fun one and seeing his tactics firsthand have made me a better player.
