DLC '44 #6: Poltava

[VPaulus]

Please post here your comments about this scenario.

[produit]

FM, preset core. Finished on 26th turn, prestige 474.

I could have finished on turn 13, but I stayed, capturing cities and increasing troops experience.

I really liked this mission of going through enemy lines, without air support. On the other hand, there is no real air threat, and thus, the AA I took on the map were not so useful.

A strange point, is that the enemy units on the borders, which are in a formidable amount, does not move. At the beginning, I tried no to come close the 5 stars IS2, but in the end, I approached the one on the airfield in the center, and it did not move or attack, even if I was close to it. I don't know if there is a trigger to launch this huge number of units, but I was not able to trig it. As a result, all these sleeping units are quite weird...

If all units on the border (and there are quite a lot from the ending view I got), would attack the objectives, let's say on turn 15, there would be only a time window were you can capture the objectives, before having to survive the Russian onslaught. Seeing all these units moving toward your troops with 5 stars IS2 at their head would really be a frightening sight...

Nice map, it really change from everything I played until now.

[Kerensky]

Do you really want to fight 15 strength 5 star IS-2s? I would think you would want to avoid them whenever your recon cars spot them.

I particularly like this map because your three most important units are:
Recon cars to scout out a path to advance down, lest you find yourself staring down one of those 15 strength 5 star IS-2s and their escorts.
Bridge engineers who allow you to cut over rivers to avoid static defenses that cover the various bridges in the region.
Air defense units, who are pretty much your only means of completing your objective here, as you have no fighter aircraft for this mission.

[billmv44]

General level, imported core from 1942 DLC beta test. Prestige 9147 to start, 6550 to at end. As soon as I saw those IS-2s on the map, I upgraded 4 Tigers to Tiger IIs. This was hugely expensive, but they are the only tanks that can handle an IS-2. I really enjoyed this scenario. It reminds me of a cavalry raid. Drive to the objectives and complete the mission. I only fought when necessary. DV on turn 16. I could have done it earlier, but I wanted to fight that IS-2 on the air field with my Tiger IIs. That took a while to get into position. The type of scenario really made me think on what forces I should take. I decided on 2 recon, 5 SP arty, 13 tanks and the 7 SE Tanks. I did feel a bit naked without my Luftwaffe, but since there was no enemy air forces, it wasn't a problem.

Keep the "special" scenarios coming. They really add to the richness of the game.

[produit]

A quick point concerning the map. There are two cities with a written A in the center (37/27 and 31/24). Does it mean anything ? I captured them, but it did not result in anything.

[Mountaineer]

I really expected lots of Soviet Air, so I took AA guns. That was a big msitake to eat up my units with AA. Perhaps the type of units you are facing should be mentioned. I also went heavy on Infantry and found I really needed tanks. It is not a "lightning fast" raid, but a deep attack.

[charonjr]

Rommel - pre-build core

Starting with 5.1k prestige, down to 2.7k after selective reinforcements.

Bought a Fallschirmjäger, a Brückenpionier, another Wurfrahmen, a Gebirgsjäer and a Pz II Luchs while selling my remaining SE Grenadiere, leaving me with 1.4k prestige. Down to 0.4k after upgrading a Tiger I with a +1 movement hero to a Tiger II.

Used 8 SP artillery and the newly bought 1 recon and 3 infantry in addition to 13 tanks here and had no real problems throughout the scenario.

What was annoying that I had no idea how many bombers I had already shot down.

Around turn 21 I seem to have ventured too close to some trigger points and got lots of enemy units incoming, but since I had fairly few units at the last VH it took me another 2 turns before I finally was able to finish the scenario.

DV at 23/26 with 1.3k prestige, a bunch of liberated AAA units and a couple of pretty banged up units.

A good scenario IMO, if you are stupid enough to hunt around for additional kills you might very well get hurt (especially if you didnt look after your recon units before), but if you want to strike quickly and then leave you can do so as well. And I did like the "don't get seen by the sentries" approach, even if I stopped caring about it towards the end - and nearly paying the price for this

[Zhivago]

Do you really want to fight 15 strength 5 star IS-2s? I would think you would want to avoid them whenever your recon cars spot them.

I particularly like this map because your three most important units are:
Recon cars to scout out a path to advance down, lest you find yourself staring down one of those 15 strength 5 star IS-2s and their escorts.
Bridge engineers who allow you to cut over rivers to avoid static defenses that cover the various bridges in the region.
Air defense units, who are pretty much your only means of completing your objective here, as you have no fighter aircraft for this mission.

I really enjoyed this scenario. DV on turn 19/26. Playing it the first time I kind of just struck out in three army groups...north, south and center. When I found masses of Russian armor to the north and south, I just started laying into them, which was somewhat wasteful of my resources. However, now that I've played the scenario once, I would keep a rear guard force to the north and south, but obviously keep the main focus thrust in the center where the objectives are. I destroyed two or three 15 strength IS-2's. They are really amazingly strong! I had two 15-strength Tiger II's pounding on one, and it still took about 6 turns to kill! After I shot down all of the B-17's, I took one of the 13 strength 88's and took a shot at the IS-2 parked at the airfield just to the east of the objectives. I destroyed the IS-122's behind it, and thought I'd see what an 88 could do to it. I had a good laugh when i shot the IS-2 and it killed the entire 13-strength 88 gun without taking so much as a single scratch!

[deducter]

Do you really want to fight 15 strength 5 star IS-2s? I would think you would want to avoid them whenever your recon cars spot them.

I particularly like this map because your three most important units are:
Recon cars to scout out a path to advance down, lest you find yourself staring down one of those 15 strength 5 star IS-2s and their escorts.
Bridge engineers who allow you to cut over rivers to avoid static defenses that cover the various bridges in the region.
Air defense units, who are pretty much your only means of completing your objective here, as you have no fighter aircraft for this mission.

I really enjoyed this scenario. DV on turn 19/26. Playing it the first time I kind of just struck out in three army groups...north, south and center. When I found masses of Russian armor to the north and south, I just started laying into them, which was somewhat wasteful of my resources. However, now that I've played the scenario once, I would keep a rear guard force to the north and south, but obviously keep the main focus thrust in the center where the objectives are. I destroyed two or three 15 strength IS-2's. They are really amazingly strong! I had two 15-strength Tiger II's pounding on one, and it still took about 6 turns to kill! After I shot down all of the B-17's, I took one of the 13 strength 88's and took a shot at the IS-2 parked at the airfield just to the east of the objectives. I destroyed the IS-122's behind it, and thought I'd see what an 88 could do to it. I had a good laugh when i shot the IS-2 and it killed the entire 13-strength 88 gun without taking so much as a single scratch!

Apparently, those IS2 are there for the players with 15 strength King Tigers to fight.

[Zhivago]

Do you really want to fight 15 strength 5 star IS-2s? I would think you would want to avoid them whenever your recon cars spot them.

I particularly like this map because your three most important units are:
Recon cars to scout out a path to advance down, lest you find yourself staring down one of those 15 strength 5 star IS-2s and their escorts.
Bridge engineers who allow you to cut over rivers to avoid static defenses that cover the various bridges in the region.
Air defense units, who are pretty much your only means of completing your objective here, as you have no fighter aircraft for this mission.

I really enjoyed this scenario. DV on turn 19/26. Playing it the first time I kind of just struck out in three army groups...north, south and center. When I found masses of Russian armor to the north and south, I just started laying into them, which was somewhat wasteful of my resources. However, now that I've played the scenario once, I would keep a rear guard force to the north and south, but obviously keep the main focus thrust in the center where the objectives are. I destroyed two or three 15 strength IS-2's. They are really amazingly strong! I had two 15-strength Tiger II's pounding on one, and it still took about 6 turns to kill! After I shot down all of the B-17's, I took one of the 13 strength 88's and took a shot at the IS-2 parked at the airfield just to the east of the objectives. I destroyed the IS-122's behind it, and thought I'd see what an 88 could do to it. I had a good laugh when i shot the IS-2 and it killed the entire 13-strength 88 gun without taking so much as a single scratch!

Apparently, those IS2 are there for the players with 15 strength King Tigers to fight.

Oh get off it deducer...I know you are still playing with Panzer II's on FM/Manstein and -100% prestige. We can't all be as talented at PzC as you. You are my hero!

[nikivdd]

FM.
I did a few upgrades here.
The 2 PzIIIM upgraded to Tiger II, 2 StuGIIIB to Jagdpanther, 5 pzIVH to J.
I took all the armories, even the ones without a VH. Seems that i am leaving this scenario with a bunch of AA units.
Losses remained at a minimum because i avoided major confrontations. Only the few tanks that stood in my way i kicked with the new Tiger II's and I's.
The mission is nice and it is something completely different. I welcome more of those "behind the lines" missions.

DV 16/26, 2094PP

[Mountaineer]

In the end, I really enjoyed this scenario. It was fun to get all those free AA added to the core, which helps a bit.

[Jorgusson]

Hi. I am writing about difficulties about winning condition: Destroy 7 bombers. When i began to capture armories, suddenly I was jumped by 3 bomber which I destroyed. But then until 31 turn nothing happened. I had marginal victory . By using battlefield view I saw that there were 4 deserted bombers in left-upper corner of the map. Did anyone complained about it ??? I will try to start DLC44 all over again and check if this will happen again. (It reminds me, as far as I remember, russian beachhead attack bug from DLC 43).

[Kerensky]

Interesting, I'll take another look at the triggers, but most likely what happened is that because you captured 100% of the airfields on the map, even that one with the 15 strength IS-2, the aircraft didn't want to move.

[Zhivago]

Interesting, I'll take another look at the triggers, but most likely what happened is that because you captured 100% of the airfields on the map, even that one with the 15 strength IS-2, the aircraft didn't want to move.

Are the bombers triggered after a certain turn? I think it was after I took the western-most objective airfield that the bombers started to come. One B-17 flew to that eastern non-objective airport with the 15 strength IS-2 on it and just sat there. I pulled up my big towed AA and sat on the other side of the river and shot it down eventually. The rest of the B-17s just hovered over that western objective airfield until I shot them all down.

[Jorgusson]

Ok, so I'll replay whole scenario without taking on IS-2 airfield, and i'll take some troops in the direction of those bombers.