Allied: Anzio Landing

[uran21]

Please post here your comments about this scenario.

[omegabet]

There is no white hex to place units from core army, besides aircrafts. So the mission can't be won.

[Kamerer]

I used endscn to skip Salerno, but then my core was deleted when I chose Anzio. Can't progress any further.

I will try to play the scenario stand-along from the scenario tab and see what happens.

[omegabet]

After hot fix:

Both light cruisers have a fire range not of 4, but of 14 hex.

[Kamerer]

18) Anzio – beta 1

Level: Field Marshal
Prestige: Begin: 3,100 (after repair/purchases). End: 3,600. Net: +500.
Result: Triumph at 19/20
Strength policy: Deployed all at 13

Core Changes:

• Received: SE Tempest
  Disbanded: None
  Purchased: 1x B-17G
  Upgraded: None

Problems:

• • When the rail gun fires, you don’t get to see what happens. The screen stays focused on the gun. It would be nice to see what unit is attacked and the result if that's possible.

General impressions/comments:

• • This is a pretty tough scenario and I had a number of tanks shot up to ½ strength. I did not try to clear the map but rather I kept my forces centered and mutually supporting, and it still took some effort to take the objectives and get done.
  • The mediocre allied armor really makes you dependent upon air power. I have 2 mosquitos and a Typhoon, and I’ll add another Mosquito next scenario. Also the B-17 and B-24 earn their keep as mobile artillery.

[Tarrak]

Scenario: Anzio Landing (tested with the fix from Rudankort applied)
Difficulty: general
Outcome: Triumph on turn 20/20
Starting Prestige: 8472
End Prestige: 4092, 9642 after victory reward
Core: 2 x Engineer 43, 1 x , 1 x SE Rangers, 1x SE Airborne, 6 x Churchil Mk.IV, 2 x M18 Hellcat, 1 x Chevy-WB recon, 1 x M8 Greyhound, 2 x 7.2 inch guns, 2 x M7 priest, 2 x M12 GMC, 1 x Churchill AVRE, 1 x Hurricane Mk.IIC, 1 x Spitfire Mk. IX, 1 x SE Spitfire Mk. IX, 1 x P-47D Thunderbolt, 1 x Beaufighter Mk.IF, 2 x Wellington Mk.X

Bought at the deployment phase one Churchill AVRE. It looks to me stat wise like a British version of a StuG just buffed up a lot.

The initial landing phase was quite easy. Got all my units on land without any problems or casualties. I decided to ignore the south-western part of the map as this river delta with all the swamps seemed like a waste of time to me. Small part of my troops pushed along the coast while the rest pushed north towards Campomorto. After taking it i split the troops in three groups again. First small group went to attack Cisterna from the south, the second to attack it from the east and the last group pushed north towards Aprilia (nice prestige bonus here), Campoleone and finally Albano. So at least was the theory. After all this was a mistake as i fragmented my troops to much.

The defense at Cisterna was quite tough and the additional small but annoying armor attack from south-east slowed me down and made me lose my Churchill AVRE. I had to call my air power to be able to make any progress there. Finally managed to take the city around turn 18 and wiped all remaining defenders by turn 20 but it was a bloody battle.

My troops moving along the coast got stuck in a heavy armor counterattack at Ardea. With the support of the Light Cruisers with their insane range i managed to hold the line there but could not make any advance. Lost my Chevy-WB and my SE ariborne there. Only was able finally to get control of the situation when my air power become free to help here.

My last battle group got stuck between Aprilia and Campoleone by yet another German counterattack including an Elephant. The situation turned into another stalemate again until my air force turned the situation to my favor. Lost a Churchill and the M8 Greyhound here. After the situation was cleared, thanks to my airpower again, i made a mad rush to get that bloody Leopold gun and the two last victory hexes. Thankfully there was not much opposition left but still only just managed it on the last turn.

Spend loads of prestige on reinforcements for my units in the middle of battle. They simply was necessary. Especially my air force took some damage from all the German units being able do defend themself against air attacks and i just did not have the luxury to retire then from combat. I needed every plane i could field to confine the German counterattacks.

The amount of the counterattacking armor is quite overwhelming. As i said i made the mistake of dividing my troops to much but even without this mistake shooting my way through so many tanks simply take time. To reach the Triumph some mad rushing seems to be in order and even then some luck is needed. If it's intended that way fine, if the Triump should be reachable easier maybe reduce the amount of counterattackers slightly or add two more turns.

[Flaygor]

Having the benefit of reading prior reports I made sure my armour was correctly placed and was able to complete in 16 turns. However, I am also getting used to scouting ahead and using airpower to soften up enemy units otherwise Panthers and AT just chew thru my tanks. Different strategy evolving from Axis games where I sometimes just sent Tigers, etc charging into whatever was out there without using recon units, recon is much more important in this game. Now I am getting used to that I seem to be doing better and it makes a nice change to game-play.

Churchill AVRE didn't seem to have much punch and took hits from infantry quite easily I thought. Might not bother with it and stick to 3 range mobile arty which seems much more effective. Crocodile seemed more able to reduce infantry with its direct fire method, bit like the PzII Flamm, packed quite a lot of soft damage in the right conditions.

Still not happy dropping OS when upgrading, but coming to terms with higher OS costs even though I miss having plenty built up so I can change units, etc.

Overall a nice interesting challenge and I actually liked having the long range naval support as it added another tactic to attack strong-points. And, as I found out to my horror, they are vulnerable to Heinkels!

[Tarrak]

I replayed the scenario in Beta 2 and either it was changed or my prior experience with it and keeping my troops together this time changed a lot. The scenario seemed a lot easier this time. Had no losses whatsoever but one of my fighters got shot badly by Fw190 ... i know now why the allied nicknamed them butcher-birds. They are damn lethal. Overall i could take this time a slow approach and didn't have to rush at all which of course minimized the losses.

[okiemcguire]

17) Anzio Landing - Beta 2

Prestige begin: 4519 End/Vic: 431/5412
Results: Triumph 19/20

There were some tough encounters, even for my Churchills.

I new the rangers were stealthy but there is no audio for their movement. I believe this had been reported earlier but I want to remind you.

By the way, the cruisers appear to have a very long range. In previous scenarios they had a range of 4 (if I remember correctly) But for this scenario they were > 10?

On to Normandy...

[Flaygor]

17)

On to Normandy...

Good luck old chap! Take plenty of spare parts and ammo!

I'm guessing the range thing with the cruisers could be due to map scale and providing a realistic representation of how they could attack. The maps all cover different sized areas and this made it tactically different to use long range bombardment. Anyway, it doesn't matter as it was still not enough to pick off anything useful like AA or that big rail gun.

[billmv44]

Beta 3. General. Starting prestige 6711, ending 1335. Triumph on 19/20.

This was very tough. The AI is making very good use of the German armor in his counter-attacks. I'm not sure, but it seems that the AI is stronger than in PzC. Or is it just the fact that he's using German equipment which at this stage of the war was very good. I lost another M18. It seems as soon as they start to get experience, the AI tries to kill them off with multiple attacks. They are truly a threat to his tanks.

I got off the beaches quickly but, guessed wrong on where the first counter attack would come. It took me a few turns to get that sorted out. I'm winning, but it is quite a the struggle. That's a good thing. I want to be challenged.

I'll definitely buy the game once it's released (was there ever any doubt ).

[ThvN]

Anzio Landing

AnzioLandingB_triumph.pzbrf
“You are now to proceed to England to prepare for the invasion of Europe!”
France (note: we're already in Europe)

AnzioLandingC_victory.pzbrf
“Your task now is to proceed to England to prepare for the invasion of Europe!”
France

AnzioLandingD_loss.pzbrf
“Despite this debacle your friends at HQ recommend that you proceed to England to prepare for the invasion of the continent.”
France

IDS_SCEN_ALLIED_CAM_OBJECTIVES
“Capture all objectives and kill Leopold railway artillery.”
destroy

IDS_STRING44 Astura = Astura River

IDS_STRING46 Moletta = Moletta River

IDS_STRING47 Torto = Torto River

[Longasc]

Anzio Landing (Beta 3)

Level: General
Start Prestige: 10448
End Prestige: 4085
Result: Triumph 18/20
Bought/Upgraded/Losses: 2 or 3 Rangers, 1 Hellcat and lots of aircrafts strength losses.

Summary: Harder than expected! Expected this the easy alternative to Cassino, but it's a deceptive scenario!

Strong enemy counter-attack at the end. FW190A, almost killed a Mosquito (-8), Elefant almost killed a Churchill at Str 8 (-7) and the Panthers and one particular Panzer IIIL were also nasty. Very good resistance, very interesting gameplay. I liked the different ways you can chose to approach the scenario objectives.

Some odd things: Rang of the Cruisers is some 14 hexes or so. The Leopold gun has only range 4. The cruisers are useless with less range than that. But maybe at least Leopold should then also be given a similarly pimped range for this scenario only.

The Crocodiles were again exceptionally good. I was missing a strong tank killer, used a lot of Mosquitos but it still took 4 or 5 turns to kill the Elefant. My M18 Hellcat took heavy losses, they are what's called glass cannons in MMOs. Even when they fired first against StuGs they took lots of damage. -> In Cassino you have Fireflies right away.

Hm let's see with which savegame I will continue, Cassino or this one...


Conclusion: The scenario is way harder than I thought after the easy initial landing. I had to hurry to get there in time, 18/20. Cassion had probably 5 turns too much, this scenario could use 5 turns more.

Edit: 1-2 more hexes to place aircraft would also be nice, couldn't deploy one fighter.

[uran21]

Thanks to all for the feedback so far. Elefant and Panther appear in this one for the first time. Chronologically it is earlier than Cassino scen where you have access to better Allied armour. Cruisers have range of 14 and Leopold 15 although combat is not very clear at that distance so you could miss where Leopold hit your units. Added 2 more turns to the clock. General change with late war scenarios is more prestige throughout campaign.

[Zhivago]

Hard fought scenario, but I would argue that another turn or two be added. Neutralizing the heavy German armor in between the two main victory points in the center of the map really bogs down the attack force. Repeated play of this scenario will help me familiarize myself with the best attack strategies. Would be also nice to have additional core slots. Playing on FM strength level (as i have with all of the Allied Corps scenarios). I like the AI, but it takes time to work your way through this scenario without suffering heavy losses.

[zappel]

Just a minor observation: the pictures of the admirals of the light cruisers looks like axis officers.

Axis admiral

Admiral.png (57.49 KiB) Viewed 8046 times

[zappel]

Beta4 - Colonel - DV at turn 19

A low trick: landing without any resistance, first movements without any opponent and than those axis tanks appears in masses: Panther, Elefant and Pz IVG/H are really hard to destroy units if only M4A3/M4 Mk.I are available. It took me many attacks in one turn to destroy only one of them and like Zhivago wrote:

Neutralizing the heavy German armor in between the two main victory points in the center of the map really bogs down the attack force.

I got horrible losses which costed many prestige. But this is a formidable scenario I liked to play, I would not change anything.

[uran21]

Just a minor observation: the pictures of the admirals of the light cruisers looks like axis officers.

They were added before graphics for Allied ones were available, thanks for reminding about it. Fixed now.

[Zhivago]

Beta4 - Colonel - DV at turn 19

A low trick: landing without any resistance, first movements without any opponent and than those axis tanks appears in masses: Panther, Elefant and Pz IVG/H are really hard to destroy units if only M4A3/M4 Mk.I are available. It took me many attacks in one turn to destroy only one of them and like Zhivago wrote:

Neutralizing the heavy German armor in between the two main victory points in the center of the map really bogs down the attack force.

I got horrible losses which costed many prestige. But this is a formidable scenario I liked to play, I would not change anything.

Once you know where to expect the armored thrust, you can deal with it. My second time playing it went much better than the first.

[wolfpinguin]

Hello,

this is my first beta-test so also my first remark.

On this scenario the screen went black on turn 07/27 and 13/27 jsut after changing to another unit.
The computer wasn't frozen so just by pressing "Esc" i'be got back to the menu where could resume the game.

WP