Sandstorm let's play (replay style)

[13obo]

4th mission- 5th difficulty. All objectives completed. Pfew, I thought that was about to be another gruelling slugfest but turned out the mission was short and sweet. Well done to the designers who decided to give us a respite!

Only one note as mission is pretty straight-forward- make sure you deploy half-half fighters/tactical bombers. I focus on Italian fighters and German stukas as the fighters suck a bit less than their German counterpart compared to the tactical bombers.

[Mojko]

Hercules scenario added

Notes:

Wow, this scenario was full of surprises. First of all I didn't notice that I'm supposed to deploy supply ships and Italian destroyers from my reserve because you don't get any naval CP. This is expected because all naval units are auxiliary which do not use CP. Maybe it's also because there are lot of these weird small supply tiles scattered around the whole island. There is also one capturable deploy zone in the centre of the island. I thought that the challenge of this mission is to capture supply by your paratroopers and deploy more reinforcements as you capture more supply. I will try to play this mission again without use of any supply ships, just for the challenge.

Another weird thing was the spawning of Italian navy units. I ordered my first wave of Italian units to fall back so I could use them together with my bombers later. The British gave chase and then suddenly second Italian wave of units spawned on top of the British group. I'm sure the British were just as surprised as I was. Nice thing was that I got the first shot so their group was destroyed from point blank range.

In the end I didn't actually deploy any of my core units on water.

[13obo]

Buq Buq - 5th mission. 5th difficulty. All objectives completed. That was long again. Ah, I miss quick missions but oh well.

Notes:
- um where to begin...Advance carefully, suppress enemy artillery with yours. There's a lot of them and they are hiding amongst a many enemy units so don't do the mistake I did to try to destroy them with direct attacks before clearing everything else.
- keep 10 cp (combined italian and german) just in case as well as around 100-150 RP. You may need them ...

[13obo]

Hercules- 6th mission. 5th difficulty. All objectives completed. This was fun! Probably the best scenario I've played.

Notes:
- Remember your objectives- once airports are secured, notice that all primaries are on the left side of the map, so don't bother pushing on the right.
- Make sure you keep one of the airfields close to where you intend to land as otherwise you may end up like me having to fly the planes to the other side of the island for refuelling...
- Tanks not very useful here as most fighting is in cover! Bring 2 though just in case.

[Mojko]

- Alam el Halfa scenario added

Notes:

- great opportunity to rank up your engineers by clearing mines
- you can't achieve the secondary objective to destroy all British units if you encircle them first
- avoid encirclement of enemy units and destroy them while they have supply

- Desert Eagles scenario added

Notes:

- this scenario finally forced me to buy Italian fighters

[Mojko]

Cairo scenario added

Notes:

- pretty straightforward scenario
- not sure why sinking one destroyer is a secondary objective as it seems super easy to do
- why are the mines around Alexandria under Italian control? Shouldn't they be neutral?

[13obo]

Alam El Halfa- 7th mission. 5th difficulty. All objectives completed on turn 24/40. Many thanks to Mojko for the tip to not surround before destroying enemy units otherwise I'd have replayed this one more time! And be even more frustrated with this mission.

Notes:
- Don't try to surround really or leave units to protect your envelopment on the southern flank. I had to restart one time because the defending units suddenly spring to action and start moving south when you capture the first point on the ridge, which would've cut my supply and made half the army obsolete.
- Lots of artilleries here- try to disable them with your long-range ones or suffer heavy casualties.
- Lots of air too- I brought 2 AAs and 5 fighters and was still struggling to take down all the spawning planes.
- Unfortunately I played this the usual frontal breakthrough style as opposed to taking advantage of cutting off enemy supply due to trigger mentioned in note 1. Scenario wasn't as fun as I thought it would be.

[GabeKnight]

Alam El Halfa
- Unfortunately I played this the usual frontal breakthrough style as opposed to taking advantage of cutting off enemy supply due to trigger mentioned in note 1. Scenario wasn't as fun as I thought it would be.

What do you mean? Haven't played this since beta, but I remember it was quite possible to cut and encircle MANY units here, if you just left some of them at "El Hamam" alive. The enemy has just two supply locations... Take Alam el Onsol and encircle El Hamam.

[13obo]

Yeah, maybe I could've played this better but there were 2 things that stopped me from enveloping properly:
1. MINES! Everywhere you turn there are mines that stop you in your track and necessitate a repair on the next turn (at least on difficulty 5 when enemy is at 13 strength, it's waste of RP to attack with units of strength below 9).
2. Enemy has too many units spread around the whole map so if you try an envelope, you end up being surrounded from everywhere.

Anyway, point being, I tried to encircle, but ended up "playing it safe" because I wasn't sure if any units will spawn in my back or some trigger will fire that will cause the enemy to spring into action.

[13obo]

Mission 9 - Cairo (skipped posting dessert convoy as it's too trivial). 5th difficulty. All objectives completed on turn 20/30. Very easy scenario as map is small and easy to scout all the potential counter-attacks.

Notes:
- Watch out for crowing out hexes with your units as the passages are narrow. I lost a couple of infantry because they didn't have space to fall back to due to large convoy of my units behind them.

[13obo]

Mission 10- Rush for Tunis. 5th difficulty. Finally caught up to Mojko! All objectives completed on turn 10/20. Another small-scale map, why's that? Usually small scale maps are in beginning and later maps get bigger, which also gives you the feeling of more natural core progression. Now i'm stuck with tonnes of RP, but not enough CP to deploy. Well anyway, maybe it's good to have some diversity.

Notes:
- Have enough air recon as it's easy to miss this one AI unit rushing on a truck that will cut off your supply.
- Also easy to cut off enemy as they rush to take objectives.
- Deploy even forces north and south.

[Mojko]

Race for Tunis scenario added

Notes:

- ignore the British special forces unit in the North as it can't capture objectives, you only need to destroy one infantry in that group (also ignore the supply ship)
- you don't need to capture secondary objectives before the enemy so you don't need to rush on the southern objective
- be aggressive as enemy is quite happy to throw away units like trucks and artillery into your tanks

[13obo]

Kasserine Pass - Mission 11. 5th difficulty. All objectives completed on turn 20/35. I liked this one! It was easy but required coordination of forces and to protect the passes.
Notes:
- had 4 recon planes (ended up with 2x 2 spare german/italian air CP that didn't have anything else to do). Apart from being shot at a lot, they actually were able to scout the whole map for me and allow me to perfectly predict directions and strengths of counter-attack. Highly recommended!
- don't forget tanks/artillery can't pass through mountains (like I did)... One of the directions I started pushing in was a road via a mountain that I only realised can't pass with the tanks when I got to it. Fortunately the detour was short.

[GabeKnight]

- don't forget tanks/artillery can't pass through mountains (like I did)... One of the directions I started pushing in was a road via a mountain that I only realised can't pass with the tanks when I got to it. Fortunately the detour was short.

Funny, actually the same thing happened to me, although us veteran players should know better by now when looking at the map at deployment stage and planning out approaches. I guess, we have become overconfident and cocky with this game at some point...

[13obo]

Beyond Kasserine via Tebessa - Mission 12. 5th difficulty. All objectives completed around turn 17/25. Another scenario with several counter attacks via predictable mountainous passes that I could easily defend while simultaneously pushing forward. Well done to the designers! Maybe the Americans are lacking a bit of armour to make these scenarios a real challenge?

Notes:
- Your paratroopers will need some air help to protect the bridge as there are AA/fighters/ground units that are helping out the engineer.
- As mentioned, not many enemy tanks so don't focus too much on ATs.

Funny, actually the same thing happened to me, although us veteran players should know better by now when looking at the map at deployment stage and planning out approaches. I guess, we have become overconfident and cocky with this game at some point...

Agree, overconfidence is a constant problem I struggle with... In fact, I notice these days it is the main reason for restarting a scenario.

[13obo]

Sun Hero via Tebessa - Mission 13. 5th difficulty. All objectives completed around turn 15/30. A superb ending of the campaign! Attacked from all sides via all sorts of means- fascinating! It was a great rugged defence but I was able to push while defending.

Notes:
- American air suddenly gets amazingly good! Expect 5 star fighters assaulting you from all sides. Bring lots of fighters and AA.
- In the east, focus on enduring the attack first by staying on your side of the river and then once that is subdued a bit, feel free to push.
- Also in the east, there's lots of artillery (as usual). Deploy your long ranged artillery and pick them out or your Tigers will be at 0 efficiency and be useless.
- Protect the border in the middle with mobile units. The italian 10 movement point tank is great for this, as well as the Wespe.

Another campaign down! Looking forward to whatever comes next.

Thank you!

[bismark2010]

Hi frustrated with order of battle senario 2 where are Halfaya pass and Sidi Azeiz on the map.I do not see the names or any white or brass flags showing these places. Maybe I am missing some thing as a result I always lose the senario.Any help out there.

EDIT: Removed name. This is an anonymous forum. Otherwise, we are happy to help. I have a review, discuss and walkthrough thread here.

viewtopic.php?f=264&t=85435

Andy2012

[Mojko]

Kasserine pass scenario added

Notes:

- the British attacked on my right flank and for some reason a heavy infantry attacked with a mortar attack and my entrenched paratroopers (10 entrenchment) lost all of the entrenchment in one attack, it's probably a bug

[GabeKnight]

- the British attacked on my right flank and for some reason a heavy infantry attacked with a mortar attack and my entrenched paratroopers (10 entrenchment) lost all of the entrenchment in one attack, it's probably a bug

The 10 assault with the Brit mortar heavies is still there? Seriously? Has been since Burma Road. I didn't go over the v6.1.7 units.csv file yet, but this error has been reported multiple times, at least twice by myself, even now at the Sandstorm beta.

[CoolDTA]

Happened to me, too, so it is there.