Grand Campaign 1943-45 Field Marshall

[loganfive]

Turn 18 at the Warsaw Uprising.

I had destroyed all the Polish units by this point in the scenario but decided to stick around for one more turn with the Soviet spearhead arriving. I ended up getting an unexpected Attack +3 hero for one of my SE Panthers.

All things considered, this scenario turned out pretty well in terms of what I was trying to accomplish here.

I got 5th stars for 9 units, including the two Panzer IIIM units you see at the lower left, as well as a Panzer IVH, an SE Panther G, and 5 infantry units. One of my FW190s finished at 499 experience points. The all-out push to five stars got kind of expensive though. Some of the units were 10 experience points away, and there was quite a bit of throwing them into the action, having them take significant damage, then clicking on the +* button to rebuild them. This is one of the few scenarios where you can do this sort of thing, as the Poles have no artillery and the Soviet onslaught does not arrive until around Turn 19. You can throw weaker units into combat without any risk of having them destroyed.

My grand strategy of deploying my least experienced and lowest kill count units is finally showing signs of paying off. I now have 11 five star infantry (which is not easy to do at Field Marshall at this stage of the campaign), and six of them have their third hero.

The tank and artillery units are looking promising too.

[loganfive]

Entering the final scenario of GC 44 with 82143 prestige points. A modest prestige gain of 744 at Warsaw.

I like my chances of finishing GC 44 with over 85000.

Budapest 44 is not particularly difficult in terms of getting a DV. The challenge lies in the volume of Soviet heavy armour to deal with here, including IS-2s and ISU-122s. It is very easy to lose a core unit here if you're not careful.

[loganfive]

Turn 15 at Budapest 44.

Forget what I said about this one not being difficult.

5 turns from the end and I am still dealing with new waves of Soviet air units, including a Yak-9U, as well as fresh Soviet armour, including an IS-2 and an ISU-152.

I think I destroyed about 25 Soviet air units in this scenario.

[loganfive]

The final turn of Budapest 44 and the GC 44 campaign.

My core took a beating and I ended up clicking on the +* button way more than I wanted to.

The good news is that I got six new heroes in this scenario. Two of them were kind of "meh": a +1 Attack for my Hummel and a +1 Defence for the Helmut Wirnsberger infantry hero unit. The other four were pretty good: a +2 Defence for the Heinz Rondorf tank hero unit, a +3 Attack for one of my paras (it now has +6 Attack, +1 Initiative!), a second +1 Range for my 15cm Nebelwerfer, and a +1 Movement for one of my 10.5 cm guns (I will probably upgrade it to a Hummel).

Pictured below is my Wurfrahmen 40, which sits at 888 kills and one hero. I also have a 10.5 cm with 892 kills and 1 hero. Sometime early in 1945 they will both get their second hero and 1000th kill, bringing the total number of 5-star, two-hero artillery units to 10.

[loganfive]

Entering GC 45 with 84925 prestige points.

On my first attempt at this campaign I won a DV at Goldap fairly easily on Turn 12 of 21. Cap-wise, I was at 65% prestige at the end. All of which means that I missed out on about 3000 potential turn bonus and victory bonus points. I am going to see what happens if I use a less-expensive core and drag out the scenario for another 8 or 9 turns.

[loganfive]

Deployment at Goldap

Almost 7000 prestige points in upgrades, replacements and overstrengths.

It's going to be touch and go in terms of getting those points back in this scenario.

Somewhat over the cap too at 86% prestige.

[loganfive]

Garbage time at Goldap.

Goldap gets my vote as the easiest scenario from 1943 onward (OK, the Epilog is a no-brainer but it doesn't count).

The good news is that the DV iwas in hand by Turn 12 and my core barely got nicked up apart from the JagdPanzer IV you see on the lower right.

The bad news is that because my core barely got nicked up I finished above the cap for the first time in this attempt at the Grand Campaign, in the 67th scenario. Still, 90% prestige is not too terrible.

Basically, there are no more waves of Soviet units after this and only a handful of ATG and Flak units guarding the remaining Soviet flag hexes.

I kept one Soviet T-70 alive until Turn 21 in order to collect the turn bonus points.

[loganfive]

Entering Pelleninkin with 86476 prestige points, a net gain of 1511 at Goldap after disbanding one of my old KV-85s and keeping the newly-captured one (the new one is still at 12 strength points while the old one was down to 2).

There should be a healthy net gain here too as I do not have a lot in the way of repairs or upgrades to perform.

However, unlike Goldap there is a lot of Soviet heavy armour coming your way in this scenario. If this was 1943 I would do a max overstrength and try to run the table, but there's little point here. I have 8 tank and 9 infantry units that are maxed out at 3 heroes and five stars, and four more tank and two more infantry that are pretty close. There is little point in spending all that prestige for kills and experience points that are mostly meaningless at this point in the campaign. The only sane thing to do here is complete the DV objectives (rescue 8 AUX units and move them across the map) as quickly as possible, then get the heck out of Dodge.

[loganfive]

DV in 7 turns at Pelleninkin and my core was barely scratched.

I also got a third hero for the Friederich Pein infantry hero unit, a Defence +3. The hero bonuses for this unit are off the charts.

[loganfive]

Entering Parck with 86867 prestige points, a modest gain of 474 at Pelleninkin, but I am not complaining.

Because there was so little damage to my core, I should have a healthy prestige gain at Parck.

The down side is that Parck is a a real slugfest with bad weather, tricky terrain and lots of Soviet armour coming at you. I expect my core to get beaten up here.

[loganfive]

Halfway through at Parck.

I did what I had set out to do in clearing all the Soviet armour in the East. After this I can just sweep West and more or less clear the map, and get the captured KV-85, which is in the Soviet-held hex on the lower left of the map below.

I got heroes for two more of my SE tank units, which are pretty much heroed out. They are all at three heroes except for the Panther from 1944, which is at two heroes but is below 700 kills.

I still have three non-SE tanks looking for 2nd and 3rd heroes, and they are all pretty close.

[loganfive]

The end at Parck.

I managed to run the table this time, in spite of the two 14-strength IS-2s.

I was hoping to get a couple more heroes here as I have about 10 infantry, tank and artillery units that are due, but I guess it will have to wait until the next scenario.

Once again I was over the cap, but did not suffer a lot of damage to my core. Which means fewer prestige points but also fewer repairs.

[loganfive]

Going to Laptau with 90795 prestige points after selling off the captured KV-1.

I have four infantry units looking for second or third heroes, but are still about 300 kills from maxing out the kill count for their next hero.

Given that Laptau is an infantry battle with mostly hilly terrain, and I have some prestige to spare, I am going to upgrade at least three of these hero-starved units to Gerbirgs, then do a max overstrength. Hopefully they can get some kills.

I also have a couple of one-hero artillery units that are over 950 kills, and are due to receive their second hero.

[loganfive]

Turn 9 at Laptau.

Core is taking a bit more of a beating here. I am already under the cap.

My Wuhrframen got a +1 Range hero though. And I am running up the kill count for the units that are due for second or third heroes.

[loganfive]

The end at Laptau.

A couple of my infantry units were lucky to have escaped intact.

However, I got five more heroes. Three of them were awesome, two were a bit of a letdown. I spent all this effort and prestige trying to get a second hero for the Josef Allerberger infantry unit, and ended up getting +1 Spotting. My killer 12.8cm Flak unit got +1 Defence for a 3rd hero.

[loganfive]

Headed to Osterode with 93106 prestige points, a gain of about 2300 at Laptau. My core got banged up but most of the damage was to inexpensive infantry.

I now have some decisions to make in terms of hoarding prestige vs spending prestige on upgrades and/or max overstrength on some units that are still hero eligible.

I am at the point where I can lose 4000 prestige points per scenario and still have over 70000 left for the two Berlin battles at the end.

It would be nice to hit 100000 prestige points, but it would also be nice to get a 3rd hero for one of my artillery or tank destroyer units (hard to do, and I would need some luck).

[loganfive]

Turn 10 at Osterode.

It's going fairly smoothly. This scenario is not that easy, as you have to deal with mud, rain, river crossings and the fact that you have to squeeze your units through two narrow corridors. The four 14-strength IS-2s can make life difficult too.

[loganfive]

The end at Osterode.

Took some damage to my core, but I cleared the map and dropped under the cap for the full victory bonus at the end.

One of my tank units from the Danzig Corridor (second scenario of the Grand Campaign) finally got its third hero, which means that I now have 11 tank units with five stars and three heroes. The Eric Litzke hero unit is at 940 kills and 395 experience points.

On the infantry side of things I have 10 units with five stars and 3 heroes, and another one closing in on the third hero at 1795 kills. And I have the Bruno Sutkus and Matthaus Hetzenauer infantry units close to their second heroes.

The air units are the only area of concern as I have a bunch of units stuck at three or four stars and one or two heroes. I figure I can compensate somewhat by upgrading to jets for the Berlin battles.

[loganfive]

94727 points heading into Poznan45.

This is another one of those scenarios where you escort units to designated hexes. But in this one there is a river between you and the Soviet armoured onlslaught at the end. It may be worth it to stick around and get some easy kills and turn bonus points.

Then again I don't have a lot of armoured units still looking for kills or experience points and there is too much clear terrain to throw my infantry into the action against all those Soviet tanks.

[PeteMitchell]

I have been following your AAR for a while now, very interesting and very nice progress indeed, well done!