So the campaign started off well with one of my favourite changes. The ability to pick my own starting forces. The 1st missions of campaigns from PC1 always felt a little meh to me because these weren't my units, they weren't my carefully selected choices and I always felt a little disconnect. That's no longer the case (even if I didn't change all that much)
I liked what they did with the scenarios - in a few they gave a glimpse of what could be possible in the future. Was it as good as some of the later campaigns from PC1? (Afrika corps/allied corps/Soviet corps/the GC) Honestly I'd say no. But that's comparing apples to oranges.
If I compare it to the original Wehrmart campaign then thats fairer. And in that comparison PC2 comes out on top. The scenarios felt far more varied and had some nice (nasty!) surprises. I see a few grumbles about lack of a divergent tree. There's no lesser victory here. Only win the war or lose it big. And yet despite that I can actually have a second play through and not play a single scenario again if i want to! (even starting in 1939 again)
As a starting point, this campaign is perfect. And I look forward to the future releases.
Onto the scenarios - obviously I'll only comment on the ones I played.
Poland (north)
Not much to comment on - standard (imo) "training" scenarios. Hard to lose but equally not to easy to "win" In the sense of setting up for the future. Ie not spending all your prestige!
The second scenario had a river running over it, a good place to discover the usefulness of bridging units (unless your Panzers come with water wings like mine
)A few "tough" tanks hopefully give you a heads up that you'll need a plan beyond attack with my tanks to be successful later in the war.
Norway (south)
A nice introduction to naval invasions, naval warfare and the importance of supply (hexes) here.
I've seen a few comments made about a trap island on this map and I kind of agree that its not a great design choice this early on. Maybe should have a port or an airfield.
The Sedan
Nice choke points through the forest - happily bypassed to the north with a nice stretch of open ground. There is a river to cross so again a good highlight of the usefulness of bridging units.
Lots of thick forest allows for some easy to make encirclements, hopefully highlighting a bit that supply doesn't pass through every bit of terrain.
Channel coast
A nice strait forward map here - nothing to exiting but some nice counter attacks.
Paris
I'm actually struggling to remember this scenario.
Barborossa (center)
Now we're talking! a real fine lesson in "you don't need to kill everything" 3 units wasted waiting for that fortress to become totally surprised then the 3rd joined my main advance (was a little behind) whilst 2 units stayed behind to kill the fort. They never got back into the fight proper and it would have been far better to ignore it.
First taste of a proper tank.....if you didn't know you'd need a plan B by now....well now you do!
Another map where winning wasn't hard. But winning without eating your prestige wasn't easy.
Kiev
Oh boy, now despite not being a mad encirclement lover this was one of my favourites!
With the encirclements played to the extreme i really made some good prestige gains here. You could play this more conventionally but then you'd have to fight all that heavy armour in a fair match.....Kiev was one of my favourite maps in PG but this is 1000 times better. I actually felt like the Soviets were encircled. Good design!
Gates of Moscow
A fairly traditional attack mission ending up butting heads against fortified positions except.......
All to many Soviet troops came charging out of their defensive lines to be slaughtered piecemill in the open. This would be better IMO if they stayed secure in their defences with maybe some fast units behind timelines that could Sally out to keep you honest.
Moscow
The first of the "city " maps. Oh i liked this one very much! A slog through the city with my infantry taking heavy loses. Panzers on the outskirts securing my flanks
And struggling against even lone enemy armoured units. I was expecting an armoured counter attack. I was not expecting that many units! It's ferocious! I almost lost several tanks and my entire air force! I loved it!
This was the first scenario I finished with less prestige than I started with. Was awesome.
Kharkov 42
A nice change of pace. A defensive mission on the "winning path"
It was different but it wasn't difficult. Let the hordes smash themselves on your defensive line then counter attack with a vengeance!
TheEdmon did this one better than me for sure. I never thought about giving up victory hexes to retake later for prestige and split my forces.
Sevastopol
After seeing this map for the first time I literally sat staring at my screen wondering how I was going to take out all those forts let alone the Gorky!
Thankfully I slept on it and realised there was a better way. Time to utilise some more encirclements!
I used a screening force (including the goliaths) in the north west area. Smashed through in the NE and E and encircled the he'll out of the NW area. Sadly my plans to use my navy sank pretty quickly....... So I had to capture the port too. Neither of the Gorkys got a shot off at me
It's well laid out and unless you go for the brute strength way of smashing through the NW area you cant rely on your air units to support your advance until much later and you should withdraw what ships you have as if the enemy cruisers don't get you the unopposed air units will.
All in all I really enjoyed this scenario. And normally scenarios attacking fixed defences bore the hell out of me.
Operation blue
A big map with low unit density.
Another good map design i think. Really did feel like I was driving over the Russian steppes. Pockets of resistance here and there but a fairly typical attacking scenario.
Big counter attack in the North utterly failed to surprise me. My spider sense was tingling hard but they put up a fight.
Stalingrad
The Mother of all city fights. Lessons had been learned in Moscow and all My infantry arrived with flame throwers and demoltlition gear. All bar 2 tanks were outfitted with PzIIINs for the bonus CD. (2 pzIVG, as I wanted something that tackle T34s oh and they both had vigilance heros
)Thankfully it was another one i slept on before I started. My original plan had me attacking across the front. When I reloaded fresh the next day i looked way too thin. I settled on a strong attack in the North to sweep down and One in the center to take that airfield.
It was magic. A strong line backed by artillery creeping down the map. Then I realised the enemy landing reinforcements.....So had to keep some units back to hold what I'd already taken. A nice touch there.
Airfield placement also kept me on My toes as I couldn't rely on my air force as much as usual.
Top marks to the designer. I think this may just be my favourite scenario.
Worth noting I started here with just over 10k prestige, but there is tons to be made here and playing stingy with replacements I ended with around 13k
Along the Volga
Well I was a bit tight prestige wise after repairs, upgrades and purchases but confident.
I made a mistake of using bridgers to cross the Volga in force and advance either side of the river. When the counter attacks started I barely held the line and my 88 had to go into AT mode despite the Soviet air. Thankfully I got my other devision back over to help out in time.
Interesting way of handling the aux force for this one. I wasn't convinced with having them AI controlled at the time as they kept "kill stealing" getting in the way and capping flags and denying me prestige! But in hindsight I think it works really well. No more using the poor auxiliary's as meat shields and suicide scouts!
The new Soviet capital (not gonna try and spell that!)
Well I did a Palpatine here (overconfidence was my weakness)
I assumed the Soviets were done and this would be a nice easy clean up. I assumed wrong.
They had a nice epic last stand and badly bloodied my forces.
I can't remember much about this map other than cries of "Oh my god, why won't you die?!" And "Oh god, now what?"
Sealion landing
OK I didn't enjoy this one too much.
The RN is way over tuned here. Yes they were superior in numbers and probably experience but not to this level. And the German ships were pretty well designed.
The Bismark was genuinely feared. The Deutchland class CA (aka pocket battleships) were more than a match for any RN CA.
Other than that. Once you hit land it's a bit too easy to storm through.
I had come into this very prestige poor. And was worried I'd be unable to see the campaign through if i didn't do something drastic. I resolved to not repair in scenario (more on this later) and managed to not spend a single point. I was back on track!
Sealion breakout
Nothing too exiting here. A danger to spread yourself to thin at deployment but a generally strait forward defend then attack. I really hate Spitfire IXs by the way!
London
A strong force took London (all inf back to pioneers) whilst a smaller force held the area just west of the city.
Boy that para counter attack is a pain and a little out of the blue. I mean no hints and nothing like it before. Luckily I wasn't massively out of position but some damaged units (including an 88 down to 2 strength) had retreated close to where a few units came at me!
Thankfully I listened to the briefing this time and didnt try to advance across the river as the forces that came at me were strong enough that i think I'd have been in trouble had I been attacking them! It also left a strong force able to respond to those damn para's.
The final attack came in force once I'd cleared London. I was a little disappointed with what was waiting for me. 1 strong tank and a few AA units. I was expecting 1 last epic fight.
America east coast
Well the American Navy wasn't as strong as the RN (or maybe my guys were just better) and this naval battle was much more fun. The American fleet was a bit spread out which allowed me to overwhelm the ships near New York and by time the southern force was engaging I'd captured the airfield by the southern landing site and had my strat bombers out to play!
In PC1 once you get to America you have all your late game wunder weapons, I like the fact you don't have them yet!
I'm not convinced the southern landing site was a good idea. My forces there were assailed from all directions including the sea. Thankfully they formed a fairly sturdy defensive line and held. Even the Italians got in on the action (yes I even like this little detail. The Italians send a small force to help. As well as some naval units)
This was an epic scenario and for the first time since Russia I had to spend prestige to reinforce during the scenario.
Midwest
Well the Me262 is no longer a prototype! Jet fighters! Not that I could spare the slots to upgrade more than 2 fighters. . ..the trusty fw190s struggled a bit though.....
I like this scenario for 1 reason - the Mississippi river. It literally runs north to south over the whole map! A really nice exercise in forcing your way across a well defended river. Especially when you forget your bridging equipment.....
It's a pretty well designed scenario. 1 nasty counter attack force in the south west. Lots of open ground on the western side begs for there to have been more. I'd have liked a serious assault coming at me (and was expecting one......)
Oh and don't forget the flying bombs.....almost lost a Panther unit to those things!
The final battle
Now you get even better jets! And e75s and big bombers....just not enough core slots!
The early stages of this scenario is amazing. You fight your way to the first line of objectives against some seriously strong enemy. You cross the mountains in the north and the river in the south.......
Well one of my Panthers in the North ranged quite far ahead and spotted a plane carrying para's hugging the north of the map! On their way to shoot it down 2 of my fighters spot a second mid map.....Then I see a 3rd....well three para's down and I'm smug. They ain't pulling that s*** on me again. I Then got to watch 6 (i wasn't 100% on that number) more land behind my lines and grab my forward airbases and force my entire air wing to rebase back east! My forward elements had to fall back to get under my 88s protection whilst more rear elements had to come and deal with the enemy units. This stage would have been even better if there was also a big armoured counter attack at the same time, sadly (or luckily depending on your point of view) there wasn't any. In fact resistance over the rest of the map was pretty disappointing. The Americans had nothing left to seriously contest my advance.
Also sadly this will only be a surprise once. Next time I play this mission I'll be waiting for that para attack.
In conclusion
The campaign scenarios are pretty well designed and offer a decent challenge but I fear the big challenges (armoured counter attacks And unexpected para landings) can only be a surprise once. But that's the bane of most strategy games. Once you learn the maps a lot of the challenge diminishes (curses to my good memory on this front. It'd be nice if I could forget a few things!)
Some things to bare in mind. Time is not your enemy. Very few scenarios had me concerned with time. Actually I'm not sure if any did. On the flip side early on I was too aggressive and got myself caught out in poor positioning several times. I lost count of the number of times I used an 88 to plug a gap in my front line only to watch the poor unit take a hammering and causing me a costly repair bill! Take your time and be methodical.
Use the right tool for the job.
Your pioneers should almost never be out of close terrain. They're worse than other infantry on the open and get shredded pretty badly. In close terrain they're almost invincible!
Keep your bombers protected, you'll get punished if you dont!
Don't give your 3 move infantry trucks in the snow!
Well thanks for reading this far. Hopefully I'll give my thoughts on Heros and what I did with mine at some point over the weekend.