Grand Campaign West 42-45 (Ultimate)

[huckc]

Houffalize

This one is more doable to get the DV having 13 of 18 turns, however I just came up short.

One highlight was solving the puzzle to be able to force all six enemy units in the northern screen to surrender on turn two.




Dep


Turn 2 - Surrender pocket set up and about to cash in!


Turn 4 - Ready to pounce on Houffalize with a fully concentrated force.

...and destroyed the defenders!



Fin

MV 13 of 13

[huckc]

Celles



Extremely difficult to even get an MV. In fact, I had to deliberately avoid triggering the American counter-attack to reliably get it otherwise I'll get too bogged down and have to rely on pretty much all cloudy weather, full on luck.

I did fight the British contingent in the northeast to gain some prestige and experience.




4 - One group racing towards Celles and the other attacking the British


9 - Enveloping Celles


Fin

MV 11 of 11
(5) Turns snow
(6) Turns clouds

[huckc]

Bastogne Siege




The DV is virtually identical to the MV. That is, it's extremely difficult to capture all victory hexes (VHs) for the MV and trivial to evacuate all the rockets for the DV. The latter you'd need to do anyway since they get added to your core for huge disband prestige.




4 - Concentrated force after covering a lot of ground just in time for an annoying streak of snowfall


10 - Reached the furthest most VH, the one I was really worried about getting


Fin

DV 14 of 14
(5) Turns snow
(9) Turns clouds

Not sure if I want to go for the DV in Bastogne Assault. It should be doable, but at what price?

[goose_2]

Bastogne Siege




The DV is virtually identical to the MV. That is, it's extremely difficult to capture all victory hexes (VHs) for the MV and trivial to evacuate all the rockets for the DV. The latter you'd need to do anyway since they get added to your core for huge disband prestige.




4 - Concentrated force after covering a lot of ground just in time for an annoying streak of snowfall


10 - Reached the furthest most VH, the one I was really worried about getting


Fin

DV 14 of 14
(5) Turns snow
(9) Turns clouds

Not sure if I want to go for the DV in Bastogne Assault. It should be doable, but at what price?

you have to do the Bastogne assault
just to show it is possible

[huckc]

you have to do the Bastogne assault
just to show it is possible

Hey goose. Sadly I just didn't have it in me and settled for the MV.

[huckc]

Bastogne Assault

Decided early on not to go for the DV as it was too much, especially with the weather variance and my core being much weaker than when I DV'd on Manstein where I actually lost my only core unit of the entire playthrough.

Used most of the aux rockets to snipe General Mcauliffe, eliminating him makes things much easier as he's the only mobile/armored unit around Bastogne and an extremely strong one at that.

Abandoned Clochiment, the very southern VH, mainly to draw all enemy aircraft to Tillet where I had three heavy 21cm AA units waiting including an air trap on turn one.




Dep north


Dep south


Halfway point


Fin

MV 18 of 18
7 of 10 VHs

[huckc]

Liege



Insanely difficult with only 13 of 18 turns and vast amounts of frozen ground to cover.

Need to be a bit lucky with the weather too and, of course reporting this, I was with only one turn of snowfall, a few of clouds, leaving mostly sunny weather. A few extra turns of snowfall and I'm hosed but that didn't happen so no reloads were needed.

I would've liked to reload the last turn after getting nailed with a 2% chance rugged defense in a completely unnecessary attack on my part costing about 250 prestige. Other than that things went perfectly besides some fairly benign misclicks and blunders.



Dep south


Dep north

For the southern group I negated having to deploy any heavy armor by luring the otherwise potent achilles and firefly into ambush (detailed below).

That allowed me to use all my heavy armor in the northern task force of whom were vital in clearing the throngs of heavy enemy armor and preventing attacks of opportunity by the otherwise static units lining the southern periphery of Liege of whom I greatly preferred remain that way.



Turn 3 - Baiting of an Achilles...


Turn 5 - ...and then the Firefly


Turn 10 - Forces linked up forming a line in Liege for the final push!


Fin

DV 13 of 13
Majority of supply depots captured but not all

Next up is Antwerp which looks to be much easier due to less turn loss and more gamification opportunities.

[goose_2]

Dieppe

Focused on holding the western half of the city which is easier to defend and gets you the captured Churchill.

The air waves were extremely problematic, the spitfires can and will kill the Fw-190s that spawn in.







MV 12 of 12

Wait until you see what I did with this map on this difficulty. It is not a thing of beauty but I think you will be surprised with what I pulled off.

[huckc]

Dieppe

Wait until you see what I did with this map on this difficulty. It is not a thing of beauty but I think you will be surprised with what I pulled off.

Got the DV? Very impressive, probably some serious gamecraft.

Glad to hear you're playing this too, I greatly enjoyed it especially the 42-44 years.

[goose_2]

I looked but could not find if you did Ultimate East?

I was thinking you did. If so could you send me your replay of the Stalingrad battles, I am trying to prepare but very fearful of what to do and what I will face.

My prestige is far leaner than Braccada's or Richard's

[huckc]

I looked but could not find if you did Ultimate East?

I was thinking you did. If so could you send me your replay of the Stalingrad battles, I am trying to prepare but very fearful of what to do and what I will face.

My prestige is far leaner than Braccada's or Richard's

I have not done Ultimate East. Just US Corps, and GC West.

I'd need an Ultimate core to import, maybe I can use yours or someone else's after finishing GC West.

[huckc]

Antwerp 1 Reload



Reload on turn 3. Was one of those demo runs that turned real due to everything going well enough, especially the weather here.

The big gamification strat was to avoid triggering the major counter-attacks from the north by not capturing five VHs until the very end. Doing so, I was able to get the DV and all supply depots in only 19 turns. Only for Ultimate, on Manstein I didn't game the triggers.


Dep

I squandered one of the V-1 rockets due to not realizing that trudging them along the ground with no transport actually costs air fuel. Sort of nonsense, but I blame myself since the game does report it in the UI like normal so I didn't reload or anything.



12 - Reached Antwerp in force


19 - Final supply depot captured! A cool 1700 prestige after -50% and soft cap.


Fin

DV 19 of 19
14 Sunny
4 Cloudy
1 Snowing

[goose_2]

Gironde

Focus was destroying the commando submarine and maximizing surrender income. A few more turns would've gotten the DV too.







MV 13 of 13

Hey Buddy. I watched what you did on this one.

Thanks again for sending me the raw replay. I am not ready to give it a shot, but I have some ideas on how to break the map. I am hoping to build up an army strong enough to try and pull the victory path off in 45. Crazy I know, but I think it might be possible.

[goose_2]

I looked but could not find if you did Ultimate East?

I was thinking you did. If so could you send me your replay of the Stalingrad battles, I am trying to prepare but very fearful of what to do and what I will face.

My prestige is far leaner than Braccada's or Richard's

I have not done Ultimate East. Just US Corps, and GC West.

I'd need an Ultimate core to import, maybe I can use yours or someone else's after finishing GC West.

absolutely buddy. I could send you this, when you are ready...I have some replays of someone who did Storming Stalingrad and Stalingrad Docks. It looks like they were done on Manstein, those are not yours?

[huckc]

I looked but could not find if you did Ultimate East?

I was thinking you did. If so could you send me your replay of the Stalingrad battles, I am trying to prepare but very fearful of what to do and what I will face.

My prestige is far leaner than Braccada's or Richard's

I have not done Ultimate East. Just US Corps, and GC West.

I'd need an Ultimate core to import, maybe I can use yours or someone else's after finishing GC West.

absolutely buddy. I could send you this, when you are ready...I have some replays of someone who did Storming Stalingrad and Stalingrad Docks. It looks like they were done on Manstein, those are not yours?

Yes I think you've got my Stalingrad replays on Manstein.

I'll send you my 44 and 45 West Ultimate ones too.

[goose_2]

Oh awesome! I followed your plan for Storming Stalingrad with minor tweaks. I will give you credit when I post the video's. Thanks for your awesome work. Stalingrad Docks will need some serious adapting as I have watched that and would need to ramp up speed greatly since I have 5 less turns. You used 5 Fallschimjaeger's...5 all with like 425 in experience. No one of my infantry units has 400 experience except for Oleh Dir. I will need to attract a lot of attacks to come out of their entrenched areas.

I am nervous

[huckc]

Oh awesome! I followed your plan for Storming Stalingrad with minor tweaks. I will give you credit when I post the video's. Thanks for your awesome work. Stalingrad Docks will need some serious adapting as I have watched that and would need to ramp up speed greatly since I have 5 less turns. You used 5 Fallschimjaeger's...5 all with like 425 in experience. No one of my infantry units has 400 experience except for Oleh Dir. I will need to attract a lot of attacks to come out of their entrenched areas.

I am nervous

Yes my Docks approach was geared heavily towards fun rather than optimization and would not recommend it for Ultimate. Storming though was closer to optimal, especially bypassing Gumrak, but was also very risky near the end.

[goose_2]

I get it, Manstein seemed like such an awesome challenge, now it seems easy by comparison. Well not easy, but more doable. I look forward to seeing what you think of my playthrough of Storming Stalingrad.

Did you get a chance to see my first post on Dieppe?

You need to get your own channel. It really is not that hard or expensive, just needed a microphone.

[huckc]

Did you get a chance to see my first post on Dieppe?

I definitely plan to, Manstein and Ultimate is a much watch, love how the AI becomes an absolute juggernaut with +5 strength. Maybe you can beat my record of 22 aux units evacuated at Syracuse

Brussels 1 Reload

Reload on turn 7 after getting wrecked by that air wave.

Insanely difficult, even with the final American wave nullified by the -5 turn count. It's the final British wave that's devastating because their normally "weakened" 7-str turns into 12 over-strength!

Also the air waves are super strong, especially the ones with the newly arrived P-47N with 24 air attack that will go after any of my tactical bombers, even the special Do 335a at 12-str.

One highlight was seven surrenders on turn 2 at 100% soft cap.




Dep


First wave


Final wave (north)


Fin

DV 12 of 12

[goose_2]

Gironde

Focus was destroying the commando submarine and maximizing surrender income. A few more turns would've gotten the DV too.







MV 13 of 13

Just played a quick playthrough not the cleanest and was just playing around to test a few things, but I got the DV...now to just record it.