Allies Defiant Reviews

[impossible]

Until now, I did Norway and France. Didn't like that the player can't buy French units for starters. France campaign should have more scenarios, not only those two, depicting operations toward Dunkirk, are this one about Allies or a simple revival of the utter British defeat in 1940? And what about the Battle of Britain, which was crucial to define de war outcome? Also, the maps are quite simple and some location names are inaccurate or wrongly written. Furthermore, we are now much used to see scenarios depicting a very detailed specification of unit names, experience, and available hardware, not the generic placing as we find in this DLC. I'm confident, though, that the modders will make good use of the new units now at their disposal.

i agree that 2 scenarios for the entire fall gelb & rot is simply not enough and the dlc is short. that being said all the scenarios are memorable - dunkirk and the last 2 scenarios are especially very well made.

[impossible]

the real Beaufighter was an excellent fighter bomber/night fighter it’s classified as a fighter in the game so you will likely never be able to upgrade it to a Typhoon as the Typhoons will be classified a Tactical Bomber.

typhoon is a godly fighter in oob - see burma road dlc which is one of the best dlcs for this game in my opinion

[kverdon]

I am glad we will be able to upgrade the fighters to Typhoons in the future. I may have confused The Typhoons in OOB with those in Panzer Corps. I’m still not happy about the slight to the Beaufighters given the book I read about Beaufighter pilots blasting apart Italian fortifications in North Africa. I’ll fix that if I do another run through.

[LandMarine47]

just finished the last scenarios and here are my thoughts from playing of difficulty level 3,

Europe 1940 was very well designed. Trondheim mixes a naval engagement with a Anglo-French attack from the north, and containing a column of German reinforcements from the south. Expeditionary Force pits the BEF against a numerically superior enemy, and I really loved the flow of this scenario. You need to preserve your French Allies so they can conduct a fighting withdrawal all the way back to Lillie. After the initial engagement at the start of the scenario, I usually form one line at Mons then slowly withdrawal with my core force further to the north. I really did not like how the Battle of Arras was handled however, what should be a huge concentration of British forces ends up being a few non-core units slugging it out with a few German units. Would have much rather had a scenario dedicated to the battle. Dunkirk is more of the same, conduct a fighting withdrawal and save your core forces and some auxiliary French forces. As with any campaign, I never recommend players rushing for the best tanks and planes. Sure in the Soviet DLC you can just spam T-34's, but it is not possible to maintain that many expensive units when they take losses. A spitfire, hurricane, and swordfish combo worked fine for me, although western Strat bombers are an excellent choice as well.

North Africa really teaches players what the war there was like. Sandstorm veterans should already be familiar with the gameplay elements, you really do not want to neglect motorizing your forces. yes that means smaller battlegroups, but when a sudden Axis tank assault begins, you better hope that inf unit is on a road, otherwise you might take losses that could have been avoided if you had just given them a bren carrier. Compass and Cyrenaica are fun scenarios where you need to cut off and smash the Italians. Was never any good at Naval Combat, so Cape Mattapan was a meh scenario for me. Glad it is there for players that wanted to take command of the Royal Navy, something we cannot do in the Pacific. Greece is just like France 1940, fighting withdrawal, made even easier if you detonate the bridges on the way to Athens. Bomb Alley was a boring scenario for me, and if they really wanted an air only scenario, I am baffled why they choose this route over a Battle of Britain Scenario, especially given the name of the DLC, Allies Defiant. I think this was just the more boring version of Desert Eagles from Sandstorm and really did not like this one. Crusade is a solid scenario, where players need to tackle the Africa Corps, although I was surprised when SPOILER, Rommel didn't attempt to dash to the wire as he did historically. Given the way OOB works, that would have been one mean encirclement so I get why I didn't happen.

Now for Gazala... I really did not like this scenario. I think the amount of pressure applied on this scenario overwhelms both ground and air forces is way too much. Expeditionary Force and Dunkirk were great defense scenarios, but the terrain does contribute to that. So many Axis forces hurl themselves and they have such an overwhelming advantage in everything that I cannot chase after nearly dead units without getting shelled by static and mobile artillery formations. Once Axis airpower returns in full force with their flanking maneuver, unless you have a mobile force that can move 3-4 tiles a turn, I do not think you can avoid being cut off without some mine placement. I think this scenario would be better if the Axis did not have so many artillery pieces defending their units so a player could counterattack near Knightsbridge and thin out the herd. I loved the Axis outflanking maneuver near the end of the scenario, but pressure is usually so severe that you cannot really form much of a rear guard when 3 strat bombers, 3 fighters, and 2 stukas are bombing your units while being supported by German mobile AA. I just didn't like this one at all.

Finally we get to Alam El Hafa and El Alamien. I love what the devs did with RP for auxiliary allies by giving you a set amount of RP that you have to conserve. This means you just can't do stupid things with your units and count on there being more RP some time later. Alam El Hafa throws a lot at you, but in waves, unlike Gazala where you are fighting two massive enemy formations with overwhelming artillery and air power. The Air forces are pretty much balanced, even more so if you have factory labor spec, allowing me to deploy one of every fighter and my choice of a Battle or Halifax bomber. The attack is hard, but if you manage to atleast keep some infantry dug in at rough terrain, you can hold and if you have some light tanks, cut off whole Axis armored formations rushing for your rear.

El Alamien was a great battle. I was very cautious and attacked the southern sector with my core force, while I kept most of my auxiliaries in the north. Boy was that a good choice. The sheer amount of Axis artillery in that sector can really rip your men apart. Ideally, you want to take one VP both in the north and south, but fearing an Axis counter attack against my aux forces and into my supply bases in the rear, I pulled them back from the starting line despite being in a good position to take a northern VP and potentially tricking the AI. I will try this again to see if the Axis actually do divide their forces if there is a vp taken both in the north and south, but for my first time, I focused the south, and fought an almighty tank slugfest in the open desert by the Axis HQ's. Once my air force and artillery ripped the Axis AA and arty apart, it was an easy fight just smashing whatever remnants remained.

Overall despite two of the 12 scenarios being what I think objectively bad (Gazala for artificial difficulty and Bomb Alley for just plain being boring when they could have just made an air only scenario for the Battle of Britain) it was a solid first entry to the Trilogy. I really hope the devs pick up with Torch so we can see some American vs Vichy actions, and move into the Italian Peninsula with an Anglo American core. I also hope that perhaps in the final DLC, when the Canadians join in full force, they will actually be a third core army instead a common auxiliary ally. Big hopes for the future!

[LandMarine47]

If there was one scenario that could have potentially replaced bomb alley, I would have definitely recommend defending Crete after Greece, and I am baffled on why they skipped this one. This could have been a large air battle with a very small ground core, and if the devs were worried about balance, why not do what they did in Red Steel at Stalingrad and not allow the players to deploy tanks that could smash German Paratroopers? I am pretty sad in that aspect, as I think Mercury could have been a welcome change of pace and would have thoroughly enjoyed that over Bomb Alley. There was even the potential for more Naval Combat with a Crete scenario, even if players smashed the Italian Fleet at Mattapan.

[Halvralf]

So due to disease in my family I havent been able to do more than the first scenario in Norway so what I am interested in is how your core is composed. I would really appreciate it. Seems Spitfire and Strat bomber is the Air core but land core? What tanks, heavy inf, eng etc are you using?

[cutydt02]

You will have about 56 land cp and 18 air cp in the last scenario if doing all 2nd objectives before and having 2 labour specs.
In 3rd difficulty, my core team is about 5 gurkhas without truck, 4 towed arty (the strongest 3cp-one), 3 sherman, 1 captured stug (total 54) with 2 towed AA and 2 towed AT (total as optinal reserved units. Aircrafts should be 4 spitfires and 2 stra bombers.
I nearly keep the same ratio for all of my campaign. Tank/infantry/arty/others always is around 20/35/35/05. So the end of trilogies should be 7-8 infantries/ 6 tanks and 2 tank deatroyers/3 heavy towed arties, 2 mobiled arties and 2 rocket arties

[impossible]

El Alamien was a great battle. I was very cautious and attacked the southern sector with my core force, while I kept most of my auxiliaries in the north. Boy was that a good choice. The sheer amount of Axis artillery in that sector can really rip your men apart. Ideally, you want to take one VP both in the north and south, but fearing an Axis counter attack against my aux forces and into my supply bases in the rear, I pulled them back from the starting line despite being in a good position to take a northern VP and potentially tricking the AI. I will try this again to see if the Axis actually do divide their forces if there is a vp taken both in the north and south, but for my first time, I focused the south, and fought an almighty tank slugfest in the open desert by the Axis HQ's. Once my air force and artillery ripped the Axis AA and arty apart, it was an easy fight just smashing whatever remnants remained.

in el alamein i took 2 VPs in the south with the aux forces and that effectively removed all armoured threat from the game. even on lvl 5 difficulty you can keep the axis at bay without needing to worry about the supply point, no need to defend that at all.

special forces are AWESOME on this level. i took a 2 star SBS unit to the rear on sea and took out the artillery and started to take out the flak. i also dropped a 1 star SAS unit at the rear to finish off the K18 and neutralize an sfh and an antitank there. im going to replay that level with 1 sbs+3 sas units at the back absolutely wrecking everything they have. by turn 13-15 you can finish the level on lvl5.

[prestidigitation]

you can put an engineer there at turn 1, lay minefields on the two tiles and problem solved.

The AI didn’t do anything through the mines? I’ve seen them clear fields in other scenarios so I’d be shocked if they just did nothing. Plus their armored force definitely has an engineer.

I’ll certainly try it. There’s also the 1 tile gap NW of the primary defensive obj that I also feel needs to be mined up.

The bigger issue is just prep. If I had simply had some units ready for evac I could have won on the end of turn 17.

[impossible]

you can put an engineer there at turn 1, lay minefields on the two tiles and problem solved.

The AI didn’t do anything through the mines? I’ve seen them clear fields in other scenarios so I’d be shocked if they just did nothing. Plus their armored force definitely has an engineer.

I’ll certainly try it. There’s also the 1 tile gap NW of the primary defensive obj that I also feel needs to be mined up.

The bigger issue is just prep. If I had simply had some units ready for evac I could have won on the end of turn 17.

yepp, they just stood there as usual i played the campaign through 2x, 1x lvl4, 1x lvl5

[prestidigitation]

you can put an engineer there at turn 1, lay minefields on the two tiles and problem solved.

The AI didn’t do anything through the mines? I’ve seen them clear fields in other scenarios so I’d be shocked if they just did nothing. Plus their armored force definitely has an engineer.

I’ll certainly try it. There’s also the 1 tile gap NW of the primary defensive obj that I also feel needs to be mined up.

The bigger issue is just prep. If I had simply had some units ready for evac I could have won on the end of turn 17.

yepp, they just stood there as usual i played the campaign through 2x, 1x lvl4, 1x lvl5

Yeah I’ve done 2x at lvl5 and I’m kinda tempted to do a third. At the very least I’m going to load up and play that scenario through a couple more times because it’s fun and challenging

Devs, if you’re listening, add a difficulty where the AI has 15 strength!

[kverdon]

Realistically, you should not be able to deploy Spitfires in North Africa much before 1942 as they were reserved for the defense of Britain and Channel Operations. You should be forced to rely upon Hurricanes and Tomahawks.

The missed opportunity here I think was to do a repel a Malta Invasion instead the battle of the rather lame Bomb Alley mission. Even a mini Air Battle of Malta with Operation Pedestal would have been far better. This is one time I really wish I had the skills to mod that scenario and add it in.

I wonder how this will progress? Will we follow through with the British to the end or start a parallel campaign with the US? That might be pretty interesting with one DLC showing the Battles from the British Side and on e from the US side and progress through the war that way. Plenty of content to support both.

[kondi754]

Realistically, you should not be able to deploy Spitfires in North Africa much before 1942 as they were reserved for the defense of Britain and Channel Operations. You should be forced to rely upon Hurricanes and Tomahawks.

The missed opportunity here I think was to do a repel a Malta Invasion instead the battle of the rather lame Bomb Alley mission. Even a mini Air Battle of Malta with Operation Pedestal would have been far better. This is one time I really wish I had the skills to mod that scenario and add it in.

I suggested exactly the same during the tests

Unfortunately, the Spitfire remains, while Erik is preparing his own Op. Pedestal MP scenario.

BTW I have a question - is it possible to buy Typhoons in 1942 in the game?
I also asked this plane be removed and postponed until the Battle of Normandy...
I started the game a few days ago, I'm in Belgium '40 now

[StuccoFresco]

Well, the difference here is that capabilities wise they weren’t that far apart.

I’d also question whether Panther was a better tank than the Pz4. It had better armor and a better gun to be sure, but it’s operational readiness and automotive reliability left a lot to be desired. For an army built around maneuver warfare like the Wehrmacht those are key features for an AFV.

And then there’s the question of how wise a decision it was to switch to a new primary AFV mid war. The UK went that route too, but it’s tank program was widely considered an unmitigated disaster for most of the war (see Peter Beale Death by Design or David Fletcher The Great Tank Scandal). By contrast with the British early war disasters like A4 Cruiser or Matilda or Covenantor, Panzer 4 was a fairly flexible and upgradeable design that competed well throughout the war. Considering when it was designed I’d call it an extremely successful AFV. It was inferior to the late war competition, sure, but the Germans had won their greatest victories in 40-41 with inferior tanks. Spending more time improving the ease of production, reliability, ergonomics and crew survival of Pz4 seems like a much smarter decision than going all in on a new model of tank.

Getting back to the planes, everything I can find says that the difference in combat capability between the two planes is pretty minimal, with the sole standout difference between the two being the markedly higher kill count of the Hurricanes. I’m no expert on planes or the wartime performance of these planes, so maybe someone who is can weigh in.

Regardless of the actual combat performance though, this is a game. And the the way the game is set up right now Spitfires are the only viable fighter choice. Everything else is a hunk of junk at best. If Hurricane and Beaufighter were just a wee bit better it’d give a welcome boost to the number of options available for air superiority and ground attack.

An alternative and fairly obvious route is to delay the service entry of the top of the line Spitfires somewhat while making the Hurricane upgrades show up on time or sooner.

Good post. For the sake of historical discussion I too think that introducing the Panther as the proposed new primary AFV wasn't the wisest decision the German military took during the war. Too costly, too complicated, too rushed. Their reliability improved greatly after the first models, though.

[prestidigitation]

special forces are AWESOME on this level. i took a 2 star SBS unit to the rear on sea and took out the artillery and started to take out the flak. i also dropped a 1 star SAS unit at the rear to finish off the K18 and neutralize an sfh and an antitank there. im going to replay that level with 1 sbs+3 sas units at the back absolutely wrecking everything they have. by turn 13-15 you can finish the level on lvl5.

I finished it on turn 12 the first time and turn 13 the second just by doing a feint in the north and a heavy armored push in the south, both on max difficulty. No mucking about with SF.

[prestidigitation]

You will have about 56 land cp and 18 air cp in the last scenario if doing all 2nd objectives before and having 2 labour specs.
In 3rd difficulty, my core team is about 5 gurkhas without truck, 4 towed arty (the strongest 3cp-one), 3 sherman, 1 captured stug (total 54) with 2 towed AA and 2 towed AT (total as optinal reserved units. Aircrafts should be 4 spitfires and 2 stra bombers.
I nearly keep the same ratio for all of my campaign. Tank/infantry/arty/others always is around 20/35/35/05. So the end of trilogies should be 7-8 infantries/ 6 tanks and 2 tank deatroyers/3 heavy towed arties, 2 mobiled arties and 2 rocket arties

I'm shocked by the number of Gurkhas and I can only assume BL 5.5 guns you deployed. That's a very expensive force.

[Halvralf]

Hmm well I wont aim for Gurkhas as they have a bit slower update curve according to the Unit Navigator (41'42 and 45 upgrades)

[TheFilthyCasual]

Bomb Alley is an odd scenario that in some respects comes down to attack damage RNG and the mysterious decision-making systems the AI uses on how to attack targets. If the AI dog-piled the destroyers with every bomber in range rather than spreading their bombers over all the destroyers, the mission would literally be impossible, so I guess it's a good thing the AI doesn't know how to focus its attacks. And I don't know what people are talking about having bombers in their air force, you need 4 Spitfires or you'll never win this scenario. On the plus side, that many fighters is enough to easily wipe out or at least keep grounded any air opposition in any scenario.

[prestidigitation]

Bomb Alley is an odd scenario that in some respects comes down to attack damage RNG and the mysterious decision-making systems the AI uses on how to attack targets. If the AI dog-piled the destroyers with every bomber in range rather than spreading their bombers over all the destroyers, the mission would literally be impossible, so I guess it's a good thing the AI doesn't know how to focus its attacks. And I don't know what people are talking about having bombers in their air force, you need 4 Spitfires or you'll never win this scenario. On the plus side, that many fighters is enough to easily wipe out or at least keep grounded any air opposition in any scenario.

You don't have to bring the bombers on this mission and spitfires are cheap

[cutydt02]

You will have about 56 land cp and 18 air cp in the last scenario if doing all 2nd objectives before and having 2 labour specs.
In 3rd difficulty, my core team is about 5 gurkhas without truck, 4 towed arty (the strongest 3cp-one), 3 sherman, 1 captured stug (total 54) with 2 towed AA and 2 towed AT (total as optinal reserved units. Aircrafts should be 4 spitfires and 2 stra bombers.
I nearly keep the same ratio for all of my campaign. Tank/infantry/arty/others always is around 20/35/35/05. So the end of trilogies should be 7-8 infantries/ 6 tanks and 2 tank deatroyers/3 heavy towed arties, 2 mobiled arties and 2 rocket arties

I'm shocked by the number of Gurkhas and I can only assume BL 5.5 guns you deployed. That's a very expensive force.

Sure man, it happened when i have nothing to use money in some last missions. Road to Burma taught me how good they’re in trechary jungle, but of course you’re right, Allies defiant doesnt have that kind of terrain, mostly about mobility. Thats my end-game team coz i love some legendary elite units of asians (lol) but i mainly went with 5 normal inf(2 with trucks).
Arty always supposes to be my back bone core in every campaigns, sure they’re expensive, but worth every penny.