Historical Heroes in AO 1942

[PaxusZero]

No Retaliation + Bär on a fighter is a guaranteed kill per turn (two if you overstrength and catch two enemy planes next to each other) and helps immensely with bullshit fighter units like 303 Squadron at Epsom.

That's what I do too, but use a Hurricane instead of a Spitefire. It has a higher air attack and negates the need for any rapid fire or other + attack hero. The Hurricane's biggest weakness is its low initiative, but that's eliminated with the No Retaliation hero. Your third hero should be Readiness to offset the damage when the AI fighters attack it.

Due to the way attack versus defense works for aircraft, aside from SCW era, the unit shooting first will include ridiculous damage and get minimal damage back.

Vigilant on a fighter fixes this, I believe, because fighters all have low altitude attack (letting them access close defense when attacking tac and other fighters.) However, it’s a bit of a waste because it can be way better on a tank.

[Magni]

Vigilant on a fighter fixes this, I believe, because fighters all have low altitude attack (letting them access close defense when attacking tac and other fighters.) However, it’s a bit of a waste because it can be way better on a tank.

Nope. Only AA with low-altitude attack can access the Close Defense rating of planes with the same trait.

[adiekmann]

No Retaliation + Bär on a fighter is a guaranteed kill per turn (two if you overstrength and catch two enemy planes next to each other) and helps immensely with bullshit fighter units like 303 Squadron at Epsom.

That's what I do too, but use a Hurricane instead of a Spitefire. It has a higher air attack and negates the need for any rapid fire or other + attack hero. The Hurricane's biggest weakness is its low initiative, but that's eliminated with the No Retaliation hero. Your third hero should be Readiness to offset the damage when the AI fighters attack it.

For fighters, First Strike is almost as good as No Retaliation. I prefer to saver the latter fro ground units, especially infantry. Due to the way attack versus defense works for aircraft, aside from SCW era, the unit shooting first will include ridiculous damage and get minimal damage back. With overstrength it can even one-shot planes most of the time. Plus, First Strike also works on defense, so no need to assign another Readiness hero and that slot can be used for something even more useful.

If true, that's good to know, because that's not what I've noticed before! The way I always read it is "attacks first," not necessarily shoots first when being attacked. No Retaliation certainly does NOT apply when the unit is being attacked, only when it is initiating the attack. Same for Hit and Run, but that only works for unit types that have high initiative like AT and some tanks, and once again only when you are attacking, not when being attacked.

Have you tested this to confirm it is true with a lower initiative unit? I'd love to know because that's an important detail if confirmed. Stars of experience also add initiative to units, so that can't be overlooked either or can give misleading results. (Edit: I can't confirm if this is true either; it doesn't mention it in the game manual, but it definitely was true in PC1.)

[Tassadar]

No Retaliation in general is superior to First Strike. That's because not getting hit at all is really powerful and on the ground with placing units properly (choosing the terrain and placing support fire) the player can in the majority of the situations choose his own battles and discourage the AI from attacking at all. It does not works for fighters however, since nothing supports them and the obviously cannot use terrain benefits. So if an experienced enemy fighters feels lucky it will for sure try to attack. First Strike makes them pay for that dearly, while No Retaliation does nothing in such a case.

As for testing this, I confirm I've seen it in action multiple times. In my "regular" AAR Grenadier Reg 4 infantry has this and it does come into action each time it defends itself in city battles. Same for the Wunderwaffe run where the combo of First Strike and all the bonus attack from awards and heroes kept the He 112 fighter insanely powerful even in 1941. That said, I will have a look at this in my ongoing campaigns to see if it does happens in various scenarios that might impact initiative, but so far I have not noticed any modifier impacting the fat that a First Strike unit will defend first, other than not shooting back at all against No Retaliation units. I have not seen a First Strike vs. First Strike battle to check if initiative gets counted then correctly.

[adiekmann]

No Retaliation in general is superior to First Strike. That's because not getting hit at all is really powerful and on the ground with placing units properly (choosing the terrain and placing support fire) the player can in the majority of the situations choose his own battles and discourage the AI from attacking at all. It does not works for fighters however, since nothing supports them and the obviously cannot use terrain benefits. So if an experienced enemy fighters feels lucky it will for sure try to attack. First Strike makes them pay for that dearly, while No Retaliation does nothing in such a case.

As for testing this, I confirm I've seen it in action multiple times. In my "regular" AAR Grenadier Reg 4 infantry has this and it does come into action each time it defends itself in city battles. Same for the Wunderwaffe run where the combo of First Strike and all the bonus attack from awards and heroes kept the He 112 fighter insanely powerful even in 1941. That said, I will have a look at this in my ongoing campaigns to see if it does happens in various scenarios that might impact initiative, but so far I have not noticed any modifier impacting the fat that a First Strike unit will defend first, other than not shooting back at all against No Retaliation units. I have not seen a First Strike vs. First Strike battle to check if initiative gets counted then correctly.

Okay, I just tested it in the first scenario of AO41 and confirmed what you said to be true.

I bought a brand new, wimpy Brückenpioniere unit (0 initiative) with only a First Strike hero on it. I moved it adjacent to the nearest Yugoslav inf unit (3 initiative) in a city hex and watched what happened. The AI inf attacked it as did an AT truck (10 initiative) that drove up from Zagreb. In both instances the Brückenpioniere did indeed fire first where there could be absolutely no other explanation for it other than the First Strike hero.

So thanks for that!

[scorehouse]

if you have Bar with the First Strike and his double attack, if he were attacked by 3 different fighter groups wouldn't he eliminate them all? or will HAL quit attacking after the first goes down?

[Stephen1024]

One of the things I love in PzC are the historical heroes like Kersher, Bar etc. Haven't gotten through the 1942 DLC yet (I restarted from 1939 after the Steamroller changes), but I haven't read anything about similar heroes in this DLC (I understand you get a choice between two AA/AT heroes, and you can altso get Manstein's son if you pick the path that includes Lake Ladoga). Aren't there any historical unique heroes in this DLC? And if that's case, is that something that just happened, or a change in campaign design?

I don't know but taking guess. Unfortunately not lot well known AT specialist. There are lots know aces for planes especially fighters and tank aces but they were romanticised and other branches simply were not. Think devs trying to mix it up by giving as AT heroes rather then just lot of pilots and tank heroes. Even infantry had few well known names.

[Magni]

if you have Bar with the First Strike and his double attack, if he were attacked by 3 different fighter groups wouldn't he eliminate them all? or will HAL quit attacking after the first goes down?

Double attack only applies to your turn. Shooting back against attackers is a free action, and will always happen unless your unit is out of ammo or being attacked by something they can't return fire against.

In practice, enemy fighters won't even try to go after Bär if they'd get a complete blowout.

[scorehouse]

ok thanks if you add Overrun, assuming it will work on a fighter, he could take out a lot of planes, correct?

[Magni]

ok thanks if you add Overrun, assuming it will work on a fighter, he could take out a lot of planes, correct?

As long as they're close together? Yeah, I think so. (Remember, Overrun only restores your movement action, not your movement points. Also, I think it only restores ONE attack action, even if the unit with it has double attack.)

[BaronVonKrieg]

ok thanks if you add Overrun, assuming it will work on a fighter, he could take out a lot of planes, correct?

it doesnt work on planes

[scorehouse]

guess I'm running out of ideas for a multiple attack fighter? guess OS15 double attack double move Barr is the best u can do? does Camo work on a fighter? also, what are the parameters that eliminate your camo? I know being adjacent to an enemy unit or directly under an enemy plane. any others?

[nexusno2000]

Camo work on planes.

Any scout unit can see you from 3 hexes. Non scouts must be adjacent.

[GUNDOBALDO08]

I found this photos and statistics... We have no one of this pilots!

[George_Parr]

Actually, we do have one of them, Heinz Bär.

If I'm not mistaken, so far we have two infantry heroes (Wirnsberger and Dir, with von Manstein as a possible third), two fighter heroes (Galland and Bär), one bomber hero (Rudel) and one tank hero (Kerscher). In addition to that we've got one artillery hero (Kloss) and one or two AA/AT heroes (Wuhrer and Ullmann). So it's not like fighter heroes are underrepresented.

[Patrick Ward]

I found this photos and statistics... We have no one of this pilots!

For the record, anyone who's been around Panzercorps 2 long enough will remember we ran a request for public domain and family photos of people we could use as heroes.
viewtopic.php?f=464&t=92440
Many of the famous images we all know are copyrighted, usually owned by their estate or various agencies, museums, collections etc. To avoid being sued we have to be extremely careful about what and who we use, hense the call for family portraits of people who served or of provable public domain images.

Thats why we have fewer famous people in game than we'd like.

Pat

[BaronVonKrieg]

I found this photos and statistics... We have no one of this pilots!

For the record, anyone who's been around Panzercorps 2 long enough will remember we ran a request for public domain and family photos of people we could use as heroes.
viewtopic.php?f=464&t=92440
Many of the famous images we all know are copyrighted, usually owned by their estate or various agencies, museums, collections etc. To avoid being sued we have to be extremely careful about what and who we use, hense the call for family portraits of people who served or of provable public domain images.

Thats why we have fewer famous people in game than we'd like.

Pat

cant you just create a portrait, like they did in hoi 4 ?

[Patrick Ward]

I found this photos and statistics... We have no one of this pilots!

For the record, anyone who's been around Panzercorps 2 long enough will remember we ran a request for public domain and family photos of people we could use as heroes.
viewtopic.php?f=464&t=92440
Many of the famous images we all know are copyrighted, usually owned by their estate or various agencies, museums, collections etc. To avoid being sued we have to be extremely careful about what and who we use, hense the call for family portraits of people who served or of provable public domain images.

Thats why we have fewer famous people in game than we'd like.

Pat

cant you just create a portrait, like they did in hoi 4 ?

We do for briefings but there's relativly few of those required ( eg. 1942 only had 46 paintings ) and we usually have a couple of months lead time. Hero portraits, despite what many people think, require far greater numbers and have to be turned around quickly, most in the last couple of days before release after they've been tested and the final set have been agreed ( small DLC are usually the exception ). By this time the artist will of already moved on to other projects so we have to be as efficient as possible and using a photo is more efficient than a painting or even paintover, like the HOI portraits.

Pat

[BaronVonKrieg]

For the record, anyone who's been around Panzercorps 2 long enough will remember we ran a request for public domain and family photos of people we could use as heroes.
viewtopic.php?f=464&t=92440
Many of the famous images we all know are copyrighted, usually owned by their estate or various agencies, museums, collections etc. To avoid being sued we have to be extremely careful about what and who we use, hense the call for family portraits of people who served or of provable public domain images.

Thats why we have fewer famous people in game than we'd like.

Pat

cant you just create a portrait, like they did in hoi 4 ?

We do for briefings but there's relativly few of those required ( eg. 1942 only had 46 paintings ) and we usually have a couple of months lead time. Hero portraits, despite what many people think, require far greater numbers and have to be turned around quickly, most in the last couple of days before release after they've been tested and the final set have been agreed ( small DLC are usually the exception ). By this time the artist will of already moved on to other projects so we have to be as efficient as possible and using a photo is more efficient than a painting or even paintover, like the HOI portraits.

Pat

Thanks on the feedback!

[Scrapulous]

It looks to me like Hans Philipp is one of the generic hero portraits, although I don't remember noticing that he's holding a dog, so maybe our version is zoomed in or maybe I'm just wrong.