Slitherine

When hasn't this been the theme of the DLCs? Take real historical events (Giraud wassigny, bzura Piatek, Blucher Oslo, and so on) and transform them into game objectives.

Of course you're absolutely right... I should have written my comment better, as the DLCs have been almost dead-on historically. I should have said that Vyazma takes a seemingly one-sided battle (it was one of the last large German victories in '41 where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers were taken captive), and manages to instill a feeling of tension and uncertainty. Again, you guys are doing great things with these DLCs...

Happy to hear recon cars were not harmed in the making of this latest AAR.

You were the John Connor to my Ah-nold (as in Terminator 2): "You can't go around killing recons, dammit! I COMMAND you not to kill recons!"

"Why?... can't I kill my recon cars"

"Because you just CAN'T! Okay? trust me on this."

Streets of Moscow. MV in 24 turns.
Start prestige: 556. End prestige: 202.
New units purchased: Recon (turn 2), artillery (turn 12), infantry (turn 13), pioniere (turn 13), recon (turn 13).
Units lost: Four recons, one artillery, one pioniere, three infantry, one Stug, one Panzer, one (captured) KV-1, one (captured) T-34, one cavalry, all core.
Medals: 4. Heroes: 4.

Ugh... what a bloodletting! This scenario made Warsaw look like a kindergarden picnic. I decided to tackle Moscow by hitting the city itself with the bulk of my non-armored forces, while sending one small armored force to the north and one toward the southeast, then up north behind Moscow. At first things seemed not too terrible; I was making decent progress. Then the first big battle erupted around the Kremlin, where I lost several core forces. I finally took Red Square on turn 12 (appropriately enough, with one of my captured T-34s). Then all hell broke loose. The Siberian reinforcements arrived in force, particularly to the east of Moscow, where my armored force there took a terrible beating (it was there I lost my KV-1 and my other T-34). I managed to stop the attack, but at the cost of several experienced units. Those T-34 '41 models and Red Guard units were extremely tough to beat.

I decided that I couldn't afford any more losses, so I settled for the objectives I had; the only two I did not capture were the Northern and Northeastern districts. I was able to hold a decent defensive line through the center of Moscow until the end of the scenario, but it was a bittersweet victory. My core force was devastated, as I had lost nearly a third of my force. I decided to end the Moscow scenario there; I'm going back to my saved game from Vyazma and take the Demyansk route next.

A few things of note with the Moscow scenario:
1. For only the second time in the campaign (since Crete), the AI moved a unit out of good defensive position for a hopeless attack, at Zheleznodorozhny (26,14); it was a Red Guard unit that would have been difficult to force out of the town, but it attacked my stug for little gain and I was able to occupy the city and destroy the unit without much effort. Otherwise, the AI did a very commendable job balancing its defensive responsibilities with any good opportunities it saw to attack my forces.
2. On turns 12 and 13, it seemed I received some sort of prestige dump, both times around 800 points. Was this the case? Or is it some sort of reward for taking the Kremlin?
3. Finally, there was a Yak-1 at 4,5 that did not seem to move or attack. I was able to fly aircraft right up to it and attack it, but it remained at the hex next to its airfield, rather than actually moving over to the airfield to take replacements. Is this some sort of triggered unit that only moves on a certain turn? It reminded me of the inert Polish units at Kovno.

Overall, this is a VERY tough scenario. If I did it again I would do a lot of things differently. As an "extra" mission it is a real challenge -- and offers a nice preview of how much tougher things are going to be in Russia in 1942.

Judging by your casualties and end prestige, are you complaining about that prestige dump injection?

And yes, that Yak you found has a trigger. You found it before you found it's trigger, but I don't see that as a problem. You simply attacked the Soviets(map designer) from a direction they weren't expecting, and thus caught the fighter un-prepared for combat.

Judging by your casualties and end prestige, are you complaining about that prestige dump injection?

LOL... not at all! I just wanted to make sure it was something WAD, and not a weird glitch (or me losing my mind).

And yes, that Yak you found has a trigger.

That's what I figured. I wonder, would it be possible to place it over the airfield rather than next to it, so the AI can at least replenish it before it gets destroyed?

Demyansk Pocket. MV in 16 turns.
Start prestige: 0. End prestige: 183.
New units purchased: None.
Units lost: None.
Medals: 2. Heroes: 1.

This mission was a real nail-biter! If anything, proper placement of forces at deployment is absolutely CRITICAL in this scenario... keeping the Russian hordes at bay was a challenge, but greatly aided by having artillery back-up in place at every attack point. It was nice to see that the Russians didn't back down, and the AI did a very good job of attacking (especially by trying to take out the above-mentioned artillery). This scenario definitely brings home the idea of the Russian steamroller: literally, waves and waves of forces just keep coming. (And when the game ended and I took a look at the battlefield, I was pretty shocked to see that the Russians still had plenty of forces left to throw into the battle! )

I really liked the idea of escorting the transports into the pocket to bring in fresh supplies. (Might this be a harbinger of things to come at Stalingrad?) I found it easiest to remember which airfields I used by keeping each "supply carrier" (like how the bridge pioneers were used for this function, nice touch) at the respective airfield where it landed. Overall, a very good challenge, and an excellent way to bring the '41 campaign to a close.

Tomorrow I'll go back to my saved Smolensk scenario and play through the Leningrad trio of missions.

(Kerensky, I know on another thread you asked for final core results. I'll post them as soon as I get a chance.)

I found the Leningrad path much harder than Kiev.

I found the Leningrad path much harder than Kiev.

Excellent, I'm looking forward to starting on the road to Leningrad!

I have not played Zolotoshna (It's Zhitomir, Zhurivka and Zolotoshna IIRC, ZZZ hehe) yet.

I think people gave enough feedback about the early and middle campaign battles already, I should maybe finally bring my "real" core past "The Hague" so that I can test future scenarios/DLCs with them.


I will write a proper review on Amazon.de, for some reason Slitherine/Matrix sell it in Europe on Amazon but not in the USA. It's really a wonderful game for strategy gamers and grognards. There are people nowadays who consider themselves "strategy" game players because well everything not MMO or FPS is already labelled strategy nowadays. They simply will not dig or understand Panzer Corps easily as they got used to years of totally mindless pseudo-strategy games!

Kerensky wrote: I may have to keep this in mind in the future, allowing players to neutralize airfields to prevent spawning of enemy air assets.

Any chance of sneaking a bonus Battle of Britain scenario into DLC 40!??!?!!??!!?

Ostrov. DV in 16 turns.
Start prestige: 329. End prestige: 45.
New units purchased: Elite Panzer (received at beginning), recon (turn 2), infantry (turn 16).
Units lost: One recon, one infantry (both core).
Medals: 5. Heroes: 1.

(Sorry this took a few days to post, my daughter accidentally took my notes to school with her!)

A straightforward push on a narrow front. The armored action was pretty furious in the later turns of the mission, and again I was fortunate to have only lost two units -- quite a few times my forces were on their last gasp. Once more the commander's brief is a bit off the mark -- namely, that "negligible" Red Air Force packs a decent punch throughout. Overall the AI did well and the map is just challenging enough to whet the appetite for a further march toward Leningrad.

On to Novgorod next.

Comparison to the first Kiev scenario please, Commander!

dshaw62197 wrote: (Sorry this took a few days to post, my daughter accidentally took my notes to school with her!)

I wonder what that must have been like.

"What did you bring for show and tell?"

"My daddy is fighting the Soviets across the Steppes of Russia. Here are some notes he wrote about troop movements and...."

Comparison to the first Kiev scenario please, Commander!

An interesting comparison... actually, Ostrov and Zhitomir are quite different in scope. Zhitomir is a wide-open map with lots of ground to cover, while Ostrov is a tight battle that is restricted to a narrow front. As such Ostrov is a relatively straightforward fight, while Zhitomir offers a wider range of strategic options for accomplishing the mission's goals. Of course there is also the small matter of Zhitomir having the large force at Kiev, which the player may or may not decide to fight against, a feature not present in Ostrov. So both scenarios offer a challenge, but in very different packages. I would suggest players that enjoy a lot of room for manuever and making more strategic choices go with the Kiev route, while those who prefer a more focused (but limited) battle go with Ostrov. Of course I haven't played the other two Leningrad scenarios, but at the moment this seems to be the way the campaign paths are leaning.

I wonder what that must have been like.

LOL! Actually, she's in seventh grade, so I'm sure she would be incredibly embarrassed if she realized she had dad's papers. Apparently she was doing some research on the computer for a project, and sat some papers down on our computer desk, on top of my notes. When she was done she picked those papers up and must have grabbed my stuff as well, stuffed it in her bookbag, and off it went to school. However she said she didn't look at those papers while at school, and only discovered them when she came home today. (Of course I was pulling my hair out wondering where the papers had gotten too!)

Still, she does have a social studies teacher who is into computer games, so maybe she could have turned them in for extra credit.

Novgorod. DV in 17 turns.
Start prestige: 9. End prestige: 347.
New units purchased: none.
Units lost: none.
Medals: 2. Heroes: 3.

At first it seems that Novgorod will be a more flexible map than Ostrov due to its larger size... but looks are deceiving. The road to the Volkhov River is more constrained than it first appears, thanks to some difficult terrain. I did a decent job of fighting through the central area of the map, but things heated up as I got closer to the Volkhov. First I was nearly surprised by the large line of armored units west of Zmeysko (24,9) and north of Novgorod; thankfully I spotted the units before they had a chance to attack, and was able to get in a good round of aerial attacks. Things were still tricky, however, as the Russian armor still managed to put a serious dent into my own armored forces. It took a few turns to finally defeat this armored force, and the AI did another credible job using it.

Then there is Novgorod itself, a very tough nut to crack thanks to some excellent natural barriers. I sorely wished I had a bridging unit in this scenario... the Volkhov is also a formidable obstacle, and thus channeled my attack toward the objective cities. After positioning my artillery units, I was able to blast my way into Novgorod (though not without considerable casualties) and cleared the city by turn 12. I then crossed the Volkhov up north at Vysokoye (26,5) and was able to bring units both from north and south to take the final VP city (Zmeysko) on turn 17. This was a much more challenging scenario than Ostrov... but I was rewarded with a nice captured T-34 by clearing the Red airborne unit out of Bronnitse (24,16). And again, the Red Air Force was out in strength and very nearly cost me one of my Stukas -- I wish the commander would get his intel on Russian air assets up to speed LOL! Again, a very good challenge, and a good defensive show by the AI.

Also, I forgot to mention this in my Ostrov report, but in both Leningrad branch scenarios so far, my captured Soviet units are making noise and have proper animations. They still lack pictures in the unit info window, however.

Next stop: Leningrad.

It appears at the moment there is some sort of conflict between DLC41 saved games and the 1.05 beta. Hopefully there will be a fix (other than going back to the 1.04 build) so I can get in the last scenario of the campaign. If not, no terrible loss; in fact, I was going to start a new campaign with the 1939 DLC and play through 1940 so as to create a core to bring into the 1941 beta. Looks like I might be getting a sooner start on that!

dshaw62197 wrote:It appears at the moment there is some sort of conflict between DLC41 saved games and the 1.05 beta. Hopefully there will be a fix (other than going back to the 1.04 build) so I can get in the last scenario of the campaign. If not, no terrible loss; in fact, I was going to start a new campaign with the 1939 DLC and play through 1940 so as to create a core to bring into the 1941 beta. Looks like I might be getting a sooner start on that!

That's what i did. Those mathilda II's did a terrific job in the first scenario's of DLC 41

Sorry I've been scarce around these parts recently, I've just returned from a nice Thanksgiving weekend full of family visits. I've downloaded the latest beta and will start testing after I get home from work tonight.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!

Well, sorry I didn't do more testing with the last beta of 1.05/DLC 41. To be honest, I was focusing on the new MP beta for the 1.05 build, as well as going through the 39 and 40 campaigns in an attempt to create a solid core I can take through the later DLCs. As a general observation, the 41 DLC is very enjoyable. It captures the "feel" of the Russian front very well, with vast spaces, hordes of Russian forces, and lots of nasty surprises. It is definitely more intense than the previous two DLCs; as I played the 41 campaign, it was a much more "flying by the seat of your pants" experience. I think the AI continues to improve, the missions are a good mix, and the evolving storyline of the commander and his secretary are entertaining. In all, the 41 DLC should be as well-received as the previous two, and I look forward to downloading the finished product.

As always, it is a privilege and honor to be among the beta testers, and of course is a lot of fun. Thanks again for breathing new life into a grand old franchise.

I lost my link to the 41 download and test page...where can I find it? I loved Beta testing the 39 and 40 campaigns and have them on disk now..great games!!!
Thanks