Slitherine

On my 5th attempt to beat the scenario on General level using the DLC '42 core and still cannot. The Russian mountain foot is so nimble it just goes everywhere. The tanks and inf. on both flanks swarm in and just hack up everything.

DLC 42 #03 Simferopol
Difficulty: Colonel
Starting Prestige: 3633

By far the hardest mission for me so far. The map appeared simple without many geographic obstacles. I wondered why the extra long range aux arty units were added. The answer came soon enough. The Soviet units are hard to finish off. Even at reduced strength an additional 2-3 turns were necessary for a kill. As I advanced my units were bled dry until about game turn 5 when prestige was expended. I retreated my weakened units to save them but even so as the turns came some could not be safely extracted. In the end I had lost 4 core units which is the most I have lost in any DLC Beta. 3x Infantry and 1x Arty unit gone.
Frustratingly enjoyable is my best explanation.

Marginal Victory
Turn 9
Ending Prestige 272

Simferopol
colonel level, 41 DLC beta imported core

That scenario was significantly easier than the two previous ones, but I think it has a lot to do with the composition of my core, very tank heavy (especially with the awesome freshly upgraded IVG and freshly captured T34/41), with one marder and one Stug IIIF, plus several StuG IIIb as support, and plenty of artillery.

The Karl and the Gustav were an interesting twist to the scenario on paper, but in practice, they do not really stand out. They were never specifically targeted by the enemy (and with their range, you can keep them safe easily anyway), so the objective to defend them was completely trivial. There was no "uberbunker" to crack like in vanilla Sevastopol or DLC41 Brest Litovsk, and with their strange stats (high attack ratings, but 5 understrength and abysmal fire rate), they sure did guaranteed 1-2 damage every time, but never more, and had no suppressive power. In other words, while they were sure nice to have as long range, guaranteed damage, they were, in the grand scheme of things, pretty pointless on the attack too. Of course, they are here for "storytelling" reasons, and as a foreshadowing for the assault scenario, which is completely OK, but some gimmick to make them more interesting (like one bunker with unusual defenses) could add a little spice to this map.

Weird thing : two enemy planes "popped" south of the map when I had all airplanes captured. Was a little weird, and costly (I had many units in their transports, as I was confident they were not at risk).

Wow, I wouldn't call this one easy, Russians kept up flank attacks and I lost a captured t34, a stug, an infantry, and multiple recon units. Maybe I went too fast, I got the decisive victory on turn 15, but paid a steep price.

Re-played in the new build...achieved a DV in 11 turns. The Russian counterattack on the right flank was a little stronger this time which caused some problems. The attack on the left was more easily dealt with as I had a little better concentration of force there. The addition of a Guards unit defending one of the objective hexes was a nice addition. The masses of conscripts, however, were swept aside pretty quickly though. The air battle was a little harder this time too as the AI introduced fresh air units later in the battle causing some unexpected losses.

I think the play balance has been improved making the scenario more challenging.

I was expecting a tougher time of it here. Relatively breezed my way through. so far, it is the only scenario where I did not mourn a unit.