Slitherine

Hey, I am out of home for the week end, and when I am back, guess what, a new DLC beta !

Well, as there is no specific thread for each scenario, guess I'll do like the others and start my report thread, sorry for the spam, and of course, feel free to remove it if needed.

Belgrade 1941 beta 1, colonel level :

A nice surprise with the core, with a good mix of experienced, overstrength units. Actually a realistic core that could be a plausible player imported core (perhaps even too good, you wouldn't overstrength that many units). This far (vanilla campaigns and DLC40), starting with the default core has always been a very significant disadvantage. While there should of course be an incentive to play the whole campaign and import a previous core, there was no reason to have a difference that large between a premade core and a player core. So definitively a good surprise.

I bought : 1 fallschirmjager, 1 Stuka - I will custom my core properly with the scenario 2 deployment phase.

The plan was to advance most of the units toward Belgrade, with a smaller force (2 tanks, 1 StuG and 1 infantry) going to take the westmost (non objective) cities (Novi Sad...) and another one (with the auxiliaries and a paratrooper capturing the south east airfield in advance) going to the SE.

Resistance was OK, with entrenched mountain infantry, causing some attrition, but nothing major.

Belgrade itself was an interesting problem to solve : the multi-hex city was moderately defended, but the Danube/Sava made a natural defense that acted as a surprisingly effective bottleneck. I could however capitalize on my three separate army groups, so I could attack the city from three different axis.

There was an interesting cavalry counterattack, including a general unit from Obrenovac, which was a cool little twist. However, after that and as I was beginning to siege the city, the IA spawned (twice) the infamous full circle of ATs/artillery units outside the city. Meh. I like the "reallistic" scripted reinforcements, but I still dislike the purely AI purchase of additional defense out of thin air. Nerf the damn AI prestige moar ! Didn't prevent me to gain a DV, though.

The allied observers were a cool feature of the scenario (though the DV seems buggy, I finally triggered the DV by moving 1 officer into Belgrade and the other into Obrenovac). Perhaps giving them proper names could add to the immersion ?

Metaxas Line 1941 beta 1, colonel level

As always, it pays off to read the briefing carefully, before having a look at the map : you do not need to attack the Metaxas line at all, despite the fodd... auxilliary bulgarian troops predeployed. In the end, this scenario can be hard or easy depending on what you wish to do : rushing to Serres and Thessaloniki, or flanking the greek defenses to help your allies, and take the non objective hexes. (Well, I can see people not paying attention and bashing their heads against the wall on this one obviously).

Buying an additional Sturmpanzer, I decided to strike a balance between the extremes, so I diverted some troops to take the 8.9 and 19.10 fortifications, and let the extremely heavily defended (with a big fort and british paratroopers) Kavala in peace. I did however scout with my BF110d the eastmost town of Keramoti, and finding it completely undefended, diverted an auxilliary cavalry to take it (which was, in hindsight, an extremely good idea, thanks for the shiny gift )

The rest was not as easy as planned : the Axios Potamos (with the map border) did make the western part of the map very narrow to navigate, while the Strymonas Potamos made a convincing natural defense complementing the fortifications north of Serres.

By the way : it may be a nit pick, but it is either "Axios River" or "Axios Potamos", but not "Axios Potamos River" as on the map (if I remember my ancient greek lessons correctly).

For the rest, it was the straightforward plod through cities and entrenched defenses, but the severel english tanks made a nice diversion on the open field.

All in all, I enjoyed this map, and I enjoyed the strategic choice on how to handle the Metaxas line (or to handle it all ).

Crete Airborne 1941 beta 1 colonel level

Considering what I read in the briefing, I decided to err on the side of caution toward the Royal Navy, and purchased and deployed a second level bomber. Then I obviously recruited the always dependable Wurfrahmen.

The scenario what not quite what I expected (I assumed I would actually use air transports and fight for the airfields), but it was interesting nonetheless, with a few limited deployement zones scattered on the map, with the extra troops coming by sea transport.

On sea, enemies destroyers tried to catch my transports, but my allied destroyers could stall them. Then enemy troops on land took pot shots at the barges, but with only limited success, so I could land everything. The enemy heavy ships randomly tried to bombard my ground troops or to sink my destroyers. Anyway, my Henkel bombers reduced their strength enough so that they were not a nuisance.

On air, only 2 enemy aircraft, but the mosquito was a real pest. On the first turn, he got a (lucky) 9 dmg on my Wurfrahmen (!), and it took quite a lot of attacks to bring him down.

On ground it was pretty hairy during the first few turns. I landed more or less balanced groups with (more or less) 1 tank, 2 inf, 2 artilleries. It was effective, but beeing put right in the middle of the enemy lines hurt quite a bit (especially the poor artilleries). I lost actually a couple of units, but only auxilliaries. As soon as a decent foothold was gained however, it was rather straightforward, I could manage to take every hex with ample time remaining.

Overall, an interesting scenario, essentially because of the novelty of the actual deployment area.

I'll kept a save so I'll eventually test the seaborne scenario, but only after I finish the rest of the DLC. I'll have limited time until next week, so I guess there is more need of feedback for the later scenarios. However, I did read the briefing and load the scenario, and I am under the (untested) impression that this will be quite a lot harder. Having most of your units at sea vs on land AND facing a stronger enemy force (if the briefing is correct) is a double disadvantage. If what I assume is correct (I did not test it), it would be maybe better if it was the other way around (disadvantageous deployment zone vs easier enemies tradeoff). Or if one scenario is indeed meant to be harder than the other, make it more clear in the briefing.

Proper names has come up before with the Romanian Officers.. unfortunately other then the idea of them being used as 'observers' I can't find any actual historical names to go with these units.
Would it bother people if I just 'made up' some Romanian names?

"Romanian observers" works for me.

Kiev 1941 beta 1 colonel level

Very interesting scenario, with one nitpick however.

The first phase of the scenario has an interesting dynamic, with part of your force bogged down by the fortress at Brest Litovsk, with the other part conducting a blietzkrieg all over the unprotected part of the (big) map. I used the scout bombers to sit on enemy airports to prevent them from creating units, but I am not quite sure if it was useful, as apparently, the planes triggered by the airfields still in russian possession spawned near Minsk anyway. 3 strength 12 bombers plus 1 tactical bomber and 1 or 2 fighters, ouch ...

Brest Litovsk was as though as historically expected, with a beastly AA cannon and a massive fortress (plus a deadly KV tank). The late arrival of the Karl Gerät helped finish off the fortress (was kind of surprised to have it "pop" at some point without bells and whistles. A note of warning in the briefing would have been great). Rest of the map played like expected with an easy and fast progression against outclassed russian units, and another though line of defense at Minsk, with a really lot of tanks (1 KV1 and 1 KV2 ouch ....). I didn't take one of the non mandatory objectives in Minsk ...

This far, the map had been pretty enjoyable, however, by turn 13 or 14 I think ?, just as I was about to finish, some conscripts came out of the blue near Brest, and retook it, which actually annoyed me a bit, as there was no element of foreshadowing in the briefing or anything, and I was pretty certain that the fortress was not relieved at any point despite its resistance historically, and the soviet army pretty much abandoned its defender. So I did something I dislike, reloading a previous save.

Last report for a few days, as I'll be away from the computer this week end ...

Smolensk 1941 beta 1 colonel level

About the objectives : if you only want a MV, you can basically go straight toward Smolensk. That been said, the two other objectives, Mogilev and Vitebsk aren't that far away from your path and that much defended that you can't manage to divert some forces. The real decision to take is : are you trying to take the NW and SE cities/airfields ? The northwest part is not a problem, but the challenge lies east of Mogilev. I tried, and it was probably a mistake : I manage to take everything (including the one with the size 20 conscript), but lost a core panzer III to a nasty armor counterattack, and it was a last turn affair (21/21DV).

Again, two natural defenses make the map interesting, the infamous Berezina (I'm french heh ...) and the Dniepr. The bridge engineer unit is a very, very nice addition.

A lot of russian armor starts to appear. The outdated tanks are a pushover, but the T34s gave a good fight (my units are neither very experienced nor overstrength at this point ...), and a few KV spiced things up nicely. A big pack of Stalin's Organs, led by a general, was close to Smolensk, but they were more impressive than really dangerous, as I used my armor in the vanguard and kept my infantry away. Smolensk was not particularly hard to take (compared to Brest Litovsk or Kiev), but the battles at the crossings and the tank battles in the open (especially in places like east of Mogilev where I was not expecting them) were hairy at times.

I took the Leningrad path, I'll do the next battle in a couple of days.

Hmmm, reading the other reports, I noticed that I didn't get the KV tank despite taking all the cities. After retrying, here's the ... bug ? maybe : if you take a city during the last turn (in my case, a DV on the last 21/21 turn), you do not get the captured unit. Apparently, it only appears at the start of the turn following the city taking.

kjeld111 wrote:Hmmm, reading the other reports, I noticed that I didn't get the KV tank despite taking all the cities. After retrying, here's the ... bug ? maybe : if you take a city during the last turn (in my case, a DV on the last 21/21 turn), you do not get the captured unit. Apparently, it only appears at the start of the turn following the city taking.

Yes, that is an unfortunate consequence of how the triggers work. You must acquire captured units before the final turn. Getting them on the final turn isn't soon enough and causes the scenario to end before they are added to the player's core.

Ostrov 1941 beta 2 colonel level

Nice and straightforward scenario here, with a peculiar "narrow" N/S map, with a lot of bad terrain (swamps or hills). The briefing was pretty clear and accurate : two big tank battles ahead ! So I was especially cautious in my deployment, and progression, with tank spearheads backed up by SP artillery and STuGs, and my 3 Stukas at hand (got to milk them while the weather is still decent ...), with a scout car ahead and infantery cautiously following behind, as the turn limit was lenient enough to proceed at a deliberate pace. With that tactics it went flawlessly, making this scenario a bit easier and relaxing than the 2 previous ones (though I can imagine some difficulties if the player pays no heed to the briefing and gets a bit careless).

Kerensky wrote:

kjeld111 wrote:Hmmm, reading the other reports, I noticed that I didn't get the KV tank despite taking all the cities. After retrying, here's the ... bug ? maybe : if you take a city during the last turn (in my case, a DV on the last 21/21 turn), you do not get the captured unit. Apparently, it only appears at the start of the turn following the city taking.

Yes, that is an unfortunate consequence of how the triggers work. You must acquire captured units before the final turn. Getting them on the final turn isn't soon enough and causes the scenario to end before they are added to the player's core.

Does saving in the "view battlefield" screen work?
I am pretty sure I got a KV and a T-34 I didn't have before after I won Moscow 41.

Old Tristr... err ahem Novgorod beta 2 colonel level

Ouch. After a relatively dynamic previous scenarios, now that's a slog ! Thick barriers of russian armor/rivers/swamps/red army recruits/forests, in a relatively small, but ... "high density" map. Actually an interesting change of pace. A big KV2, counterattacked near the last objective, but it wasn't actually bad, as it got itself trapped on a bridge I carefully avoided while waiting for my artillery. Lost a core fallschirmjager in the battle near the south east town (close infantry vs infantry combat is deadly), but got a T34 for my efforts. All in all, a step up in difficulty, and a whole lot of enemies here. Just a note : the briefing gave the impression that the russian airforce will be a pushover ... not really the case, with a decent number of planes.

There's quite a ramp up this far : with the (historical) exception of Brest Litovsk, the theme of the first barbarossa scenarios was crossing great distances with a few pitched battles, but as we progress, the lines of defenses grow heavier and heavier. And the weather is still good, but not for long

Leningrad beta 2 colonel level

Things are starting to get thougher and thougher, with a respectable amount of KV-1 (and even KV-2) tanks, and occasional rain. After two (relatively) "vanilla" scenarios, time for a brand new objective, setting up auxiliary siege artillery in predefined areas. Neat.

The first turns of the battle were actually the harder, with a lot of armor close to the starting point, and heavy defense in the east. There was an armor counterattack from the norwest of the westmost siege objective, but it is unclear whether it was triggered by me setting up a siege artillery there, or if it was my units moving in to take the northwest non objective ports and cities. Apart from that, I did expect tiggered counterattacks directed against the siege units one you set them in position, but it never materialized. It was only about cleaning the forces already present plus those bought by the AI to reinforce mostly, unless I missed or didn't notice something, so the game flow was a bit bizarre, with some though battles early on, and mostly cleanup work in the later turns to take the last objectives in the east and south of Lake Ladoga. It's completely subjective, but I probably would have liked to see something like a harder Wyszogrod, with an easier cleanup of the initial objectives, and thougher challenge from the AI to actually keep the siege units alive once you set them in place.

Grueling combats made me lose 3 core units (2 pioneers, 1 wurfrahmen), losses I am not accustomed to. It's starting to get get though. The wurfrahmen is a bit my fault and was not quite protected enough (those units are incredibly fragile !). For the infantries (I had already lost some infantry cores in previous scenarios), it's always the same debate that has been thoroughly discussed on these pages, close defense vs close defenses on infantry battle hurts. You can't let infantry in open terrain due to the amount of enemy armor, but even moving them in close terrain do not make them immune to large losses against their fellows. As the DLC scenario features hordes of russian infantry (recruits and others), it makes the problem (for me) more acute. But more and more, as the campaign progress, I am not replacing them (they fail to really build up experience anyway), building armor and artillery instead.

As for the scenario objectives. It's interesting that even the DV objectives are historically accurate : the aim is to set up the siege, not take the town and "break" the historical continuity. (thus, even if you manage to actually take the city in this scenario, it would be pointless and not recognized by the system).
The defenses of Leningrad appeared impressive. With the losses I had sustained this far, I didn't even try. I'd wonder if (for a future "alternate history" scenario DLC) maybe, you could accomodate an actual conquest of the town.

I finished the campaign on beta 2, as I couldn't get the game to load on beta 3.

Vyazma beta 2 colonel level

Wow, that was a beast of a map. The high point of the barbarossa operation, this scenario follows the same spirit as the original campaign Moscow 1941 scenario, a desesperate rush toward that last little Moscow objective against horrible weather conditions. Only difference here, but a major one, that big, heavily defended pocket that will pin most of your forces most of the time.

For the first time in the DLC, I couldn't manage to get a DV - one turn missing - at colonel level, and I believe I got actually lucky with the weather conditions : I had several turns of mud and rain in the beginning, when my forces were largely held off by the Vyazma pocket, but after that, the ground was mostly practicable, with scattered rain. So guess it was a skill check that I failed to pass The battles were hard fought, but I managed to keep my units in defensive formations (oh how invaluable those SutGs were !), and only lost the now habitual infantry unit (grenadier this time). Maybe an excess of caution on my part ... in retrospect, I should probably have rushed with a small force to Mozahysk, to have a railroad "ferry" ready once Vyazma fell, I don't know. Good thing is, that scenario got me to the edge of my chair

DV, so I missed the opportunity to get to the Streets of Moscow. From what I could read on this forum, however, and after the fits that the Spoils of War got me, prehaps it's for the better, heh.


Demyansk pocket 1941 beta 2

To end the campaign properly after the climactic showdown of Vyazma, it's time to simulate an interesting historic event with the supplying of the trapped german armies. It was a nice idea to include this scenario : the retreat of the german army had to be included, but using the feat of the Luftwaffe as a twist to a though defensive scenario, you manage to give appropriate and workable objectives that convey the huge supplies problems faced by the german army and the atmosphere of semi-debacle, without having to resort to punishing objectives like in, say, Bagration or Balaton.

So how did it work out in the end ? On the defense, the enemy forces were appropriately though from the east, inexistant from the west. While I do agree that the scenario should allow some breathing room to recover from the though Barbarossa scenarios, I'd still would have liked some token attacks from the west (even if it is from harmless lower tier tanks or something), just to convey the sense of encirclement better and give justification to keeping a line of defense there.

For the air transport part, it worked as an objective, but seemed a bit random, unless I missed something, you have to fly more or less blindly (well, you can scout with your fighters somewhat) over an area packed with agressive AA units, and wherever you go, they'll take some pot shots at you anyway.

Anyway, a DV here ... bring it on Stalingrad

I'll make a more global writup of my experience in the campaign later (I suspect it will be a wall of text, so I'll not rush it)

Global Feedback on the campaign

First of all, the campaign was as much enjoyable as its predecessors . Another job well done, and I am still pumped for the next DLC to come. The general flow was very well done : three "Balkans" scenarios, on the easier side (but no pushovers), a welcome "spice" of diversity between two big "blocks" (France and USSR), two large scale, epic "blitzkrieg" scenarios to start Barbarossa, three branching scenarios, then the epic showdown at Vyazma (and the streets of moscow ...), and the start of the retreat (Demyansk pocket). The whole palette of different situations make sure that the game is never stale : you alternate between fast progressions, complicated sieges, slogs against heavy lines of defense, defensive situations, all in varied terrain and weather conditions. The difficulty curve was spot on.


I won't rehash the more detailed feedback I gave on the scenarios, but here is a small rundown :
(all colonel level, beta 1 up to Smolensk, beta 2 after that)

Belgrade : nice little entry level scenario, with an original twist (the romanian observers)

Metaxas Line : a "pick your difficulty" scenario, not as easy as it looks even if you don't go "the hard" way and bypass the Line. Suggestion : make the captured equipment spawn in Kavala instead of Keramoti, so it is a reward for actually breaking the Metaxas Line

Crete Airborne : interesting starting situation that make for a few rough starting turns (even if the scenario is globally easy). Playing with the navy is a cool diversion before the massive landlocked scenarios to follow

Minsk : a mix of heavy sieging (Brest Litovsk), sneaky counterattacks, and fast paced blitzkrieg. Two interesting twists to the scenario : the triggered air counterattack, depending on the number of airfields captured, and the guest star appearance of the Karl Gerät

Smolensk : an epic scenario, probably my favorite of the campaign, similar to the previous in spirit, but with less of a focus on sieging and more open land (and river crossing) battles, with very serious armor and artillery enemy opposition. The nice flow of the map, and the big land battles make this scenario a winner.

Ostrov : the first "mini" scenario of the Leningrad branch, an interesting narrow map, featuring major tank action. While enjoyable, the lack of anything special make it a bit less memorable than the previous scenarios thus far

Novgorod : despite the smaller scale of the map, this one was a quite brutal slog, with a lot of natural obstacles and actual "walls" of enemy units. A ramp up in difficulty.

Leningrad : another hard fought one (had more losses on this one than in any other scenario on the campaign actually), with deteriorating weather conditions. The original objective was neat, though I would have prefered if it had played differently (less difficult actual clearing of the siege zones, but with Wyszgorod-style counterattacks to expect)

Vyazma : the climax (at least for me, as I wasn't eligible for the Street of Moscow) of the campaign, very similar to the Moscow 41 approach (extremely tight turn limit compounded with horrible weather for the DV), plus one of the thoughest nuts to crack (the Vyazma pocket).

Demyansk Pocket : original defensive scenario, with an interesting historic twist (air supplies), would have perhaps been better with a less heavy concentration of enemy units in the east but some attacks from the west.


Core and units

(Also see the appropriate thread were I give rundown of my core)
I finished with a large amount of prestige. I might need to switch to general, probably. I was however, perhaps too stingy with elite reinforcements between battles from the start, thus, my infantry and tanks were very moderately experienced by the end of the campaign (not much higher than the experience they started with), and the air force and artillery (the units I spent prestige without counting on) on the other hand finished at a higher level.

I had a lot of problem keeping my infantry alive. I lost a lot of units (plus colossal strength losses - leading to a self sustaining experience problem). I don't know if it was bad tactics of my part but in the vanilla campaign, infantry was still (for me) usefull in that time period, becoming really useless after 1943 or so when the high tech armor come into action. I don't know if it is due to the DLC design (lots of armor in open terrain, lots and lots of infantry, so that even close terrain is not safe), I don't know if it is me (well, in retrospect the fact that I used lots of StuGs supporting my tanks and comparatively less regular artillery supporting my infantry was certainly instrumental in this debacle), but in the end, it was a though time for the little guys. Perhaps my opinion would have changed with the streets of Moscow (though I wonder how I would have managed it with my depleted infantry core), and perhaps I am absolutely not ready for the city warfare in Stalingrad. Time will tell
I didn' buy Bruckenpioneere, but in retrospect, I should have, perhaps. The one aux I used on the one scenario it was available, was very useful. The fallschirmjagers were a mixed bag, largely due to the scripted nature of the scenarios : you would never know if the isolated town far from your main army thrust is ripe for the taking, or the staging force of a massive counterattack.

On the other hand, there was a lot of interesting tank action. With the nice touch of the captured equipment, and the large palette of enemy units (from crap to KVs), there was a lot of diversity there, and many of the maps were deliberately "armor-friendly". Aside from the dependable core Panzer IV, everything else had its use : the panzer III(at least the J model, the previous one was a little low on defense) kept its use against armor, the Matilda was the harder to use due to its speed, but a few scenarios like Minsk, Novgorod or Demyansk could leverage its thoughness without making its weaknesses too apparent, the KVs were appropriate BEASTS, but my favorite of the captured equipment were actually the (two) T34's I could get my hand on. The decent stats added to the great mobility definitely filled a niche, and definitely added more than the simple novelty factor. Of course they'll get outdated fast in the following DLC, but I just hope there will be nice capturables there

The Panzerjager felt outdated (I didn't bother with towed, thought they were not that bad when available in aux, like Demyansk). Way too fragile compared to the massive enemy tanks, and clumsy on the offensive. I did upgrade it to a Marder in Demyansk, and it looked promising, with good firepower.

Artillery is where the diversity of the game shone in this campaign. The towed artillery is of course, always dependable. I used a Sturmpanzer with much succes. Wurfrahmen are mobile, offensive beasts, but I had massive trouble keeping them alive, and in the end, didn't rebuy them. The star was, of course, the StuGIIIb. Its firepower is not that great, but it works nicely supporting armor spearheads, and the decent armor+suppressing fire make them incredibly sturdy. One of the most fun units to use, definitely.

Nothing to add for the 88, it is still useful at this point in the campaign.

Fighters were of course as useful as ever for air superiority. Stukas, while not as overpowered as, say in Poland, were still instrumental to the tank battles. They did reliably damage even the scarier enemy tanks. I was pleasantly surprised with the actual usefulness of the BF110. Compared to the vanilla campaign with a binary approach to air superiority (either it is a cakewalk, a few turns cleanup affair, or absolute hell like in late war with no room for "hybrids"), the more constant and consistant air threat can leverage the strength of a decent bomber coupled with a decent fighter (you'll not face enemy head on of course - but you'll use your fighter bomber to surround and finish with the help of proper fighters). I don't know how long it will hold though, with the formidable allied fighters of the late war, and it doesn't mean I am ready to buy lots of them, but the one I had in the starting core was put to good use nonetheless . With a lot of sieges and protracted battles where ammo did matter, the level bombers were useful as ever.

Voila, here is my rundown of this enjoyable DCL 1941 campaign. I'll now focus on the french version testing !

I didn't like the three KIEV scenarios. the Leningrad scenarios were much more challenging and interesting.

Who wants to comment on that, would like to hear other opinions.

Kerensky wrote:Proper names has come up before with the Romanian Officers.. unfortunately other then the idea of them being used as 'observers' I can't find any actual historical names to go with these units.
Would it bother people if I just 'made up' some Romanian names?

Please see your PM box

Fair enough. In that case, they shall just remain unnamed observers.