Slitherine

starting prestige 2572
after prestige/overstrengh 17
Ending Prestige 493
DV turn 22/22

This was another extremely intense one. The enemy attack on Kiev was nearly overwhelming. I hope to use a smaller force to hold Kiev while the rest of my units raced to capture the objectives that the paratroopers captured. This worked reasonably well but I eventually had to divert a large number of troops back up north to help with Kiev since the number of Soviet units was starting to be overwhelming.

I would recommend some tweaking on this one, the amount of Soviet armor I faced rivalled that of Prokhorovka, the amount of IS=1s that the enemy was spamming seemed excessive. They seemed to be buying more and more of them every turn. I would recommend toning this down, perhaps reduce the AI's prestige or something because it was starting to reach Balaton levels of ridiculousness.

Hopefully you start us off with a healthy prestige reward because my army was absolutely beat to hell, it was probably even in worse shape than after Prokhorovka A good 75% of my units were at 6 strength or below by the end of the battle. It is frankly a bit of a miracle that I held on for a DV in this one.

I just finished playing this scenario. It was a fun conclusion to DLC 43. I again decided that the best defense was a strong offense, so I lined up all of my speedy Panther A's to the south to go after the Soviet paratroopers. I backed them up with the majority of my mobile arty units, and some of my SE infantry. I put my heavy grenadier units in Kiev, and both of my Mars 21 guns, along with two SU-122s, and two captured KV 85's and held a couple of captured KV-1's to the west of Kiev. Although the attack on Kiev was fierce, I was able to hold on without much of a scare. Meanwhile, my "rapid response" force in the south quickly smashed through the Soviet paratroopers and by about turn 7 my forces were proceeding counter-clockwise across the river in the south and then turning north in a pincer move. By turn 12 I had taken most of the south of the map and began pushing out east from Kiev. I won a DV on turn 16 of 22 with only two Russian hexes remaining in the extreme upper right hand of the map, with no Russian units remaining on the map.

I did notice something which could be an error...Around turn 12 or 13, it was raining and a couple of my FW190's were out over a Soviet armor formation. Suddenly, three of the Russian SPAAG AA units start shooting at my planes and scoring hits. This had to be a mistake, because no AA units should be able to fire at planes when it is raining.

I might be wrong, but I seem to recall that AAA is able to shoot when it rains.

AAA cannot shoot when it rains. What happens is that in this scenario, the Russians move first. Hence, on your turn, it was raining, but the next turn (the Russians start) the weather changed and that's why their AAA can shoot. Thus far usually the Germans go first, so the AI is stuck with the same weather the player has.

deducter wrote:AAA cannot shoot when it rains. What happens is that in this scenario, the Russians move first. Hence, on your turn, it was raining, but the next turn (the Russians start) the weather changed and that's why their AAA can shoot. Thus far usually the Germans go first, so the AI is stuck with the same weather the player has.

This is correct.

General, imported 1942 DLC Beta core starting prestige 5375, ending prestige 5875. DV on 18/22.
I again used an aggressive strategy here. I deployed Tigers in Kiev and immediately counterattacked there. I kept the battle in front of the city there. I used a second battle group (mostly SE units and Panthers). I raced south and was able to stop the Red advance. The Russian air force seems to be growing stronger each scenario. My 15 strength Fw190s are taking considerable damage. I'm still winning, but it is getter harder. I hope the Fw190-Ds are available early in 1944.

I agree that the AI seemed to be spamming a lot of IS-1s. I was able to contain them, but it seemed a lot.

One thing I noticed was that I took the final victory hex with a Rumanian unit, but I was not immediately given the victory. I had to take all the hexes and eliminate all enemy units before I got the DV. Is this intended?

All in all, this DLC was the best yet. Great job! Looking forward to 1944.