Got another Pz IIIM, but lack the prestige to upgrade it, starting with 0.3k prestige here.
Even with knowing what would happen when I reach Pselets the counterattack was absolutely brutal. With a non-optimised core I took lots of losses and the Pz IVH aint that shabby at all. My only saving grace was having good weather and thus being able to use the Luftwaffe to its full extend.
Started the attack on Oboyan at turn 15 after having destroyed the forces around Pselets, luckily for me to AI was so keen to attack my troops that it moved an artillery, a AT and a AAA onto the river, otherwise the battle would have been even more costly. Later it did the same with another artillery and a tank.
Destroyed the last defender of Oboyan at turn 19. During the final turn I had a bit of fun, sending every aircraft available to attack the BT-5s that were rushing in from the west
DV 20/20 - prestige 1.1k - for fun I checked how much prestige I would need for elite replacements on all units, 4.1k wasnt enough, so I cheated in another 1k prestige and in the end 0.2k remained. So I would need 4.9k to repair all those units and I have been fairly carefull here - havent sold the Sherman at this point, but this would change nothing about the prestige needed.
It might have been a mixture of my force composition and FM level, but for a while I thought that I would not even achieve a DV here, and as can be seen by the repair bill the fighting has been brutal. The most difficult/brutal scenario with the forces composition I use I have played yet. The main culprit was the large force around Pselets, since this is not a needed objective, but provides airfields there should be a warning in the briefing that a large Soviet armored force has been seen up there.
25 heroes here now, so I gained 8. Highest kill unit without a hero is at 265 kills now.
edit: Just took a look at my beta 1 report, on Manstein! I went from 26k prestige down to 23.4k there with the imported core - with 0.2k here at the start, a larger prestige bonus (3k instead of ?1.5k?) and ending up at -0.8k for complete reinforcements - this is roughly the same as here. I think this illustrates the difference between optimised cores and lots of heroes/XP quite nicely. On a lower difficulty level and despite knowing the map I lost roughly the same number of prestige.