Another exellent addition to the PC series, which makes you relive the frustrations and dispair that the germans fighting on the Eastern front must have gone through.
The mix of additional objectives combined with the conditions for victory make for some very intresting gaming, the end briefings explaining that dispite "your" victory the overall situation means you have to withdraw your forces are a nice touch
Initially I had a difficult time in the first 3 senarios and decided to restart
A change of tactics and a better understanding of the map lead to a good start the second time around and I was able to maintain a decent level of prestige to keep my core overstrengthed and some upgraded units at the end of each senario.
Some nice captured equipment gained along the way, but I didnt find the prototype JagerTiger.
The Operation Bagtoration senarios really was the begining of the end for my core, I was unable to maintain prestige levels to sufficiently repair and re-enforce my units and things quickly deteriated. I managed to scrape out MV in Vilnia and Warsaw but started Budapest 7 units short. With the thaw not comming untill turn 4 the Red hordes were already across the river in force having smashed through my depleated forces. Dispite my best attempts the situation was lost.
Observations
1- Why have Pionner units become so bad? they were comming off 2nd best to unentrenched regular infantry on a regular basis.
2- If you downgrade the 12.5 Flak to the 8.8 there is no charge, but I was charged 200 PP to change Pionners to Grenidiers.
3- A incremental re-enforcement feature would really help my level/ casual gamers who havent really mastered prestige management.
I know a lot of the posters who play at the higher levels think there is too much prestige avaliable but I found the levels in the last 3 senarios to low. I know historicaly Army group center were gutted by the russian offensive in 44. But this is a game and its nice for the casual/ inexperianced player to have a chance of winning.
Thanks for letting me be part of the Beta testing team and concratulations on another great DLC

