Slitherine

Starting the '39 Campaign & wonder if a Decisive Victory is attainable in the Lodz scenario? I am not interested in how but only if because I can easily get a Marginal & a Decisive seems out of reach; I don't want to churn a lot if a Decisive is indeed out of reach. Thanks,

Definitely yes! I have never obtained anything less than a decisive victory. Although the highest difficulty I've ever played "Lodz" was "General".

Spoiler:

Never trouble yourself with the forts south of Lodz, because you don't need to destroy them for a victory. Attacking Lodz from the east is best with lots of infantry and artillery. (If I recall it correctly, something like that is mentioned in the briefing before. Reading the briefings is always a recommendation. ) And don't cross the river, where the northernmost object is located, because that triggers some polish armor (as far as I remember). At least that's my advice.

Georgie wrote:Starting the '39 Campaign & wonder if a Decisive Victory is attainable in the Lodz scenario? I am not interested in how but only if because I can easily get a Marginal & a Decisive seems out of reach; I don't want to churn a lot if a Decisive is indeed out of reach. Thanks,

Gotten a decisive about 9 times now. 7 on FM, 1 on Rommel, and 1 on Manstein. Lots of people have gotten Decisive Victories in every single scenario in the DLCs.

Thanks. I will go for it. I have some ideas in mind. I have left the forts alone. They take too much time to crack & are easily outflanked. I have only a couple of efforts under my belt & I am getting better. The first one left me some short & a Decisive seemed out of reach but it got a lot closer the second time through.

Georgie wrote:Thanks. I will go for it. I have some ideas in mind. I have left the forts alone. They take too much time to crack & are easily outflanked. I have only a couple of efforts under my belt & I am getting better. The first one left me some short & a Decisive seemed out of reach but it got a lot closer the second time through.

My suggestion would be that if you are losing units to go to a lower level until you get a hang of how all the units interact and the most effective way to use them.

There is another important thing in the Lodz scenario: At least four of the auxiliary units starting to the east have to survive. So if you loose to much of them, you can only get a marginal victory, Think about ways to save them.

Good luck and tell us about your progress, if you don't mind.

This is the first "difficult" scenario I think in the DLC/GC 39. I recall the first time I played it I think I scraped a DV only by bludgeoning my units at the end (Field Marshall level). I recently replayed it on Rommel (unlocked higher level - less prestige) and it was not hard. But that's also experience of mine from playing through GC 39 to 45 before.

Study the library, and combat predictor detail panel (the "ctrl-right click" function when you have a target in cross-haris). You will learn how hard/soft attack work, value of suppression by artillery, value of experience, etc. Critical also is understanding terrain effect - clear hex vs. hill/forest/city where close combat kicks in and initiative is defeated. Understanding terrain effects on combat is key to ground success in PC (as in real life!).

Now I know the way to interpret this scenario is to analyze before deployment and see the recon force is armor, and has a readily defensible option of going into a hedgehog (all-around defense) against the map edge and just awaiting relief. So you see that, and put them in a defensive laager. And seeing all that "free" armour there, you bias your core towards guns and legs (artillery and infantry). Once you make contact with them, then you easily defeat the containing forces and then incorporate all that armour into your force and move forward. So: brief tactical retreat with recon force, link up, then offensive. So load your core force deployment with artillery and infantry to counter the close combat scenarios of the city and hills. Once you circle around Lodz, you let the armor be the shield that takes/hold the river crossings, while the artillery and infantry core units take the Lodz city objective(s).

Oh and ignore the forts you don't need to bother destroying them.

When I play this scenario, my first steps are usually to move as much of my force, as it is possible, to help the stranded armor. Establishing early control of the south airport helps a lot – I usually refuel my Stukas there and bombard the hell out of AT and cavalry.

Getting the airport often means that one of the auxiliary units has to be sacrificed defending it. It’s OK but it’s important to pay attention to the number of these units left.

While storming Lodz I take the AA first, allowing me to send my air force. At the same time I usually park a tank or a recon car outside of Lowicz, to prevent the AI from buying units there. (For a very long time I didn’t know that one unit suffices and fought with AT/AA spam at every map’s last city…).

Afterwards it’s usually a simple process of using artillery and bombers on the city.

There is also a series of AAR videos by deducter - great tutorials for a new player.
viewtopic.php?f=145&t=32405

By the way guys, please be gentle with the area around the Lodz airport – I was born and still live there! Bombard it silently!

In Lodz scenario there is a large cluster of strong Polish troops in Kutno area.



I suggest they represent units, which will counterattack you in the next scenario and they have no impact on the game (just stand and doing nothing).

But did anyone tryed to destroy these forces? Would any event or text message appear, is there any reward for doing so?
Also if polish hero cavalry will be destroyed, would it still appear in Piatek scenario?

They don't do anything unless you get too close and attack them!

Destroying them gives no bonus (except XP and kills for your core) and does not effect the next scenario at all, they are there as a foreshadowing on what's coming next scenario.

I've once tackled them in Colonel level and did manage to destroy them all but I'm not sure I'd try it on harder levels

i wouldn't ^^

Yeah I wouldn't either

I learnt the hard way that it's a bad idea to poke the big concentration of troops at the top of the map.

Stay close to the river so that they don't notice you. this allows you to get at the two victory hexes on the river. I usually send two arty and two infantry this way and have managed DV up to Field Marshal level.

You can also obtain DV by attacking only along the southern side of the screen - move all the way East and then turn North

Hmm i didn't really have any trouble with this Scenario. just stay away from those units.

My mistake with this scenario - being a new player - was thinking I had to occupy the bridge hexes through the first attack waves. I burned up a lot of prestige rotating in fresh infantry. Then I figured out to pull back a hex to defensible territory. I played a second time and let the computer do all the dying on the bridges - it went a whole lot better.