Slitherine

Things to be aware of:
This scenario significantly increases player CORE size and enemy amount as well. Watch our for enemy tanks, and use your reinforcements to their utmost.

General level. Starting Prestige 2126, ending 982. I was down to virtually none at one point in the battle. I had to re-strength my SE PzIVs a couple of times in this scenario. I almost lost one. Surprising, the power of the enemy tanks. I'd like a Tiger, but they are not available and I doubt if I'll have enough prestige.

This was a struggle at first. I made it a priority to take the air field in the north, to hold the one in the south and to sink the carrier. I was able to do all three and the British fighters just stopped after that. No Kamikaze action for them. My Ju-88 was key in this scenario, besides sinking the carrier, I targeted and sank the enemy artillery. Once the reinforcements arrived, it was simply a matter of containing the enemy and routing him out with artillery and infantry. I'm not saying it was easy, but this was a straight forward mission.

So far, these are really engaging scenarios.

General
763 prestige
Not enough to fill all my units.
Had to leave 5 in reserve.
Since I didn't have any artillery had to buy a Sturmpanzer.

Complete and utter defeat.
Resigned at turn 9

Can't do anything without prestige.

This scenario needs one mobile artillery piece.
Make it a Sdkfz 10-4 auxiliary unit.

Dieppe – beta 1

Level: Field Marshal
Prestige - Begin: 2,775. End; 3,400. Net: +625.
Result: DV (all ground units cleared/hexes taken at 16 of 18)
Replacements: Minor replacements during scenario for a few tanks, one or two artillery pieces, Wehr units. Four or five units finished 3 to 6 strength to be reinforced at next deployment. There was expensive damage to air and artillery; I'll spend a fair amount next deployment reinforcing.

Core changes:

• · Disbanded Panhard and Ba64, kept Pz.II/L (I hate wheeled recon)
  · Disbanded Kradschutzen.
  · Purchased Bf110G to assist fighters with anticipated RAF presence and for tactical bombing use.
  · Purchased Ju88 for anti-naval work.
  · Purchased additional 21cm M18 (3 total now) to support infantry in urban terrain.
  · Upgraded IV/F2’s (x 3) to G models.
  · Upgraded III/J1 (x 1) to III/N for urban use.
  · Upgraded Bf109’s to G models.

Problems (?):

• · The naval assets stayed stationary – whenever I put the Stuka or Ju88 over them they did not maneuver away, making them much easier to eliminate.

General impressions/comments:

• · Fairly tough scenario that requires some fast strategic adjustment when you realize the size and content of their landing force.
  · This scenario is why I always bring a lot of artillery to any fight! (I had five pieces, four of them very experienced with heroes - it was just enough).
  · The reinforcements were just right – the FW190s and heavy KVs were solid support. A good artillery piece might be helpful for players who do not bring enough artillery. I had five and I still wanted one or two more at least.
  · I brought two Bf109s and a Bf110G, a Stuka and the Ju88. I thought I’d have an OK time, but even with the supplemental 2 x 190s, it was a constant and tough fight. The deployment slots for this scenario are pretty tight! One or two more might make it better for most players.
  · Length/turns felt about right.

I shifted strategy after the opening turn and used all my air and the reinforcements to eliminate their armor on the west side, giving myself a safe haven and secure “rear” west of the river L’Arques. I hit many of them with air in their craft, and finished them off quickly on-shore. I let them have Dieppe east of that unfordable river. As they then turned west, I was able to safely and cheaply grind them down as they tried to cross into the face of infantry backed by artillery. I pulled the Wehr reserve units back so they did not contact enemy infantry until supported with artillery. I managed to only lose one of them and get good use out of them throughout the scenario.

This was a tough scenario that took some time and thought. I received 2 x Churchill captures and a Crusader, I think one for one of the Dieppe coastal hexes, another for the far NE village/airstip (Belleville-sur-Mer), and one for sinking the aircraft carrier.

Dieppe. Col diff.
Did few upgrades. 3 PzIVF2 to G, 1 PzIIIJ to L. 2 Bf109e to g. Bought an AA unit, pioneer and a Bf109g. Sold all stuff received in previous scenario.

This is my favorite mission sofar. My infantry and artillery moved to the centre, and the tanks (split in two groups) went to both flanks. As the river cuts the board in half, the west side was secured by turn 7, the east side by turn 9. Then i picked off the remaining ships. There are a lot of reinforcements (too many), and i was very much surprised when two churchill tanks joined in. The second wave of enemy planes was too late to have an impact of any kind at all. The first wave also comes too late as i sank several transportships with a lvl and stuka bomber unpunished. The invasion force on the left is too light, they never had a chance. Except for the first five turns, this scenario is a one way street. Once the enemy is contained in Dieppe, the DV is within ones grasp. This scenario is an excellent opportunity to let fresh troops gain some experience.
4 allied infantry units were still playing cards in the upper left corner after the final turn.

Losses: couple of wehr reserves.
DV 18/18, 494PP

Played on Col. level...very enjoyable. I notoiced while checking the map after my DV, there were 4 Brit Infantry units in teh upper right corner in the water...not is transports but just sitting there.

I did notice that most of the Naval units did not move but I know some did...the carrier sure did but I was albe to destroy it anyway.

I liked this one, kind of reminds me of Stalingrad with all those city hexes. I really needed more artillery, only ones I had were 2 Stug III's one of which I managed to upgrade to a STUH 42, then ran out of prestige. Only bomber I had was the M110. I started bombing the ships as they approached the beaches, guess what they can shoot back Took about 1 hit per turn for 4 turns then the RAF shows up gangs up on my poor 110 and now I have no bombers

The ATG's in the reinforcements prove to be as useless as ever. The first one from the East died in the city the second one from the West barely survived the game. I would prefer to see at least one artillery as part of the reinforcements, it would be much more useful than an ATG is. Best move I made was to attack the Brit airfield and take it after 3 turns, that put an end to the RAF once they ran out of ammo. Unfortunately also lost a reinforcing FW to the RAF, and the captured Crusader ended up falling to a Churchill even though I had the KV working with it in an adjacent hex. Raf bombed it the Churchill finished it off As a Canadian got to say our boys were pretty tough in this one, kind of wish I had some pioneers for the city fight. Endless waves of RAF and Canadians seems like it will never end, burned a lot of prestige trying to bring back units that had gotten knocked down to 2 or 3 steps, actually ran out of prestige at one point. I killed the last allied unit with 4 turns to spare and took back all the victory hexes, but the game kept going till end of game turn. Managed to get some prestige back but lost a few units in this one.
Couple of odd things, the carrier moved up to the beach early on and stayed there for most of the game, preventing troops from moving into that hex and landing there. I do find it odd that so much armour is present as historically they never made it off the beach, but still a great scenario.

One thing I have noticed in both my other DLC games and this beta game is that sometimes when I hit save game it does not open the save game window. I am not even sure the game is being saved or not, but think it is as I have been trying to save every game from view battlefield before I move on in case I do really badly, which seems to be happening so far.

My thoughts on this scenario....This was a fun scenario, but by about turn 13 I had destroyed everything I could destroy, including the enemy ships (I am playing FM level). I had to keep hitting "end turn" until turn 18 was finally over. The game should end when all British ground units are eliminated. I checked the battlefield after turn 18, and way up in the left corner of the map--IN THE WATER--were five British "tommy" or grenadier units sitting there--no transports, no nothing. Were these intended to be part of a second wave that never landed? Prestige is super-tight for most of the scenario until the victory hexes start getting re-captured, which is manageable for the most part. I also am careful not to let any of the new core units that show up for the Germans in this scenario get destroyed if at all possible. I trade most of them in for prestige at the start of the next scenario.

P.S. I picked up a Panzer Luchs recon vehicle as a piece of "bonus" core equipment/reinforcements that appeared during the scenario where you have to run all over the place repulsing commando attacks on the huge map. I thought the Panzer Luchs was not available until later in the war. Did the devs intend this to be, or should the Panzer Luchs be a Panzer IIF? Might be a bug there.

I wonder about these boats in the sea, is there anything especially with these hex?I remeber a beta of AK where these images were used for the Suez-Canal (strait) but in Dieppe is no strait (at least at these points).

A fine and enjoyable scenario but a lot of new core units to gain: altogether nine (!) units:
2 Churchill IV,
1 Crusader I,
1 KV-1B,
1 KV-1C,
1 Marder IIIH
2 7,5cm-PaK 40
2 Fw 190A
A lot of english and soviet stuff which I disband to receive additional prestige. Maybe some of these units should be erased in the final version, it is really a lot of extra prestige. I have 31 core units to deploy and only 15 available slots in Bordeaux.

Zhivago wrote:I checked the battlefield after turn 18, and way up in the left corner of the map--IN THE WATER--were five British "tommy" or grenadier units sitting there--no transports, no nothing.

Like Zhivago I had to wait until turn 18 to finish the scenario but in my case there were only four british HW-Inf. in the water.

Quick update to this point. I imported my core units, and I always play on Colonel level. Chosing the 8 units was difficult, but as you progress, the additions to your core are great. I will tell you that I feel like I am swimming in prestige. When you cash in all of your old core, and then cash in captured equipment, by the time you get to Dieppe you have 20k prestige and a fully deployable core force. It is not as experienced, but it is powerful because there is no lack of resources. I am not sure this is what was meant, but I am enjoying it.

In Dieppe I smashed the Brits by turn 10 and sank the navy by turn 16. The RN takes no action when under fire, which makes it a turkey shoot. I think the AI needs work.

1st try (general level + no imported core + started at about 500 prestige)

-4 or 5 units dead by about turn 5...no infantry left to go into the city hexes...what air there was ended up slaughtered by the droves of RAF...there will be no prestige to replace losses (not in this scenario...I have yet to see my core show - at all)(or in the next scenario)...

I can see if I started with some beefed up imported core units and 2000 prestige to spend, these scenarios would be much different. Just using what comes with the 1st scenario and moving on from there, the scenarios seem unusually difficult, horribly short of prestige and even starting units.

General
original core
start 1255 prestige
DV 18/18
end 251 prestige

Bought pioneer unit.
Left two units in reserve but could never place them.

I knew this was a tough map, but even with the pioneer which got killed in the first battle it was strange to fight using mostly tanks in a city.

I lost 3 infantry, including, sadly, both of my conscripts this scenario. I must be slipping in my urban warfare skills. However, the huge number of reinforcing core units, including many captured Allied units, made this scenario extremely easy. Cleared the map of Allied land units by turn 14, but had to press end turn a bunch of times to get DV on 18/18. Is this intentional?

After I finished, I noticed 5 HW infantry in the western part of the map on the sea that never moved.

The radar is very helpful for crushing Allied fighters. That VH seems to be magnetic for Allied planes, and in conjunction with the new Fw 190A and my Bf 109 I slaughtered the Allied air force with minimal losses. Too easy. I’d give the Allies significantly higher quality planes and more of them, but add perhaps 2-3 AUX AA units in the city of Dieppe.

Otherwise, just have a bunch of infantry and artillery, and the Allied attacks are easy to contain.

I’m very concerned about the massive core inflation from all these extra core reinforcing core units. I really think many of them should be changed to AUX. Allow the reinforcements that you intend the player to keep to have a hero and some extra experience. Otherwise, these reinforcements are just auto-disband for the player.

The AI code that forces its unit that captured a VH to attack has been patched. Nice!

deducter wrote:I lost 3 infantry, including, sadly, both of my conscripts this scenario. I must be slipping in my urban warfare skills. However, the huge number of reinforcing core units, including many captured Allied units, made this scenario extremely easy. Cleared the map of Allied land units by turn 14, but had to press end turn a bunch of times to get DV on 18/18. Is this intentional?

same here...captured all objectives on turn 14 but DV did not showed up until 18/18...
how about adding a trigger to end scenario with DV on capturing all objectives

Dieppe
DV turn 18/18

My first DV thus far this campaign, and a truly epic scenario. This was the only one of the raids that I was familiar with. I agree that the deployment slots are tight, which has been a trend for this entire campaign. I think in general for these scenarios, a few more slots would help balance the difficulty. The British onslaught was relentless but I managed to stem their advance and then regain lost ground.

Oh! I want to add, I really love the historical information at the end of the scenarios. I saw these show up a bit in 1945 but I hope they something you continue to use more often.

Lieutenant, DV 18/18, stock campaign core, prestige start/end: 2463/2609 (Although it dropped quite a bit lower until I could retake flags, which can be abused to get some extra prestige.)

Some of the extra reinforcements were vital additions for my stock core, like the Fw190's and the heavy tanks, although some were not that useful but still welcome. I had hoped for some AAA, because the Allied bombers seemed hypnotized by my artillery, esp. the SiG33. The first half I had my hands full with the Allied airforce, and I was close to losing a fighter several times. I had only two artillery units, and no strat bomber, so the warships were almost untouchable. I did try to block coastal hexes and sacrificied two AUX infantry units to scuttle ships, and was also able to force some surrenders, mainly on my right flank. These tactics made a big difference, especially since one of the scuttled ships contained artillery. The left flank was cat and mouse for a while, in which even the 75mm PaK was very useful to help stop the Valentines. A Churchill that went after the radar unit was very hard to stop, and the radar was destroyed as well. Luckily the conscripts are cheap to reinforce, otherwise the big city fight would have been very expensive.

And yes, I too had four British HW Infantry sitting in the top left of the map after the battle was over, had to keep ending turns until nr. 18.

Beta 2. FM Level. Starting prestige 2134, ending 2547.

DV on 17/17. My strategy was the same as in Beta 1. Take the airfield in the north, hold the other 2 and sink that carrier. Once that is done, the allied air turns passive. The AI still managed to damage several units with his air power before he went passive. Standard urban combat after that. Have to back up your infantry and any tanks in urban hexes with artillery. Even the tough British HW units don't attack into that.
I suggest that there be a fighter protecting the carrier. Without protection it's easy to kill.

Dieppe
beta 2
General level
ending prestige 1563
marginal victory
Non-imported core

This scenario was actually tougher than I remember. I am sure the non-imported core played a significant role in that however. I was able to to take all the victory hexes except the ones furthest north on the coast. The British air assets were tough, killing a green ME-109 though they are eventually defanged if you hold all of the airfields, as Bill said.

Beta 2, stock core.

Colonel, DV on turn 12/17 (and, yes, the scenario now ended properly when I had conquered all victory hexes)

Prestige start/end: 201/986 (so I had 1186 for Gironde)

One little error on the map: at (23,18) the river branches do not connect properly, I believe Chris10 already posted a screenshot about in in beta1, can't find it right now.

I had finished Hardelot with 982 prestige, which covered the necessary reinforcements, and I bought an SdKfz7/2, the 37mm Flak on a halftrack. And boy, was I glad I did, it had 18 kills (179 exp.) in the end! Off those kills, 14 were planes, and I am convinced it kept my SiG33 alive, which always seems an air attack magnet. And I had received a SE Grenadier, which I used to clear out Belleville-sur-Mer (29,3) to build experience for it.

My planes had it more difficult than last time, but all survived (barely). Thanks to my upgraded Nebelwerfer the city-fight, which seemed to have more Brits participating this time, was very doable on the west side of the L'Arques River, but the east side gave me more trouble, probably because I didn't scuttle any ships in the harbors like last time. I didn't miss the extra Churchill, leaving it out is fine, one is enough.


A couple of oddities: a 2-strength Blenheim without ammo, wandering the map parking itself over units (it wanted to attack?) until my 1-strength Fw190 put it out of its misery.

The other thing, the Allied carrier sailed right up against the coast, making it a nice target and blocking Allied landing ships. I didn't destroy it because I didn't have strat bombers and didn't want to sacrifice my Bf110, but it's an easy target an will cause the AI airplanes to go idle if lost and the player has conquered the only other allied airfield.