Slitherine

I am kind of a number fetishist. So I wrote down the starting situation in Oboyan, the prestige at the end, the starting prestige in the successor scenario Kursk Armoury South and the final prestige after all the units were exactly the strength they started Oboyan with. Ans it´s much less bad as my predicition - I counted on minus 2.500 for the 4 (with DVs) or 3 (with MVs) Kursk scenarios. Each.

DLC 43, Oboyan, difficulty General, one cheat for the first turn only - Fog of War turned off.

Start prestige Oboyan after upgradess and overstrength - 49272
End prestige Oboyan last turn - 49512 (already had to repair some units in the scenario, mostly air and anti air)
Start prestige Kursk Armoury South - 52290
plus 2 units disbanded captured in Oboyan (SU 122 and Sherman) - 52998

Repair (only elite) and overstrength unit by unit:
43 Grenad. with trucks 11 to 12 - 52964
43 GebJgw/o transp. 11 to 13 - 52912
Same 12 to 13 - 52882
43 Pioniere with trucks 4 to 12 - 52728
Same 10 to 12 - 52686
Same 11 to 12 - 52644
Pz III M 11 to 13 - 52497
Pz IV H 10 to 13 - 52280
Same 10 to 13 - 52063
Same 10 to 12 - 51943
Panther D 11 to 12 - 51846
Tiger I 11 to 12 - 51741
KV 1B 10 to 12 - 51621
KV 1C 9 to 12 - 51471
SE Panther D 11 to 12 - 51374
SE Tiger I (5 pieces)
10 to 12 - 51193
11 to 13 - 50954
9 to 13 - 50569
9 to 12 - 50359
9 to 12 - 50114
Marder III H 12 to 13 - 50058
StuG III G 10 to 12 - 49971
Elefant 10 to 12 - 49821
K17 Arty w halftrack 10 to 13 - 49650
StuG III B 11 to 14 - 49518
Hummel 11 to 12 - 49468
SdKfz 7/1 11 to 13 - 49397
All Me 109
F 10 to 13 - 49195
F 11 to 13 - 49038
G 10 to 12 - 48920
Fw 190 A 7 to 11 - 48775
Same 10 to 11 - 48717
Ju 87 G 11 to 13 - 48591
Me 410 7 to 12 - 48396
Do 217 10 to 12 - 48278

Net loss w/o upgrades was more or less exactly 1.000 prestige. And I still clearly made enough obvious mistakes to avoid these 1.000 easily.

Regards,
Thorsten

Hi Thorsten,

Interesting analysis! By co-incidence I am just in middle of Oboyan. I am not much more than breaking even in recent scenarios I don't think, but I will have to do an accurate check in the near future.

I notice you are using pioniere a lot, most people on the board are reluctant to use them due to cost. One if of your favourites then?

Normally I only use a couple. But in Orel you get 2 GebJg 43 with interesting heroes. As GebJg are my standard infantry anyway I converted both - one to Grenadiere, the other one to Pioniere especially for the Kursk scenarios (lots of minefields e.g. in Yakovlevo, a one shot story for Pioniere only).

Most arguments against Pioniere on the boards are flawed anyway. Standard argument is cost efficiency and goes like "I never attack infantry in cities unless fully suppressed and therefore don't need Pioniere", which I don't buy. Even if true its a turn longer at that city, often enough emptying the city hex opens much more favourable advance paths for other units and more often than not you must attack entrenched infantry or AT not fully suppressed. 2 Pioniere pay for themselves, I bought my couple early in Poland already.

Regards,
Thorsten

From a pure prestige point of view you're better off with an MV then DV in this scenario. It's actually one of the few scenarios where I usually settle for an MV.
And speaking of Pioniere, these are one of my fav. units especially since you don't need to worry about rugged defence.

I specifically went for the DV to encounter the next one. Ironically I was unable to acheive a DV in Kursk Armoury South in my first and only playthrough, but as I captured both KV 85 this is fine with me. The only scenario I know except the last French one where I found the scenario turn limit to be tight.

Regards,
Thorsten