Slitherine

In a 2nd time starting the GC East campaign (first one failed - have to try again ) I am trying to build up a substantial amount of experienced units by buying them in an early stage, where the amount of time is favourable and the chances are higher for gathering experience. So, when arriving at Wassigney 1940 I have 8 Inf / 5 tnks / 5 rec / 2 AT / 7 art / 3 flak / 6 fight / 2 stuka / 2 bmb. Playing advanced settings with slowly reducing german resources as years pass by.
My question: if one is continually playing with 5 (for instance) infantry, are chances for gathering a hero higher then when using 10 infantry, using them at random? In first option amount of experience gathered is spread evenly between 5 units, in second between 10.
And, following this - trying to find out what plays best: with 5 top units + 5 lesser (in exp/heroes) or playing with 10 more all equals.

Heroes are assigned randomly once you meet the criteria,
The criteria is a certain amount of kills, so you will gain heroes faster with a smaller force. That force will get more kills faster than if you spread your kills over more units.

However, having a reserved force is a good strategy to use. 1) If you loose a core unit, you have a unit in reserve with experience. 2) Even though you will gain heroes slower, you will have a wider choice of heroes to choose from to bring to full strength. The down side is time and cost in prestige to buy more units, and the cost in prestige to replace your losses over a few more units.

I also always have 13 to 15 infantry that i line up until they gzt their first hero. Good ones (+2/3 Defense/attack are kept, thé ones with lesser stats remain in the réserve)

I agree that it's better to have fewer units. Heroes are tied to kills, and, while it may not always seem that way, there's ultimately a finite amount of Ruskies to kill. So, the more units you have, the more your kills will be spread out amongst them. My impression is that you will need all the help you can get from your heroes in '44 & '45.

I'd offer a further point. I'm not sure how experience is calculated & gained, but, it definitely seems to slow as the unit's experience level increases. It's easier to get the first star than the second, the third is harder still, and so on. So, while it's fairly straightforward to "max out" your unit experience levels in '39 & '40 - it will get increasingly difficult to do so as the years go by. So, here again it may be better to have fewer units. The fewer units you have will mean the more experience they will individually get .

I know more units with some experience will allow you the flexibility to tailor the force you deploy depending on the needs of the scenario, but, you can definitely take it too far. I know I have in the past. There's a happy medium out there somewhere - but I haven't found it yet.

Experience is related in some way to relative unit cost, so your cheaper less experienced units should gain experience faster.

From experience, artillery and strategic bombers gain experience quickly (though because they suppress rather than kill they gain heroes more slowly), so if you lose a moderately experience one (say 2 or 3*) it's not really a big deal to gather experience, and reform units allows you to keep the decent heroes as well. This isn't the case with 4 or 5* units, which are notably harder to get.

For AT and AA, the experience makes a big difference to usefulness and can be hard to get, so you probably want to look after them (ie elite replacement only, pull them well back out of harm's way if badly damaged). Having the odd spare AT unit at 2* is also quite handy for when Stug 3F becomes available or when you feel the need for an Elefant or two.

In summary, for me, forward planning helps for AT and AA, doesn't matter too much for artillery and strategic bombers, but for other units it only really matters if you want to manage prestige and plan upgrade paths with more care.

The problem for me with most units, such as AT guns is they are severely outmatched by Russian armour until quite late in the campaign. Babysitting one or two of them to convert into Stugs or whatever is a godsend and will usually give you an edge for a short period of time before they become cripplingly outmatched again. I guess it's realistic that the armour-punching for the Germans is via their Stukas but they become an absolute liability by 1943...

AA guns are epic, especially once levelled up. The problem is actually levelling them. Airplanes don't become frequent enough to bother with them in regular numbers until you get to Russia in my limited experience. Usually you can have a tiny airforce throughout the Western campaign - relying on unique heroes to provide them air force is enough to achieve air superiority without any serious losses. Once in Russia though, you're only limited by the annoying unit-cap - it is worth fitting in one mobile AA for each battle group, especially for tank groups because by lord, do they deter the Russians from nuking your precious tanks to bits! They're not only cheaper to replace when things go wrong, but they free up your bombers and mobile artillery planes, letting you use your fighters to escort them - something you're going to need to do in Russia, especially when the horde of air units arrive and you're simply outnumbered - plus your fighters get chewed up limiting their air power for defensive work.

The other thing is, Infantry and Tanks - For me, Infantry were needed, in huge numbers, to sweep through the city maps, but this is liable to get you steamrolled later when the maps revert back to open plains. Trying to get the balance right is difficult, I ran with 1-2 Paras in the early days, a few pionere's and a few grens mixed in with regular speedy infantry. To get DV's, I found we needed to clear cities and forts in double-time, and that meant massing artillery all the time wasn't always convenient, especially if a counter-attack is smashing my fragile tank line. Pionere's at least don't have to deal with the annoying rugged defence mechanic, and grenaiders can hold down a chokepoint all by themselves. Regular infantry can run around in the forests and such! Still, they are in the thick of the fighting and they take a lot of damage - I think tanks and infantry is going to be the main resource hog. I usually regular heal if they're 7+ but elite heal at lower than 7 as the exp loss is too big.

Basically... Good luck. >_>