Slitherine

My Oleh Dir received a +3 attack hero. The most people seem to play him as a Gebirgsjager but with that +3 attack hero should I consider a switch to a different infantry type?
Thanks for any opinions.

I have found him best left as is and certainly with an attack +3 I would definately leave him. A total of 6 move is fabulous and there are a few scenarios where only his ridiculous movement is irreplaceable. with the high additional initiative he can hold his own or even dominate any other soft target. with that +3 attack he is basically superman (like rudel but for ground soft targets) and will accumulate a fantastic amount of experience very quickly. with experience as well he is one shot soft target killer. And MOST of all he is very very cheap you can jack him up to 14 strength for peanuts because he doesnt have a transport unit and gerber....'s are the cheapest so when he loses a few points in tight situations he can get out quickly and be brought back up to superman cheaply.

hugh2711 wrote:I have found him best left as is and certainly with an attack +3 I would definately leave him. A total of 6 move is fabulous and there are a few scenarios where only his ridiculous movement is irreplaceable. with the high additional initiative he can hold his own or even dominate any other soft target. with that +3 attack he is basically superman (like rudel but for ground soft targets) and will accumulate a fantastic amount of experience very quickly. with experience as well he is one shot soft target killer. And MOST of all he is very very cheap you can jack him up to 14 strength for peanuts because he doesnt have a transport unit and gerber....'s are the cheapest so when he loses a few points in tight situations he can get out quickly and be brought back up to superman cheaply.

Agreed
I agree with everything Hugh has said.
I used Oleh as a Gebirsjaeger in my Field Marshall playthrough all the way through. He was invaluable as if he is in a city the enemy will leave him alone even when surrounded, I will probably not try this on Manstein playthrough, leaving him isolated and their to annoy their advance. But at any other level as long as he is in close terrain he is untouchable unless attacked with artillery.
Oleh was great at decimating tanks caught in the city of Berlin, even as a Gebirsjaeger, so you should be fine.

I changed him to a Grenadier in my west playthrough and I kind of wish I didn't.

yes i have to admit every time I tried changing him to something else he wasnt as hot but i dont know if that was because i had tweaked my play style with him as is.

Having played GC East, I've found the magic number of ammo count for infantry as at least six or better due to the nature of all the major defensive scenarios (Berlin especially). Thus if I had to do it over again I'd make all my infantry, including Oleh, standard infantry with a few mountain men perhaps for fun.

GC West I'd go with pioneer or heavy as ammo isn't as a important for the more offensive scenarios.

I'd be tempted to convert him to a Pioneer as these normally have low speed and (most noticeably) low initiative and Oleh Dir makes up for both these weaknesses. As a pioneer with +3 attack, you will be unaffected by entrenchment and rugged defence, so you will usually hit first and will always hit very hard. However, HW can also be a good choice.

stormbringer3 wrote:My Oleh Dir received a +3 attack hero. The most people seem to play him as a Gebirgsjager but with that +3 attack hero should I consider a switch to a different infantry type?
Thanks for any opinions.

This is a killer combo. My first thoughts on this are that you can leverage the unit's heroes to great effect. You could upgrade him to a Pioneer unit during the Stalingrad scenarios. Once you get to '43 I'd consider switching to a regular infantry unit. The HA values for a regular '43 infantry unit are better than for a '43 Gebirgsjager. This can be of great benefit if you attack heavy enemy armor units in close defense situations.

Well done & good luck. You seem to be enjoying the game!

I find the scenario designers went over the top with these special heroes, such as Oleh Dir or Albert Kerscher. I'm using the scenario editor to edit their stats before reaching the scenarios during campaign, so as in 1939 the cumulative bonus points of heroes is not greater than 3, in 1940 no greater than 4 and so on.

In the past I have always converted him to heavy infantry and he becomes a rather nasty fellow on the battlefield. I am tempted by captainjack's pioneer idea and perhaps I'll try it one day but a heavy with his bonuses works great for me.

captainjack wrote:I'd be tempted to convert him to a Pioneer as these normally have low speed and (most noticeably) low initiative and Oleh Dir makes up for both these weaknesses. As a pioneer with +3 attack, you will be unaffected by entrenchment and rugged defence, so you will usually hit first and will always hit very hard. However, HW can also be a good choice.

This is excellent advice. Negating disadvantages is an ideal use of a hero and Oleh does this best for pioneer by providing both speed and initiative. HW already have initiative, and all the others already have speed, so none of them need Oleh as desperately as pioneers do.

I recently got a +2 attack hero for Oleh Dir in 1939 and immediately converted him to a pioneer (I sometimes do take my own advice). He's currently doing a great job of getting everywhere and creating a big mess wherever he goes (early 1941). As he doesn't need transport in-game elite reinforcements are relatively cheap if anything bad does happen.

In a previous playthrough, I upgraded Dir to a pioneer for the reasons discussed above. The combination of initiative, speed, and hitting power is pretty awesome. The one thing to be mindful of is the lower ammo of the pioneer. For a unit with Dir, one is tempted to send it ahead on offensive manoeuvres. If unsupported, the unit could find itself isolated, low on ammo and open to counterattacks (the AI is not that dumb). That happened to my Oleh Dir pioneer in Sevastapol Assault and he was destroyed! The lesson I drew from that is to focus on the overall deployment of my corps and be less reliant on powerful heroes, fun they may be to play with.

ycloon wrote:The lesson I drew from that is to focus on the overall deployment of my corps and be less reliant on powerful heroes, fun they may be to play with.

This is a very good point. It took me a long time to work it out and made a big difference when I finally started putting it into practice.

captainjack wrote:

ycloon wrote:The lesson I drew from that is to focus on the overall deployment of my corps and be less reliant on powerful heroes, fun they may be to play with.

This is a very good point. It took me a long time to work it out and made a big difference when I finally started putting it into practice.

This is why I hero farm early on