Otto Kittel and Walter Nowatny

[goose_2]

Ok love to get forums thoughts on these extremely interesting, yet fragile units.

If you are having trouble recalling who these are they are 2 of the Fighter Heroes the game gives you to play with that have great Attack and Initiative bonus heroes, but each also has a -2 Defensive penalty.

So I have been using them a good deal of the time in my Manstein playthrough, but as of yet have never received a 2nd Hero...

I do not bring them if the enemy has a lot of mobil aa units as they can make mince meat out of them and already have had too many close calls with them...

Well now that I have enemy Fighters attacking my full strength +2 Defensive Fighter despite being at 9 or even 10 Strength, I am beginning to rethink using them at all.

I am especially considering never using them in my newest difficulty campaign found here:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 21&t=85224
which aar can be found here:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 45&t=85414

They would get very costly to constantly replace and I do not think I can afford them based on their liability, but maybe I am thinking about this wrong.

To be honest it has been a little disheartening about my inability to get 2nd heroes on Fighter's, so far I have I think 3 Fighters with 2 heroes.
Heinrich Bar (I don't remember his right off hand)
+3 Att Fighter (+1 Def)
and +2 Def Fighter (+2 Att)

I was hoping to get 2nd heroes on Otto Kittel and Walter Nowatny to help mitigate their Defensive weakness, but as of now no luck.

What about you guys? What do you do with these interesting units, and do you find it difficult to get 2nd heroes, let alone 3rd heroes on Fighters?

Would you sell Otto Kittel and Walter Nowatny to buy a generic Fighter to build better hero or use what you get?

I am awaiting the ability to upgrade to Me-262 but based on their fragility I think I will focus on Heinrich Bar, and my 2 other double heroes as well as my +3 Def that is still in a Bf-109G...

Thoughts would be appreciated.

[hugh2711]

yes I have the same problem, I am in gc45east and still waiting to get my first extra hero on them, very annoying. Given I like to finish off completely the enemy airforce very quickly and not let them escape and repair I find that because of the extra attack/intiative they are quite good at taking very big chunks out of anything but the latest planes. They are also very good for traps, again the extra attack/initiative means they do alot of damage. They do tend to be however the last ones to be deployed.

[huckc]

I don't remember if it's the case but if they come with 2 or 3-stars of experience then they're better than a generic rookie fighter for most of the grand campaign and will probably save prestige in the end. 2-stars of experience cancels out the -2 defense, leaving them with MUCH higher attack and initiative compared to a rookie which are a pain to level up. Of course fast forward to 44 East when they're both 4-star Me-262s then the generic fighter will be better, but that's only two years and you won't be upgrading any of them to extremely high cost Gothas at -75% prestige. I say 4-stars because elite reinforcements up to 5 is not worth it with that prestige handicap.

If they don't come with at least 2-stars of experience then in the bin they go!

[TSPC37730]

I think that part of your problem is that you like to rotate out your units - including your fighter units I'd assume. This makes getting a second hero difficult, and I believe it's a downside to your strategy. Yes, you will have a solid bench of core units, but, they will be less developed.

In my most recent play through of GC East, I bought exactly zero fighter units throughout the campaign, instead relying upon AA and those extra fighters that would occasionally appear. I would guess that you would consider this ridiculously extreme. Still, even with this minimalist strategy, getting that second hero was a challenge, and in some cases the challenge was not met. The original 1939 7th Bf 109E, Bar & either one of Kittel or Nowatny had a second hero late in the campaign. The rest were stuck with their original single hero. Note that I almost always used 2-3 fighter units per scenario, and usually selected the least experienced ones during deployment in hopes that they would catch up to the experience level of the others in my core.

I guess that my suggestions for Kittel and Nowatny would be to use them purely as escorts or as part of fighter traps, so the reduced defense values aren't an issue. Using them as bomber killers is another idea. I'd also try to upgrade them to FW190's when they were available for the slightly better defense value. If none of that appeals to you then I guess I'd just go ahead and disband them. Good luck!

[dalfrede]

There is an old post on this site where a player had his air force wiped out in 43 or 44.
He bought AA and soldered on.
Which tracks TSPC37730.
For Double Rommel AA may be the way to go.

[goose_2]

There is an old post on this site where a player had his air force wiped out in 43 or 44.
He bought AA and soldered on.
Which tracks TSPC37730.
For Double Rommel AA may be the way to go.

Any idea title of that post?

[Kerensky]

When stat-ing these special pilots, we used a particular piece of historical fact to dictate their abilities:

These men were KIA, they did not survive the war.

Your struggle to keep them alive seems eerily appropriate, a reflection their historical struggles. Definitely above average, highly skilled aces, but plagued by their historical fates.

[rubyjuno]

When stat-ing these special pilots, we used a particular piece of historical fact to dictate their abilities:

These men were KIA, they did not survive the war.

Your struggle to keep them alive seems eerily appropriate, a reflection their historical struggles. Definitely above average, highly skilled aces, but plagued by their historical fates.

Thanks for that, Kerensky, interesting information that I wasn't aware of

[TSPC37730]

There is an old post on this site where a player had his air force wiped out in 43 or 44.
He bought AA and soldered on.
Which tracks TSPC37730.
For Double Rommel AA may be the way to go.

It was on the generic FM. I would also note that I am generally quite cautious with my airforce in terms of play style.

[captainjack]

AA starts to get more useful and more cost effective late 43 maybe 44. If you are short of prestige, AA can be better value for money than overstrength fighters which often need elite reinforcement to remain effective.

I reckon that if you start using more than about one heavy towed (to weaken fighters before attacking them or for removing bomber overstrength),and one or maybe two mobile AA for defending attack groups you are probably getting close to the point where it's worth thinking about relying more heavily on AA for defence and having a minimal air force that is mainly for attack (Rudel and a strat bomber plus escorts usually works OK for me).

[edahl1980]

I always used Kittel and Nowotny for home defence. I never send them into enemy territory cause they wont live long when i do.
But from 43 there is plenty of enemy planes attacking and lots of ground forces need air protection.
And ya, both of them fly FW's. But i dont have a single BF after 43...