'Tanks, more tanks, Tovarish!' - Red Star Review and Discuss

[Andy2012]

Hi all,

Red Star will launch today and I hope you guys are ready to rumble....through Europe with tanks. A lot of tanks. Not necessarily good ones, or well-maintained ones, but a lot of them. Crews expendable.

The game will be available later today. If you cant wait, here is a good video introduction to Soviet tanks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkDiYuWlgV8
You might even learn a thing or two.

I will be doing a review of this DLC here and discuss my core development as well as strategy. I played all missions in beta, so this should progress quickly, I hope. Feel free to post your views as well.

[robertahyuk]

I was on the beta test team for Red star and it looks to be a pretty good game overall. I'm currently beta testing two other games, so I put as much time into it as possible.
I think it will do well on the market but I will be honest, the subject matter isn't really my thing. Sorry, I love Naval warfare and Air/Sea battles.
I may buy it in time though as I sure would like the graphics fixed.

[PoorOldSpike]

I may buy it in time though as I sure would like the graphics fixed.

if you mean the messed-up tank and vehicle graphics, yup they've been fixed I played the first battle of the Red Star campaign yesterday and the tanks and vehs are good enough to be in a car showroom..
PS- I installed the 8.1.0 update first, and then installed Red Star.
The experts will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you needn't bother with installing the update first, as it's contained in RS, so simply installing RS should update you to 8.1.0.

[bru888]

I crushed them on middle difficulty in Lake Khasan:

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Lake Khasan.zip

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but it wasn't as easy as it seemed at first because of the bottlenecks, the mines (heh, in the absence of engineers, I discovered a good use for Soviet conscripts!), and the Japanese retreating and reinforcing injured units. If I did not play well, I could have run out of time and lost. That means a well-balanced and well-designed scenario.

[Andy2012]

Alright, Kalkin Ghol Heights are back in Soviet hands and the Red Army has proven that throwing tanks and massed infantry at an enemy can never go wrong. Never. Mark my words.
Instead of posting a victory screen, I will post my deployments in both pincers. Notice that I opted for the very useful flametank twice, which is great for assaulting infantry positions not covered by AT.
As soon as you have those pesky hidden AT positions cleared, fry them.
Basically, this mission kind of wins itself if you obey the OoB rules:
1. Check for hidden AT in forests. Assume there is always one there.
2. Generally, recon by air if possible.
3. Rotate your own shellshocked units into the rear. If their numbers are yellow, let them mellow.
4. Flank enemy position, prepare with arty. Alternatively, use heavy bombers.
5. Lead attacks with flame units.
6. Chase retreating enemy units with fast tanks. Here, tanks are not a heavy breakthrough weapon, rather a flanking and exploitation unit.
7. For now, avoid elite replacements to save money.

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[bebro]

"1. Check for hidden AT in forests. Assume there is always one there."

Indeed

[kondi754]

"1. Check for hidden AT in forests. Assume there is always one there."

Indeed

+1

[bru888]

Khalkin Gol River - Japanese Attack

Another tough one - I had to play hard on medium difficulty, and I admit restarting the scenario after my initial plan ended in disaster (a pincer movement to envelope both flanks, thinking that the orange folks would hold the middle, but no ).

I went back at it, this time biding my time but giving the orange people air support. Who are they supposed to represent, Mongolians? Well whoever they are, they blunted the Japanese attack to a point where I could pounce. I struck the enemy in their southern flank, driving north, and I sent units over the river to pick off weak Japanese units.

Result:

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Khalkin Gol River - Japanese Attack.zip

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Very enjoyable so far. Again, it's not cakewalk and I had to play hard to win, just as I like it.

[fuzzayd]

Yes, I agree. The second Khalkin Gol mission was a lot of fun. After replaying Blitzkrieg to prepare myself for this DLC, it was VERY satisfying to deploy my own Soviet artillery and wallop the entrenched Japanese troops. I cannot adequately describe how satisfying it feels simply to not be on the receiving end of those things.

[ln1214]

Just finished the first mission. So glad that for the first time ever in OOB I can enjoy some numerical superiority!

The conscripts get wiped out pretty easily, though. LOL

[PoorOldSpike]

Since buying Red Star a couple of days ago I've played and -ahem won- 3 vanilla scenarios back to back- Lake Khasan / Summa 39 / Rostov.
SPOILER ALERT-
Lake Khasan was easy, I concentrated most of my resources in the Northern pincer only, rather than fight a two-pincer war.
Furthermore I usually concentrated on throwing everything at just one enemy unit per turn to reduce it to a pulp.

Summa 39 was also easy, the Finns knocked themselves out against my defences in front of the objectives. I spent heavily on BT-7's.

Rostov was harder but I spent to the hilt on Yak fighter planes and T-34's (yes I'm a tank nut, tanks were invented to make war more fun) and I easily held the German offensive then counterattacked, I got a victory despite only capturing 2 of the 4 secondary towns.


http://www.mission4today.com/index.php? ... orum&f=134

[MarechalJoffre]

Absolutely loving it, we need more WW2 wargames from the Soviet point of view. OOB:WW2 trilogy should suffice for now!

[PoorOldSpike]

Absolutely loving it, we need more WW2 wargames from the Soviet point of view. OOB:WW2 trilogy should suffice for now!

Yes, Russian armour was seriously heavy metal, Jerry better not mess with those babies..

Russian assault guns in Berlin May 45

[PoorOldSpike]

AARGH after winning my first 4 Red Star standalone scens back to back I've just lost the 5th at the hands of the Finns in Viipuri (sniffle)..
That single Finnish infantry unit (strength 1) in Viipuri town centre held out against everything I could throw at him, all I needed was one more turn to finish him off and win the game!
I bought BT-7A's which were dual tank/artillery versions and their low-velocity HE-chucking guns had a better clobber rating against infantry than standard BT-7's.
With hindsight I should have bought a few more infantry instead of a couple of tanks because I needed infantry for street fighting in Viipuri.
For the record, my Red Storm (vanilla at med difficulty) stats are-
Lake Khasan- Vict
Summa 39- Vict
Rostov- Vict
Khalkin Gol jap attack- Vict
Viipuri- Defeat

PS- In all 5 battles I never experienced any bugs, glitches, quirks or fetishes of any kind, so full marks to the devs bless their little hearts..






Below: Finnish soldier
Him and his chums gave me the clear message- "On yer bike mate"

[PoorOldSpike]

I've just LOST my second vanilla Red Star standalone scen in a row, namely Smolensk, jerry wiped out ALL - repeat- ALL my units and took Smolensk on turn 16 of 18, what's the matter with me? (sniffle)
I was laughing my head off for the first half of the game because I'd bought a fleet of 9 x T-34's and although they performed excellently for the first half of the game, the appallingly low Russian income (22 pts per turn) meant that I hadn't got enough cash to keep pumping replacement points into them and I was left with a fleet of low-strength tanks with the same hitting power as Mr. Whippy ice-cream vans, which jerry mopped up without a hitch.

"Now it is our turn to laugh"



My win/loss stats are now Played-6, Won-4, Lost- 2
Lake Khasan- Vict
Summa 39- Vict
Rostov- Vict
Khalkin Gol jap attack- Vict
Viipuri- Defeat
Smolensk- Defeat

[PoorOldSpike]

Just got a win in Grodno A very small, fast scenario, ideal for newcomers to OOB..
(SPOILER ALERT- I could only afford to buy 4x BT-7A's and just a couple of infantry but amazingly they were enough to do the job against the skeleton Polish forces)



PS- If anybody wants to compare their Red Star win/losses with mine, remember they're all vanilla standalone scens (not campaign), medium difficulty, first time played.
My stats are now Played-7, Won-5, Lost- 2
Lake Khasan- Vict
Summa 39- Vict
Rostov- Vict
Khalkin Gol jap attack- Vict
Viipuri- Defeat
Smolensk- Defeat
Grodno- Vict

[iuliug]

Is this a bug? Seems so to me.

[Erik2]

When you play the campaign scenarios standalone your units do not gather experience from battle to battle.
Unless you edit the scenarios and add Soviet units with proper exp of course.
I only had time for the first 9-10 scenarios in beta and got a major victory in all.
I found the difficulty levels suitable and I'm not the world's greatest OOB player.

[bebro]

Is this a bug? Seems so to me.

Hi, you should not get a defeat when all objectives are achieved.

Did you lose a primary hex during play and took it back? This actually *should* deal you an immediate defeat, but in this case the objective display would be wrong.

I'm checking this.

[iuliug]

Dear brebo,

Thanks for replying much apreciated.

The issues seems to have been over-comed. I just reloaded the last Auto_save (End Turn) a pop-up message appear -which did not apear during gameplay. And then major victory.