Heroes and my choices

[Horseman]

So in my first campaign I chose Killer team.

As I've stated several times before this can be very powerful at the beginning if you restart until you get a good set. BUT its all a bit random and you could still get lots of duff heroes after the first mission and ultimately its really the last three heroes you'll get that are the extra ones!

That said its a fun trait and one I'll probably take again but I'm looking for some critique on what I did with my heroes, is there something I missed? Are there better (not necessarily OP) combos? What are others doing with their heroes?

This is what I ended up with:

Pioneer 43 - Fearsome Reputation & First aid.
I had both of these heroes fairly early on. First aid was an easy choice, I put fearsome on this unit as its the one most likely to be in the thick of it.

E75 - Vigilant, Envelopment & River assault.
This unit started life as a 38t I think it was and was always the first tank upgraded (PzIII>PzIVF2>Tiger>Tiger II>E75) Pre F2 the Vigilant would probably have been better on a PzIV and with hindsight Envelopment would have probably been better on a different tank. River assault....with master of Blitzkreig I don't think this unit ever fought from a river hex.

E75 - Vigilant, Aggressive counter attack
Gained Vigilant at Stalingrad and was one of only 2 PzIV's (G? maybe still F2) I kept. Everythign else became IIIN for this mission meaning all my armour could at a pinch operate in close terrain and I stil had two "proper" tanks for anti-armour work. Aggressive counter attack, I can't even remember what his one does!

Recon - Superior Manoeuvre & Exterminator
Manoeuvre really seems like it'll benefit a fast unit more hence his placement here. My exterminator hero moved around a lot (was one of my earlier ones). I finnally settled on my recon it can dive in to tight gaps kill the unit (that just retreated) and then move back to a better position.

AT - First strike, Unyielding & Butcher
AT's biggest weakness's? Low initiative when attacking and infantry. These heroes seem to help resolve both of those. (Plus this was the AT I was trying to get to 5 stars so being able to kill soft targets a bit better was a help). Unyielding ended up here as didn't really know where to put him.

AT - First strike & Sixth sense.
See above for first strike. Sixth sense seems like a waste here as I used my AT as support rather than the lead unit. On the other hand I don't think I was ambushed at all through the entire campaign (Recons did their jobs) Maybe good for a fighter to allow aggressive scouting over enemy airfields?

Art - Double support
Art - Camouflage, consolidator & Zero slots.
Art - AT support
Art - Counter battery fire

All of my artillery ended up as Hummels or towed 15cm. Double support and Camouflage where amongst my killer team and started life on a 15cm together and were only split to fit in the zero slot/consolidator combo. The AT support hero was originally on a Wurfrahmen (it meant all my art could support fire against hard targets) It was wasted in the end but would probably have served better on a tank but I was dubious as didn't think the tank would then receive support fire itself as it would have the AT support trait. I now know its not as simple as that.......

Gustav - Counter battery fire.
Was a little evil.

AA - Learn from mistakes
Because I was trying to get an AA gun to 5 stars and because the AI likes to splat them as often as possible.

Fighter - Thorough Preparation
Extra initiative to help win the early air war (works like operational initiative general trait)

Not assigned:
Consolidator - Yeah I had two of these and quite early (zero slots came a lot later) Combined with zero slots this hero is amazing. Maybe combined with half slots it wouldn't be too bad. On its own? Very meh. I can have 4x10 strength units or 1x20 strength unit. Now I know there's times having that one super unit would be useful but honestly it never seemed like a good deal to give up three other units for the one super strength unit. I'd honestly prefer it if this hero gave 5 free (in terms on slots) OS points. Either have it so that a unit can OS for no slot cost (preferred) or have it grant an additional 5 for no extra cost (so you'd still have to use the slots to OS at +5 then you could add 5 more for free) As it stands this hero is either amazing (because I have a zero slot hero to combine with it) or not great because there's a fairly big trade off to use the ability. And I never used oodles of OS, nothing at +5 other than my eventual zero slot guy.

EDIT: Also, I know there's rapid fire (x1.5&x2), field repairs, entrenchment killer, no ZOC, auto retreat, liberator and half slot heroes, what others are there that I've not encountered yet?

[petecoke71]

I recently had a couple first strike heroes and an 'ignores entrenchment' hero. I tried one of the FS along with ignores entrenchment on a regular infantry and it became a 'super pioniere'. Paired with a pioniere infantry who had a 'no retaliation' hero and a cheap artillery behind them they pretty much waltzed through Moscow. The first strike was also notably helpful as a defensive characteristic for big city infantry fighting. With a little suppression from arty and the first strike, I had little replacing to do and the experience gains were impressive too

[Schlack]

some similar discussions here:

viewtopic.php?f=464&t=98633