Red Turn all BVs
Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 3:13 am
Finally managed to do the full campaign with all BVs. I won't post the replays unless requested, as I suspect nobody will really look at them!
This is my second time playing through the campaign, so BVs were straighforward for most scenarios. The following three gave me some particular trouble, however:
1) Lower Dnieper - this one was really tough, the German armor dug in at Poltava is hard to evict on time, and my forces kept being too delayed and attrited by the Poltava battles to take the remaining objectives on time. Then finally, after about six or seven failures, I managed to complete the BV a turn ahead of time! All objectives captured on turn four. Basically, my northern forces fought a battle of annihilation with the German panzers around Poltava, leaving my infantry to assault the city itself successfully (though with horrendous losses) on turn 4. Meanwhile, I had stunning success with the breakthrough at Stalino, which swept northward, rolling up the German line and taking the middle objective on turn 4. The Stalino forces attracted the German panzer reserves, while allowed by northern force just enough steam to take the final objective, also on turn 4. I had some luck on this victory, but also my share of bad die rolls.
2) Rovno-Korsun - looks like I'm not the only one who has been stymied by the LSSAH panzer unit, which sits in Zhitomir and obliterates anything that tries to evict it. I think I tried a dozen times, each time to send waves of my guys to their doom, and never getting more than one or two suppression hits against the SS unit. Finally, a stroke of luck: I moved one of my own tanks (a plain vanilla tank unit, with no supporting attachment) next to Zhitomir, and the LSSAH attacked out of the city. My tanks was destroyed, but managed two suppression hits on LSSAH, which was enough for me to kill it off on turn three. Don't ask me to repeat the feat! The rest of the scenario was completely hair-raising, I was on the edge of my seat, afraid I would screw something else up after managing to take Zhitomir on time after so many tries. But it all went well.
3) Leningrad - Oh, just give me a single cavalry unit already, to barrel down the rail line to Pskov! I don't know why I found this so hard, I understood what I had to do, but somehow each time some small thing went wrong, either in the siege of Narva, or the final race to Pskov. I got all the stars aligned about my sixth or seventh restart, but even then it was touch and go right up to the end.
A few of the scenarios were too easy, like the two Kiev scenarios. But on the whole I loved playing through them all a few times. I haven't had so much pure fun with a wargame in ages. It's just immensely fun to march a guards mechanised corps reinforced by Katyushas into a mess of German infantry and watch as it overruns three divisions in one go! The AI is great and keeps you on your toes, and the scenario design is outstanding.
Let me know if anybody wants any of the Red Turn replay files.
This is my second time playing through the campaign, so BVs were straighforward for most scenarios. The following three gave me some particular trouble, however:
1) Lower Dnieper - this one was really tough, the German armor dug in at Poltava is hard to evict on time, and my forces kept being too delayed and attrited by the Poltava battles to take the remaining objectives on time. Then finally, after about six or seven failures, I managed to complete the BV a turn ahead of time! All objectives captured on turn four. Basically, my northern forces fought a battle of annihilation with the German panzers around Poltava, leaving my infantry to assault the city itself successfully (though with horrendous losses) on turn 4. Meanwhile, I had stunning success with the breakthrough at Stalino, which swept northward, rolling up the German line and taking the middle objective on turn 4. The Stalino forces attracted the German panzer reserves, while allowed by northern force just enough steam to take the final objective, also on turn 4. I had some luck on this victory, but also my share of bad die rolls.
2) Rovno-Korsun - looks like I'm not the only one who has been stymied by the LSSAH panzer unit, which sits in Zhitomir and obliterates anything that tries to evict it. I think I tried a dozen times, each time to send waves of my guys to their doom, and never getting more than one or two suppression hits against the SS unit. Finally, a stroke of luck: I moved one of my own tanks (a plain vanilla tank unit, with no supporting attachment) next to Zhitomir, and the LSSAH attacked out of the city. My tanks was destroyed, but managed two suppression hits on LSSAH, which was enough for me to kill it off on turn three. Don't ask me to repeat the feat! The rest of the scenario was completely hair-raising, I was on the edge of my seat, afraid I would screw something else up after managing to take Zhitomir on time after so many tries. But it all went well.
3) Leningrad - Oh, just give me a single cavalry unit already, to barrel down the rail line to Pskov! I don't know why I found this so hard, I understood what I had to do, but somehow each time some small thing went wrong, either in the siege of Narva, or the final race to Pskov. I got all the stars aligned about my sixth or seventh restart, but even then it was touch and go right up to the end.
A few of the scenarios were too easy, like the two Kiev scenarios. But on the whole I loved playing through them all a few times. I haven't had so much pure fun with a wargame in ages. It's just immensely fun to march a guards mechanised corps reinforced by Katyushas into a mess of German infantry and watch as it overruns three divisions in one go! The AI is great and keeps you on your toes, and the scenario design is outstanding.
Let me know if anybody wants any of the Red Turn replay files.