AO 1942 - Wintergewitter Help

[Dar]

Hey community,

has anyone got any tips on beating the Axis Operations 1942 Wintergwitter scenario? It's a brick wall to my progression through the game.

I tried it about 5 times now, splitting east and north-East (complete failure), full force east (ground to halt and forced back), full north (most successful, but futile). Every time, about 4 rounds in, the Soviets mobilize an otherwordly blob of overstrength elite infantry, overstrength T-34s, Lend-Lease and captured equipment.

I'm not new to Panzercorps or the genre, playing on medium difficulty, running a balanced army, about 50% veterans all the way from Spain, emphasis on tanks in this scenario with two Tigers in the lead. Every unit has a hero assigned. I place infantry and support weapons at the base area to stop the Eastern Blob, which works quite well. From pervious Stalingrad scenarios, my prestige is quite drained, sitting at around 5k.

The mobile forces move north to then cut east, ultimate objective Tschir Station. which i never reached, and it's not even enough to win the scenario. By round 20, my most successful run, they had moved enough overstrength units and heavy artillery to Tschir to completely demolish my attrition-striken forces.

I play extremely carefully, avoid every point of damage possible, cover my army against airstrikes. There is always a point where I lose momentum due to non-stop Soviet reinforcements, run out of prestige, get halted and then reduced. It doesn't help that my Panzer III and IVs don't trade well against T-34 and KV-1 Mod 42, that are superior to everything but the Tigers.

I understand that Wintergewitter is supposed to be hard, historically it did fail, but even the limited objective is just not attainable it seems.

[Grondel the 10/10]

since there is no "wintergewitter" i guess u are referring to "operation winter storm" the final mission of the historical ending of AO42.

some hints that might help.
1. u only need 7 vic hexes to win, there are 7 hexes east of the Don river. Focus on those, forget about the rest. ur left flank will be guarded by the river since the russians have no bridging units here.
2. Move fast till u reach the Don crossing in the unnamed village near the chir rail station.
Block this crossing with inf + arty and all enemies will be coming from the front and right instead of all directions.
3.Use ur tigers and tac bombers to soften the enemy t-34 and KVs and finish off with IIIs and IVs. Always have AT(StuG III or better) near ur "little" tanks or they get eaten. If u are low on prestige, same for the tigers.

hope this helps,
thomas

[Dar]

Thanks for the hints. East is where most of the enemy hordes come from, but I tried anyway.

Unfortunately I never reached the unnamed village before the endless Soviet flood began and kept rolling me backwards by round 10. Keeping up the defense of Kotelnikowo and it's airfield while supporting a drive to the bridge village was not feasible. That area is also in range of too many soviet airfields that limit armor movement, and they sent 20 strength 3-Vet Conscripts with Artillery support that my Infantry stand no chance against.

The imbalance of player vs AI strength and power is fun when such advanced and elite units are few, but this scenario really just swarms you with units whose stats beat every comparable Wehrmacht unit. Every hex around my army, and three beyond that, is filled with enemy units that I can't attack directly with my stats, and waiting for them to run into my overworked support weapons wears me down and prevents me from capturing V-hexes.

The Soviets historically had strong guards units in the area, hence Wintergewitter failed, but they outnumbered the Wehrmacht 3:1, not 15:1. Probably gonna cheat-skip my way out of this one.

[Grondel the 10/10]

İlk olarak Dar tarafından gönderildi:

Thanks for the hints. East is where most of the enemy hordes come from, but I tried anyway.

Unfortunately I never reached the unnamed village before the endless Soviet flood began and kept rolling me backwards by round 10. Keeping up the defense of Kotelnikowo and it's airfield while supporting a drive to the bridge village was not feasible. That area is also in range of too many soviet airfields that limit armor movement, and they sent 20 strength 3-Vet Conscripts with Artillery support that my Infantry stand no chance against.

conscripts with stars is the greatest nonesense that has been created lately. ;)
by definition conscripts cannot have much experience.

sad to hear u couldn't make it.

[Hercule Poirot]

İlk olarak Dar tarafından gönderildi:

Hey community,

has anyone got any tips on beating the Axis Operations 1942 Wintergwitter scenario? It's a brick wall to my progression through the game.

I tried it about 5 times now, splitting east and north-East (complete failure), full force east (ground to halt and forced back), full north (most successful, but futile). Every time, about 4 rounds in, the Soviets mobilize an otherwordly blob of overstrength elite infantry, overstrength T-34s, Lend-Lease and captured equipment.

I'm not new to Panzercorps or the genre, playing on medium difficulty, running a balanced army, about 50% veterans all the way from Spain, emphasis on tanks in this scenario with two Tigers in the lead. Every unit has a hero assigned. I place infantry and support weapons at the base area to stop the Eastern Blob, which works quite well. From pervious Stalingrad scenarios, my prestige is quite drained, sitting at around 5k.

The mobile forces move north to then cut east, ultimate objective Tschir Station. which i never reached, and it's not even enough to win the scenario. By round 20, my most successful run, they had moved enough overstrength units and heavy artillery to Tschir to completely demolish my attrition-striken forces.

I play extremely carefully, avoid every point of damage possible, cover my army against airstrikes. There is always a point where I lose momentum due to non-stop Soviet reinforcements, run out of prestige, get halted and then reduced. It doesn't help that my Panzer III and IVs don't trade well against T-34 and KV-1 Mod 42, that are superior to everything but the Tigers.

I understand that Wintergewitter is supposed to be hard, historically it did fail, but even the limited objective is just not attainable it seems.

Grondel already gave great advice. what i have noticed is you wrote you have one hero per unit.
Not sure if you are aware but the magic in this game comes from combining heros in one unit and then combine that unit with other units (and traits of your general). Combining the right heros in the right unit creates superunits that make the game very managable on all difficult levels.

for example the wurfrahmen 40 with the female artillery hero, overrun, lethal attack, ignores entrenchment (requires force concentration trait of your general) and max overstrength allows you to remove 5 regular enemy units per turn. another one is giving your 8.8 flak the camoflage trait + ideally something that increases its damage (tank killer, 1.5x damage, cribbling blow, overstrength etc) and placing it behind a bait weak tank unit. the result is as many enemy tank units removed as the 8.8 has ammo per turn. you can do the same with your best fighter.

giving a tiger overstrength, vigilant + 1.5 damage + ignores entrenchment (+ cribbling blow) should remove as many regular (= without certain heros) AI units as the tank has ammo (and are in reach) independent of terrain, unit type or entrenchment. ofc only as long as the tiger is top of the line (and has higher initiative).

all of the above requires experienced units of course, cant be zero star all green.

[Dar]

Thank you for the advice. Coming from other turn-based strategy games with a less prominent hero system (OoB), I actually played the entire AO from Spain to '42 with the "one hero per unit" negative trait and reduced chance to spawn new heroes. Initially, I thought this wouldn't matter as I surely would never have more heroes than units (I was wrong), and to this date the non-legendary heroes I got are all quite underwhelming.

This could explain my struggle with progression through the 1942 scenarios.

Either way, I managed to beat Winter Storm after all. Not the intended way though. Turns out the DLC files are accessible and use simple .lua code, so making some adjustments to the potency and frequency of enemy waves turned the scenario into a challenging, historically believable fight instead of a frustrating roadblock.

I do understand the importance of hero mechanics now though, and quickly removed that negative trait upon starting the 1943 campaign.

[Flopsy_the_rabbit]

Envelopment + Overwhelming Attack makes for great cheese. Instant capture of units with base entrenchment as long as you can do 1 point of damage.