Heeresgruppe Mitte

[Agent]

Anybody have some advice on getting the first 3 objectives on time on Classic difficulty? That is: Brzesc on 1, Grodno on 2, and Vilnius on 3.

Getting Brzesc on turn 1 seems to require dropping both of your carpet bombs on it on turn 1. If you don't you're rolling the dice, literally, on failing already or taking monstrous casualties. But having done that you're in a bind for Grodno and Vilnius. Taking Grodno on 2 without carpet bombs takes a looooooooooot of forces which leaves you badly understrength at Vilnius. You don't have set piece attack with these guys so blasting through entrenched defenders on turns 1&2 is rough even with diverting your armor.

What's the word? Make sure to get a flying artillery card at the first conference that you can use on Grodno? I hate making my strategy dependent on knowing what cards you need in advance which seems even more gamey than restarting the scenario but right now that's the most viable plan I have.

[Agent]

After trying again the other objectives are all straightforward. I wouldn't necessarily say easy but it's pretty clear what you need to do. Vilnius you can take on 3 by sending sufficient mechanized units north on turn 1. But I see no chance whatsoever of taking both Brzesc on 1 and Grodno on 2 without at least 3 flying artillery attacks, and that still probably requires some really ugly casualties taking Grodno.

Probably I'll bypass Grodno and come back to get all gold on this scenario after the campaign. Perhaps someone will have a better tactic by then.

[Agent]

Hexaboo's video basically agrees with what I concluded. There is no fancy way to take Brzesc on 1 and Grodno on 2. You simply have to drop both carpet bombs on Brzesc and then throw your troops at Grodno and hope for the best, primarily from the north rather than the west. Guess that's it then!

[Night_Phoenix]

Try to drop a pontoon bridge slightly north of Grodno. (yes, through those forests) This way you have a better approach than to try and crash though that armor and over the river. Split your armored units between Vilnius and maybe only 1/2max motorized to Grodno. That's how i managed to do it on Classic. You can then use both flying artillery on Brest and have enough punch for Vilnius on turn 3.

[Agent]

Yep, it's possible doing that but still relies on some luck as sometimes they'll double entrench and give no retreat orders to the dudes in Grodno and that makes it prohibitive. Sometimes they don't. I wish there was a more reliable way but I guess as the devs have said it's not designed to go after all the objs on time every single battle.

I'm gonna do it anyway nyah.

[William H. Harrison]

Taking Brzesc with only 1 flying artillery should absolutely be possible. Make sure that during the set up phase you give the infantry unit next to it both artillery and pioneers. You will also need to upgrade the panzer group it belongs to with a level of operations so that it can set piece attack. After using flying artillery, you should be able to get %50 (with 3 steps suppressed) to %80 (with 4 steps suppressed) odds of retreat with a set piece attack, even if the city is ruined. Not guaranteed, but pretty good odds. This is the only thing that can just outright fail and force a restart, so i always do it first on each attempt.

With the saved flying artillery grodno is pretty easy to take, remember to cross the river north of it with an infantry unit to get in another attack, and that an infantry unit with pioneer can attack across the river with no penalty.

For vilnius, remember to use faint attacks to suppress steps on the defenders. I send most of the units of the northern panzer group there for faint attacks, and only 1 or 2 tanks to grodno to deal with that one russian tank unit with t34s at the rail bridge. Most of the russian units in the northern direction towards vilnius aren't entrenched, so you can use stugs on one of the elite panzer divisions to achieve good shift even when attacking into rough terrain. Remember to use recon in force to claim a tile next to vilnius for the chain faint attacks, if you were unable to take a tile adjacent to it on turn 2.

All this said it is still somewhat luck based to get all of them. I'd say that its maybe 50% chance that everything goes right AND that you don't lose an important specialist step like a pioneer or stug. You can 100% get all of them if you're willing to accept a few losses, particularly of pioneers.


Other general campaign advice:

Set piece attack remains the most important ability in the game, every panzer group needs it by the second conference, although only panzer group 2 needs it for the first conference.

For HQ upgrades, favor more command points over any other choices at first. After that, Prioritize emergency supplies, faint attack and over supply in that order, since those are the abilities that you'll really need to spam.

Make sure you buy every pioneer, 21cm artillery, nebelwerfer, and stug you can during every conference, and remember that the north and south theaters have separate pools of units to buy. Specialists are much more important than cards, I only bought cards towards the end of the campaign when I had prestige to spare. While I didn't buy any blitzkreig cards on my first playthough, In retrospect I should have got one, maybe even 2 of them, since there were definitely times when I needed a get out of jail free card.

The best units for taking entrenched rough terrain (that your infantry can't reach in time) are the SS motorized units with double pioneer. They have 7 base attack, get only -2 in cities instead of the -3 of tanks, and the pioneers allow them to ignore both levels of entrenchment, and have high extra base attack (6). Also, you can attack across rivers with no penalty. They also mostly start out as elite, as a bonus. Get them up to 7 steps asap.

A good choice for clearing unentrenched units in rough terrain are motorized units with 21cm artillery and recon. The ridiculous +5 shift of the artillery (or +4 if you have a nebelwerfer) means you'll pretty much always get good odds, and allows the motorized units to be great support. As an example, in a given turn you could use recon in force to secure an important tile, faint attack the city objective, and then move into position for an attack with the artillery next turn.

You get 2 SIG self propelled artillery during the campaign. One on the Lehr brigade, and one as a reward for a bonus objective. When the lehr brigade gets transferred to a panzer group in one of the later missions, move it to a panzer division and pair it with a stug for a very respectable +3 artillery shift. Do the same with the reward. German tanks will never be the powerhouses of british armored units with +4 artillery shift AND entrenchment reduction AND no river crossing penalty AND extra armor shift, but this is as good as it gets.

As always, remember that the first few scenarios are actually the hardest in a campaign. By the end, if you have correctly developed your army you have a ton of tools at your disposal. In the first scenarios you have none of that. I had to restart the first 3 scenarios tons of times, but beat the final two missions in just 1 and 2 tries.

Save up cards for the Odessa scenario. I only used one air attack card, in retrospect I should have used 2 and a flying artillery, and I should have bought a panzer 2 specialist as well. I made that scenario much harder for myself than it needed to be, since i had a ton of prestige to spare.

Make sure you get a substantial amount of the infantry in the southern theater to elite veterancy; one of the final scenarios, 1st Kharkov, will be hell without vet. The best way to get experience for infantry is attacking units that have run out of supply due to being cut off. Remember that attacking easy kills with units that are already elite is wasted experience.

[Articwulf]

This is where I think hidden random rewards would be better for these. You shouldn't feel compelled to reload the game over and over (and have to do the deployment phase 100 times) trying to get these optionals.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/809230/discussions/0/3123785722643235216/

[Agent]

Thanks WHH. I got a all-objs victory without set piece on the PzG 2 but it required more to go right than the initial attack on Brzesc and I don't like the losses I took so I think I'm going to start the whole campaign over and grab Set Piece Attack as you suggest. I didn't think I'd need it quite yet but, yeah, not having set piece is a problem.

Can you confirm that the North and South groups have different specialist step pools? I assumed they both got them from OKH and so I deliberately avoided buying some good steps on Mitte. I will change that if they're different pools!

Those 21cm arty are 80points. Ugh. I don't wanna buy 'em but if I must.

[Agent]

The big advantage to grabbing set piece right off the bat is, as you point out, that you can take Brzesc with only one Flying Artillery and make taking Grodno muuuuuch easier. Not having set piece is the entire reason that Brzesc has always taken both flying artilleries for most folks.

[William H. Harrison]

Yeah north and south theaters are separate pools, it was confusing to me as well since they're both called OKH. The 21cms are expensive but totally worth it in my opinion, they give so much shift and they have the benefit of being unlikely to die. I would definitely get them before something like a panzer 2 or a recon.

Seems like people really sleep on set piece. Neither of the guide videos that were posted mention using it. I don't really understand why since the entire Italy theater in the West campaign is basically a showcase of why set piece is essential. First thing I did in the conference was check which HQ's had it, and my first attempt I spent too much prestige upgrading every panzer group with it, when group 2 is the only one that has infantry that can use it.

[Agent]

I do like the recon steps because of how recon in force comes in handy sometimes. That was very useful on the previous DLC later on, but I'm still on the first conference battles here since I started over so I don't know how useful it is on Barbarossa.