AK: Battleaxe

[VPaulus]

Please post here your comments about this scenario.

[RobertCL]

A severe defeat, how is it possible to win there faced with hordes of British tanks ?
The 88mm AT guns can stop them but not in the long run since they are too many and Hurricanes are everywhere too!

And I am only playing at Leutnant level!

[Razz1]

Colonel level

I managed to hold on to a few cities the first campaign.

On the second campaign I got a marginal victory. I had all the cities except one. The top West. lost that two turns before the end of the game.

AI is a little too strong.

[monkspider]

Battleaxe
Starting prestige 1400
Ending prestige 1050
Losse: None
Marginal victory

This was yet another extremely difficult mission. The sheer quantity and quality of AI units combined with the vast tracts of territory you are to defend make even a marginal victory seem like a herculean achievement. I managed to squeek out a marginal but only barely. The number of Matilda IIs and Hurricanes seemed particularly absurd. The sky was filled with so many enemy aircraft that for a second I thought I was fighting the Red Air Force in 1945.

My recommendation is for a significant reduction in the strength of the enemy (especially his Matilda IIs) as well as add a few more turns to the clock. I also wouldn't mind seeing a bit more rough terrain, like maybe an extra hill or two for infantry to dig in on. I ran into the experience cap again for most of my units, I once again would like to see that go. It seems ridiculous for us to have to fight literally 15 (!) strength Matilda IIs with 1 star units.

[billmv44]

General level, starting prestige 2020, ending 589.

This was enormously difficult. I played a few turns in twice before I realized my strategy was flawed. On the 3rd start, I was able to hold off the British but just barely. As soon as I mastered one crisis, another one popped up elsewhere (maybe that's intentional to give us the feel for the battle). I think most players will want the British a little weaker or give the Axis a couple more unit slots. I was able to get the DV on 15/15. The pop up messages are useful, but as mentioned by others, we need them to hold the AI play until we click them away. Received 2 heroes - Attack +1 on a Pz III H and Initiative +2 on a Ju87R. Are there new hero types in AK, I seem to remember some mention of that but I'm not sure if I was an official statement.

[deducter]

4. Battleaxe

Panzer IIF (Recon) is better in every way than the Panzer IIC (tank), including prestige cost. I think the balance here needs to be addressed, I’d probably increase the cost of the Panzer IIF to about 200, or move the Panzer IIC to the recon class.

This scenario is suitably challenging, including a surprise flank attack by the British with a 15-strength Matilda II! I think this scenario is actually fine as it is, if the Germans had started with 2-3 star units. But with only 1 star units, this scenario is incredibly difficult. The number of Matilda IIs was astonishing. Some of them should probably be replaced with Cruiser tanks.

If the player’s starting core were strengthed and the exp cap weren’t so low, this would be a good, challenging, and doable scenario. As it stands, I played very well, wrecking pretty much all British units without losing a unit, yet even then I only won MV on the last turn. If I had one more turn, I could’ve gotten DV. But I suspect most players will struggle much, much more.

Make the MV conditions less challenging. Holding all but 2 objectives is fairly tough.

Let the RAF attack sooner with more bombers, but reduce the number of Hurricanes by 2.

Map aesthetics needs to be improved, just like the last map.

[snakepliskin2010]

Tough mobile defense scenario...DV should be 2-3 objs left, and little more for MV...a lot of Brit airpower, and hordes of Maltildas...played twice, second time got MV

[Tarrak]

MV on general difficulty at the first attempt but at <b>insane</b> costs. I lost 2 AT guns, 2 tanks, 1 recon, 1 Self propelled Flak and 1 artillery and possibly even more. I lost track at some point.

Sorry for the rude words but whoever designed the scenario needs to grab a baseball bat and hit himself a few times on the head. This should give him the feeling how the player feels playing it.

Because the players core force experience is limited all the British units have at least same experience. A lot of them is overstrengthed and the amount of the ultra toughs Matilda's II is very high. Defending the south is already quite intense but doable mostly tho thanks to the AI once again driving it's unit in tracks next to my units for a little slaughter. Now the really annoying thing happens: A warning about a diversionary attack somewhere on the flank. I was expecting it on the west flank but quite to the south where all the fighting was but no they attack up in the north where i have close to no units. The pop up should give you a bit more hint where the attack actually is happening as most of the player units will probably be in the south so it takes a while to move them up.

The amount of units attacking is quite high but the 15 strength two star Matilda II is just taking a piss. Even a 8.8cm PaK got no chance to deal any real damage without suffering insane casualties. Suppressing it is nearly impossible as it shake off artillery fire pretty much without any effect. I had to withdraw a considerable amount of my fighting force from the south up to deal with it and even then it, together with the rest of the "Diversionary Group",managed to create some havoc in my core. This left my forces in the south pretty much exposed to the next attack wave creating even more losses.

The British air force seems a bit to strong for my liking as well. Actually itself it's OK but the long way to the airfields, the fact that each airfield only can refuel units just above it (is it intentional btw ?) and the low amount of fuel the available fighters have causes them more to fly back and forth to refuel then fight the British. Even with all the auxiliary 8.8 Flaks i wasn't really able to clear the skies of the RAF. Two of the enemy fighters was actually still present at the end of the scenario.

Two turns before the end the British still controlled 4 Victory Hexes. I managed to kick them out of all of them but i guess the surviving Diversionary Group Matilda II was what prevented my DV.

Conclusion:

1) Replace some of the Matildas II with some lesser British Tanks. If the AI learns to not sacrifice it's units in transports the amount of exp and their strength need to be looked at as well. Quite a few of this units are 12 strength.
2) Make it clear where the diversionary attack will happen so the player can react accordingly. I do not think that someone should be forced to play the scenario twice to be able to beat it.
3) Remove the insane 15 strength Matilda II from the diversionary group or at least reduce it experience and strength to something more manageable. This unit alone can bind 4 to 5 of players unit for two to three turns and kill some units in one shot.
4) Add another airfield or move the existing ones a bit closer to the south so players fighters actually can spend some time fighting rather then flying back and forth to refuel. On a related note: I think the Italian MC 200 fighter should be upgradeable within the family to MC 202 with the discount. The MC 202 was, according to Wikipedia at least, a further development of the MC 200. This would give the player an incentive to keep the Italian fighter which is in the core at the begin instead of just disbanding it and replacing it with a Bf109 which is better.

[Mountaineer]

I play colonel level. Most points already made, you need more lead time about the diversionary group. The Matildas just maul your formations.

Really enjoyed having to stay mobile. You have to have a mobile c-attack group to deal with breakthroughs, and even be willing to give up a hill and come back to take it later. You need all 15 turns to get a DV.

[Blathergut]

Allied Turn 5: Pop up message about approaching flank attack pops up right over top of all the combats.

[Blathergut]

The British Matildas are ridiculous.



It's encircled and with everything adjacent attacking this turn, I did 1 point of damage.

[Blathergut]

DV on the last turn. No (about 300) prestige left. (General level)

-AI drives trucks up to 88s
-Brit air becomes a swarm, but they targeted artillery mostly...so not terribly deadly
-the 88s killed everything that came near them...no challenge there

Was enjoyable and challenging in the south and dealing with the Mother of all Matildas...but with so little prestige left...I fear for the future.

[produit]

FM, DV 14/15. All enemy ground units destroyed at turn 12. It took me two turns to kill the two Hurricane on the bottom of the map (they did not move or attack).

Tough mission, but interesting. One point for me was the appearing of enemy units around Sidi Suleiman around turn 10. I had left a Grenadier Battalion in the city, but these enemy units really appeared in the middle of my troops. This kind of magical appearance is something I don't like. If they appear 1-2 turns earlier is the south, I would prefer, as you can see them coming.

From what I see, refueling of aircraft is ?? halved ?? when on the side of a airport, and not directly above ? It is quite a huge change of strategy. Some things like that and such as the campaign path should be written in the library...

[Blathergut]

I noticed this about airfields as well. Some sort of note (one of your pop up messages maybe during the scenarios....'don't forget herr...')

[Blitz1945]

Allied Turn 5: Pop up message about approaching flank attack pops up right over top of all the combats.

When this happened on mine it came up with a general exception error and dropped to the desktop.

[uran21]

Thanks for the feedback!

Captured equipment, anyone???

OK, experience cap will be removed. Strength of Allied force reduced, but just curious, how much 4 auxiliary 88 anti-tanks helped you to deal with Madildas. Do you "play" with the AI giving it to capture objective and than recapture it back? Suggestions that warnings should direct player where to watch for are in order but wasn't your map centred on newly created objective. Allied units come in waves with recon alone probing first. Also Italian tank appears as reinforcement not so much to buy you some time but to give insight with what you are faced with and timing of attack should leave enough time to prepare an answer. Let me say this, we are aiming at informing the player on changing conditions on a way that even if messages are not read it should be visually clear to him what is happening and what is expected from him. Yes, there are issues with it. At first we have technical problems with messages not appearing at the beginning of players turn, than all messages should be removed from AIs turn to players turn and on the end there could be some more issues when AI is the attacker due to the fact turn is actually part of two half-turns, attackers and defenders. I just wanted to mention how this is important to us and it will not be neglected. When new things are added they always cause new glitches. Your feedback is very valuable, thank you.

Besides difficulty issues how do you like desert mobility?

Something to say about resupply. Units get 50% of supply when on the desert related terrain. Obviously this also affects planes adjacent to airfield. This exists from always, remember when you are out of fuel hexes adjacent to airfield will also turn red and only one on the airfield will be white but you can still move your plane next to an airfield into a red hex and plane will be resupplied. Here it causes some illogical situations and 50% rule resupply may be to severe for the aircraft. It works well for the ground troops IMO. First tests were done with 25% rule and it was to frustrating. There is a workaround for this, airfield should not be presented as one hex but cluster of more hexes. They also get handy later on when Brits bring better fighters so replacement are needed more frequently.

Italian units for now do not have series concept but it will be included so upgrades of it will be more favourable.

[Tarrak]

The auxiliary 8.8 certainly do help against the Matildas II but they need a lot of luck to kill more then 4 or 5. The Matilda then just withdraws and come back repaired soon after. Of course i could pursue the withdrawing Matilda with my units to prevent the resupply but this usually exposes them to a counterattack quite often leading to it's destruction. Another problem is the AI just ignoring the 8.8's and instead it hammers with the Matildas on my other units and it takes ages to bring the 8.8 in a position to attack due it's lack of mobility.

Against the mother of all Matildas aka the two start experience 15 strength Matilda from the Diversionary Group even a 8.8 is quite useless. This thing is simply unkillable.

[Blitz1945]

Back to the pop up messages. Could there be a way to pause the game on the message til you click ok?

[uran21]

Back to the pop up messages. Could there be a way to pause the game on the message til you click ok?

We plan to remove messages from AIs turn into players turn so they should play fine than.

[produit]

Captured equipment, anyone???

I got a Mathilda II tank in the southern city, if I remember well...