Lots and lots of Auxiliary Units.
Difficulty: General
Traits:
- Auxiliary Force+Inept Logistics: The core traits for this run; Inept Logistics reduces my Core Slots by 10%, which is then compensated for by Auxiliary Force giving me Auxiliary Slots equal to 50% of my Core Slots. Overall, I will still have more units than a standard run, but with roughly a third of my army being Auxiliary Units that won't stick around to gain experience, managing my Core will prove to be an interesting challenge. The SCW should prove especially interesting, considering it already provides some Auxiliary Slots for the Italians.
- Trophies of War: I'm gonna be honest with you. I just love using captured equipment so this is almost always an auto-include for me. The dynamic of fielding stockpiles of less useful captures as Auxiliaries opens up some interesting possibilities at least.
- Flexible Command: Mostly taken to help with Unit capturing.
- Deadly Grasp: Once again, picked mostly for Unit capturing shenanigans, but also to help speed up sieges, or at least ones that don't take place on a supply hex.
- Industry Connections: Taken for similar reasons as Trophies of War to further indulge in my misshapen army compositions. I do think I will try using Prototypes as Auxiliary units only though. After all, casualties to something with very limited numbers mean nothing if the unit won't be around next scenario anyway.
- Anti-Air Veteran: I originally didn't like buying AA guns do to their nature of only really suppressing planes. Then I saw some people use this in AARs, tried it, and was convinced.
- Battle Academy: With the Auxiliary part of my army unable to gain experience, I want my Core to be as strong as possible.
- Perimeter Control: To help keep my own units from being encircled.
- No Overstrength: While it is a tempting idea to go full quality over quantity and further reduce my Core Force numbers by making most, if not all, of my Core Units Overstrength, I've never really used the Overstrength mechanic before and don't really want to experiment with it in this particular run.
- Slow Modernization: Between Axis Operations having new equipment arrive at a much slower pace than the base Campaign and my smaller Core size, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. In theory anyway.
- Green Army: I have noticed a bad habit I have of always using Elite Replacements, which hurts my Prestige. So I've been running this lately to help break that habit.
AO: SCW-Seville
Starting Prestige: 1400
Starting Army Composition:
This is my army. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Core:
Tanks:
- PzAbt.101 'Vorhut'-Panzer IA
- PzAbt.102 'Dragoner'-Panzer IA
- PzAbt.103 'Husar'-Panzer IA
- AufkAbt.101 'Wegbereiter'-SdKfz 221
- AufkAbt.102 'Pfadfinder'-SdKfz 221
- PjAbt.101 'Wachter'-3.7cm Pak 36 (Horse Transport)
- PjAbt.102 'Verteifiger'-3.7cm Pak 36 (Horse Transport)
- ArtAbt.101 'Trebuchet'-10.5cm leFH 18 (Horse Transport)
- ArtAbt.102 'Katapult'10.5cm leFH 18 (Horse Transport)
- ArtAbt.103 'Ballista'10.5cm leFH 18 (Horse Transport)
- FlakAbt.101 'Schrapnell'-2cm FlaK 30 (Horse Transport)
- I./JG1 'As'-He 51
- II./JG1 'Windschatten'-He 51
- III./JG1 'Schall'-He 51
- I./AG1 'Alderauge'-He 70 Rayo
- I./SG1 'Himmelsfeuer'-Hs 123a
- II./SG1 'Feuersturm'-Hs 123a
- III./SG1 'Hagelsturm'-Hs 123a
Infantry:
- 8 Spanish Colonial Infantry
My first capture of the Campaign is a BT-5. Also, not sure if it's a bug or not but apparently you can change enemy camouflage, which is why it's dark green here.
By the end of Turn 4, my entire Core has made it across to Spain, and the only things standing between me and control of Cadiz are a 20mm M33 and a Supply Dump.
Meanwhile, the Party Barge heads east for a sunny beach detour.
A pair of enemy fighters that try to attack my units near the southern Seville airfield find themselves in a dangerous position when my planes return to base. The T-26 also manages to partially corner itself, which allows for a quick and easy encirclement.
Ending Prestige: 2866 (+1266)
Thoughts: Right off the bat I ran into an interesting quirk regarding my build. The game doesn't actually give you Auxiliary Slots for the Army of Africa Units in this scenario because you don't technically need any since they start already deployed, but they still count to your total Auxiliary count and fill up all 15 of my Auxiliary Slots and then some (24 Slots of Infantry total, if you are curious). On the plus side, my concern that I might end up with too many units to ferry over to Spain before the Navy shows up is a moot point. Technically, the starting force is also more than I technically should be able to field (31/35) but since they start deployed I can start with that overflow as long as I don't rearrange anything. Since I can't actually buy and use any Auxiliary units, I decide to just go ahead and use the entire Core. This does raise concerns regarding future scenarios that start with predeployed Auxiliaries and no Auxiliary Slots set aside for them, but that is a bridge I will cross in the future.
Moving on from that, the drive to Seville and following siege went very well, however, as I began to split my forces to deal with threats from both sides of the river I found myself with out of place units getting attacked by sudden reinforcements a few times, which cost a considerable amount of the prestige I had earned. I did complete both Bonus Objectives and take every flag outside of the reinforcement zones, so I'll call this a overall success.