GTPG 1.16 FM/Rommel

[eskuche]

Trying a different format since I can't be bothered to write everything up. I'll continue my other AARs I promise!!
https://youtu.be/fko1VSpP2N8
Plan to do 1-2 maps a day.
Cheers

[eskuche]

Thanks @Locarnus for informing me about the audio issue. Mostly resolved in later episodes (or until I get my central air conditioning fixed). Up to Warsaw now!

https://youtu.be/jzRs2KEVQTk

[eskuche]

Up to and including mission 7: low countries.
https://youtu.be/wS40kfucVpw
Playthrough highlights: low hero threshold, which means we can disband units early and re-try for good heroes. Our first two fighters got movement heroes, with disband. Mission 6, Narvik, was a bloodbath, with 4 x spitfires and hurricanes on a 20 core unit deployment. We finally are solvent, with 3k prestige after low countries.
Notable heroes: pre-deployed Bf110C with 3 attack, 2 initiative, 1 spotting; Polish 10.5 cm with 3 attack; StuG III with 4 attack and initiative
Accumulated heroes: 3 attack fighter, 3 attack fighter (! no reloads), movement 8.8 cm, 2 x range artillery, movement artillery; several 2 attack or 2 defense infantry and tanks; several initiative tanks
1-2 attack Stukas, 2 attack level bomber
Core looks pretty strong this early into the game, although we have rolled poorly on SE units.

[eskuche]

Up to and including mission 11: Spain.
https://youtu.be/kzNB4NbTLdw

Interval additions: One Fw 190 prototype at Sealion '40. Didn't mention this before, but we have a 40% ROF 10 strength Gustav railgun since mission 3 (!). Prestige hovering 7000-9000, which I am quite proud of on Rommel. This has involved lots of farming of enemy buys at the end of missions when possible.

Notable heroes: 2 attack, 1 defense, 1 initiative on a single hero infantry gifted in Sealion. 3 attack 1 movement SE tank, 1 movement SE tank, 3 attack 1 initiative Char, 1 movement Char, none of this was reloaded, just super lucky (plus disbanding of failures). Level bombers have +3 +1 attack, +2 attack + 2 defense, and +2 attack, so quite good.

1 spotting recon units has died twice already as my only core loss.

Experience cap just raised to 300, only really hit by artillery/level bombers. Most units between 1 and 2 stars. I have been trying my hardest to raise fighter experience by strafing (4-6 experience per turn, which is actually very good compared to, say, attacking bombers).

[eskuche]

We are up to mission 19 Moscow!
https://youtu.be/mxpiLEx8GUY

Core is as follows. It has been heavily pruned by disbanding (no hero reloading except for spotting on artillery; edit: this is made possible by the low hero threshold; 15-50 kills for 1, 50-150 for 2, 150-500 for 3). Star are experience, which I'm having a very hard time getting up in FM. Letters are heroes. I currently have 16.5k prestige, with very very limited overstrengthening. Only on high range artillery and maybe one point on fighters.

Infantry: have some nice defensive infantry for the defensive maps. No spotting yet STILL, very annoyed about that.
FJ ** A2 A2
Pio ** D M
Cavalry ** A D2
Kradschutzen ** A D2 I
Kradschutzen * M D2
MG34 died and reformed so no stars A2 A1
MG 34 ** A3DI (bonus hero) D
MG 34 A D2 I

Tanks: I've favoring movement and initiative heavily for late game Tiger II and Maus candidates. Note how hard it is keeping stars on these. Current cap is 360.
PzIIIH ** M D3
PzIVF ** M I
PzIVf ** M S
Char ** M A A
Char ** I A3
Matilda A ** D3
KV-1B * S A3
SE PzIIIH ** M M A2
SE PzIVF * M D2
SE PzIVF ** M I A3 (good boys)

Recon: favoring spotting and moving. Relying a lot on trying to surrender enemy units, including the massive waves of guns spawned by AI rommel prestige. Recon moves help with that; the SS versions have base 9 movement.
Sdkfz 232 * I
Sdkfz 232 ** S M

Big guns:
Gustav ** M R D2
Armored train *** R A2
Armored train **

Artillery: low on the attack heroes front, but excellent on the utility heroes. Have disbanded quite a few wuhrframen, with the idea being that an A3 hero is basically equivalent to 3 stars (we don't care about defense/initiative from experience on artillery, or hopefully you shouldn't be )
Nebelwerfer 41 ** M
Nebelwerfer 41 *** M A
10.5 cm(p) *** A3DI (bonus hero) A
StuG *** D3
StuG **
StuG *** A3DI (bonus) A
K 18 (4 range these babies have) *** M A2
K 18 *** M D
K 18 *** A R
K 18 A R R
Wuhrframen candidate number 8 or so... *
Wuhrframen ** A R
Wuhrframen * A2

Antiair: have a hard time getting these leveled still despite the preponderance of enemy air. Barely any attack heroes, either, which does not bode well for the future.
8.8 *** M D A2
8.8 * A
8.8 * M D2
8.8 *
8.8 ** A D
Sdkfz 7/1 *** M D2

Luftwaffe: the elephant in the room. We will be expecting up to 15 strength 5 star enemy fighters in the distant future, so this arm needs to be strong, strong, strong. In FM it's extremely difficult pickings, so I have relied on strafing runs for 1-2 experience. I disbanded about 3 fighters due to bad (1 attack or defense; or movement for my first two) heroes. Also have to start overstrengthening or else 12 strength MiGs will actually deign to engage!
Bf 109F *** S
Bf 109F *** A3 A1
Bf 109F ***D A3
Bf 109F *** A3 D
Bf 109F ** A2 A1 A2
Fw 109A *** A3

Bombers: Bf 110s have too low armor and not enough attack in this mod to fulfill their heavy fighter/bomber role. Stukas only need attack heroes and so disbanded 2-3. Very lucky on level bombers.
Ju 87R *** A3IS (bonus hero) I M
Ju 87R
Ju 87R *** A2 M A2
Ju 88 A2 D2
He 111 A2 D2
He 111 A2 A2
I should probably upgrade my level bombers to be able to tackle tanks more effectively but am loathe to waste the 0.5k prestige...will just wait for the He 177.

And that's that! I've lost 5-6 core units so far, mostly the same recon and gifted T-34's. Lost the A3 infantry which will likely be very hard to pick back up usefully. Attack hero units get less experience.

[sbpc1]

https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewto ... 1&t=102217
make the heroes whatever you think is reasonable. or crazy good. your choice.
this is hardcore editing/modding but it does work. or upload a file an tell me what heroes you want changed to what and i'll do it. i like a challenge.

[eskuche]

https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewto ... 1&t=102217
make the heroes whatever you think is reasonable. or crazy good. your choice.
this is hardcore editing/modding but it does work. or upload a file an tell me what heroes you want changed to what and i'll do it. i like a challenge.

Interesting. I'll consider it! Depending on how cheaty I feel
The low hero limit 15-50 kills for first one makes it viable to fish for heroes here but not so much in other campaigns.

[eskuche]

We are up to mission 23+, liberating the 6th army from the clutches of Stalingrad, after repelling the Dieppe raid.
https://youtu.be/KSG4yM9KM14

Core has grown reasonably, with the weakest advance in infantry. The thing is, I don't see needing beyond 3-4 infantry, as rockets and tanks (Flamm later if needed; they work great on fort hexes) can cover most things. Star are experience, which I'm having a very hard time getting up in FM. Experience cap is currently 400 just recently, and core deployment is 48, which means infantry are sitting out a lot. Letters are heroes. I currently have somewhere between 24-26k prestige, after I resell some units I have been fishing heroes on. Doing very well on surrendering full strength T-43/41 and KV-1s.

Infantry: have some nice defensive infantry for the defensive maps. No spotting yet STILL, very annoyed about that.
FJ 250 XP A2 A2 D1
Pio 250 XP D M
Cavalry 200 XP A D2
Kradschutzen 310 A D2 I
Kradschutzen 189 M D2
MG42 180 A2 A
MG42 297 A3DI (bonus hero) D A
MG42 301 A D2 I
10 × Osttruppen. These are 60 prestige throaway units with 2 hard attack, like later Volkssturm. They bait out enemy units and artillery hits for cheap cheap replacements. Currently one has M and one has A. You can watch videos for how I use them to save random chip damage on my more precious units.

Tanks: Still favoring movement and initiative heavily for late game Tiger II and Maus candidates. Stars are rare. KV-1's have finally been captured, however, so I retired the Matilda with 3 defense.
PzIIIJ/1 287 M D3
PzIVG 313 M I A
PzIVG 255 M S
Char 313 M A A
Char 306 I A3
Matilda 250 A D3
KV-1B 264 S A3
KV-1B 202 A D (throwaway unit that's just used for tanking now)
KV-1B 255 S I
SE PzIIIN 325 M M A2. This has 9 soft attack, which is the highest out of everything we have now and does great against infantry on hills. Also 4 close defense.
SE PzIVF 172 A3 D2. Great heroes, but not as useful on the super expensive tanks. May sidegrade to a Flamm. (Just kidding, no SE Flamms. Guess it might be a IIIN)
SE PzIVG 260 M D2
SE PzIVG 312 M I A3

Recon: favoring spotting and moving, although haven't lucked into these at all. Relying a lot on trying to surrender enemy units, including the massive waves of guns spawned by AI rommel prestige. Recon moves help with that; the SS versions have base 9 movement.
SE Sdkfz 232 239 I D3
SE Sdkfz 232 102 S M. This guy has died 4 times.
SE Sdkfz 232 244 A3 D3. Wow on all the defense heroes. Unfortunately they're all still hard targets.

Big guns:
Gustav M R D2
Karl Gerat D. Really want range heroes on this guy, or at minimum move heroes, else it gets unwieldy to use later. May just scrap it.
Armored train 400 R A2 D
Armored train 338 A3 D3. Armored trains are excellent, coming in at 210 prestige and being cheaper than 10.5 cms to overstrengthen. Can't buy more, though.

Artillery: still low on the attack heroes front, but excellent on the utility heroes. Have disbanded quite a few wuhrframen, with the idea being that an A3 hero is basically equivalent to 3 stars (we don't care about defense/initiative from experience on artillery, or hopefully you shouldn't be )
Nebelwerfer 42 374 M M
Nebelwerfer 42 335 M A. The 42 versions cost 323 prestige and have 21 soft attack. Quite a good value.
10.5 cm(p) 400 A3DI (bonus hero) A. Still chilling and haven't upgraded.
K 18 (4 range these babies have) 400 M A2
K 18 400 M D
K 18 400 A R
21 cm Mrs 18 A R R. This has 3 base range but 19 soft and 15 hard attack. Useful for knocking a few suppression points onto KVs, especially the KV-5 with 24 defense.
Wuhrframen cloning grounds: have ten or so currently in the core taking up about 20% of our equity. Notably, one (R) one (R M A) one (M D) and one (A2 A). Ones with movement and range I would like to sidegrade to the eventual 30 cm nebelwerfers with 30 soft attack, which can suppress Allied infantry with full entrenchment.

StuG/anti-tank: I've grouped these including the artillery ones together. Note that this mod does not have switchable modes past what vanilla PzC offers.
StuG 400 D2 D. Weighing in at 251 prestige, I've been keeping these minimally overstrengthened for now so that they are cheap front-line tanking units with 11 ground defense. Now in late 1942, need to reconsider by either upgrading to StuH 42 with 15 defense or not having them exposed as much.
StuG 344 A3D3
StuG 322 A3DI (bonus) A. Note that despite getting this earlier, it has less stars, because the attack/defense differential is too large.
StuG IV prototype (no hero sadly). Just received. These are great switchables that can get experience off artillery mode then transition to anti-tank mode.
StuG III/F 211 A2DI2 (bonus hero) I. 3 initiative bonus will make this a monster invulnerable later.
StuG III/F 73 D3
StuG III/F 82 A2. I'm mostly interested in initiative heroes, since the Jagdtiger later will have plenty of penetrating power. 3 defense is pretty nice as a front-line bait unit, however...

Antiair: still a lack of attack heroes, and surprisingly no range heroes yet (these don't really matter too much). Also have a hard time getting experience still due to my tendency to clear the skies early as possible. I don't disband these as much because experience matters (2 attack value per star)
8.8 221 A D
8.8 341 M D A2
8.8 257 A D
8.8 240 M D2
8.8 159 A
Sdkfz 7/1 336 M D2 A (ugh)
Sdkfz 7/1 125 A (ugh)
plus several new ones

Luftwaffe: the elephant in the room. We will be expecting up to 15 strength 5 star enemy fighters in the distant future, so this arm needs to be strong, strong, strong. In FM it's extremely difficult pickings, so I have relied on strafing runs for 1-2 experience. I disbanded about 3 fighters due to bad (1 attack or defense; or movement for my first two) heroes. Overstrengthening now at 12-13. I haven't upgraded to Bf109G because it is 2 attack at the cost of 1 initiative.
Bf 109F 342 A3 A1 A1
Bf 109F 369 D A3 A
Bf 109F 320 S I
Bf 109F 354 A3 D M
Bf 109F 356 A2 A1 A2
Fw 109A 368 A2 A1 I. As we see, most heroes are maxed out. They will be excellent interceptors but the lack of initiative heroes will really hurt later on. I plan on running a half Me 163B and half 262 force. The former has the highest initiative in the game.

Bombers: I've run through about 10 Stukas with bad heroes thus far. Bombers need only attack heroes. Very lucky on level bombers.
Ju 87D 360 A3IS (bonus hero) M I. Unfortunate 2nd and third rolls.
Ju 87D 171 A3I3 (bonus hero received at Stalingrad). Not sure what the 3 initiative will really do, as I'm still not going to drop it on a Bf-110, but the starting out 3 attack helps!
Ju 87D 327 A2 M A2 A2

Ju 88 371 A2 D2
He 111 344 A2 D2
He 111 400 A2 A2
Do 217 100 A3
Plus 3 others in training. We only care about attack heroes here.

[faos333]

Interesting core, thanks for the sharing

[okiemcguire]

Thanks eskuche, I have been enjoying your videos. I am currently at Dunkirk.