CS West Front - Blunting the Sword

[Jason Petho]

Well we did it! We finished the Gross Deutschland Linked Campaign game in Campaign Series East Front. It was a glorious victory with the final capture of Oboyan. The streets were filled with jubilant Russians. Oh wait, wrong thing. After the campaign ended I asked what to play next and Tide asked for Blunting the Sword. We decided to play it as the Germans as I figured it would be more of a challenge against HAL. Well, holy crap, the British have tanks. And then some more tanks. My reinforcement tanks are coming on the map, but it is piecemeal and I'll have to decide where the primary threats are. Right now it is easy - they are EVERYWHERE!

https://youtu.be/ncsaURT7oqw

[Jason Petho]

Well here we, we dove back into the West Front scenario, Blunting the Sword. We are playing as the Germans and doing everything we can to destroy as many UK tanks that come into view. The buggers have isolated our western flank, but we're making progress into our attack into Cagny. At the end of the session, I decided to adjust what the victory conditions will be for me (not the official, since we're playing the AI) and I think it will make it a far more challenging battle. We're up to 150 Allied tanks destroyed, with a few hundred left to take out. It is an exciting battle we are in!

https://youtu.be/a78T9lxjK0E

[Jason Petho]

What a fun scenario. We are destroying tanks left right and center and our advance towards the outskirts of Caen seems to be going well. The catch is that it seems I ran into the artillery park and I'm suffering severe casualties because of it. On the bright side, my Tigers have just arrived into the area, so that will hopefully bring some peace to the sector. Around the village of Ifs, the German infantry unit that had held out again many Allied assaults has finally been relieved. They suffered horrendous losses, but persevered until the panzer grenadiers and Panthers crested the ridgeline in the south!

https://youtu.be/MlOX9Rlehso

[Jason Petho]

The allied forces are in for a world of hurt. We have started to counter-attack in the jaws of the allied tanks. We have taken a few losses, but our advance is going very well indeed. The plan is to secure all of the map from the allied forces, and see about creating some pockets to corral them into before we decimate them. I think we will play this from the Allied side after we finish to see if we can give the Axis a thrashing too. Exciting times indeed!


https://youtu.be/AKHc6r57AwE

[Jason Petho]

We cleaned the XXX Corps from the map, that was a rough go for the UK AI. After that we decided to flip sides and see if I could do any better as the UK and attack into the German lines. We are in a few turns and while I am suffering some losses, it isn't too bad so far. Our plethora of Firefly's against the King Tiger's turned out well in our favour. We lost some tanks across the line, but I'm feeling confident so far. We are still waiting for the infantry but using our tanks like water flowing down a river, trying not to get bogged down. The Germans are in for some challenges indeed.

https://youtu.be/YRSy-ubzTrE

[Jason Petho]

It is an interesting experience playing this from the XXX Corps side. We're doing quite well breaking into the rear of the German defences, just by acting as a river and proceeding through the weakest areas. We're still losing some tanks here and there, mostly due to infantry close attacks that pop out of nowhere. The interesting part of this so far is that we haven't focused on the objectives so far this scenario, merely focusing on isolating all of the German Hedgehog positions to isolate them and destroy them in detail. We have run into a panzer battalion, and while we haven't come away unscathed, we're holding our own indeed.

https://youtu.be/SbExESyB-tw