Why army leaders should be changed before corps leaders!

[Telemecus]

Corps leaders give you far more bang for you buck so the general advice is changing them are your priority. However that is very different from saying you should change corps leaders before you change leaders of your armies. My argument is you should change the leaders of your armies as Axis first. The reason why you should appoint army leaders first and then corps leaders is that overall that will cost fewer points than just changing the corps leaders first.

I gave an explanation of why in post 562 of the 8MP Team Game Axis AAR here fb.asp?m=4512363 . I noticed a lot took up the idea of getting the AI to autopromote leaders to improve leadership at low cost. But I think few noticed the point about appointing army leaders first.

In the 2x3+ team game we had a good example - so I thought I would share this to give a hard example of why.

Here you can see two ways of changing two poor leaders in 11th army - directly which will cost 21 points or by appointing existing corps leaders with political score 9 costing 15 points and get the AI to autoappoint new leaders to replace them for free. See post 7 here fb.asp?m=4601308 for another description of the Ai replacement method.

[Telemecus]

If on the other hand you first appoint an army leader with a high political rating, not only are they cheap to appoint (5 points in this case) they actually reduce the costs of replacing the two corps leaders by 10 points - or a net saving of 5 points by first appointing an army leader. This would now cost 16 points, or 10 points by using the AI replacement method.



Clearly it is a lot easier to change the leadership of your forces at a cost of 5 points per corps leader changed, plus the bonus of better army leaders thrown in, than 11.5 points per corps leaders changed. But to do this you need to change the army leaders first.

[56ajax]

Hello Tele,

Working on the principle that on T1 (only?) every single German Unit gets to 'pop their cork', I look for across the board improvement in leadership.

I use the CR to find assigned leaders, sorted by dismissal cost. I start with the DC of 1 and if their combat rating is poor I upgrade them - sometimes it costs only 3 Admin Points.

Naturally I do some prioritization.

[7sisters]

Are you saying because everyone is getting victories on turn 1 you want the credit for victories that could get ratings improvements only going to the generals you are going to keep?

I assume Telemecus method would also apply to army commanders. To change army commanders more cheaply - it could make sense to change army group commanders first?

[joelmar]

I agree that leader changes are a priority. More so than HQBU's, at least until the supply leash has been over-reached and HQBU's are needed to reach important objectives as fast as possible.

Leaders rating are used in thousands of die rolls each turn, it adds up in many little things, from battle odds to supplies thru MPs allocation, damaged elements repairs and many more. IMO it's a must to have better leaders ASAP in the spearheads first and then in important support corps. Beginning by Model at 1st corp (or wherever you wish) and Kluge at OKH in that order, so Model doesn't get assigned to replace Kluge by AI.

Thanks @Telemecus for the tips!

[56ajax]

ORIGINAL: 7sisters

Are you saying because everyone is getting victories on turn 1 you want the credit for victories that could get ratings improvements only going to the generals you are going to keep?

I assume Telemecus method would also apply to army commanders. To change army commanders more cheaply - it could make sense to change army group commanders first?

Not really, I am chasing better battle odds on T1 because probably every German unit fights on this turn, whereas T2 etc many are marching in the dust of the Panzers. I try to upgrade as many as possible, especially AGS, as many of the leaders are crap, and the enemy is tougher.