[British] Caen: Storm Front - Mission 8

[Akranadas]

Caen: Storm Front

Caen is in Allied hands, but night is approaching quickly. 1st SS Korps will not give up Caen without a fight. Boudica’s Boys must dig in and prepare for the inevitable counterattack.

[Thrud]

I just got my arse handed back to me on this one. Defending 3 points is crazy, unless you have predug-in.

I ended the previous mission with tons of tanks, but I think I may need to go back and build a few emplacements and maybe less tanks.

[Susurrus]

You know, you only actually need to defend one point (the one near the cathedral) to win this one.. I found defending all of them impossible, especially as circa 3 Jagpanzers and at least one King Tiger make an appearance..

Question: Does the King Tiger auto-kill all tanks, just British ones, or just in this scenario?

[Thrud]

I think they always autokill. aND THE jADPANTHERS.

I figured out defending one point would do it.

Really you just need lots of mg emplacements, and at emplacements behind there, with enough sappers to keep em running. Tanks wont last long unless they can dig in. They cost more. You can have 3ats for one sherman.

[xxax]

I managed to defend all three, using just static defences. Near the cathedral I had 3 25 pounders, a 17 pounder and a MG. South a 17 pounder, a squad of engineers (PIAT) in a trench and a MG. AT the last point i had a captured MG gun, a firefly and a squad of engineers. Basically I found no use for tanks, except the firefly. The western point was never under attack from Tigers or King Tigers (luck?) so my firefly handled everything. The other points were under constant heavy armour attack. That's when the 25 pounders showed their worth. A King Tiger doesn't stand a chance...

[wartcwh]

I didn't build any emplacements. Tommies with Panzershrecks and elite Lts. nearby will kill most German armor pretty quick. For the tougher ones like Panthers and Tigers remember to circle a squad around back for those rear armor shots.

[Sturmtruppen]

if you play on easy maybe... but this one is pretty easy, nothing can kill your men in the trench fast, put a AT behind the trench and you are set... i finished the mission on expert with all 3 points

[Krenshaw]

I did pretty much as sturm did. I had AT-emplacement at every point near choke points, then a Bren squad in a trench. Sappers stayed to repair the AT-guns and a few tanks I made roamed around to assist as needed.

[bluetrin]

I found this one very easy if you kind of prepared it before hand. I kind of felt that I would have to defend it the mission before and had dug many AT guns.

Even the mightiest tanks can be defeated if you keep 2 or 3 engies, and put AT bunkers with a machine gun, in front of the cathedral covering south and north entrances, the same thing next to the right entrance which can also cover the very small bit of bridge on the north, somewhere also on the right side the same thing, and also the same combo to protect the point on the south.

It should use all the pop limit and you may have either in addition to that a tank which can move from AT gun to another to help or even better if you manage to land some AT commandos, they can inflict serious damage to enemy tanks.

It was fine on hard but I did not try on expert ...

[danomano]

Problem when playing my people resource is only 400. Now after building a firefly it drops to 30 and never goes above that the entire game. So what gives?

[ebevan91]

well, here is what was in my base that i had to defend, a king tiger (I already have blown up 6 of them), 2 tigers, 5 panzers, 6 hetzers, and at least 50 german infantry, that is when i said, screw this.

[Lt. Slothrop]

This is definitely a mission with a risk of "screw this". What you get thrown at you is the manpower of a 2-man [edit: 3-man?] team combining Wehr and PE. And sure, you could build ATs everywhere - but the damn pop-cap is set at 100, and all or most of that pop will be taken up by whatever was needed at the end of the last mission - not what you need now, which definitely includes 2 over-repair Sapper squads.

So, since the AI is going to be unfair, be unfair yourself. Go right back to Caen: Into the City, and make sure you leave three important 88s unmanned but intact:

(All map directions are on default map-orientation)

a) One in the "schoolyard" at the East, just south of the strat point at the end of a harbour (the strat point has a German mortar crew on it, and a sniper out front).
b) One in the narrow street NW of the "schoolyard".
c) The one on the island, north of the bridge from the cathedral.

Sometimes you can get lucky with arty and knock out the crew of an 88 but just leave the gun slightly damaged. Safest is a nice gentle mortar barrage: merciless to the 88 crew, but not too rough on the gun itself.

Also, in the previous mission (The Crucible), make sure you keep your off-map Firefly alive. You'll need it just to keep things under control at the start of this one.

Spam mines on all the southern and eastern entrances to the map in both the previous missions. Sure it's cheating - but so is this tank-rush you'll be facing here.

I beat this on Hard, like this:

a) Man those three 88s. They're better guns even than British AT, for free, and with no build time. An 88 can put a nasty hole in even a Tiger/King Tiger before going up in flames itself.

b) Imagine you're that Tiger coming in from the E, with the "schoolyard" ahead of you on your left. If you carry on past the schoolyard (and survive the 88s), you get to a small crossroads: straight-on to the cathedral, left towards an arch and the south section of the map, or right to go towards the river/harbour. This crossroads is where you want to build an AT (OK, we've had a camera-angle change - "you" is no longer the Tiger, which doesn't really want an AT here). Face it towards the SE entrance past the schoolyard for the moment - but make sure you build it so that it can take a swing later in the mission to cover the narrow street to the NE as well (you'll get attacked from there eventually).
A Vickers MG nest there as well a bit further SE down the street can be good - if you've got time!

c) Trucks. Move your armour truck to the central "crucial point" in the south - the point that used to be the central VP in Into the City. Back it against a wall, and build a Cromwell or Firefly for the moment until you can get sappers there to build another AT. I put Field Support in the "schoolyard", and HQ just NW of there in a courtyard - not by the cathedral itself.

d) Build an AT to the SW of the strat point N of the "schoolyard", so that it can cover both the E entrance to the map, the W side of the harbour, and stuff coming from the E side of the harbour by swinging.

e) Trenches are good - as long as you can man them
- On the NE side of the "schoolyard"
- By the strat point by the end of the harbour.
- Close to the armour truck by the southern "crucial point".

f) Man one of the leftover German Pak38s by the cathedral. I like to put it on the raised triangle in front of the cathedral, pointed at the narrow street down to the river (this is where a King Tiger will magically zoom in from warp-space).

Move your Firefly to the "schoolyard" since that's where the first attacks come from. A Bren-squad in the trench, plus the two 88s, should dispose of any infantry. In general the AI tanks just keep on obsessively plugging away at entrenched infantry, which means you can hold them anywhere on the map until you can move a tank/build an AT at/where this is happening, or just rip them apart if you already have AT around.

Have a Stuart handy to deal with minor annoyances.

Don't worry too much about losing territory and all the freak-you-out "we're being attacked everywhere" stuff that appears on the minimap - keep your armour concentrated with your AT, at the main three points apart from the cathedral.

Threats to the cathedral are minimal if you can keep the "schoolyard" entrance locked down - one King Tiger that warps in as mentioned (it got obsessed with destroying my howitzer I had there, and ignored the Pak38 that was hammering it - so I could wait until a Cromwell from the S point was spare, and send it up there to finish off the KT) - plus one Panther or Tiger that appears briefly in the NE and then goes the long way round over the island (if you've kept the 88 by the bridge, this should dispose of it). I put my HQ in the little courtyard with a resource point SE of the cathedral triangle - so there wasn't too much to worry about the KT trashing around the cathedral.

The difficult thing is having enough Sappers to do all the work. Two squads upgraded to Repair specialists are good to have, but hard to fit into the popcap.

Once things got a bit stable, I just spammed Fireflys out of the armour truck, with sappers waiting at the bottom of the ramp to over-repair them. The pop-cap is so restrictive in this mission that I spent quite a bit of time just waiting around for Jerry to come and kill someone so that I'd have pop for the next Firefly. Use this time for over-repairing, and swinging those ATs around as needed.

Built an extra MG nest by the strat point at the S end of the harbour, though I might have got away without it.

Towards the end a massive armour-blob appears just W of the Chateau (where you started Into the City), and sits there. A howitzer by the southern "crucial point" can be useful to get rid of this blob, as it includes Hummel artillery.

[Susurrus]

I simply blew all the bridges (using an AVRE) and locked down the cathedral. Two AT guns just beyond the pointy raised bit the cathedral sits on, pointing east. A Pak covering one of the southern approaches, along with mines and entrenched troops). The other one got blocked by a vehicle corpse quite early on.
17 pndr top left pointing over the bridge, just in case they repair.

All AT guns supported by trenches in front of them, usually with brenned tommies in them. The only thing that worried me were the hummels, but I went after them with a pair of fireflies (they were the only tanks I had at this point), and thoigh i lose one of them, micro-managing meant I killed a panzer, a panther, a wirble wind and both hummels. The only problem I encountered was an eventual lack of munitions, brought about by losing every point but the cathedral, but even without AP rounds my AT guns eventually did the trick.

[adamsun]

Normal level. No preparation from last mission

Move the units at upper SE board(placed there for the counter attack of last mission) to middle of SE board, 2 ATs and commando in trench can control the major enemy entry.
Move units at north corner to the south area(middle strategy point in last mission).

105mm Howitzer at south highland is helpful and very tough(take a lot of tank shells).
Churchill tanks and light tanks are not useful, sherman tank destroyed bot hummels by itself.

Only two tanks attacked cathedral area, destroyed by trenched engineer and AT from SE board.

I also played this mission with preparation(build mine fields and trenches all over the map) from last mission, it is similar and much easier.

Hope this is helpful.

[Avenger6789]

IMPORTANT(but slack) way to defeat kingtiger.
Get a Piat sapper squad behind the Kingtiger, firing PIAt into its ass, while you get a lieutenant to circle the Kingtiger. Make sure the gun doesn't get to aim on your lieutenant. The AI is dumb and continually chases your lieutenant until the end of the earth. I bit of lieutenant micro and you got a blown up King tiger.

[LloydyBoy]

i use the king tiger as my advantage, for instance the King tiger starts to head for your base, at the catherdal. All i did was have my LTs make the king tiger chase the LTs, then when the King tiger is in a chokepoint IE the small road next to the island, (i'll send a photo soon) then i stuck Sappers with PIATS (proboly 2) in the buildings next to the road while they fired i made my Fireflys encicle the Chokepoint and cut off the King tiger the AI will focus on the unit that is most deadly. when the king tigers Turet is then facing the Fireflys or near the fireflys pull them back a little bit so they arnt in the King tigers sights then wait for the King tiger to Turn the Turrets back on the Sappers then pull the firelfys back in and

Vola the King tiger is destroyed and once the King tiger is destoyed the German units (usally) start to pull back

[Khaunshar]

Hmm I had at the very least 4 King Tigers appear relatively early in the mission, and another 2 or 3 warping in in the middle of my camp later on. In the end, I had killed all german infantry, but about 20 or so tanks, many of them Tigers and 3 King Tigers, guarded the entryway where my HQ Truck (by now destroyed, obviously) came in, so the mission is effectively a stalemate.

Is it a bug, or how are you supposed to take out multiple warping King Tigers? Fireflies just take too long and I lose too many, Engineers take too long as well and the King Tigers massacre my base and troops. Esp. funny when late in the mission the bonus objective "Kill the King Tiger" pops up, when you have already killed 5 of them.

I think this mission is the most unfair in the entire OF addon.

[Dr Dave]

Been playing these three Caen missions again over the weekend as I enjoy the tread running through them.

I have, as each of the three missions progressed prepared the gound for the next mission as you know you are going to have to defend and you have limeted numbers of units (in this last mission if you are planning to defend all points you are very streached; but it can be done!).

King Tigers seem to be a theme on this tread and I noticed something strange yesterday when I played.

The big tanks just seemed to appear do some damage and then disappear (bit like COH meets star trek; beam me up!). On one occasion, the big boy attacked my sherman at the cathedral blew it up and moved down the street towards the school yard where my armour HQ was. I sent a squad of commandos (with AT weapons) after it but when they got round the corner he was gone?? He was not in the FOW as I had troops there and all bridges to the island (except the cathedral) were blown. Later another one appeared on the island (in the corner by the south blown bridge) and I do not know where it came from. Much of the island was mined and to get to where he was he would have been badly damaged and if he had come from mainland he would have engaged my troops. He moved off along the road towards the catherdral crossing where I had the 88 and a few troops. He did hit a few mines but was not destroyed but he disappeared before getting to the 88 (no wreckage). Weird!

But still beat it with all points intact!

[DrEvil....EVIL!]

Yes, all the KTs, except the medal objective one, will spawn out of nowhere (indicated by the revealing lightning), move along a specific route and then disappear out of nowhere (usually fog of war). The tank will only stop to engage your units or if it has been immobilized by a mine in which case it will never complete it's route and thus will not disappear.

[Devil2575]

I have been playing this one on hard and noticed that it might have a bug?

As Kaunshar has said the map went mad with German tanks. I killed at least 4 King Tigers but there will still more left and by the end there were at least 30 german tanks on the map many of them Tigers, Panthers, jagdpanthers and Kingtigers. I don't honestly think I can beat this level on hard. Also what is the end point? Is there supposed to be a timer?

[Punisher909]

I played on normal, and I had reached the pop cap previous mission so could not build any emplacements.

did the mission using about 8 fireflies, and there must have been about 6 King tigers, and like 2 Jagdpanthers, and numerous amounts of Tigers, Hetzers and Panthers.

I guess its only normal though, I defended all points in the end, just having trenches with men in them to stall the attacking forces till my tanks arrived was what did it.

I would have rather built 17 pounders though, but the lack of an option to sacrifice units was really annoying, so just had to use fireflies.

[BlackOmne]

...but the lack of an option to sacrifice units was really annoying...

@Punisher909,
Are you aware that you can delete emplacements to free up pop for building emplacements elsewhere? You only need to select the desired emplacement and press the delete key twice. If you're maxed out on pop due to infantry or other units you don't want, you can always take the route of sending them on suicidal missions.

[AllRaj]

For me (on expert) I simply made prior preparations in previous mission by laying massive amounts of mines in the pathways where the tanks spawn and in front of the AT gun emplacements at a distance where I estimated German tanks would stop to fire on these AT guns.

3 AT guns on southern base, 1 facing south, 1 facing east, and 1 facing north east. At the cathedral I had 1 AT gun facing east sighted along the main road and another 2 AT guns at eastern spawn point on same main road facing north and south towards each other to catch the tanks in a cross fire when they arrive.

Have a Pak face the bridge north of cathedral if you cant capture the 88 in tact on the island.

[Fandragon]

Lol, I got the living crap kicked out of me on this lvl the first few times i played it.....What I wound up doing was modding the game to make British emplacements cheap and cost very low pop as well as making Fireflies easier to get. Then on the mission before Storm Front mining the crap out of the entire map not to mention putting up defensive emplacements absolutely everywhere...I stopped only b/c I got impatient and was running out of areas to put stuff. Then I went onto SF and won =P Also, wth is up that randomly appearing King Tiger? wanna talk about annoying? That is it...musta killed like 6 of 'em