[ToV - Falaise Pocket] The Exodus Begins - Mission 3

[GeoffS]

The Exodus Begins

Hold Trun and keep the door open for our comrades. The final defense against the American and Commonwealth forces has begun. This is the last stand.

[lambo2655]

How do you get this mission to end in a SUCCESS?

I have satisfied all objectives in this mission but it still will not end. The only objective it says on screen is for my infantry squad to evacuate the town but when I move all my troops left on the map to the exit, I get a MISSION FAILED screen pop-up. If I don't do anything endless waves of AI troops continue to enter the screen at the top of the map and make their way to the exit point. What is the trick to finishing this mission or did I run into a bug?

Just to clarify, I have already evacuated the set number on troops streaming in from the north to the exit. I just need to evacuate all my surviving forces but when I do that the mission fails. Do I have to keep the church occupied throughout the mission?

[Imperial Honour]

I have not encountered the problem myself but from the sounds of it you do not(!) want to have your last unit on the map die when evacuating. What I did was amass withdraw all my units to a safe distance near the edge of the map before evacuating them so that they could all leave together\not be killed as the last unit.

[MentalAss]

Do you have 88's? If so, kill them before sending all your troops to the retreat line. Also, I found the there are usually Stormtrooper splinters hiding in houses that I would have missed if I had not checked the unmarked control group. Make sure you check that as they have to be retreated, as well as any crewed unit under your control, be it static or offensive. Hence the 88's destruction at my own hands.

[DrEvil....EVIL!]

You don't need to destroy the 88s or the bunkers. You only need to evacuate all mobile troops

[lambo2655]

finally did it but don't really know what I did differently. Before I evacuated all my troops (all 88's were destroyed previously) and moved them to a point just before the exit, then I grabbed them all and moved them as one unit to the exit. This must have done the trick. I still think this mission is to finicky at the end.

[AnimalEire]

The same with me, I fought them for ages before I realized they were not going to stop. I ran out of manpower and it would not tick up.

[Dr Dave]

This mission is fun and as long as you set up well it is relatively easy.

The key is to restrict the points of attack. I destroy all of the bridges, if not done already, with golith (two foot bridges and main bridge by church).

Defence set up

River cossing
AT gun behind trees on road from north shooting at an angle across the river crossing (cannot be seen from other side some sand bags do help and usually gets missed by shelling).
An 88 on the road (that leads to the exit) next to the garrison firing dirrectly at river crossing (may get shelled but can be repaired) Sandbags in front but vehicles will knock some over so place carefully.
At least 3 MG bunkers covering angles (in front of Garrison and 2 to the left of the 88 towards the river) Shelling will damage these but again can be repaired.

Church Bridge
DO NOT BUILD AN 88 OR PUT AT IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH (you will lose it!)
I place a MG squad in the tall house on the right of the bridge and build an 88 in the back garden of the house on the left (these seem to aviod the worst of the shelling) Keep some Goliths to make sure the bridge is not repaired (if you set up well in the previous mission the otherside of the river should be well mined so engineers have a hard time!)

Southern River Crossing
Generally I have been attacked by troops here rather than armour but armour does show up sometimes.
Build 88 on the enemy side of the crossing on the road that leads to the garrison there aiming towards the garrison (hopefully this is still under your control!). support this with at least 1 MG bunker and sandbags. You can also place 1 or 2 MG bunkers in the field by the garrison if you wish. Placing your 88 here avoides the AI bombing you as it bombs the crossing behind you!

Troops
Just going to give some ideas
Two Nebs: 1 in the courtyard of house by north crossing (out of line of site), 1 in the field near (but not too near) the southern crossing. (these can be used to stop waves of troops and also stop troops garrisoning buildings across the river.
AT may keep 1 or 2 in background in case of bombardment problems.
Snipers 2 or 3, if you can get them over the north crossing and up unto the hill behind the mortor bunker (not in it) they cause havoc (keep an eye on them they wander!)
AT troops at least one squad near (some sandbags help) but not in the southern garrison and make sure they have mg's (they will be supported by the 88 you placed behind them)
The AI often builds slit trenches near the north crossing getting into one of these with some AT/mg troops will increase the range of you 88 over the river and cause death and distruction.
You need at least 2 engie squads and 1 building squad who you can tool up to be AT

Some basic tactics (we all do it differently)
Munitions should not be a problem so use it.
Butterfly bombs, arial bombardments and firestorm are great help as is propoganda.
A group a 3 or 4 goliths sent across the river will reveal what is coming and can be used as spotters and to destroy tanks and troops.
Tanks. I have recruited tanks coming down the road, repaired them and sent them on a jolly over on the ememy side of the river, again good for spotting (good idea not to stand still to long or they bomb the hell out of you) .
Recruiting mobile artilary is fun.

Finishing the mission
Once ordered get all of your MOBILE troops out to the exit.
If you have good defenses set up like I have suggested you should not be being overrun, these defenses will cover your retreat (give them some goliths to play with, but blow them up before your last man exits).

However, if the last unit to leave is killed you lose! So as other have suggested here move at least one unit near too the exit as the rest retreat (can be a sniper if you wish). It is important to remember that some units like AT take longer to retreat so get these out first (they can also get blocked by AI units on the road so watch).
Remember to get everyone to the and exit check buildings (e.g MG squads in buildings). Also make sure any units you recruited (e.g. tanks are either retreated or destroyed). once all these are gone and all that are left are your 88s and bunkers get your last man out (Mission completed).

Remember even at this time you have things like firestorm and butterfly bombs to help cover your ass!
Happy Hunting

[TankHunter678]

If you want to get the medal a good idea to speed up the evacuation is to place a repair bunker near the entrance that the evacuating units are coming from. Unlike normal these units lose the engine damaged/destroyed/gun destroyed in a matter of seconds of the repair beginning, unless recruited.

[gbanay]

Key to this mission is deploying your 88's right - put 3 on the upper crossing, on both side of the garrison there, another on the side of the Church facing the main bridge and the last on the road going down, covering the lower garrison - make sure you build them as far away as you can, on the edge of their range.

Aside from that you need a repair bunker up the road, kill the main bridge when needed and if any armor sneaks through use the luftwaffe runs - most efficient.

Since the American never goes for the Church you can't loose that one.

[Kuoppa]

My 2 cents for this mission:

Place 2 88's on the northern passage, in front of the garrison. 1 sniper and a mg bunker to the side of the passage to kill inf and spot for the 88's.

The middle bridge and the inf-bridges can just be blown away, use sniper if they try to repair.

In the south I usually have 2 88's too, with loads of teller mines and butterfly bombs. Some grens too if needed.

Basically you can just sit there doing nothing with this setup.. Just be quick with repairing / rebuilding your 88's if artyed.

[TheProphet]

I have also a problem with this scenario:

After some fighting time (conquering back all garnisons and so on) the objectiv is to destroy the bridge near the church (to prevent the enemy from crossing). But somehow the objective doesn't end when I destroy the bridge. I tried several goliaths, nebelwerfers and so on. It still seams to be intact. I also tried to repair it and destroy it again -the same problem!!!

Is this a bug? How can I solve that problem? Please help!

[Dr Dave]

Hi
It has been a while, if my memory serves me right, destroying the bridge is only one of the objectives. You have to defend as your comrades escape (they come down the road all beat up). You then have to escape. The key to this mission is preparation in the previous mission and winning it well. Some good guides above and in the previous threads.
BW
D

[TheProphet]

Must be a bug: when I restarted the map, everything worked fine -only the fight was much harder

[Dunnik]

Difficulty: Normal
Medal Awarded: Iron Cross (Saving 130/130 friendlies)
Post-Battle Summary: "This mission is fun and as long as you set up well it is relatively easy." -Dr. Dave

Phase One - Setting up the Defensive Line (Again)

How well you do in this mission depends how you did and what you did in previous missions. In my case, I was fortunate in that 4/5 of my 88s were still up when this mission started at the old front-line across the river. The heroic 88 crews bought me time to set up my forces. Hopefully you will have already destroyed the footbridges. If so, just blow the main bridge ASAP with a Goliath and they should only put in attacks at the north and south river fords (provided you protect the main bridge from being repaired, of course.)

At the north ford, I placed two MG bunkers and a third medic bunker further north along the road as per TankHunter above, backed up by eventually two 88's (as the 88s at the old front line died off, I replaced them in town). I put a sniper in that tall barn-looking building, and he seemed to do great execution from there, while not getting pwnd by arty. Kept a Pio (eventually two) and a Luft squad for local repairs and security. One of my two nebels was in a nearby backyard.

After the middle bridge blew up, a sniper in the building next to the bridge was enough to keep the engineers suppressed. I butterfly mined the other side, and eventually, when I had the time and pop, placed an 88 in that side garden as per Dr Dave's tip, and an MG bunker covering the far side. This seemed to hold them at bay: never had any trouble with the middle bridge.

The south ford team made it look easy since, again thanks to Dr Dave's tip, I placed them across the river in the little forest near the HQ. One, and eventually two 88s were placed here, backed up by MG Stormtroopers, a Luft, a Pio and a Sniper, and a nebel crew with two MG bunkers further forward. This team smacked all enemy targets that appeared, and easily dealt with the "deal with the American Panzers" objective.


Phase Two - The Canadians Attack

Other than a probing attack by a Churchill and a cpl units of infantry in the north, the first serious attack wave goes in to the south ford, 2-3 Kangaroo carriers. These primitive APCs (the first ever, in fact) were obviously no match for the 88. Poor Cannucks Perhaps the Americans can do better?


Phase Three - The Americans Attack

Nope. The Americans try to push the bridge, repair and enter the town (if they do, the objective changes to "drive them out"). But my sniper, mines and 88 were enough to put a stop to that plan: the main bridge was down the entire match.


Phase Four - Evacuate from Trun

The medal objective is to ensure that everybody - 130/130 that is - gets out of the Falaise Pocket before it collapses. Your front lines should be able to hold while 7th Army flees south then east out of town. As noted above, a medic bunker on the north road helps speed things up by ensuring passing troops live. While this is going on, the line is furiously attacked by Allied forces in both north and south, especially the north. At some point American Shermans tanks will attempt to smash through in the south, but my southern combat team blew them up easily. The British in the at the north ford were the most trouble. Frequently artillery strikes meant I had to be quick about sending repair teams out of danger. The Brits and Americans sent wave after wave of Rifles, PIATs, Commandos with Lieutenants and even the odd Churchill but all those poor buggers were mown down by 2-3 MG turrets, two 88s, one nebel, Firestorm and Heinkel air support.

Once I got to about 108/130 I started to evacuate my forces. The southern guys went out first, since by then there was little activity on that front. I then sent my two nebels, being the slowest, and the middle bridge sniper. Lastly I sent out the northern ford team - sniper, luft and two Pio's - after repairing up the two 88s and 3 bunkers there. The 88s and bunkers, plus arty spam, was more than enough to hold them off while I escaped ftw.