Lesson #1 simply requires you to open the tutorial scenario. Subsequent Lessons will have save game files posted for use.
Let's start by looking at the two main unit displays. These are two basic examples. Examples of units will more capabilities (i.e. more stuff to explain) will be provided as a reference in a subsequent post.
Right click pop up on hex (21, 62)...
Next click on the unit icon to select the stack in hex (21, 62)...
Let's take a look at an elite quality tank unit.
-- Note how equipment type shows a heavy tank image and the movement type shows a tracked vehicle. Equipment type is a visual for the player; movement type affects movement costs based on the game's terrain values.
-- Also note in the replacement circle note that there is a tank symbol now (instead of a soldier). There are only these two types of regular replacements possible in the game.
There are three ways to earn victory points (and the side with the most victory points wins the game!):
1. Destroy units
2. Capture Victory Point Objectives (Note: A side can only “capture” a VP objective that it does not control at the start of the game… capture only gives victory points once).
3. Control Victory Point Objectives
Finding the Victory Point Objectives.
There’s two easy ways to find the VP Objectives:
1. Use the “u” (units visible) hotkey to remove all units from view (they return to view by pressing “u” hotkey again).
Next use the “i” (VP indicator visible) hotkey to display the VP indicators. There are three settings to the “i” hotkey: all indicators, important indicators, no indicators.
Finally use the “c” (city name visible) hotkey to display the town names associated with the objectives. The town names are color coded to indicate side control (blue indicates Axis control, Orange is Allied control). Town names also have three hotkey settings: all, important, none.
Here’s a look at all the VP objectives in the tutorial.
Northern Map Area:
Central Map Area:
Now let’s take a look at a specific VP Objective hex (5, 64), the Embassy Square. This is firmly in Blueland (Axis) Control so only the Axis side is gaining points for control at this point.A right click pop up on the hex reveals that there is separate info on the VP Objective for the Axis and the Allies. Moving the mouse pointer over each side’s indicator provides details.
2. The second way (& quickest!) to identify the objectives is to use the F9 hotkey. The VP Objective hexes become shaded and display the points available to each side in the hexes.
***********SUPPLY SOURCES ***********Knowing where your supply sources are located is critical to success in the game. Supply sources can be map edge, supply depot (dump) on the map, airdrop dump, or invasion beach source. Typically invasion beach sources don’t work for a turn or two after you control the hex they’re located in…
Here’s a quick look at the supply sources available to the Axis in the Southern map area.
Right clicking on hex (1, 59) shows that there is an Axis supply source located there.
Ending the Axis turn brings up the Allied turn 1. The picture below shows where the Allies have four invasion beach supply sources that are inactive (waiting for the Allies to land and take control of the hexes).
The Allies have 8 standard on map supply depots.
Finally, the Allies start in control of two special supply depots… the Oilwell Fields. These supply depots will operate for both sides (provides supply to the side controlling the VP Objective hex that they’re located in).
To follow along here, start up a game of the tutorial scenario. It will open to turn 1 on the Axis side (player 1 turn).***********Unit Arrivals ***********
There are three ways units arrive during a game.
1. Arrival Hexes
2. Off Map Area (OMA) Placement (Note: Reborn destroyed units return to game via this method.)
3. Airborne Dropzones This method will be covered in a subsequent lesson.
Arrival Hexes
This are easy to locate. Here’s a quick overview:
1. Use the “u” (units visible) hotkey to remove all units from view (they return to view by pressing “u” hotkey again).
2. Here’s a look at a couple of arrival hex locations.
Right click on Axis hex (21, 62)…
Move the mouse curser over the arrival hex indicator as shown here:
This reveals that there is one unit arriving on the next turn (units arrive automatically at the beginning of your turn).
Note the green highlight around the indicator square. That tells you the hex is due to have arrivals next turn. The only ways that the unit will not arrive next turn is if the enemy gets control of hexes near (or captures!) the arrival hex OR if you leave too many units stacked in the hex… an arriving unit is subject to hex stacking limits… too many units present and arrivals will be delayed until the hex is not stacked to the limit at the beginning of a turn.You also can (sometimes) see enemy arrival hex schedule. Right click on hex (40, 28). You get similar info to what you saw on the Axis unit above.
***********OFF MAP AREA (OMA) ***********The second way units can arrive is via the Off Map Area (OMA) arrival process. Here the player specifies which of several possible arrival locations a unit shows up at.
The Allied player in the tutorial has active OMA arrivals so let’s end the Axis turn and start up Allied turn 1. Note you get a reminder that some actions were still available to the Axis player. Click OK and go to Allied player turn. Make sure you have Redland as the active Allied country (Neutral Red Islands is the other Allied country).
Along the right hand side of the map you should see nine small green hexagons. These indicate OMA arrival locations (seven of them are shown below).
Click on the open OMA screen button.You can see there are three types of OMA arrivals: Alert, standard, & reinforcements. Click on Alert (there are no units listed under standard & reinforcements). OMA boxes 2, 3, & 4 are active for the Allies (box 11 is inactive in this scenario so disregard). Axis has OMA boxes 7, 8, & 9 active (but you cannot gain any info on the enemy side here…besides the location of their OMA arrival hexes).
Click anywhere in box 4… and you see the three possible OMA arrival hexes for this box. All OMA boxes should have three possible OMA arrival hexes associated with them.
Note how boxes 2 & 3 have the Amphibious Transport Mode symbol in the three hexes next to them. All units arriving in these OMA arrival hexes will be in amphibious transport movement mode. Now click on box 2 or 3. You see the possible locations for arrivals. Note how the possible landing beaches are also highlighted in red!
No units can be arrived now so let’s end this view and return to the main game screen.***********STRONGPOINTS AND MINEFIELDS ***********
The final section of lesson one is on strongpoints and minefields.
Strongpoints
These are static, non-unit, items on the battlefield.
- They must always be attacked and cleared before any units in the same hex can be attacked.
- They stop enemy movement into the hex until they are destroyed. This also means they maintain control of the hex in question until destroyed by enemy.
- They do not return when destroyed (permanent destruction).
- They can be worth destroyed unit VPs.
- They do NOT count toward the hex stacking limit.
- They can independently provide supply to units in the hex.
- They always require double dice to clear with indirect fire.
- They are always sited by the enemy (distance away from enemy and terrain they are located in don’t apply for siting of strongpoints).
- When attacked they use their own CRT to resolve combat odds (independent of the terrain they are located in).
- They cannot receive regular replacements to rebuild (although some use auto-timed replacements to rebuild).
- Only one strongpoint can be in a hex. No double & triple stacking these.
- Some are in place at start of game, some can be placed by a player as the game progresses (if they are available to place).
- When available to player to place, they are use-or-lose. No building up a backlog. Must be placed during turn available.
To see some strongpoints, have all units not visible (u hotkey) and all VP Objective indicators turned off (i hotkey).
You should see something like the following (Axis strongpoints are highlighted by red squares):
Right click on hex (12, 55). Move mouse over the strongpoint icon shown.
Here you can see a two step strongpoint.- Defense value of 5 with two steps… defense value drops to 3 when only one of the two steps is present.
- This strongpoint provides supply to the hex. It does not allow regular replacements to be used based on this supply.
- This strongpoint only takes 1 turn to auto-repair the second step.
Minefields
Minefields are conditions imposed on a given hex. They are not units, nor an item that can be attacked like a strongpoint. They are more akin to river hex sides or bridges.
- You can clear enemy minefields by controlling the hex.
- Some are present at the start of a game, some are placed by player. Like strongpoints they are use-or-lose assets when available.
- Minefields inhibit enemy movement and supply distribution.
- They also inhibit attacks (unit attacking out of an enemy minefield loses an important tactical combat shift opportunity.)
- They also making defending in an enemy minefield a very dangerous situation (enemy attack will be more effective).
Here’s the process for placing them:
1. Select available asset. Note how legal placement hexes are clear and illegal placement hexes are shaded.
2. To place simply move to desired hex and click the minefield into place.
Lesson #2 Part 1: Move out!To follow along here, start up a new game of the tutorial scenario. It will open to turn 1 on the Axis side (player 1 turn).
***********Amphibious Invasion ***********
No messing around here. Let’s get to the good part!
Amphibious Movement & Landings
Select I battalion of 6 Marine Regiment in hex (13, 53) by clicking on the stack of units in that hex. I/6 Marine Regiment starts the game in amphibious movement mode. Once landed ashore, the unit reverts to its normal leg movement type.
Notice how the sea lanes become highlighted when the unit is selected. This shows where the unit can move to this turn.
Let’s move 6 Marine Regiment to a landing beach. In Battlefront only one unit can move at a time. So we’ll start with I/6 Marines.Move the mouse cursor. It will show a green running man when over a possible movement location and a red slashed circle when the cursor is over a hex the unit cannot move to.
Move the mouse cursor to hex (19, 31).
Click and hold on hex (19, 31). Note how a path of green arrows shows the auto path from starting location to hex (19, 31). If you move the cursor (while still holding the click) you can see how many movement points will remain after moving to hex (19, 31).
Now, with the cursor over hex (19, 31) release the click. The unit will auto move. Note that it still has movement capability left (we won’t use it as we’ve reached the landing spot).
Now move the other two units of 6 Marine Regiment to the same beach as I/6 Marines.
Here’s a quick rundown on regimental integrity. Notice that we’ve left the supporting engineer unit behind…
Let’s find the engineers! Too easy. Click on the engineer icon in the regimental integrity display.
There they are…
Let’s get them to the beach and begin the amphibious landings. They are already selected so move the mouse cursor to hex (19, 31) and click there to move the engineers. Notice how the display changes after moving the units.
You can see that the engineers are now receiving the regimental integrity bonus and that there are now two units of the regimental integrity group in hex (19, 31). What about that black die? Looks a little ominous… means that there is a 33% chance that one step of the unit will be a casualty on landing. There can be up to four black dice present for a four step unit trying to come ashore. Each die is rolled independently for a landing.Time to land the regiment. Click on the anchor to land the unit.
Results may be different for you, but my engineers took it on the chin… landing craft overturned, well aimed machine gun fire, and Marines disembarking too soon and sinking in deep water…
In the image above, note how one of the four green dots below the engineer symbol in the regimental integrity display turned red… more instant info on how strong the regimental group is!. The dotted bar below the units shows the number steps for the unit... green means step in place and red means the step has been lost.You can see that the unit now has 8 leg movement OP’s… but cannot use extended movement (double arrows made less distinct). In the main map area you can see which hexes the engineers can reach this turn with the 8 available movement OP’s.
Repeat the landing process for the three naval infantry battalions. Note how the unit in hex (19, 30)… closest to visible enemy has to undergo two black dice to land, while the unit furthest away from enemy in hex (19, 32) doesn’t have to mess around with any black dice! Landing attrition is based on how many enemy steps are within the landing area. The purple 4 tells you how many hexes away enemy units can be present to cause the dreaded black die… more enemy present, more black dice that must be dealt with… one good thing is that the max number of black dice equals the units number of steps present (only one black die per step).
Let’s leave those four units on the beach for now. We’ll come back to them in a little bit.Select the 1st Special Service Regiment in hex (6, 46). We’ll use it to take the Oilwell Field 3 (VP Objective).
Move each battalion so that three sides of the VP Objective have 1st Special Service Regiment units next to them. Land the three battalions.
Close Combat!Close combat takes place by attacking from adjacent hexsides. The more hexsides you attack from, generally speaking, the better. Select one of the battalions and move it over the defending unit. You’ll see opposing arrows. Close combat is possible!
Click on the defending unit to open the close combat screen.
Wow. Lotta stuff going on here… Let’s break it down.
One battalion attacking alone won’t get the job done here. Let’s throw in the other two. You can select the other attacking hexes by clicking on the stack visible on the map or by clicking on the colored rosette at the bottom right of screen.With all three units attacking things look pretty good. 67% chance of taking out the defending two step unit (4 of 6 CRT lines have a D2 result). Hmmm, 1/3 chance of the defenders surviving and likely retreating to another area of the oilwell field (DR means the defending stack will retreat).
Not what we want here. So our choices are throw more units and attack from another hexside OR since we have 4 special attacks available let’s see what one of these does…click on the button below Attack!. This will get the job done right the first time.
Now click on the execute close combat button to resolve combat.
Results will be different based on random die generator result. Mine was a 1 die for combat (green die) and a 5 die for retreat (red die).
Defenders are now gone. Notice that none of the three units of 1 Special Service Regiment has enough movement Ops available to move into the VP Objective hex. Now that we’ve taken it, let’s secure it properly. Move III battalion of 2 Special Service Regiment into the VP Objective and conduct amphibious landing there. I & II battalions of 2 Special Service Regiment can be moved into attack position next to the other Oilwell objective.
Your game should look something like this now. Note that I & II battalions of 2 Special Service Regiment are receiving the regimental integrity bonus even though III battalion is outside the radius (very different concept from the Decisive Battles series).
That’s enough for this part. Let’s save your progress now. Click on the save game button.
This brings up the save game menu. Click in the file name box as shown below and type in the save game file name you wish to use.
Once you’ve typed the file name, hit Enter on your keyboard to bring up the save file option and save the game.
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