Erwin Posted February 1, 2021 Share Posted February 1, 2021 Die Letzte Hoffnung is an older campaign where one plays a German attacker vs US. Not sure how I missed this years ago as most campaigns seem to be from the Allied side and I find it much more interesting playing the Germans. Your KG consists of two platoons of armor (5xPzV + 5xPzIV) plus 5x8-wheel rad recon vehicles, plus two companies of inf and one squad(!) of engineers with only 4(!) charges. One of the best features about this campaign is that it requires both ammo as well as force preservation. ie: One has to be careful with ammo expenditure as the ammo is not replaced 100% between missions. Also, I don't see any replacements for infantry or vehicles at all. This is much more realistic than standalone scenarios as one has to plan for the next mission - "there is always a battle tomorrow". Am only up to Mission 6 and so far am impressed with the maps and the situations depicted. The briefings are good and succinct. However, the designer wrote loooong designer notes with tons of details about the various commanders in the campaign - as if he was trying to make this into a role-playing game. And unfortunately, according to the notes, you have to read em as they have some info one needs for the various missions. Personally, there is far too much to dig thru or remember. And am not sure if one really needs to read those notes. Another great feature is the branching storylines. One mission is simply choosing whether to keep one's KG together or split em to attack in two directions. The next mission is simply to choose whether to attack thru woods, or via town. I tried all the combinations and found them all fun to play. ****** SPOILERS ****** The first mission is deceptively easy. One has the full KG and the enemy is weak. However, the real challenge here is to win while suffering minimal or no casualties - cos you will need every unit in the following missions. There are mines, and the player will have to be very lucky to not lose some armor that way. If one has some experience one knows that it's best to choose concentrated forces and not split em. But, it may be a personal preference whether one wants to then attack thru woods or the town. Woods are deadly for vehicles/armor as it's hard to get longer range targets for their guns, so my pref is always town. However, it's worth saving and playing all the combinations. One odd thing is that while I suffered only one recon vehicle loss in mission one, in the subsequent missions one only receives 2 PzV's and 2x PzIV's plus some recon (plus all the surviving inf) even tho the briefing clearly states that one would have the full KG. In addition, if the armor is damaged, you get the damaged armor in the next missions as well. The other challenge of the maps is that they feature impassible hedgerows for the most part. It may be my terrain mods, but it was hard to spot the few gaps that do exist, so many times the inf will run off in unexpected directions where the semi-invisible gaps are located. This wouldn't have been so restrictive if one had more engineers with more charges. But, after using 2 charges in mission one it was disappointing that one only charge had been replaced in mission two. There is not a lot one can do with 3 charges so I tended to save them for "emergencies". The end result is that one has few options for how/where to move one's armor and inf. Was doing ok until Mission 6. But, this one is a meatgrinder and I think I could lose most of my force. When I CF'd I found that my 3 tanks were facing no less that 16 US tanks plus maybe a company of inf. So, attacking at less than 1:1 odds. Fortunately, losing an early mission does not end the campaign. I get the sense that maybe one is supposed to play more carefully and lose one or more mission simply to preserve one's forces. In any case, am thinking of restarting Mission 6 and immediately CFing so there is sufficient force for the subsequent missions. We'll see... Anyhow, Die Letzte Hoffnung is a very good and challenging campaign and a must for anyone who enjoys playing the Germans attacker. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MOS:96B2P Posted February 1, 2021 Share Posted February 1, 2021 59 minutes ago, Erwin said: Die Letzte Hoffnung is an older campaign where one plays a German attacker vs US. +1. Sounds interesting. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted February 1, 2021 Author Share Posted February 1, 2021 Am sorry that I don't know the name of the designer. They always credit playtesters, but rarely do designers put their own name in the Designer Notes. Wish designers do that so we can give credit where credit is due. The style reminded me of Paper Tiger - a terrific designer and famous for campaign missions that seem impossible... unless the player does exactly what Paper Tiger thought he should do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted February 1, 2021 Author Share Posted February 1, 2021 Found out the campaign was designed by Field Marshal Blucher. Another designer we no longer see around here unfortunately. ***** SPOILER ****** And in Mission 6 at the end screen I also found out there were 18(!) US tanks vs the German 3. If the German player had his full armor complement of 10 tanks plus recon that would have been a bit more even. I wonder if there was a problem in the script of somesuch that after Mission 1, took away most of the German tanks even if they were still functional. Mission 7 is a large urban assault, so one gets both inf companies plus an engineer platoon and two 75mm on map guns. Maybe one doesn't need tanks. We'll see... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warts 'n' all Posted February 1, 2021 Share Posted February 1, 2021 I've played the campaign three or four times and yet to win it. But by co-incidence I fired up it earlier today, and look forward to losing it again. As for the script taking some of your force away. I think there is a branch at Mission 2 which results in your force being split, but thankfully I have forgotten why so it will come as a surprise in a day or so. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 One can choose whether to keep your forces together or split them (to attack in two directions in a subsequent mission). I have played both options. The problem is that when I chose to keep the force together only two of the 5x PzV's and two of the 5x PzIV's turned up in subsequent missions. Maybe a bug/problem with script? Or perhaps an update has screwed it up. Let me know what you find. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warts 'n' all Posted February 2, 2021 Share Posted February 2, 2021 1 hour ago, Erwin said: One can choose whether to keep your forces together or split them (to attack in two directions in a subsequent mission). I have played both options. The problem is that when I chose to keep the force together only two of the 5x PzV's and two of the 5x PzIV's turned up in subsequent missions. Maybe a bug/problem with script? Or perhaps an update has screwed it up. Let me know what you find. Will do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warts 'n' all Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Update - I took the "Keep KG together" branch. Lo and behold. I also only got 2 - Armoured Cars, 2- Panthers and 2 - MkIVs. It does seem to make a nonsense of following that branch. And I don't think that there has ever been an updated version of this campaign released. Ho hum. Forward to defeat. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted February 4, 2021 Share Posted February 4, 2021 (edited) Können wir es reparieren? Nein, es ist g*****t! Edited February 4, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted February 4, 2021 Author Share Posted February 4, 2021 17 hours ago, Warts 'n' all said: Update - I took the "Keep KG together" branch. Lo and behold. I also only got 2 - Armoured Cars, 2- Panthers and 2 - MkIVs. It does seem to make a nonsense of following that branch. And I don't think that there has ever been an updated version of this campaign released. Ho hum. Forward to defeat. Don't despair, one can do ok with the reduced armor, it's just harder. However... I found Mission 6 was very hard and only one damaged PzV survived. This campaign will not allow tanks damaged beyond a certain point to be in the next mission - so in Mission 7 there were NO German tanks and the inf was also mauled. As I wanted to enjoy this mission (one MUST win Mission 7 or the campaign ends), I went back to the start of Mission 6 and CF'd just so I had enuff forces to play Mission 7 which looks like a very good scenario. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted February 4, 2021 Share Posted February 4, 2021 2 hours ago, Erwin said: However... I found Mission 6 was very hard and only one damaged PzV survived. This campaign will not allow tanks damaged beyond a certain point to be in the next mission How does that work? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazing 88's Posted February 5, 2021 Share Posted February 5, 2021 At The Few Good Men scenario depot, the download page has this comment that might be helpful. September 16, 2018 at 12:28 am Sadly, they changed the TO&E files since this was originally issued, so since it used a custom TO&E the armour is lost (unless there’s an update). That said, as long as you’re extremely careful with your armour, it’s still playable (albeit quite the challenge). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt.Squarehead Posted February 5, 2021 Share Posted February 5, 2021 It's a shame the campaign decompiler can't recover the campaign script.....Fixing the core itself would be easy enough. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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