Hey guys, Fraggerz here with my first game review for Europe in Ruins, and this one comes from the ongoing campaign we have in place here at the moment, and so will feature a couple GC players in it.
Another thing to note, I’m being completely neutral in the review, as I will be in all future ones, so please actually take me seriously for once
Anyway, here it is, hope you like it
Okay so we’ve got a 4vs4 on Schijndel, a pretty decent map for a 4v4, obviously you have the large open fields on the left with just a few buildings, and the big city area on the middle right which is usually a main point for contention in games on this map. I personally am quite partial to this map due to the large open fields which don’t have a huge amount of cover, so you have to be careful when advancing because if you get caught in the open, you’re fucked.
The Allies team is on the top, and consists of Lionel, who is playing on his RangerBattalionGC account, Puddin, on his PuddinGC account, and then we have these two other guys, I expect they’re smurfs but not too sure who, they are WhaddaYaWant & WilliamTheWhale.
Left to right – WilliamTheWhale, Lionel, Puddin, WhaddaYaWant.
The Axis team contains Smokaz, Crazy, who’s on his CrazyGC account, IllPeeByNaziSynth, and LittleHillBilly, which is a smurf for MountainMan.
Left to right – IllPeeByNaziSynth, Smokaz, Crazy, MountainMan.
Doctrines – Lionel is Infantry as expected, Puddin is armour, and WilliamTheWhale and WhaddaYaWant are also both Infantry.
On the axis, Smokaz is Luftwaffe, Crazy is Scorched Earth (good choice), NaziSynth is Tank Hunters, and MountainMan is Defensive.
Puddin decides to start with a trio of Greyhounds, I assume they all have mines on them, not an unusual start for a US player, but easy to counter with enough AT.
Lionel, wow. Lionel’s decided to start with two upgunned shermans, one of which is vet two. Not sure what other upgrades they got, but yeah, he’s pretty armour heavy for an infantry player.
WilliamTheWhale also has an upgunned Sherman with an MG on top, as well as 2 flame engineers, a 57mm, and a captain.
WhaddaYaWant has decided to go the gimmick route with his company it seems, starting with 4 Captains (omgwtfbbq), two 57mm, one is vet 3, and a rifle squad and an engineer squad.
Overall, a very vehicle and armour heavy start other than WhaddaYaWant, I assume the Allies are hoping to quickly overrun the Axis due to three of them being PE.
Smokaz starts with a rather odd start, one vet 2 PanzerGrenadier squad with G43’s, one vet 2 FJ squad with G43’s, a 50mm Halftrack, 2 minesweepers, 2 kettengrads, and an infantry halftrack with FJ Tankbusters in them.
Crazy’s gone with an all mobile start, consisting of 3 scout cars, 2 infantry halftracks with a Shreck squad in each, and a munitions halftrack.
NaziSynth has also gone with a totally mobile start, he has a mortar ht, a 50mm, a LightATHT, a scout car, and an Inf halftrack with vet 2 G43 PGrens in it.
Mountainman, being the only Wehr player, has gone for an all infantry start though, with 1,2,3,4!! Flame pio’s, 1 officer, 1 MG42, and 3 Paks.
It doesn’t seem to me that the axis have nearly enough in the way of AT in their starts, other than MountainMan, but Mountainman is on the bottom, and will therefore be against WhaddaYaWants all infantry start too, so those Paks will be worthless. We’ll see how they fare though.
Onto the game.
An Allied recon run flies across the Axis lines almost immediately, revealing everything they have, and the Allies must be feeling pretty confident now they’ve seen how little AT the Axis have brought on. Crazy decides to speed his entire force up to the middle field on the left of the city pretty fast, I’m guessing he hopes to lock it down with his scout car trio, and back them up with those shreck clowncars. NaziSynth moves his forces up to the farmhouse on the middle left, with Smokaz in support, and MountainMan crawls his slower start up to the field on the middle right of the city. Not a single Axis player has decided to go for the city, we’ll see how that pans out.
Lionel sends his Shermans up to the field Crazy has occupied, and Puddins Greyhounds follow suit. William moves his forces to the farmhouse on the left, and it seems that WhaddaYaWant is moving towards the same location MountainMan is headed, meaning that not a single player has taken it upon themselves to enter the city. Odd, but unsurprising considering the components of the players starting call ins.
First engagement is between one of Lionel’s Shermans and one of Crazy’s clowncars; the clowncar gets a shot off and hits the sherman’s frontal armour, as the Sherman fires simultaneously, however it misses and the clowncar drives away. A lot of fighting in the middle now, Crazy has been sneaky and has used his munition ht’s minefield ability to plant a ton of mines within the field, and Lionel’s Shermans and Puddin’s Greyhounds run into a slew of slow mines, severely limiting their ability to escape. Crazy loses a clowncar with just a single man bailing out, as well as a scout car, but the axis have brought their AT up and are shredding the disable shermans to pieces. Lionels vet 2 is the first to fall, and William rushes his lone Sherman up to support, running into a slow mine at the same time, and is slowly decimated. All three Shermans die, but the Greyhounds manage to escape relatively unscathed.
On the right, the first engagement between MountainMan and WhaddaYaWant has begun, and it is not going well for MountainMan. He loses all four flame pios to the officer spam, and his Paks quickly follow suit. He gets overwhelmed and is forced to bring in more troops.
As the battle progresses, the Axis get quickly overwhelmed by hordes of Rangers, riflemen, captains and Flame engineers, supported by a Sherman and a few Greyhounds. Axis take heavy losses within the first 10 minutes, and Crazy resorts to bringing on his Hummel within 7. (A side note to Crazy here. Learn to use your Hummel! After half an hour of gameplay it had 16 kills, whereas it should have gotten at least 40 by this point. Try to barrage behind the enemy, because that’s where they will fall back to.)
WhaddaYaWant’s Captain spam strategy is working really well for him over on the right, both Crazy and NaziSynth have sent forces over to support, but all three are being utterly dominated by the Captains supported by some 57mm’s. Smokaz has been left on his own on the left against Lionel and William, whilst Puddin continues to maraud around with his highly effective Greyhounds.
I’m only 10 minutes in, and I’m already calling this as a win for the Allies.
The review will be less detailed from now on, as it just generally becomes a clusterfuck for the axis, who are really not using their units that well.
This is also the end of Part 1, it’s hella long, and I’m hungry. The rest will follow later.
If you wanna watch the replay, here it is:
http://www.filefront.com/17379856/EuropeInRuinsBattle.zip
