Crushing the tutorial :P
Wow- first: SP is AWESOME! I got into People's Tactics for awhile, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I grew up on Avalon Hill games like Tactics II, Firepower and MBT and SP hits the mark and then some!
Anyway- after 3 attempts at winning the tutorial with something better than a Marginal Victory, I finally discovered the secret weapon...smoke! It never entered my mind to use it heavily, even though the walk-through says the Iraqi tanks don't have thermal.
I planned a massive smoke wall between the Rough patches just before the objective ridge. Three turns of this, making adjustments to fill the gaps, and the Iraqis never got a shot off first from the ridge.
My Apaches made a first turn sweep through the rear of the Iraqi position, but didn't see anything (I guess the scenario calls for Iraqi units to arrive turns two/three?). They picked off the AA units shortly after they arrived, while watching over the ridgeline.
One tank platoon made a run along the top edge of the map and would later top the ridge there under cover of their own smoke, completely wrecking the tanks hiding behind the ridge.
The rest of my forces (except two M901s, who hung back in overwatch from the high ground- many kills for those two!) made a hard push up the middle, between the soft sand and rough spots. Artillery provided smoke cover up to the ridgeline, and tank fired smoke masked the going over.
Most of my artillery started dropping the hammer on the rough area just below the VP hexes after the smoke was laid down. Life was miserable for infantry units trying to advance or retreat through it.
Only one of my soldiers fell, picked off while debarking a Bradley (forgot to pin the other guys down first).
Finally score was something like 9700 points for me, 2 for the AI. A turkey shoot it was, but the planning and execution was a blast!
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