Overview
This guide focuses on how to develop and use battle groups with class synergy to take on challenges and objectives.
Overview for Success
Introduction
It is always exciting when you are about to spend prestige and pick your units, which is part of what makes Panzer Corps such a great game. Units could be randomly picked up and they would fight just as hard for their General on the battlefield as any other. But units are always more effective when grouped together for tasks.
Lets consider planning ahead to form Battle Groups. Now your choices will change and develop at different stages of the game, as different objectives demand different configurations of your groups. Keep in mind of course that there should be a certain amount of flexibility to tweak your Battle Groups. Although, I find it important not to change these groups drastically, as you should get a feel for their capabilities over time. Some groups should be designed or formed to achieve certain types of battlefield results.
You cannot fully design, assemble or even plan these roles to completion at early stages of the game. In saying this, the more experience you have with the game, the more prepared you may be in your earlier choices. Choice is, of course, a major part of what makes your Army Group Development so much fun, although it may be worth looking at a few examples of my choices in the guide. Part of the purpose of this guide is to get you to think about how a more structured army of Battle Groups will make deployment easier, and your forces more effective, so that you do not start from scratch with every scenario.
Early game unit variety is fairly limited and your development of groups would be far greater in scope in correlation to the amount of time you have to develop your army. The Grand Campaign is of course the best place for this guide to work. Therefore, the first consideration should be the development of experience and how this will affect your choices. There are other very good guides on prestige and experience and so I will summarise some considerations that are important in development of your groups.
Lets make an important distinction between your personnel and your equipment. The game doesn’t do this for you, so you should consider that any unit can be changed within its class. Soviet Conscripts can be upgraded to Guards, but not to a T-34 tank. And a T-34 tank crew can get an upgrade of equipment giving it a different tank. So the experience you gain is important for your personnel, not your equipment.
Experience Tips
A few quick tips on how is best to gain experience. First off, making good decisions on the battlefield is going to save you the most prestige. Secondly, knowing how to spend your prestige. There are already good guides about this topic. But here are a few tips:
- Gain experience with lower tier units and then upgrade units to better infantry or to have better equipment.
- Try not to use replacements on the battlefield, especially in the early game.
- On the set-up stage only use elite replacements if you will lose a star. The star is the point at which you gain the bonus. Do this before any upgrades.
- Only consider elite replacements for units that have heroes, or SE units if you were not preventing the loss of a star.
- Consider SE units have inherent bonuses and are available as a free slot on each battle. They should be given preference for experience, equipment and heroes. (Kill count increases your chance of getting a hero. So use your SE unit for that final blow.)
Overstrength Tips
Lets consider Overstrength units for a moment before you plan groups. Again there are good guides out on this topic, so I will summarise with a few pointers and tips:
- Consider strategic reasons for Overstrength. There is a city you are defending with some Engineers and you want them to hold it at all costs.
- Try to never go above +2 or 120%. The ratio is insanely expensive and not worth it at all!
- Consider mainly units that have heroes, SE and Suppression units for Overstrength bonuses, as these will stack with their bonuses and also avoid losses if you take care of your Suppression units.
- Finally, always Overstrength your Recon to help with their survival. +2 to +3 as they are of low cost, and with careful use would at least help with their survival rate.
Prestige Management Tips
Again there are good guides on this topic available. I’d like to list a few good tips and reminders on how your management of your prestige will impact the quality of your troops and the ability to effectively maintain your Battle Groups.
- Do not try to expand your force pool too rapidly by overspending prestige. It is a budget, be careful. (At lower difficulties there may be more to spare.)
- Do not order units that you do not need. Keep in mind you will get the scaled prestige value of any unit back should you disband them if you made a mistake. (alt-D) Note that you will lose the experience!
- Use your prestige strategically when it comes to experience, as explained above and in prestige guides.
- Remember that green units, unfortunately, are more expendable and cheaper to replace. So if you know you need to buy time, or protect your experienced units or expensive equipment, do not hesitate, it will cost you less and deliver damage control.
Units and measure
Lets consider how you view units. Is a unit a Squad, Company or Battalion? We know that each unit has a measure of 10. I don’t think there is any exact science to this measurement, but I will explain how I see the numbers. I don’t look at a unit as having 10 men, or 10 tanks, but rather as a percentage of what the ratio would be realistically. 10 = 100% or 1 = 10% or Overstrength of 12 = 120%. So if a unit were to be 100% of a thousand men, or 100% of 35 tanks, or 100% of 20 tanks, the ratio’s is based on percentage of realistic or historic values even when considering variants of groups.
Naming Your Groups
The developers of the game have not placed any filter or flowchart style of cycling through your units, which I think is unfortunate. They are default listed according to class. So naming your groups can be important, until you get use to assembling your groups from memory. To rename a unit just hit Alt-N. You could use the historical methods that are available online, as different nations used different methods and terminologies. I would advise just using something you are happy with and can easily recall or else the naming can become tedious. The use of acronyms or any shortened usage can help, as you do not have a lot of space for the name. For example, something as simple as BtlGrp.1/I and BtlGrp.1/II etc. Divide it up how ever you want.
Group Sizes and Variants
It is important to note that as the game develops to mid-game and end-game, and even from scenario to scenario, your Battle Groups can, and should, be reformed when you want to experiment or adapt to situations. It is possible that by the end game you have a Battle Group for every situation, but would be costly and could not be sustained. Therefore, steadily building your groups from the start is the way to go, adding groups until you find the balance of units and experience. It is not healthy for your prestige to not have green troops, even at the end game, as it becomes too expensive to sustain your experienced Battle Groups alone.
Cohesion, Synergy and Class focus
Cohesion
Some maps allow for a vast number of units (around 30+). So, imagine you have 30 independent units placed on set-up, ready for battle. Independently, their effectiveness would be broken into 30 separate arms trying to achieve 30 different things in any given turn. Now if these units were in Battle Groups they would be united in their objectives. When they are united they could overcome greater tasks and expectations, and will perform faster and more effectively, minimising risk and loss.
Synergy
The combined power of groups through their different branches would improve the effectiveness of your forces. An assault of variants could accomplish an effective result when combining the powers of Reconnaissance, Air, Support and assault, rather than just trying to assault different elements in a fragmented fashion. The synergy of these Battle Groups give you faster and more effective results. Therefore, it is important not to split your group, even when tempted by an easy target.
Class Focus
A Battle Group always varies in size, depending on its purpose, and therefore the amount of units from certain classes may vary. Getting the balance right in a Battle Group is important based on its objectives. For example, if a Battle Group were to undertake an objective across open plains, your infantry may be vulnerable and more tanks or air cover would be needed. This is where Battle Groups can support each other, or your group can be tweaked to give a strategic defence of that vulnerability, such as adding tanks temporarily to the group.
Terrain, Weather and the Battle Group
Factors considered for creating a Battle Group
Terrain
One of the major factors that should influence the design of your Battle Group is the terrain. You need to consider how your group will interact with these different terrains, due to initiative caps and melee defence that apply to most close combat terrain. For example, a Battle Group consisting mostly of tanks would find itself in trouble if discovered by enemy infantry while making its way through a forest. The initiative cap for forests is 2, therefore the tanks massive initiative advantage would be lost in such a situation.
Therefore, a Battle Group should stick to the type of terrain it was intended for. In saying that, some groups would have a combination of terrains it could deal with when the units within that group are in the same general area, supporting one another yet staying in the right terrain as far as possible.
Weather
Weather has a major impact on your battle effectiveness, especially on air units (and therefore groups which rely heavily on air units for support). For example, I would advise you to consider how weather affects your anit-aircraft guns, especially over reliance on air support. When it comes to Muddy conditions, a motorised group would slow to a crawl. So make sure you consider how weather can change the effectiveness of a Battle Group, when considering your Battle Group structures. This is especially significant when selecting your Battle Groups for a certain scenario. If you are expecting frozen conditions, pick groups accordingly and perhaps tweak groups, for example tracks instead of wheels would always do better in these types of conditions.
Personnel, Equipment and Reserves
Resources and Logistics
You could use reserves to wear down some stubborn bunkers, in order to soften them up even after suppression to reduce elite casualties. In saying this, do not hesitate to use the best you have at crucial times and in demanding situations, especially if the group were at their intended objectives or purpose.
Elite Battlegroups
SE units are great candidates for forming an elite Battle Group. You should also consider units that have obtained really good heroes for such groups, but only if their class is part of the group. These groups should have the preference of the best equipment and personnel. Always keep in mind that the purpose and type of Battle Group is far more important than just throwing special units together. Also, don’t forget that any Battle Group, even the elite ones, need reserves and green units.
Elite groups are built up over time, because experience is essential. Giving advanced and expensive equipment to units that are not experienced would be extremely taxing on your prestige. You should never have more than two of these Battle Groups. They should only be used to perform killing blows, or take care of objectives that are hard nuts to crack, although even then you should try to preserve these expensive and precious units.
The Army Group
How do Battle Groups fit into your Army Group?
The Army Group is far more effective than individual Battle Groups, just like Battle Group is far more effective than individual units. You must remember that your set-up phase of the game is far more important than just placing units. This is really the time where you should take a good look at the map! Where and what are your objectives? What is the terrain like to and by the objectives? What weather would you likely encounter? And lastly depending on where you are in the campaign, what resistance are you likely to encounter, especially considering enemy class or groups.
Then placing your Battle Groups accordingly, so that they will be working together on a larger scale, even though they have their own objectives, which will create the Army Group’s results.
Formation Types
Class Formations
Consider which formations would benefit from certain classes. Some classes, and even units within classes, are more fashioned towards certain roles. For example, a tank that has more machine guns mounted and a flame thrower is far more anti-personnel orientated than a standard tank, say the Panzer III types, which is geared more towards armour piercing. The tank equipped with a flame thrower is more suited to urban warfare (due to its weaponry and close combat factor), although it is only going to be of any use with the right support and within certain terrain types. Therefore, it is a support role tank, not the main assault role.
Always look at how units benefit from each other. For example, the escort and air cover from certain fighter planes that support bombers and fighter bombers, compared to fighters more designed for hunting enemy fighters, or fighters designed for hunting enemy bombers. Therefore, get the role of a class right and the sub-classes of equipment within that class right. This is essential to developing the battle groups overall synergy and effectiveness.
This is where Panzer Corps shines in my opinion! The fact that the combinations are truly different and reflected between the nations is brilliant. I have found different priorities when playing the Soveit Union, compared to say the Americans. Now, the majority of the fundamentals remain the same when considering order of battle, as well as other factors such as suppression, entrenchment, weather, mass attack, experience etc. However, there are subtle differences amongst the different nations units when it comes to their strengths and weaknesses. How you overcome these will be another determination of the battle readiness of your group.
The Battle Group Structure
Bellow are some thoughts on different types of groups. I am sure that you will all come up with infinite variants and creative customised groups that would far surpass this guide. Keep in mind some of the fundamentals of war when designing your groups. Suppression, Overpower, Flank, Reconnaissance, Support, Reserves, Logistics, Terrain, Weather, Equipment, Experience, Close Combat, Initiative etc…
Elite Motorised Assault Battle Group (Half/Tracked preffered)
1 Recon Unit
2 Assault Infantry Units including SE with Heroes
2 Soft Target Tanks including SE Panther with Heroes
1 Hard Target Tank including Tiger with Heroes
2 Artillery Units with Heroes
Luftflotte Support Battle Group
2 Strategic Bombers
1 Fighter Bomber
2 Fighter Plane Escorts
Urban Defence Battle Group
1 Entrenched Engineer Corps Unit
1 Heavy Infantry Unit
2 Towed Artillery Units
1 Anti-Aircraft Unit (Artillery defence)
1 Anti-tank towed Gun
Urban Assault Battle Group
1 Infantry Reconnaissance (Kratz, Mountaineers etc.)
1-2 Airborne Units
1-2 Assault Infantry
1-2 Motorised Artillery/Assault Gun Units (Priest, Brumbar, StugIIIH, etc.)
1 Urban Assault Tank (T34-OT, PzII Flamm)
Heavy Battle Group Fighter Wing
1-2 Fighter-Bombers
2-3 Fighter Hunters
These are just a few examples to get the creative spark for the readers.
Conclusion
I hope this guide is of some help to you guys. Even if it only sparks some creativity in your strategies or has excited you to try different approaches in your game play, then this guide has been of some use.
It is important to note that you will need to use reserves or independent units, such as Bridge Engineers. Not every unit needs to be within a Battle Group and sometimes Battle Groups need to change depending on the objectives.
I have found that there is no better feeling than when you know exactly which group you are going to use for a specific objective, and which ones will be in a support role so that your Army Group succeeds.
Happy hunting! And remember to have fun!