Company of Heroes - Egletons - Victory

In the continuation of my Americans vs. Germans 1V1 Skirmish effort, today's episode saw Able Company face off against the Wehrmacht at Egletons, a map that seemed as if it was cobbled together from Semois and some other stock map to produce a community made map, of which this one won a Gamereplays.org mapping contest.

This skirmish was testing my resolve early on as things were not going my way. I cranked out some Engineer units to take the +16 Munition and the +5 Fuel Resource Points outside the enemy base only to have them pushed back and decimated. The only Jeep I churned out of the Barracks was ripped to shreds.

Only then did I realize that I could deny these resources to the enemy by capping the Territory Points just inside each of the Resource Point zones. These safer points were parallel to the main road so I set out to try and take those only to be pushed back my MG-42 units. I produced two Rifleman Squads and set about pushing them down the left side of the map and to deny the high munition point to the Axis.

The turning point came when I accumulated enough fuel to build a Tank Depot and started deploying M4 Sherman Tanks on the battlefield. I rolled the first one down the main drag taking out some MG units and a Sniper, and brought it into the enemy base to start pounding the HQ building. Once in place, I used the Sherman as a block for the two AT Guns I airdropped to assist in destroying their base.

The AT Guns were the only units of the Airborne Doctrine I utilized during the skirmish and they didn't last long, having been taken out in pieces by a Sniper that was inside the base. At this point I largely didn't care as I knew having the tank in the base and two more on the way I would have the match won. The Germans didn't even produce a Tank Depot.

The only real threat to my armor was a 50mm Pak38 Anti-Tank Gun which caused some slight damage but was easily defeated by moving my tanks behind one of their base buildings for cover while using another to flank the unit and destroy it. I only saw one AT Gun the entire game, and no Panzerfausts came screaming out of nowhere either.

In the end this was a typical wait until I get either M10 Tank Destroyers or M4 Sherman’s to move into their base in force then start dropping AT Guns to take out their HQ, Tank Depots and any tanks or other armored vehicles that may be lurking about. It always comes down to clearing the base, then roaming the map to find the last bunker (MG or medic) to destroy for the win.

I don't mind this as the large variety of maps gives some tactical challenges to this approach and some hair razing moments here and there.