[updated 17 July 2023]
Theater of War Mission Pack: The Southern Fronts
Mission: Retreat to the Donets
The 2v2 “Retreat to the Donets” is a classic example of the failure of COH2’s devs to maintain balance in Theater of War. It is so easy for you, playing as the Russians, that, to lose, you would have to try to lose. Despite all the blatant cheats it employs, CPU-Germany often fails to do the most basic things—like capping VPs that are undefended.
For you playing as Russia, virtually anything works. You can win with HMGs in buildings and M5s to kill German mortars. You can win with just penals and mortars. You can win by bringing in nothing more than conscripts and engineers! (I’ve successfully tried all these strategies and many more.)
Both Russian bases start with the same units (.50s-equipped M5, and engineers), and the map is narrow, so there is really no difference in difficulty or strategy between the two. The munitions point to the SE of the left VP is always the key to the battle—the Germans typically will obsess over that point and won’t get anything else going until they can take it.
If you want to have fun on this mission and make it feel competitive, your best option probably is to pull your force back to base when the Germans are down to about 300 points (it will take them a long, long time to establish map control against your CPU-ally) and then, when you’re down to 200 points or so, start fighting again, now with full pop cap including tanks.
Minor notes:
- Pathing problems are severe on this map, e.g. your M5s (which must be nimble to survive) will frequently spin aimlessly instead of going where you have ordered them. Try to keep them on relatively clear ground.
- If you lose your starting M5 and have no replacement, German air attacks will become more frequent (CPU-Germany has essentially unlimited munitions points).
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