Welcome back to another dev blog! We're thrilled to say that the long wait is almost over, and we can officially announce when you'll be able to jump into the battle for Montello yourselves. Make a note in your calendars...
The Solstice update will release on September 5th!
That includes the Montello map, the M.91 Russisches Repetier-Gewehr (Mosin-Nagant), the schwerhandgranate and the paid Shellshocked Units Pack cosmetic DLC. In today's blog we're going to show off the full Montello flyover video, and tell you what to expect when the fighting reaches the map's final sector: the town of Nervesa della Battaglia.
Watch the complete Montello Flyover video:
Montello's final objective
In the previous blog we followed the Austro-Hungarian advance all the way from the banks of the Piave to the abbey command post.
Once the Abbey is secure, the Austro-Hungarians have one final line of defense to break. There is a single capture point, in the train station on the other side of the town of Nervesa della Battaglia. But getting there will involve tough street by street fighting.
Looking from Italian lines towards the Abbey. Austro-Hungarian troops will need to attack down this hill through the burning forest.
The Italians were prepared, with new positions ready in case the Abbey was lost. Through a patch of forest, much of it burning after heavy artillery bombardment, is a deep trench line on the outskirts of the town. There is an Italian forward deployment post here which must be cleared out, and once that's done the Austro-Hungarians would be well advised to construct their own forward post at the other end of the trench line.
Another forward deployment post can be constructed by the attackers inside the town itself, but it's very easy to get ambushed, snuck up on, or grenaded in the close confines of the crumbling streets of Nervesa. Having an intermediate spawn point on the outskirts will save you a long walk back from the Abbey if you get taken out.
This plaza is one of the more open parts of the town, and you can see there is still a lot of cover and concealment to be found. Grenades can be bounced off buildings to land in streets where enemies are advancing, and close combat weapons can extract a bloody toll from careless soldiers.
Artillery bombardment has opened up new routes through the town with walls turned to rubble and entire houses levelled, but it hasn't done much to extend sight lines. Pistols and bayonets are invaluable in these close quarters, and recon flights can save your teammates from unpleasant surprises. Make it through the ruins and debris of the town, and the capture point awaits: the Nervesa railway station. Fight through the abandoned train cars and clear out the main station building to win the battle - if you're an Austro-Hungarian, that is.
The ground floor of the railway station. You can see there are two sets of stairs leading to the top floor, but sending grenades through that hole in the floor first is recommended.
For the Italians, you'll need to fight to the death to protect the station, but if the attackers still have a lot of tickets remaining it might be worth sallying forth back into Nervesa itself to try and sabotage the Austro-Hungarian forward spawn points. The railway station is a good defensive position and your team's engineers can surely fortify it more, but it's probably easier to attrite the attackers in the streets than the more open ground of the trainyard. If the Austro-Hungarians set up machine guns or snipers on the edges of the town there's a chance they can pin down defenders in the station itself and make it difficult for reinforcements to arrive anywhere except through the back of the station building - and having your whole team bundled up in one place is a recipe for disaster.