Hello commanders,
Another Thursday, another WARNO DevBlog! In today’s post, the time has come to preview one of our new Army General campaigns. Let’s take a look at the strategic, turn-based BRUDERKRIEG campaign.
Before we continue, a very very important disclaimer: this new campaign, detailed in today’s DevBlog, will not be featured in the upcoming MORTIER milestone. Instead, it might find its way in a next milestone, as soon as possible (but no guarantees on timing or which milestone - you know the drill). Clear? Clear!
A brief primer on Army General
You might be unaware of what Army General entails. It was first introduced in Steel Division 2, emphasizing the “strategic” by offering a brand-new playing experience beyond the standard tactical battle. Army General is a turn-based strategic mode where you control dozens of formations on sprawling maps, from platoons to battalions and task forces.
Each turn represents a part of a day, with a campaign running for a number of set days. Within this period, you’ll be able to fight, defend, withdraw, call in reinforcements, decide on tactical options, call in aircraft, position your units for the best possible results, and ultimately achieve the objectives to win the Army General campaign. Once you do battle, you can select your forces and opt to have it resolved automatically or dive into tactical mode, which is our normal battle mode.
WARNO’s base Army General campaigns are all focused on NATO’s CENTAG area of operations, including the famous Fulda Gap. Each campaign will feature its array of formations and units, consistent with the order of battle for 1989, which each campaign playable by one side or the other. Each map focuses on a different sector of West Germany and the Inner German Border, and is massively detailed, based on actual satellite imagery and real-life maps.
You can play WARNO’s Army General campaigns either in single-player, versus, or cooperatively, and each will feature its own introductory video. Initially WARNO would have ship with four Army General campaigns, but we have increased this to five by updating and revising a test case campaign to be fully playable. And this new, smallest campaign - BRUDERKRIEG - we’ll detail today.
BRUDERKRIEG Campaign Detailed
Bad Hersfeld lies north of Fulda, which in our World War III scenario is the main axis of advance of the Soviet 8th Guards Army gunning for Frankfurt-am-Main. The flank of this Warsaw Pact offensive piercing through CENTAG needs to be secured. This task falls on the East German National Volksarmee, specifically the 4. Mot.-Schützen-Division (4.MSD). They will attack Bad Hersfeld, a town guarded by the forward-deployed 3-11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Once taken, the East Germans move on to secure Alsfeld, a critical crossroads with more easily traversable terrain further ahead. There, if the opportunity arises, the (4.MSD) would either dig in or continue to advance.
Most pressing would be a NATO counter-attack in this sector. And this threat would come chiefly from the West German 5. Panzerdivision set on not only taking back territory lost but threatening the whole Soviet offensive thrust further south. A series of pitched battles await in BRUDERKRIEG.
Check out a brand-spanking new video briefing we made for the BRUDERKRIEG Army General campaign:
BRUDERKRIEG’s Gameplay
As we briefly mentioned, the BRUDERKRIEG campaign pits the East-German 4. Mot.-Schützen-Division (4. MSD) versus the U.S. 3-11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and scattered West German battalions, holding out until the West German 5. Panzerdivision (5. PzD) can deploy.
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact player will be on the offensive. They must first force the defensive positions at Bad Hersfeld before rushing the crossroads at Alsfeld. Dense forests and rugged terrain make maneuvering close to the Inner German Border difficult, but beyond Alsfeld, the countryside opens up a bit. Speed is of the essence as NATO’s 5. Panzerdivision will likely launch a counteroffensive at their earliest convenience.
As you can see in the image, the 4.MSD is arrayed in two battlegroups: one vanguard featuring two infantry regiments (one made up of wheeled BTR, the other of BMP infantry fighting vehicles) with supporting artillery, an assault engineer battalion, and the divisional recon battalion. These are lined up directly in front of Bad Hersfeld. Behind it, the division’s second echelon. These forces are fixed until the town is captured and are composed of a second BTR infantry regiment, a tank regiment, as well as HQ forces, SAM, and MLRS battalions.
NATO
Facing them, the lonely 3-11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the only American squadron (U.S. cavalry called battalions squadrons) in this scenario. Behind this force, a few scattered West German battalions while the first brigade of the 5. PzD hasn’t deployed yet. They will be unlocked over time (but not necessarily all at the same moment).
The unenviable task of delaying the entire East German offensive by itself in the first key turns rests on American shoulders. What to do? Fight and die alone in Bad Hersfeld but gain some crucial hours? Or fall back while they can, regroup with the West German reinforcements, and go on a risky counter-attack when the opportunity arises? By giving up the crossroads to 4.MSD, the East Germans can fan out and deploy out of their constricted attack column.
As you can see, the 3-11th ACR features an Attack Value of 18 and a Defensive Value of 11. A single squadron is quite a handful, almost as powerful as an entire East German infantry regiment with support.
The Americans have genuine prospects of holding their ground for a turn or two, even launching a local counter-attack on an overextended Volksarmee. But there is a considerable risk of being destroyed. Withdrawal is always an option, but it might give the Warsaw Pact an early advantage in subsequent fighting centered on Alsfeld.
If and once Bad Hersfeld has fallen, the 4.MSD’s second echelon of units will be made available. The whole division can now rush Alsfeld. Depending on the speed of the march, the East Germans can arrive in the town in about a turn before the first advanced elements of NATO’s 5. PzD reach the outskirts of Alsfeld. From then on, the tables turn. The Warsaw Pact becomes the defender under attack by a newly reinforced and much stronger West German task force.
Army General New Features
As we keep smoothing out our Army General, a couple of new features and systems have made it into the mode. Such as?
Improved Army General UI
In the above screenshot of the 3-11th ACR, you might have spotted the Active label. This is one of the many minor improvements we have added to the UI in our strategic mode. It lets a player immediately see which battalions can engage the enemy and which do not. In this particular case, the only forces with enough Action Points left are the three formations with the Active label.
Battle Plan System
We have already lifted the tip of the veil on a new feature of WARNO’s Army General mode, the new Battle Plan system. Read more about the first reveal in this post here. We have continued working on it, allowing you to select any available battalion straight from the Battle Plan’s list, without having to click on them in the field directly. This is especially useful for air assets, which in Steel Division 2 required you to scroll to an airfield on the map to select them.
Depending on their role, battalions will not occupy the same slots:
- COMBAT battalions can be placed in 2x slots. These include infantry, tank, and helicopter battalions.
- AUXILIARY can be used in a 1x slot. These are recon, territorial or militia forces, and engineers battalions.
- ARTILLERY battalions can also be placed in a 1x slot. These are towed or self-propelled gun battalions or Multiple Rocket Launcher Systems (MLRS), which can join the fight from afar.
- AIR occupy 1x slot. These are ground attack, fighter, or SEAD squadrons.
New Tactical Choices
In each Army General campaign, we have introduced new “tactical choices.” At some point, you might be asked to choose between two options, each with its consequences. These can range from which reinforcement formation, to accepting help from a nearby operational command (or not), deploying heavy equipment, etc. Some will just give you new units, others grant you handy victory points, while others will cost you more.
Coming up next
We are aware that the Army General mode is taking its time. Some of the community are growing restless, we dare say, but please keep in mind the significant undertaking of this major new WARNO feature. Everything from Steel Division 2’s era has been redone, from the introduction to the Battle Plan system, battalion categories, Action Points, the map, and UI. And a very big addition is this BRUDERKRIEG campaign, which we added on top of the four original Army General scenarios currently in the works.
We are talking about a serious amount of work. However, the hard part is out of the way. With BRUDERKRIEG, we established a lot of the new Army General foundations. This means that creating and updating the next ones will be much quicker (and hopefully easier too).
You might notice that BRUDERKRIEG uses only one-third of a much larger map. This is CENTAG’s northern flank, connecting it with NATO’s NORTHAG.
This map will be used in its entirety in our campaigns, with all likely wartime formations present. That’s a serious amount of gameplay right there!
Map Making Stream
Before we leave you be, a brief message from our valued community member Protosszocker. This Friday, three members of the amazing Eugen map-making team will join the SDL stream for another Friday Night WARNO event. They will play games with the community while discussing WARNO’s map creation’s process and ongoing projects.
If you want to have the chance to interact, play with, or against WARNO devs, make sure to join the event.
You can find the stream by following the link below.
https://www.twitch.tv/sd_league
Streaming doors open this Friday, 21st of July, at 7:30 PM CEST.
See you on the battlefield
That’s all for today’s deep dive into the BRUDERKRIEG Army General scenario. We can’t wait to hear what you think.
Don’t forget to join the passionate WARNO community. Check the latest news on the Steam News page or visit the Steam Forums. Get together with other players on either the excellent Discord server, Reddit page, YouTube or our Instagram.
See you on the battlefield, commander!
